PODCAST: Stop Living Like You're Cursed | Galatians 3:13-14

Have you ever caught yourself thinking:

"I knew it was too good to be true."

"I always mess things up."

"Nothing ever works out for me."

Those thoughts may feel normal, but what if they're rooted in a false identity?

In this episode, Pastor David Flores walks through Galatians 3:13-14 and explores one of the most powerful truths in the Christian faith: Jesus took the curse so that we could receive the blessing.

The Apostle Paul reminds believers that righteousness does not come through perfect performance or religious rule-keeping. It comes through faith in Jesus Christ. Because of the cross, we no longer have to define ourselves by our failures, fears, mistakes, or past disappointments.

In this message, you'll discover:

• What Paul means when he says Christ became a curse for us
• Why many Christians still live as though they're condemned
• How faith replaces fear as the foundation of the Christian life
• What it means to be blessed and highly favored by God
• Why your past may explain your story but does not define your identity
• How to walk confidently in the promises God has for your future

Whether you've been following Jesus for decades or you're still figuring out what faith looks like, this conversation offers practical encouragement for anyone tired of carrying burdens that Christ already carried to the cross.

Family of Faith is a Christ-centered church in Orange County, California, committed to helping people grow in faith, discover biblical truth, and experience the transforming love of Jesus.

For more messages and resources, visit FamilyOfFaithOC.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Family of Faith podcast. Here's this week's message.

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Praise God. Are you ready for the word tonight? Amen. I believe God has got something even greater. Every time we open the scriptures, we find and discover new things that He desires that we know and we learn and that we put to practice in our lives. I believe that's the case tonight as we look at Galatians chapter 3. We're going to look to focus on chapter 3, verse 13 and 14. And uh so let's make our confession over the word tonight as we go into this Bible study of the book of Galatians. And I've enjoyed it. I pray that you have enjoyed it as well, and that it's been beneficial to your daily walk uh in Christ. Amen. So let's make that confession tonight and uh release our faith for what God has for us. All right, here we go. This is my Bible.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

It is God speaking to me. It is alive, powerful, structure and enjoy this story. It's revealed to me by the Holy Spirit. I'm a believer, and therefore I'm a receiver. Who the word says I am, I am. What the word says I can do, I can do. What the word says I have, I have. I believe everything my Bible says, and today I do receive absolutely everything God has for me. I'll never be the same, never, never, never.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

