Thanks be to God, amen. Let's pray together. God, thank you so much for who you are. You are so great and we are so thankful to have the opportunity, the privilege to worship you in song, in fellowship, and also in the study of your word. I pray that your spirit would quicken our minds and our hearts to understand it and to be able to apply it as we leave. I pray that you would empower our step. We collectively desire, Father, I personally desire to declare my dependence upon you. We declare our dependence upon you to understand your word and to apply it. So I pray, Holy Spirit, that you would work this morning, that you would move in our hearts this morning, that you would move in our minds. Help us to have a little clearer understanding of the gospel today. Father, I pray that if there or people hear that you've been in the process of chasing down, but they've yet to turn from their sin to trust in Christ alone. I pray that you'd save them today. I pray that you would redeem a soul today. For those that are saved, that know you as Savior, I pray God that you would help us as we rehearse your gospel truth. Once again, from Galatians, I pray that you would help us to Just be increasingly thankful and increasingly worshipful for what you've done. So, Holy Spirit, we pray that you would move in our hearts and minds today. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. You can take your Bibles and go with me to Galatians chapter three if you're not already there. In the year 1717, fear began to grip the coastal regions of North Carolina and Virginia because of pirates. Pirates that had been terrorizing the Caribbean had moved north and began to wreak havoc along the shores of these burgeoning colonies. At the helm of one of the more famous ships, a ship called the Queen Anne's Revenge, was a man by the name of Edward Teach, more famously known as Blackbeard. I don't know about you, but I remember studying about Blackbeard. I grew up in North Carolina and he was a part of North Carolina history and fascinated by Blackbeard. Very interesting character. In fact, we have an interesting relationship, I think, with pirates, right, from our nice couches and from our distance via textbooks. We like pirates. Right? They're intriguing. They're swashbuckling. Right? We dress up as pirates at Halloween. We like watching movies about pirates. I even thought this morning, this church has a special relationship with one patch, the pirate. Don't take anything I say about pirates the rest of the day as something negative about him. All right? We like pirates. They're interesting to us. In fact, this is for the kids. Just for the kids. And with this, I reach my quota of dad jokes for the day. Kids, do you know what is the pirate's favorite fast food? Very good, you beat me to it. Arby's, all right, so you can use that tomorrow at school. Bottom line is, thank you very much. Thank you. I appreciate that. We have an interesting relationship with pirates, but the bottom line is they were a menace, right? They were terrorists. They were a problem. Thus, on November 22nd, 1718, a British naval lieutenant named Robert Maynard, much less well-known than Blackbeard, Robert Maynard lured the Queen Anne's revenge into a trap where Blackbeard was cornered and killed. Legend has it that they did a good job, that his body was riddled with at least five musket balls and 20 lacerations with a sword. And to the delight of his men, Robert Maynard severed Blackbeard's head and fixed it to a mast on his ship. In order to warn any other would-be pirates, this is what the price is for piracy. And also to encourage all of those people along those coastal regions that Blackbeard was indeed dead. And in fact, this was kind of a common practice to hang visibly pirates that had been captured and killed so as to warn other, again, would-be pirates and encourage those that had been terrorized by them. And you might be saying to yourself right now, Dustin, what in the world does this have to do with Galatians 3? Well, let's see together. Allow your eyes to fall down on Galatians 3 and let's be reminded of what we saw last week in verses 1-9 as we saw Paul appeal to their experience, their own experience of conversion and also the experience of looking back to the Old Testament and seeing the figure Abraham to prove again that God has always and only ever saved people on the basis of his grace being applied to those who received it merely in faith. It is grace alone through faith alone in the provision of God alone. So you know your text, verse nine, Paul says, so then those who are of faith, are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. We receive the blessing of Abraham, the promise of the dwelling of God, the forgiveness of sins, the adoption into the family of God on the basis of faith alone. To say it a different way, no one has ever earned their salvation. You cannot Friend, you cannot earn your salvation. You cannot present a resume to God that he will accept and say, wow, you've done great. You've done great. Therefore, I