Let's pray together. God, thank you so much for your word. Thank you so much for the continuity that we see in it. That there are things you spoke some 4,000 years ago that are as relevant today as they were back then. And every day between that day and this, you have kept your promise. We are so thankful. So God, I pray that you would help us to see more clearly your trustworthiness as we look at your word, as we marinate our minds into your promise. And as we see more clearly, God, I pray that you would help us to feel more deeply about how truly great you are. You are amazing in every way and I pray that this reality of who you are would infiltrate our heart and get down into our legs and into our hands, that it would move us to be different and to be filled with joy. And we'll thank you and praise you for what you do as we declare our dependence upon you and your spirit for this time to understand and to apply. It's in Jesus' name that we pray, amen. Amen, if you will take your Bibles and go with me to Galatians chapter three. Galatians chapter three. Literally this week I was talking with a friend of mine who told me about, true story, about his great-grandfather and how his great-grandfather was uber wealthy. I mean like insanely wealthy, but that when he passed and the will was read, it was found that he did not leave anything to his kids. He left it all, like every bit of it, to charity. And I just began to think to myself, like, can you imagine being a fly on the wall at the reading of that will? Can you imagine that? Perhaps they came sauntering in, wondering which house they were going to get, or what sum they were going to walk away with, and all of them left with nothing. It was disappointing, undoubtedly. And I can imagine that there were numerous sort of desperate attempts to talk to attorneys and talk to a judge to say, isn't there anything we can do? And hearing them say, no, the will has been written and ratified and now read, it's final. Question, how would that feel? How would that feel? With that, let's look at our text this morning, Galatians chapter three, and we'll begin reading in verse 15. Galatians chapter three and verse 15. To give a human example, brothers, pause. What should we ask as good students of the text? What should we ask when we read that line? To give a human example. We should ask an example of what, right? An example of what? And the answer to that question is that Paul is giving an example of the facts of the gospel. Namely, that there's only one way to be saved. We've been rehearsing this over and over, but it behooves us to rehearse it again. There is only one way to be saved, and that is by trusting in what Christ has done for you. Salvation, brothers and sisters, again, is a gift that must be received. It is not something that is a status to be earned, right? Or a destination to be reached. It is a gift, a simple gift. And in chapter three, we've seen Paul rehearse this truth. In a number of ways, if you allow your eyes to glance down at your text once more, you'll see that in verses one through five, there are a series of questions where Paul is saying, guys, think about your own testimony. Think about your own experience as a Christian. Did you receive the spirit of God because you earned him? You built up enough credit so that God sort of rewarded you with a righteous standing and rewarded you with the spirit of God? Of course not. You understand by your own experience that salvation is a gift, plain and simple. But also think about the testimony of God in the Old Testament with regard to Abraham, verses six through nine. Abraham's testimony is like irrefutable evidence that we are saved by faith. Abraham simply believed God, and the text tells us that God declared him righteous as a result. Salvation is offered free of charge. It's a gift to be received. Lastly, we see in this text, verses 10 through 14, that Paul encourages us to think long and hard about trying to earn your salvation, because actually what you're doing is signing up to do the impossible and suffer the inevitable consequences of that. No one can actually keep the law. No human being, no mere human being could ever keep the law of God. The law requires perfection, something that you and I could never do, but praise God, Jesus did it, amen? Jesus did it. He did it for us so that he might offer us salvation. According to promise, salvation free, totally and completely free. Thus, God saves people. on the basis of his grace received in faith alone. Totally separate, totally separate from the works of law. In fact, if you note your text phrases like verse 10, Paul says, if you are under the law, if you're leaning into the law, you're actually under a curse. You are under a curse. But Paul knows something. He is very well aware of something. He knows that when he uses statements like that, when he talks about the law of God in that way, there will be people that will protest. There will be opposition to that. And at some level, I think we can understand that it's understandable. Right? For many people in the Jewish culture, and certainly this would be the case for the Judaizers, they had arranged their whole lives around the law. Everything about their