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You're listening to a message preached at Front Range Baptist Church by Pastor Dean Miller. It is our prayer that this message will be a help and an encouragement to you in your spiritual walk. Now, here's Pastor Miller.

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Tonight. We're in the book of Galatians and we're flying through Flight 66. It's a blessing to have been in this study. I don't know if you've enjoyed it as much as I've enjoyed it, but I have enjoyed going through each of the books from cruising altitude. And I so badly always want to just dip the wing and land for a little bit, and we can't. We have to just fly through the book. But Galatians is an incredible book. If Romans is the constitution of the Christian faith, then this is the Magna Carta. This is a miniature version of the book of Romans. But Paul was not necessarily writing the book of Galatians with the theological thoughtfulness that he wrote the book of Romans with. Paul was writing that book of Romans to go instruct those believers in Rome. He was writing it with a lot of intentionality. Paul was writing the book of Galatians very frustrated and very passionate. He was taking to heart Jude and his admonition to earnestly contend for the faith. And when you read the book of Galatians, it is an earnest contention of the faith. Paul was, he had already had a tough year. He had been to the province of Galatia, which is modern-day Turkey. He had already won many people to Christ, established multiple churches there, and in fact, he's writing to multiple churches, which, by the way, in New Testament ecclesiology, the study of the church, it goes to show us that we are not just part of one big collective church. That God sees the church today through independent, individual, autonomous local assemblies. We will all be one day in one church, united in Christ. One day he'll call us all out and we'll be with Christ. But he is working through visible local assemblies. Paul does not address one big church. He addresses the churches of Galatia. He's writing to this whole province. And the whole issue that Paul is dealing with is whether or not a man can truly be justified by faith. Can a man be justified by faith without the works of the law? Now we know that he's going to go into great depth in that in the book of Romans, but he's dealing with this in a very passionate way. And the reason for that is because there had been some people that had come into the province of Galatia behind Paul, and they were coming into the labors that he had already made, people he had led to Christ, people he had discipled, churches that he had planted, and they were coming in behind him, and they were teaching something other than what Paul had taught them. And they were doing a couple things. They were personally attacking Paul. They were saying, you know, Paul's not really one of the original twelve. He's not really an apostle. He claims to be an apostle, but Paul's not really an apostle. He's more of an imposter. And Paul's just trying to make a name for himself. He's not really teaching the things that Jesus taught. He's teaching the gospel of Jesus according to Paul. And they were attacking Paul in his character, attacking Paul in his motive, and attacking Paul in his message. That the message of grace is not sufficient. And I want to tell you what Paul does. Paul goes after these rascals in a radical way. And we're going to see, you're going to see, if you read this book, you're going to see the frustration of Paul. And I just sat back again today. I read this, I read this book four times today, and I just amend Paul. I said, you know, I get this, Paul. I get the frustration that as a pastor, when you've laid a foundation, you're working in people's lives, and then there's somebody just running their gums, and they're saying things they ought not to be saying, and they are just telling people things that are not part of what the Bible says, and they're overthrowing their faith. They're making shipwreck of their faith. And Paul's like, how are you, you were running well, but somebody hindered you. And somebody bewitched you, somebody cast a spell on you. And so this is this is Paul's defense. And so it's one of the strongest letters of Paul. There's no warm introduction. He doesn't say to them like he does in Philippians 1, hey, I thank God upon every remembrance of you. He just says, Oh, you foolish people. You dear idiots. That's a literal translation. You dear idiots. How could you be so dumb? And I thought, you know, I like that Paul talked to these people that way. He jumps right into the problem. Look at the problem. Look at verse number one. Paul, an apostle of not of men, neither by man. So this is Paul's already just immediately defending. I'm not an apostle by men. I wasn't put in this position by any human flesh, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. That's the power that I'm operating in. That's the authority and the power that I'm operating in. And all the brethren which are with me unto the churches of Galatia, grace be to you, and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world according to the will of God and our Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into grace of Christ unto another gospel. I mean, Paul just jumps right into this and he said, You know what I'm ticked off about? I cannot understand how you got saved and you are so quickly moved away from him. How did that happen? And Paul just jumps right into the problem. He had led these people to Christ, but these false teachers have come in. Now, who are these false teachers? How many of you have ever heard the term the Judaizers? Anybody heard of Judaizers, okay? The Judaizers have come in. These are a group of Jewish people who claim to be Christian followers of Christ, but their self-imposed job was to go to all of these new believers and to tell them, hey, we're really glad that you've come to Christ, but that's just the starting point, man. You really got to go further. Let's talk about circumcision. And the crazy thing is, is Christianity started fully Jewish. It was Jesus Christ Himself being a Jew, all the disciples being Jews. The apostles preached to nothing but Jews in Jerusalem at Pentecost. 