forgive you and welcome you into my family. You cannot earn your salvation, but that doesn't mean that many haven't tried. In fact, If you were to ask the question to the majority of the world, the question, if you were to stand before God and he were to say, why should I let you into heaven? Most would begin with, well, I, I'm not as bad as, or I have done, I've checked certain boxes. I have been good enough. to earn status with you. Certainly I don't deserve punishment. I don't deserve hell." So the question is this, what happens to those who seek to earn their righteousness? What happens to those who at the end of the day are actually trusting in themselves? and the things that they have done to compile a list of credits that they would offer God. The question is, how does that go? I think what Paul asked in the section that we're gonna look at this morning is really this question. Do you know what you're signing up for? Those of you that think you are going to earn your righteous standing, Those of you that think that getting circumcised or checking certain religious boxes will gain you access to God, do you actually know what you are signing up for? And I think that's the tone. That's the tone that you and I need to study this text with. Do you really know what you're signing up for? As I thought about this, I thought about maybe like a quasi-lazy high school boy who kind of looks up from his video game to say, I'm definitely gonna be a Navy SEAL. Right? Bro, like I'm pretty good at Fortnite. And someone saying to them, do you actually know what it takes to become a Navy SEAL? Do you understand? Thus Paul's question, I think for us this morning, puts matters into perspective. If you choose to build a case for your own righteousness, here's what you're signing up for. Number one, understand this morning, you're signing up to do the impossible. You were signing up to do the impossible. Allow your eyes to fall to your text, verse 10. Paul says here, for it is written, cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. Allow your eyes to go to verse 12. He says, the law is not of faith rather, The one who does them shall live by them. It's the one who performs that can get access to life via the law. Or verse 10, everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. It's about activity. It's about performance. If you opt for the route via law, what is Paul saying? You gotta do it all. You have to keep it all. So thus, his argument includes the possibility, hypothetically, the possibility that one could actually earn their righteous standing before God. In fact, I remember a professor saying to us one time, if you loved as you should, you could be perfect. In that statement, he was summarizing the whole of the 10 commandments. The first four of which include our actions toward God. He was saying, if you loved God as you should, you would be perfect before him. The latter six of the 10 commands in relationship to our horizontal relationships with other people. If we loved other people as we should, we could theoretically be perfect. But Paul's point here is to say, You gotta do it all. If you opt for this route, if you think that your standing before God has anything to do with you, guess what that equates to? Friends, it equates to the necessity of perfection. You've got to be perfect. Again, see that in the text, verse 10, all things perfect. all things and do them, verse 12, it's only the one that performs that lives via the law. My kids love Dude Perfect. They love Dude Perfect. And I like Dude Perfect too, they're pretty cool. My kids love those guys though. And the name's ironic, Dude Perfect. Several years ago, we kind of, me and my kids, got into a little bit of a thing where we were trying to make our own trick shots and we called ourselves Dude Almost Perfect. And it was interesting because you can sort of put together an illusion of perfection. You watch some of their videos, The Real Dude Perfect, and it's impressive, right? It's like trick shot after trick shot, like impossible shot after impossible shot, and they're just making them all. And it's impressive, right? But the name's ironic because they are actually far from perfect, all right? Far from perfect. In fact, when my kids and I, when we were doing this, there were literally Saturdays in which at the end of the day, I would like delete, scroll through and delete, literally, you guys think I'm exaggerating, you can ask my boys, literally hundreds of videos that deleted off my phone. like three second videos, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, miss, looking for that one moment in which we could say, dude, perfect. That was awesome, right? The illusion of perfection. It's an ironic name. As you think about this concept of righteousness before God, I think it's important to understand that We're talking about a righteousness that the law requires that is commensurate with God. This is what he's getting at. This is not a righteousness that is sort of relative to your peers. There are people that