Galatians (Galatians 3: 15-29)

[00:00:00] On a scale of 1 to 10, how certain are you that if you died today, you would go to heaven? I know that's a popular question going around on TikTok. It was actually a part of an evangelistic program that began in the 90s through evangelism explosion. [00:00:18] But if someone asks you that question, well, actually, I'm asking you that question today. [00:00:24] On a scale of 1 to 10, how certain are you that you would go to heaven if you died? One being you're not sure at all. [00:00:32] In 10, you are absolutely certain if you died, you would go to heaven. [00:00:37] Ask yourself that question. [00:00:40] Think about that question. [00:00:42] Maybe today is your first day to ever come to church or be around these things. [00:00:47] Maybe you've gone to church your whole life. [00:00:50] But on a scale of 1 to 10, how sure are you that you would go to heaven if you died today? [00:00:59] Chances are whatever number, whatever score you gave yourself, everyone in the room, chances are whatever number, whatever score you gave yourself had something to do with something other than Christ. [00:01:17] That you evaluated your certainty about heaven on something other than Jesus. [00:01:27] Most of us in the room probably did that. Even those of us here today who said, no, I believe this gospel. It is all about Christ. [00:01:37] Nothing I do can get me to heaven. [00:01:40] Even when you scored yourself, you probably gave yourself less than 10 because you were evaluating your faith, not Christ. [00:01:50] You said, no, I really believe in Jesus, but I'm not sure that I really believe in Jesus. And it would be arrogant to give myself a 10. [00:02:00] Because you are evaluating your faith. [00:02:03] And then most of us in the room, most of us in the world usually just evaluate ourselves in light of God's law. [00:02:16] Even those of us who have been Christians for many years, we subtly allow this standard to creep back in as we think, when I stand before God, I'm going to stand before Him a sinner, and I'm going to be evaluated in light of my sin and in light of his law. [00:02:37] And that tendency, in many ways, is natural. [00:02:42] Now, why is it natural? [00:02:44] Well, there is an eternal law that we find in God that has always existed even before the world was created. God is good, God is right. There's always been a right and wrong because God exists. [00:03:03] And anything other than God would be. [00:03:07] Anything contrary to him would be wrong. And so when he creates the world, this right and wrong is a part of the world in which we live in. That's why we just, according to our conscience, know that there's a right and wrong. [00:03:22] Because God is good, God is right, and this right and wrong has always existed in him. And when he creates the world, he reveals this standard in we see the Ten Commandments, his law. We see in our Bible that there is a right and wrong in the Old Testament. In the New Testament, there's just a right and wrong to the things that we live around to our existence. And God has always been revealing that to us. [00:03:55] We think about the Old Testament law that was given to Israel. We even think about in the New Testament that there are commands given to the church. One of the last things that Jesus tells us when he is giving the great commission to make disciples of all nations. He calls us to teach all, all he has commanded. So from the beginning, there has been a right and a wrong. And God has been revealing that in the things that are created. Even Jesus said that the Law is summed up in loving God and loving our neighbor. We just sort of innately know that. And when we search the Scriptures, we are. We are almost looking for that on every page. We what would God have me to do? What is right and what is wrong? [00:04:47] And so when we evaluate ourselves, we tend to drift toward the law. And I want to say this very clearly. The Law is good. [00:04:57] The Law is right. [00:04:59] The Law reveals God's character. The psalmist would say that it is sweeter than honey, it is better than gold. [00:05:08] This standard that God has always been revealing in the Law is good. [00:05:15] Because when we get to a book like Galatians and we see it's Jesus, not the Law. [00:05:20] Jesus good, law bad. [00:05:24] No, the Law is good. [00:05:27] The Law is pure. The Law revives our soul. [00:05:31] But what is the purpose of the Law? [00:05:35] What is the purpose of the Law? When we think about what it takes to get to heaven, it's an important question. In the book of Galatians, remember, there are Gentile believers who have believed in Jesus Christ. [00:05:50] And then there are Jewish believers who are looking at their brothers, these