God's Faithfulness to His Promise

Would you please join with me in prayer as we try to get ourselves prepared for what God would have for us this morning. Join with me, please, in prayer. Dear Lord, we come before you this morning. We ask Lord that you would graciously and kindly remove from us the distractions of the world.

We thank you, Lord, for the wonderful opportunity to worship you in song thus far. We thank you for the truths that we sang about. We thank You, Lord, for the fact that from you, all blessings flow. Lord, we come to you confessing to you the fact That there are times in which we struggle.

There are times in which we fall short. There's a legalist inside each and every single one of us that would rise up against the promise of God and seek our justified status as well as our sanctified status through obedience to the law. staring at the commands thou shalt, and all the while, Lord, drifting away from the gospel, drifting away from the one through whom all blessings flow. I pray, Lord, that you would use the text this morning to remind us once again of the great promise that you made.

In yesterday, Lord, and how it is that you fulfilled your promise in Your Son Jesus, help me, Lord, to give clarity to what you would want us to hear this morning. And Father, may we, as a result, worship you fervently, because you are good beyond description. You are good beyond imagination, Lord. And help us, Lord, to draw closer into an affirmation of that fact, those facts, Lord, we give ourselves to you, and we ask, illuminate the eyes of our understanding, help us to behold wonderful things from your word.

We come to you, Lord, not in our own righteousness, derived through the law, but we come to you. On the basis of the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ, having his righteousness imputed to us, Lord, we come to you with joy and with thanksgiving, and we ask, magnify our hearts that we might love you more, that we might have greater joy because of you, Lord, that we would overflow with thanksgiving, that you would be exalted in our hearts, and that Lord, we would be sanctified by your grace.

We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.

There's been a few times when I've shared from the pulpit and I've referred back to my testimony. I want to do that again, please bear with me. It's not that I am so much into myself as it is a reference point of, of what I have experienced God do in my life, so please humbly bear with me. As I, as I share this detail of my testimony with you.

Now, before I came to Christ, I came to the place where I believed in the truth of Christianity, that much, I also came to the place in which believing in Christianity, but not being born again, I began to look at God's word and to look at my life and I began to realize that against the standard of God's word, I was in trouble. In particular, I was struggling with sexual immorality with fornication, and I had had a number of relationships in which I had been guilty of fornication.

And so here I am looking at God's word, and everywhere I looked, I found in relation to that sin, thou shalt not. Everywhere I look, thou shalt not.

In fact, The Lord Jesus Christ himself says in reference to lust, he says, even if you so much as look at another person to lust for him or her in your heart, he says, you are already guilty of the sin of adultery, of fornication. And I, and I saw that and, and looking at all of these, these commands, and I found myself underneath a weight of condemnation. So what did I do? I looked at the commands, and I tried hard to obey, to get myself right with God.

And what happened? Total defeat. So what did I do? I looked at the law, at the commands, I looked at the thou shalt not harder.

And I picked myself up by my bootstraps and I attempted through looking at the law to obey it, and what happened? I failed miserably, and I found myself caught in this vicious cycle of looking to the law, failing, and consequently experiencing total condemnation, total discouragement, and absolutely no freedom, and in reality, I was held in bondage to the law, and my spirit was not free, and I had no joy. I had nothing of the blessings that God To my surprise, was wanting to give to me.

And so what happens, the way in which I found the freedom is upon hearing someone speak about the fact that the reason why I was failing is because I was seeking my righteousness through the law.

And I could never experience freedom, and I was told by the preacher on this particular evening that what you need to do is you need to look at the Lord Jesus Christ. You need to look at him and realize that in Him you have been set free, and there is nothing you need to do to make yourself right before Him. What you need to do is in repentance, look to him in faith, believing that he has made atonement for your sin, that your sins are forgiven to him, and through faith in him, you can be freed.

And so it is simple faith that you need to experience freedom that Christ wants to give.

And when I heard that for the first time in my life, For the first time in my life, I was able to experience a major breakthrough in relation to the sin that held me captive. And, that's my salvation, but I have come to understand as well that in reference to our sanctification, in reference to our spiritual growth, it is still a danger to focus our attention on all of the thou shalt nots, that we must continue to Look to the promised one. We must continue to look to the Lamb crucified, buried and raised again, ascended to the right hand of the Father.