you could look at their life and say, you know what? I don't think I've ever seen that person sin. Perhaps it is possible for someone to keep the law, for someone to be righteous, have a righteous record, but here's the reality. And I trust that all of us would acknowledge this this morning. The reality is that if you looked at the sort of camera roll of their life, you'd have to go through and delete hundreds and hundreds of videos in order to present an illusion of perfection. We are not anywhere near the requirements of the law. The requirements of the law are great. In fact, my favorite way to explain this, I don't think I've done this here, but I will likely use this illustration a couple more times in the next 20 years, Lord willing. And I think it's helpful. My favorite way to like conceptually understand what the law actually demands for us is to think about the distance between New York Harbor and Scotland. Think about this with me for a moment. and all the water between New York Harbor and Scotland as like the righteous requirements of the law. That's like 300, excuse me, 3,000 miles worth of water. And just imagine a few fellas like bobbing in New York Harbor. The law demands this. If you want to satisfy its demands, present to God your own righteousness as a way in which he should accept you and declare you forgiven and righteous, you need to swim from New York, unaided, swim from here to Scotland. And I think Paul's question for us here in Galatians 3 is this, how's that going to go? How's that going to go? So maybe one guy in the harbor is like terrible swimmer. All he can do is doggy paddle. He goes down pretty quick. Maybe there's another guy in the harbor. He's one of those guys that goes to the Y every week and swims laps. And he's pretty decent swimmer. He gets out like a few hundred yards maybe, but then he, what? He goes down and maybe Michael Phelps is in the harbor. Greatest swimmer ever. But how far does he get? Maybe a few miles, maybe, and he goes down. And here's the point. If you zoom out so that you can see New York Harbor in Scotland, and each of those guys has like one of those GPS trackers on a little blue blinking light. What it actually looks like is that all three of them are down in New York Harbor. Like they haven't really even left the station. They're nowhere near Scotland. Nowhere near it. This is the point that Paul is making. If you want to take the route, opt for the route of keeping the law yourself or adding to faith with works of law, you've got to keep it all. But the only thing the law does, friends, from this perspective, the only thing the law does from this perspective of trying to earn salvation is damn you. That's all it does. It brings damnation upon us. The point is that we drown, all of us. Every single one of us drown beneath the righteous requirements of the law. And this brings a second reality into the picture. To rely upon the works of law to save your soul is like signing up to do the impossible and then suffer the consequences. to do the impossible, but then suffer the consequences of not keeping it. The consequence of drowning beneath the righteous requirements. Well, how does the text point this out? It points this out to us through the language of curse. Again, allow your eyes to fall to your text. And you'll notice that the word curse is used five times. Five times here, verses 10 through 14. And notice how clear he is, verse 10, how clear he is about this. He says, all who rely, all who are attached to the works of law are under a curse. So not only are you not going to be blessed, not only are you not going to keep it, understand that if this is the route you take, and again, for the Galatian people, this is real. This is real. And I trust this morning, through the preaching of the word, it will be real for our hearts as well. But they were literally flirting with this and Paul is going, if you opt for this route, you are opting for the curse. Now this language should shock us. I fear that sometimes we read the Bible in a bit of a muted way. Okay? Sometimes we read stuff that should shock us and it just doesn't. And so we need a little help to understand it. Can you guys just imagine with me that you're trying to purchase something and you're sitting before a loan officer and they do that thing where they're like, we need to run your credit real quick. Can you imagine that? And the loan officer says to you, if it's like North of 700, you're good, you qualify. But if it's South of 700, you are under a curse. Can you imagine that? How would you feel? Are you guys with me? You guys tracking with me? How would you feel? That would be bad, right? You would be like, can I walk out right now? I don't really want to purchase anything anymore. All right, think about the language. The language of curse should shock us. So what is Paul talking about? Like what kind of voodoo is Paul talking about with this language of curse? Actually, Paul is simply quoting the Old Testament. I'm gonna put this on the screen for you, but Paul is quoting