Galatians 5 (part 2)

Bethlehem Bible Church

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In Cornerstone, we've been working through Galatians, and we're pretty close to the end of Galatians, and we're pretty close to the end of the school year, so that works out well.

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So today was the scheduled day to go through the second half of Galatians 5, but the elders and deacons needed someone to fill in for Sunday school, and so here

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I am. So originally I was gonna go directly to that and just kind of work through that passage, but I think that, you know, as I studied

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Galatians over the course of this year, I found that Galatians is a fantastic book because it is a treatise on one of my favorite doctrines to study.

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So I think what we'll do is we'll do, like, a high -level view of the book of Galatians. We'll kind of talk about what we see there and see what we can take away from that.

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So why don't we start with a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for this morning that you've given to us this beautiful day, this beautiful weekend even,

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Father. I just think of you as our great father, and I think of you especially on this day, this

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Father's Day. I'm thankful, Father, for this church body that you've given to us, that we could come here together on every

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Sunday to glory in the resurrection of your Son, Jesus Christ. In your name we pray.

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Amen. So the book of Galatians. Who knows anything about the book of Galatians?

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Can somebody give me a background about the book of Galatians, maybe Galatia in general, anything? Brian? It was written against the

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Roman Catholic... You know, that's funny. You're getting ahead of me a little bit.

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All right. How about when was it written? Does anyone know this? We're looking at about 8050, 8055, after Acts 15.

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This is a little nugget that I thought was interesting. So the city of Galatia was actually founded by the

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Gauls, which was a Celtic group that settled in France and then went over to the city of Galatia and over time

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Galatia was used to describe not only that city but the entire region that it was in.

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Does anyone know where Galatia is on a map? I've got some static.

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So Galatia is basically in modern -day Turkey. So if you can think of, sort of, you've got

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Europe up here, Europe up here, Italy, Turkey, and then down on the eastern side would be

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Jerusalem and Israel, if you look to the southeast. In the book of Galatians, Paul's writing to the

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Galatian church because the Galatian church is a relatively young church and what he's hearing in these reports is that some false teachers have come in and there's some problems.

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And the faith, the understanding of the faith that Paul taught to the Galatian church is coming under question.

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They don't seem to really understand some of the core concepts. So Paul is writing to them to basically be like, hey, what's going on?

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You've been bewitched. What is happening here? And we'll get into a little bit of that. So there's these false teachers that have come in.

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Does anybody know anything about... I'm trying to engender some cooperation here, a little bit of feedback.

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Does anybody know anything about the false teachers that were in the Galatian church? The Judaizers, right.

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What's the thing about the Judaizers? What do they teach? They teach a lot of legalism, right.

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Anything more specific? What's that? They teach the circumcision, right, and by that...

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Right, exactly, exactly. So they teach circumcision, which is sort of one of the key outward expressions of keeping the

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Old Testament law. So that's what the Judaizers would do is they would come in and talk about...

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Am I fading in and out or is it just me? All right. TBN, no?

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Yeah, all right, here we go. Should I just start yet? You want me to just keep going and let him fiddle around or does that work for you guys?

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Do you want to just take this? Only involved in that he's the object here, right.

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This was planned long ago, not a response to anything that Paul did, and we see that because of the second thing that Paul talks about here.

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He said, who called me by what? By his grace. Okay, so not only is this something that was done long before Paul was even born, so how could

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Paul have physically done something, but also it was something that was done according to God's will. I mean, we talk about this with...

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When we look at God's plan of salvation all the time, right, we have this... You know, a lot of people will respond with, well, first it's, you know,

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I came to Christ, not, you know, Jesus Christ and God the Father elected me into salvation, but I came to Christ, I met him on my own terms.

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So that's the first thing that we have to combat a lot of the time when we're preaching the gospel to somebody who thinks they know the gospel.

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And then the second thing is, well, all right, so I was elected and eternity passed, but that's because God looked down the corridors of time, right, and saw that I was going to believe and subsequently decided to elect me because he saw what

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I was going to do. And this is another example of Paul combating that when he says that this election, this selection, this setting apart was done according to not anything that Paul did, but the grace of God.

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And then the third thing was, again, an action of God and not anything that Paul did was when he says that he,

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God, was pleased to reveal his son to me. Okay, so,

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I mean, we have... The example of Paul's conversion is very dramatic, right?

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A lot of us don't have an experience when we're walking from city to city, you know, and the resurrected Christ disappears in front of us and says, hey, you know, why are you persecuting me?

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What are you doing? You know, our salvation stories are generally not that dramatic.

