Father, we're thankful for your word this morning. We pray that you would speak to us through it. We recognize that we are people who are slow to hear and We want to believe that we have everything already figured out. And so we're slow to learn and hard-hearted. And a lot of the time, the reason that we're that way is because we don't want to change not only what we think, but who we are. But I pray that you would work through those things for your glory this morning and break us where we need to be broken before your word. Lord I pray that you would strike us with the authority of the things that you have said to us in it this morning For your glory that's in Jesus name. We pray amen If you would please turn in your Bibles to Galatians chapter 3 and while you're turning there, I'll just Say something briefly to you Something that I thought of I had a conversation with the lady this week and it was about being a vital part of a local church. She assured me that she was a Christian, but that wasn't necessary for her to do. And it just struck me as I was studying for this lesson this morning, you know, all these epistles that Paul wrote, Galatians being the one we're studying now, he wrote to the churches at Galatia, just like he wrote to Corinth and he wrote to Ephesus and those things. And with her attitude, and I think gently, at least for me, I told her this. I said, you know, the problem with your thinking that the local church is not a priority for you is this. If you had been during the time when the scripture was written, all these letters that were written to all these churches, you wouldn't have got any of them. I think that's kind of the point. It's not that we're all good people because we gather. It's not that. It's because we're all very weak people who need to gather to hear from the Lord. Let's begin with verse 18, and I need to confess something to you. When you teach, particularly when you're doing the verse-by-verse thing and you're doing it in chunks, the issue is you need to divide things right. And when you have a time limit, sometimes that can become difficult. And when you didn't wear a watch last week in Sunday school, it becomes more difficult. So, you will note that I have purchased a watch and I will try to do better. Point being, we need to begin in verse 18. We should have gotten through verse 18 last time because it was part of the chunk that we did before. So, let's look at verse 18. We're just going to read that. We'll relate it to the things that we studied last week and then we'll go on. Galatians 3.18 For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise, but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. God gave it to Abraham by a promise. So let's relate this to what we were doing before. If you remember when we talked about this, Paul gives in verse 15 a human example of a covenant, or we talked about it being a will. And he's going to now finish some of that discussion up in 18 when he says, if this inheritance, in other words, the covenant that he made with Abraham, where there was no intermediate and there was not anyone responsible for the keeping of the covenant but God himself because he made it with himself it was not dependent on people that it should be kept but God himself made the covenant with himself so therefore It's sure, because we can depend on Him. If the covenant had been made with us, as the law was given, then it would not be sure anymore, because we would have a part in keeping it, and we don't do very good holding up our end. I think sometimes, some of you guys have done this before, but you can get the picture. When I was a little boy, my dad would have me help him String fence, barbed wire fence, right? Okay, and the way you string barbed wire fence is that you gotta roll the fencing. And you put a pipe through the middle of the roll. And one guy gets on one side of the pipe, and one guy gets on the other side of the pipe. The problem is, is if you're short, and the pipe goes like this, then you eat the world of barbed wire all the time, right? So you gotta kinda keep your end level. We're like that with the Lord, right? We can never keep the pipe level, okay? A 10-year-old kid is having to hold it like this in order to keep the pipe level and we're worse than that We just aren't able to keep our end but in verse 18 and said for if the inheritance that comes by the law is no The inheritance comes by the law. It's no longer by promise and we see that right if If even as a human example, if somebody says, all right, everybody in the world dreams of this long lost uncle somewhere that they have that they don't know about that leaves them a fortune, right? And so the thing is, he left me this fortune. Well, what Paul's saying here is if that comes by the law, in other words, if you have to do something to get the inheritance, then it's no longer a promise. But we know that inheritance does not work that way. You don't work for an inheritance. It's just something that's given to you. And so the promise of God is the same way. We either believe that it's true based on who gives it, or we don't. In the same way, let's say you probably heard this one before, but maybe some of you haven't, so it'll