the Old Testament, specifically Deuteronomy chapter 27. I'm gonna show you several slides, so track with this. And as we read this text, ask yourself the question, why is Paul bringing this into the equation here? Deuteronomy chapter 27 and verse 26, and then going into chapter 28, verse one, God says, cursed be anyone who does not confirm the words of this law by doing them. And all the people shall say, amen. And if you faithfully Obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today. The Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you. They will flood over you if, it's conditional, part of the Mosaic covenant, very conditional, if you obey the voice of the Lord your God. So what do you have here? You have here Paul quoting the Old Testament where God is giving to his people the law before they were going to enter into the promised land and these statements of blessing and cursing. These are the two options. It's like Israel, if you follow me and observe all of the commands that I'm giving to you, I will flood you with blessings. However, if you turn away, If you disregard me and disregard my word, it will bring curse upon you. He continues to say these things in Deuteronomy chapter 30. Here God says, see, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil. Again, continue to see this sort of competing contrast that's so evident in Galatians 3. It's life and good, it's death and evil. If you obey the commandments of the Lord, your God, that I command you today by loving the Lord, your God, by walking in his ways and by keeping his commandments and his statutes and his rules, then you shall live. But if your heart turns away and you will not hear, but are drawn away to worship other gods and serve them, I declare to you today that you shall surely perish. I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse." Okay. So why does Paul quote this? Think about this. In a text where he is arguing with all he's got to say, if you opt to try to obey in order to be accepted, you will be cursed. Why does he show this? Friends, he shows this to them for one reason, because Israel didn't keep it. Guys, watch me. Israel, even though they said, and there's actually some humorous passages. These are just examples of numerous passages. One of our staff members pointed me this week to Joshua 24, in which all of this is kind of repeated by Joshua before the people, before they go into the promised land, right? Right before they enter. You guys agreed to do this? And they say, yes, we agree, we're in. And Joshua was like, no, you don't. The reason, guys, watch me. The reason why Paul points them to the law and to these moments with God and Israel is because Israel did not keep the law, not even for like five minutes. In Joshua, there were people that were standing before him as he read this law and offered to them these two paths. Like if you follow God, if you obey him, he will bless you. If you don't, he will bring curse upon you. You will be taken into captivity. Like put away your idols. Will you do it? And there were people there in Israel, literally with idols in their own tents going, yes, sir, we will do it. We will keep the law. The reason, friends, the reason that Paul points them to this, in this moment, is to show them a living example, a living, breathing example of this fact. No one has ever done it, save one. No mere human has ever kept the law of God. Israel is a beautiful example, actually, of the fact that we don't keep it. If our relationship with God is fundamentally established and maintained by our works or by our faithfulness to him, we're hopeless. Friends, we die. We are under the curse. Thus, Paul wants us to understand this morning the reality of the situation. the reality that if you opt to sort of present your righteousness or the things that you have done, your faithfulness to God as the reason why he should embrace you and accept you, you need to understand you're signing up to do the impossible and suffer the consequences. You're signing up to come underneath the curse. It's life and death, friends. It's life and death. So maybe to put it another way, the only thing your good works can do for you in terms of justification is damn you. If you're reliant upon them, all they can do is damn you. They cannot heal you. They cannot help you before God. So the question is, this morning, what are you trusting? What are you relying upon? Or perhaps better, who are you relying upon? So I gave you this sort of standard question a few moments ago, depicting God saying, why should I let you into heaven? And I said, most people throughout the world will answer this in some way to say, because I, because I've been faithful enough, or I've done this or that, thus God should embrace me. Consider these potential responses. Because I've tried my best. I've made a decent go at being a good person. I'm not, certainly not like so-and-so. That's potentially one option. A second option, because I believe in God and try to do his will. I believe and work, or maybe a third option, because