I will be changed, rearranged by the anointing of God's word, working in my life right now, right now, right now. Praise God for his word. Amen. Praise the Lord. Let's give the Lord a praise for it. Hallelujah. Open your Bibles in Galatians chapter 3. And in chapter 3, we have studied the first portion of it where Paul again is coming against all the counterattacks against the gospel of Jesus Christ, uh, faith in Christ by salvation through faith in Christ, uh, coming against the Judaizers who are trying to get people back into the religious law and to follow that and all that he's uh the enemy's trying to do. And so he's coming against that. And um, and he's calling people out. I mean, he's not pulling any punches, he's calling people out. He's saying, Are you guys foolish? Are you just that that weak, so easily deceived that you would just turn your back on what I've taught and trained you and and giving you revelation and almost like you're under a spell. And and so he was really strong about this because this was what the spiritual warfare that was going on in that time period, and it's also going on today as well, even more so than ever. Uh, if you can think about it in the terms of all the different voices and all the things that you can see and hear, whether it's the social media, so many different uh platforms and preachers are on there, and uh, you know, you hear all things. And so we're looking at Galatians chapter three, and we're gonna go down to verse 13 and 14, kind of like like just uh really emphasize and look at that at this moment in time. So let's look at Galatians chapter 3, and I'm gonna read from the New Living Translation uh this time here, and uh I want to just uh probably get down here. Let's read the first uh couple of verses here. Uh Galatians chapter uh three. Let's see, I'm gonna jump in here. Uh verse 10, it says, But those who depend on the law to make them right with God are under the curse of that law. And that basically is if you can't fulfill the law, you're going to be uh living with the curse of the law, the results of that. And he goes on to say, Cursed is every uh cursed everyone who does not observe and obey all the commandments that are written in God's book of the law. So basically, uh as Moses brought the law out in the book of Exodus, uh, there was no law. So there was nothing to point out that what people did was wrong or was falling short of God's glory, or you know, wasn't what God wanted. And so it showed people were living on their uh emotions, they were living on their feelings, they were living on their fleshly desires, they were motivated by all kinds of different things, where there was fear, whether it was hatred, whether it was jealousy. And so he put the law into place through Moses, and uh in that he put the law into place to discover that Jesus Christ was gonna be that lamb slain because the only answer for the people of that time of the Israelites was once a year the priest would sacrifice a spotless lamb for their sins, for the sins of the people. And that was the type and shadow of Jesus Christ, the only spotless lamb to ever walk this earth. And he was the lamb slain from the foundations of the earth. So this was a type of what Jesus was going to fulfill. But when Jesus fulfilled it on the cross, he did away with us living by that law or under, or in other words, living as that law that is our foundation of what we do, what can we expect? Well, if we're living on that foundation of the law, we can expect to mess up on that law. We can expect to have curses continually come our way. And not that God is cursing us, but we our actions have consequences, okay? If you violate the speed law, you get caught and you get ridden up with the ticket. That's that's it. So that's what I mean. And he said, Well, I didn't know if the speed limit was 50. And so your your ignorance of the law uh doesn't is not an excuse, okay? Because it's posted, it's out there, and if you didn't see it, that's your problem, okay? And so God put that law to let the people know they needed a savior, they did not have righteousness, and so that's how he instilled the sacrifice of that lamb. And so we go on in verse 11. It says, So it's clear that no one can be made right with God by trying to keep the law. Nobody, there's not one person ever born on this earth or born to come. For the scripture says it is through faith that a righteous person has life, or uh, other ways you might have heard it the just shall live by faith. This way of faith is very different from the way of law, which says it is through obeying the law that a person has life. So I want to point that out as we get into chapter uh verse 13. The foundation of our living, as we sang just a little while ago, our we're he is our life, we're gonna live our life, he's our foundation. And so it says here the way of faith is very different from the way of law, which says it's through obeying the law that a person has life. Well, we know if it's a if you obey the law, you have life. Well, what happens if you disobey the law? You don't have life, okay? You have death, not life. But verse 13 says, But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. So, in other words, we're not gonna live uh or have life by obeying the law. We're gonna live by having faith in Christ, by having faith in what Jesus has done on the cross by our faith in God, all right? That's how we're going to live. That's gonna be our foundation, our faith in God. And I'm gonna get to a statement I want to make a little bit here about why that's so important. Why that's so important to have a foundation of faith in God. I have life today because I believe in God. I have life today because I believe that what Jesus did on the cross was enough for me to be made righteous. I have life today because I believe that I've been made righteous through Jesus Christ, my Lord. What does that mean? I believe I have a foundation and I live my life based that I'm right with God. I am in right standing with God. God and I have a relationship. Or as Jesus said at one point, he said, you know, he said to those that were around him and saying, There are those that are come saying, I did these acts in your name. And Jesus would say, Depart from me, for I never knew you. Well, they didn't have righteousness with God, didn't have right standing with Jesus. So get away from me. You did all the right things you said. You even used my name, you even saw results, but I don't know you. I don't have a relationship with you. See, righteousness uh implies that we have a relationship, a working, living relationship with God, a relationship that then we can access God, a relationship that says we can then believe and trust for things in Christ. Amen. And so it is through faith that a righteous person has life, the just shall live by faith. And so we see that the opposite was going to be either you're gonna live by the law, and if you do the law 100%, you'll have life. But if you don't, you'll have death. But if you live by faith in God, you will have life. And what's the alternative? Well, what if I don't have faith in God? Then you're gonna trust on your own merit to be in right standing with God. Verse 13 But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. Christ has rescued us from the curse