Galatians 3:1-14

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Robert preaches at Bigham Memorial.

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Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for bringing us together this morning.
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Father, just like all the rest of your creation, I'm hopeless, I'm helpless,
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I'm lost without you. Apart from Christ, I can do nothing. And so Father, I ask that you would help us, that you would help me.
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I pray that you would empower me with your Holy Spirit, that you would empower us as your congregation, as your people, with your
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Holy Spirit, that we may hear your word, we open up your word, read your word, and obey what it says.
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And Father, trust in you always, and not lean on our own understanding.
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Father, we want to glorify you, and we want to make Jesus famous. We ask for your help, because it's only through you that we can do anything.
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In Jesus name, amen. So we will turn to Galatians, small book of Galatians in the
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New Testament, Galatians chapter 3. And if you take notes, of course, these are not inspired, but they help me to kind of follow along, to help guide me about what's going on in the passage.
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So Galatians chapter 3, we're going to look at verses 1 through 14, and the title that I gave it was, all that we have is all that we need.
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Number one, straight talk, and that's not the straight talk wireless company, that's straight talk here from Paul the apostle, verses 1 through 5.
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Number two, who's in the family, roughly verses 6 through 9. And number three,
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God builds his church, verses 10 through 14. And that'll kind of be our guide, and we're literally just going to go verse by verse this morning, in Galatians chapter 3, verses 1 through 14.
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Is there a passage in scripture or verse that you've ever had trouble interpreting or understanding?
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If you're like me and you're honest, there's been those verses, those passages that it's just hard to understand.
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James chapter 2 is one of those verses. And if you're anything like me and hold the doctrine of justification by faith alone, we don't believe in works, right?
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Works don't save us. We believe that. But then you have that conversation trying to share your belief with somebody else, and they go to another church to believe something else, and they'll say to you, what about James chapter 2?
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It says, faith without works is dead. And if you're like me, you're stopped in your tracks.
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What do I do with that verse? Faith without works is dead. Oh my goodness, what do I do?
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So Bible interpretation 101, here's three things to remember. Interpret in context, interpret the unclear text in light of the clear text, and let the
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Bible interpret itself. That will help us when we come across passages that are hard to understand.
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The book of Revelation is another one of those places where we may have a difficult time trying to understand what he's trying to say.
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If you've ever been in Revelation, you're trying to understand the mysteries and what's going on.
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And some people find it so mysterious that they want to separate the book of Revelation from the
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Bible itself. You've got the Old Testament, you've got the New Testament, and then way over here, you've got the book of Revelation, just because it's so hard to understand.
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But let me remind you, the book of Revelation is in the New Testament, and these same principles apply.
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I just had to throw that in there because I've been studying end times lately, and it's important to remember that the book of Revelation is also a book in the
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New Testament. And we use those same methods to help us understand
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Revelation. But Galatians chapter three is going to be a help to us for that James chapter two passage where it says faith without works is dead.
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Galatians chapter three is a clearer explanation of why we understand that it's not by works that we're saved.
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And here's an outline of the whole book of Galatians that I liked. Again, if you're writing things down, the first part of Galatians is
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Paul defending the gospel of grace and also defending his apostleship. The second part of Galatians is him explaining the gospel of grace.
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And then the third part of Galatians is applying the gospel of grace. And here in Galatians chapter three, there's no easing into Galatians chapter three.
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Paul is already at 60 miles an hour, so there's no easing into it. And I want to share with you why there's no easing into it.
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I'm in Ephesians. Let's back up. Ephesians chapter, Galatians chapter one, I hope
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I don't confuse you. Galatians chapter one, verses three through nine. Listen to Paul here.
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Galatians chapter one, verses three through nine. Grace to you and peace from God, our father and the
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Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins. This is so important. Please listen to Paul's words here.
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Who gave himself for our sins so that he might rescue us from this present evil age according to the will of our
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God and father, to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen. I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another.
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Only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort you to the gospel of Christ.
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We can really stop right there. Let me go a few more. But even if we, even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you the gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is accursed.
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As we have said before, so I say to you, a gospel contrary to what you have received is he is to be accursed.
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Paul doesn't even ease into the first chapter. He's starting out 60 miles an hour, and that's how we are in Galatians chapter three.
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Full steam ahead. So we're going to go verse by verse. So just follow along with me as we go through Galatians chapter three.