Gentiles, and saying, that's all well and good, but what about the Law? [00:06:00] God has given us a good law. God has given us a standard. [00:06:05] God has given us all these things that we must do. [00:06:08] And so it's all well and good, Gentile brother, that you believed in Jesus, but now you have to keep the law. [00:06:19] The Judaizers see this in the church and they kind of prey on it. [00:06:27] There is a false teaching that infiltrates the church's. [00:06:31] Just about every church that we see a letter written to in the New Testament, there is this false teaching that is creeping around that says, yes, believe in Jesus, but also add the law. [00:06:44] Specifically Circumcision, it's the judaizers would teach. Yeah, Jesus gets you to 7, but you have got to get yourself to 10 by adding the law. [00:06:57] Or they might say it this way. Jesus gives you a 10, but then you have to keep the law to keep it there. [00:07:05] And Paul's argument in Galatians is no, no, no, no. There was a promise given before the law was given. [00:07:13] Yes, this promise is to Abraham, this promise is to the first Jew, but it is a promise that is to all who would believe in Jesus. [00:07:26] And so what about the law? Well, the logic is the law was given after that promise. And we see first of all in verse 15 that the promise is a Christ centered promise. Yes, even the promise of God that was given to Abraham was about Christ. Notice verse 15. [00:07:46] Paul continues. He says, to give a human example. Now remember Paul is arguing almost like a lawyer here and he's asking questions and he's giving answers. [00:07:59] And the question at this point is how can Gentiles be like Abraham who was justified by believing in God? [00:08:09] How can they inherit the promise of Abraham? [00:08:14] And Paul says, well let's put this in human terms, brother, which is important. [00:08:19] Remember last week he calls them fools, idiots, how are you being deceived in this way? And then he comes back, brothers, and he just sort of gives us the tone of Galatians. [00:08:32] Paul is, is angry and he's irritated and he's frustrated. And then he almost brings himself back and says, hold on, I'm talking to brothers and sisters in Christ. [00:08:43] To give any human example, even with a man made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. [00:08:53] He says on human terms, when you make a covenant with someone and it is finalized, it's signed, you don't go back and change it. You can't, one party can't change the terms. [00:09:05] And his point is going to be God made a covenant with Abraham. [00:09:10] As a matter of fact, when God made his promise to Abraham and sealed it in a covenant, if we go back to Genesis, he put Abraham to sleep and the animals were on the altar split in two. And it was God himself that walked between them to say to Abraham, I'm going to fulfill this covenant. That's how God fulfilled his covenant to Abraham. He made a promise to him and then he says, I'm going to do it all myself. [00:09:40] And so God's not going to change or annul his promise to Abraham. [00:09:47] Notice verse 16. [00:09:48] Now the promises were made to Abraham and his offspring. [00:09:54] Just to review if you were Here, through our study of Genesis, we remember when the world fell into sin, it was cursed by death. [00:10:05] And what's the first thing that God does when the world falls into sin and is cursed by death? [00:10:11] He made a promise. [00:10:13] He made a promise that there is one that would come, a seed born of woman that would crush the serpent's head. [00:10:22] And in doing so, what God is promising in Genesis chapter three, that life would be restored to the world, the blessing of life would be restored. Sin caused death, but God promised to bring life through a seed that that would come and crush Satan's head. [00:10:43] And in Genesis 12 we begin to see where this seed would come from. [00:10:48] He adopts Abraham from the land of Ur, who was out there worshiping the moon. And he says, I'm going to take you. [00:10:57] And through your family the seed will come. Through your descendants the seed would come. And so we see that this, this promise is the blessing of life that would come into the world. [00:11:11] And he tells Abraham, the way I'm going to do it is I'm going to give you land, a specific place. He says, I'm going to give you descendants. And we understand that Abraham was very old. How is that going to happen? [00:11:23] But the promise culminates in that all peoples will be blessed through Abraham. [00:11:30] All peoples will know deliverance from sin and death and the curse through Abraham. [00:11:39] And so how does that happen? [00:11:41] Well, notice Paul continues his argument. [00:11:44] It