Putting out the Fire

Good morning and welcome in today. Today we’re going to take a look at a passage of scripture but before we do that I wanted to tell you a story.

Each year there are thousands and thousands of acres of forest fires that burn in the United States. In 2020 there was an estimated 10 million Acres that were burned because of wildfires, a lot of them occurring in the northwest corner of the country.

A friend of mine who used to work for the DNR in Minnesota used to go out to California to fight wildfires each year. He was also in charge of organizing other fighters to battle these wildfires using control lines and backburns.

The entire purpose of fighting A wildfire is to prevent them from spreading and progressing. They are fighting them to stop them from going any further.

Did you know that the word frustrate means to try to prevent a plan or attempted action from progressing, succeeding, or being fulfilled or to actively fight in opposition to something that is trying to come to pass. That’s exactly what they are doing when they fight a forest fire, they are actively trying to stop it from going any further and putting out the fire.

In the scriptures, the Apostle Paul didn’t want to frustrate God’s grace, by not allowing it to fully come to pass in his heart. He didn’t want to fight the fire of grace. Instead of placing his trust in the things of the Old Testament, he wanted to place his trust completely in God’s forgiveness and mercy for salvation.

Frustrating God’s Grace is trying to stop it from taking a full hold in your heart. What the Apostle wants each of us to do is instead of fighting the fire of God’s grace we must trust fully in Christ for complete justification. It’s just a matter of letting go of the old and reaching out for the new. Instead of trying to prevent it from going any further, It’s simply allowing that wildfire to keep burning daily until his grace consumes us like a raging fire.

Gal 2:21 I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.

God wants us to fully trust in his Son Jesus Christ for forgiveness and mercy but there were times in the church (like some of the children of Israel wanting to return to Egypt), they were attempting to follow some of the things of the Old Testament rather than fully trust in Christ.

The Apostle Paul who was a converted Jewish Pharisee took issue with this numerous times in the book of Galatians.

Gal 3:24-25

²⁴ Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.

²⁵ But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.

The entire point of the Old Testament law was to show each of us that we couldn’t get to heaven without God’s assistance. Nobody kept the law perfectly, not even today. Christians are not under the Old Testament law but are freed from that burden and yoke through the blood of Christ. Knowing that we have been freed from it, why return to it? The Apostle calls it foolishness, and who better to hear it from than an ex-pharisee.

Gal 3:3 Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?

Why would a Christian attempt to do the things that God has abolished? It happens because of their lack of fully trusting in Christ Jesus for their salvation. Circumcision Was An Old Testament requirement. Christians are freed from those things and are not under the law of Judaism.

Gal 2:3-4

³ But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised:

⁴ And that because of false brethren unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage:

There are people who claim to be Christian today who are still trying to mingle Judaism and the Christian faith together. This is exactly what Paul was teaching when he said I don’t want to frustrate the grace of God. Nobody can be justified by the works of the law. The only thing you’re eventually going to find out is that your sinner who needs God’s mercy too.

Gal 2:16

¹⁶ Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

Paul teaches that true Jewishness is to have faith in Jesus Christ because those who do are the true Israel of God.

Phil 3:3-9

³ For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.

⁴ Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more:

⁵ Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;

⁶ Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless.

⁷ But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ.

⁸ Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,

⁹ And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

All of us are sinners who have made mistakes and need forgiveness with God. Trust completely in the deeds of Christ Jesus that He has performed on our behalf. Don’t frustrate the grace of God just set down the fire extinguisher and Let the Fire Burn.

Let’s think about those things for today and Lord willing we’ll be able to talk some more tomorrow. Till then, bye bye everybody.❤

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