3,000 Jews got saved, and a radical movement of Christianity began in a very Jewish way. But the Lord had told them it's not just for the Jews. It's going to start with the Jews first, but also to the Greeks. It's going to go to the Gentile world. And when it spreads out, I want you to understand that that's the plan. It's for all the world, both Jew and Gentile alike. And so now by this time, the Gentile believers were starting to outpace the Jewish believers. But remember Paul's M.O. Paul would come into a province and he would immediately go to the synagogue first. So he would go to Jewish people and he would debate with them and reason with them from the scriptures about this Messiah, and he would bring them to Christ, and then he would start with the Jews, and then it would build out to the Gentiles. So the churches of Galatia were no doubt filled with a lot of Jewish people who didn't really need to hear this message because they'd already been there, done that. And so Paul's just like, I'm just marveled that you guys are going back into this gospel that is not a gospel. So the Judaizers were set on their message. Faith in Christ is good, but faith in Christ is not enough. And so they were teaching these Gentile believers that they needed to observe the requirements of the Mosaic law and begin with circumcision. Paul immediately understood what was at stake. That this was not a disagreement of preferences. Christians have those. Do you know that? Some people prefer this kind of music, some people prefer that kind of music, some people prefer that they have this preference about this, some people have a preference about this. And Christians have different preferences, and there's liberty in that. We'll see that in this book. There's liberty in that. Anything that is added to Christ as a requirement for justification is a perversion of the gospel. And we have to earnestly contend for the faith. Now, just to kind of set everybody at ease, Paul's going to deal with primarily the one issue, which was the right of passage into Judaism, which was circumcision. That was the sign and the right that God had given to Abraham and the Jewish people. He was going to start with that because that was the big contention. But we're not going to major on that tonight. What we're going to major on is this. What the book of Galatians is, is not a book about Christ versus circumcision. Okay? That would add to it. The book of Galatians is the Christian's manual on how to defend the gospel of Jesus Christ against anything. So in this case, Paul's going to defend it against Judaism, but we can defend the gospel against anything that comes into contention with Christ alone. So we're going to dive into this, alright? And the book naturally divides into three sections, two chapters each. Chapters one and two, it's very personal. Paul's going to give his personal testimony. He's going to walk through some things about his own personal life, but he's going to really give the gospel defended in chapters one and two. Grace versus another gospel. Chapters three and four is the gospel explained. Paul's going to get into the nuts and bolts of the gospel. Faith versus the law. And I want you to understand something. The word that Paul is going to use is the word faith. Now what's at stake is grace. Because we are saved by grace through what? Through faith. Faith is the means by which we come to grace. So Paul's not going to defend grace. Paul's going to defend faith. And what is faith? Faith is full dependence upon God. Do you know how you live in grace? In full dependence on God. And anything that is called grace, that is not full dependence on God, is not grace. So somebody who is walking in legalism, who is putting all these requirements that, hey, listen, you gotta, yeah, you need to trust Christ, but you gotta get baptized. Yeah, you gotta trust Christ, but you gotta you gotta do these particular things. You've got to go to this confession, you've got to pray this rosary, you've got to pray to Mary. Yes, you can you can, I mean, trusting Christ is good, but there's a lot more to it. Anybody that's adding to that, that's legalistic, you're putting laws in place to bring you to Christ. Listen, it is Jesus plus nothing. But on the other side of that is the ditch of license, of people saying, Well, wait a minute, now that I have Christ, man, I can do what I want. Well, wait a minute. That's a work of the flesh. And Paul's gonna deal with that. You're not depending on Christ to dress immodestly. You're not depending on the work of Christ to use vile language. You're not depending on the inner working of Christ to think impure thoughts. And you can't do all that and then just claim grace, and if anybody challenges you, say you're a legalist. That was going on in the church. The problem in the Church of Galatia was not just legalism, it was license as well. And Paul's gonna say, listen, we're not legalists and we're not licensists, we're at liberty. And I'm gonna show you how it means what it means to walk in freedom in Christ. But you know what's gonna require? Faith. Dependence on Jesus Christ. And then he's gonna give everybody away to test everybody else to see if they're really doing that. Did you know that we're supposed to do that? Did you know that we're supposed to test one another to whether or not? I mean, listen, if your faith can't be tested, your faith can't be trusted. So God's gonna say, I'm gonna show you how you can see if people around you and yourself are really depending on Christ. Okay? So we're gonna look at that. So that's the gospel explained, chapters 3 and 4. Then chapters 5 and 6, the gospel applied: liberty versus bondage. So an easy way to remember the book is the gospel defended, the gospel defined, the gospel demonstrated. Alright? This is what, hey, this is the gospel, don't mess with it. This is the gospel, how God set it forth. And this is what the gospel is supposed to do in your life. And let's test to see if you've really got it. Everybody with me? That's the book of Galatians. And Paul's writing a little ticked, which I like that. He's earnestly contending for the faith. So let's look at chapters 1 and 2. The gospel defended. Paul begins, we just read a minute ago, by defending both his apostleship and the gospel. Notice what he says. I'm an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ. Listen, I'm an apostle because Jesus made me an apostle. And not only did Jesus make me an apostle, but I was made an apostle by God the Father who raised him from the dead. So I have a pretty solid power and authority behind my apostleship. And he said, and I came to preach the gospel to you in verse 4, who is Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil world. And then he says in verse number 6, I marvel that you are so soon removed from him who has called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel, which is not another, but there be some that trouble you and would pervert the gospel of Christ. It's interesting that that word pervert is used in this passage of scripture because it is an actual reversal. And by the way, anything that you take that God has made and you reverse its usage, it's a perversion of that. So God made man and God made woman and God made marriage, and God made the sexual union for marriage, for the fulfillment of a man and woman, and for the procreation of the of the of humanity. There is a beautiful, wonderful thing that God gave men and women in marriage, but the world has taken that into pornography and they've perverted it. We've perverted this whole issue that God made beautiful. This is a perversion. And by the way, that's exactly what people are doing with the gospel. And they call it church. And then they pervert the gospel. This is strong language that Paul's using. This is a reversal of what God has done. It's a misuse of what God has done. So these false teachers had undermined Paul's authority. Their argument went something like this: Paul isn't one of the original twelve. His message was given to him secondhand. He's watered down the requirements for the Gentiles so he can make a name for himself. And so Paul comes in, guns ablazing, saying, Hey, these people are troubling you, and they're a bunch of gospel perverts. So this is a tough book. In verses 6 through 9, Paul's going to lay out that there is only one gospel. Notice what he says in verse number 8. But though we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed. As we said before, so say I now again if any man preach any other gospel unto you, then that ye have received, let him be accursed. He doubles down on that, and the word accursed is the word anathema. It is to literally be cast down into Hades, into Sheol, to be anathema is to be destroyed. Please forgive me for what I'm about to say, but I'm going to use this in literal language here, what Paul is saying. Paul is saying, if anybody, if an angel comes down to you and preaches to you a gospel that we have not preached to you, or if anybody comes into your assembly and teaches something that is contrary to the gospel to hell with them. Let them be damned. This is the strong language that Paul's using in this. By the way, it gets stronger. But he is saying this is this is not something that we mess. We earnestly contend for this faith. Because it is an abuse of the cross of Christ. It's an insult to the cross of Christ to say that you can add anything to that. When Jesus said it is finished, he put an exclamation point. And you're putting a comma. So Paul is hammering out a strong standard. Truth is not determined by personality, truth is not determined by popularity. Truth is not determined by religious authority. Truth is not determined by tradition. It's not even determined by supernatural experience. The angel Moroni came to me and gave me these two goggles, Urim and Thummim, and I saw these golden plates in the Egyptian hieroglyphics, and I read them and I wrote a whole book that completely contradicts the Bible. But believe it. And it's not a supernatural experience. The standard of truth is the record that God has given of his son. It's the gospel that God has revealed. So Paul isn't saying that there are several legitimate versions of Christianity. There is one gospel. There's one gospel. And listen, anything other than that gospel is not true. And listen, that's narrow. Somebody people have told me, man, you're pretty narrow. Like I'm that narrow. That's how narrow I am. And if you want to even see more narrow, I got the Bible on my phone. I'm that narrow. Jesus said, narrow is the way. Straight is the way. There's only one way. Look, you know, we we don't like it when the preacher gets narrow. But we want our doctor to be narrow. You know, if the doctor told you, hey, you got this terminal disease, so you know, just go home, just try to do what you think feels good to you. And uh, you know, maybe get some friends, see what they all got to say. Try that out. And you know what? You don't want that. You don't want a broad way, I want a narrow way. So Paul is giving this test. It's the gospel. I'm gonna hustle through this, but Paul, in the first chapter here, in verses 10 through 24, talks about how he received the gospel from Christ. He said in verse number 10, for I do now, do I not persuade men or God? Do I seek to please men? For yet it please men, I should not be the servant of Christ. But I listen, by the way, any preacher that preaches to please men is not the servant of Christ. He's to preach for the audience of one. Uh it doesn't matter who tells me well done, if what I did wasn't well done. And so Paul said, but I