does not say and to offsprings. [00:11:48] So when God made the promise, it wasn't a generic promise. [00:11:52] It wasn't an abstract promise in God's mind. [00:11:56] Notice referring to many, but referring to one. [00:12:00] And so when God makes this promise to Abraham, who is God thinking about when the words are penned in Genesis by the Holy Spirit through Moses that Abraham believed God and this promise was made and that the blessings to all people would come through Abraham. Who was God thinking about? Notice. And to your offspring who is one who is Christ. [00:12:32] The promise made to Abraham was a Christ centered promise. So how can Gentiles be justified? How can they become children of God? Well, it's because the promise made to Abraham was about Jesus. And we're going to see it's in Jesus that they can become children of Abraham. When God made this promise, he was looking forward to Jesus. And we see that in the story of scripture, this land that God promised Abraham in the story of scripture ends up being a new heaven and a new earth where the presence of God dwells. [00:13:15] The seed promised to Abraham, the people become people from every tribe, every nation who live in a kingdom that Jesus rules over. [00:13:27] But what about the blessing? How is it Christ centered? [00:13:33] Well, the promise that all peoples would be blessed through Abraham is ultimately fulfilled in Jesus, who dies on the cross, who lives a perfect life and who is resurrected. And the world is told, the nations are told, every tribe, every tongue, every people, Jew and Gentile. If you want the blessings of God through Abraham, you have to believe in Jesus, you have to trust in Jesus. This is how you are folded into this story. This is how you inherit the blessings of God. And yes, to the Jew, the Gentile can receive Abraham's promise in Christ. And it was a promise that came before the law. Look at verse 17. [00:14:22] This is what I mean, the law. [00:14:25] And this is how the Jews defined themselves according to the law. It separated them from the rest of the world, from the nations. Paul's making a point. It came 430 years afterward after the promise. So the promise that all nations would be blessed through Abraham came before the law. [00:14:46] So the law doesn't have preeminence, the promise does. [00:14:51] And he says when the law was given, it does not annul the covenant previously ratified by God to make it void. And so the Jew who loves the law and the law is good. Paul's saying, yeah, but the law doesn't take the place of the promise. The promise came first, the law came 430 years afterwards. And he's talking about the time in which they were in Egypt and God rescues them and takes them to Mount Sinai and begins to give him his standard and his law. And he's saying, no, God delivered you first and the promise was being fulfilled first. And he gave you the law 433 years, 30 years afterwards. And it does not annul the promise. And so that's the question. [00:15:39] Does God's promise to Jesus end with the law? [00:15:44] No. [00:15:44] Did the law take the place of God's promise to Christ? No. [00:15:50] Did God say, I'm going to give Jesus all of these things and then say, no, no, no, it's going to come through the law. [00:15:57] No, it's through promise. Which he continues to argue in verse 18. [00:16:02] For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by the promise. [00:16:08] But God gave it to Abraham by promise. [00:16:12] Abraham, I will do this for you. This doesn't change when Moses comes along. God's not saying, never mind, you have to do it. [00:16:20] No, from the beginning, God says he will do this and he will do it for Christ. [00:16:25] Now why is this important? [00:16:27] You've got to understand that the Gospel is a Christ centered promise. To you it's a Christ centered promise. [00:16:39] Because so often we will make it a law centered promise. [00:16:43] And we will determine God's commitment to us based on the law. [00:16:48] Am I doing good enough? [00:16:51] Am I reading my Bible enough? Am I praying enough? Am I going to church enough? Am I serving enough? Am I in all the right things? [00:17:01] And if I am, then God's going to be happy with me and he's still committed to me. [00:17:06] No, that's not how that's determined. God is committed to fulfilling all of his promises to Christ. Christ will be this king who rules and reigns and we will be blessed in Christ. [00:17:20] Or we make the gospel a me centered promise. We put ourselves at the center and we ask, am I enough? [00:17:29] And usually we evaluate God's blessings and faithfulness to us based on how we feel. [00:17:37] I feel good about God's commitment to me today and then tomorrow, no, I feel bad. [00:17:43] And