If you would take your Bibles and turn to the new Testament book of Galatians chapter three, Galatians chapter three, we'll be reading verses 10 through 14 this morning. Galatians three, beginning at verse 10, hear the word of God. For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse for it is written cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law for the righteous shall live by faith, but the law is not of faith. Rather, the one who does them shall live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree so that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith. men so far, the word of God. Let's pray. Lord, open our eyes this morning that we may behold wonderful things from your word. We pray that you will speak to us and teach us. We ask that you would above all mold us into the image of our savior. Help us, Lord, to die daily to the old man and to be resurrected by your gracious power to the new life that you have for us in the gospel. Help us, Lord, as we hear your word, to hear it with ears of faith. And help us, Lord, as we come to the table, to come as those who know their need of a savior. but who also know that Jesus is that perfect and complete savior. And we ask all of these things in Jesus name. Amen. Perhaps you've read those passages of the apostle Paul where he says, let him be accursed. Let him be anathema. Let him fall under the wrath and Holy curse of the living God. We read passages like that with our 21st century sensitivities. We cringe a bit. We don't think of God as cursing anyone. We don't understand why Paul would use such strange language as that because we don't tend to condemn people to eternal damnation in these days. But Paul, you remember, was inspired by the Holy Spirit when he wrote these words. He was under the guidance of God himself, so much so that when Paul wrote, let him be accursed, it is as much as God saying, let this particular person live under my wrath and curse forever. Now, what would drive God to speak of people in such a way? What would cause the Lord to look upon a set of people in this world and say, these people are under my wrath. These people deserve to be destroyed. These people should know nothing of my blessing. Well, if you've ever read Paul's writings, the group of people that are mentioned there are a rather well-defined group. They're not people who fail to tithe enough on Sundays or people who have missed church here and there. It's not people who are struggling with their faith and who have doubts. It's not people who are trying to repent of particular sins, particularly, but who just struggle in mastering some particular area of the Christian life. No, Paul reserves these kinds of words for a group of people who have taken the gospel of Jesus Christ and turned it upside down and inside out. is reserved for people who continue to teach in spite of what Jesus has told us and in spite of what Jesus has done, that salvation is by our own works or is to be attained by our own merits. It's the idea that there are people who teach in the church of Jesus Christ, the doctrine that one can earn his or her way into the favor of God and into the salvation that Christ has purchased. This was a particular problem at the Galatian churches. And Paul has spent this entire letter to the Galatians dealing with the issue. He has reminded the Galatian Christians that even in the Old Testament, it was clear salvation is by faith. Abraham, God's man with whom he made the covenant back in the book of Genesis, Abraham walked by faith and it was counted to him as righteousness as Paul makes clear. He also looks to the Old Testament prophet Habakkuk and he says, even Habakkuk was adamant that the just, the righteous, the saved ones are people who live by faith. There is no way to walk in the blessedness of God if we do not trust God, if we do not take him at his word, if we do not embrace his promises, if we do not cling to him for mercy. If we do not believe that in Christ Jesus, there is life. That part of the gospel, we all tend to understand, at least in some degree, we all profess our faith in Christ. When we come and join the church, we declare that Jesus is the son of God and the savior of sinners. And that apart from him, there is no salvation. But while we understand a little bit about the blessedness of God, sometimes we forget that those who aren't blessed in scripture are cursed. They are under the wrath of God. They are to be condemned by God, especially those who teach. things that are contrary to the gospel. And that's what Paul wants us to understand in this particular passage, that to believe that we can be saved by doing certain things, by giving certain amounts of money, by worshiping God in certain ways, by having certain views of scripture, or perhaps even the atoning death of Christ on the cross, by having a certain understanding of how second coming is going to take place, that people who think that we can in some way achieve a place of status with God by virtue of our resumes, these people are not the blessed people, they are the cursed people. They are the people who are under the anathema of God. Now that's kind of hard for most of us to picture because we live in a world that is at least to some extent a meritocracy. We live in a world where people advance the corporate ladder because they have certain skills, they're able to do certain things