I have heard stories from people who did misbehave as children that parents sometimes say when their kids start to act up, you're standing on thin ice. And the point is standing on thin ice is dangerous because we're likely to fall through that ice. It can't support us. We need something that can hold our weight, that can support us where we stand. And when we're almost in trouble, we are warned that we need to move to a firmer place to stand. And Paul had a very similar message for the Galatian church. that they are nearly in trouble and that they need a more secure place to stand than the place where they are going. He had come and preached the gospel in Galatia and many of them had become believers, trusting in Christ for salvation. But then, not long after it seems, false teachers infiltrated the Galatian church, came among them and told them that they not only needed to trust in Christ for salvation, but they also had to be circumcised. It was necessary to be so if they were to be saved. And the Galatian Christians believed this. They adopted that lie. They took on those views that compromised the gospel. Which put them on thin ice. And so the sermon tonight is a call to consider the foundation on which you stand in your faith and whether or not it is thin ice. We'll look at Galatians 4, 1-7 and consider whether you are standing on thin ice by combining faith with works as your foundation for being right with God, or are you resting in Christ alone to rescue you? And so to sort of give you some perspective on where this passage from Paul's letter to the Galatians is primarily a defense of the doctrine we call justification by faith alone. Justification is that doctrine that says God declares you righteous, meaning that your sins are forgiven. and that the record of Christ perfect life is credited to you. So just like in some ways the wedding ceremony legally initiates a marriage relationship, then that relationship develops. We assume so justification legally sets you in right relationship with God, on which basis we pursue increasing holiness and further devotion to God. So that doctrine justification is the legal beginning of your relationship with God, wherein he declares you not simply innocent. But positively righteous, as if you have done fulfilled. Think of that language in Deuteronomy 28. If you keep my commands, God credits you in Christ as if you have kept the law. And he makes this declaration because you receive Christ's righteousness and his cross is counted as though you paid the death penalty you owe for all of your sins. And we receive all of this, Paul says in this majestic letter, when we take hold of Christ by faith. In other words, to sort of put this really pointedly, Depending on your works puts you on thin ice. And depending on Christ sets you on a solid rock. So that's where we have to consider ourselves tonight. Paul's refrain against those who said we must, believers specifically, must add circumcision to faith. is that you must choose, tonight even, between depending on Christ for salvation and earning your way to heaven. There's no middle ground. Depend on Christ or earn your way to heaven. And of course, you should choose dependence on Christ. Because you are not able to earn your way into heaven by any sort of work. If you add one work to faith as a condition for salvation, you put yourself back under the entire law. Paul will say and we will consider and you need to meet its conditions perfectly. If God will to receive you into his kingdom, Galatians 5, three sums this up. I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision. That he is obligated to keep the whole law. And so the main point tonight to let you know where we're going. Is God the Father sent his eternal son to rescue you? So that he can make you into adopted sons. God the Father sent his eternal son to rescue you. So that he could make you his adopted sons. And we'll see this through three points. The lure of the law. We like the lie. and the Lord fulfills the law. And so first, the lure of the law. So this first point, what I want to do here is establish that the main issue at stake in Galatians 4, this passage we're considering, is inheritance. How we can receive one and the way that we can hope to inherit something from God. And the premise is, how can we do this if we are obligated to keep the law? Paul addressed here the status of an heir as he waits for that inheritance. And the thing to be inherited in this passage is eternal life, and it is God's children who receive this inheritance. But then if you if you paid attention as we read, I'm sure you noticed that there are some issues standing in the way of this inheritance, even for this metaphorical air in verses one and two. Namely, he's under the supervision of guardians and managers. Now, how do we get a handle on that? I think one of the ways we can understand this is today we have these things called trust funds where an inheritance is set aside for an heir, but the heir can't access that fund until they're of age. And these children are under someone's guidance until they are legally able to access their inheritance. And the same thing is at work here in this text. But we have to realize that Paul talked about the people of God here as being an heir. But the surprising thing is that in the Old Covenant under Moses, they were unable to possess their inheritance fully. They were under the guardian and the manager. We saw that also at the end of chapter 3, and it comes into full explanation here in that old covenant situation. If we think about the Israelites under the Mosaic covenant, the law primarily in its ceremonial obligations was the manager of God's people. Did we not think about that this morning? and how we need to set those aside in favor of Christ. And we also, drawing on that, we saw that the primary purpose here in Galatians is that overwhelming system of ceremonial laws was meant to demonstrate that people can't obtain blessing from God by the law. It's one of the points of all of that ceremonial system is to prove to people you can't do it. And so we need to turn to the Savior. And so we read about this in Galatians 3, 23 and 24. 