Turn in your Bibles to Galatians, the third chapter, please. Galatians chapter 3, we're going to begin in verse 1. Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this. Did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Verse three. Are you so foolish having begun by the spirit? Are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by the works of the law or by hearing with faith, just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness? Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. And the scriptures, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, In you shall all the nations be blessed. So then those that are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. We're probably going to go further than that, but just in case we don't, I'm going to stop there. Let's pray. If you want to voice a prayer, do that, and I'll close this in a minute. Father, thank you for your word. We come to it desiring to know more about who you are and what you have done for us in Christ. We want to avoid the errors of the Galatians at this point in time. And we know that this is why you've given this to us. And so we come asking that you would apply your word to our lives through the Spirit. And Lord, even as we just read, we recognize that we're unable to do that in our own flesh. And so we ask you to supernaturally do it through the new life in Christ that you've given us. And it's in his name that we pray. Amen. There are no coincidences. Yesterday, we had some Jehovah's Witness folks come to the house, and these are folks that Emmett has been talking with some, but I happened to be there today, yesterday, and so he invited me in to talk with them a little bit. And just as a Side note, there are some evangelical folks who wear it as a badge of honor to see how hateful that they can be to these people. Don't do that. You have two options when those folks come to your house. And one of them is if you don't feel like that you can handle them biblically, then you respectfully ask them to leave and say you don't want any part of what they're saying. If you do feel like that you can preach the gospel to them and do that well, then you should talk to them. And if you don't feel like that you're able to do that but you want to be able to, talk to me about that and we'll learn how to do that together. These folks came and they had their natural stick kind of because they'd already been talking to Emmett. So they wanted to talk about the deity of Christ and those things. And I won't go through the whole thing. But the best thing to do with them is to get them to talk about something that they don't want to talk about. If you're going to deal with those folks because they're pretty indoctrinated in the areas that they want to talk about. And it directly relates to our book of Galatians in this way. It all came down to this. I said, you tell me then how a person is saved. How does a person get saved? How is a person born again? How does a person come into relationship with God? You tell me how that happens. And they fumbled a little bit. And then the man said, well, we try to fulfill the requirements of God. And that's how we're saved. And that's almost word for word. That's exactly what the man said. So then I had my opening and I pushed on that a little bit. And the best that they would ever do to shrink the conversation down, there were lots of parts to it, but the best that they would ever do is say, well, yes, we do have to have faith, but we also have to do works or God won't accept us. We won't be pleasing to him. And Sometimes we think that I've been tempted to think this too that some of these folks they're just a little confused they're just a little fooled but they're really nice people and they study their Bibles and they live good lives and maybe we're not so different after all. The point of the Book of Galatians as we're going to study it is that that is a false gospel. That's what we've been talking about. That is a false gospel. OK. And the ramifications of a false gospel we're going to begin to deal with again in Galatians chapter 3 in verse 1. And so as we begin our study I'll bring us back to this encounter every once in a while because it's instructive in this. I think it will help you. ESV says in verse 1 Oh foolish Galatians. Now here's what you need to understand about that. What's being said here is not that these people are stupid and it's not that they're ignorant. They're being stupid and they're being ignorant but it's not out of a lack of knowledge. If Charlie Brown were to talk about these folks he would say you blockheads The way that the best way I can describe it to you is that these people are willfully ignorant. They're willfully being stupid. They have been taught rightly. They have even had experiences with that teaching and with Christ and seen God's work in it and they turned away from it because they thought that there was more to it than what they had. OK. But they could be more spiritual that they could be closer to God that they could be more pleasing to God through what they were able to do. So when he says, oh foolish Galatians, he's not saying, you poor little ignorant folks that don't know any better. They knew better. They had been taught better. They turned away from what they had been taught, right? So. If we want to and remember let me go back to this remember in the front part of the book Paul says. If we were an angel for heaven or anybody