Vote No On Religion Because Religion Does Not Make Us Right with God...

This week, we have been looking at a section of a letter in our Bible called the book of Galatians, where we discovered that the members of the churches were being mesmerized into abandoning a gospel centered lifestyle for a religious centered lifestyle. Wednesday, we saw the Apostle Paul ask a series of questions and share a story from the Father of the Jewish people, a man named Abraham. Through that story we discovered that Abraham was not rescued from selfishness and rebellion because of what He did for God. Instead Abraham was rescued from selfishness and rebellion because he placed His confident trust in what God said He would do for him.

Paul then revealed the timeless truth that throughout history, it is not what we do for God that makes us right with God. Instead Paul reveals the reality that that those who place their confident trust in the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel follow the example of Abraham and are thus rescued and in a right relationship with God, just like Abraham. Today, we will see Paul point to another story involving Abraham to hammer his point home in verse 8:

The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "ALL THE NATIONS WILL BE BLESSED IN YOU." So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer.

Paul points the members of the churches of Galatia, and us here this morning to a story that is recorded for us in Genesis 12:3. But what does Paul mean when he says “The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham”? When Paul uses the word foresee, this word literally means to see in advance. The word justify here was a legal term that means to be declared not guilty of something, in this case having a problem with God.

Paul’s point here is that God’s plan all along was to provide all humanity the opportunity to be rescued from selfishness and rebellion and to experience the relationship with God that they were created for by placing one’s confident trust in God’s message of rescue through the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel.

And the Bible provides the evidence of this reality. From the very beginning, even before Abraham was given credit as being right with God by God, God’s plan for rescue was faith. The Bible publicly proclaimed that the blessings that come from being declared not guilty of having a problem with God as a result of selfishness and rebellion do not come as a result of what we do for God by living a religious centered life. Instead, Bible publicly proclaimed that the blessings that come from being declared not guilty of having a problem with God as a result of selfishness and rebellion come as a result of trusting in what God has done by living a gospel centered life.

And it is here that we see Paul reveal for us a timeless reason why we are to vote no on religion. And that timeless reason is that we are to vote no on religion because religion does not make us right with God. Religion does not make us right with God because religion cannot rescue us from our selfishness and rebellion. Just as it was for the members of the churches of Galatia, we are rescued from our selfishness and rebellion and become followers of Jesus that received the Holy Spirit not because of what we do for God.

Instead we are rescued from our selfishness and rebellion and become followers of Jesus that received the Holy Spirit because we have responded to the Holy Spirit’s activity by believing and trusting in the message of the gospel that we have heard. Our rescue and right relationship with God is revealed not as a result of our activity for God, but as a result of the Holy Spirit’s activity as God in our lives.

So, here is the question before us to consider: where are you placing your confident trust when it comes to having a right relationship with God? In living a religious centered life that trusts in what you do for God by keeping a set of religious rules? Or in living a gospel centered life that trusts in what God has done for you through Jesus?

Because, as we have seen, religion does not make us right with God. A religious centered life can only reveal the problem, it cannot provide the solution. It is only by responding to the Holy Spirit’s activity by placing our confident trust in the claims of Christ and the message of the gospel that we can be right with God. Our rescue and right relationship with God is revealed not as a result of our activity for God, but as a result of the Holy Spirit’s activity as God in our lives.