that was pronounced by those who disobeyed the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon the himself the curse for our wrongdoing. So when he hung on that cross, he wasn't deserving to be on that cross. He never did anything to deserve being on that cross. He never did anything to deserve taking the curses upon him. He did it for our sake. He laid down his life for our sake. So when he was there on that cross, he took himself upon him the curse for our wrongdoing, every person's wrongdoing. For it is written in the scriptures, cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree. That's verse 13. So let's think about this tonight, then. Christ rescued us from the curse when he went to that cross. He took what we deserved. The curse of sin was not removed by ignoring it, it was removed because Jesus took it upon himself. There had to be in the time of the law, there had to be a lamb slain. In our time today that we live in, it was Jesus who took himself, uh, took it upon himself at the cross, and he bore our guilt so we could receive his grace. And in that grace we would find righteousness, holiness, we would find the mercy of God. So imagine a judge pronouncing a guilty verdict on someone, and the sentence was just, but then someone stepped forwards and said, I'll serve the sentence in their place. I'll take their place and I'll do their time. That is what Jesus did. He stepped in in our place and he took the penalty. He took the sentence, and the penalty that belonged to us was placed on him, and that penalty was death. So that's why Christ had to die. He had to take that penalty. So we think about this, he became cursed so that we could become blessed. All right, I'll say it again. He became cursed so that we could become blessed. The Post Paul writes it another way, and he says that he who knew no righteousness became sin for us, who knew no righteousness so that we could become the righteousness of God. So in this exchange, in this substitution, you have to live your life on the foundation that I'm not living a life based on that I'm cursed. That sooner or later something wrong is gonna happen. Sooner or later, I'm gonna mess it up. People say it all the time. I'm just cursed. You know, I got this job and boom, I blew it. I got into this relationship and I looked great and I did something dumb, and now I'm alone again, and whatever, and it I'm just cursed. And people would say that over themselves forever. And this is where it came from being cursed, doing something wrong, violating something, therefore a curse will come on your life. But we don't have to live that way, and we should never live that way because of Jesus. If you're a true follower of Christ, if you're a true believer in Christ, and you really believe that what God did in His plan of redemption through Jesus Christ our Lord, it was enough, then you don't ever live your life based on that idea that if I mess up, I'll be cursed. Stop living that way, stop being afraid of doing wrong. And I'm saying it in a way in such a way, I'm gonna say it and we're gonna refine it. I'm not gonna be afraid of doing wrong. I'm not gonna be afraid of making a mistake, I'm not gonna be afraid of failing, I'm not gonna be afraid of the unknown, all these fears that we're gonna come be confronted with. And many of us have lived our lives based on those fears. And when they happen, we say, I told you something. I knew it. I knew it was too good to be true. So whether you're in that moment living with those words and saying them all the time, when it happens, we come out and we just confirm all of it that was in our heart, that was in our head, what we're believing, and it comes out of our mouth and say, I knew it was too good to be true, I knew it was gonna, I was gonna mess it up. I knew I was gonna blow it. I knew I was gonna lose this job. The best perfect job for me. Now I don't have it. I mean, I this relationship was God saying, and now what's going on here? And we begin to live in the curse or live in a in a way that we have been cursed and we're still cursed. Okay, we have to make that adjustment, we have to make that change, we have to renew our mind. I'm not a cursed person trying to make it to heaven. Yeah, I am a blessed person, I'm a redeemed person. I've been bought with the price person. Jesus took my place on the cross person, and even if I do mess up, I've got a way of escape, I've got a way back to Christ, I've got a way back into righteousness, I've got a way back to God. Because I'm not living by that law. If I was living by that law, I had no way, I had no way to get back, I had no way to get up, I had no way to start over or get back up and get back in the race. No way if I'm living by the law, but because of Christ, because of his grace, because of his mercy, we have an advocate who's always pulling for us, who's always interceding for us. His name is Jesus. And so he became cursed so that we could become blessed. And if there's one great thing you can begin to do in your life, start believing you're the blessed. You are blessed. When we see Pastor Alfonso, we'll see him later on uh end of this month. He'll say, I have whenever I greeted him or he greeted me, I'd say he'd say, How you doing, man of God? And I'd say, back, how you doing, uh, Dr. Alfonso. Pastor Alfonso says, I am blessed, is what he'd always say. All the years, and I know I was in the first hearing. He's been saying it for probably over 50 years. I'm blessed and highly favored of the Lord. That's what he says every time it's greeted. I'm blessed and highly favored of the Lord. It comes out naturally now. You just have to think about it, it just comes out. I'm blessed and highly favored of the Lord. Can you do that to over yourself? Can you say, I'm a blessed person? I'm blessed of the Lord. Yeah, I'm blessed of the Lord. And when you begin to say it, and others around you will say, Oh, sure, you are. Oh no, you're not. You know, they'll contradict you, they'll counter against you. But you have to become the one to know that it's your faith, it's your words, it's what you believe about you, between you and God, and what the relationship you have with Christ. And based on that, you can say, I'm blessed and I'm highly favored of the Lord. And don't take offense when someone says it, don't get jealous when someone says it. Don't don't feel less than because someone says it. No, hook up on that train, amen. Get your get your car on that train and hook it up and say, I'm blessed too, and I'm highly favored the Lord too. Because there's, you know, there's this thinking that the enemy puts that there's only room for one. That that's there's only no God wants a big family, and he expects all of his children to be able to look at him and tell him, I'm blessed, Father. I'm blessed, and I'm favored of you, Father. All of them, because he loves us all the same. So the cross changed our status, it changed where we come from, it changes the basis of our lives, it changes our status because of Christ. We're no longer defined by our failures. How many of us have told people our stories or they ask you know, where do you come from? Where's what was your road? How did you get here? And sometimes you just immediately always gotta throw in your failures. Always gotta throw in your failures.