We must continue to in faith, grow in relation to the Lord, that if we focus our attention on the law, We are essentially deviating from the pure gospel, from the true gospel, and we are, putting ourselves in a place of bondage and entrapment, getting away from the thou shalt not and looking to the one through whom all blessings flow.

So that's a, a piece to my personal testimony. And, and the point that I am wanting to make to you right now is that there is a very real danger of focusing our attention on the law and our efforts at obeying the law as a means of justification and sanctification. I have been involved in some counseling situations in which the reason I think as to why some believers are struggling, is because they're so zoned in on the thou shalt not, and they're losing sight of the Lamb of God slain for them.

They're struggling to simply put their faith and trust in Him, who died for them, that they would be free from the guilt and the condemnation that comes to focusing in on trying to obey the law.

The gospel then is the antidote to the problem of legalism. Just by way of a quick review in terms of what Paul is going after here in the book of Galatians, so far, he has made a number of moves in defense of justification by faith. That is a major theme, that is the major theme that he is going after justification by faith. Alone in Christ alone.

And so if you would look back in Galatians 2:16 briefly, Galatians 2:16 and following, listen to what he says, and this serves as a key verse. It's like the rallying point from which the other things he says flows. He says, amen. Man is not justified by the works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus.

Even we have believed in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, since by the works of the law no flesh will be justified. And then we jump ahead to chapter 3, verses 1 through 5. And I believe that the main point of chapter 3, verses 1 through 5, or at least the key point there, is this, that the only way to go on empowered by the Spirit is by faith and not by works of the law. He says to the Galatians, you idiots, you foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?

Before whose very eyes Jesus Christ was publicly seen as crucified. I want to ask you this, is it through the works of the law or through faith that you experience the blessings of the Spirit of God, and the work of the Spirit of God in your life? And so Paul's point there in, in, in chapter 3, verses 1 through 5, again, it is the only way Galatians to go on empowered by the Spirit is by faith, not by works. Remember how you began and continue on.

You began by faith in the gospel and were justified. Continue on by faith in the gospel. And experience sanctification. We get to chapter 3, verses 6 through 9.

And I believe that one of the main points in this context in this section is that the only way to be a child of Abraham is through the faith Abraham had. You want to be a child of Abraham, then you have the faith Abraham had. And remember, when God made the promise to Abraham, how did Abraham respond? He says that he believed And then what happened, and it was accounted to him as righteousness.

He was declared righteous by God through faith alone, apart from any work of the law. And then we continue on in chapter 3, verses 10 to 14. Pastor Milton did a superb job of delivering this message last week, but we learned from that section of scripture that the law brings a curse. We also learned that we are all underneath that.

curse if we are underneath the law, but that God sent His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ to be a curse for us. It was he who received the wrath of Almighty God upon himself in our place so that we could go free. And so he became a curse for us. He was the cursed one.

And the scripture tells us that he did that with a purpose, so that or in order that in Christ, in Christ, we have been brought into the blessing of Abraham, and then in Christ, we have the promise of the Spirit along with all of the Spirit mediated blessings that he wants us to have. You see there, the key, the turning point is in Christ, we have these things, in Christ, we have the blessings of Abraham, in Christ, we have the blessing of the promise of the Spirit, and all of the Spirit mediated blessings that flow from that.

It is all in Christ. is what he draws our attention to.

Listen to that verse in Galatians 3:14. And Christ became a curse in order that in Christ, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promise of the Spirit, by works of the law, by obedience to the law, by focusing on the thou shalt not, no, the promise of the Spirit. Through faith. And so, in other words, the point has been, this is what Paul seems to be saying, you can't become a mature, sanctified Christian.

You can't become a child of Abraham. You can't enjoy the promise of the Spirit, if you are living by works of law, instead of by faith in the Son of God. So the Judaizers are wrong to teach. Now think about these Judaizers.

They were professing believers. They believed in Jesus Christ. But the problem with them is they were seeking their justified status, they were seeking righteousness through obedience to the law. They were seeking their sanctification, so-called, by obedience to the law.