help. Let's say that Sheridan writes me a check for a million dollars. That would be very nice of Sheridan, right? But of course, I would have to look at the check and I would have to trust that the guy who gave me the check had the million dollars to give me. Otherwise, the check wouldn't be worth much, right? And I kind of don't think you have a million dollars. Just a guess. So, the thing is, God, when he makes a promise, when he signs his name on the dotted line, he's good for every bit of everything that he promises, right? We're not like that. So, this inheritance is not by the law. It's not by the law. You don't do anything to get it. It doesn't come by promise if you have to do something for it. And then Paul reminds us again that Abraham got it through the promise. What was the promise? Abraham, I'm going to bless you. I'm going to make a people out of you. I'm going to give you a son, and all the nations of the world are going to be blessed through you. And we studied before, this seed that's ultimately going to come from you is going to be the means that I do that by, and that's going to be the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Abraham may not have understood all of that, but those were the promises that were given to him. Nowhere in any of those promises was it, Abraham, you do this, this, and this, and then I'll come through. God had made a decision that he was going to do something, and he did it. And the law comes later, and it doesn't supersede the promise, but it does have a purpose. Now, we've covered 18, so now we're going to read our next chunk. So get in 19, and we'll just read. Why then the law, it was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made. And it was put into place through angels and by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one, 21. Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not. For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. 23. Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female. You are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring and heirs according to the promise. Alright, there's our section, so let's see if we can deal with it. And before we even get started, I'm going to put dealing with the whole thing in jeopardy, because I'm going to chase a rabbit. But I can't get away from it. I think it's important, so I'm going to do it. But hopefully I won't do it for very long. Look at verse 19. First of all, we understand that Paul now is anticipating a question that's going to be asked, right? He's written this letter to say, you guys cannot be saved by following the law. Stop trying. You can't be saved by following rules. It's not going to work. That's another gospel. That's a heresy. It's not going to happen. So he anticipates the question. Well, you've been down on the law the whole time, Paul. You've been down on the law the whole time. So if it's true that this promise comes in the same way that it came through Abraham, right? So what we've talked about before. God is holy, and we're not, and we need to be rescued by grace through faith, all those things. If that's the case, Paul, then why did God bother to give a law to start with? If you're saying it's not good for anything, then why did He give it? Well, that's a good question. We need to answer it. But before we do, I want to point something out. And this is just an overall idea in terms of the way that Paul shapes arguments and does things. He does this in Romans too. But the thing is this. He asks a question that he knows that the people that are arguing with him are going to ask. I'm on the board of Immaculate Academy, the Christian school. And in the school, oftentimes, at certain points, we have the kids debate things, right? And we actually, oftentimes, will have them pick a side on something that they don't believe, on purpose. And some of these debates can be pretty serious, right? So we can have them argue abortion rights, and we can have them argue about drug use, or gay rights, or anything like that. And the deal is that when you do that, it's their assignment to win that argument, right? So you don't get to throw it, you have to win it. You have to study it, and you have to know it, and you have to win it. Okay, the scriptural backing for that, Is the way that Paul handles this in verse 19 and also in verse 21 where he's asking these questions Is the law then contrary to the promises of God certainly not that's in 21 Paul asking the question why then the law okay Sometimes in evangelicalism my point is this Sometimes we think that the way that we should deal with everything in the world that we're against Is to treat everything like a boogeyman and a vampire and go like this And there are certainly things that we need to stay away from and not participate in. I would never argue that. But the problem is, if we don't interact with some of their ideas at some point, then when we get presented with them, they sound logical to us. And we don't have an argument because we never thought about it from the other side. Don't you realize that in this situation, Paul understands the Judaizers' argument as well or better than they themselves understand it? He has to in order to argue against