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Welcome to Galatians 3 Day 3. We're going to focus on just one verse today and
then pick one up from earlier. We're going to focus on verse 14 as we continue
looking at these arguments that Paul is giving for grace, for faith as the means
of our growth, not works, not law, but grace and faith.

We've looked at two arguments already, the argument from experience. As we
looked at that argument, we saw the principle that growth is by faith. You grow
in the same way as you began.

And then yesterday we looked at the argument from Scripture and we saw the
principle that growth is living out who God has made you to be. You're not
trying to become something different. He's already made you to be who you are in
Christ.

You get to live that out for the rest of your life in this world. And today we
look at a third argument and it's the argument of God's Spirit. Now he focuses
on this in verse 14.

In verse 14, Paul says, "He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to
Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus so that by faith we
might receive the promise of the Spirit. " Now that reminds us of something that
Paul had set up in verse 2. He said, "I would like to learn just one thing from
you.

Did you receive the Spirit, God's Spirit, by observing the law or by believing
what you heard? " He's focusing on the Holy Spirit here. And one of the keys to
our growth to become who God has made us to be is obviously God's Spirit.

If I can't grow on my own power, if I need God's power, where does that power
come from? Well, it comes from God's Spirit in my life, strengthening me in the
daily decisions of life everywhere that I am in my life. But to understand this,
what Paul is talking about here about God's Spirit, it's good to understand some
history of the Holy Spirit, how the Holy Spirit worked Old Testament, New
Testament and the lives of believers today.

Let me give you just a quick timeline of the work of the Holy Spirit. Before
Jesus came to earth in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit was present in the
world, but he did not permanently indwell the lives of believers. He would come
upon a believer like maybe King David.

At certain times, for certain tasks, they would receive the power of the Holy
Spirit, but then he would leave them. He wouldn't indwell them permanently. Now,
that's what happened in the Old Testament, but that was not God's eventual plan.

God had something different in mind. And even in the Old Testament, there is the
promise of something new, something that God's preparing to do. Joel, the
prophet Joel, expressed it in the words that the Lord gave to him.

He said in Joel 2, 28, that God was planning to pour out his Spirit on all
mankind, his Spirit on his people. Now, Jesus pointed to that promise when he
came to this earth. The night before he died, as he was speaking to his
disciples in the upper room, he said to his disciples, "He, the Spirit, will
come because I will send him to you.

" Now, what is he talking about here and how did this happen? Well, to
understand the history of how this happened, Old Testament, the Spirit comes
upon people from time to time for certain tasks. New Testament, during Jesus'
ministry, he promises something to come.

The Spirit's going to come. Something's going to happen. If we take a close look
at Acts chapter 1 verse 5 and 1 Corinthians chapter 12 verse 13, you see some
more of this history.

In Acts chapter 1, Jesus promises again that the believers will be baptized by
the Spirit. Something is coming. It's on its way.

By the time you get to Corinthians, Paul tells the believers there that they
already all were baptized by the Holy Spirit past tense. So in one, Jesus is
promising something that will happen. In another, Paul is looking back to
something that already had happened.

What happened between Acts 1 and 1 Corinthians 12? Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter
2 is what happened.

In Acts chapter 2, God's Spirit comes to indwell all believers. The unique
significance of what happened in Acts 2 is seen in the fact that God actually
allowed tongues of fire to rest on the heads of the disciples as this happened.
He allowed them to speak in other languages, other tongues that people could
understand from all the countries that were there at that time.

God was doing something incredible. And I guess you could say God makes his own
fireworks. He made these fireworks that day to show people what was happening.

Seven weeks after the resurrection of Jesus, the sound of a mighty rushing wind
burst into the upper room where about 120 believers were gathered and these
flames of fire seemed to be coming out of the top of each of their heads. They
went into the streets and they found themselves able to communicate in the
languages of the people who were there in Jerusalem from all over the world to
celebrate the Jewish holiday of Pentecost. God was making sure that no one would
ever forget that day.

And it wasn't just for them. They immediately saw that all the believers that
they brought into the family of God when people came to be baptized, when people
came to Christ, they also received this gift of the Holy Spirit. Now it didn't
come with them with tongues of fire on their heads or speaking in other tongues,
other languages, but they saw it.