we put ourself at the center of God's faithfulness. And you've got to understand your security in the gospel, your security before God, his commitment, his faithfulness to you comes through Christ. [00:18:00] So when you sin, you've got to look to Christ and you've got to confess your sin looking to Christ and you've got to believe God's going to honor Jesus death in my he's not going to. He's not going to turn his back on what Jesus did for me. He's going to be faithful to Christ. He's going to be faithful to Christ's goodness. When you are doubting, you are meant to look to Christ. The gospel is a Christ centered promise. It doesn't begin with Christ. Okay, I believe in Christ now and he's got me to seven, but I've got to get to 10. And now I become the center of all things. The law becomes the center. [00:18:46] You've got to ask the question, am I wrapped up in Jesus's story? Am I wrapped up in Jesus's promises that will be given to him by faith? [00:18:57] And so the question for the Jew is okay, well what about the law? [00:19:03] You're kind of downplaying the law. [00:19:06] The law is getting a bad name with you, Paul. [00:19:10] So what good is the law? [00:19:13] We see that the promise is Christ centered. We also see that the law was Christ centered. Notice verse 19. [00:19:21] Why then the law? [00:19:24] And Paul says it was at it because of transgressions. Now this is another word for sin. [00:19:31] It means to go off course or out of bounds in some sense. The law was given to keep us on course and Notice until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made. [00:19:48] So we see here that the law has a temporary purpose. [00:19:53] And Paul's point here is the law did not replace the promise. The law was given for a temporary reason until the promise was completely fulfilled. Notice it was put in place, put in place through angels. These would be messengers by an intermediary, which we see ultimately is Moses. He's describing the activity at Mount Sinai. [00:20:20] Remember, God comes with the law. He's going to give the law to his people. [00:20:25] And the people are at the bottom of the mountain, and the mountain is shaking, the mountain is quaking. And there is fear and there is terror. And the people of God say, we're not going up. Moses go up for us. And Moses goes up and he gets the law and he brings it down. [00:20:46] And he says here that this mediator, as you notice, I'm having a hard time saying that word mediator is. The translation implies more than one. But he says God is one. And his point here is the Lord, he's quoting from the Shema, and he's saying it is the same God who gave the promise, that gave the law, even though there was someone who delivered it to his people. Even though there are messengers that come with the law, it comes from God. But this is the same God who made the promise. And he's not changing his mind about the promise. [00:21:25] And so why do we have the law? He says, because of transgression. Now, immediately we think it restrains sin. [00:21:33] But if we read our Old Testament, we realize that's not what happened. [00:21:37] The law really didn't restrain sin. [00:21:40] Sin goes crazy in the Old Testament. Even with Israel, there is a cycle of sin. [00:21:47] There is a cycle of judgment with Israel. They become idolat. God says, don't worship other gods. And what do they do? They worship other gods. And he punishes them and they repent, and then they're restored. And then he says, stop worshiping other gods. And what do they do? They worship other gods. [00:22:06] So the law didn't keep anyone from sinning. [00:22:10] What does he mean here? It doesn't restrain. Well, the book of Romans helps us understand this. Romans 3:20 says, since through the law comes the knowledge of sin. [00:22:22] Romans 5:13 says, but sin is not counted where there is no law. [00:22:28] What he's saying here is God wanted to be very specific with us, that we are sinners, and he wanted to define our sin. [00:22:37] And when God defined our sin, we realize we sin a lot. [00:22:43] Even when God says, don't do this, we want to do defines transgression. It says, this is God's standard. This is who God is. This is who God has revealed himself to be. And you're not that. [00:22:59] And you are guilty of breaking his law. [00:23:03] You see, the law was like a cancer screening. [00:23:08] And you don't know what's there until you look at the scan and you say, oh, something really bad is there and it's spreading. [00:23:19] God defines sin. And we see it's worse than we ever thought. That's why part of the law was the sacrificial system, was the sacrifices to forgive us of our sin. No. The oceans and oceans of blood were to say, this is how great your sin is. [00:23:37] And