I believe with all my heart. I think Tim Keller helpfully notes this. With those three responses, answer number one is very simply salvation by works. It is an attempt to save one's self. Answer number two, though, is salvation by faith plus works. Kind of what the Galatian people were doing. Answer number three is salvation by faith as a work. Like I'm holding on hard enough, or I have repented hard enough. Right? Faith as a word, but Keller helpfully notes in each case, the person is religious, but not righteous. Why? Because there has not been a real trust transfer. Okay, so I want to illustrate this with these two chairs. Right? And I hope that you will resonate with this and remember this. Basically what this text is presenting to us are two options. Okay, two options. This chair represents me relying upon myself. Now there's a couple of ways in which I can sit in this chair. I could sit in this chair as a complete rebel. I could sit here this morning and say essentially like, you know what? I do believe that God exists, but I don't really want him to be God over me. Like I want to do my own thing. I like my own way. I think I'm doing pretty well in my life on my own. I'm good. I don't really want God. I definitely don't want his rules over my life. And so I'm going to go my own way and I'll deal with the consequences. Okay, that's one way to sit in this seat. Another way is to sit in this seat as a sincerely religious person, but reliant upon what I have offered, reliant upon the things that I have done. Like when that question's asked, okay, why should I let you into heaven? The person in this seat is sort of searching their heart and life for the things that they have done. Right? The things that they could offer to say, God, here's why you should definitely save me. And here's the reality of this text. My friends, hear this. The reality that this text is bringing to us is simply this. This chair is death. You can sit in it. You can go your own way as a kind of rebel. You can say, you know what? YOLO, right? You only live once. I'm gonna do my own thing. You can do that, but this chair is death. In this, if you're hearing this for your own heart, understand that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. So God is unafraid to give to you real language that could shock us. Curse, really? How can we say that God is good? Well, because he's given you good news. So if you're in this chair right here, understand that God is coming to you today saying, you don't have to sit here. But I'm gonna tell you the end of this path is death. Okay, this chair is death. But the more insidious view is to think I'm gonna sit in this chair based upon my own merit. I do believe that God is real. I do believe he's real. I do believe that I will stand before him one day. I do believe that he's going to create a new heaven and a new earth. But to this point, I'm trusting in what I've done. I'm searching my life and my mind for the things that I've done to offer to him. God is, through this text, saying this chair is death. But here's the good news. Brothers and sisters, the good news is you don't have to stay here. Boy, that was a great spot for an amen. You don't have to stay here. There's another chair. Do you know why? Do you know why? You do. But think about it in terms of this text. The reason there's another chair is because someone else actually did the impossible and suffered the consequences that he didn't deserve for you. Amen is right. Praise the Lord. There's a second chair because of what Jesus did. But don't just hear me on this. See it in the text. So beautiful. Notice your text. And what Jesus has done, verse 12, but the law is not of faith, rather the one who does them shall live by them. But, verse 13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone who's hanged on a tree so that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith. Friends, this morning, you have a better offer than that first chair. And that might be the understatement of the century. You have a better offer than that chair because Christ signed up to do the impossible. If you can go back to that previous illustration, Jesus got in in New York Harbor and swam it. He came up on a beach in Scotland, not even breathing. Isn't that good? He wasn't even winded. He swam it with ease. He's not like you and I. He's amazing, the divine Son of God. He swam it for you. He kept the law. And I think you can see that in this text. Note it here that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming. One of the things that you notice here is that this indicates a choice. In other words, Jesus was not under the curse or under the consequences of the law because he sinned. He was under the curse or came underneath the consequences of the law by choice, by choice. He swam it for us. He kept the law in every way to every letter. So he did not deserve to die. He did not deserve to come underneath the curse, but he chose it. He chose to become a sort of emblem of the curse. You know the