else preaches a gospel that's different than this one let him be accursed and he says it twice so that everybody understands that if another gospel besides this one is preached let him be accursed. Now the second part of the verse is. At least this part who has bewitched you. That always captivated me. You don't see that very much. So let me give it to you because I want you to understand this. We would get very excited if we had some dyed-in-the-wool witches and Satanists and warlocks come in here in full regalia with upside-down crosses and start sacrificing animals and wanting us to become a part of that, right? And we would say, no, we're not going to do that. That's not true. I think the reason that Paul uses the word bewitched here is because this is the same thing. This is just as bad. This is as if these Galatians had fallen into using incantations and casting spells. So when he says he has bewitched you there's this sense in which yes you've been fooled you've been fooled by this satanic device but it's also he wants to put it in here and say this is not some small thing right now we would look at it as a small thing in the same way that we look at the Jehovah's Witnesses who by the way have more zeal sometimes to proclaim a lie than we do to proclaim the truth. And we should take that on. But here's the thing. When they are proclaimed, you need to do a little bit more work. As Judaizers, you need to be circumcised. Right? You need to... The scriptures say that we should do these festivals and this ceremonial law and these things. Right? So they're looking at these guys saying, well, they read the same Bible that we do, right? And they're obviously dedicated to God. And they call him by name, and they use the same words that we use. They just add a little to it. They have a little different way of coming at it. Right? Paul says, that's as if you had a spell cast on you. That's as if you were bewitched. That is as if you fell into witchcraft and Satanism. That's how serious that deviation from the gospel is. Now you've thought it and I've thought it too, right? Dealing with Mormon people and Jehovah's Witness and those kind of things. These are good people. These are nice people. And I've thought it even when we come out from those groups and we deal with some that are even more closely affiliated with us. Well, you're doing pretty good if you've accepted Christ, but if you just dress this way, If you would just do these things if you would live your life in this way if you would follow us and you would be a lot stronger Christian. Witchcraft and it's deadly who is bewitched you I think that's the reason for the term I think that's the reason for the term. Now. It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. What does he mean? Paul preached Christ to them vividly. As if they were there, as if they saw Jesus's life and his death and his resurrection and what it was about. It was proclaimed to them in such a way so that they were given, yes, it was in words as he explained it to them, but they were given a graphically vivid picture of the Lord Jesus Christ and his ministry and what it was for. He preached the gospel in that way. It's like an amber alert. Yep, everybody's fixing to get that. That's all right, we'll wait for it to go. Somebody read it and tell us what it is since we got the... No. Oh. Yeah. Yeah, that's what it is. They're looking for a vehicle. Okay, now that we've dispensed with that, No. It was in Arizona. Well, it might be. I haven't checked on it. Okay. Publicly betrayed as crucified. Paul told the Corinthians that among you I knew nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified. It was the gospel. He preached the gospel to these people over and over again. Now because of that, in verse 2, he says, let me ask you a question. Questions are good things. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by hearing with faith? This is one of the crucial questions that we'll ever have to answer. If we truly are saved, if we truly know Christ, there is only one answer to this question. And it is that, yes Paul, we came to Christ because we heard the gospel and faith was born within us. And God applied his grace and mercy to our lives. And that's how we came into relationship with him through the Spirit. And if you have any other answer, such as, Well, Christians in that church that I go to seem to live pretty good lives, and their families look pretty clean, and their marriages look okay, and their finances don't look bad. And so maybe if I go and I live like they live, then mine will be that way too. And maybe if I just follow the formula, my kids will grow up to look like their kids. And maybe I'll just have this happy, fulfilled little life if I just follow these rules, right? If that's where we're at, we missed it. We missed it. Paul is saying here, in a nutshell, we're dealing with salvation as it occurs the first time that someone comes to Christ. We're going to deal with sanctification in a moment. Paul also deals with that. But we're going to deal with justification right here. Paul is saying, you heard the gospel. God is holy. You are not. You need to be rescued. And here's the means of your rescue. And God granted faith and repentance. And you believe that. That's how people get saved. Not through anything that they are able to do. Not through anything. And my Jehovah's Witnesses folks that we were talking to yesterday, this is what they don't