And so here they are professing believers in Christ, but earlier on in the epistle, what does Paul say? He says theirs is not even a gospel. It's another gospel, which is no gospel at all. And what did he, he pronounces a curse upon them.

Because their legalistic approach to the faith caused not only them, but those that they were teaching to come underneath the bondage of the law. And at the end of the day, when you do that, what you essentially are doing is you are rejecting Christ, as we will see in Paul's argument that he brings it out. And so before we jump into verse 15, let me say this. Paul in his own mind, given what he has already said, now anticipates an objection.

He knows that there are gonna be the Judaizers out there who will say, Well, wait a minute, Paul. Hold on, dear. How can you say these blessings come to us through faith in Christ, apart from the work of the law? Doesn't the law have priority?

After all, God gave it to his people later. God gave the Mosaic law to his people. Later, doesn't the law mark the conditions of our blessing? Doesn't the law in some way nullify the Abrahamic covenant?

Or doesn't the law in some that don't we need to add the law to it? Isn't, isn't that what we need to, to follow in order to experience the blessings of God? Surely, Paul, you cannot say that we are blessed through faith in Christ alone, apart from any consideration of the law. Can you?

And so Paul, knowing the objection, will defend the fact that we are blessed through faith in Christ, apart from any consideration of the law. Brothers and sisters, this morning, it is my privilege to tell you that you and I as children of God through faith in Christ, are blessed through faith in Christ apart from any consideration of the law. And so what Paul is going to do now is he's going to set forth an argument, and, and his argument is going to begin with establishing a basis for his argument.

He's going to refer to a man-made covenant in order to establish a basis for his argument.

Then he will refer to the Abrahamic covenant to give the background for his argument, and then he is going to lay forth a few points in connection with his argument, and then he will end by drawing the conclusion. And so that's what we're gonna be doing here over the time that we have together and you'll see it laid out as we move through each step at a time. Let us begin then with, with number one. Paul refers to man-made covenants or to a man-made covenant.

A testament and will, if you will. He's going to refer to a man-made covenant to establish the basis for his argument. Listen to what he says, beginning in verse 15. And I love how he starts, he refers to them as brethren.

Now, earlier on, he's, you fools, but now he's beginning to soften his tone and he calls them brethren. And perhaps in, in, in part what he is doing is he is affirming to them that though they may be struggling with this legalism, he acknowledges that they are still his brothers, they are still sons of Abraham, they are still genuine believers. And so he begins with a soft tone as he proceeds to put forth his argument. He says, brethren, I speak in terms of human relations.

In other words, let me borrow an example from the world out there. Even though it is only a man's covenant, I'm gonna talk to you for a minute about a man's covenant. Now, you all know, What I am referring to, what this man's covenant thing is, to, to, to ratify a man's covenant out there in, in the world, it's something that people do. You understand what it is that I am talking about.

I want to tell you something about this man's covenant. He goes on to say, yet when it has been ratified, no one sets it aside, and no one adds conditions to it. Let me just say a few things about this, this covenant that he is referring to. Keep in mind, You need a test stater.

The Creator of the covenant. You need someone who says, I will create a covenant, or, or it's, it's better to understand it as a will, a last will or testament. I will create a will. OK.

And, and, and what happens in, in society in this day is when the will was created, and then it is registered, it becomes officially ratified. So what? So that you cannot ever set it aside. You cannot ever add to it.

It is for all intents and purposes a done deal. So the testator basically makes a will, and inside the will there are promises that he wants to give to the people he has chosen to give those blessings to. There are heirs. Now keep in mind.

Paul's readers would have known this, Paul would have known this. It's not apparently clear to us just by looking at the text, but, but they would have known that in order for the heirs to receive those blessings, in order for them to receive the inheritance, in order for them to get that, what would have to happen? The one making this covenant would have to die, and on the other end of his death, those blessings get poured out to where the heirs are able to enjoy the inheritance that is theirs.

And I believe there are some gospel overtones or undertones or whatever you want to say.

There are gospel implications in what he is saying as he borrows from this worldly covenant idea. He's gonna use this to illustrate some spiritual realities as he proceeds forth in his arguments. And so we continue on moving to 2. Paul refers to a man-made covenant to establish the basis for his argument.