certify you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached of me is not after men, for I was neither taught it of man, neither was I taught it, but by the revelation of Jesus Christ. In other words, so Paul's going to go through his his whole process. When he got saved, he did not go to Jerusalem to sit down and learn the gospel from any man. He immediately went out. He's he said, This is my testimony. I used to persecute the church. I used to take these people to jail, and then Jesus saved me. Verses 15 and 16. But when it pleased God to reveal his son in me, Paul's gospel was not invited, invented invented to Please the Gentiles. Paul said, This gospel transformed me. If you want to know if my gospel is true, look at my life. This is what I once was, this is what I am now, and the only thing that made the difference is the gospel of Jesus Christ. So then he said, But I was taken into the deserts of Arabia. He said, I didn't confer with flesh and blood. I went out in the deserts of Arabia for three years and literally was given the revelation of Jesus Christ from himself. In chapters 2, 1 through 10, he talks about the apostles confirming his ministry. So he went up, he learned this from Christ, then he came to Jerusalem, and he met a couple of the apostles, and then he went off into back into his homeland. And people then, Barnabas remembered him and came and got him to come to the church of Antioch. But Paul was recognized by the Jerusalem council and by the Jerusalem leaders. And instead of correcting Paul, they recognized God's grace in his ministry, recommended him to Antioch, that he would be a great help in that church. And so the disciples and the apostles saw the work of God. Paul said, I didn't do anything other than what, I didn't preach anything other than what they were preaching. So Paul's making this defense. He talks about this in chapter 2 when he said that he even had to go up in verse number 9. And when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship that we should go to the unto the heathen and they unto the circumcision. Only they would that we should remember the poor, the same which I also was forward to do. But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed. So Paul said, I had the blessing of these disciples. And he said, In fact, I had with me one of my Gentile converts, Titus, who came with me from Crete. Titus was a Gentile, and when he got there, he wasn't being convinced to be circumcised. Nobody said, This is what you have to do. I'm not preaching anything different than what listen, if you got a problem with me, then you got a problem with Peter, and you got a problem with James, and you got a problem with those guys back in Jerusalem, because none of them made Titus get circumcised. So then he talks about how he confronted Peter. This is one of the most dramatic scenes in the book of Galatians. Peter had freely eaten with the Gentile believers, bragged about eating with the Gentile believers. But when the Jewish people came, he withdrew. He's like, well, yeah, I shouldn't have done that. And so Paul confronts him. Why did you do that? Did God send you to there? Did Jesus send you to the Gentiles? Yes. And did you eat with the Gentiles? Yes. And then when the Jews came, you backed down and you compromised, right? So you're playing the Gentile with the Gentiles, you're playing a Jew with the Jews. You can't have it both ways, Peter. And Paul confronted him. By the way, don't you wish there was more confrontation face to face? I really wish that people would take the Bible's word. And when you have an offense, go to your brother and tell it to him alone. Don't tell everybody else and build you a little posse about how you're being mistreated. Just go talk to somebody face to face. And Paul did that. And Paul gets to this whole confrontation with Peter. And he said, Peter, your behavior contradicts the gospel. By the way, Peter repented of that. You see, the gospel changes how saved people relate to one another. Paul then gives perhaps probably the great theological heart of the book of Galatians in verse 16 of chapter 2. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Man, what a verse. You cannot be justified by the law. And then he expresses his own experience in that in verse number 20. I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the grace. Is that what it says? No. I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. Watch this. I do not frustrate the grace of God. For if righteousness came by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. Listen, the whole essence of the grace of Christ is founded on faith and dependence in the finished work of Christ and then the life of Christ in us. Let me ask you a question. Who lives your Christian life? Is it you? Some people say, well, it's the Lord. You're gonna blame him for that? You're gonna blame Jesus for your mess? Look at your life. You're gonna blame Jesus on that. Well, wait a minute. You say, well, well, yeah, but I mean it's kind of me, but it's mostly him. I mean, it's well, Paul didn't know either. Yet not I. The life that I now live, but it's not me. It's Christ in me. And it's it's me in dependence on him. When I am living the Christian life, listen to me. When I am saved, I'm saved, but I'm not always living the Christian life. I'm saved, I'm justified, I'm declared righteous, but I'm not always living that. But when I am, it's not me. It's me living in dependence on Christ. See, this is the gospel. On the cross, Jesus gave himself for me. My substitute. At resurrection, it was Jesus giving himself to me so that he could live his life through me. So who lives the Christian life? It's Christ in me. And how do I live that? By faith. I can't legislate that. I can't live enough rules. I've been to some churches that have more rules than Jesus. I've been to some churches that have a lot of standards and rules. And you know what I always find funny? And I've said this to a