Freedom in Christ: The Promise of Blessing
Notes
Transcript
This sermon has been a bit more difficult to write. Not because of the topic or the passage but just staying focused on the task of writing and dealing with mom’s passing. I actually thought about asking someone else to preach today but then I was thinking about mom. She was confident about her salvation and with her confidence, we can be confident of her eternal destiny.
That also means she would want you to be confident of your salvation today. So, in the hopes of honoring her life, I want to continue with Paul’s letter to the churches of Galatia. It is a very important letter about faith, life, justification and being sure of your salvation.
Last week we looked at Paul’s positive argument for justification by faith alone. In our passage today, Paul has a negative argument against justification by the Law. This is a direct response against the false teachers.
Justification is a word we use in church but it might not be one that everyone grasps. Let me step back just a minute and explain justification since we are continuing to look this word.
Justification is a legal term. It means that a judge has found in favor of one party in a legal dispute. The person found justified is referred to as being just or righteous.
Paul uses this term to talk about how believers are found to be just before God even though they themselves are not righteous. God does this through His Son, Jesus Christ by imputing His righteousness to us through faith in Christ.
The consequences of our sins were imputed, or laid on Christ so that He died for us. His righteousness is imputed, or laid on us so that God sees us as being justified, being made right. When God looks at a believer, He looks at them through His son and recognizes what His Son has already accomplished.
This is important to understand because the only way we are ever justified, the only plan God ever had for us to be justified was through the death of His Son on the cross. The law was never meant to make us right and can never make us right before God no matter how well we keep it.
1. Burden of the Law
1. Burden of the Law
Because of this the Law is a burden.
I know this is not what we typically say but to be honest, since every person is born a sinner, it is impossible for anyone to keep the Law or even part of the Law.
10 For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, because it is written, Everyone who does not do everything written in the book of the law is cursed.
Relying on the works of the law means someone who is trying to obey the Law to gain salvation. But failure to keep the law brings a curse.
This is something very serious and we rarely discuss this part or think about just how serious breaking the Law really is. Paul used Deuteronomy 27:26 for an important reason. This comes at the end of the section of curses for not obeying the Law. It isn’t just doing a good job, doing the best you can do; it isn’t about trying to do your best. Either you keep the whole law or you do not.
If we fail at one point, even one minor point, we are guilty of the whole Law and that guilt requires a judicial settlement. The Law proves we are sinners and proves our guilt.
10 For whoever keeps the entire law, and yet stumbles at one point, is guilty of breaking it all.
The burden of the law brings condemnation.
And with this condemnation comes the guilty verdict and the sentence of death. The law is an impossible burden for people. It points out two facts; all of us are under the curse of the Law since we can never keep the law and it also shows us the need for a Savior.
11 Now it is clear that no one is justified before God by the law, because the righteous will live by faith.
12 But the law is not based on faith; instead, the one who does these things will live by them.
2. By Faith Alone
2. By Faith Alone
God helps those who help themselves.
Ever heard that expression? But notice that verse 11 only says the righteous will love by faith, not by faith and works, not by helping themselves.
It is by faith alone in Christ alone that we find salvation. Paul goes on to quote the end of Habakkuk 2:4:
4 Look, his ego is inflated;
he is without integrity.
But the righteous one will live by his faith.
In quoting Habakkuk 2:4, Paul shows that even during the time of Moses, after the Law was given to Moses and Israel, the righteous still live by faith and not simple obedience to the Law as the Judaizers taught.
The Law was never meant as a means of justification. It only proves one’s sinful state since it is impossible for a sinner to live a perfect life.
Since we can’t be justified under the Law, we can’t live a righteous life under the Law.
An issue we have in understanding living by faith is grasping the full context of the word “faith”. When the Bible talks about living by faith, being justified by faith, it is more than what our English word encompasses. By faith God justifies us; He makes us right; He imputes or gives us the righteousness of Christ. At the same time is the expectation of being righteous, or what we might call right-living. We cannot divorce the imputed righteousness of Christ from right-living. Paul uses Habakkuk to tie these three terms together for us: righteous, live, faith. We have imputed righteousness and being made righteous, we are expected to live our faith.
Our response to being made right, justified, should be to live as righteous people. We cannot separate faith from faithfulness.
Paul goes into right-living later in this letter but he is firmly establishing that righteousness comes only through faith and not by anything we can do.
13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, because it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.
3. Christ’s Curse for Blessing
3. Christ’s Curse for Blessing
The reason we have a promised blessing is because Christ took on our curse.
The word used for what Christ did was to “redeem” us. Redeem means that we were bought. It is a word that carries the sense of someone buying a slave with the purpose of setting them free.
We exist in this world in bondage to sin until God’s grace calls us into life. From that point on, we are living in Christ and we should be living a faith-life.
21 For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
Paul is talking about his whole life being lived for and in Christ. His purpose is Christ. His desire is Christ.
The cultic sacrifices in the OT were never meant to atone for the guilt of sin.
The sacrificial system would use the blood of a lamb to cover the sin stains of the nation; but only cover them. The blood of Christ didn’t simply cover the sin. His blood atoned for the sin; it washed the sin away.
21 He made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Jesus lived a sinless life but was put to death for our sins. Jesus took on the consequences of our sins so that God could declare Him guilty and sentence Him to death for those sins. Because the penalty for sin is death, Christ had to die, the sinless for the sinner.
Because the curse of the Law requires death for breaking the Law, Christ took that curse so that we could be given the blessing, so that we might be justified, so that we would be righteous before God.
14 The purpose was that the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles by Christ Jesus, so that we could receive the promised Spirit through faith.
4. Blessing by the Spirit
4. Blessing by the Spirit
Another blessing we have promised is the Holy Spirit.
Paul wraps up this part of his defense by reminding us that those who have been redeemed, those who have been justified have recieved the Holy Spirit. Paul started this chapter by asking how did they receive the Holy Spirit, through the Law or through faith.
He concludes by reminding the readers that the Holy Spirit came through faith alone in Christ alone. Just as we have been blessed through Abraham’s blessing and made right through faith, we also have the Holy Spirit as a blessing.
Because of what Christ has done, we have been set free from the power of sin and death and have new life bestowed upon us in the power of the Holy Spirit.
How do you know you are saved? You have the Holy Spirit living in you.
How do you know you have the Holy Spirit? You have been justified.
Having the Holy Spirit means that you have the presence of God with you at all times, in all circumstances.
And these blessings are through faith alone in Christ alone through the grace of God alone.
As I said in the opening, mom was confident in her salvation and we can have confidence in her eternal destiny. But she would also want you to be confident in your salvation today.
What is your relationship with God?
Are you confident in your salvation? Do you have that confidence that when you die you know where you will spend eternity?
Today, if you have any doubts, today is the day to make sure you know.
Let’s pray.