unknown 15:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

Along the way, yep, I graduated from the sixth grade, but I throw in my failures in the eighth grade. I mean, just gotta throw them in there like it makes the story juicy, right? All right, it's a it's a good drama. I mean, it's a good backstory, and oh, and it makes you like human, okay? It normalizes you, it uh it, you know, people don't think, oh wow, this person, but you know, Pastor Doris and I, you know, we're over the weekend, and and I've got some grandnephews, and they have never heard any of my stories. So shame on their dads that never told them about me. That's okay. Praise God. They did, you know what? They didn't even know themselves. So shame on anybody. Yeah, because I'm not about to be tooting my own horn and stuff, and my mom wasn't tooting our horns, you know. If you came, you know, uh, she wasn't the kind of mom said, There's my meal, and he's this, this, this, this, this, and every time, no, you know, she wasn't that way all the time, you know. So every now and then she'd do that. But you know, so they just didn't know. They just didn't know. Now, if you'd asked my brothers, they would tell you they know a lot of things about that. People close to me back in uh time period of 78 to 86 before you know I got married and met Pastor Doris and all that. Those that were close, they knew some of that story. Okay, but the one I would say who probably knows those stories more than ever is my brother Jonathan. Because he was right there beside me, he lived it through.

unknown 17:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

So he would probably know all those stories. He'd be the first thing, yeah, that's right, you know, and chime in, you know. But but do you tell your story? Do you give me your failures? You know, I flunked out of med school, you know. But here I am today, you know. It's good soap, right? I don't know, but what I'm trying to say is we have lived a life so based on being cursed, that's become natural for us to when we share our story, or people say, tell me about you, you know, tell me, like, you know, filling out those red, tell me why we should hire you. What have you to offer? And why you would be great for imperfect for this position. Uh, you know, you think, well, what are you gonna give them? Your failures? No, you're gonna give them all the highlights.