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Not punctuated dramatism. I mean, there are some pretty incredible salvation stories, but we don't have experiences like Paul did.

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And so for him, it's very valuable to paint this picture, which is true for all of us, right?

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Because a lot of us can say, well, if Jesus Christ appeared in front of me, it would be a lot easier for me to have,

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I don't know, assurance of salvation because he showed up. And, you know, we have faith, right?

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Because faith is, what, in things unseen. So Paul's showing this and he's saying, look,

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God is the actor here. You know, yes, I have this incredible story, but God is the actor, and that's very critical when we're looking at this whole issue with the

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Judaizers because God acting and us doing, right, are two very different things.

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And so I just want to kind of remember these as we move on. In Galatians 2, moving on to chapter 2, we see in the first half that Paul is talking about him working with the apostles when he returned to Damascus and presenting himself and basically making sure, you know, that he's on the same page as the apostles because they don't, it would be very bad to go out and preach a different message and for them to make sure that they all understand the doctrines of Christianity.

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And then what happens after that? What happens in verse 11? Okay, all right, all right.

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So, well, I mean, yeah, Paul stands up to Peter. He gets in Peter's face. I mean, and what does he do?

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What did Peter do? Does anybody remember? I guess you could read it.

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It's an open book question. What did Peter do that Paul is getting all up in his business about?

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Well, he did, but what happened first? So what's that?

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I heard something over here. Exactly, so he was eating with the Gentiles, right, and he had no problem conversing with them and teaching them and fellowshipping with them.

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And then the Jews come along, right, and then Peter says, oh, whoa, I can't.

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This isn't going to happen. This isn't going to work out too well. I need to separate myself and stick back with the circumcision party.

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Right, so there's this establishment that Peter is sort of the missionary to the

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Jews, right, and Paul is the missionary to the Gentiles. So Peter's there, and even though he's the missionary to the

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Jews, he's in Antioch, and he's worshipping and fellowshipping with the Gentiles, and then, like it says, certain men came from James.

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And then what happens? Peter withdraws that association, and Paul calls him out on that. You are succumbing to peer pressure, basically.

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We are teaching spiritual things, and you are acting in a very physical way, and you're showing that separation that Christ came to abolish the law, and so this separation is no longer to exist, and yet Peter is reinforcing that separation by withdrawing from the

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Gentiles. In verse 14, Paul sort of ends that description, and he says, If you, though a

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Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force Gentiles to live like Jews?

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And the key here is, if you're going to preach that the law is no longer necessary, why is it that you are separating yourself and performing all these physical, you know, the

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Old Testament ritual cleansing, all these other things? And then moving into verse 15, this is sort of where this great, the treatise of justification by faith begins.

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This is where Paul says, We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, right?

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And he's talking about this view that the Jews were the chosen race and the Gentiles were sort of the lower subclass of human being, right?

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It's not saying that Jews are not sinners and Gentiles are sinners, but he's referring to the way that the Jews would look to the

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Gentiles. Verse 16, Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.

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Even though we're coming from this mentality of Jews up here and Gentiles down here, you know, we have been taught, we have learned, we have received revelation from Christ, and we know intellectually that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith, right?

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I mean, that's necessary to the Christian faith. That's a core tenet of the Christian faith. So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law, no one will be justified.

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Why is that, by the way? Why is it? So in the Old Testament, you had the law for a long period of time.

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And so why is it that Paul can say by the works of the law, no one will be justified?

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The law is never intended to justify? Yikes, I don't think the Jews will like hearing that, but it's true.

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Good. Right, Steve?

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Right, that's right. That's right. Absolutely. Brian? I'm here.

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So Christ came to abolish the law. Right, and we'll talk about Christ coming to abolish the law in the sense that he fulfilled the law perfectly.

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I think we will certainly get there. Absolutely.

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Right, that's true. So I'm going to get away from my notes for a little bit. We can talk about this. This is obviously a very important thing.

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So Jesus Christ came to this earth. We'll just go through the whole process here.

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So Jesus Christ comes to earth, and he is born of Mary, the

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Virgin Mary, and he lives a perfect life. So it's difficult enough for us as sinful beings to obey our sinful parents.

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Think about how difficult it would be for someone who's perfect to obey sinful parents because you've got to think that in the back of his mind, he's like, well,

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Mom, I know you're sinning, and yet he obeys, right? Pastor Mike talked about obedience and submission, really submission to the governing authorities.

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That's the sermon today if you weren't here. Sorry, spoiler alert. So Pastor Mike talks about submission to governing authorities, and obviously we know they aren't perfect, and yet we are called to submit to them.

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And in the same way, Jesus knew that his parents weren't perfect, and yet he's called to submit to them, and he does, right?

