The Promise of Faith

What we often do is we grit our teeth to make ourselves do better. But Dr. Tony Evans says sheer willpower is no match for allowing the Spirit to transform us from the inside out.

So the key to your Christian life is not doing something out here to be better in here, but getting better in here so you're doing stuff different out here. This is the alternative broadcast, featuring the timeless biblical teachings from the archives of Dr. Tony Evans. Have you ever tried to fix a problem yourself? But ended up only making things worse.

Whether it's a home repair, a health issue, or your spiritual life, our instinct is often to take control. But today, Dr. Evans explains why relying on our own strength short-circuits God's grace. We'll discover how the Christian life from start to finish is powered by faith, not self-effort. Let's join him in the book of Galatians.

Beginning in chapter 3, we've already seen Paul says that one of the things we're going to have to grasp in order to experience more of God and grow in grace. is the substitutionary life of Christ. The substitutionary death of Christ. Forgives our sins and justifies us before a holy God so we can go to heaven. the substitutionary life of Christ.

Brings heaven to history. It is God's involvement with you in time and space. He ever lives to make intercession or to intervene on your behalf in life. He takes you to heaven by his death. He is available to you for earth by his life.

because he rose from the dead.

So the key to your Christian life is not doing something out here to be better in here. but getting better in here so you're doing stuff different out here. There's an internal transformation that leads to external transformation. Action. I'm counting on Christ inside of me.

To pull off God's demands. of me.

So If you say I can't.

Some area in your life where you say, I can't. I'm too weak. I can't. What you just described is the inability of your flesh. Your humanity.

So in your humanity, you may not be able to. But Paul says, the reason I am able to, or as he says in Philippians, I can do. all things through Christ who strengthens me. That is, he enables me to pull off. what may not be natural to me.

Or I may be too weak to be able to pull off on my own. What we often do is, we try to grit our teeth to make ourselves do better. And that's called The law. He says, I do not, verse 21, nullify the grace of God. To nullify something is to cancel it.

So he's talking to believers, so Christians can cancel. the work of grace.

So this is a different way of thinking and a different way of looking at your Christian life. You'll hear me say it. I'll say it now, but I'll say it throughout the remainder of this book. The difference between law and grace. can be stated in this phrase.

Law is I have to. Because if I don't. This is what's going to happen to me. Grace is Thank you. Or I want to.

Grace is a response to something. Law is a demand of something. Law says you better or else. That's what the Ten Commandments did. All negative.

Thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not. 10 times, thou shalt not. And if you do, This is what's going to happen.

So the law is You better. or you'll have this consequence. Grace. Is my Grateful response. to what God has done, is doing, and will do.

So he goes and he says In chapter 3, verse 1. You foolish Galatians.

Well, that's not a great way to start a chapter. This was a sharp rebuke. You Foolish Galatians. Who has bewitched you. To bewitch means to hypnotize or cast a spell.

A spell has been cast on you. Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. We call this Galatianism. A focus. on winning God's blessing through performance.

They were trying to grow in their spiritual life. by means of the flesh. When you accept Christ as your substitute, and therefore are born again. That is by means of the Spirit. not by means of human effort.

Now, having Establish that that's how you get saved. which was apart from the works of the law, verse 2. He asked the penetrating question in verse 3. Are you so foolish having begun by the spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? What do you say?

Is that sanctification happens the same way justification happens? Justification when you get saved, born again. is a legal action that takes place in heaven. Where God declares you righteous.

So everybody here who's saved has been declared. Not guilty by God. We are guilty, but we can declare not guilty. because God has credited the righteousness of Christ to us.

So that's justification. But when he says. Are you perfected? That's sanctification, or that's your spiritual growth to maturity. Do you suffer so many things, verse 4, in vain, if indeed it was in vain?

In other words, They were being persecuted, some of them, because they were Christians. And he says, well. If you're going to go back to the law. There is no need for you to have had some of the rejection from the religious people you're going through. Because some of y'all are going through it because you accepted Christ.

But now you're going right back to the very thing you left in order to become Christians.

So you didn't need to go through all this inconvenience. If the law could do it all for you. This is going to get deeper as we go along. The more further he goes, the deeper he's going to get.

So then, What's your point? Does he who provides you with the spirit? God. and works miracles among you. Do it by the works of the law or by the hearing.

With faith. It has to diverse on a number of levels. The miracles you were seeing in your life. in the lives of other people. Was that Because you were keeping the law.

And you got the miracle? Or was that because you were living by faith and you got the miracle? A lot of people want miracles. They want the miracle, miraculous intervention of God in their life and in their circumstance. He says the miraculous didn't come from keeping the law.