identity was related in some way to the law of God. Thus, Paul continues his argument. And as I sent to you via video on Friday, perhaps many of you have had similar questions to these guys. So what about the law? How do we understand the law in relation to the gospel? It's in light of this that Paul adds more information. And it's not redundant, my friends. There are themes that are redundant, but redundant for a reason. We need them. Okay, we need this this morning. I trust that you will give it full attention. Paul adds to his argument, verse 15. To give a human example of that, everything we've just talked about, brothers, Even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now, the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, and to offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one, and to your offspring, who is Christ. What in the world is Paul doing there? We'll get to this. Okay. But in verse 17, he sort of continues his argument from verse 15. This is what I mean. The law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul or cancel out a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise, but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. So we're gonna walk through this text together and you're gonna note with me five elements that are related to the redemptive plan of God that are all in this text. You're gonna find by the end of this message that there's a lot actually, there's a lot going on in this text. And so there are five, so if you've got a pen and paper, I actually wanna encourage you to write down these five blanks, all right? And I've written them or displayed them for you in form of timeline, because what you're gonna find in this text is that there is embedded here a kind of timeline. Certainly you can see it in verse 17, 430 years later. So there's a kind of timeline embedded here, all right? And you're gonna find that there are five elements that are presented. Well, the first one is sort of implied. By the way, if you're in high school or down, okay, high school or down, if you can guess this one, All right, a little challenge. If you can guess this one before I say it, honor system, okay? If you can guess it before I say it, I'll have some candy for you next week. You can come to my office, all right, next Sunday. I have a little candy bar for you. All right, deal? All right, if you can guess this one. These are all there, though, and we'll walk through them together. In 2016, Catherine and I had the privilege of going to Israel, and it was a tremendous privilege. We were so excited to see the sites, the biblical sites, and to immerse ourselves into the Jewish culture for a week. But we had no idea that the cultural experience would happen so quickly. We had no idea that the cultural experience of being amongst the Jewish people would actually begin on the plane. We took an overnight flight into Tel Aviv, but as morning broke, and we were kind of on our descent into Tel Aviv, as morning broke, there were at least 15 Hasidic Jews that stood up in the cabin and made their way to a certain part of the plane, and they were all decked out, right, in their garb, and they pulled out these leather straps called the tefillin. And they began to wrap them around their arm and they had these little boxes that are cited for us in the law that contain scriptures. And they began to pull those things out and read them and chant. And in fact, it was quite interesting because it all took place right around a time in which the pilot was like, everybody needs to sit down. It's a little turbulent, all right, it's time to sit down, put your seat belts on. And they just ignored the pilot. and ignored the stewardess. And they just went to their spot and they began for a while just to chant and to move back and forth and to pray. And it was an impression for sure for us about how central the law is for these people. For many of these people to hear language that Paul uses in this text about the law bringing only a curse, this would have been scandalous for them. Just think about this. In a very real way, the law had been a kind of defining attribute or a defining characteristic for the Jewish people, setting them apart from all other nations. How can Paul talk this way about the law? This is a question that many of them would have had. Let's quote a famous movie. For many of them, they would say, we have traditions. We have laws for everything, how to eat, how to sleep, how to work, how to wear clothes. Without our traditions, without our law, our lives would be as shaky as a fiddler on the roof. I did that just for my daughter. I was doing that around the house and she loved it so much. She loved that. Right? For these people, the law was central. I say all this to say it's understandable. It's understandable at a level that they would have objections, that they would have questions about the law. In reality, you and I should have questions as well. Because if you've read the Bible at all, you've been acquainted with the fact that there is a lot of attention given to the law. Right? I mean, how many of you guys have been a part of a Bible reading program where you kind of got bogged down in Leviticus and Deuteronomy and all of