God really used this series to teach me a lot about what it means to rely on His promise. Abraham was asked to rely on the promise of a child that God gave him. He failed when he had a child with his Sarah's servant because he lacked the faith that God could really follow through on His promise without Abraham's intervention. However, God doesn't drop Abraham after that. It's awesome to see how in Genesis 15, God gives Abraham the promise, then in 16 Abraham fails to have faith, then right when we would expect God to say "you failed your part of the covenant, so I back out on my promise," in chapter 17 God confirms His promise to Abraham. This is so cool to see how God keeps His promises in spite of our frailty and mistakes.
Children of Promise
Then, yesterday I was reading Galatians and came to Galatians 4:22-31. In it, Paul tells us that as Christians we are children of promise, not the children of slavery. This makes so much more senese to me after seeing in Abraham's life what it looked like for God to teach him to rely on His promise instead of Abraham's abilities to do things on his own. As Christians, children of the promise, our life is about relying on the promises that God has given us, and centrally the promise of righteousness through Christ. In Galatians, Paul is addressing a group of people who had been told that in order to saved they had to rely on their ability to follow the law. Paul shows them how this is impossible, and the message that Christ brought is that though we are unable to follow the law, He will give us the righteousness we need to please God, the righteousness that we can't get on our own by doing any number of good things.
And then today I came to Galatians 5:5, where Paul says "we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness." This is an amazing word of grace and mercy to my life, because as a Christian it can be so hard to be confronted daily with my own sin, but here in God's word we are comforted, because Paul says that we are still waiting for the hope of righteousness. If we are waiting, we don't have that righteousness already. The problem the Galatians had (and the temptation that hits us still today) is that when we go through a struggle with sin and are confronted with our own unrighteousness, we are tempted to go to the law. We feel dirty, and want to feel clean, so we decide "If I start reading my bible more, or praying more, or giving more service, or (fill in the blank), then I'll feel better about myself and God will see me as being a good person." But the life of a Christian is one where we are not relying on doing good things to make us feel righteous, but we are waiting with faith for the righteousness that Christ will bring us.
Fruit of the Spirit
This doesn't mean a Christian never tries to improve their life. After describing how we wait in hope for the righteousness the Christ will bring us, Paul talks about the fruit of the Spirit. By calling the good things we do "fruit," he makes it clear that the good things we do are not what make us righteous or bring us to God, but rather they are a result of that faith that we have that we will be and are being made righteous and brought to God. He says that people who know Jesus crucify their flesh, removing from their lives all the evil desires that we have. But that is a result of us knowing Jesus, not soemthing that Jesus makes us do before He will take us in.
As Christians, we live our lives waiting with faith for the righteouness that Christ will bring us. As Christ's disciples, we must let Him discipline us to come to him for confidence of our righteousness, not go to things we could try to do to get our own righteouness. Then, as we walk by faith (Paul calls it walking in the Spirit) we will bear that fruit of righteousness.