so why did God do that? [00:23:39] Why did God give us the law to show how bad we were? [00:23:44] In verse 21, we see the law killed us so we could live in Christ. [00:23:48] Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? [00:23:52] No. [00:23:53] For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. He's saying here, was the law. Did the law come in? And was the law contrary to the promise or even at odds with the promise? Or maybe it was kind of like a different promise, meaning when the law was given do all of a sudden we have two ways to God. [00:24:16] Do we have a promise that gets us to God, but we also have a law that gets us to God. [00:24:22] Do we have two ways to God? No. The law was designed to fail. [00:24:28] The law was designed to say, you can't have life because you can't be righteous. [00:24:36] Then we see the law imprisoned us to free us in Christ, verse 22. [00:24:41] But the scripture imprisoned everything under sin. It's a very generic word for the scripture or God's word. We might even look at the story of the Bible and we see when the law came in. In the story, remember, the promise came first. The law then comes. And it comes, he says here, to imprison us or capture us notice so that the promise by faith in Jesus might be given to those who believe. [00:25:15] The law comes in and it captures us, it shows us our sin. So that when Jesus comes, we say, he's what I need. [00:25:24] His righteousness is what I need. His death is what I need. Why? Because I have been enslaved to sin, captured by sin. I need to be free. And it is only notice by faith, not works of the law. Faith in Jesus, we are given the promise. Those who believe, notice verse 23. [00:25:45] Now, before faith, now he's using this word faith. And it's just summing up the Whole content of the gospel, Jesus, life, death and resurrection. And we must believe in that to be saved, not works of the law. [00:26:01] But before faith notice, we were held captive under the law. It's as if God trapped us in the law and says, the law has captured you, it's imprisoned you. And I want you to understand you can't get out by your own righteousness. You are enslaved, you are cornered. [00:26:26] Until the coming faith would be revealed. It is so that when we see Christ, we realize that is the only way we can be saved. [00:26:35] The law gives a context for grace. [00:26:39] If there are never any rules, we don't know what grace is. [00:26:44] We think about our own children. You just let them run wild and you never tell them the rules. [00:26:51] And then you step in and maybe they've marked up their room with a marker. Maybe they, whatever they've done, you step in and you say, you've done all these holes, horrible, bad things, but I'm going to be gracious to you. They would look at you and say, what is grace? [00:27:10] Why? Because you never gave them any rules, you never gave them any standard. [00:27:16] And then the law here gives us a standard for grace. It makes grace make sense to us. [00:27:24] The law comes in and says, you can't. [00:27:27] So then we look to Jesus and we say, he has and he can. [00:27:32] The law was designed to fail. [00:27:35] The law captured us. The law was the officer who said, this is what you have done wrong. I'm taking you to prison. So that ultimately you would understand only Jesus can get you out. [00:27:48] But next we see the law corrected our childish immaturity. [00:27:53] Notice verse 24. [00:27:54] So then the law was a guardian. Now this is like a stooped up babysitter. We don't really have a word for this in our culture, but it was what wealthy families often do. They would hire someone to train their kids into adulthood, like a nanny, but for even adolescence. And it prepared them for adulthood. [00:28:21] And often wealthy families would do this because the firstborn son would take over the inheritance. And he needed to be trained in manners. He needed to know how to, how to act. [00:28:33] And these guardians were very rough. They kept them in line. There would have been physical discipline. And he says here, the law was this guardian. [00:28:43] The law was this, this teacher, this taskmaster that was training us. Notice. Until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. The law was keeping us in line. And it was rough. And we were beat down by the law because we constantly said, I can't be good enough. So that when Christ comes, we say, he is Good enough. Notice in order that we might be justified by faith, we believe in Christ. We are declared not guilty and we are forgiven. The law sets us up for that. The law trains us for that. [00:29:24] We're thinking, I'm pretty good. I don't need any help. And the law says, do you have any other gods before