He will now refer to the Abrahamic covenant to establish the background for his arguments. He's gonna draw the attention of his readers by way of extension, the attention of us to the Abrahamic covenant, and he says beginning in verse 16, now the promises were spoken to Abraham. And no doubt his readers would have known what those promises to Abraham were. I would like to draw your attention for a minute to the Abrahamic covenant, to this unilateral covenant that God made with Abraham.

In which he promised blessings, and he ratified those blessings through a covenant so that for all intents and purposes, there is a guarantee that those blessings would be given. Listen to what God says to Abraham in Genesis 12:23. Genesis 12:2-3, God says, I will make you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great.

And so you shall be a blessing, and I will bless those who bless you, and the ones who curses you, I will curse, and then you all of the families of the earth shall be blessed. Later on, God reviews this, these promises that he made to Abraham in chapter 15, verses 5 to 6. Notice what God says to Abraham. and he took him outside.

God took Abraham outside, and he said, Now look towards the heavens and count the stars, if you are able to count them. And he said to him, so shall your descendants be. These are promises that God is giving to Abraham. Then in verse 6, it said, Abraham believed in the Lord.

And he reckoned it to him as righteousness. God declared Abraham righteous, on the basis that he believed the promise. And so these are promises that God makes to Abraham, but notice this immediately after. Verses 5 and 6, we move towards verses 7 to 18.

I don't have the time to read it, but God is going to create a covenant with Abraham, thereby ratifying the promises that he makes to Abraham. He is going to essentially say, it is a done deal. These promises I have given to you, you can take it to the bank. It will happen.

Come hell or high water, you can bet your last dollar, it is going to happen. It is going to be sealed in blood, and it's a guaranteed thing that it will happen. And so this covenant is discussed by the writer of Genesis, by Moses in chapter 15, verses 7 to 18. And let me just read a few things in reference to this covenant.

The Lord made a covenant in 1518. This can be understood as the idea that the Lord cut a covenant with Abraham. Now, please listen carefully as I read. Here we see that God cut a covenant with Abraham.

He cut it in a way that was familiar to the people of the ancient Near East, but very unfamiliar to us. They would take a heifer and a ram. And the goat, they would split the animal in half. What a bloody mess and lay the halves opposite one another on an incline so that the blood would flow down through the middle and puddle in the bottom of a little valley.

Then the stronger of the two that were entering into the covenant would go first and would walk through the blood. The blood would splash up on his ankles and on his leg. It'd be a bloody mess, and it was symbolic. It was symbolic.

If I fail in any way to keep the covenant, this is what you may do to me. That you may bring, you may cause the blood from my own body to pour out of it, you may put me to death. This was the symbolism. After that, one would walk through the blood, the weaker of the two would then walk through the blood with the same symbolism.

If I fail to keep the covenant, this is what you may do to me. As Abraham is either asleep or perhaps still groggy from the deep sleep he had been under, he sees God do an amazing thing. Pass through the animal parts all by himself while Abraham watches on the sidelines. God, represented by the smoking oven and the burning torch, passed through the animal parts all by Himself as Abraham watched.

God showed this was a unilateral covenant. Abraham never signed the covenant because God signed it for both of them. Therefore, the certainty of the covenant God makes with Abraham is based on what God is, not on who Abraham is or what he does. This covenant cannot fail because God cannot fail.

Abraham cannot break a contract he has never signed. By entering into this contract, there is a sense in which God was saying, If I don't keep my word. Let me be put asunder. God was putting his deity on the line as a confirmation of his oath to Abraham.

God makes this covenant with Abraham. And so having addressed the covenant of Abraham, having brought to the attention of his readers this Abrahamic covenant, Paul is then going to move on in his argument. He has given a basis and he has given some background, the Abrahamic covenant, and now he is going to issue forth a few critical points in his argument. 3 point number 1.

God made a promise to Abraham, that blessings would come through Christ. Looking at that same verse, and you continue that God made A promise to Abraham and to his seed, to his seed, singular, and Paul is going to point this fact out. He does not say, and to seeds as referring to many, but rather to one and to your seed, that is Christ. Now, let me just back up a second, talk to you briefly about the seeds concept.