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They have abandoned this gospel. They're deserting this gospel that they have received. And Paul says in verse one, you foolish
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Galatians who has bewitched you before whose eyes Jesus Christ is publicly portrayed as crucified in the original.
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The word you is not there. Rather, it's, oh, and Paul's not saying, oh, what a cute little baby.
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What he's saying is this word, oh, is an emotionally charged word.
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It comes from a deep sense of sorrow and disappointment and frustration.
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He uses the word foolish and in some literal translations, it says actually stupid.
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Your brain has stopped working. You're unthinking, you're ignorant. Who has bewitched you?
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And this is not a treatise on witchcraft. What he is saying here is you have been blinded.
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You have been bamboozled. You have been coerced into thinking a different way.
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And Paul is saying that the only decent explanation that I can come up with that you would leave this gospel that you've received to a different gospel is that you have somebody has put a spell on you.
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And you've been bewitched. That's the only thing that I can think of. You've been bewitched.
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Then he says before whose eyes Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.
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He's not necessarily telling them that you physically saw Jesus on the cross.
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I'm sure there were many there that were not there on that day. But what he is saying is his message of the gospel that he presented to the
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Galatians is Christ crucified. And that word portrayed can also be understood as a placard.
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And the commentator West, he says that this word is often used by fathers in that day and time to put up a placard that would say,
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I'm no longer responsible for my son's death. Debt, excuse me.
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I'm no longer responsible for my son's debt. If you're coming here to my house, looking for him, wanting his debt paid, go to him now.
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I'm no longer responsible. That's how that word was normally used. Paul is using here as an idea of putting a placard up.
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So this message of the gospel that you've received should have continuously been before your eyes as a placard that Jesus Christ has been crucified.
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Buried and rose from the dead, this placard of Jesus Christ that should have been before you should have been enough to keep you from falling.
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It should have been enough to keep your eyes from drifting. Now, Paul is going to try to win them back.
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Verse two, this is the only thing I wanted to find out from you. Did you receive the spirit by work to the law or by hearing with faith?
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It seems that he is speaking to believers because he says that did you receive the spirit?
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And he's asking them for thousands of years, you know, your history, you know, your genealogy, you've got the
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Old Testament for thousands of years. Did the spirit come to men? Did he save men by works of the law?
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Have you ever seen it done that way? Did it ever happen that way? Is there any evidence here in Galatia that the spirit is coming upon men by works of the law?
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And the correct answer, of course, is no, the spirit has come to them through the message of faith, the gospel.
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And through receiving that message of faith, Paul is wanting them to reflect and do some calculations here.
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What does the evidence say? What are you seeing before you?
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Is it the law or is it the spirit? Verse three, are you so foolish?
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Have you begun by the spirit? Are you now being perfected by the flesh? You've heard of, and I mentioned it earlier, you've heard of justification by faith.
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We are justified before God by faith. Paul is also speaking here of sanctification.
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You've heard that word before, right? We're justified, we're made right before God. And then there's the process of being more like Christ, conforming more to Christ.
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And that's the theological word is sanctification. And Paul is saying that we're not only justified by faith and by the spirit, but we're sanctified also by faith, by the spirit.
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He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it. Philippians 1 .6. It is
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God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Philippians 2 .13.
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If you did not receive the spirit by the law, what makes you think that your sanctification will come from there as well?
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In other words, you submitted unto Christ and received the spirit, but now you are listening to false teachers that say you must obey the law to please
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God, that you must do these things to be perfected. Again, he calls them foolish.
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If you think this way, you have gone beyond stupidity.
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In reality, this is a correct way to be speaking. There is not a word strong enough to degrade our thinking.
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If we begin to contradict God's word, the message of faith and the gospel, there are no words strong enough.
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Paul has already told them in chapter two that these false teachers came to them and they tried to bring them into bondage.
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But Paul says in verse five, if you can look over to chapter two, verse five, listen to their response to the false teachers.
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But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour so that the truth of the gospel would remain with you.
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Here, Paul is saying just as we resisted the false teachers and didn't yield and subjected them for even an hour.
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He's telling the Galatians in chapter three, do not yield to your flesh for even a second so that the truth of the gospel may remain with you.
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What is the truth of the gospel? The truth of the gospel is that it's not me.
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It's not my works. It's not my heritage. There is nothing in me, of me, or through me that can make me right before a holy
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God. It is only Christ. The gospel is Christ.