God? [00:29:31] Well, do you lie? [00:29:36] Do you covet? [00:29:38] The law says, quit acting like a child. [00:29:43] You need to straighten up. [00:29:45] You need to understand how immature you really are. [00:29:50] And we're not mature sons until we look to Christ. [00:29:55] The law we see here in this section is Christ centered. The law is always driving us to Christ. [00:30:04] And this is why this is important. [00:30:07] You cannot give the law to Jesus. Job description. [00:30:13] Jesus is meant to save you and Jesus is meant to keep you saved. The law brings you to Jesus and the law gives you to Jesus. And then the law has another role in making you like Jesus. [00:30:28] But Jesus, job description is to save you and keep you saved. Don't give that job description to the law. [00:30:37] The law is good. We are to delight in the law. We are to meditate on the law. [00:30:43] But the law becomes harsh and bad and even wrong when we give it the wrong purpose. [00:30:52] It would be like your dentist this week needs to put in a filling, needs to drill a little bitty hole. [00:30:59] And if he comes in the room with a jackhammer, you realize he is about to kill you, you are about to die. [00:31:09] And some of us give the law the same role in our Christian life. [00:31:14] I have sin that I need to be saved from. And you take the law and it kills you because the law can't save you from your sin. The law imprisons you. Like Paul says here, the law beats you around and says you're not good enough. You're giving the law the wrong description. [00:31:34] When you use the law this way, you're only going to see your sin, you're going to kill yourself, you're going to be in prison, you're going to be beaten down, and you're not going to see Jesus as your Savior. [00:31:46] I want you to think about this. [00:31:48] You might be asking, do I give the law the wrong job description? [00:31:53] Is that who I am? Well, ask this question. [00:31:57] When you come to Bible study, when you come to a sermon, when you are reading a book about the things of God and you're trying to learn about God, do you ask the question first? Give me something to do. [00:32:16] Give me something to do today at church. [00:32:20] Give me something to do. [00:32:22] I've got to make God happy. Give me something to Do. [00:32:26] Instead of coming to the word of God and saying, show me Christ, give me Christ. [00:32:33] Do you come to church? Do you come to Bible study saying, I need to be better, so tell me how to be a better evangelist. Tell me that I need to share the Gospel or I'm a bad Christian. Tell me I need to give more or I'm a bad Christian. Tell me I need to give. Go die on the mission field or I'm not a good Christian. Is that the way you think about God's law? Is that the way you think about the things of God, the things he's asking you to do? Give me something to do instead of give me Christ. [00:33:07] Maybe you've given the law the wrong job description or are the commands of Scripture. [00:33:14] When you read your Bible and you see that I need to love, I need to forgive, I need to be merciful, I need to consider others, how do you feel when you hear those things, even right now, when you hear them, love your enemies as yourself, how do you feel about that? [00:33:38] For the Christian, we got to get to a point we're not all there. Where when we hear those things, that brings to our mind Christ like joy. [00:33:48] Where when I do those things, I'm going to experience the joy of Christ and I'm going to be like Christ. [00:33:55] Too often we hear those things and we hear only condemnation. [00:34:00] I don't do those things. [00:34:02] I'm really bad at those things. [00:34:05] When our first reaction is to be Christ did all those things for me. [00:34:11] And when I think about the way Christ loved and I think about the way Christ forgave and I think about the mercy of Christ, I'm overwhelmed with his glory and I want to do those things because of Christ. [00:34:24] But have you given the law the wrong job description? [00:34:28] Where in reading your Bible you only feel condemned, you walk away thinking, I'm not enough. [00:34:37] I'm not a good enough husband, I'm not a good enough wife, friend, Christian. [00:34:43] And some of us enjoy that. [00:34:46] That you have been trained in coming to church, in reading your Bible and being part of accountability groups where it is spiritual to just feel bad about your sin all the time, where you're allowing your Christianity to be law centered, we have to get to Christ. Yes, the law condemns us, but the law is pushing us to Jesus constantly. The law is saying, do not look at me, look to Christ, hear from me, but quit looking to me to please God, look to Christ, look to