Let's pray.
God, as we open your word this morning, I just ask that you speak to us in a powerful
way and that you meet us all at the individual places of our heart, Lord, that need help,
that need rescuing.
God, that you may meet us right where you are, right where we are.
In Jesus' name I pray.
Amen.
Abraham was called by God in the Old Testament and he was promised a future, a crazy future
that he could not even imagine to the extent that it would go.
Abraham was promised a seed that would extend far beyond his days, beyond his age, beyond
his time, a seed that would continue and continue and continue, multiplying and multiplying
and growing to God's people.
And that seed would come through Isaac.
But it's important to note what happens right before that is that God makes a covenant with
Abraham.
Now, this covenant was different than other covenants that happen in the Old Testament
because what happened was that God asked Abraham to bring him a select amount of animals and
certain animals and then to cut them in half.
And this is where it gets interesting because we reading into the text would feel like,
oh, that's a little weird, why cut them in half?
But it's important to understand that in the culture in that day, that was actually a ceremony
that typically happened with someone who was in higher power and someone in lesser power
or that was, you know, under that person.
The person under the person that was in higher power would do this ritual where they would
cut animals in half, put them on two stacks on opposite sides of each other, creating
a path right in the middle.
And then the person would walk through them as they would repeat over and over and over
the commitment that they were making.
And this was usually done over a ditch.
So if you can imagine two halves of animals stacked on each side with a ditch in between
that when the blood drains, it drains to the center.
And as that person walks through it, they walk through blood and they say and repeat
the commitment that they're making to the other person.
May this be done to me and more if I fail my part of the covenant.
Now what's interesting here is as we're going to see, the next thing that happens is that
God walks through those pieces.
Now it wasn't customary that the person in higher power would walk through them because
it was a covenant made by the person in lesser power, but God walks through them.
And this is very interesting.
And so God decides that he wants to make a point.
And so Abraham falls in a deep sleep and the Bible says that it was great.
It was troubling and there was great darkness.
Now the Hebrew words for darkness and this great shocking, troubling horror that he experienced,
the Hebrew words there show us and tell us that it actually means that it was shocking.
When the Bible says that a great horror fell upon him, it actually means that it was shocking,
that it was startling, that it was something that he was not expecting.
And then this great darkness, it actually is used allegorically to represent this lack
of understanding.
So whatever's happening here is making Abraham be shocked and to have a lack of understanding.
He doesn't get what's going on, that God would walk through the pieces and God walks through
these pieces of these animals and ratifies the covenant with Abraham and he says, no
Abraham, essentially he's saying to Abraham, it's not because of you that this covenant
will be fulfilled, it's because of me.
I will fulfill the covenant.
I will follow through on my promise.
I myself am the guarantee.
So it's no surprise when God calls himself the I am in scripture because he tells you
and me, I am the guarantee.
I am the fulfillment of that covenant.
So Abraham continues on after that moment and God eventually promises him Isaac.
Now when God promises him Isaac, Sarah and Abraham, according to scholars, they have
been placed in the age range where they would have actually been able to have kids.
They were, she was nearing the time of menopause but not quite there yet.
And so all of a sudden God promises Abraham and Sarah and I'm just going to refer to them
as Abraham and Sarah.
I know that the name change happens when God actually gives Isaac to them but for my sake,
so I don't get tongue tied, I'm going to refer to them as Abraham and Sarah.
But when God promises Isaac to them, all of a sudden God goes silent for 40 years and
they don't hear anything back.
Now during those 40 years of silence is when Sarah comes up with the idea, well, okay,
well this isn't happening.
During that time of silence, she passed the age of menopause so she's no longer able biologically
to have a child.
So she says, well, I mean, God didn't necessarily specify through what woman the seed would
be born but it's Abraham's seed.
So maybe Abraham just used my servant to have a child.
So what happens is that Abraham uses the servant to have a child and they have Ishmael.
But that's not who God promises because shortly after as Ishmael was reaching his Bar Mitzvah
age, God all of a sudden speaks again.
After 40 years and he says, no, that's not the child.
That's not the child by promise.