the meticulous explanation of the law, right? There's a lot of material there, a lot. So how can Paul downplay it? These are legitimate questions. And by the way, questions that you and I need to be prepared to answer. So the bottom line question is, how should we understand the relationship between the law and the gospel? Friends, how should we understand the relationship between the law of God and the gospel of God? Well, Paul helps us in this text And I think if you want to consider a thesis by saying this, the promise, brothers and sisters, understand that the promise is king. The promise is king and the law is its servant. Okay, if I can reflect that with this little emblem. The promise is king and the law is merely its servant. The promise is king. Well, how so? Well, first of all, because the promise is indeed first. The promise is first. The promise is the OG, as it were, the original. Relative to the law, the promise in the Abrahamic covenant is first and foundational. As I said to you a moment ago, There is a kind of timeline embedded in this text. And certainly in verse 17, you can see that there. The law didn't come until 430 years after God made this promise, this seminal promise to Abraham, right? And this timeline is significant for Paul because he continues to show us that people were saved, namely Abraham. Got his track with this logic. People were saved, namely Abraham, way before the law was ever given. So how can the law, I mean, this is a question to put back to the Judaizers, how can the law be a part of our salvation if God was already saving people before the law was ever given? This is important for Paul, and it's important for us as well. By definition, the law was subordinate. to God's way of salvation, it was not by itself God's way of salvation. The law is supportive. So the promise was first and foundational. But I'm going to mark it on this board for us here in this block, which might look a little weird to you, but it'll make sense later, all right? And again, kids, you get that first blank honor system, come see me. I'll give you some candy. Your parents will love it. They will love that. The promise is king, first of all, because it's first. And this is important in the text. And again, as this logic unfolds, you'll see it. It's first. Secondly, the promise is final. The promise is final. In other words, it cannot be canceled. It cannot be changed. It cannot be altered in any way. It cannot be rejected. Why? Because the promise has been ratified. The promise that God made to Abraham will stand. We've sung about that today. The promise made to Abraham will stand. So note your text, verse 15, Paul says here to give a human example, brothers, even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. So Paul is saying, even with your own sort of normal human understanding of a covenant or a last will and testament, you know that once it's been ratified, even though on a human level, it might be fraught with errors, once it's been ratified, it can't be changed. It's not changeable, it's not alterable. In fact, I've experienced this in my own life, in my own family. I've seen a will that was fraught with mistakes, right? Misunderstandings, misconceptions, and the bottom line is you just gotta deal with it. Right? You have to deal with the facts that are spelled out and then ratified, okay, sealed as it were, by the law. Right? Once it's been ratified, can't be changed. So, Paul's argument is simply this. If we understand this at a human level, that a covenant that's been ratified can't be changed, even though it's fraught with errors, how much more so? A covenant that was initiated, drafted, signed, sealed, ratified by God. That covenant, that contract, that testament cannot be altered. It cannot be changed in any way. Thus, by definition, the law must be its servant. The promise is king. Moreover, there's something else implied here in this understanding that the promise is final, and it's something we'll get into more next week, and that is this, that the law is also temporary. The promise, brothers and sisters, and this is so beautiful, the promise is eternal. The promise and its effects What are the things that are brought, the freight carried by promise? This is eternal in consequence. The law is only temporary. The law has served its purpose. Thus, again, brothers and sisters, the promise is king because it was first. Secondly, because it is final. Thirdly, the promise is free. The promise is free. It is here that we find the fundamental difference between law and promise. The fundamental difference between law as the Judaizers wanted to use it and the promise or the gospel, the promise was free. It is unconditional. So think with me back to the book of Genesis and to Genesis 12, 13, 15, 17, 22. Think about when God specifically chapters 12 and 15 comes to Abraham out of the blue. Let me ask you a question. What did God ask Abraham to do? It's good. It's good that you're quiet. Because in this promise, God does not ask Abraham to do anything except belief. God does not ask Abraham to do anything except take him at his word. To simply trust that this God who'd come to him out of the blue to give him these glorious and seemingly miraculous