Christ. [00:35:25] The law is Christ centered. And then we see in all of this the church must be Christ centered. [00:35:32] Because here's the danger. Those who make Christianity law centered eventually make the church law centered. Verse 25 says, but now that faith has come, the Gospel has come in Christ. The fullness of God's promise that through faith in Christ you can have all the blessings of God that were promised to Abraham through Christ, through his life, death and resurrection. You are folded into this story. He says we are no longer under the guardian, the taskmaster, the law. For in Christ you are all sons of God through faith. You're no longer under this bondage of the law because you're in Christ. [00:36:13] You're no longer under the bondage of I had to fulfill the law. You're in Christ who has fulfilled the law. And notice the privilege you have in Christ. Look at the words, you are all sons of God. This is Jew and Gentile through faith, not works, but looking to Christ. It is a Christ centered promise that has made you sons of God. Verse 27. For as many of you are baptized, the word is immersed, intertwined into Christ. You have put on Christ. [00:36:43] It's a beautiful picture of what happens when we believe in Christ. We are so identified with Him. We have been born, baptized into him, immersed into him. You can't tell us apart before God. When you stand before God, he sees Christ because you've been immersed into him and you get everything that is his as sons. You have literally notice put on Christ by faith so that you stand before God in Christ as a son. In the Son you stand before for him as a son. So that verse 28, there is neither Jew nor Greek. [00:37:21] You got to understand, these two groups of people in the church despised each other. [00:37:26] Jews, holier than thou. They were born to be religious. They had the law. Gentiles were dogs. You see them on the street, you spit at their feet. They are disgusting. And now we are in the church. How do we get along in the church? We well, you're in Christ. [00:37:43] He says there is neither slave nor free. This refers to social standing. [00:37:49] There is nor there is no male or female gender. Even standing before God you have equal status. [00:38:01] Why? [00:38:02] For you are all one in Christ. [00:38:05] What he's saying here is you are defined solely by Christ before God. [00:38:14] Everyone in the church has the same standing. Everyone in the church has the same status. [00:38:20] Now the gospel doesn't make us gender neutral. [00:38:24] The gospel doesn't make us without ethnicity. [00:38:29] The gospel doesn't change all of our situations in life and social standing. [00:38:35] But the gospel before God gives us the same standing. This is why we shouldn't blur out distinctions in the church, they're not meant to just go away. [00:38:46] We are meant to look around and see differences and say, yes, but we all have the same standing in Christ before God. Meaning when it comes to the promises of God, no one is closer to the promises of God than the other. The Jew or the Gentile. You all have the promise of God. The slave or the free man, the male or female. We all are coheirs of the promises in Christ. [00:39:13] This is shocking. [00:39:16] This has been shocking in this culture. [00:39:18] Folks were divided up and there were categories. [00:39:23] And this is the beauty of the New Testament. [00:39:27] The New Testament is written to tell us as the church, how to get along with one another. [00:39:32] You see, it would have been easy for the letters of the New Testament to say, no. Y' all just go plant a Jew church. [00:39:39] Go plant a Gentile church. [00:39:41] Y' all separate and get away from each other. Because all you can do is fight. And you don't understand. Go plant new churches that just cater to your ethnicity, just cater to your differences. But that's not what the New Testament does. [00:39:58] No. It says, you all have the same standing in Christ. So learn how to love one another as Christ has loved you. [00:40:05] This is the beauty of the church. [00:40:07] In verse 29, he says, and if you are Christ's possession, then you are Abraham's offspring. This is where God was headed all along. [00:40:18] All of these promises of blessing and life have come to you by faith and notice. He says you are heirs according to the promise, even if you are Gentiles apart from the law. But through faith, you have everything that was promised to Abraham that he didn't even see. And you have everything that your Jewish brothers and sisters have in Christ. [00:40:40] You see, the reality is those who use the law for their own justification end up dividing the church up, end up judging one another in the church. [00:40:52] They come into