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And why is that? Why does he submit to his imperfect parents even though he is perfect? Anyone? To fulfill the law.

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Exactly right. So Jesus Christ is born of a virgin, born of a sinful virgin, grows up, lives 33 years, right?

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He does everything perfectly. He always keeps the Sabbath. He always obeys all of those Old Testament laws. Those Old Testament laws, by the way, that we cannot obey, right?

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And we just sort of touched on that. The law was given to drive imperfect sinful people to a perfect Savior, begging and pleading for forgiveness because we couldn't obey it, right?

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Not to accomplish salvation, but to realize that we couldn't ever have that perfect salvation. And so,

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Steve, I see you waving your hand maniacally in the back. Right, and this is in there, but whatever.

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You know, the great difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament is that in the

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Old Testament, the perception was that we would obey the law to become perfect.

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Right? That was the idea, is you perfectly obey this law, and then at the end of it, if you have perfectly obeyed it, then you have fulfilled all the requirements and you are now perfect.

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In the New Testament, it's turned on its head, right? So we are called to have faith in Jesus Christ, which is something that we couldn't even generate on our own.

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It has to be a gift from God, Ephesians, right? And because of that faith, we respond with obedience.

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So this idea that works begets sanctification from the

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Old Testament is turned on its head because faith changes our heart, which enables us to obey, right?

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So the entire impetus for holy living is completely different.

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Right? Absolutely.

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Right. And just like you said, we always have been saved the same way, and that way is faith, right?

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Justification by faith. And so the law was present to drive us to a point where we would come to an understanding that we could not do it ourselves.

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That's the point of the law. So... I don't even know where I am now.

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All right. I mean, I know that, but like...

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All right. So let's see if we can figure out how to go on from here.

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All right, so verse 8. Let's jump right to verse 18 because I think that this will kind of help.

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A lot of what Paul is talking about here is the inner focus and the inner shift from the concept of the

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Jewish workspace righteousness with the law to faith in Christ.

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And what he says in verse 18, for if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. Right? So Paul, in turning away from the

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Old Testament mosaic law, has effectively, in his heart, torn down the necessity to rely on that law for salvation.

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And what he says is, if I begin to rebuild that, if I begin to go back to that law, right, if I begin to start to obey these commandments, which

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I cannot, by the way, perfectly obey, and we talked about that a little bit already, he's still going to be unable to perfectly keep it because he never could.

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And so he would prove himself to be a transgressor. He would be in this state of always, always in this sinful state with a broken fellowship with God because he can't keep that perfect law.

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And he's, remember, he's still talking to Peter here. And so he's reminding him, look, we're preaching the salvation by faith, right?

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This justification by faith. We cannot go, we cannot go back to that Old Testament law, even if it's in one thing, because what does the scripture say?

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If we sin in one thing, we are guilty of all the law. So he's really trying to help

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Peter understand the necessity for justification by faith alone.

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Verse 19, for though, for through the law, I died to the law so that I might live to God.

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What does that mean? Through the law. And this gets exactly to what you were talking about. Through the law, I died to the law. How could that possibly happen?

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Only if something or someone perfectly fulfilled that law, right?

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So Jesus Christ, perfectly fulfilling that law, has done exactly that. It has fulfilled that.

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And so therefore, with faith in Christ, following Christ, obeying Christ, obeying the commandments of Christ, he has died to that law and he is now following Jesus.

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I have been crucified with Christ. There is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me, right? And this is driving that same point home.

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Okay. So Paul, go ahead. Right, absolutely.

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If salvation could be wrought through obeying the law of God, then we wouldn't need the substitutionary atonement of Christ.

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We wouldn't need someone else to go and obey the law perfectly for us because we would be able to do it. But we can't, and that's why

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Christ is necessary. All right. Let's just jump down for the sake of time.

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I'm just going to... So Paul's now defined justification by faith and he begins to explain justification by faith in chapter three.

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Right. Foolish Galatians who has bewitched you. It was before your eyes that Christ Jesus was publicly portrayed as crucified.

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Paul and his followers went to the church of Galatia. They preached the gospel to them.

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This is a public preaching, right? What did Paul do when he went to a city that had a synagogue in it? He would go to the synagogue and he would preach there for three weeks before he would go to the

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Gentiles. This is something that he did everywhere that he went. It was a public proclamation of Jesus Christ as the crucified

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Messiah. Let me ask you only this. Did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

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Rhetorical question. He just said that he was preaching to them. Right. And they received through hearing with faith.