And so now he tells them, you're going to have a child.
It's going to be through Sarah.
It's going to be through Sarah and it's going to be your child and that's the child promise.
Ishmael is not.
So now look at what happens.
Abraham has to go back with Sarah and now they have to be intimate in faith because
they could not biologically have a child and they have to be intimate in faith, expectant
for God to follow through on his promise.
You see, it was not because of what Abraham or Sarah did.
It was not because of what Abraham could do.
It was because of what God could do.
It was about faith.
This time it was different.
They in faith chose to trust God the second time.
It was not by what they could do, but by what God could do.
That was the point.
God wanted to bring them to the place where they would be unable to make a claim on anything
that they could have ever done.
Not even to say, God, I have one.
I did 1% of this.
God wanted them to say, I did zero and you did all.
And then Genesis 15 verse 6, it says, and he believed the Lord and he counted it to
him as righteousness.
Paul would later refer to Abraham as the father of faith.
Abraham messed up, right?
But he still referred to Paul, by Paul, as the father of faith.
This is wild because Paul uses in the book of Galatians, he uses Abraham as the heuristic
center of one of his biggest theological arguments that I think is in the New Testament.
And that's what we're going to be spending the rest of our time here today.
It's going to be on the rest of the book of Galatians.
So get your Bibles out, open up to Galatians.
If you have your phones, go there with me.
But we're going to be spending the rest of our time in Galatians and we're going to be
trying to cover the whole book by highlighting several verses that go throughout the entire
book that outline the theme, the main message, and we're going to grasp, we're going to attempt
to grasp what Paul is trying to say in a nutshell in this book.
So Paul opens up Galatians by highlighting an issue that's happening in the Galatian
church.
There is something that's very troubling going on and these people have made their way into
the church and started spreading these incorrect beliefs.
Look at what Paul says.
Galatians chapter one, verses six to seven.
He says, I am astonished that you are so quickly turning away from him who called you by the
grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel.
Verse seven, not that there's another gospel, but there are some who are troubling you and
wish to pervert the gospel of Christ.
So Paul's deeply concerned here about this disease that's being spread in the church
and what's happening is that these Judaisms, these very legalistic Jews are coming into
the church and telling the Christians, no, no, no, you guys have to, you guys have to
believe and become Christian by keeping the law.
You have to keep everything to the letter.
Every single little jot and tittle, you have to keep it.
And Paul's saying, no, that's not the case.
So there's this issue going on.
People were falling susceptible and notice how we ourselves are capable as humans to
change and pervert and twist the gospel of Christ.
That we are capable of not necessarily creating another categorically different one, but rather
a slight variation, just a little, an edit to the gospel of Christ.
And so Paul responds to these people who have already fallen to this condition where they
are accepting these teachings and he says, look at what he says to them in chapter five
verse four.
Chapter five verse four, Paul says to these people, you who are seeking to be justified
by the law are alienated from Christ.
You have fallen away from grace.
Now that's a big deal.
I'm look, Paul is saying, if you incorporate even just a little law into your theology
of salvation, just a little bit, you are fallen from Christ.
He says, you are seeking to be justified by the law are alienated from Christ.
You've fallen from grace.
What a massive statement.
Paul's not happy about this because this does away with the entire gospel.
This throws away the gospel completely.
And essentially the people are saying to God, I don't need you.
I can do it myself.
It's because of what I can do.
I can help you a little bit, God.
You see the thematic element with Abraham's story and what's happening here where we say
no to God because we think that we could do it.
So Paul has a response for these people.
Chapter five, verse one, he says, stand fast therefore in the freedom with which Christ
has set us free and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
He calls what these Judaizers are infiltrating the minds of these Christians with, he calls
that a slavery, a sort of slavery, this bondage.
Paul's saying no, don't be submitted again to a yoke of slavery.
You've been liberated from that.
Don't fall back into that.
Don't even go near.
Paul is saying do not.
And this law is a yoke of slavery because it shows you precisely what you are at the
worst possible degree.
The law is a revelation of God's character, of God's heart, and it can be summarized into
love.