understand. And the folks within evangelicalism who want to talk about, well, yes, we need to, we need to believe in Christ, but we also need to keep the ceremonial law and we need to do these other things. They missed it too. By grace, through faith, plus nothing. That has to be the flag that you carry around if you're going to live this life. If you do this any other way, not only are you going to be frustrated, but you're going to have to create a set of rules that are less than the standards of the law. But you're also going to mislead a lot of other people. All right. So we ask him this question. And he knows what their answer is going to be. by hearing with faith. Are you so foolish. Verse three haven't begun in the spirit. Are you now being perfected in the flesh. We started with initial justification and now we're dealing with sanctification right. How it is that the believer is now to walk with Christ and become more like Christ. That's verse three. Paul says all right. If you were saved through hearing the gospel by faith If God applied grace and mercy to your life in that way, what you were saying, how you have been fooled, and how you have been bewitched, you were saying, well, yeah, that was good for how I was saved, but now, but now, we gotta add some stuff to that. Y'all need to be circumcised. You Gentiles need to become Jews. You need to start doing Jewish things. You need to follow the dietary laws. You need to raise your kids that way. You need to dress in a certain way. You need to look like Jews. Your church services need to look like synagogue services. Right? All those things. That's what needs to happen. And then, in that way, as you pursue holiness, in that way, as you pursue God in that way, that's how you're going to be sanctified. That's how you're going to become like Christ. And that's what the book of Galatians is about. No, it is not. No it is not. So what is he saying to us then? He's saying the same way that you came to Christ is the same way that you will live in Christ. That you will come to know him more. That you will become more like him. Now let's talk about that for a minute because I think there'll be some confusion here. Let me ask you a question. As believers, Christians, are you supposed to follow biblical principles? Yeah. Yeah. That's not a bad answer. Why are you supposed to do that? What does that get you? Okay. Somebody else. Why are you supposed to do that? Brenda's kind of trying to get ahead of me. But yeah, she's right. I know. I know it's the truth. But how many times have you heard... I've seen this a lot here lately in financial seminars, right? Biblical Christian financial seminars. Here's some principles. If you follow these principles, your finances are going to come out good. Right? Sometimes it actually works. But the point of the Lord giving us financial principles in the scripture is not predominantly that it works. OK. And that's what these guys are doing. We want to be more like Christ. We want to be free to serve Christ. We want to do those things. It doesn't mean that all of that's bad. I'm not saying that it's bad. What I'm saying is what's the motivation. So let me help with some of this. You're saying, Alex, that we're to repent and believe when we hear the gospel that the life that we live is supposed to be by faith. But we have all of these commands, even in the New Testament, about how we're not supposed to be angry and we're not supposed to be worried and we're not supposed to be lustful and we're not supposed to be covetous and we're not supposed to be all of those kinds of things. Are we just to ignore those things? What are we to do? Here's what Paul is teaching. If I am angry, the reason that I am angry, if I'm a believer, is not because circumstantial things have happened to me to make me angry or worried or afraid. It's not that at all. If I'm sinning, the reason that I'm sinning is because I'm not living according to the gospel's work in my life. It's not because I need a 12-step program so that I won't be angry anymore. Let me tell you something. The idols that we put up in our life, we can boil these down. Okay? We really can. We can boil these things down. The things that we want. Some people would look at this as a Maslow's Hierarchy kind of thing. You don't need to know what that is, but I said it so if somebody picked it up on the recording they would understand. But I'm going to boil it down even further. What you want, what all of us want in the flesh, you want to be comfortable. You want to have approval, and you want to be in control. Those weren't mine, by the way. Stole that from Tim Keller, but it's good stuff. Let me give it to you again. You want to be comfortable, you want to have approval, and you want to be in control. And anything that comes in your life that threatens any of those two things, three things, will challenge you in such a way so that if you don't get those things, you will sin. And you're not living according to the Gospel when you do that. So then what's the opposite? What is living in a Gospel way? What is living in a, I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, kind of way? What is that? It is this, being as simple as I can be. Jesus, as He has revealed Himself to me in the Gospel, is worth more than my comfort. He is more beautiful and more lovely than any approval I could get anywhere else. and his life and fellowship with him is better than my being in control. That's