number of pastors. I said, hey, listen, you know what's the problem with your list? He said, what? He said, hey, this is the list for our standards for our workers. And I think we should have a standard for our workers. I think every church should have that. But that's not a litmus test whether or not that they're going to be righteous or not. That's just a requirement. But you know what I always say? You know what the problem with that list is? It's way too short. Because, I mean, have you not read Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy? That was God giving his list. And nobody could keep that. Christ living his Christianity is not, I'm going to improve myself for God. No, no, no. Christianity is Christ lives his life through me. And it's lived by faith. So, chapters 3 and 4, he explains the gospel. Oh foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you. This only would I learn of you. Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect in the flesh? At least this is Paul in the courtroom right now. Paul is coming to an explanation. He is going to merely lay his case out. The logical thing of this, the logic that Paul is going to use, the way he builds his case, is masterful. He moves to the central question. Okay, let's talk about your faith. You say that you're saved. How did you get saved? Did you get saved by faith? Did you begin this by the Holy Spirit? Or did you begin this by works? And their answer would have been what? No, we began this by faith. In the Spirit of God. Okay. So you're going to start in the Spirit and then you're going to end up perfecting yourself by yourself? Is that the gospel? The gospel is going to say you're going to start with this great work of Jesus Christ, this incredible, unspeakable, unsearchable gift. You're going to get this. The work of the Holy Spirit is going to come in and make you a new creature. But you have to make yourself righteous by your flesh. Did you receive the Spirit by the work of the law or by the hearing of faith? That's Paul's question. So he goes back to their own conversion. He says, you didn't receive the Spirit by keeping Moses' law. You received him through faith. Then comes his penetrating question. Are you so foolish, verse 3? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now made perfect by the flesh? Here's Paul now exposing that subtle form of legalism. Saved by grace, but sanctified by human effort. See, there are some people that say, no, no, I know we can't save ourselves by works. We're saved by by faith. But we really have to work hard to keep God happy with us. See, in salvation, there's justification where God declares you righteous. God says it's over, He's forgiven you, He declares you righteous. But then there's sanctification where God is making you righteous. See, a lot of people love the justification. They really don't like the sanctification. Because the sanctification, God has to do a lot of cutting off of you. God has to do a lot of putting to death things in you. There's a crucifixion life that comes with that. But you can't do that yourself. But this is what they were teaching that, you know, it's by human effort. And Paul said, no, the Christian life begins by faith and continues by faith. So what is he going to do? He's going to use Abraham as a proof of justification by faith. Watch this. This is masterful. Verse number six. Even as Abraham believed God, man, we've got to land the plane already. Even as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which are of faith are the same as the children of Abraham? And the scripture, for seeing that God would justify the heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham, saying, In thee shall all the nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham. Now, now notice what he says. Verse number 10. For as many as are are of the works of the law are under the curse, for it is written, Cursed is everyone that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident, for the just shall live by faith. Okay? So Paul's argument is this listen, it was Abraham justified by works, or was Abraham justified by faith? Well, Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness. Check this out. That was 400 years before the giving of the law. So Abraham was already declared righteous and there was no law. How did Abraham get this righteousness? It was by faith. So he, these people were wanting to go back to Moses. Paul said, let's back up and go further to Abraham. We're gonna go all the way back to Abraham that Abraham believed God. And you guys are in Abraham, right? Yes. The Jews would say, Yes, we're in Abraham. That's our father. Is it okay? Well, Abraham lived centuries before Moses received the law. So justification by faith wasn't Paul's idea. It was God's plan all along. Paul then makes an important distinction between the promise that God made to Abraham and the law that gave to Moses. God's promise to Abraham came first. The law came afterward. So the latter law could not cancel out God's earlier promise. The promise said, God will do it. The law said, here is God's righteous standard. See if you can do it. And if you can't, here's a ton of animals that you can slaughter. So then why did God give the law? Paul's gonna explain that in verses 19 through 29 of chapter 3. Why did God give the law? This is one of the most important questions in the book of Galatians, in verse number 19. Wherefore then serveth the law? Why do we have the law then? Why did God throw this complicated monkey wrench into everything? If Abraham had this thing so easy, he believed he's justified, then why Sinai? If the law can't justify us, then what's its purpose? Paul gives several answers to that. First of all, and I wish I had time to go into all this, and I don't, but look at verse number 20. He said, There's a mediator, and it's not a mediator of one, but but God is one. Is the law then against the promises of God? God forbid. For