The whole law is love, different manifestations of love.
And we as sinners have fallen away from that.
We're sinful.
We cannot adequately, adequately represent that.
So therefore, the law places us in bondage and slavery because it says you're totally
not capable of having salvation.
You're lost.
You're completely doomed because we can't do anything.
You can never measure up to God, to God's heart.
You can never represent God's love perfectly anymore as a sinner.
And so the law places us under this bondage, under this slavery.
It's done.
It's over.
There's no hope.
And this is why Paul says the following.
If you go to chapter three, verse 10, he says, for all who rely on the works of the law are
under a curse because it's written, cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything
written in the book of the law.
And this points back to Leviticus 18 five, but later in two verses after two more verses,
he says in verse 12, but the law is not based on faith.
On the contrary, the person who does these, who does these things will live by them.
So why?
So Paul is extremely set on making this point.
You cannot live by the law because when you live by the law, you're giving the law power
to determine the righteousness that you have in your life, which according to Paul is unattainable.
Right?
The law says you cannot make it.
You cannot get there.
And so what Paul's saying is if you even try and live by the law, your righteousness depends
by it completely.
One hundred percent.
The person who does these things will live by them.
Your life will be determined by the law if you live by it.
But the thing is no one can keep it.
Therefore it condemns to death.
There is no hope with the law period.
But Paul doesn't start stop there because obviously in scripture you have one thing
and then you have God.
You have the law, but then you have God and God makes a way and chooses to come.
And that's the amazing thing that I love about our God because our God, when we are in a
problem, when we are in distress, when we need saving, he's not an absent God.
He shows up.
He gets down here with us to fix our mess.
And look at what Paul says now.
Look at this amazing thing.
Go to chapter four verses four to five.
Chapter four verses four to five and Paul says, but when the fullness of time came,
God sent his son born of a woman born under the law to redeem those who were under the
law so that we might receive adoption as sons.
So what's God's response?
God says, if they're no longer capable of fulfilling the law, I myself will go and fulfill
the law for them.
God says, I will live to the letter of the law.
I will earn salvation.
I will live it perfectly because they can't live it.
So God comes here.
Jesus comes here and lives the law perfectly.
His whole purpose here on earth was to live this law, to be subjected to this yoke with
which we as sinners aren't capable of meeting up to the standards.
God lives up to the expectation of the law, to every single little jot and tittle of the
law.
And because of that, he earns his salvation.
So when Jesus dies on the cross and he's laid in the grave, death doesn't have a legal hold
on him because the law can't say he's condemned because he lived it to the letter.
Death has to give him up.
Death cannot hold him in the grave.
So Jesus is resurrected and comes back to life because there's nothing the law can do.
The law says this person lived it to the fullest and fulfilled it.
He has earned his salvation.
So because of that, Jesus is resurrected.
Death cannot hold him there.
And that's wonderful news, but there's more to that.
Just look at what Paul says in chapter five, verse 24.
He says, now those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and
desires.
So look at what Paul's just saying here.
Jesus died on that cross, right?
He earned his salvation by living the law.
But now look at this.
We as sinners, we don't deserve salvation.
We don't deserve eternal life because we can't live up to the law.
So we are doomed.
We are destined for death because that's what we deserve.
But here's the thing.
Paul says, now those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions
and desires.
And so what he's saying here is that those who cling to Jesus and who Jesus has made
his claim over, those people, their flesh has been crucified along with Jesus.
Now what does this mean?
The Bible says there are only two options.
You either have death or you have eternal life.
So what does this mean if your flesh was crucified with Jesus?
What's the other option?
What's the only other option that's left for you?
Eternal life.
This is major because Jesus dies on the cross, he earns his salvation, and our flesh is crucified
there too.
To say the ugly parts of you, the ugly parts of me, the messed up parts of you, the parts
that can't get, they don't seem like they can get any better.
The maybe parts that other people don't know about, what you hide, the nasty parts of who
you are, of who we are, who I am, that was crucified on the cross with Jesus.
Therefore that doesn't, that has been, the justice for that has been met already.
Therefore there's only one more place, one other place I'm heading and that's heaven.