living in a gospel way. Let me give that to you again, because I can tell some of you are percolating a little bit. Being angry, being worried, being lustful, whatever your particular besetting sin is, It doesn't come and it's not dealt with in this way. So I'm going to take it from the other side. It's not dealt with in this way. God, I was angry and I should not have been angry. And so forgive me. And now I'm going to try really, really hard to not be angry anymore. Because the scripture says I shouldn't be angry. So I need to try really hard to not be angry. I don't know if you've ever done that before, but that doesn't work very well. It doesn't work very well. So then how do I deal with anger? Am I left with this? Is it not a command? Is it not something that should be dealt with in my life as a believer? Yes, it is. And what I need to see is, first of all, anger is the symptom. It's not the root. The root is, I'm not receiving approval that I think I should need. I'm not comfortable. I'm feeling uncomfortable. I'm not in control of things that I feel like I need to be in control of. therefore that produces anger in me and those three things what they tell me about myself whichever one this sin that we're talking about is coming from is that relationship with Christ through the cross is not as valuable to me as one of these things so therefore I'm acting out on that okay that's living in a gospel way that's how we deal with sin I'm not saying that at times there aren't some bits of willpower that may need to come into this, but that will never get you there. Understanding who Jesus is and what he has done for you and living in that, that's what will get you there. Now why did I go there? I went there because of verse 3. So let's look at verse 3 again. Are you so foolish that having begun in the Spirit, it means having been saved, God did a work in your life by faith, by grace through faith, are you now going to be perfected by the flesh? Are you now going to fix all these things? Are you now going to follow these rules? Are you going to do these things to become more like Christ? And of course the answer for us is no. In the same way that we were saved, we have to walk. You understand that? Does that make sense? You need to percolate on that a little bit. That will go against the way some of you want to look at this. In some ways, it goes against the way all of us want to look at this. We want to have five ways to deal with anger and six ways to get out of fear. We want to be able to follow the rules and get to the end of the thing and have it dealt with. But that's not Christianity. Christianity is that the gospel that saves us is the gospel that keeps us and we stay with it and we believe it because it is our very life. And every day, Paul says, I die. What does he die to? He dies to the idea that through my willpower, through the 12-step program, through whatever it is, that I can fix myself. Because in my flesh dwells no good thing. I am utterly unable to be fixed apart from the gospel. And so I must plant myself firmly in the gospel and come to it at all times and say that anything that's in me is not any good. And Christ himself has to become so valuable just like that pearl of great price or the treasure in the field. That must be so valuable to me. that comfort and approval and control are not necessary for me because I have something so very much better. And this is what he's saying here. You see these rules, it's the same way as the folks that visited us yesterday. These rules, this was a means to get all of those things, right? I'm comfortable. How are they comfortable by coming into Judaism and following these rules? Because now we've got a team, right? And everybody's doing the same thing. And we can all be comfortable because we can sit around and tell ourselves how well we're doing and we can feel good about what's happening. And I can know then whether or not I'm pleasing God because I'm following the rules. Kind of pharisaical. What about approval? to follow these rules. How then can I gain approval? Well, that's easy, because now if we're all following the rules, if I follow the rules better than you do, then I can think, what a good boy am I. And everybody can look at me and think, what a godly brother. Approval. Well, comfort, approval, control. Oh, control's a big one in these rule-following sorts of situations, right? Because if I can convince you that you have to follow these rules in order to be acceptable to God, then I can control you. You can be controlled by the guilt of not following external rules and regulations by people who will stand up and say that God is not happy with you if you don't do these things, and you can't be part of our group if you don't do these things. This is what we want. Paul says we're not going to be perfected that way. Verse four. Did you suffer so many things in vain? If indeed it was in vain. This is verse four is a little bit odd and I'm not sure that I got a handle on it because the word suffers not the one that's used a lot of times. The word suffer to me the best that I can get a handle on it is it more should be experience should be kind of what that is. And what he's saying is did you experience so many things in vain as if indeed it was in vain. You understand the question. I don't get the suffer part as well in terms of it could be experienced. But I understand the question. And the question is this. Are you people