it. So, what am I saying? We all have different gifts. Some of you, your gift is going to look like this. God has given you faith and you're going to believe what you believe about the scriptures and the gospel. And even though you're not going to be able to understand all of the counter arguments against it and those things, you're rock solid and you're going to stay there. And that's good, because that's your gift. But some of you are going to need to have the gift where I do understand the other side's argument. I understand the other side's argument, and I need to understand the other side's argument because I need to be able to speak to it. Paul is not telling these people, first of all, I'm not going to tell you why. You just stay away from that. Kick those Judaizers out of your house, don't have anything to do with them, and stay away from them. Okay? Now, that's what he wants, but that's not how he makes the argument. He has to go into, what have we been doing for the last two chapters? We've been trying to make the point from Scripture that, no, you guys got it wrong. Here's why. You got it wrong. Okay? He explains it to them. Alright, let's deal with the text, and we'll let the rabbit go on now. Paul asked the question, why then the law? Verse 19. The phrase after that is this, it was added because of transgressions. Was added because of sin. What does that mean? It means that the whole thing that we've been talking about, God is holy and we're not, and we need to be rescued. That's why we have law. You see, it's a matter of purpose. Paul has been saying, you can't be saved by keeping the law. That doesn't mean the law is bad. It means you're trying to use it for the wrong thing. Right? And people do that today too, even if we take it out of the Mosaic Law. Reading the Scripture, giving your money to good things, coming to services and being a part of things, and studying your Bible are all good things. They all have a purpose. If you try to do those things, and you do them for the wrong purpose, they won't benefit you. They won't help you. And this is what was happening with the Judaizers in the church at Galatia. They were using the Law for the wrong things. The law was given so that people would understand a little bit more about who God was and that sin would then become utterly sinful. It was added because of transgressions, right? People needed to understand, no, you're not just sinners. Everything that you are is an affront to a holy God. On your best day, all you would ever deserve from him, all you would ever merit from him is to go to hell immediately. That's all. On your best day, that's all you would ever get. This is the purpose of the law, and we know that that's true because of our inability to keep it. And we've talked about this before, but it's not just our inability to keep it right now, wherever we are chronologically in life, it's our inability to have ever kept it. Because we don't teach children when they grow up how to lie, and we don't teach them how to be selfish, and to steal things from the kid that's next to them because they're bigger, and all of those kinds of things, right? That's in our nature, that's who we are, and all of that stuff is in the front. And when we get older, we just polish it a little better, but we still want all those same things. So our very natures are an affront to him. This is why the law was given. At least one of the reasons. We're going to look at the other reasons in a minute. The law was given to show us transgressions until the offspring, that's Christ, should come to whom the promise had been made. The law leads us to Christ. The express purpose of the law is so that men and women will come up against it and fall down before God begging for mercy. That's the express purpose of the law. That's the big one. There are a couple of other small ones, and we may get to those in a minute. But that's the overarching big purpose. That's the purpose of the law. And we're speaking now primarily of the moral law. But everything that it took to be clean before God, that was its purpose. And what was it doing? What's its purpose? Drive us toward Christ. Drive us toward Christ. And you say, well, what about in the Old Testament? Well, in the Old Testament, it was pointing towards Christ. And what revelation they had, the idea was, I'm God. Believe what I say. God, there's giants in there. We don't think we can take them. I'm God. Believe what I say. Ultimately, to be fulfilled in Christ, who fulfills our salvation. But it's always been that way. It hasn't changed. It's still that way. OK. The last part of this thing. The offspring needs to come who the promise had been made and it was put in place talking about the law through angels and by an intermediary. Verse 20 now an intermediary implies more than one but God is one. That is a tricky bit right there. And there are about 400 ways to interpret that. And we're only going to do 293. No just kidding. I'm going to give you my best shot. That's what I'm going to do. I'm going to do it like this. We have said before, so we have this in our mind, that Abraham himself, when God gave him the promise of the covenant, what he was going to do with him, he does this