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 so that we might be justified by faith. And so Paul tells us here, did you hear it? That those old covenant laws were meant to point you towards being saved by faith in Christ. None of the old covenant laws were given as a genuine way for the Israelites to be right with God by their works. That's important. Take note of that. We read earlier in Deuteronomy 28 of the blessings and curses of this Mosaic Covenant. And what was detailed there? Israel's physical blessings. So, not their salvation. Pay attention. None of that said your salvation. Their physical blessings. Not salvation, but prosperity in the land. were actually tied to their obedience to the Covenant laws. And they were exiled from the land. Not from heaven. But exiled from the land because they were law breakers. And in this way, the old covenant law system managed the people of God by pointing them precisely, really clearly to their inability to maintain even earthly blessings by the law. Nevermind heavenly blessings that require perfect obedience to obtain. That's the full import of Galatians 4, 1-3. That's the background going on there. And so then, in light of that, can you start to see why Paul refers to the heir who's under the guardian as no better than a slave? Does that start to make sense now? The Galatians have confused two really important things. Which brings them back to slavery. On the one hand, the old covenant law was supposed to point the people towards the need for a Savior. And now, on the other hand, since the Savior had come, people were now saying that we have to go back and perform some of those law ceremonies just to be saved, even though they never served that purpose anyway. Makes them a slave. And the striking thing is, I mean really striking, it should be at least, is that the Galatians believed this lie. It shows you how susceptible we are to false teaching. They believed that they needed to be circumcised, do a specific work, because that work was necessary for salvation. But yet, I mean, the whole point of the law system was to show people you can't be right with God by works. Justification won't happen by your deeds. But the thing is, I mean, we shouldn't think that this is just about a cultural practice in Judaism. So turn your eyes with me, if you will. Come back in, if you've zoned out, and look at Galatians 4, verse 3. In the same way, we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. And the important phrase I want to camp on here is the elementary principles of the world. It might not be immediately obvious, and it's not been immediately obvious to lots of people who have written about this text, what this phrase means. But I think it's not that difficult to grasp if we remember what Paul's talking about in this section. He has been arguing not to put yourself back under the law. That's his point. So it has to relate to that. And he's just referring to to the divine law built into us as creation as the image of God. Those principles built into the world, the divine law. The elementary principles of the world. Are the commands the Ten Commandments essentially? That God has hardwired into us humanity. His image as his initial covenant partners. And in creation. Before we send so remember always remember that. Humanity is good before we send and God even said very good and so in creation before the fall, Adam could walk with God in light of his obedience to that law of nature. The elementary principles of the world. But after the fall. After that first sin. We are all condemned by the law. So Paul says to perform any work of the old covenant as if it can earn God's favor. To perform work as if it can earn God's favor is to put ourselves under the full force of the law as it was built into creation. And that means curse. Because we have to fulfill the whole weight of the law perfectly as Adam was meant to do when God made him, if we're going to appeal to the law at any point for our salvation. And so, the lure of the law is to try to return to our works for salvation. The lure of the law is to add our works to our faith in Christ as a reason that God would justify us. And that brings us to our second point that we like the lie. So. In in the first point, to remind us where we are, we drew from Galatians 4, one to three to show that if we try to use the law as our ground, our place to stand. For inheriting from God, we're going to be cursed instead of blessed. It puts us on thin ice. The human race was under a law in creation and as good and upright creatures. God would in fact reward us for our works then. But this side of the fall, sinners can only expect condemnation. In exchange for our works. So this means we need another way other than the law to inherit eternal life, to inherit blessing from God if we're going to have it. We need a different method. The Old Covenant under Moses resembled that condition of works and creation for people to stay in the Promised Land. Not for their salvation. Old Testament saints did not earn their salvation. but they could maintain their earthly blessings by the principles of that covenant, the deeds of that covenant. And in Galatia, though, we see that people had distorted those ceremonial laws to being actual conditions for salvation, which entailed that they were fully under every command of God to inherit heaven. And now before we get to the good news about how we can inherit eternal life through Christ, we need to think a bit more about how we. Are pretty much like these Galatians. They