saved? Because saved people don't think that they can commend themselves to God by what they do. Paul, this is harsh, right? This is hard. But I sense the emotion in it. Because while these people were experiencing these things, when they were experiencing the power of God in their lives, when they were experiencing God working miracles and saving people and those kind of things, Paul was right there with them. He saw the harvest that was going on in these cities in Galatia. He saw these things. And then they turn away from it, into legalism and rule following. And he says, this is not what you were taught. Did it really have any impact on you? Did it really change anything? Did you quit worshipping these false gods to basically just create another one for yourself? Is it in vain? And so when we apply that to ourselves, what we see is the same thing. Whatever the latest fad is, let's follow that. Those people look good. Let's all read these books because that looks good. Some of which is okay and some of which is helpful. But just remember that it's always going to be gospel centered by grace through faith that you're saved that you walk with Christ all those things I'm not saying that nothing else can be helpful but what I'm saying is that it's a means to an end if a man writes a book and give some practical suggestions in the book that helped me in my life if that pushes me toward experiencing more of God's grace and mercy through the gospel as I work through those things and that's a good book and that's one that I should take into myself. If however a man writes a book like that and I decide that I'm going to take what this man has said and follow his little set of points or ticks in order to get to a certain place then I have taken it wrong and it's no help to me in fact it's damaging. And some people don't know the difference in between those two things. And sometimes even some of the best writers are taken wrong. We do things with some of the things that they've written that we don't, that they didn't intend for us to do with them. Okay. Verse five, more questions. Does he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? We'll deal with Abraham in just a moment. Apparently. There were supernatural things that were going on in the Galatian church there were miracles. There were people who was being were being saved and lives were being changed and you have to you have to get this right it's even we're getting more and more like this as a society but we're not there yet. These people were washed worshipping statues at this point worshipping and pagan temples when you have people come to Christ in that situation. They hear the gospel and they respond in faith and God. I mean that's like a big change. That's that's miraculous. So we have real miracles going on. We have people being saved. And Paul says how does that happen. And of course we could answer it another way too. How did it happen when Jesus was on the earth. Did Jesus tell the blind man. You know. I want you to do four jumping jacks. Say six Hail Marys. Turn around four times and then you heal. Now sometimes he did give people some instructions but it wasn't necessarily about anything other than just showing his power in their life so that they could see what he had done. It wasn't about you do these things to merit what I have done. Remember when he says was this man with the disciples asked him was this man born blind because of his sin or because of his parents. He said neither. He's born blind so that God could get glory out of his life. These miracles were done the same way now the last little part of this before we get to Abraham's important. Did these things happen. By works of the law. Because you follow this because you all became Jews and follow the Jewish law so well or did they happen. my hearing with faith. Now the by hearing thing he said that before so we'll we'll cover that just briefly because there are some in evangelicalism who have minimized the teaching of God's Word in the preaching of God's Word. Now there are certainly lots of different ways that God's Word can be communicated to people and we won't take away from any of those things but. In the group of believers, and as we proclaim the gospel, as we evangelize non-believers, communicating God's word in teaching and preaching will never go away. It has to be there in some form or fashion. It doesn't have to be there like I'm doing it this morning. It can look several different ways, but it does have to be there. And if it's not there, you don't have a gathering of the church and you don't have evangelism. This whole thing, I know it's been said before, but this whole thing of preach the gospel always and use words as necessary is bunk. You may get into people's lives that way. I'm not saying you have to hammer somebody the first five minutes that you've ever met them. I'm not saying that. But the gospel is words. It is. It's a message. This is why Jesus himself is called The Word. This is why we have these books in front of us that God has given us His Word. These are words on a page. This whole thing has to involve words. And in some places, we're getting away from that. And we can't. We can't get away from that. We always have to be there because what is he saying? Through all of this he's saying you were saved because you heard and faith was birthed. And you're going to be sanctified. You're going to learn to be more like Christ. Your life is going to be