Look Like Abraham--Galatians 3:1-9

I want to provide two things this morning. I want us to look to Christ.

Obviously, we always are to do this. But I want to provide two, concrete ways in which we look to Christ that are a great help to your personal life and devotional life.

Look to Christ as you live and read, because He is always what you need.

I. Look to Christ As You Live (vv. 1-6)

Look During Preaching (v.1)

Galatians 3:1 KJV 1900

1 O 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?

Paul uses strong language here.

Does this mean “you stupid idiots”?

Yes. Yes it does. “You senseless people!” Paul calls them that because it takes idiots, people who have had spells cast on them, to walk away from Jesus, to stop obeying Him. What else could explain it?

This is especially true when you see that Paul says they saw Christ set forth, crucified among them.

For Paul, preaching the Gospel is the same as having Christ physically in front of our eyes.

This is why we say that preaching is the main part of any church service. Not because preachers like attention, though some do. Not because they are good orators, though some are.

No. It is in preaching that Jesus is set before our eyes. It is preaching that puts Christ crucified before our hearts.

App: This is why it is worth the extra effort to come to church Sunday. This is why it is worth the hassle to get everyone fed and clothed. This is why we come to Sunday School. Not to here more lectures, not to be given some historical facts, but because we want to see Christ.

We want to look to Him. If you want to benefit from my preaching, from our pastor’s preaching, this is to be your attitude. Find Christ. Look to him in the preaching. Second,

Look When You Believe (v. 2)

Galatians 3:2 KJV 1900

2 This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

Paul asks a rhetorical question here to challenge the Galatians. He wants to pull them back from going over to a gospel of faith and works. So he asks them: how did you receive the Holy Spirit? Faith or works?

EX: This question only works if the Holy Spirit is indeed given to all believers at the moment they have faith in Christ.

I know that there are many traditions out there that teach some Christians have the Holy Spirit and some do not. If that were the case, Paul’s argument would make no sense.

Paul says, “How did you get the Holy Spirit”? And someone pops up and says, “Um, I don’t have it!”

Yes, you do. You have it the moment you believed.

1 Corinthians 12:13 (KJV 1900)

13 For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit.

For Paul, receiving the Spirit is being a Christian. It is the person who looks to Christ in faith.

You have the Spirit by faith alone. By looking to Christ. Not by any other works out there.

App: It may seem odd that I am telling the Sunday School crowd about looking to Christ as you believe. Our entire faith is founded on that simple truth. It is Christ who saves us, and not ourselves.

But I bring this to your attention because I know that several of you out and watching via livestream are constantly battling doubts.

You are tying yourself into anxious knots over your salvation. You are constantly wondering, “Did I believe enough? Did I trust enough? Did I go the altar at the right time?”

Where did God lay those conditions down on you for your salvation? He did not. You are slipping into a Law mindset.

You are thinking that you must meet these certain criterion to be saved, rather than realizing your salvation is based on the fact that you cannot meet any criterion at all! That is what makes it beautiful!

Quit your navel gazing. Quit staring into the empty abyss of your sin and soul. Turn your eyes to Him. Look to Him as you believe. Third,

Look As You Grow (v. 3)

Galatians 3:3 KJV 1900

3 Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?

Paul presses his point. He knows the objections. “Why, yes, Paul, I am saved by faith alone. That is how I began, but I can’t just sit around! I have to get busy! I have to grow in my holiness! I must read my Bible more. I must go to Church. I must obey the commands of God!”

Do you know what Paul calls that mindset? Foolish! Stupid! How?

Here is Paul’s basic question: do you start by faith and finish by works? Do you believe in Jesus to save you and yourself to grow into your future perfection? Are you finishing the Christian life by works after you began by faith?

Sanctification is not something our Lord does in me; sanctification is himself in me.

Oswald Chambers

Yes, there are works we do as believers, but the danger is that we think we have to knuckle down and do them in our own efforts. We think that we have to meet certain conditions before we can grow.

If we are not that bad in our thinking, then we think that we have to do certain things before Christ gives us His aid.

Beloved, that is not the Gospel. We do not abandon Christ to grow more into His image.

His cross provides the assurance that we will grow as Christians. It is not left up to us to do so.

We look to Christ to Christ as we live, we look in the preaching, when we believe, as we grow, fourthly

Look As You Suffer (v. 4)

Galatians 3:4 KJV 1900

4 Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain.

If the Galatians needed circumcision for salvation, then all of their persecution was for nothing: they and the Jews/Judaizers can get along just fine. There would no longer be any offense of the cross.

This is the dividing line between Christians and non-Christians of all stripes. It was why the early Christians suffered.

So it wasn’t the fact that Christians worshiped a different God. That wasn’t the problem at all. It was the exclusivity of the Christian faith that got them into trouble.