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Are you so foolish having begun by the spirit are you now being perfected in the flesh? This goes back to... This is a parallel with exactly what he was saying to Peter.

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And then we... I'm going to skip some stuff, but now we're going to get into Abraham. And this is...

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There's something in here that was really interesting to me. So in verse 6, just as Abraham believed

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God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Let's see. I'll actually start in verse 5. Sorry. Does he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

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Just as Abraham... Hearing with faith. Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

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Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the

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Gentiles by faith. Preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying in you all the nations be blessed.

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So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham the man of faith.

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So obviously there's a reason why Paul is talking about Abraham a lot. Why would that be?

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Who is Paul writing this letter to? Jews or Gentiles? Primarily Jews, right?

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So Abraham is the father of the Jews, right? He's father

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Abraham. So they obviously have a high regard for Abraham. And I'm just going to skip some stuff for time because it's already 20 of.

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So moving down and continuing to talk about Abraham let's jump down to verse 16.

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And this is that really, really interesting thing that I think that for Jews this would be a mind -blowing statement.

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Verse 16 Paul says, Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring.

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It does not say and to offsprings referring to many but referring to one and your offspring who is

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Christ. Why is this a big deal for the Jews? Why would this be a big deal to the

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Jews that are in Galatia? So the

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Jews after... Did you have a hand? Was that a hand? Absolutely.

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So the Jews would always say, Look, we have the promises of Abraham, right? We're God's chosen people. We have the promises of Abraham.

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Abraham is our father. Obviously we know that physically the Jews are descendants of Abraham, right?

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And so they would always say that all these promises that were given to Abraham by God we receive as his descendants.

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We receive those promises as an inheritance. But that's not what Paul is saying here.

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Right? So he's basically combating that entire notion of the inheritance of Abraham that the

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Jews would receive because God gave it to Abraham as a promise.

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Right? So we talked about this already. The law came after Abraham did, right?

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So if the Jews followed the law they wouldn't be following Abraham.

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Abraham didn't follow the law. There was no law. It didn't exist yet. So Abraham couldn't follow the law in order to be right with God because it wasn't there.

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So if the Jews are... What the Jews were doing they were tying these two notions together. We need to obey the law and then we will receive the promises of Abraham.

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But Abraham would never have put those together. I need to obey this law that doesn't exist yet in order to receive the promises of God.

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Abraham would never have done that. So the law came, like we talked about before, to show the Jews their imperfection and to push them to come to God and ask for mercy through faith.

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That mercy will only be something that they desire if they have faith that God, the perfect God, is going to judge them for failing to keep the law.

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And so they need to come and beg for that forgiveness. So Paul's putting that clear division between faith and the law and he's drawing that straight line from Abraham, not through the physical nation of Israel, of the

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Jews, but from Abraham to Christ. And he's saying these promises that were given to Abraham by God were given to Abraham and to his singular offspring and that offspring is

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Christ. And so anything in between is not the recipient of those promises. Let's keep going to chapter 5.

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About that time. Chapter 5, verses 2 -6.

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Paul says, If you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. This goes back to if I begin to obey that law, then

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I will become a transgressor. If I accept circumcision as this legal act that I need to perform for my salvation, then now we believe in salvation by faith plus a little bit of works, which is salvation by works, which invalidates the entire sacrifice of Christ.

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Paul goes on, says in verse 4, If you do that, you are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law, you have fallen away from grace.

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This is a big deal. This idea of obeying the command of the

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Judaizers to submit to Old Testament law, that's not a minor thing. This is huge for them.

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Absolutely true. And that's exactly what Paul says as well. Obviously, there's a lot more depth here that I didn't get to.

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You know, Paul writes this entire letter because this is the core issue that the Galatian church is struggling with. But he also mentioned something to the

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Colossian church in much less depth because that wasn't the core problem they were dealing with.

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But it's obviously a lot more concise because it's one verse that I'll leave you with. In Colossians 3, Paul says,

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Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth.

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And at its core, that is really what a lot of this is all about.

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I mean, Pastor Mike talked about it. When he was referring to Fox News, right? What happens when you focus on Fox News?

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You get angry, you get anxious, all these things because you're focusing on what's going on in the world. Rather, we should focus on things that are above.

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Let's close in prayer. Father, thank you for this Sunday school session. Thank you that we could have a discussion about justification by faith alone, that we could come to understand it a little bit better.

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I just pray, Lord, that all of us would be driven to the text because we know that no matter what we say or think, that ultimately it is your scripture that trumps even our own experiences.

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Father, I just pray that you would bless all of us today as we go about our business, whether we're here for second service or we're going home, that you would keep us safe and that you would keep us always looking on the things that are above.