if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law. But the scripture have concluded all under sin that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto faith, which should afterwards be revealed. What are you saying? What's he talking about? Remember, we're flying over, we're not getting in the weeds, so just bear with me. We're gonna zip. Paul's gonna give several answers as to why the law was given. First of all, the law exposes transgression. It's the law that brings out sin. Do you know one of the saddest stories in the Bible is the rich young ruler who comes to Jesus and he says, Listen, I've kept the whole law, I've done all this. And Jesus says one thing to him. Boy, people have perverted the gospel with this. He says, Go sell everything you have, give it away to the poor, and then you can have eternal life. And the man went away from Jesus sorrowful. You know what he was wrestling with? He was wrestling with this. Everything in the law, he'd never killed anybody, he had never committed adultery with anybody physically, he had always obeyed and honored his parents, he'd never worshiped another idol, none of that stuff. But he couldn't admit he was covetous. And the law was that thing that zeros in and shows you your transgression. The law reveals God's righteous standard. Okay? If you want to save yourself, this is what you're gonna do. But you can't do it, so here's a lamb. So if you want to be holy on your own, you're gonna have to have a substitutionary sacrifice because you can't. So you have to have your sins covered and atoned. Every kid has a every family has one kid that's an atoning kid. There are some kids that go in the room and they clean the room, and others go in and atone the room. They put everything under the bed. Okay? That's what atonement was. Atonement was just, it was put under this sacrifice and under the sacrifice until Christ came and fulfilled it. And he took it away. But the law had to had to be atoned. The law shows our inability. And ultimately, verse number 24, wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ that we might be justified by faith. It was the guardian of it of an underage child to protect them until they came to full age. So remember, God had given Israel this plan to bring the Messiah into the world. But God needed a people to be distinct. So the law was going to be the schoolmaster to be the guardian over them, to maintain their distinction, to hold them accountable to God, to maintain them as a nation, to maintain them as a people that were distinct from the world until Christ came. And when Christ came, the schoolmaster, the guardians no longer needed because Christ is here. So the lawgiver finally came. So the law, what Paul concluded, was the law reveals the problem. Christ provides the solution. It's very interesting that the labor in the Bible, in the Old Testament, the labor is a beautiful picture of this. The labor was, he talks about it being like a mirror. The law is a mirror. It shows you what's wrong with you. But the mirror can't cleanse you. You can see you have a dirty face in the mirror, but you can't clean your face with the mirror. Right? So the laver, the Old Testament laver, was a bowl filled with mirrors. And the priest could look into the mirror and see his uncleanness. But there was water there. That he could wash himself with that water. Well, this is exactly what the law does. The law shows you where you need to be clean, but but the word of God is the water by which we are cleansed. There's a cleansing that takes place. That's why he says in verse 26, for ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. So in chapter 4, he goes from servants to sons. Okay? So this is what God did to Abraham. This is why God gave the law. And so, the law, you were a servant to the law. But now that Christ is here, he's made you sons. In chapter 4, I wish I had time to go through all of this, but Paul introduces one of the most beautiful truths in the whole book of Galatians. In Christ, we are not just merely forgiven criminals, we are adopted children. The Bible says in verse 4, for when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth his son. Did you see that? He sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying, Abba Father, wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son. And of a son than an heir of God through Christ. Now let me explain something to you that gets lost in the Western world. Our adoption processes are we go down to unwanted children at an orphanage, and we go through a process to take unwanted children and bring them into our home and make them our own. And that's a beautiful thing, and it should be done more and more. And more Christians should be involved in foster care, and more Christians should be involved in adopting and helping with all those things. We need that. That's a beautiful thing. But that's not what this adoption is. Because God did not just bring you and adopt you as an orphan into his family. You don't come into God's family through an adoption agency. You're born again. You have his life in you. Adoption in this world, not our Western world, but adoption here was adoption was when a young child was given the full right as an adult son. You are now fully heirs. You don't need a schoolmaster. There's no one over you. You are now a full adult son. And now you have you have all the rights and privileges that belong to the Father. They're yours. So you don't have to go to school anymore. There's nobody that you have to listen to. You are a full grown son. Here's the progression that Paul's talking about in chapter 4. God sends his son, Christ redeems us, God adopts us, and the Spirit enters us. Because we are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into your hearts. So the gospel moves us from bondage to redemption, to sonship. This is why John said in 1 John, Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us. That we should be called the sons of God. For now are we