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It is the work of Christ, his life, his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, his kingship, his power, his authority.
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It is all Jesus and the grace of the Father and the power of the Holy Spirit. Verse four, did you suffer so many things in vain?
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If indeed it was in vain, then if they or if we suffer for Christ, there's reward.
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Our suffering is not in vain. If they suffer for Christ or if we suffer for Christ, he receives the glory.
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But if they or if we are trying to seek perfection or to seek to please
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God through the law, then there is true suffering indeed.
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You've heard, you remember the verse, don't fear man who can only kill the body, but fear
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God who can kill the body and send the soul to hell. There's true suffering indeed if we stray from the gospel.
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They are here, they were seeking their own glory and not the glory of the Lord trying to follow the law.
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Verse five, so then does he who provides you with the spirit and works miracles among you, do it by the works of the law or by hearing with faith?
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Paul asked them to reflect on how the Lord works. They've seen the spirit has been provided to them and continues to be provided to them.
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They see the miraculous works of God and how they're continually done in their presence.
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Through what means has the Lord administered the spirit and these miracles?
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Again, the question is still the same. Over thousands of years, Galatians, you
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Jews, has God ever worked this way? Has the spirit ever been poured out on men through works of the law?
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Has there ever been miracles performed in your presence through work of the law? Paul says, no, it is through the message of faith and receiving the message of faith and this is
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God's only means, it's through the gospel. Verse six, even so Abraham believed
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God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Why does Paul even bring up Abraham?
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Claiming Abraham as their father was their greatest case of being a child of God.
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However, Jesus had already told them, if you were Abraham's children, you would be doing the deeds of Abraham.
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If God was your father, you would love me. But what are the deeds of Abraham?
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Paul says, he believed God and it was reckoned or credited to him as righteousness.
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This is what Paul makes, or this is why Paul's words are so appropriate.
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Who are we before Christ? Who are we apart from God? Jesus told them that you were of your father, the devil.
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We are utterly and completely sinful. We are dead in our trespasses and sin.
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We are hopeless, deserving of the wrath of an eternally holy God, deserving of an eternity in hell.
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Yet they had heard the life -giving message of faith. They had heard and received the gospel.
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God gave grace and made his enemies his friend. And as we learn in chapter four, we are adopted as sons and can call
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God father. And if we're sons, we're heirs with Christ. Verse seven, therefore be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham.
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He says, be sure. Now he's saying, this is correct thinking. Here is thinking that makes sense.
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If you would have kept your eyes on that placard, that is Jesus Christ, his sacrifice, his death, his burial, his resurrection, you would be secure.
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You would be standing on a firm foundation. Jesus is our foundation and he is that chief cornerstone.
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Verse eight, the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the
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Gentiles by faith, preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, all the nations will be blessed in you.
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Not only did they have the promise wrong, but they had the blessing wrong as well.
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Not only is it God who saves and sanctifies, it is God that builds his church according to his will.
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The Judaizers were trying to convince the Galatians that they had to be Jewish to follow their laws and traditions.
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But God says, no, it's his way. His church will be filled with all nations and it will be only through the message of faith.
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Verse nine, so then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham.
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The believer, some of your virgins may say, believing
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Abraham. This verse, in my opinion, is the crutch of this passage.
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It is the peak, it is the hinge on which all the rest of these swing. What do we, if you are of faith, you are blessed with Abraham.
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Who is blessed? The believer, the believer is blessed.
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What do we want our public placard to say? We want
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God to make us a believer. We want people to see and to say they are a believer.
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We don't want, this may be hard to follow, be patient with me. We don't want to be known as a hateful
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Christian, but we also don't want to be known as a loving
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Christian either. We don't want to be known as a prideful
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Christian, but we don't want to be known as just a humble
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Christian either. What am I trying to say? And what about the fruits of the spirit that we're supposed to display?
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Well, even someone in the flesh can simulate love and humility.
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You got people in organizations like the Red Cross or FEMA. They can do seemingly good works and good things.
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But let's look at Abraham. Anyone can make a sacrifice to God. Anyone can take an animal, chop it up, put it on an altar and set it on fire.
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They can do that before God or they could do that before any other so -called God that they worship.
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But God told him to sacrifice your son. Abraham walked in faith to obey
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God and said, God will provide a lamb. This is the kind of behavior that we see in Abraham and that we should see in us.