changed because you're going to hear and you're going to believe. And this is the work of God. And that hearing requires Verbal communication, written communication, something, but it has to require that. Okay. I tried to check my watch that isn't there, so let me see where we're at. Let's talk about Abraham. This is brilliant on Paul's part. I want to say this before we ever get started in dealing with it. I want to learn from Paul Because Paul uses the word of God in the history of God's redemptive plan through the Old Testament. And he does it in a brilliant way. Why use Abraham? Because we're dealing with these Judaizers from Jerusalem who are telling us that we have to follow these rules. So Paul, knowing about Jewish customs and ceremonial law, far better than anyone else, probably even the ones who were trying to get the Galatians to believe these things, trots Abraham out and says, we're going to argue with Abraham, you Judaizers? Y'all want to argue with Abraham? See it's brilliant because you can't argue with what God says about Abraham. Because Abraham is the father of the Israelites. He's the father of the Jewish nation. We can't argue about Abraham's experience. We need to learn to think sometimes. And I appreciate what Paul does here. This is not just random. He specifically does this for these people at this time for a specific purpose. So. Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness. Now the whole verse, we need to read it again. Verse 5, Does he who supplies the Spirit to you, and works miracles among you, do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith, just as Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness? The whole verse is a question. versus a question so he ties what's going on in this Gentile Galatian church setting with Abraham all in the same phrase all in the same sentence The Jews would not have liked that much to say to to make an equivalency between the work that was going on in the Gentile church and the work that God did in Abraham. That would be something that in this day and time would make folks really really uncomfortable. Paul does it with no problem. He's going to explain to us why Abraham believes God and it's counted to him as righteousness. Verse 7 says, Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. I don't know if that hit you, but in this context it would have hit them. He continues to argue it's not by following the rules. It's not by following the rules. It's not by trying to obey the law. Let me prove it to you. Abraham wasn't accepted by God through following the law. The law hadn't even been given at that point. Abraham was accepted by God through faith. And then he does this thing where he says that if you walk by faith, you can be the sons of Abraham. You want to be Jewish? Well, don't know about the Jewish thing. If you want to be God's children, if you want to be acceptable to God, here's the thing. You interact with God through faith, and you're going to be doing that in the same way that Abraham did it. That would not have made any of these folks happy. Now, verse 8 says, the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham. The scripture saw beforehand that the Gentiles were going to be able to come into the kingdom of God. And that they were going to be children of God too. That they were going to get to have a relationship with God. And this is, the scripture saw that ahead of time. And you can look at the cross references in this, I encourage you to. We won't do it now. But there are cross references all through this thing. Go back so you can verify Paul is quoting out of Genesis 15 a lot of it here and and he's bringing them forward so that they've got reference points as he's dealing with them and he says. The scripture saw beforehand that Abraham. That the Gentiles were going to come to faith. They were going to be saved by faith. He preached that gospel to Abraham and here's how he did it. He said in you shall all the nations be blessed. Let me tell you something here just for a minute that might help. I don't know. For for legalists and for rule followers. And whatever that looks like, whether you've got folks coming in saying that you need to look like Jews, or you've got people saying that you need to be moral and be acceptable to God, or you've got folks that say you need to look like us and do these things and then God will love you. In all of those cases, whatever that thing looks like, in every single one, when you're dealing with folks like that, or when you're dealing with that even in yourself, there will be scriptural truth that will be inconvenient to that system. When you get scripture that is inconvenient in terms of your position, you should pay attention. I mean, it goes without saying, right? It goes without saying. What all of these groups will do without exception in one form or another is that they will highlight portions of the Bible and they will undervalue other portions. Now that's not the same thing as understanding certain parts better and not understanding other parts better. That's purposely pushing things to the side that are inconvenient in terms of what we want to believe. We don't want to do that. And all of these guys do that. Right. And this can be something that's really dangerous for us as well. Majoring on a certain doctrinal truth, even a good one that's biblically based and true, majoring on that more than majoring on the scripture as a whole will