promises, God just asked Abraham to trust him. to take him at his word, to simply believe. Friends, there are no commands. This is so important. There are no commands attached to promise. It is unconditional that when God comes to Abraham, he says, I'm going to, Abraham, bless you, I'm gonna bless your socks off no matter what you do. Now think about that. That sounds a bit risky to us, doesn't it? But that's exactly what God does. And friends, this is another in a litany of examples in the Bible of God's amazing grace. Amen? God's amazing grace. He's like, Abraham, I'm just gonna bless you. You and your descendants, I'm gonna bless you no matter what you do. It is free, friends. So the Mosaic Covenant is very different, right? Very different. The Mosaic Covenant comes to the people of Israel as a whole some 430 years after the promise is given. And God says from Mount Sinai, obey and you will live. Okay, act, be faithful, and you'll experience a life in the promised land. You'll experience my presence with you and my blessing will be upon you. And again, the people of Israel said in that moment, we will, we will obey. We will follow through. But what did they do? They went back on it. And so, in the Mosaic Covenant, you find a condition. Thus, the law is very different, again, than the promise. The law reflected here is conditional. There are conditions attached to it. Obey and you will live. Whereas the promise, no conditions. It comes to Abraham and to Abraham's offspring by grace. God is just saying, I'm going to do this. I'm going to bless you. In fact, if you can recall the scripture that was just beautifully read to us this morning, you understand that in Genesis chapter 15, when God ratifies the covenant he made with Abram in Genesis 12, he actually puts Abraham to sleep. This is so cool. We're not going to go there now, but you should go there later and just reread that text. after the animals are brought and the ratification ceremony is sort of set up, God puts Abraham in a deep sleep. And then as we heard read, this sort of smoking pot of fire that is symbolic of the presence of God comes down and moves through those parted animals in a way to say, God, I, God am self-binding in this covenant. I am ratifying this covenant unilaterally. Abraham's not in this. He just gets the benefits of it. Abraham's snoozing. He's over there asleep, right? So there are no conditions related to promise. It is simply free. Thus, Can you guys track with this? The promise is king, amen? The promise is king. It was first, it is final, it is free. And then lastly, I want you to understand that it is full. It is full. Go with me to verse 18 for a moment. In connection with the fact that it's free, And then transitioning to the fact that it's full, see what God says in verse 18. If the inheritance comes by law, it no longer comes by promise. If the inheritance comes by law, again, we're getting at this fundamental distinction between promise and law, between law and gospel. One is unconditional, the other is very much conditional. So Paul says very simply and very plainly, verse 18, it can't be both. Salvation cannot simultaneously be something that is earned or a gift. It's one or the other. It's either a simple gift to be received or it's something that is earned. It's not both. And then he makes it plain, doesn't he? Look at that last phrase, verse 18. But see for yourself, guys, look at your text. But God gave it to Abraham by a promise. So I think it's beautiful that Paul is saying here effectively, guys, you can argue. You can argue amongst yourselves about what you think God should have done. With regard to the law, you can argue about what you think God should have done. I'm telling you what God did. He gave to us salvation, redemption, and an inheritance by promise. And it's not by law. It is a gift. It is not a wage. Thus, this promise is full. What's some new language that you find in verse 18? Friends, what is a new word that we encounter in verse 18? Yeah, the new word here is inheritance. This is fascinating. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it doesn't come by promise, but indeed it does come because God gave it by promise. So I'm gonna mark inheritance down here. Now this is beautiful, my friends, it's beautiful because as we will see in this text, you and I get to be included, included in this beautiful full inheritance. Friends, I say it's full because it's not an empty promise. It is not an empty promise at all. It's full of blessing. It's a cup, friends, that overflows, first of all, because it is fulfilled in Christ. This whole thing is pointing toward one person. It's pointing toward Christ. Now we come to verse 16. So allow your eyes to go there and we'll wade through this interesting language that Paul gives us. Verse 16, now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, and to offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one and to your offspring, singular, who is Christ. So I think we understand very simply what Paul is doing with this. He's pointing all of these promises to one person. that we find our yes and amen in Christ. Amen? But what is he doing with regard to how? What is he doing with the text in Genesis? For