Derek Grier - Stuck On Stupid
Galatians 3:1. Paul begins this chapter by the Holy Spirit speaking with an authority that few apostles or leaders of his time could replicate. Paul was no joke. And he looked at his congregation and he begins by saying, "Oh, foolish Galatians". Now the term translated foolish here literally means to be non-thinking, mindless or plain stupid. It took guts for Paul to speak this way, but he needed to ensure that the church he established not only had life-changing spiritual power, but wisdom. A comedian once said, "Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups". Sad but true.
You say, "Bishop, that doesn't sound motivational". Well, my goal is not just to be motivational but to understand God's Word. And sometimes God has to speak in us in tones that we'll hear and understand. If you're like me, you don't always understand nice. How many have raised children? Yeah. Children don't always understand nice. So sometimes you gotta take a certain tone. You have to say things in a way that will get their attention. So Paul said, oh, foolish Galatians, then he digs in deeper. Who has Bewitched you, you who cast a spell on you? Why are you acting like mental zombies? I like what a pastor in DC said. He said, faith is not logical but it isn't illogical either. Faith is theological. It doesn't ignore reality, it just adds God to the equation.
Anything plus God, including death or a heart attack equals a different outcome. Who has bewitched you? Who have you been listening to? What TV programs, radio shows, who's gotten into your ear that you should not obey, not just be encouraged by motivated from, but obey the truth. Clear thinking always ends in obedience to God. If God is truly God how many you believe God is God and he inspired this book submission is our only logical response to it. Anything else is religious, anything else is deception. If you say you love God, but don't do what he says you don't really know him yet, as you ought to know Him.
You see, endless debates about faith and works are like asking what blade of the scissor is more important. You see, it takes faith and works. We are saved by faith alone. But real faith is never alone. It's always accompanied by corresponding action. When Jesus said to Peter, come, Peter didn't just say I believe it in my heart because he believed it he stepped down and stepped out on the water. So when faith is real, actions will automatically follow. The challenge is some put the cart before the horse and it's all about works and they really don't have faith. But Jesus teaches, the Bible teaches that the result of genuine faith is right living and doing. Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as what crucified.
Paul taught like we do here. You couldn't get through a service without somebody illuminating Jesus. You see our goal on Sundays, and I know we differ and some people get mad at me over this but my goal is not Democrat or Republican. It's not Baptist or Pentecostal. It's not environmentalist, anti-environmental, guns or no guns. It is the kingdom of Jesus. And wherever his word lands that's where I land. So if what Jesus says is popular, we're popular but if what he says is unpopular, I'm not gonna be popular. Because I'm going to stay with this word. And then he's engaging the Galatian church here. He wants them to think and he wants them to process. He said, I want, he's asking really a question.
I wanna learn something from you. What happened is the church got under the spell of trying to be deep and they got overly complicated. They started majoring on minors and make mountains out outta molehills. They, they built unnecessary relational walls instead of building bridges. Come on and listen, church there are things worth fighting for, but not everything. The color of the carpet is irrelevant. Whether I have on slacks or jeans has nothing to do with the word spoken. You see people that really know God godly people can have different opinions about minor things without attacking the integrity of those who disagree.
See, you've heard it say what you you can disagree without being disagreeable. You could disagree without being a jerk is what Paul is saying. And he's asking them questions. He's trying to get them to think. And that's what I'm doing on Sundays. I'm not just trying to preach at you. I'm trying to get you to think to trying to get you to process trying to help you own what the scripture says about your life and, and your future. He said, did you receive the spirit by the works of the law? Did the Holy Spirit save you? Did God deliver you after you understood all the genealogies of the Bible?
Did God set you free and heal your body after you you obeyed all 613 commandments in the Old Testament from the heart. Did the Holy Spirit come into your life after you decided between Arminianism and Calvinism? Did God come in your life after you were sure about the complexion of of Jesus or the exact date of his return? No. And what happens is we we could become too deep for own good and they started answering questions that were irrelevant and, and really didn't matter. He said, did did you receive the greatest gift God could give by the law or by the hearing of faith? Meaning, did your walk with God really begin when you had it all figured out when you had it all worked out or because you trusted the one who did?
Isaiah 40 and 12 says we worship the God who measured the seas in the palm of his hand. We worship the God who between his pinky and thumb marked off the heavens the one who took our greatest hills, our greatest mountains and weighed them on a balance that sat on the corner of his desk. We worship a great and mighty God.
In a Christian's confidence, it's not so much and always in what he thinks he knows, but in who He knows. Even that which I know I don't know perfectly yet, but who I know. Who we, we received the the community elements cuz we are in covenant. What God become man took on flesh spoke like no one else did miracles like no one else. Then they killed him, but he rose up on the third day. We, I don't understand all his parables. I don't, I don't understand everything he said but I know he loves me. I know he's for me. I know he's true and because of who he is I have confidence that I'm going to be okay.
