The Holy Spirit in Galatians

- We receive the Holy Spirit by the “hearing of faith” (3:2)

- We grow to spiritual maturity “in the Spirit” (3:3)

- We are “born after the Spirit” just like Isaac was. (4:29)

- We walk by the Spirit (5:16)

- We are led by the Spirit (5:18)

- We “plant” unto the Spirit (6:8)

We “walk”, are “led” and “plant” by the Spirit when we serve each other. “… through love be servants to each other” (5:13) and by “… loving our neighbors like we love ourselves” (5:14)

If we have these attributes of service we will harvest the “fruit of the Spirit” (5:22)…. Love, joy, peace, long suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, and self-control (6:23)

If we don’t have these attributes in our lives then perhaps we’re planting something other than spiritual things.

Precious Memories

Every once in a while something happens that opens a door to my past. This morning it happened when I was teaching Bible class and I saw Kyle Willis walk into the auditorium. You see Kyle and Linda (now deceased) Willis were very close friends to my parents. Kyle was a Deacon at Spring Woods Church of Christ when Dad was an Elder there. When Dad got sick and his health began to deteriorate Kyle did a lot of things to help Mom and Dad… and even after Dad died Kyle helped my Mother. I don’t know all of it but Mom and Dad loved gardening so Kyle would come over and till the garden for them. Kyle also helped Mom with accounting and other kinds of paper work. Little things I guess, but huge to us.

We always had hope and faith that God would intervene and help Dad but it wasn’t looking too good. We were up there one weekend and they asked me to lead the closing prayer. I don’t remember what I said but I prayed my heart out and Kyle came up afterwards with tears in his eyes and hugged me and said, “that was a powerful prayer”. Kyle loved Dad.

So this morning as I was sitting there trying to sing… all those memories came flooding back. I’m convinced that Dad is alive and maybe knows what’s going on with us down here. Sometimes when I pray I ask God to tell Dad that I love him and miss him… and I thank God for men like Kyle Willis.

Jesus Lives

My office manager told me she was impressed when she was stuck in traffic the other day. She saw a homeless guy sitting in a parking lot and a car drove up to him and the driver got out and gave the homeless guy a Whataburger meal. It touched her heart.

Julie told me she was stuck in traffic for a while and she witnessed a man arguing with a woman and getting physical with her. The woman kept pulling away but the man kept grabbing her. Finally when Julie’s car moved up she rolled down the window and said “Honey… do you need a ride?” The woman gratefully got in the car and explained to Julie that the guy was an ex boy-friend who was stalking her. Julie drove her to where she could meet up with her mother. I asked Julie if she was afraid and she said no because she didn’t think the guy would do anything with all the onlookers.

I wish I was the guy who had stopped and gave the guy the hamburger but I’m proud that my wife was the one who helped the woman. Jesus Lives!

Galations Intro

http://youtu.be/qaBDI76gasU?list=UUbSZZJ7GzXrsNuzEXt0Ffyg

Resolutions

I was a student at Texas A&M University for eight years (1973-1981). During that time Julie and I were members at Twin City Church of Christ and were very regular in our attendance and I think I may have led songs a time or two and waited on the table when I was asked. But over-all was dissatisfied with my involvement with the congregation. So when we graduated and prepared for our move to Mexia, Texas, I resolved that whatever the leaders at Shiloh Church of Christ asked me to do… I would do it.

I think we had only been members up there a few weeks when they asked me to teach the auditorium class. My heart froze in my body… I had never taught the auditorium class before. Everyone in that class was older than me (except Julie) but I couldn’t quiet down that resolution I had made and told them I would do it. I’m sure my efforts were subpar but everyone was very encouraging to me.

A year later we moved to Corpus Christi, Texas and started attending at Parkway. The preacher at that time was Elmer Moore. After we placed membership Elmer called some of his contacts in Mexia and asked them how active I was. They responded… “well, he taught the auditorium class”. So here we go again… people asking me to do things and I can’t say no.

Looking back I wouldn’t have it any other way. Those kinds of experiences have helped to shape me. It’s easy to say “no”. In fact I tease some people that they have a short circuit from their ear to their mouth… a sentence ends with a question mark and a special nerve bypasses the brain and goes straight to the mouth and a “no” comes out. Challenge yourselves, step out-side the box (kick the box in and stomp on it)… re-invent yourself. You might be surprised at the out- come… I was.

Humility Contests

Some of you know that several years ago Julie made a comment that one of our members was “the humblest man she had ever met”. Of course I said “what… more humble than me?” And told her I could be the humblest guy at church and started a humility contest with the other guy.

In retrospect, maybe that humility contest thing is not such a bad idea and what would that look like anyway? A lot of people have the wrong idea about what humility is and think that humility is incongruous with a strong personality or a lot of confidence in ones abilities. So before we can see what a humility contest looks like we first have to understand the Bible definition of humility.

Phillipians 2:5-11 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name.

Jesus Christ our supreme example in everything was also supreme in the attribute of humility. He had a strong personality, strong self- confidence and was very forthright in his speech and yet… humble.

Jesus Christ was humble because he served others. He gave up his rights and his life to serve humanity.

So get this… humility has nothing to do with a quiet nature/personality but has everything to do with helping and serving others. So what would a humility contest look like? It would look like people sacrificing their time, energy and resources to help other people out.

That original humility contest thing was a big joke because the motivation was misplaced. Our real motivation to be humble is to serve God and defeat Satan. We do that by killing the self-serving pride in our lives and by cultivating and nurturing selfless humility.

Ephesians 2:19-22 A Holy Temple

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.

This passage is taken out of a context to illustrate to the non-jewish Christians that they were equal to Christians from a jewish background. It begins with the concept that all individual Christians are built upon the foundation of Jesus Christ (and the Apostles and prophets) as is consistent with Paul’s message in 1 Corinthians 3:10-11. Paul laid a foundation and a spiritual building is built on that foundation. As people build their lives on the foundation a building arises and that building looks like Jesus Christ because as is stated in Ephesians 4:15 we grow into being the very likeness of Jesus Christ.

Now here’s an interesting thing… these individual buildings are assembled together (the church) to create a Holy Temple. Christian people, then, make up a Holy Temple in which God lives. Remember that in Jewish times a man- made temple was constructed and God lived in an especially sacred part of it. No man could enter in to it except the High Priest of Israel and he could only do it once a year to carry in a blood offering to atone for the sins of the people.

The people had no direct access to God!

With the coming of Jesus Christ we not only have direct access to him but he lives in a Temple that is composed of his people… a living Temple. What a great blessing. Here’s the important thing… live your lives in such a way that God has a beautiful and majestic place to live. He deserves it for all he’s done and continues to do for us.