get us lopsided and into trouble. And you'll want an example, and I will give one that I've already used to some degree, though I won't go into it very much. Taking all of the scripture regarding parenting and building your life around that scripture regarding parenting, and that being the main thing that you read and the main thing that you focus on, even if you get it right, will make you lopsided. Not because it's not true, but because God gave you more than that. And because you like that part and can get a grasp on that part and draw yourself out some rules on that part, that's comfortable for you. But it fits right back into that whole thing. Now we're using Scripture to be comfortable, and we're using Scripture to be approved, and we're using Scripture to gain control. Even if we have interpreted it right. What keeps us from doing that are two things. First of all, the entirety of the Word of God in the message of the Word of God, the Gospel itself, But not just as it is interpreted by you, but as it is interpreted by the church, because we need each other to be able to do those things. Otherwise, we get lopsided really easy. We always want to say, this is it! This is the thing that's going to make it happen for us. This is the thing that's going to change our lives. The work of Jesus on the cross, and His death and resurrection, is the thing that makes it happen for us. And any other thing, even if it's good, even if it's interpreted rightly in terms of a principle in Scripture, that is not the thing. Okay? That's helpful. That's God's Word. We need that. But we have to get first things first. And so what happens here is Paul is saying all of the nations of the world are going to be blessed through the gospel that was preached to Abraham. That is the gospel. In other words, people are going to come to Christ. They're going to come into the family of God through faith. They're going to be blessed through Abraham. And this was an inconvenient truth for the Judaizers who tried to twist it and say, no, that's not real. What we mean is everybody just needs to become Jews. Right. Well, yeah, the Christ thing's good, but we're going to add the rules. Everything means everybody just needs to become Jews. At the time that this was given to Abraham, you have all these pagan nations around. No one can see how this is going to happen. Paul, in the Acts, Peter first, begins to see that they're going to come through faith in Christ. And that God's grace and His mercy is going to be applied to their lives in that way. Well, what's required then for these guys to come in? What's required? In one sense, we can say, nothing. By grace, through faith, plus nothing. The realization that God is holy, and I am not, and I need to be rescued. This is the gospel. So, verse 9, so then those that are of faith are blessed, along with Abraham, the man of faith. Let me see where we're at here. I think that's where we're gonna end. Yeah, I got a couple of minutes, so. They're blessed along with Abraham. Abraham was blessed because he believed God. Abraham was not blessed because of his good performance. Because a lot of his performance was not very good. Not once, but twice. She's my sister. She's not my wife. She's my sister. God promises Abraham a son. Son doesn't come. Son doesn't come. Well, let's work it out for God. Take my handmaid, my slave girl, and have a son with her. That'll be the one. God says no. This doesn't sound like a guy who pleased God through what he did. Now, I'll give you, bringing Isaac up on the mountain is pretty awesome. And it shows us directly a lot of things about what Jesus was going to come to do. But Abraham himself didn't please God through what he did. He pleased him because he believed what he said. And it wasn't about his performance. It was about his belief. Now, any question of what Abraham believed affected what he did? Absolutely not. But that faith caused the action. And he did not believe that God would do such and such because he did such and such. That wasn't the issue. God chose Abraham right. Abraham's in this foreign nation. God says his name is not Abraham at this time it's Abram. Abram get up and come on because I'm going to make a nation out of you. Abraham didn't say I think I'm going to go make a nation out of myself and make God happy. Abraham didn't do that. That's God. He believed what God told him he was going to do. Yes, faltering at times. Yeah, he goofed up several times in his life. But overall, we can say, because we learn in Hebrews, he believed God. Right? Verse 9 again. We'll close here. So then those that are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. How are we blessed? We're blessed because we can do away with this flesh that wants to be comfortable and wants to be approved and wants to be controlled. We're blessed because Christ has given us a relationship with God Almighty and in that relationship nothing else has any value compared to that and we get to live in that. Abraham saw a taste of that. We get to see the completion of that. Praise God. Let's pray. Father, we are thankful That it is not dependent upon us to maintain our salvation. We didn't go out and get it for ourselves and we don't keep it for ourselves. We don't grow in Christ that way. But that you have showered grace upon grace and mercy upon mercy on us. And I pray that you would help us. To not just accept that, but to rejoice in it. It's in Jesus name and we pray. Amen.