Isaiah 53:5 NRSV
“But he was wounded for our transgressions crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.”
 
“And can it be that I should gain an int’rest in the Savior’s blood?
Died he for me, who caused his pain? For me, who him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be that thou, my God, shouldst die for me?”
 
That is the opening to the hymn “And Can It Be” by Charles Wesley, written in 1738. Charles Wesley was a bright child born in 1707 who became a King’s Scholar at Westminster and a strong student at Oxford. At Oxford, Charles and his brother John sought to live the Christian life so methodically that classmates dubbed them (and some of their friends) " Methodists.”
After graduation, Charles and John came to the American colony of Georgia as missionaries. As a missionary, some seen Charles as a failure. One such instance is Charles insisting that an infant must be baptized but immersing them three times.  It is told that one very angry mother fired a gun at Charles once. Charles returned to England ill and depressed.
Charles began writing hymns in May of 1738 after a meeting with Peter Boehler. After the meeting, Charles wrote, “I now found myself at peace with God, and rejoiced in hope of Loving Christ. I saw that by faith I stood” Many historians believe that the hymn stated above was Charles's first hymn. This is because of the testimony found in verse 4. This hymn is on page 263 of our church hymnals. I want to encourage you, next time you are in the sanctuary, to open the hymnal, read this beautiful hymn, and remember Jesus was pierced, crushed, wounded, and killed for the sins of Charles Wesley… and you… and me. Now that is amazing love!

Psalm 118:14 New Living Translation
“The Lord is my strength and my song;
    he has given me victory.”
 
God wanted Abraham to sacrifice his only son, who had been promised when Abraham was seventy-five years old but didn’t arrive until he was one hundred. He had to obey, so he headed to the mountains with Isaac and two servants. When they reached the place for the sacrifice, Abraham and Isaac left the servants behind. Isaac carried the wood for the offering, and Abraham carried the fire and knife. “Where is the lamb for the offering?” asked Isaac. Abraham kept his answer simple: “God would provide the lamb.”
In his mind, Abraham asked God some other obvious questions. If Isaac were sacrificed, then how would God keep his promise that Abraham would be the father of many nations? Would Sarah, now well over one hundred, get pregnant again? Would God raise Isaac from the dead? Hearing no answers, Abraham concluded: that God would provide an heir.
We as followers of Jesus and readers of the scripture know what happens next.  With the altar built, Abraham would lay Isaac on the altar however, God gave him a ram for the sacrifice. With this act, Abraham showed his obedience to God and God kept his promise to Abraham. A promise that had been made nearly a half-century earlier.  Isaac would be the heir in which God would build a great nation. God had been Abraham’s strength and his song. On the mountain, God became his salvation. And became ours as well.
I want to leave you this week with these two questions:

1. From what has God saved you?
2. Have you thanked God for coming to you in your time of need and giving you the way out? 

Isaiah 40:29-31 New Living Translation
29 He gives power to the weak and strength to the powerless.
30 Even youths will become weak and tired, and young men will fall in exhaustion.
31 But those who trust in the Lord will find new strength. They will soar high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.
 
It is the night before Steve Rogers, a ninety-pound asthmatic from Brooklyn, will receive an experimental serum that will transform him into a Superman. Rogers sits alone in the barracks when Dr. Abraham Erskine, a German scientist who created the serum, enters and sits down next to Rogers on a cot across from him.  They have a conversation about what is to happen the next day. Dr. Erskines shares that someone has taken the serum before. However, it was a man who only knew greed and power. He tells Rogers “You see the serum amplifies everything that is inside. So, good becomes great. Bad becomes worse. This is why you were chosen. A strong man, who has known power all his life, will lose respect for that power. But a weak man knows the value of strength and knows compassion.” The next day, the serum transforms Rogers physically. However, Rogers remains what he always has been, and what Dr Erskine challenged him to be: a good man worthy to assume the identity of Captain America.
 
You see when you rely on God for everything in your life, both inside and out. God will make you strong. It may come with some trials and tribulations that test your willingness to follow his teachings, your understanding of scripture, and your ability to share what you know about his love, grace and hope with all you meet. God will make you strong because you can be trusted with strength that only comes from him. 

Matthew 23:29-31 New Living Translation
 “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you build tombs for the prophets your ancestors killed, and you decorate the monuments of the godly people your ancestors destroyed. Then you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would never have joined them in killing the prophets.’ “But in saying that, you testify against yourselves that you are indeed the descendants of those who murdered the prophets
 
“Fear will drive men to any extreme; and the fear inspired by a superior being is a mystery which cannot be reasoned away. Being immeasurable, it is unbearable when there is no presumption or guarantee of its benevolence and moral responsibility: in other words, when it has no official status. The legal and conventional superiority of Herod and Pilate, and Annas and Caiaphas, inspires fear; but the fear, being a reasonable fear of measurable and avoidable consequences which seem salutary and protective, is bearable, whilst the strange superiority of Christ and the fear it inspires elicit a Shrek of ‘Crucify Him’ from all who cannot divine its benevolence. Socrates has to drink the hemlock, Christ to hang on the cross, and Joan to burn at the stake, whilst Napoleon, though he ends in St. Helena, at least dies in his bed there; and many terrifying but quite comprehensible official scoundrels die natural deaths in all the glory of the kingdoms of the world, proving that it is far more dangerous to be a saint than to be a conqueror.” -B. Shaw

​Galatians 5:22-23 New Living Translation
 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
 
There are many different avenues to explore when learning to live in Christ Jesus. Jesus taught parables to help us understand what it meant to follow him. All of the epistles at some point or another explain how we are to be imitators of God. With so many avenues out there; it can become an overwhelming endeavor to figure out what it means to live a life in Christ.
 
Paul saw this in the Galatian church. In chapter five, he gives them a long list of behaviors and attitudes that are not fitting for disciples of Christ. We as parents give our kids a list of things not to do or say. Sometimes we say “Stay away from this and you’ll turn out all right.” However too many restrictions without hopeful yeses create more than boundaries; they create identity, belonging, and purpose dead ends. The no’s declare a boundary, but they don’t provide a hopeful way forward toward a new vision of living.
 
Paul’s list doesn’t end with all the “no’s”, he understands that these people need a hopeful way forward. In a turnaround, Paul lists ways of behaving that are indicative of followers of Christ Jesus. He qualifies these behaviors not as fruits of individual action, but as the fruit of the Spirit.
 
The behaviors that come from the Holy Spirit, not from the individual are ways of living that are a result of being connected with God. For thr first two-thirds of this chapter, Paul is drawing our attention to how our selfishness disconnects us from God. Then he quite simply says if you put aside your selfishness, then the Holy Spirit can do theses amazing things through you.
 
So let me ask you to ponder on this: What will you need to do to live with the fruit of the Spirit more instinctually?