in Genesis 15, and ultimately after he tells Abraham, get the animals and cut them in half, Abraham spends all day keeping the birds off the animals. And then when the night comes, God says, go to sleep. He can still see what's going on, but go to sleep. Then we have the furnace and the smoking fire pot that go through the middle of the animals making the covenant. In other words, God himself comes through and makes the covenant. Abraham doesn't even have anything to do with it, except that he witnesses it. But he's out. He has a holy tranquilizer. Now, the law at Sinai, that's different. How does that come? Well, it comes like this, right? We've got the people all down around the bottom of the mountain, right? And God says, now don't you even come near this mountain. You touch it, we'll kill you. Don't even let an animal come near this mountain. Only one who can go up on the mountain is Moses. And that's both ways, right? God made that rule, but the people wanted it that way too. They heard the thunderings from the mountains and told Moses, Moses, you go talk to God, we'll stay down here, you go tell, you come back and tell us what he said, because we don't want anything to do with that. So that came both ways. So who was, there was an intermediate, right? The intermediate was Moses. Moses himself. God spoke his law to Moses, but not to the people. very different than Abraham. You say, well, he's one man plus one man. No, Abraham was a federal head of all of the people who would be able to have this promise, and God spoke to him like a friend. But God didn't speak to these people. He spoke to Moses. He said, you go tell them. You go tell them. Now, the other thing here is it's put in place through angels and an intermediary. Well, I'm going to say that Moses is the intermediary, so what am I going to do with the angels piece? I don't know, but here's what I think. The angels marvel at the gospel. We find that in scripture. They marvel at the gospel, right? That this holy God, who they've been with since they've been created, and we don't know how far back that is, but a long way back, throughout all these eons of time that he somehow wants to have anything to do with us. These decorated balls of dirt right. So these angels are confused about this and not only that then when they see that God himself comes down to be one of us. This just shocks them. It's not something that they're able to get a handle on at all. And the angels watch the people of God to look at God's work because this is something that they don't understand. Angels, by their nature, everybody talks a lot about angels and it's Cupid playing his heart sitting on a cloud. I can assure you that's not an angel. If you saw one, and some people did in scripture, you would It's greater than anything that you would ever think. You would think it was God. You would fall down yourself. This is not angels. Well, so the angels marvel at the gospel, right? They don't marvel so much at the law. They're kind of a part of that. Why would they not marvel at the law? Because all the law is doing is reflecting God's holy character anyway. So everything that God says that all these people should act like or be like in order to fulfill all of his righteous requirements, the angels are not going to have any problem with that because they understand how holy God is. There are two of them right next to him. And all they do all day long is sing holy, holy, holy. And they've got wings created for the express purpose of covering their eyes because even as powerful as the angels are, they can't look at him. All right, that's all I got. It's the best I can do. This one has been debated for years and years, and I don't want to hang up on it anymore, except in verse 20 we need to say this intermediary that implies more than one, but God is one. I think it's referring right back to the promise. It says God made a covenant with himself. He was going to bless all mankind. He was going to have a people for himself that started out with Israel that ultimately ends in blessings for all of the nations as God creates the church through Christ. And that was done because God decided that it would be done. And there wasn't a covenant where you keep your hand, I'll keep my end. You don't keep your end. And I'm not going to keep my end. That wasn't the type of covenant that it was. 21. Is the law then contrary to the promises of God. Paul comes back to his question and it's an excellent question because he's been telling these people all of this period of time now. No law. No law. Don't try to keep the law. You can't get saved through the law. And so he senses the arguments coming. Well what you're saying the law is bad then Paul. You're saying, well, she didn't have anything to do with the law because the law is bad then? I mean, after all, it was God who wrote it with his finger on those tablets of stone. Paul, did you forget that? Now, it's a matter of usage. Let me come back to that again. It's a matter of what it's for. So, the question is, is the law then contrary to the promises of God? In other words, the promise that was made to Abraham that God was going to make a people for himself, that he was going to give glory to those people, ultimately being fulfilled in Christ, and then ultimately being fulfilled in the fact that Christ then would be in us. Is the law contrary to that? Paul says, certainly not. I don't like that very much. Old King James I think is God forbid. I like that a little better. But even that doesn't help us that much because the old Hebrews wouldn't even say the name of God and we hear it used as slang nearly everywhere we go so it's hard for us to get a handle on what Paul is saying here. This was the strongest way in Greek that you could say absolutely not. And I will paraphrase it by saying this when he says certainly not this is what he means. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't ever say that. That's what he's saying there. And sometimes it's sad that we have to drag things out like that and make them so strong, but we won't get it otherwise because we live in this world and it's like fish. They don't know they're wet. So we have to be strong on some of these things. The law isn't. So what's he saying then? If a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the scripture imprisons everything understand so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. All right, what's he saying here? what I've been trying to say. It's all about the purpose of things. The law was given to lead us to Christ. Remember that. The law was given to lead us to Christ. If the law could have saved us, there would have been no need for Christ, because we would have then kept it, and Christ wouldn't have needed to come in order to redeem us from our sins that the law showed us we had. Scripture imprisoned everything under sin it says that's the purpose of the law it imprisons everything under sin And there's an important little phrase there in 22 in in my translation. It says so that So that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe John Stott wrote that If anyone is going to come to Christ He must first come to Moses. And Moses will then drive him to Christ. What does that mean? I want to be careful that I don't make everyone specific experience. I don't want to be too specific. I want to say that God deals with different people in different ways. But I also want to say that if you have never come face-to-face with your inability to meet God's holy and righteous requirement, then I don't think you're saved. And I don't think I am either. And I know that that looks different for everybody, right? And so we're not going to prescribe that. But think about it. If you don't come face to face with God's law at some point and look at that and think, I'm undone. I'm doomed. There's no possibility that I'm going to get through this. If you don't come there, then what is the necessity for Christ to have come? I can tell you what they'll tell you nowadays it is, in many places, the necessity is, well, you don't have enough peace in your life, and your finances are not good, and your marriage is not good, and your health is not good, and you need a purpose in life, and the church will give you a purpose, and the church does good things, kind of like the Peace Corps, so you should come be a part of that, right? All of those things are true in and of themselves, perhaps, but that's not why Jesus came. Jesus didn't come to make you really happy, well-adjusted people. And I'm glad of that because most of you are not, including me. In fact, when he comes into a life, when I come face-to-face with the law, and then I come to Christ, and now I've got to die to myself, Well-adjusted sometimes is the least thing that I am frankly Peaceful sometimes is the least thing that I am at least outwardly now, of course, Jesus gives us peace Of course those things but there are some of you and I know some of these situations There's some of you that are dealing with things right now That are not very peaceful. And frankly if you were not Christians, you would not be struggling with them anymore, right? So that's not how this works And yet, that's what the modern gospel will promise you. Just come and do these things. It's another form of legalism. Just come and do these things. Just come and be a part. Get a little motivational shot in the arm every once in a while. And when you do that, you're going to have a better life. And God's going to bless you. Now, we must come face to face with the law. We must get it that it doesn't matter how many times I try to do better and how many resolutions that I make. I'm never going to be pleasing to God because I can't get there from here. And Jesus himself even clarifies that further, right? Because Jesus takes the law and he says, yes, the law is important. Not even a jot or a tittle is going to be removed from the law. He said, I didn't come to destroy the law. I came to fulfill it. Let me show you what that fulfillment looks like, folks. In the old law, it said you couldn't murder. The new law that I'm going to give you says if you're angry with somebody without a cause, you just did murder. The old law says don't commit adultery. New law says lust is adultery. Jesus says if you're right on revenge, you cut it off. If you're I offend you, pluck it out. Get rid of it. That's how significant the law is that he wants us to fulfill. And the