Eternal life.
This is monumental.
It is that simple.
There's no other option than, other than eternal life for those who cling to Jesus.
This is one of the main purposes of the story of the two robbers that are next to Jesus
on the cross.
You see they represent human flesh.
They represent humanity.
Both of them are on the cross, but one clung to Jesus.
Human flesh deserves the cross.
But what we as humans can do is cling to Jesus.
One took the full weight and responsibility of his sin upon himself and died.
And the other said simple words, Jesus remember me.
And that was all.
He clung to Jesus.
His sin was crucified on that cross with Jesus.
And Jesus says, you have salvation.
What a big deal.
So now you see why it's so important to not stop clinging to Jesus.
Why it's so important that we live a life and have a theology that's centered around
Jesus, all Jesus, everything, Jesus, everything that you've ever could be.
This is why it's so important to be centered around the core principle that Jesus is everything,
that there's nothing else, that adding more requirements to being saved other than believing
to Jesus, editing the gospel, that when we do that, we're saying no to Jesus and accepting
the judgment of the law, that we are accepting death over ourselves, that when we don't cling
to Jesus, we're saying I'm fine taking it on myself.
That's going to land me in a grave for all eternity, but I'm fine taking that on myself.
That's what God doesn't want for us.
And so this is the importance of clinging to Jesus.
This is why it's so dangerous to let go of him.
And Paul says in chapter two, verse 16, he says this, know that a person is not justified
by works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus.
So we too have to put our faith in Christ Jesus so that we may be justified by faith
in Christ and not by works of the law, because no flesh, no flesh, not a single person, no
flesh will be justified by works of the law.
And Paul also says in the next chapter, in chapter three, verse 22 through 27, he says,
but scripture is confined all under sin.
We're all under sin.
We can't move ourselves from there.
Scriptures confined all under sin so that the promise might be given on the basis of faith
in Jesus Christ to those who believe.
Now before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law confined until the faith that
was to come would be revealed.
The law then was our guardian until Christ's came so that we could be justified by faith.
But now that faith has come, we're no longer under a guardian for you are all sons of God
through faith in Christ Jesus for all of you who were baptized into Christ have put on
Christ.
Now look at Paul's last bit of his argument, and this is where he starts wrapping up his
argument.
He says in chapter three, verse 11, now it is evident that no one is justified before
God by the law because the righteous will live by faith.
And this is the last part I want to focus on.
What does it mean that the righteous live by faith?
What is this concept that the righteous will live by faith?
I mean, many people think that when you encounter the gospel, it's just this moment.
It's just this moment in time that happens where your life is transformed and that's
great and awesome.
And now I was heading this way and now I'm heading the other way and that was it.
The gospel happened at that moment.
God saved me from that direction.
God saved me from that person, from who I was.
Now I'm walking the other way.
Now I can walk towards Jesus.
Maybe a lot of times stop there.
That's what we stop with, that the gospel just changes our life like that.
And maybe that's why a lot of us struggle with coming up with testimonies when we have
been walking with Jesus all our lives because I mean, well, I don't have a testimony because
I didn't come from the world.
Well, there's something more because according to Paul, the gospel doesn't just stop at that
point.
You live by the gospel.
You live by faith.
The righteous will live by faith.
So what is it, you know, what is this right?
The righteous us, thanks to God, will live by faith.
What does this mean?
And this is where Paul pulls in the Abrahamic story and the Abrahamic covenants.
So we're going to spend a little bit of time here.
It's going to be a bit of scripture, but hang on with me.
Chapter three, verses seven to eight, we're going to start there.
It says, therefore you must understand that those who have faith are sons of Abraham.
Now the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preach the
gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying all nations will be blessed in you.
Then jumping a little further to verse 18, it says, for if the inheritance comes by the
law, it no longer comes by promise, but God granted it to Abraham by a promise.
Now flip to the next chapter in chapter four, verses 21 to 26.
It says, tell me you who wish to be under the law.
Do you not listen to the law?
For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and one by the free
woman.
But the son of the slave woman was born according to the flesh while the son of the free woman
was born through the promise.