had believed that they could appeal to their work circumcision in addition to faith, so they didn't throw out faith. I mean, that's important to note. It's just that you gotta believe in Jesus and do something. to be saved. And so they had added circumcision. And now I doubt, I really doubt, I doubt any of you would ever try to appeal to circumcision as the reason for God to love you. We look at this and we sort of tend to find it ridiculous that this would ever be deceptive. But. There's always that, but. But what if we substituted more contemporary, more fashionable works here? What if we switched circumcision for political or social activism? What if we switch circumcision for helping the poor and working in this kitchen? What if we switch circumcision for baptism? Or church attendance? or personal Bible study. Now, the question is not whether those are good things to do. That's not the issue. The issue is if we appeal to them for our salvation. As cliche as it might be, that old question that people would ask in evangelism, what would you say if you stood before God tonight and he asked you, why should you get to go to heaven? It is telling. As cliche as it might be, it is telling to hear people's answers. Because most people, even people who are genuine believers, I think often default to something like I loved God and. I always went to church and tried my best to do good. And. As noble as that sentiment is in itself to love God and try your best. It is by no means the answer. Of why we get into heaven. We go to heaven only Because we trust in Jesus Christ to rescue us. Only. But this tendency to lean on our best efforts at godliness shows that we, as sinful human beings, actually, we actually do like this lie that the Galatians believed. We like the idea that there's some little work or works that we toss into the mix that ensure our salvation, that sort of underline what Jesus did to make it beyond the shadow of a doubt. And I think at the bottom of things, at the end of the day, what's really behind this is that we like the lie that our works help save us because we do not like the truth that we have to rely entirely on Jesus Christ to save us. It's that entirely part. We don't mind relying on Jesus, but we don't like that He does the whole work of salvation. We don't like it's wholly up to Him. We don't like that we have to put our fates entirely in the hands of someone else. We want to lay the foundation of faith in Jesus Christ and then add our sprinkles of works on top. And so we start to appeal to our doings, our deeds on top of our faith in Jesus just to secure our salvation. And and we forget that this is the opposite of how we should think about our works. Any deeds put in place as trying to earn God's favor puts us under the law as a covenant of works. And means we have to render perfect righteousness Instead of faith in Christ. And that is that is a terrible exchange to make complete obedience instead of faith in Christ. There's no hope in that. We have we have to remember, keep it in the front of our minds that our good works which we are to endeavor to do. But they are expressions of faith. Not additions to it. Expressions of it and good works build on the foundation of justification that fundamental aspect of salvation. They don't secure salvation, but works are effects of salvation. They spring out of it. We like the lie, though. that we contribute to our salvation because it exalts ourselves and pretends that we are participants in saving ourselves. And that brings us to our third point. The Lord fulfills the law. So in the. First point we saw. We have to choose between coming to God by faith in Christ. And coming to him by the law. Those are the options. There's no third option. There's no in between. There's no combination. You come to God by faith in Christ or you come to God by the law. You have to do that. God will judge us on those standards and the catch is in that choice is that sinners as everyone in the human race is cannot successfully approach God by our works. The Galatians believed the lie that they could and should add circumcision as a work necessary for salvation. In addition to faith. And Paul confronted that head on. And then in the second point we saw that. We tend to adopt similar ideas and the difference is that we we sort of just substitute modern issues. in place of circumcision. And so now we're going to turn to look at verses 4-7 and see why it is so wonderful to come to God through Christ instead of trying to do our works. And so look at those verses with me if you'll turn to your Bibles. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son in our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God. And so we see there we have a really concentrated and wonderful explanation of the reasons why Jesus Christ came to earth. The fullness of time had come. Now, if you ever read on that phrase, there are lots of really interesting explanations of that. Some people like to say, well, this is because the Greek language had spread everywhere. This is because Alexander the Great had made one empire so that people could travel. They could say, well, this is because the Romans had made roads so that apostles could make their way around. And the list sort of goes on. Actually, I think if we read it within what Paul is saying about the scope of history and what God was doing in the Old Testament history and now in New Testament history, we see. That this phrase indicates the fullness of time. It just indicates that God's plan to show humanity our need for a savior. By by putting his people under the yoke of the ceremonial law. Had been completed. The point had been made. Israel's exile under that law shows that the law will never secure blessings for God's people because they cannot keep it. And that point had been made. And so the fullness of time had