The question is do you have to have an experience just like Acts chapter 2 to be
filled with, to know that you're empowered by the Holy Spirit? Well of course
not. As you read the Bible, obviously not.

These disciples had a unique experience as the Holy Spirit indwelt believers for
the first time on the day of Pentecost. But the fact that our experience, your
experience is different does not limit, should not limit your expectation that
the Holy Spirit wants to work in your life for growth. In fact, as you look at
the ministry of Paul, Paul and Barnabas, they discovered this ministry of the
Holy Spirit as they went out on missionary journeys.

Everywhere they went, people came to Christ. And everywhere people came to
Christ, God gave his Spirit. And how did they see it?

Well they saw it in the fruit of the changed character of those people who'd
come to Christ. They saw it in the gifts of the servant ministry that came into
the lives of those people who'd come to Christ. And Paul writes about this to
the Galatians.

They'd been one of those people that he'd come to. One of those people that he
preached to and they'd received Christ. They'd said, "I want to trust him with
my life.

" And God's Spirit had come into their lives. And they knew it because they saw
the changes. Changes they couldn't work on their own power.

And Paul says, "Since God gave you his Spirit by faith, you didn't even know
about the law then. " That should tell you something. It should tell you
something powerful about how God wants you to grow by faith.

Since this all happened by faith and not the law, that's how his Spirit was
given to you, then that's how he wants you to grow, by faith and not the law.
And that brings us to really the third principle. Behind this third argument,
the argument of God's Spirit is the principle of I need to rely on God's Spirit
to grow in a daily way.

But the question is, how do you do that? How are you going to rely on God's
Spirit to grow today? Well, in simplest terms, relying on God's Spirit means
that you confess before God all your known sin.

He forgave it. When Jesus died on the cross and you accepted his forgiveness, he
forgave it. But you need to confess it to recognize your need of God's
forgiveness, afresh and anew.

But it also means you don't just confess, it also means you renew your sense of
God's power in your daily life. Bill Bright, the head of Campus Crusade until
his death, for years, I believe, has been one of the great teachers on the gifts
and power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers today. And he pictures
this daily relationship with the Spirit as something called spiritual breathing.

Spiritual breathing is simply you breathe out and you recognize that God has
forgiven you, that bad is gone and is dead, and you breathe in and you recognize
that God has filled you through his Spirit because of his promise. Not something
that you have done, but the promise that he has given. I love that picture for a
couple of reasons.

One, spiritual breathing. Breathing is something you do all day long and you
need to recognize that you're filled with God's Spirit all day long. He's given
his Spirit to you at the moment you were saved, but you and I need to recognize
we're filled with the Spirit throughout the day.

Being filled means you're empowered, you're controlled, you're directed, you're
guided by his Spirit. And breathing, just like you breathe all day long, you
need to be filled with his Spirit all day long. So you just do this all day
long.

God, thanks for forgiving me. God, fill me. God, thanks for forgiving me.

God, fill me. The other thing I love about this picture of breathing is
breathing is not something that's really that impressive. I mean, I breathe all
day long.

I've got to breathe in air to live, but people aren't impressed that I breathe.
You don't look at anybody and say, "Wow, you're a great air breather. I mean,
it's unbelievable the way that you breathe there.

You're the best at it that I've ever seen. " You wouldn't say that because it's
just something we all do. And as believers, being filled with God's Spirit is to
be something we are to do.

It's not like I'm impressed that somebody is doing this. It is to be the way we
live the Christian life. It's not a spectacular thing in terms of impressing me
as a greater believer than another.

It is a spectacular thing in terms of it's something that God has done for every
one of us as a believer. So you rely on God's Spirit to grow. And I invite you
right now in a moment of prayer to do this, to do what we just talked about, to
breathe out and recognize that God has forgiven and then breathe in and
recognize that he fills you through his Spirit and ask that his Spirit would
affect your conversations, affect your service, affect your decisions, affect
your thinking throughout the day today.

Now, if you're like me, one breath out and one breath in isn't going to do it.
So ask God for the strength and grace and reminder to do this throughout the day
today. And God, we do ask you for this strength.

In Jesus' name, amen. And tomorrow we're going to look at verses 15 to 22. It's
the argument from history and the spiritual growth principle of promise.