only way that that happens is after we've come up against it, figured out we can't. And now we'll deal with the solution as we go on in the text. As we go on in the text, the end of 22 says, the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. There has to be a law so that the scripture imprisons everything under sin. I don't know. Maybe I'm hammering a dead horse here, but I'll do it for just a minute longer. Have you noticed that the Scriptures are redundant? That the same message comes throughout? They are. Now, I was thinking about that this morning. The Scriptures are redundant, sometimes even repetitive. I mean, what have we been doing? Don't try to live by the law. Don't try to live by the law. Don't try to live by the law. Repetitive. Well, since God knows everything and He never forgets anything, I have to make an assumption of who needs that. And it's not Him. It's us. So, in this thing, Scripture imprisons everything under sin. You're not going to, even when you come to Christ and you come for the first time face-to-face with the law and you recognize that you can't keep it and that you need grace and mercy and that you need someone to step in on your behalf, even then, you still don't recognize what you have been apart from Christ. Even then, you don't. That's part of sanctification as it goes on. The scripture imprisons everything under sin and you do not now, wherever you are in your Christian journey, you do not now know how sinful you really are. God is gracious in that he shows us sometimes those things a little bit at a time because I don't think we could take it if we saw it all, if we were able to see it all. And some of you, that just burns. You don't want to think about that like that. But that's the way it is. That's the way it is. Get comfortable with it, and you'll get comfortable with Christ. Because the promise comes after we get that everything that we are is sinful. Now we can have faith. Now we can believe. Because we've got something to believe in. 23. Now, before faith came, we were held captive under the law and imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. He's just saying the same thing again, speaking of redundancy, but now he's making it personal. And he's speaking in two senses. One sense is, historically, all people were imprisoned under the law until Christ came. All people were imprisoned under the law until Christ came. And they only were able to approach God through faith. But then this is also true for us personally, right? So we can personalize this to our own individual case. And we can say, I was imprisoned, held captive under the law. until the coming faith would be revealed. I was imprisoned under the law. You say, well, I didn't always feel that. It doesn't matter what you fell, it matters what the scripture says. And I would dare to say, in my own life I can say this too, we do nothing but try to make ourselves feel like we're better people than we are. But even before Christ, there were times when we had been involved in some things and we'd have trouble sleeping that night. And some of us would engage in using chemicals to try to deal with that problem or other activities to try to deal with that problem. Imprisoned under the law. No way out. A vicious cycle of What can I do to be happy? What can I do to be fulfilled? Why don't I feel like that I'm... good for anything. What is life about? Well, maybe it's this. I haven't tried this before. Let's go after that. Imprisoned under the law. And then, when we are awakened to the gospel and to the scripture, then we really see our prison at that point. I can remember, by the way, this will be good. Maybe help. Dealt with a couple of guys this way, so maybe this will help you. I was studying with a young man and studied with him and it was pointed out that his language wasn't very good and he was convinced from the scripture that that was against God and that he needed to change that. And I said, okay, you think you can do that? He said, oh yeah, I can do it. I said, okay, here's how we're gonna handle this. I'll bet you, I'll bet you, we're going to meet again in a week, but I'm going to be generous. I'm going to give you three days. I'm going to give you three days. I'm going to check on you in three days and see how you did, okay? And you're not going to do it anymore. No problem. I got it. That's what God says. Two hours later, I got a phone call. yeah he had blown it in a really big way imprisoned under the scripture with no power to do anything about it right i mean he had blown up all over somebody and it was just incredible to him and i he said and he kind of looked at me he said you knew that was going to happen sure i knew it was going to happen because christ is the only answer to those things not your own willpower and even if you could do it on your own, even if you can do things on your own, all that's going to happen is that the next thing in the law that you're unable to keep is going to come up, and it will find you where you are. It will find you past the point of your willpower, and it will imprison you, and it will get you. That's what its purpose is. The law is very good. The law is very necessary. Just don't try to be saved by