This can be explained allegorically for these two women are two covenants.
One is from Mount Sinai bearing children for slavery.
This is Hagar for Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem.
She is in slavery with her children.
Verse 26, but the Jerusalem that's above is the free woman.
She is the mother of us all.
And in verses 28 to 31, this is where Paul wraps up his argument.
Now we brothers like Isaac are children of the promise, but just as that just as at that
time the child who was born according to the flesh persecuted the child that was born according
to the spirit.
So it is now also, but what does the scripture say?
Cast out the slave woman and her son for the son of the slave woman shall not inherit with
the son of the free woman.
Verse 31.
So brothers, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.
Let's work through this because it may seem like a lot.
We just write a lot.
But here's the thing.
When we go back to the Abrahamic story, which we started with, we realized one thing.
Abraham tried for Ishmael, but God's promise was Isaac.
That is the big point.
All to tell us, all to tell us is really simple.
God had promised him a son, but they took matters into their own hands.
And he had a son through another woman.
All forgot to tell them that the son of the promise was going to be through Sarah.
The son of the slave woman was born according to the flesh.
Ishmael was born according to what Abraham could do.
According to what he saw fit, he wanted to make God's promise happen.
He wanted to be in charge of fulfilling that promise.
Ishmael was the result of him trying, of him keeping himself accountable to fulfill this
law, to fulfill this promise.
What God promised him, apparently God's promise wasn't enough.
He had to take matters into his own hands.
He worked for it.
So the slave woman being Hagar and Ishmael represent works.
Now Sarah represents the freedom that Jesus gives us when we choose to trust him to fulfill
what he said.
It comes down to this.
They worked to have Ishmael.
Ishmael was a product of what they could do, but God wanted a product of what God can do.
God doesn't want a product of what you can do.
God wants a product in your life of what he can do.
God doesn't want you to try.
God wants you to let him do it.
God doesn't want you to step in the middle of his plan.
God wants himself to be the fulfillment of that plan in your life.
It was medically impossible, biologically impossible to get pregnant with Isaac, but
they were still intimate in faith.
And the faith in God produced fruit.
And this is what Paul is saying.
Then after verse 24, Paul says that these two things represent two covenants and that
Ishmael and Hagar are in bondage with Jerusalem, but that the Jerusalem above is free.
And what Paul is saying here is that the Jerusalem then was subject to the very system of works.
That's where the Judaizers were coming from that were infiltrating the church in Galatia.
Paul was saying they are in bondage to works, but we Christians have been called to something
higher.
So what does Paul say when this desire happens to live by the law, our desire to take matters
into our own hands?
He says cast it out, cast out the bond woman, cast out the slave woman and her son, for
they shall not inherit with the free woman.
Works has no place with faith, zero place with faith.
God says cast it out completely, cast it out.
So then what does the righteous will live by faith mean?
What does it mean?
It means that when we see something, when we see a reality that doesn't line up with
what God says, with what God promises, we choose to say, I trust you, I trust your promise.
So when it says the righteous shall live by faith, it means that when I feel like I don't
deserve it, I say, God, I don't deserve it.
But you say I'm saved.
I might be burdened down by my sin, but you say I'm chosen.
I may have just messed up, but you say that I have a new life.
I may look dirty and messed up and I may have a ton of issues and I may have a ton of character
flaws, but you say I am worthy.
It is refuting the reality of your life, the reality of the issues in your heart.
The righteous shall live by faith is refuting that reality with the truth of God and the
gospel in saying, no, I get it, I messed up, I'm a sinner, I don't deserve it, but you
say I'm worthy.
God says I'm worthy.
Jesus died and took my sin and says, I'm saved.
That part of me is dead.
I may not feel like that part of me is dead.
I may not see how that may even make sense.
Just not by sight, not by feeling, but by faith.
God calls the people that will not see, that will not feel, but will trust.
God doesn't want a people who feel like they're brand new.
God wants a people who trust they're brand new in Jesus.
That is the point of the gospel.
The righteous shall live by faith.
When you sin, you say my flesh was crucified with God.