It is an amazing thing when you stop to consider that God has throughout history all the way until the time of Christ, beginning with Adam and Eve and the serpent after the fall. God has made this promise that there would be a seed, one who would come through whom blessings would be given. We can go all the way back to Genesis chapter 3, verse 14, and we can pick up this theme of a seed. Genesis chapter 3, beginning in verse 14, notice what the Word of God says, and the Lord God said to the serpent, again, this is after the fall, after this, The Lord chases Adam and Eve down mercifully, graciously, lovingly, kindly.

He chases them down. He engages in a conversation with Adam and Eve and the serpent. It says here though that the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field, on your belly you shall go, and thus you shall eat all of the days of your life. And then in verse 15, he says, I will put enmity between you and between the woman and Between your seed and her seed, your seed and the seed of the woman, there will be enmity between the both of you.

This is a reference to the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. He goes on to say, He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. He says to the devil, you will be crushed by the seed of the woman who is going to come someday. You will be crushed, Satan.

Through that seed. And so as you follow this seed theme, and there is so much here that could be said, but time and time and time and time again, Satan seeks to destroy the person to whom the seed is being transmissed. And he fails every time. And the promise is guaranteed.

And this very same seed theme, this very same promise is a promise that God is going to make directly to Abraham. If you have your Bible, turn to Genesis 22, and I want us to look at what the apostle Paul is referring to specifically when he says, and to his seed, he does not say and seeds as referring to many, but rather to one and to your seed. And Paul makes it very clear that the seed is a reference to Christ, but look at Genesis 22:16-19, and the story. This is Abraham.

Being asked by God to offer up his son Isaac as a sacrifice, the very son to whom the seed was promised to come, and Abraham says to God, he says, I'll do it. I'll do it fully believing that God had the power to raise a son from the dead. And so Abraham goes. Up to the mountain to worship Almighty God and to lay a son on the altar and to have him killed and at the last minute God essentially says, stop.

No, now I know you fear God because you were not willing to withhold your only son. And then after that listen to what God said to Abraham. Verse 16, by myself, by myself, I have sworn, declares the Lord, because you have done this thing and have not withheld your Son, your only Son, indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore, and your seed shall possess the gates of their enemies and Mark this, this is the, the passage that Paul is directing us to now verse 18, and in your seed singular, all the nations plural, in that one seed, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed because you have obeyed my voice.

You see, God is making a promise to Abraham that blessings would come through the Lord Jesus Christ.

And that is the spin that Paul puts on this passage, when he says, And to your seed, that is Christ. God made a promise and we move on. Number 4, which is point number 2 in the arguments. And here's how that point goes.

If the law, which came later, invalidated the covenant, then the promise of blessing in Christ would be null and void, or in other words, in other words, don't nullify the promise, you can't nullify the promise. Once the promise has been made, you can't nullify it. Again, point number 2, if the law which came later invalidated the covenant, And it did not invalidate the covenant. But if it did, then the promise of blessings in Christ would be null and void.

what? what is going on here? If, if that is true, then there is no Christ. There is no salvation.

Because the promise of blessings in Christ would therefore be null and void. Listen to verse 17, as Paul and Pat is thinking. What I am saying is this, the law, which came 430 years later, does not invalidate, it does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God. Remember the basis for his argument in the earthly covenant, it cannot be invalidated, it cannot be replaced.

Well, Paul is picking up on that thinking and in reference to the Abrahamic covenant, he says that the law does not invalidate the Abrahamic covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise. That promise that I just referred you to, of that seed through whom the nations would be blessed, that promise still holds true. That covenant still holds true, and you cannot nullify it. You cannot put it aside.

You cannot pretend as if it's no longer. In existence. We move on to number 5. 3.

If blessings or say inheritance. are received through the law. Then there is no need for Christ through whom blessings are experienced. In other words, the point being is you don't add to the promise by seeking your justification or sanctification through the works of the law.

Again, the point is if blessings or if the inheritance, which is, salvation to the Gentiles, underneath that banner would be justification by faith alone, would be the promise of the Spirit and all of the Spirit-mediated blessings. If the inheritance, if the blessings are received through the law, if that's how you get those blessings, then there is no need for Christ through whom blessings are experienced. Listen to what he says in verse 18, for if the inheritance is based on law, It is no longer based on a promise.