it. Don't try to be reconciled to God by it, because you can't. It's for the opposite purpose. It's purpose is to tell you, you don't have any hope. 24, the law was our guardian. When Christ came, we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we're no longer under a guardian. The idea of guardian here, they used to have in the Roman world a lot of times, particularly for rich people, they would have, they would put guardians over their kids and they were slaves, but they were high in the household. And the idea was that these slaves were responsible for the children's education. And it's been recorded in several places and on many of these guardian, these tutors, whatever you want to call them, they were very strict. And of course, you can see how they might be. First of all, they want to do a good job for their master, maybe, if you give them some credit. But the other side is, too, is you got this little punk rich kid, and you're his daddy's slave, and it's your job to make sure he's educated. How hard are you going to be on him? So that was the kind of way that went. But Paul uses that imagery to say, this is what the law does. It takes you to school every day. You get to go to school. Come on. Come to school. You get to come to school. Why? So that ultimately you come to Christ. Because you recognize that that's the way it is and it's strict. It's unyielding. It's unbending. It doesn't give an inch ever. But, when it says, now that faith has come, we're no longer under a guardian. That's in 25. But in 26, for you, in Christ Jesus, you're all sons of God through faith. I know that blessed truth. Sons of God through faith. Never ever take that for granted, if it's true in your life. Because it is a miracle of miracles that God would relate to you as a son or a daughter of his, given who you are. Then we recognize it's not about who we are, it's about who Christ is. Now, 27, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. My more baptistic brethren have written in all their commentaries, without explaining the verse, that this is absolutely no way, not ever, talking about water baptism. Don't none of y'all say that it is. That's kind of the way that it's, they put this, right? I agree with them in this sense. What they're trying to protect is that by grace through faith doesn't have to do with work, right? So you're not saved by being baptized. Yeah, that's true. That's true. But I think that they make a little bit of a mistake because in trying to state their point with such a hard line, they lose the text because that's not what it's about. Being baptized into Christ means being identified with Christ. It is actually putting on Christ. I put on Christ. He and I are enmeshed in such a way so that you can't separate us. And it's difficult to tell, as I'm being sanctified more and more, where one of us ends and the next one starts. And you say, well, why are they wrong about water baptism? Because the scripture doesn't know of someone apart from the thief on the cross and a few small examples. But the general case is that one of the first acts of obedience of a believer is that they're baptized. because it's an identification with Christ. It doesn't save you, but at the same time, in some of these guys, when they talk about this, and trying to be really, really clear that this is not what saves you, what they've done is that they've taken the act of the sacrament of baptism out of this, and... I don't want to be that clear-cut about it. No work saves us, but baptism is a big part of who we are in Christ, in the general sense. Okay? But more now to the point. How do we meet the righteousness requirements of the law? Well, we as individuals don't. We can't be saved that way. Well, then what happens? Christ not only becomes my justification so that I'm acceptable to God, but I die and He becomes my very life, more and more as time goes on. And it is no longer I that live, but it is Christ that lives. And the fruits of the Spirit of God, who He has given me as the down payment of this truth in my life, begins to do things that me, Alex Burks, in my flesh, would never be able to do apart from Him. And therefore, it is demonstrated in my life, over time, not perfectly, but over time, as I repent and believe the Gospel, over and over and over again, I started looking like Jesus. And what did Jesus do? Kept the law. And that's how I know. So another purpose of the law. Not for me to get saved. Not so that I can justify myself. But as a means of knowing that Christ, who can keep the law, is working in my life. So the law is not bad, and it's not something that we should be afraid of, except if we're outside of Christ, then we should be very afraid of it. But if we're in Christ, we don't have to be afraid of the law anymore, but we have to use it for the right purpose. The law is like a mirror, like in the stranger study. It can show me what the problem is, but it can't fix it. I can just see it. Ladies looking in the mirror, and the hair's out of place, they don't take the mirror and start rubbing it on their head, because the mirror's not made for that. The mirror's made for showing me what the problem is. Gotta get the hairbrush, because the hairbrush is the