SPEAKER_00 17:54

Right.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

All the top points, right? All the top points. And if they get your transcripts, they'll see the truth in here and there, all right? They'll get the top, they'll get the top points, all right? So so because of Christ, we're not defined by our failures, so stop defining yourself by your failures. Don't define yourself by your mistakes or your inability to keep the law perfectly. We have been adopted into God's family through faith. All of us have the ability to believe. That's faith. All of us have the ability because of God and his grace and his love and mercy, have the ability to believe. So, a child who once lived in an orphanage with no inheritance, in this illustration, he had no family name, but one day a loving family adopted him. Overnight, his status changes. He didn't earn it, he just received it. So in Christ, we move from a condemnation to acceptance. What's the truth here? Your past may explain you, but it no longer defines you. And the other key I find in here is that we have to receive it. You have to learn to receive it, okay? Learn to receive it, learn to accept it as part of your story. That Christ has rescued us from the curse of the law, that we're not defined by our past failures, but he has changed our status, okay? It may explain where we came from and explain how we got here, but it no longer defines us. Next point the promise is received by faith. It's received by faith. So we look at that chapter uh three, verse 13, go on to verse 14. Let's read that here. Verse verse 14 says, Through Christ Jesus God has blessed the Gentiles with the same blessing he promised to Abraham, so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith. Through faith, we can receive the promised Holy Spirit, we can be born again. We can receive all the blessings of the Father, all the promised blessings to Abraham, we can receive them as well. And so this is the point of going forward. It must be received by faith. It must be received by your faith in God. So Paul reminds us that through Christ, believers receive the promise of the Holy Spirit, not by our works, but by faith. Again, that's an adjustment and a mindset and a renewal of your mind to believe in terms of I am here by faith, I live by faith, I'm made righteous by faith in God, and I'm defined by what God has done for me through Jesus Christ our Lord. So the Christian life begins and continues by trusting what Jesus has done, and that's what Paul was emphasizing. You started in faith. How did you get back into dealing with your works, your actions, and your life being defined by what you're doing or not doing? And then, you know, and that's what that leads to is people then grouped together with people who are doing. And I stay away from those who are not doing, they're worse, they're they're they're you know, they're heathens, and you don't you don't associate with them and you differentiate, and then you have this arrogant spirit that comes in and think you're better than other Christians because of what you do in your life and what you you you think you're doing. So the Christian life that begins and continues when we trust in Jesus and what he's done for us. It's by faith, always, and remember that. So I can have a foundation of the promise of the blessing. I can have a foundation of being made righteous with God and redeemed because of Jesus. I can have a foundation that every day I walk with him and I have the promises of God that are given to me, they're given to you. Cursed is he who's hung on the tree for that. Then Jesus went to that cross so that the blessing of Abraham could come upon you and upon me. So at the cross, there's a great exchange. Jesus took our curse and he gave us his blessing. He took our guilt and he gave us his grace. So we exchanged. You know, when we come time to worship and we pray. I was thinking about this the other day. I've been hearing somebody teach and talk about prayer and talk about Jesus in times of prayer. May mention how Jesus prayed all night. And I thought about that and said, Well, uh, you know, and I've always thought this way. I said, Well, but Jesus prayed all night so that he could be able to deal with everything that was going to happen the next day. That the Father was planning and preparing him. So you can imagine. And so, of course, the thought and my idea comes in my spirit that prayer is a dialogue. A dialogue is two people talking, two people talking. That's prayer, two people talking. It's not a monologue, but what do we all think prayer is? Most of us think prayer is a monologue, it's one person speaking. Yeah, that's what we think prayer is. So when we say, we're gonna pray for an hour today, pray for an hour. Oh my god, I can barely have enough words for five minutes. Right, I run out of words to say. Well, you're doing it wrong.