And we know that the inheritance is not based on law, but it is based on the promise, and rather than focus on the law to gain the inheritance, we look to the promise, and we trust in the promise and the promise points us to the Lord Jesus Christ, and Paul has already said that he was crushed.

Paul has already said that he was the curse, so that in him we would have the blessings of Abraham. And as we move on then, 6, which 0.4. Here's the conclusion. Blessings or our inheritance.

Blessings are indeed received through the promise of Christ, apart from the works of the law. He says God has granted it the inheritance. To Abraham. By means of a promise.

So Abraham's blessings, his inheritance are through the seed Christ that God promised to him. In a sense, what Abraham is looking forward to is the promised seed. And the difference between Abraham and us is while he looked forward, we look backwards, and we sang the song, we will remember. We look back and we are saved.

By grace through faith in Christ alone, and Abraham is considered righteous because he's trusting the promise of God, and he's trusting that the day would come in which provision would be made for his own salvation. He's looking forward, he's looking ahead to the gospel, and we simply look backwards at the gospel, and we see their Christ crucified for us, so that we could be set free from the law. So again, this point, blessings or the inheritance is indeed received through the promise of Christ, apart from the works of the law.

And so therefore, all of the blessings of Abraham.

which would include salvation, obviously, justification by faith, and the promise of the Spirit and all of the Spirit mediated blessings, those are ours, those are yours. Through obedience to the law, they're in his bondage, but through faith. In the Lord Jesus Christ. When you follow Paul's train of thought, It drops you off at this place.

It drops you off to this question. And this is a key question that every person reading Paul until this point would have to ask themselves. What will you choose? Faith In the promise of Jesus to and through whom all blessings flow.

Or adherence to the law as a way of being blessed. You've got faith on one hand. Obedience to the law, on the other hand, those are the options, which will you choose? And the thing That I have noticed and it has actually scared me personally as I have thought about this, is the fact that I see within myself, I have seen within the hearts of those I have counseled, and no doubt there are some of you who struggle with this as well, that there is a legalist within.

There is a part of us that would look to the commands and seek to obey the commands, and when we fail to try to pick ourselves up by our bootstraps, and to try to obey, and we find ourselves falling underneath this bondage of the law, and we have deviated from simple faith in Christ alone. Through whom we have blessings, through whom we have freedom from the guilt of our sin, through whom we have freedom from the power that sin has over our lives, through whom All blessings flow, and to us, they flow because they flow through him to us as we apprehend him, as we go after him by means of faith and not by focusing in on all of the do's and the don'ts of the law.

Therein is a trap. Which will you choose, faith.

Faith alone. Or will you choose? Law And so the main question then that Paul, I think, seeks to address is this, how can you say these blessings come to us through faith in Christ, apart from the works of the law, And we have learned that what Paul does is he gives a basis for his argument, that worldly covenant idea, and then he gives the background by talking about the Abrahamic covenant, bringing that to their mind, and then his argument would go as such. God made a promise to Abraham that blessings would come through Christ.

If the law which came later invalidated the covenant, then the promise of blessings in Christ would be null and void. His point is you cannot, you cannot replace the covenant made and the promise therein. You cannot, you cannot nullify that. And then he goes on, if blessings or our inheritance, the blessings of Abraham and all of the, the, the blessing of the promise of the Spirit, if that is received through the law, then there is no need for the promise of Christ through whom blessings are experienced.

In other words, if you add to the law or if you add to the covenant by seeking to do the works of the law to maintain your justified and sanctified status for all intents and purposes, what you have in effect done, you have rejected Christ. It seems to be where he is going here. And then, and then the concluding point here that blessings, inheritance are indeed received through the promise of Christ, apart from the works of the law. And, there's been times in which as I have been studying this and meditating on it, I have felt as if I were on the very end of a cliff.

And it's a, it's, it's a huge, huge, huge ocean before me. And God's, and God, and the name of that ocean is total freedom. And it's as if God is saying, Carlos, jump into the freedom that is yours in Christ. You are free from the burden of having to obey the law in the power of your own flesh.