The miraculous came. Through faith. That is trusting God to provide the spirit. produce the miracle. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

A lot of us can even be blocking our miracle. Because it comes by the Spirit, not by the law. Because a lot of them think, well, if I do this more, maybe God will do a miracle. If I do this more, maybe God will do a miracle. If I do more of this, if I read more of this, if I pray more of this.

Nothing wrong with any of that thing. What's wrong with it is the motivation. that I'm trying to perform to get God to do something. And if you perform to get God to do something, then he doesn't do it, then you feel like. God let you down.

Cause he should have seen what I did. and responded to it.

So you're trying to earn his response. To try to earn God's response. Puts God in debt to you. Yeah. then they didn't meet their side of the obligation.

And God will not allow himself to be put in debt.

So he doesn't allow us to work for it. He allows us to work because of it.

So it's a different motivation. And we'll talk about works and how they play into this. But This concept of grace is a huge... Concept. the supernatural, the miracles.

that they had seen. and that we see. Does not come by the works of the law. Putting God in debt where He has to do it. And that's where many pulpits fail because they will put you on guilt trips.

And the big motivation is Do this.

So God will bless you. Yeah. is give money. That's probably the biggest The biggest one.

Now, does God want you to give money? Absolutely. Do we need you to give money? Absolutely. Because the ministry takes money.

But the motivation isn't to get God to bless you. It's a totally different motivation. But if I can put you on enough guilt trip. or make you fearful. Or God won't bless you if you don't.

It's if I can twist that like that. then that makes you now giving on the law. It's so freeing when you can do something because you want to. And not just because there's been a rule put on you. to do it, which is law.

There's more insight ahead on how grace, not law, fuels our spiritual growth. and doctor Evans will share that with us when he returns in just a moment.

Well, as we've been learning, faith, not rulekeeping, is the key to unlocking God's promises in our lives. That truth is front and center in Dr. Evans' current study on Galatians, where he shows how trusting in God's grace positions us to receive all He has in store. The entire Eleven Message Galatians series, including a good portion of material we haven't had time to present on the broadcast. is available to you on C D or USB flash drive as well as on instantly downloadable digital files.

It's our gift to you when you make a donation to support this ministry. and for a limited time, along with all the full length messages from the Galatian study, will also include doctor Evans's practical, insightful book, Kingdom Prayer. It's a guide to taking your prayer life to the next level. where your communication with God becomes a channel for real change. Learn more and make your request today at tonyevans.org or call 1-800-800-3222 where one of our friendly team members is ready to help with your request any time of the day or night.

Again, that's tonyevans.org. or by phone at 1-800-800-3222.

Well, let's rejoin Dr. Evans now for more on the promise of faith.

So he wants them to get on this grace trek. The Old Testament is being brought in as a way of. kind of getting these people back to law. Not understanding the dispensation of grace, this new way God is operating today.

So he wants to help them by going back to the Old Testament in verse 6. Even So Abraham.

So he's going way back. Believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. That was Genesis 15. God revealed something to Abraham, and Abraham took God at his word. He believed God.

When he believed God, he was. declared to be righteous, He was reckoned or credited to be righteous. Therefore, be sure that it was those who are of faith who are the sons of Abraham. You see, No. Folks, the Judaizers, the people in Galatia who was messing up the church's thinking.

They were taking people back to Moses. Because under Moses was the law. Yes, yes, yes. See the Moses of the law. Paul is saying, nah, you ain't go back far enough.

Let's go all the way back. Because before Mo was Abe. And Abraham had his relationship with God. Tied by grace through faith. That is, God revealed, he believed in what God revealed, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

Abraham was not saved by law because there was no law yet. Moses hadn't come on the sea yet. Law hadn't been created yet. And yet He was righteous before law.

So he's saying this approach goes all the way back. that God has always operated that way. When you use the law to make you better. It then becomes a work of the flesh. and a work of the flesh cancels.

the power of grace operating in your life. For it is written, cursed is everyone who doth not abide by all things written in the book of the law to perform them. Yes. I think it's what? Deuteronomy 24, 17, I believe it is.

That says, unless you do everything that's in the law. then the law condemns you.

So when people start talking about, well, I keep the Ten Commandments.

Okay, first of all, they just broke one of them. Thou shalt not lie. All right. I was in my lie. But on top of that, the fact that they just broke one of them by lying.

The tenth commandment. covers everything. It is what we call the hermeneutic of the Decalogue, the decalogue of the 10 commandments. The hermeneutic is how you interpret something.

So the hermeneutic of the decalogue, the hermeneutic of the 10 commandments is that 10 commandments. thou shalt not covet. Because to covet something is to Wish for something you have no right to have.

So he says you're living under curves unless you can perfectly keep the law.

So, when people say, Well, I keep the Ten Commandments to go to heaven. Demonstrate, have you kept For the all of your life. All Ten Commandments. All the time. Because if you did, that would make you perfect.