statement, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree. Understand that this is another quotation from Deuteronomy. It's very interesting when you think about this statement, cursed is everyone that is hanged on a tree. It's a quotation from Deuteronomy and a law that God had given to his people in relation to a common practice. The common practice was that someone that was a notorious criminal likely stoned because of their criminal acts. That person was often then their body fixed to a tree or fixed to a pole as an object of shame. To demonstrate for all passers-by, this is the reality of the law. This is the end of a criminal enterprise. In fact, one commentator put it this way, when a criminal was fixed to a stake or hanged on a tree, it was a symbol of his divine rejection. God is rejecting that criminal. Another commentator put it this way, in order to brand them with peculiar shame, they hung the bodies on a tree and such malefactors were accursed, visibly, publicly cursed by the law. Thus, this is a picture of divine rejection. It's a disgraceful end of a person who's lived a disgraceful life before the holy law of God and it's uncomfortable, isn't it? It's gruesome to think about walking past that. It's horrific but it's also real. And it's especially real in this text when we understand that the one affixed to the pole was who? is Jesus, like a common criminal, raised up on a tree as the object of shame, as the object of divine rejection. God the Father saying, I pour out upon him the shame and reproach, the curse that rightfully belongs to us. It all went on Jesus. Thus, Jesus, brothers and sisters, hear me, Jesus was hung on a pole like a common criminal, like Blackbeard. Not because he earned it. Not because he terrorized anyone. He was despised and rejected of men while simultaneously being perfect, holy, righteous, the divine son of God. But because he hung on that pole by choice and suffered the consequences for our sin, became the object of divine rejection, an object of open shame, he opened up another chair, my friends. He opened up another chair so that you and I could get out of one and get into the other. So as I conclude this morning, guys track with this. What Paul is calling us to throughout this entire chapter, he's calling us to renounce any reliance upon ourselves, renounce it, repudiate it, turn away from it, get up out of this chair and sit in another. Watch me, not straddle it like it's somehow this combo effort. It's me and God. It's not you and God. If it's you and God, you're in this chair and you're destined for death. So repentance, Guys, hear me. Repentance is fundamentally turning from your own trust in anything else to save you, to sit in the chair that represents Christ. It is to trust in Christ alone. In fact, one more exegetical note. This is so good. If you note your text, verse 10, and if you're reading the ESV, you'll note that it says, all who rely on the works of the law. My study, I found that the word rely is actually supplied there. The original actually is very closely akin to how Jesus talks about I am that I am. It's an identity statement. And this is helpful, I think, for us here. You can either be, guys, you can either be identified with yourself, your own path or your own righteousness, your own way or your own works, or you can be identified with Christ alone. And the gospel, the good news that's coming to us this morning that came to the Galatian people through Paul, the good news is you don't have to sit in that chair. So repent, in other words, get out of it. Turn from that chair to rest, to trust, to be identified solely and completely by Christ. And those who are, they are indwelt by the Spirit of God. They have life. Thus the promise of Abraham. In your text, the promise of Abraham comes to those. They are forgiven. They are declared righteous. and they get to dwell with God. For God wants to dwell with his people. It's phenomenal, amen? Phenomenal. So, friend, do not sit in that seat. Do not go your own way. I plead with you this morning, do not go your own way. The end is death. But do not this morning, do not think that you've done anything that you could offer as a reason why God should save you. You're in the harbor, bro. You're in the harbor. You're nowhere near Scotland. You need to trust in Jesus. And if you do, he's amazing. Amen? He will hold you fast. Let's pray. God, thank you so much for your great grace. Thank you so much for the truth of your gospel. I pray that your people would hear it this morning and hear it well. we might understand. Father, I pray that there would be someone today that would renounce their own righteousness and just trust in you. I pray that there would be many today that would look to you and live either for the first time will live in a way that they are worshiping with hearts that are full, amazed that you were willing to be hung on a cross like a common criminal, that we might be given life. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Jesus, for what you've done. It's in your name that we pray.