this particular language of into your offspring is found throughout Genesis 12, 13, 15, 17, and 22. And the natural reading of this text is to understand that this is a collective singular. That's the natural reading, meaning that God says offspring, singular, but obviously, naturally referring to many, to Abraham's many descendants. Added to that are statements like, Abraham, your descendants will actually be numbered like the stars of the sky, right? So a natural, normal understanding of those texts in Genesis would lead us to conclude this is not just referring to one, but to many. So how can Paul say this in verse 16? That no, actually it's not a reference to many. It's a reference to one, namely to Christ. Well, Please understand, first of all, that Paul is not bending the text. He's not playing fast and loose with the text. He's not just going back to the Old Testament and bending it to make it mean whatever he wants it to mean. It's not what Paul is doing at all. What Paul is doing is consistent with the new covenant. What Paul knows is that in the redemptive plan of God, there is a sense in which all of this points to one person. And in fact, even in context, guys trace this, even in context, though, There is the use of the collective singular much like you and I would say there's a crowd here in the singular, but obviously referring to many. There is also a sense as the redemptive plan of God unfolds that it does refer just to one and we've read of one this morning. Genesis chapter 15, for perhaps you will remember as our sister read, that Abraham in chapter 15 is waiting on the fulfillment of the promise and then in that moment sort of offers up his descendant or his heir, not literally his physical descendant, but his heir in his household at that point was a man by the name of Eliezer. And so at the beginning of chapter 15, Abraham is like, is he the heir? Is he the seed? And what does God say? No, it is not Eliezer. Later, moreover, it is not Ishmael. That would be a representation of a promise that's fulfilled by works. That Abraham is sort of making it happen. This whole promise is anchored in the grace of God. Thus, chapter 15, God says to Abraham, no, it is going to come through you. So it is not Eliezer or Ishmael, it is Isaac that is the son of promise. A little bit later, what do you find in the redemptive story? It is Jacob and not Esau. So it is Isaac, not Eliezer or Ishmael. It is Jacob and not Esau. Ultimately, it is Christ. So although it is a collective singular, Paul is understanding something. He's seeing something there in the Old Testament that God is always, always narrowing it in some sense to say, it's all pointing towards one descendant, one offspring, and that will be Jesus. And I think Paul knows something else. I think he also knows that there is a beautiful promise that is, if you will, a kind of prequel. Though this is the OG, this is the promise that is first, there was a kind of prequel in Genesis chapter 3 and verse 15, where God says, as he delivers the curse, to Satan in this moment, says, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring. Note the text, it's singular, your offspring and her offspring. Is this a collective? Not in this case. Note the very next pronoun, he, your offspring, which of course will include many descendants. But God has one in mind, amen? God has one in mind, her offspring, he, Jesus, shall bruise your head. Satan, serpent, your head's gonna be crushed, not necessarily by a nation. Your head's gonna be crushed by a person, by Jesus Christ, the Son of God. And God's people said? Amen, and so I'm not gonna write this whole word, but if you wrote down proto-evangelium, you get candy, all right? I think Paul knows this, and he's building on this redemptive thread, proto-evangelium, and of course, the offspring is Christ. In this whole thing, Paul is building a bridge from Genesis to Jesus, from the promise to Christ that leads to an inheritance that is eternal, okay? And so in this timeline, the point is very simple. The law, which comes 430 years later, is not canceling out this promise. It is only serving it. The promise is king. The promise is king. The law is its servant. Thus, in this, we understand that Jesus is the point Amen? Jesus is the point of the whole thing. He is the one it was all pointing to. Jesus is the ultimate one seed, the ultimate one offspring. Thus, you and I can rejoice today in one deliverer, one mediator, one judge, one prophet, one priest, one king, one Messiah, one savior. It is Jesus. It is Jesus. So it was fulfilled in Christ and it is being fulfilled in us. For we are heirs to this. Now, we're gonna look at this a little bit more next week, but I couldn't help but go here this morning. So if you're in Galatians chapter three, allow your eyes to fall down to the end of the text, verse 28, excuse me, verse 26 and following. And just be prepared in your heart to rejoice at this language, having understood that the promise points to Jesus. He's the ultimate seed. He's the ultimate offspring. Look at this text, verse 26. For in Christ Jesus, you, all those that are here trusting in Christ alone, you are all sons of God through faith. Just like Abraham. because you've