When you keep feeling like a sinner and you're deep down in the same pit you've been trying
to get out of all your life, you say Jesus' followers walk by faith.
So even if I don't feel it, even if I don't know how it is possible, Jesus says I am his
child.
I am saved because of Jesus.
And this is echoed in Revelation chapter 7 verse 14.
And he said to me, these are they which came out of the great tribulation and have washed
their robes and made them white in the blood of the lamb.
This is the perseverance of the saints.
This thematic element of the righteous shall live by faith.
This is the whole scripture that we as Christians would gain the habit of dipping our robes
in the blood of the lamb.
It's there.
That is the place where we can wash ourselves when we don't feel like we deserve it.
That we continually go back and wash our robes in the blood of the lamb.
That is the righteous shall live by faith, not by sight, not by feeling, but by faith.
The righteous person will walk by faith.
You will not feel it.
It will not make sense.
It will not seem like it.
And honestly, it wouldn't be love if you could understand it.
But we have to trust that we are made new.
We are a new creation.
And Paul ends by saying this in Galatians chapter 6 verse 15, for in Christ Jesus neither
does circumcision have any significance nor uncircumcision.
But what matters is whether we become a new creation.
We proclaim our new creation by faith.
We proclaim the promise by faith.
That is how believers stay saved.
You want to know how to keep your salvation?
You want to know how to never wonder if you're saved again?
It's by faith you proclaim it in faith.
That's the secret.
That is how we stay saved.
It's by faith.
God didn't come here so that you could be 50% sure of your salvation.
God didn't come so you could be 75% sure of your salvation.
God didn't come so that you could be 99% sure of your salvation.
God came so you could be 100% sure of your salvation.
Nothing less.
If you're walking as a Christian and you're not sure that you're saved, you better go
to Galatians.
You better read your scripture because we proclaim that we're saved by clinging to Jesus.
There is not a single moment in a believer's life in their walk with God in which they're
not saved.
When you walk with Jesus, you're saved.
The Bible teaches us that salvation is not a thing.
Salvation is a person, which is why in Matthew when Jesus walks into the tax collector's
house, what does he say?
Salvation has come here today.
Salvation has entered.
When you walk with Jesus, you walk with salvation hand in hand.
That is the point.
We are children of faith in accordance with Abraham because of that.
We are saved through grace and stay saved through faith.
This is the great story of scripture and everything in scripture can be tied back to this.
Let it be that when Jesus says, bear your cross and follow me, that he's asking for
a people who will understand and embrace their identity as sinners, yet look forward to Jesus.
That those who are worthy of Jesus are actually those who acknowledge their sin.
That Jesus says, if you don't come to terms with who you are, you're not worthy of me.
That you're a sinner, but you can look to me because I've called you.
That Jesus calls a people to bear their cross, but to follow Jesus, but to have faith in
Jesus despite the cross.
A people who say, God, I deserve death.
I deserve this cross that I'm carrying.
But as long as I look forward to you, I believe what you've told me.
I believe the promise that you've made to me that I'm saved and I trust in that.
Jesus asks you this morning, are you a sinner?
Well, good, because I only save sinners.
Not by feeling, not by sight, but by faith.
God, we are just so in awe of who you are.
You're just so good, so loving.
Lord, help us to live in the reality that we're saved.
Help us proclaim that reality over our lives and live by faith when we don't feel like
it, when we don't seem like it's changing our current state, when it doesn't seem like
some of our tendencies and our desires are changing, when it seems like we're just doomed
for nothing but death.
Lord, help us to proclaim in faith who you say that we are.
To proclaim in faith our flesh crucified on the cross with you, Lord.
Help us be sure of our salvation.
Fill us with your Spirit.
May we not keep this inside of us.
May it overflow our hearts and pour out into the people surrounding us.
May we bless others with this amazing truth, Lord.
And may we, being responsible for the truth that was placed in our hands to communicate
to others, may we not be found guilty of editing your gospel.
May we not be found guilty of tampering with it.
May we say it and proclaim it boldly as it is.
Not by feeling, not by sight, but by faith.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.