Jeffrey A.D. Weima

I remind you that this is still offensive today. The idea that the only path to God requires man to abandon any hope outside of the crucified Christ. Sinful man hates that. He is perfectly fine to have a Jesus who wants man’s help to save Him. But man cannot tolerate the idea that he has no part in his own heavenly journey.

Christ’s claims on our salvation are total. That will bring us into conflict, and we must be ready for that.

We look to Him as we Suffer. Number 5,

Look During Miracles (v. 5)

Galatians 3:5 KJV 1900

5 He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

Therefore—again, notice that. Paul is building his argument. He established faith alone saves us, grows us, and is the reason for our suffering. So he builds on it.

ministereth to you the Spirit--same as receiving the Spirit in Gal.3.2.

What are the miracles being worked here? How do they relate to us today? That is a hot-button issue if there ever was one. It is one of the many modern divides among Christians.

First, let’s make it clear. Everyone believes God can and still does miracles. When we hear about miracles, we have no reason to be skeptical.

I never have any difficulty believing in miracles, since I experienced the miracle of a change in my own heart.

Augustine of Hippo

Every Christian believes that. That is not the issue. The debate is whether we should expect them basically on-demand like we see in the Acts of the Apostles.

Our pastor recently did a full study of that book and I am not going to rehash it. It is clear that the miracles on demand were given temporarily to establish the NT form of the Church. It was never meant to be a continuous thing, every moment of every day.

God has the power to work a miracle whenever he chooses. But he does not keep life going by an endless succession of miracles.

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones

We know that were done, and Paul’s point here is that that these miracles were not done because someone obeyed the Law of Moses to get them done.

They were done in the same way a person is saved: by faith in Christ.

Acts 3:6 (KJV 1900)

6 Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.

It is all the same looking. In preaching, in believing, in growing, in suffering, and in miracles. It is all a simple to Christ. That is Paul’s point here. He builds that an Old Testament example in verse 6.

We look to Christ. Just like Abraham did.

Look Like Abraham (v. 6)

Galatians 3:6 KJV 1900

6 Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.

Paul is quoting here Gen.15.6

Genesis 15:6 KJV 1900

6 And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

If you know your OT, then you may realize that this at first seems odd.

In Genesis 15, the promise Abraham believed was that his seed would be as the starts of heaven; this was an expansion on the initial promise of Gen.12.3

Genesis 12:3 KJV 1900

3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

According to Paul, this was enough for Abraham to have to believe and be saved by Christ. He had enough for his time.

He was saved by the same faith that we have today. This is massive. It first dispels any idea that God has saved people in multiple different ways in human history.

And second, it shows that we follow in the footsteps of the great patriarch. And that is really what I want you to grab, because I want to show how what the Apostle says here is directly relevant to your everyday, devotional Bible reading.

We have seen that you Look to Christ as You Live. Now, number two,

II. Look to Christ as You Read (vv. 7-9)

We know that the OT is all about Jesus. That is an very common statement preachers make.

The picture we get is of the Old Testament as pointing to Jesus in all its parts.

Leon Morris

But I want to give you, again, concrete ways that we see Christ in the Old Testament. We look to Christ as we read. First,

Look Because You are Abraham’s Son (v. 7)

Gal.3.7 “7 Know ye therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham.”

This is a massive statement. Paul makes. Those who are of faith are Abraham’s sons. This is not the only place this is made.

There are two ways of being a descendant of Abraham: physical and by faith. The true Sons have always been those who are sons by Faith. Jesus points this out in John 8.

John 8.37-44 “37 I know that ye are Abraham’s seed; but ye seek to kill me, because my word hath no place in you. 38 I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father. 39 They answered and said unto him, Abraham is our father. Jesus saith unto them, If ye were Abraham’s children, ye would do the works of Abraham. 40 But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham. 41 Ye do the deeds of your father. Then said they to him, We be not born of fornication; we have one Father, even God. 42 Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. 43 Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word. 44 Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do.”

Rom.4.16 “16 Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,”

What does this mean for all of the covenant promises in Genesis? To the generational promises? To the relationship of the old to the new covenant?

What this means is that the OC promises were never primarily about ethic Jews.

They were about what we can call true Jews. And this not something I made up!

Rom.2.28-29Rom.2.28-29 Those promises are our promises, those family blessings are our blessings in and through Jesus Christ. They belong to us. “28 For he is not a Jew, which is one outwardly; neither is that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh: 29 But he is a Jew, which is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God.”

Those promises are our promises, those family blessings are our blessings in and through Jesus Christ. They belong to us. When you read your Old Testament, you are reading your history. You are reading your family tree with promises that were made to you and your family. I will give you one that is precious to me.

Prov.22.6 “6 Train up a child in the way he should go: And when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

Look Because the Gospel is There (v. 8)

Clearly the Abrahamic Covenant was not conditioned on anything Abraham would or would not do; its fulfillment in all its parts depends only on God’s doings.

Charles Caldwell Ryrie

Look because you’re blessed like Abraham (v. 9)

Look to Christ as you live and read, because He is always what you need.