the sons of God. We are full-grown, joint heirs with Jesus Christ. That gives us the inheritance. So Paul asks, why would someone who has been made a son voluntarily return to slavery? Why would you go back to living that way? And he's going to explain it through Hagar and Sarah. So in chapter 4, verses 21 through 31, he's going to say, there's two ways that you can live now. Now that this is in front of you, you can live under two ways. You can live under Hagar and Ishmael, which is bondage. She was a bondservant who brought forth a son under slavery and under obligation, or you can be like Sarah and have the son of promise, which is done through miracle, which is a supernatural birth, and the son of promise. Ishmael represents human effort and attempt to produce something outside of God's help. God tells Abraham, You're going to be a father, okay? But I'm old and I'm 86 years old, and you've not given me a son yet. What am I going to do? And Sarah's like, I'm not having a kid. Go take Hagar. So Abraham takes things into his own hand and produces something, but it's a production of the flesh. And when you sow to the flesh, you of the flesh reap corruption. And we're still fighting wars over that today. Or you can come to Isaac, which represents what only God's promise can accomplish through faith. Abraham considered not his body now dead, nor the deadness of Sarah's womb. And yet in that deadness there was life because it was something that was done by the work of God. The flesh says, I can accomplish this. Faith says, God promised this. And I'm going to depend on God for this. So Paul concludes chapter 4 by saying this So then, brethren, verse 31, so then, brethren, we are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free. Isn't that good? And this is the key latchet that unlocks chapter 5 and 6 and We'll hustle through this and we'll land the plane by 8:15. We're late. So God, he's going to now talk about the gospel applied, 5 and 6. Chapter 5 begins with one of Scripture's greatest declarations of Christian liberty. Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again into the yoke of bondage. This yoke of bondage that the law was. Paul talks about guarding against two opposite errors. One, legalism. I earn God's acceptance through the rules that I keep. Man, there's a it's so easy for Christians to fall into that. We can so easily put these rules into our life that we think are earning God's acceptance. Listen, I am not, I'm already accepted in Christ. But the second error is license. Because I'm under grace, I can live however I want. Look at verse 13 of chapter 5. He says, For brethren, we have been called into liberty, only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh. Okay, so listen. Don't use your liberty to magnify your flesh. Don't live like a heathen and call it grace. That's a disgrace to grace. As much as some, listen, it's so funny to me because people on the licensed side always want to call us fundies and legalists because we have rules, or we have a standard, or we have an expectation of something. And they now there's a difference when you hold an expectation and say this is what you have to do in order to be saved, or in order to be sanctified, or in order to be a good Christian, you have to follow all these rules. What Paul's saying here is look, these people over here get you guys are so critical while they're being critical. You guys are so judgmental while they're being judgmental. Because you're in a ditch. There's a ditch on the left and there's a ditch on the right, and if you fall into the ditch, you're in a ditch. And Jesus said, do not turn to the left hand with the Sadducees and be a licensed guy. And do not turn to the right hand with the Pharisees and be a legalist. Walk straight. And the only way you can do that is to walk in Christ. The Christian life is not hard, it's impossible. Because only one person's ever lived it, and if you're going to live it, it's going to require him to live it in you. Grace does not free me to sin. What is Christian liberty? It is grace that frees me from sin's mastery so that I can serve God as I should. Listen to me, you've heard me say this before. But liberty is not the freedom to do what I want. Liberty is the freedom to do as I ought. I'm getting to live as I should live because it's not me, it's Christ in me. And what's the answer to that? Verse 16. Walk in the Spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Paul's going to go through the rest of chapter 5, and he's going to talk about here's the answer to the whole problem. If you're going to live under the law as the means of justification, you can never be justified. But if you're not going to live under the law, then what's the means of justification? What's the means of sanctification? Who controls the Christian life? And the answer? The Holy Spirit. And then he's going to give you a way to test that. How do you see if it is, if your life is really being lived by the Holy Spirit? Well, here's 17 works of the flesh. Here are 17 things that your flesh will do. Your flesh is going to be manifested or be made known in adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, sexual sins. Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variants, emulations. Spiritual sins. And then wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envies, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like. Social sins. You're going to have sexual sins, you're going to have spiritual sins, and you're going to have social sins. You're going to have envy in your life. You're going to have jealousy in your life. You're going to backbite in your life. You're going to ridicule other people in your life. You're going to have hatred and all kinds of things in your heart. And you're going to go out and just, you're going to enjoy the revelings. You're going to enjoy, and by the way, I would love for you to do a study one day on all those words and what they mean. What is drunkenness? What is revelings? What is it to go to parties and to act a fool? And to go out with the world and to and to strip down into unmodest clothing and dance with the heathen and then call that grace. That's a disgrace to grace. God didn't save you. God saved you from that, not for that. I mean, this is what we've come to. When you come to a place of legalism or license, you come to a place where we start producing sinful works and calling it okay. So the legalist, he would be full of wrath on everybody else and strife and always looking for fault, and that's all flesh. Or you can be, you can have the nine graces of the Spirit. We call them the fruits of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, self-control. Paul doesn't say fruits. He says fruit. This is not something that you get to have some of. Some people are like, I'm really good at love. Well, yeah, but you're not very good at long suffering. Well, I'm just, you know, I'm I'm pretty good at being joyful. Yeah, well, you're not very good at being self-controlled. So what Paul's not saying here is that you have fruits that you can pick and choose. It's fruit, it's the singular character of Christ produced by the Holy Spirit and magnified through the believer. And this goes directly back to verse 20 of chapter 2. Christ liveth in me. You know what you've never done? My wife and I have an apple tree in the backyard and it's it's growing, it's growing some apples. You know what I've never done? I've never walked back there and said, babe, come here, look at this. Look how hard this tree is working. I mean, this tree is sweating and laboring. That tree is not working at all. It's just there. You know what those branches are doing? Those branches are just holding on to the trunk. You know how you produce fruit in your life? You just hold on to the trunk. I am the vine, you are the branches. Just hold on to me, abide in me, and I will abide in you, and you'll bring forth fruit. And people will know that you're walking in the spirit because they will see me in you. This is Christ for me, justification, Christ in me, sanctification, Christ through me, fruitfulness. And then the whole thing ends in chapter 6, and man, we are way over time. I'm so sorry, church. What does a spirit-filled church look like? It's chapter 6. Paul becomes very practical. If a man be overtaken in a fault, let me tell you what true graceful people are. The Judaizers were looking, they were looking for fault, they were fault finders. And true gracious people are looking for restoration. A spirit-led church isn't merely a church where people talk about spiritual experiences, it's a church where people behave like Christ toward one another. And they restore fallen people. Listen, you don't restore fallen people by telling fallen people that it's okay to be fallen. There's a lot of people who are saying, I'm just trying to love them back to Jesus. No, you're loving them in their sin without confronting their sin. When you restore somebody, you that word to restore means to literally set the bone. It means you say to somebody, get up and this is gonna hurt. But stop doing that. You can't do that. If you're gonna walk in Christ, let me help you get up. Let me help you. Listen, that's love. They bear burdens. They come along somebody and say, Listen, I know you're struggling with that drinking. Let me help you with that. I want you to call me on Friday night. That's when you're tempted to go out and drink. Call me on Friday night. No matter how late, when you're tempted, you call me. I'm gonna bear that burden with you. Then what do they do in verse 4? They examine themselves. They do this in a spirit where they're proving their own work. They're examining their own work. Listen, it's one thing to be a fruit inspector for everybody else and not turn the spotlight on yourself and examine. A spirit-filled church examines themselves. They get before the Lord and say, Lord, what in my life is not of the Holy Spirit? In verse number six, a spirit-filled church supports faithful teaching. Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things. Listen, it's a church that supports biblical teaching. They show up for it, they hunger for it. And then in verses seven and eight, a spirit-filled church is a church that sows to the spirit. What does it mean to sow to the spirit? It means that I'm putting all of my dependence upon the Holy Spirit. And I'm letting him see, when you sow something, you're throwing that seed into that, and you're just trusting that it's going to come up. Well, if you do that to the flesh, you're going to reap corruption. But if you if you sow into the Holy Spirit and depend on him, you will reap life everlasting. Things that are producing supernatural life. And then he says, Hey, a spirit-filled church doesn't quit in doing good. Do not be weary in well-doing. And they do good to others. And Paul closes by bringing everything back to Christ. And he says in verses 11 through 18 that the cross is our only boast. It's amazing here. Paul said, I wish that those people that trouble you could be cut off. And let me tell you what the true translation of that really is. And it's very, it's it's it's very discreet in the scripture. But what he's saying here is, I wish that they would be emasculated. You know, they want to talk about circumcision, but let's just go further than that. Listen, I don't want you to reproduce after your kind. I wish they would be cut off and have no fruit among you. Paul said, you know what? They want you to see marks in your body of circumcision, but let me show you the marks in my body that I've suffered for the cause of Christ. And look at the marks in Christ's body of his crucifixion. Paul says in verse 14, God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is Galatians in one picture. Religion says, Look at what I have done for God. The gospel says, Look at what Christ has done for me. That's a beautiful book.

unknown 54:49

Father,