So Paul digs in, and again he's not like a lot of pastors today. He really digs in and he, he's dealing with this people here and before he called them foolish. Now he calls them so foolish. Are you so foolish? That word, again a word you don't use in polite conversation. But I've passed it for a long time and I've found that age, titles, degrees they don't protect us from foolishness. How many of y'all know some old educated? The only thing that can really protect us from our folly is listening to God. You see, all faith is, it's really, really simple. It's just looking at life from God's perspective.
You see, the problem is, I'm only six something feet tall. I can only see things from, from this perspective. But he who sits high looks low. He sees every curve. He sees every turn he knows exactly what we need. Then, then he goes on. He says, listen, before y'all got so deep before you had everything figured out heaven begun in the spirit. You started out just trusting God, like, like a child. You didn't know everything, but you knew who your daddy was.
When I was five years old, I I didn't have to understand my, my father was an engineer. I didn't have to understand calculus and engine. I just knew who my daddy was. Having begun in the spirit, Are you now being made perfect by the flesh? You came to God, Believing and receiving, but now you want to shift the paradigm back to earning and deserving. You know, when my parents took me from the hospital I did nothing good. And I didn't understand that till I brought my children from the hospital. All we had were dirty diapers.
A child that screamed through the night, kept taking my wife from me, physically injured her and she gave birth. It wasn't because my child did anything good it was because that baby was mine. And when you come to God by faith, you recognize you come with dirty diapers, you come crying in the night. You come not being able to talk the way you should talk. Your manners are aren't together. All you have is the fact you belong to him. And when faith gets more complicated than that it's not faith anymore. It's something different. Are you now being made perfect by the flesh? You can go forward walking backwards. All that matters in my life and in your life is what Jesus did for me.
What God does in me and what he does through me. Grace is simply understanding that every right we have comes from the goodness and the kindness of God. Yes, we have rights, but it's by his mercy. And then he continues. And if he was standing there, his face would be red. He said, have you suffered so many things in vain? If indeed it is in vain, what does it matter? If a runner runs a whole race and and that runner is is right up front, he or she or she is ahead but then quits right before the finish line no matter how long you, you were ahead, it doesn't matter. No trophy, no reward because you quit right before you won.
And here I want to say to you, after all the struggle all that you've gone through are you really gonna give up on faith right before you win? See, I wish it wasn't so but my greatest breakthroughs always came after my greatest difficulties. You know, I said this to the men a couple weeks ago but one of the reason the sound barrier had not been broken for a lot of years, although we had the technology to do it is because right when an airplane would bump up against the sound barrier, the plane would start shaking and rattling and it seemed like the plane was gonna come apart because right before you, you break through that barrier.
And that's why it's called the barriers sound barrier. That's why you hear a sonic boom. Because something shifts because you break that barrier. And what happens in life often is when our arms are shaking and we're trying, God, I think I'm coming apart. I'm about to lose my mind God, that's when you need to hold on cuz you about to break through if you hold on, but you gotta hold on. You gotta keep your foot on, on that pedal and keep moving through the air. It takes courage to hang on.
When things are shaking like that. But every breakthrough in my life I looked like that. I was a little embarrassed at how I looked because I was sweating perspiring. I thought I had faith, but I was questioning am I gonna get through it? Am I really gonna get to the other side? Have you suffered so many things in vain If indeed it was in vain verse five. Therefore he who supplies the Greek here is is literally fully supplies meaning God, fully supplies.
Now we may not receive it but God fully supplies the Holy Spirit with no empty space left. Therefore, he who fully supplies the spirit to you. You see, when my cabinets are full, there's no fear of hunger. If my car is full of gas, there's nowhere I can't go. And when I'm full of God, come on, there's nothing. I can't do. you see my, my biggest test in life is not pressure from the outside but it's staying full of God's spirit on the inside. Will I let bitterness, anger, frustration, push away the manifest presence of God? So God looks at my life with his arms tied because I've locked out God's presence. The test is, is not the pressures out there. It's can I hold on to God? When things seem to be coming apart and shaken and and I thought I was in the will of God.
How is this happening? The test is, can I hold on in moments like that? Therefore, he who supplies the spirit to you and watch this and works miracles among you, God is still a miracle worker. Therefore, he who supplies the spirit watch this and works miracles among you. Does he do it by the works of the law? Or does he do it by the hearing of faith? Does God do it? He does cuz we get everything right, sir. No, or because we trust his promises. Then he said just as Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
This is Genesis 15 and six. Abraham was in a situation he wanted to give up. He was getting tired, it was taking too long. He was frustrated and he's, I'm, I'm done. How, how, you know, since I have no children, how how am I gonna have this seed this promised Messiah and I can't have a baby? God, you've been talking and talking and talking about it. I don't see no baby. So he's frustrated. How many y'all, okay, see you. Yeah But he kept talking to God.
That's why don't pull away from prayer. When you have doubts and fears and you're frustrated. Lean in more. And, and he kept the faith. Now this is an illustration I'm gonna show you on this slide that really help me. We have things that matter in life and we have fewer things that we can control in life. Now when I'm worried, I start focusing on all the things that matter, that entire blue circle and I'm stressed out in a mess. But the only thing I should really focus on are the things that matter and the things that I can control. It's that little sliver in the center. Everything outside that sliver is up to God.