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And it can only be described as supernatural. Because of the spirit, the believer can love the unloving and love the unlovable.
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We can love and pray for our enemies because of the spirit. We can have joy when there's no peace.
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We can have peace when there's no joy to be found. We can have patience when it seems answers are not forthcoming.
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We can trust in the Lord and his will to do what's right. We can express kindness and goodness and faithfulness when the world seems to be against us.
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And the Holy Spirit gives us strength for self -control when our flesh is so tempted to sin.
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When we live and when we are living in the power of the spirit, our behavior is supernatural and unfamiliar to the world.
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And because of this, they only have one choice and that's to give credit to God.
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Those people are not just loving. They're not just filled with joy. This is something different.
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They're a believer in God. Verse 10, for as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse.
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For it is written, cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to perform them.
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Some people when interpreting Scripture or the Bible, they may say, well, this section is not for us.
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It is speaking to those who are in the first century. It is speaking to those in Galatia. It is referencing just the apostles.
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And in some cases that is true. We can't disregard that. But we have to look at Paul's words here.
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This passage is not just for the first century. It's not just for the churches in Galatia.
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It is for us as well. And how do we know that? Paul, of course, reminds us from the
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Old Testament that this is for everyone. Everyone that does not abide by all things written in the book of the law is cursed.
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Hear those harsh words. Before God, we are guilty under the law.
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1 John 3 says sin is transgression of the law. In James 2, verse 10 says, if you've kept the whole law and yet stumbled at one point, you're guilty of it all.
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Verse 11, now that no one is justified by the law before God is evident.
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For the righteous man shall live by faith. This is a passage, and it's a great parallel to Romans 1 and the concept that the just shall live by faith.
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Not faith and, or not faith plus, but faith alone.
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And these are the passages, Romans 1 and Galatians 3. These are the passages that moved
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Martin Luther, the great reformer, to see his error and to see the error in the Catholic church.
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Indulgences, self -harm, penance, confession, relics, prayers to any man cannot alleviate us or alleviate our guilt before a holy
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God. Verse 12, however, the law is not of faith.
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On the contrary, he who practices them shall live by them. In other words, this person has abandoned the faith.
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They've abandoned the gospel. They have forsaken it. They have forgotten who
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Jesus is, what he has done here on this earth and what he has done in their hearts.
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Living a life under the law is one of great weight and burden.
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There is no way to completely perfect ourselves or make up for the wrong that we've done.
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When we follow this path, we become tired and sour.
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Then, after it becomes so strenuous to keep up with ourselves, we find such ease in judging and pulling down others.
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Above all this, we are accountable to God and judgment is much harsher for those who have already been given the light, the knowledge of the gospel, the grace and mercy of God.
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Verse 13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. Have you become a curse for us?
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For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. Paul says, remember, remember the gospel.
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Remember the message. Remember the faith that you have received. You don't have to be cursed.
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Christ became a curse for you, for those who believe in him.
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Freed from burden, freed from guilt, freed from shame.
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We have been made alive in Christ. We've been made a new creation, a new creature, free then to love, free to serve and free to live.
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Verse 14, in order that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the
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Gentiles so that we would receive the promise of the spirit through faith.
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Not only are we free to love, free to serve and free to live, but we are also freed to trust in God to build his church the way he wants to, according to his will, according to his good pleasure.
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The phrases here in verse 14, let's say in order that or so that, both point back to the preceding verse.
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Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law. Who is the us in this passage?
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Paul tells us in this first verse 14, he did this so that both Jew and Gentile might receive the
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Holy Spirit. Continuing from the Old Testament to the start of the kingdom, when
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Jesus came, he said, behold, the kingdom of heaven is at hand. And even here through Paul's ministry, they're still struggling with the same thing.
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The Jews believed that salvation only came through them.
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Once again, they misunderstood, just like they misunderstood the promise of Abraham.
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They misunderstood that passage as well. Salvation came through the
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Jews, but salvation was Jesus Christ who came through the
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Jews. It did not mean that you could, it did not mean that you could only be saved by being a
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Jew. Paul here is combating this false teaching of the Judaizers, who were teaching the
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Galatian Christians that they needed circumcision. They needed to obey the law and the other traditions to be saved.
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You had to become a Jew. You had to follow these traditions so that you can please God, that so you can be saved. However, adding anything to the gospel nullifies it completely.