You've got the Spirit of God within you, and through whom you are able to live out these commands. Because, because they are implanted on your heart. It's interesting that Paul later on in the same epistle, he says, what guys, Forget the law. The only thing that matters, the only thing that matters is faith in Christ, expressing itself in your life through love.

That's what matters. Remember when Jesus Christ says, the greatest commands of all, Love God And how can we love Him because He first loved us. When we consider what he did for us, he was cursed for us. He was crucified in our place.

He was willing to enjoy the cross. He was determined to die for us, against the backdrop of that good news, that gospel. We can love him. We can love him.

And surely, We can look to the person that we are seated next to. And we can say in our heart, I love my brother. I love my sister. I love my wife.

I love my husband. I love my son. I love my daughter. I love my mommy.

I love my daddy. We can fulfill that. Why? Because of what Christ has done.

For us and because through him, we have the promise, the blessings, and confidence. The bottom line Is that a correct understanding of the promise as revealed in the Bible proves that obedience to the law is not necessary for experiencing the blessings of Abraham because Christ is the end of the law to all who believe. This is a thought that I had as I was meditating on the script. earlier in the previous section, Christ, Became the cursed one.

And the irony of it is, in reality, he is the blessed one. Through whom all blessings flow on the other end of him being cursed for us. He is blessed, and he is the dispenser of those blessings. Remember earlier, I referred to that worldly, covenant that, that, that earthly, testament last will, and, and how does it get enacted?

How, how, how do the heirs get in on those blessings to where those blessings are now theirs? Through the death of the test data. And guess what? God, has chosen to create a covenant with us, and he has chosen in his own blood, Jesus Christ, God the Son to die so that through his death, You and I are the recipients of blessings that are beyond our ability to comprehend.

We are the recipients of blessings that we can barely scratch the surface of in terms of our understanding. We have way more than we could ever hope to imagine. I think Pastor Mike earlier in reference to CJ Mahaney, Mahaney says, when people say, how are you doing? Better than I deserve, correction, way better, way better than I deserve.

I've got blessings beyond my ability to comprehend. Because of my faith in Christ alone. And I don't have to focus on the law and try to obey its demands, because what, it does not give me freedom. It keeps me in bondage.

It has not the power to deliver me. That my life is sanctified and changed. The power comes through faith in Christ alone. Christ is the source of the power.

It's as if Paul up to this point, is saying, Hey guys, forget the law. Forget the law, guys. It can't save. It can't sanctify.

It is a curse to all who would seek to be justified through it. The blessings of Abraham, including salvation, justification by faith, sanctification, and all of the spirit mediated blessings, those blessings that inheritance comes through faith in the one to whom the promise was given, and through whom, through whose death the inheritance is granted. And so I would say to you brothers and sisters, please, let us not get caught up in the works of the law as a means of our justification and sanctification, and let's not try to impose the law on our brothers and sisters, expecting them to live up to the standard when the only thing that matters is faith in Christ expressing itself in love.

Let's move away from the trap of legalism, because legalism is bondage and legalism is a rejection of Christ at the end of the day.

This is really crazy stuff. Because You're left with a feeling, But, surely there's got to be something good to say about the law. you're giving this ultimatum. It's either no faith in the promise of the law.

And you're telling us then that the law is absolutely no good whatsoever. Well, It would seem that way, wouldn't it? And Paul knows it would seem that way. And the question that this beds of us right now is why the law?

Why did God give the law and what is the purpose of the law? I'm not going to answer that question. Milton will answer that next week. So come back next week to figure out the purpose of the law.

And as I said, don't get caught up in the works of the law. This is what I want you to get caught up with. Get caught up in the one to whom and through whom the blessings of Abraham are granted. Get caught up in him.

Praise God that in his death, the inheritance is granted, the blessings are given. You see what Paul is doing is he is trying to move the Galatians into a greater experience of the gospel. There is much more to be said. We have barely scratched the surface even on this passage more to be said, but he is seeking to get them to move into a greater legitimate experience of the true gospel.

And so God is using Paul to motivate the readers to experience the gospel. In all of its fullness. Let me close with an illustration. To, I guess.

argue for this point. That, that God will do anything. He will take you where you don't want to go. In order to bring you to a point where you can more deeply experience and appreciate the gospel.