well, and they are rewarded with bigger titles, sometimes bigger paychecks, with more responsibility, with more notoriety, because they are people who have achieved a level of status and success. If you want to stay in the military nowadays, you've got to kind of stay on track and achieve the right kind of scores and take the right kind of tests and move up the ladder at the right pace if you want to get promoted to a high office. Failure to do so will now cause you to be passed over once or twice and then be given a nice little letter that says, we think it's time for you to go home and do something else. If you don't measure up, you don't get to stay. Law schools, medical schools, theological seminaries can do the same kinds of things. If you don't toe the line, if you're not able to achieve certain goals at a certain time period in a certain way to a certain level, oh, there's no place for you here that you've got to earn your way to success. But the gospel of the kingdom is different. The gospel of the kingdom of God is that people like us who live in a world that's based on earning things and achieving things must realize that in terms of our relationship with God, we are wholly dependent upon his mercy and grace. That to see our works as good, And as earning us a place in God's kingdom is only to know the curse of God rather than the blessings of God. It's to be condemned to hell rather than to enter into the blessedness of heaven. Why is that? Well, Paul makes it clear to us in the passage we just read. Verse 10 is obvious for all who rely on works of the law that is on obedience and effort. They are under a curse because it is written, cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law. and do them. You'll notice there are quotation marks there come from the book of Leviticus. And in Leviticus, God is commanding his people. You need to do this. You need to do this. You need to do this. You need to do this. You need to do this. You are my people. I have bought you by my redeeming you from Egypt. I have covenanted with you. I have called you. I have named you with my name. I have become your God. You are now my people. You must obey me. And if you want to stay in my good graces, let me tell you, you must Do everything I command you all the time and absolutely perfectly. Can you imagine walking into the first day of trigonometry class and the teacher telling you, you've got to make a hundred on every test to pass this class. and all your homework has to be perfect and done on time. And I don't allow any erasures. You have to have made the right answer. The first time you tried the problem, there's no correcting. There's no second chances. How many of us would ever passed trig? And yet that's a small thing in comparison with the moral law of God, where not only does God give us those 10 words in Exodus chapter 20 and repeat them in Deuteronomy chapter five, but he gives us very clear expositions of what all is required in those 10 commandments. This is what you shall do. This is what you shall not do. And you must do these things perfectly or else you are not Holy. And if you are not Holy, you cannot enter into my presence because I am a Holy God. Can you imagine what our grade sheets look like in heaven? And we hear Paul write that. And if that were the whole of the, of the epistle to the Galatians, you and I would be in a whole heap of trouble because we know that every one of us has sinned and come short of the glory of God. We can recite Romans three 23 from heart. We know that As the earlier verses in Romans three tell us, there's not a righteous one among us. Not even one of us can claim righteousness. We have all offended God and grieved his spirit and broken his laws. We understand that we are centers. But what Paul wants us to understand here is that we can't just say we are sinners in some kind of flippant manner. It doesn't work like that because to sin against God is to commit treason against the God of the universe. To sin against God is to violate his holiness. It is to declare that he is not worthy of our complete submission and adoration. It's the idea that we, at some point have taken it upon ourselves to do what we want rather than what our God commands us to do. And Paul says, when you take that kind of attitude, guess what happens? You come under the curse and wrath of this Holy God. You deserve to die. The wages of sin is death. How often have we said that? How often have we read Genesis chapter three and seen Adam and Eve eat of the forbidden fruit and God pronounced the death penalty upon them? How often have we read those passages in the Old Testament where someone does something that seems so innocuous to us like putting their hands on the Ark of the Covenant or offering up a sacrifice that has not been prescribed by God's law and God strikes them dead? How often we've read the stories of Ananias and Sapphira in the book of Acts, and we have seen how they have lied to the Holy Spirit about some property they sold. They brought some of the proceeds to God. They just declared that it was all God's money when it wasn't. They were taken out by the young men of the church, dead, struck down by the holy wrath of God. They had come not only to be sinners, they had come under the anathema of the Lord. They had become accursed to the Holy God of the universe and those who were under the curse shall die. We read those stories and we think what terrible people they are, but if we read the stories correctly, I think we would have to read them and say, Oh, how God has been merciful to me. For I have deserved the same death. God could have struck me dead on so many occasions. How patient he has been. Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. But then there's verse 11. Now it's evident that no one is justified before God by the law. What about somebody who does the law almost all the time? What about someone who is just so far ahead of us morally and intellectually and religiously? Would God not show them great mercy because they were at the top of the class because they were the valedictorians of the human race. And Paul says, no, because not only is it true that everyone who has walked on the face of the earth apart from Christ has sinned, but it's also true that God has declared that the righteous must live by faith. In other words, from the beginning of the Bible's revelation about sin and death, you have two rivers flowing, two tracks that have parallel rails. And one is that God demands absolute, complete obedience to his revealed will, which we have in scripture, but that's never enough. We also have to walk by faith and love the Lord and trust him and receive his word and rely upon his grace and mercy and compassion. So much so that if we have all the works that one could imagine and have failed even once, we still are under the wrath and curse of God. If we have not embraced the word of God in Christ. And if we have not trusted in God's word, that in Jesus alone there is salvation, we must walk by faith. No matter how righteous or unrighteous we have been in terms of our behavior, the blessing of God belongs to those who live by faith. And as verse 12 then goes on to say, the law that is obedience to the law is not a faith. You can do all kinds of good works and not believe God's promises. And as a result, if you do not have faith, you are anathema. You are under the wrath and curse of God, but rejoice Christian. because first 12 is not only not the end of the paragraph is also not the end of the story or the end of the epistle, because first 13 then tells us Christ has redeemed us. He has bought us back from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on the tree. Christ has saved us from the curse of obedience or the lack of obedience. How'd he do that? By being perfectly obedient himself. By fulfilling all the demands of the law so that he himself would never walk under its curse He did all the righteous things. He did all the righteous things by faith and the father's will and trusting in the father's plan. Indeed, having attained perfection, not only by righteous works, but also by a perfect and holy faith, Jesus then went to the cross to die for us. Just like we all know that we're sinners and need a savior, we all know that Jesus saves us by dying for us on the cross as our substitute. But what Paul wants to emphasize here is not just that Jesus took the burden of our sins upon himself so that we might be declared righteous by his perfect death, but also that Jesus absorbed all the wrath, all the accursedness, all the anathema of God in his body when he died. So that the wrath of God, which had to be fulfilled so that the wrath of God, which had to be dispensed upon sin, because a Holy God cannot just overlook sin. He poured out that wrath upon his own son. So that you and I who are in Christ will never be tasting the death of the accursed. We will never experience the wrath of God in hell because Jesus has already endured it and experienced it in our behalf. This is why Jesus cried out on the cross, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Because he had become the cursed one who died on the tree in our place. And he deflected all the wrath of God that was ours upon his own body and removed us from the anathema of God into the blessedness of God. When you come to the Lord's table today, You will hear those familiar words, this is my body broken for you. This is my blood shed for you. And you should hear those words as coming from the one who endured hell in your place. As the one who tasted the anathema of God so that we will never taste it. The one who was righteous and yet absorbed all of the curses of unrighteousness so that you and I can be called the children of God and enjoy all the blessedness of righteousness even though we've been unrighteous. He who knew no sin became sin for us so that we might become the righteousness of God through him. We come to the table rejoicing that we are the people of God, but we rejoice through the tears of knowing that we have earned no place here. that we deserve to die, but for the sake of Christ, we live. And that the one who died for us has been raised from the dead. He has ascended to the right hand of the father. He has all authority in heaven and on earth. And he opens his arms wide to us today and says, come, I died for you. Come and feast with me. This is not a day for mourning and grief. This is a day of rejoicing, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. Come, confessing your sins, clinging to your Savior, rejoicing in his work. and tasting and see that the God of the universe is truly good for he gave his only begotten son to be the atoning sacrifice for your sins. Come and embrace by faith the words and works of Jesus. Let's pray.