the church and everything is just this evaluation of what acceptable Christianity is. [00:41:00] And it's not even the law of God. It's their ability to adhere to the law of God, which eventually becomes their own laws. [00:41:08] And they walk in the church. And because I'm justified by the law, because God likes me, because I'm better and I do better, then they begin to look at other people and say, y' all need to do better. [00:41:19] Y' all need to get on my level. [00:41:21] Y' all need to be more like me. [00:41:24] Y' all need to have my same secondary theological views, my political views. You need to think the same way about educating your kids as I do. And if you don't then you're not as close to God as I am, and you begin to doubt if they're even Christians. [00:41:45] You use the law to justify yourself. You use the law to judge the church. [00:41:52] You see, we want differences in the church because they magnify Jesus. [00:41:58] They say, Jesus saves this person who's from this horrible background and this person who's from a very religious background and this person who seems to have it together and this person who can never get it together. [00:42:11] Instead of walking into the church and just kind of looking through the lens of our Bible belt Christianity. [00:42:18] And then, or maybe you, maybe you come from a more hipster Christianity background. [00:42:26] And we come into the church and we say, you know, I went to, I was saved in Sunday school. I still remember the day my Sunday school teacher shared the gospel with me. And then I was in Awana and I had all the verses and I went to youth group and I went to church camp and I did all the right things. And then the hipster Christians over here going, what are you talking about, man? I was drunk when I got saved. [00:42:50] And then the more religious person said, I don't believe that can happen. [00:42:54] And there's this back and forth and these divisions that happen all across the church when we evaluate ourself in light of the law. [00:43:04] But we see here the promise is Christ centered. The law is Christ centered, and the church must be Christ centered. [00:43:12] You must look around the room and say, these people who believe in Jesus, who've trusted in the promise, they are the Father's gift to Jesus. They are an inheritance. [00:43:24] They've been saved in the gospel. [00:43:28] It's easy in a church, as we continue to grow, to kind of drift toward, these are my people and they act like me and they do the things that I do. And we create kind of clicks in the church. [00:43:41] It's real easy. [00:43:43] Let's not do that. [00:43:45] Let's be Christ centered. [00:43:47] See, one of the things I love these days, I love the differences and I love when folks are part of the same bfg. [00:43:56] And maybe we're sitting in staff meeting and there's a name that's read that started to go to a bfg. And I feel a little panic in my soul because I know someone else is in that bfg and I know that they will never agree on any theology except for what we have here, secondary theological issues. They're going to be debating those. [00:44:20] Even when I do the questions for the BFG discussion, I'm thinking about two different people and I'm thinking, how are they going to answer those questions and are they going to split the church today in BFG. [00:44:32] Or folks in the church who have different political views? [00:44:38] Kind of makes us nervous, all these other issues. [00:44:44] One of the joys that I see across this church is how people with such differences become such close friends. [00:44:53] And I'll ask some of you sometime, what do you think about so and so? [00:44:58] Because I just want to see, do you like them? [00:45:00] Because it looks like you like them and you'll say they're crazy. [00:45:06] And I disagree with them on most things, but I love them. [00:45:11] That's a Christ centered approach to church. [00:45:14] And that's who we should be. That's what we should be. So how do you do it? [00:45:18] Will you make the gospel the center? You make the promise. Christ centered, not law centered. [00:45:28] So if you died right now, how sure are you that you would go to heaven? [00:45:34] How sure? [00:45:40] What number just popped into your head? [00:45:46] Well, I don't want us to become law centered. [00:45:50] So I don't want you to think about a number anymore. [00:45:53] I want you to think about Christ. [00:45:58] Maybe a better question is if you stood before God today and he asked, why should I allow you into heaven? What would you say? [00:46:07] Because I'm an 8 moving toward 9. [00:46:12] No Christ. [00:46:14] It's Christ. Death, Christ is sufficient. [00:46:17] Anything other than Christ, you won't go to heaven.