And the illustration I have to share about 3 weeks ago. And all of a sudden my back gave out on me. I had never felt anything like it, and since then I have run into other brothers who know what it feels like. When that something happens back there and boom, you drop to the floor and your legs can do nothing to hold your weight up.

You are absolutely helpless. And that happened to me about 3 weeks ago. I had never experienced pain like it. I was repenting of my sin, of not being, no, seriously, I'm repenting of my sins, of not being as sensitive to my wife when she's going through labor and has the back pains and whatnot.

I finally understood what, what pain feels like. And here I am on the ground. I think I'm laid out for like an hour or so or maybe a couple of hours, and I'm waiting. Finally my, my, my savior comes home.

So Marcy comes home and And I've got the one who can help me here. And so she's helping me get up and it's all that I could do to pull myself up by the half wall and get myself up. And I'm, I'm like, I'm like holding on for dear life. It's like if I let go, I'm gonna fall because my legs are doing nothing good for me and there I am just in total pain.

Total pain. And, and she's encouraging me. She's trying to, to, I'm trying to make it to my bedroom. It's about, I don't know, 30 ft walk and it takes me like an hour to get there.

I'm trying the best I can, and finally I get to the place where I'm like, I can't do it. I cannot do it. And I was doing pretty good emotionally at that point, but then my wife said something. God used her to direct my attention to the gospel, and she said, Carlos, I can do all things through Christ.

And immediately my mind was brought. To what Jesus endured for me. And against the backdrop of his endurance is the persecution, is the pain, is the physical suffering. I'm standing there barely saying I don't want to take another step.

Forget it. And Jesus, when he is on his way to the cross, he never once says, I don't want to take another step. He says, I am going to take those steps until I Get to the cross so I can secure your salvation. There was a determination against the backdrop of his sufferings that just boggled my mind.

And so when my wife says, Carlos, you can do all things through Christ. God used that to give me a picture of Christ so powerful that I just totally broke down like a little baby and I just sobbed for the longest time that he would Care enough for me to do that for me. God used this in my life to help me to more deeply experience and appreciate the gospel. And this is what God is trying to do for the Galatians by way of extension.

That is what he is trying to do for you and I. He wants to move us in the direction of more deeply experiencing the gospel in all of its fullness, because once we have that, exalting the Lord and worship, edifying the saints through mutual ministry, evangelizing the world through outreach, all of those aspects of our mission statements, they just flow naturally from the basis of our appreciation for an enjoyment of the gospel. This passage tells us that our God is faithful to his promise, and we are all demonstrations.

We are proof of his faithfulness.

Gentiles, the person to the left, to the right in front and back of you, Gentile, saved by grace through faith as God promised to Abraham in your seat, the nations will be blessed. In Christ, the promises are a yes. We can take it to the bank and we can trust thoroughly in the promise of Christ that through him. We have blessings beyond our ability to comprehend.

Do you, do you praise God this morning? Is there something inside of you that says yes? Thank you, Jesus. I am free from the law and its condemnation.

I through faith in Christ am righteous. Thank you, Jesus, that you, you did not have To create this covenant and the promise, you did not have to do it, but you chose to do it on your own volition, so that a vile, wretched, miserable sinner such as myself can be forgiven for the multitude of sins that I have committed against you, oh God. Do you praise God with me this morning? Is there something in your heart that wants to leap out and say hallelujah?

Praise God from whom all blessings flow and are mine through faith in Him alone. Join with me in prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, we just come before you this morning and we thank you, Lord, for the blessings that are our in Abraham. Through his seed, the Lord Jesus Christ ultimately is the one to whom and through whom the ultimate blessings to flow.

We know, Lord, that there are some promises yet to be fulfilled, but much of it has been in Christ and it all will be in Christ at some point. And Lord, we thank you for the great hope that is ours. Great is thy faithfulness, Lord, great is your faithfulness, and we give you praise, because of your faithfulness to your promise, and because of your faithfulness to us. He who began the work will complete it.

Lord, we are free from the law. And Lord, We can live through faith receiving your grace. And out of an overflow, exult in you, Lord, help us to sing onto you in a way that is worthy of your name. In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.