come. And the time had come to transition from symbol to reality. And so having sufficiently made the point, Through that old covenant, God sent His Son into the world in Jesus Christ. And yet, Jesus Christ wasn't a son of Adam the sinner. He did not come from that first representative of humanity by ordinary generation. Instead, He was born of the woman. In that He was the seed of the woman, born of the virgin, who could crush the serpent. as promised, God said in Genesis 3.15. He was born of the Virgin because He was the new representative of God's people, the second Adam. He had no earthly father because He was the only natural son of the heavenly Father. And this Jesus Christ was God Himself who had taken on His person a human nature. And the really relevant thing here for our discussion is that this Son of God was born under the law. You see that phrase? Born under the law to redeem those who were under the law. Because we, as the image of God, were created responsible to God, obligated to keep His law that He wrote into our consciences in the way that He made us. Adam owed God obedience. But Adam broke that covenant. And so Christ came under the law so that He could fulfill it for us. Romans 8, 3 and 4, beautiful verses, says, For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. So Christ came to do what we could never do in our fallen abilities. Christ fulfilled the commands, our duties and obligation in our likeness to restore our relationship with God, to rebuild that, to overcome the alienation and reconcile us. Christ came through Israel, the nation, Because that nation was under that focused administration of the law that reflected in explicit terms the common human experience as breakers of the law since creation. Christ came under this law so that He could free us from its curse. Christ kept the law. Died on the cross in our place as our representative so that everyone who trusts in him could be counted righteous according to the law. And then we ask ourselves, how could we add to that? What is there that we could attach to that to make it better? We have to have perfect righteousness to become members of God's family. And the question is, will you try to achieve perfection? By your own strength. Or will you accept perfect righteousness from Christ? Those are your options. We have to weigh them right now. How do we approach God? By our own works. Or by Christ's if you would place your trust in Christ to meet this need. This actual need, whatever your felt needs are, your actual need before God is to have perfect righteousness. And if you would place your trust in Jesus. You would become sons of God. When you are redeemed from the curse of the law, you receive adoption as sons. Now, here's the thing. Sons in the ancient world were the only children who could inherit. So, in this sense for inheritance, There is neither Jew, Gentile, slave, free, male or female. Paul is not doing social, cultural, gender-bending things. He's telling you are all sons so that you know you inherit from God. By the redemption we have in Christ, we all become legitimate heirs of God. And so God grants us the Spirit. We should rejoice. that the Lord Himself came to earth in human nature. The Lord who could have condemned you to hell as a breaker of the law was born on earth so that He could keep the law and pay the death penalty on your behalf. The Lord came to make you sons of His Father. The Lord fulfills the law for you so that you could have a family And so that God could have you as his family forever. And so we shouldn't seek to add to that work. That work is done, it's perfect. How could we improve on becoming heirs within God's family? Instead, we should wholly trust in the Lord Christ alone for salvation. So let's turn to him now. If you need to restore your faith, if you need to recommit and remind yourself of these principles, these foundational bedrock issues, turn to Christ in faith. If you've never turned to Christ in faith, let me urge you to do so now. Instead of leaning on yourself, lean on the Savior who was born to make you a son of God. Cast aside your dead works and believe in the living Christ. Let's pray. Father God, this passage seems like there's so many things going on there and at rock bottom it's a choice between coming to you and appeal to our works and coming to you and appeal to the works of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so we ask that for everyone here tonight, everyone who would ever hear this and reflect on this text, we pray that you would cause them to realize that their works put them on thin ice and that if they stand on their works, they will only be condemned. That is a dangerous place to be, but show them That the door has been opened to come to Christ, the solid rock on which we can stand for salvation. Make that truth known to everyone in this room, not only in their mind as it rings in their ears, but penetrate into their hearts so that they believe it. Make Christians even here right now. We pray that this gospel would be effective and persuasive. And we pray that it would build all of us up in faith, that it would encourage us, that it would fill us with such hope, that this is the one message that can fuel our lives as we go into a difficult world. This is what will get us through. That God of the universe loved us so much that you sent your one and only son to be born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem us who were under that law and who had broken it. And praise be to you that for all of us who trust in Jesus Christ, you have made us sons, heirs of the living God. What an unimaginable blessing. And we pray that that would fill our hearts and fuel our lives in the days, weeks, years, and decades to come. and that we would always live faithfully to Jesus. And we pray these things in His name and for His sake. Amen.