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This is so important. Adding anything to the gospel nullifies it completely.
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There can be no innocent misunderstanding of the message of faith.
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God's means to save men has always been by grace alone, through faith alone, in Jesus Christ alone.
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That's the message. This is how God builds his church. The promise to Abraham was to all nations, and that promise was to Jew and Gentile alike.
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There is only one name under heaven whereby men might be saved. Believe on the
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Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved. And at the name of Jesus, every knee will bow.
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The closest thing that we have today to compare to the Judaizers, there's a group called the
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Hebrew Roots Movement. Or you have the Catholic Church, the Roman Catholic Church, or you even have some denominations like the
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Church of Christ who believe that you must be baptized to be saved. However, there is a principle that applies here to our setting.
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We're not Hebrew Roots Movement. We're not the Catholic Church. We're not the Church of Christ. We don't believe that you must be baptized.
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We're not trying to add works here. We've got that covered. But there is a principle that does apply to our setting because we're so easily tempted by it.
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The local church is a branch of God's global spiritual church.
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We too, here, we must trust in the sovereignty of God and how he wants to operate these local churches.
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One false teaching that we are tempted to fall into where we add the gospel is called emotionalism.
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Let me say this, adding to the gospel is adding to God. God has not only directed us in his word concerning salvation, but his church as well.
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Emotionalism can be, but it's not limited to, the manipulation within a service to stir up an audience's emotions as a means to draw them to Christ.
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Everyone has the internet, pretty much. Everyone has the YouTube. Everyone has the
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Facebook. It's everywhere. You can go look it up. All these churches who are using emotionalism because they want to use it to draw people to Christ when it's simply the message of faith.
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This manifestation of emotion is often mistaken and manipulated.
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I knew I would have struggle. I knew I would struggle with that word. Manipulatively taught as evidence of a powerful move of God.
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And you'll hear that as well. They've got the repetitive music. They've got the smoke machines.
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They've got the sermons in a box that they're repeating from somebody else. And they'll say, look at what
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God is doing when it was just them stirring up emotions. Unfortunately, this is not the only form of emotionalism that we need to worry about.
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Emotionalism is just another way to say we are being led by our feelings.
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Remember, God builds his church, even the local church by his means and his power.
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This way, as we saw earlier, God gets the credit through his supernatural work.
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When it comes to searching for a new pastor or bringing in an old one, we can be led by our feelings and be looking for the best preacher around, one that doesn't stumble over his words and gets confused so that we can draw in the best crowds.
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We've got to have the most dynamic youth and children's ministry. Surely that will draw in the greatest crowds.
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And we can go on and on with our feelings and how we're led by our feelings, trying to take the place of God and how he wants to operate his church just because we want to look like we have a semblance of his power drawing in the crowds.
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But God has made us who he wants us to be. Sometimes it's small.
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Sometimes it's large. But we're his people and we're his congregation. And we follow him and not our own feelings and wisdom, as Proverbs says.
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We even fall into the temptation of desiring to mimic other churches and what they're doing.
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However, God calls us to what?
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Do what Abraham did. God calls us to believe his ways are higher than our ways.
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Those ways may be mysterious and those ways may go against the grain of the world.
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But our churches are not supposed to look like the world. God calls us to believe, to open up his word, obey what it says, and as Charles Stanley always used to say, and leave the consequences up to him.
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If God has not saved you, if you've not been born again, I hope you've heard the message of Christ, that it's only through him that we can be saved.
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Only through him. So the call to those who have not believed is to repent of your sins and put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
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If you are here and you are a believer, for a week or for many years, the call to us as believers is to trust in God.
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Believe in him. Believe in the work and the power of the Holy Spirit to be working in us so that he gets the credit.
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If we work in the power of our wisdom and in our feelings, we get the credit.
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But if we lean on his word, trust it, obey it,
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God gets the credit. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for allowing us to gather again.
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It's such a joy to gather with your people, to hear from your word. Father, we pray that you would help us to obey what it says and not fall short of what it says and not go beyond what it says.
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And we can only do that through trusting in you, believing in you, and the power and work of your
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Holy Spirit. Father, I thank you for the church at Bingham Memorial.
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Thank you for their faith in you. Thank you for their commitment. And Father, I pray that you would bless them.
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You would give them strength and you would give them power and eyes to look at the placard that is
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Jesus Christ, his crucifixion, his death, burial, and resurrection.