right tool for that job. That's what the law's for. Now, this next part in 28 and 29 is probably some of the most revolutionary stuff that has ever been written. And the Lord Jesus, God the Father, and the scriptures themselves get a horrible rap from all over the world because we're a bunch of bigots and racists and we do horrible, horrible things in the name of Christ and we put women down and we abuse people and sadly some people with the name of Christian do that. But the scriptures don't say that. Scriptures don't say that. They say that's what it looks like when you live in the world under the law. But when you live in Christ, this is what it looks like, and here it is. There's neither Jew nor Greek. The biggest racial divide that has ever happened in the world, that we know of, was between Jews and Greeks. And what he's telling these Galatians is, you Gentiles stop trying to follow the Jews around and be Jews because the reality is that there isn't any difference between Jews and Gentiles and Christ. Oh, that's a gut punch. What does that mean for us? Racism has no place in the body of Christ. None. That's what it means. Well, what's next then? Neither slave nor free. We don't have slaves now in our part of the world, but I assure you that they do in other parts of the world. But we do have income inequalities and injustices and there are poor people and there are rich people and all those things. The scripture says that in Christ that doesn't matter. You see, what they accuse us of is exactly what they do. In the world, in the justice system, if you've got money, you can buy whatever you want, right? If you don't have money, you can't. It doesn't matter what you have in terms of material stuff, except that you have to be careful with it. But other than that, you can't buy anything there anyway. So in the body of Christ, this is why James scolded those folks. Don't treat rich people better than poor people, because in Christ there's not any difference. What else? There's neither male nor female. What? Ultimately, you know that. I'm not going to proof-text it because I don't have time this morning. Ultimately, you know that when we are in heaven, that Jesus scolded the Pharisees and said, we're not talking about wives in heaven, and whose wives somebody's going to be because they won't be married in heaven, but they're going to be like the angels. Neither male nor female. One is not better than the other. Now, what is being said here? For you're all one in Christ Jesus. Now, let's be careful with this because some liberal folks will take this the wrong way, so we'll deal with it. quickly. God recognizes that boys and girls are different. He made them that way on purpose. If I have a black man that's standing next to me, he recognizes that that's a black man and I'm not, right? Okay? If there's a very, very rich man here in a thousand dollar suit standing here next to me, God recognizes he got money and I don't, right? Because God's not silly that way. What's he saying? He's saying there's spiritual equality in the body of Christ between all of those people. That's what he's saying. between all those people there is spiritual equality. Now not equality like you think, right? I mean there are leaders and there are followers and sometimes they switch places depending on the circumstances, right? Even in the church. It doesn't mean But the deal is, is that a leader within the church, the reason he's a leader is because of the voluntary submission of his other, of the followers. Not because he lords anything over them, but because that's what God has chosen to do. Same way with the male and female thing. And the race thing, that doesn't even come into play anymore. I mean, the reality is, is that the Christian church for many, many years could be accused of looking at these issues very, very wrongly. But really, when we look at the scripture and how it was intended, this is the most liberating book that you will ever lay your hands on, if you understand it right. Last verse and we'll be done. If you are Christ then you're Abraham's offspring and heirs according to the promise. So now it's all tied together and what he's saying is this. In this spiritual equality in this thing that you have been bought as the people of God where there's no better and there's no worse in there because you're all equal because Christ spilled his blood for all of you. Now it all comes full circle and you get to be part of the promise that was made to Abraham and the characteristics of the promises that were made to Abraham were these You can't do anything to earn it. You can't keep the law. God, in his grace and mercy, just offers it to you as a free gift. And you just have to believe that what he says he has done, he has done. And that's the end of it. And we should rejoice in that. Let's pray. Father, we're grateful for your word this morning. Lord, help us to appropriate these truths in faith. Help us to stop thinking about things in terms of pleasing you by acting certain ways. Lord, we just want to get close to Christ and we want Him to live through us. We know that that will please you. Thank you that you bought that for us. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.