taken God at His word, you recognize I've got nothing apart from Him and I'm trusting in His provision. It is by faith. Verse 27, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. You're literally clothed in Christ. You wear his righteous robes. Verse 28, there is neither Jew nor Greek. There's neither slave nor free. There's no male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. There's only one table here in Galatia. and it's the table with the centerpiece Christ. Verse 29, note this, and if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. This is crazy. Brothers and sisters, what this means is that you and I are in this picture. This is awesome. You and I are here. God predicted, Satan, I'm gonna blow you up, man. I'm gonna blow you up, and I'm gonna redeem a people. And so he comes to Abraham, Genesis 12, out of nowhere, and makes this promise. Much later, he gives the law, and you might be asking this morning, well, why did he do that? Come back next week, all right? Because today, We're understanding that the promise finds its fulfillment in Christ and an inheritance that is in him that is being fulfilled right before our very eyes. The promise is king, amen? The promise is king. It was first, it was final, it was free, and it is full, and it is phenomenal. And I know that's not an F, all right? But phonics works for me, all right? That's phonetic gold right there. It is phenomenal. It's wonderful. And you and I should celebrate the fact that we are in this picture. This inheritance in Christ comes to us by faith. Aren't you glad? Aren't you glad that God saves by faith? That there are no conditions attached. Thus, these two are different. God never intended to save via law. The whole plan from start to finish has been rooted in a promise that God has given, that God has ratified, and that God himself will keep. Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. So this promise leads us to praise, not performance. That's a big deal. So because all of this is true, you guys, we don't have to imagine a moment where we would hypothetically be listening to a will read and be disappointed. So if you will humor me, I want to close this way. Just imagine a hypothetical reading of a will and testament from God. Allow yourself to be there for a moment and hear this will and testament from the God of heaven. I am that I am and being all wise and ever of sound mind, having never acted under duress or under undue influence, always fully understanding of the nature and extent of all of my property, do hereby make, publish, and declare this document to be my will and testament, and hereby revoke any and all other so-called wills and codicils that pretend to be from me. I have no debt, and I am not dead. But I desire to share myself and my creation and all that I have with the beneficiaries listed here. I have appointed my beloved son in whom I am well pleased, Jesus Christ, to be my representative and mediator for you in the distribution of our estate. I devise and bequeath my property both real and personal and wherever situated as follows. Beneficiaries, Larry McClure, you are my son. All that I have belongs to you. Enter now into the joy of the Lord. Tessa Barron, you are my daughter. All that I have belongs to you. Enter now into the joy of the Lord. Cookie Altizer. Isn't it awesome to think about Jesus saying, Cookie Altizer? He knows who she is. I think he'll say Cookie, not Mary. Cookie Altizer, you are my daughter. All that I have belongs to you. Enter now into the joy of the Lord. And as you hear your name read, your instinct is to say, I don't deserve this. And you're exactly right. But you get it because the gospel is by promise, not law. Let's pray. God, thank you so much for your grace. Thank you so much for what you've done in Christ. This morning we're understanding that you have been over the top gracious and good to just give of yourself and your estate to people who don't deserve it, but can have it by receiving it in simple faith. Father, I thank you for helping me this week understand a little bit more why we call this gospel, why it is such good news. Father, I pray that you would continue your work in this place. That for those who are in you, that we would continue to love you and worship you as we should. And I also pray that if there are people in this room that are on the fence as to whether or not they really know you, I pray that you would make that clear. And I pray that you would adopt some more kids into your family that will share your inheritance with you. It's in Jesus' name that we pray, amen. I wanna ask you to actually just remain in your seats and bow your heads and close your eyes for a moment. We ordinarily don't do this, but we've been praying and thinking as a pastoral team that we've just spent several weeks, week after week in the book of Galatians, just laying out the raw gospel. and just feel like it's appropriate for us this morning to lay out an actual invitation. Because here's the reality. This is not automatically true for you. This is a gift, as we've said many times. We've also said many times that must be received. It is a gift that must be received in faith. And that just simply looks like renouncing.