But there's nobody perfect. And most people who say they keep the Ten Commandments will also say, I'm not perfect. Yeah. Okay, so ladies, ladies. Cancel that out.

Okay. And so this is the verse you can use, unless you keep it all. You're under a curse. You can't use the law. To establish your righteousness.

It's established by Christ and it's developed by the Spirit. Verse 11.

Now that no one is justified by the law before God is evident. For the righteous man shall live by faith. You're not justified by the law. He's established that. But now he broadens it because remember, he's not dealing just with justification, he's dealing with sanctification or the progress of your Christian life.

He says you're justified by faith and you're supposed to live that way. Yes, yes.

So he now moves from getting saved for heaven to having a faith lifestyle on earth. Living by faith. The just shall live by faith. He quotes the book of Rebecca here. which says the just shall, this shall be their lifestyle.

This is how you now roll. You place faith in Christ to get you to heaven. He says, Now I want you to place faith in Christ to grow you on earth. I want you to place faith in Christ to. to progress you in history.

I want you to live this way.

However, the law is not of faith. That's not the way you live by faith, by living by the law. That is, living by human effort to keep rules. Even if they're good, godly rules. On the contrary, He who practices them shall live by them.

He who practices them shall live by them. In other words, If you're going to live by the law, then you're going to be judged by it. If you're gonna make that your way of how you roll, Then We're going to judge by it.

Now, obviously. If a person, if you have a neighbor who keeps the Ten Commandments, That basically keeps them. That's going to be a better neighbor than the person who breaks the Ten Commandments.

Okay. So, they're going to be nicer to live by as far as man is concerned. But that does not give them a standing with God. And it does not invoke the supernatural.

So, if you want to use that as your standard, then that will be your standard, but you have to understand. Your standard comes with a curse.

So if you say, okay, well. I don't want this grace thing. I'm into the law.

Okay. Okay, so you live by that. You live by that. But just so you know, With that comes a curse. Yes.

With that comes a curse because the law can only condemn you, it cannot help you.

So I don't know about you, but I want to run from the law as fast as I can get. Because that's not how I want to. I don't want to live by that standard. The standard is great, but I don't want to live under the curse that comes with that standard.

Okay, so how does this work? Verse thirteen. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. The curse that comes with the law, he redeemed us from, having become a curse for us. When Jesus died, it was a substitutionary atonement.

He died in our place. He became a curse for us.

So, the curse of the law has already been penalized on somebody else.

So, all the curse of the law, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? It all goes back to the substitutionary atonement of Christ. For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.

So Jesus Christ hung on a tree, on the cross. And he he took the curse. for us that's why A believer can never go to hell because the curse has been taken. Why? Verse 14, in order that in Christ Jesus, here it is.

The blessing of Abraham. might come to the Gentiles.

so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through him. He took the curse in order to give the blessing. Jesus took the curse. And when he took the curse. He had a goal in mind.

And the goal was the blessing of Abraham. The goal was not the law of Moses. The goal was the blessing of Abraham. And the blessing of Abraham. That comes to the Gentiles.

Is the promise of the Spirit through faith?

So, the blessing of Abraham that you now have given to the Gentiles. Is The third member of the Trinity, who is called the Spirit of Christ. Christ is physically in heaven, but he's spiritually in you by means of the Holy Spirit.

So you got this interchange between Christ and the Spirit. Christ took the curse so you can have the spirit. To try to give an analogy here, the spirit's job. It is to be the motor, if I can use a mechanical term. He's the motor To produce righteousness in you.

The flesh is standard transmission. The spirit is automatic transmission. In standard transmission, you got to move it and turn it and adjust it based on how far you press and accelerate. Automatic transmission, it's still a transmission, whether it's standard or automatic, but automatic transmission is built. To shift.

Standard, you have to shift. Automatic, the shifting is built in.

So the question is, how do you want to live your life? How do you want to drive to maturity? You want to use standard the law? Or do you want the work of the Spirit. Which is the result?

of your salvation. about the sacrifice of Christ. No. Dr. Tony Evans, wrapping up today's message with a vital question every believer must consider for their spiritual growth.

If you've been trying to earn God's approval by measuring up, It's time to discover the promise of faith for yourself. Tony's complete 11-part Galatians series is available right now in its entirety for deeper study. and will send it to you, along with his dynamic book, Kingdom Prayer. when you make a donation to help keep the alternative broadcast on this station. Just visit TonyEvans.org where you'll find the details for this exclusive offer right on the home page.

or call our 24-hour resource request line. At 1-800-800-3222. And let one of our team members assist with your request. Once again, that's 1-800-800-3222-1. or online at tonyevans.org.

Contracts can be broken. But God's promises never fail. Tomorrow, Dr. Evans explains why the covenant made through Christ stands firm. no matter what we do.

and why performance-based religion will always fall short. I hope you'll join us here.