unknown 22:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

What if you prayed for five minutes and sat there in quiet silence and just waited to hear the voice of the spirit the next 45 minutes? You know, and you can say, Well, Pastor, I prayed for 50 minutes. What am I gonna think? Man, you were praying on the Holy Ghost long, you were praying his words. No, no, I would think that probably, but now I know what prayer is. Is prayer is me communicating, you know, speaking to God for as fast as I got to pour it out. Lord, don't you know, don't you see? Lord, I need your help and intervene and I believe, Lord, I and I'm believing, I'm receiving, I thank you, Lord, and shut up and listen and see what the Lord says to do. So if we do it right, we're probably gonna be more quiet than vocal in our time of prayer. But what that's gonna happen is you're gonna develop a a hearing ear of the Holy Spirit in your heart, your heart and mind, right here through Christ Jesus our Lord. You're gonna develop your sensory to hear God speak. And when people say, and the Lord's told me, well, it's not always that they hear the Lord's an audible voice speaking, but they hear that unction, they hear that nudge, they hear that what a lot of times in the world they would call their gut feeling. I just know it in my gut. Well, that's because that goes to the heart of man. Our heart is the center, and that isn't my pumping organ here, it's my spirit, man, your spirit, where John where Jesus said, or uh you know, out of the innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. So this is the heart. So when you're quiet, and if you have a hard time being quiet before God, you've got to learn how to be quiet. To listen. Well, Pastor, I was quiet, and then uh next thing I know I woke up. All right, come on, who knows that's happened to you, at least. Yeah, okay. I was quiet. Next thing I know, I woke up. Well, did God speak to you when you were sleeping? Yeah, he can speak to you when you're sleeping. You can have some spiritual dreams, you can wake up with a phrase and a statement or a direction or something right when you wake up. But see, you were practicing that, and the time as you develop that, all right, you're gonna live from that basis, okay, that Jesus took our curse and he gave us his blessing. He took our guilt and he gave us his grace. He took our death and he gave us his life. So, because Jesus was hung on the cross on that tree, we can stand in the blessing promised to Abraham and walk in the power of the Holy Spirit. We can do that today. So I'll end with this. What Jesus carried to the cross, you no longer have to carry through your life. You no longer have to carry your failures, you no longer have to carry your fears, you don't longer have to carry your disappointments, you no longer have to carry the fear that I'm cursed and nothing ever works for me. But you drop that on and you embrace what Christ has done, and you literally embrace the blessings of Abraham, where God said to Abraham, You're gonna be my people, I'm gonna be your God. I'm gonna be there for you, I'm gonna lead you where you should go. And that's what he did to Abraham. He showed him where to go. Abraham, Abram tried to have a child on his own way, you know, came out in Ishmael, and God said, No, that's not the way I want it. I want it this way. And God will lead you, God will direct your paths. And so this is part of the blessing is being able to have a relationship with God through the Holy Spirit based on what Jesus did on the cross and live your life from that basis, that foundation of grace and mercy and love and the blessing. I am blessed, I am blessed. Say it with me, John. I am blessed. I am blessed, amen. Say with I am blessed and highly favored of the Lord.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

Highly favored of the Lord, amen.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

You need to practice saying that. So when Pastor Alfonso comes and you see him say, I'm blessed and highly favored of the Lord, and he'll say, Glory to God. Hallelujah. Praise God. Because you need to realize that's who we are. And the enemy tries to deceive us and get us to live our lives from the past instead of the present and the future based on what Jesus has done for us. Amen. I believe that's gonna change your outlook, it's gonna change the way you plan your day, it's gonna change the way you envision things going for you in life because you're gonna listen to the Lord, you're gonna get direction from him, amen. And then you're gonna step out as the blessed person. You're the blessed person going into that room, you're the blessed person going into that office, you're the blessed person going into that situation. You're favored to the Lord because you're not cursed with the curse because of failing the law, but you are blessed with the blessing because of what Jesus did. Let it change your attitude like last week's message. Let it change your motivation. We do what we do because we love, because he loves us. We love him back. So we base our motivation on love, not fear. And here we're gonna base our attitude on life, on being blessed. I'm blessed for the Lord. Amen. So I mean I know what's gonna happen when I knock on that door, but I'll tell you one thing: I'm going in blessed.

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

I'm going in blessed, and you're going in blessed. Amen. Yes, let's let's let's stand up and pray tonight. Father, we give you glory and praise, and we thank you for this opportunity, Lord, to be in your presence, your house, your fellowship of believers, family of faith OC. We thank you, Lord, right now, Father, for your preparing us for for the days ahead. You're establishing your people, you are establishing us in relationship and righteousness with you through Jesus Christ our Lord. Father, for the assignments that you have for us, the purposes that we're to live at, Lord. We thank you, Father, tonight, right now, that we are the blessed of the Lord, and you're looking at us as the blessed, walking in the promises of Abraham, walking in the promises that God is for us and he's not against us. And so we thank you, Lord, that we live our life by faith and we receive by faith everything you have for us today. And we give you praise, Lord, for it in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

Thanks for listening. To connect with Family of Faith, visit family of faithoc.com. We'll see you next week.