Be a Disciple Gal 3:1-14

Opening

Have you ever walked up to a group of people and they are in the middle of a conversation? First you try to shimmy into the circle so you aren’t just awkwardly standing on the outside lurking. Once you get into the circle you notice they are in the middle of a story. Now you are playing catch up. You hear a name and another name. Now you are trying to sort out who those two people are and then you find yourself missing the next thing that happened because you were trying to remember if you even know an Edith.

Now you are really lost, but you keep listening trying to fill in the blanks? By the time the story ends you barely have placed all the people in it.

The real danger comes when you are later asked about that story and you only have bits and pieces of what really happened and the answers you put into the blanks. So you start telling the people about it, and they walk away thinking that is the story.

TRANSITION

This can really blow up into a big deal when the content you have filled in is on large matters. Especially when it comes to the Bible. Often times when we read the Bible we can come in to the middle of a conversation and fill in the blanks and miss what the actual story is. This can lead to a misunderstanding of what the Bible Authors are saying, what God is doing, saying or what we are to take away from this or that passage.

I heard Mike Winger, a youtuber and pastor, who does biblical teachings but has also do some analasis of some contraverial preachers say this:

“Your average Christian thinks they know way more about the Bible than they actually do.” He Goes on to say, “Nobody is reading in context. They see the bible as a source of inspiration for them, not an inspired text right? That God inspired this, instead its this inspires me. When that’s my attitude toward scripture I will have a high degree of confidence and a low degree of understanding.”

I hope that each of us would long for deep understanding of the Bible and the God’s Word would dwell Deeply in our hearts.

I say all of this because Paul, the Author of Galatians, is so steeped into the Old Testament that it flows through his writings. take our text for today as an example. Gen 15:6, Deut 27:26, Jer 11:3, Ezek 18:4, Hab 2:4, Lev 18:5, Deut 21:23, Isa 32:15, Isa 44:3, Joel 2:28 all in the 14 verses we will study. Which means we as Christians and as Bible scholars to best understand what Paul is saying need context.

So first lets read our passage for today, and then we will do some historical context to illuminate what Paul is saying to us.

Galatians 3:1-14

You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. 2 I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? 3 Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? 4 Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain? 5 So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? 6 So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” 

7 Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham. 8 Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”  9 So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

10 For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.”  11 Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.”  12 The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “The person who does these things will live by them.”  13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.”  14 He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

Paul has shifted gears in our book of Galatians. The first two chapters are centered around Paul’s testimony and how that has revealed the true gospel. Now Paul has shifted to a series of comparisions or contrasts. It is a comparative defense of Gospel Freedom. This or that.

Here he is comparing Law or Faith. First he does this by calling to mind how the Galatians themselves recieved justification, or righteousness.

Galatians 3:1–3 NIV

You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh?

Paul is saying, I’ve told you my story of redemtion, remember yours.

This is something we also need to keep fresh in our own heads. Remember your salvation story, remember your first love is how Jesus encourages the church in Ephesus in Revelation. This do in rememberance of Me.

MAIN POINT

Grace walked the path so you don’t have to earn it.

So Paul is comparing By Law or By Faith, and asking the Galatians for their own story their own conversion. Was it Law or was it Faith?

I like to think of the possiblity that when this letter arrived to churches and it was read aloud to the congregations that there were some jewish believers who are listening to this and are made to think back to their relationship with God under the law and their relationship with God under grace.

How powerful it must have been and challenging it mustve been for them to reckognize that under the law they may have mentally ascented to righteousness while carrying the weight of the fact that they couldn’t measure up to the law, and now they have this freedom, but some of them are trying to return back to that same law that wasn’t producing righteousness in their own lives.

Covenant Story

Now Paul moves from that to Abraham, and this is where we are dropped into the middle of a conversation, and need to sort out some context. Because Paul states in

Galatians 3:6–7 “So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham.”

We know the song Father Abraham had many sons, but why does Paul bring him up? It is likely that the people who were coming and influencing the Galatians would bring up Abraham and about the sealing of the covenant that came through circumsision. Therefore Paul is pulling us back to how the covenant began.

Gen 12 we are introduced to abram, who would later be called Abraham. This is one of the most important passages in the Bible, because it put into motion God’s salvation plan.

Genesis 12:1–4 NIV

The Lord had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran.

10 years go by in Abram’s life and still no child, so like many of us Abram is beginning to have doubt about this promise, and he questions God.

Genesis 15 NIV

After this, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision: “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward.” But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus?” And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.” Then the word of the Lord came to him: “This man will not be your heir, but a son who is your own flesh and blood will be your heir.” He took him outside and said, “Look up at the sky and count the stars—if indeed you can count them.” Then he said to him, “So shall your offspring be.” Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness. He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.” But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?” So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.” Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away. As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.” When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates—the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.”

This is the heart of it:

Main Point

Grace walked the path so you don’t have to earn it.”

This is the passage that Paul is refering to in Galtians 3. Credited to Him as righteousness. Paul is calling the readers to remember this promise that God made to Abram and by connection his people. What I want us to notice from this chapter is how exactly God convinced Abram.

In the ancient world, covenants weren’t sealed with a handshake or a signature—they were sealed with blood. Two parties would walk between the broken bodies of sacrificed animals, symbolically saying, “If I break this covenant, may I become like these.” It was serious. It was binding. It was life or death.

But in Genesis 15, something unexpected happens.

God tells Abram to prepare the animals—but when the moment comes to walk the path, Abram doesn’t move. He’s in a deep sleep. And instead of both parties walking through the blood, only one does.

God alone passes through the pieces—represented by a smoking firepot and a blazing torch. In other words, God takes full responsibility for the covenant. He’s saying, “If this covenant is broken—by either of us—I will pay the price.”

That’s not just ancient ritual. That’s the gospel.

This moment happens before Abram is circumcised. Before the law. Before Abram gets it right—because in the very next chapter, he doesn’t. He takes matters into his own hands. And still, God’s promise stands.

Why? Because the covenant didn’t rest on Abram’s performance. It rested on God’s grace.

That’s what Paul is pointing us back to in Galatians: It’s not about what you do. It’s not about having it all figured out. It’s about trusting the God who keeps His promises.

And here’s the stunning part: centuries later, when the covenant was broken—by us—it was still God who walked through the blood. But this time, it wasn’t a symbol.

It was the cross.

Jesus took on the curse. Jesus bore the penalty. Jesus became the broken body—so the promise could never be broken.

That’s the kind of grace we stand in.

So what do we do with that? We stop striving. We stop trying to earn what’s already been given. We stop chasing blessing through law and lean fully into the gift that comes by faith.

MAIN POINT

If grace walked the path for you, then walk forward in faith—not fear, not performance, not pressure.

Like Abram, we believe—and it is counted to us as righteousness.

Remember, faith is the on-ramp to the kingdom of God in grace is the means grace is the motor remember, the works of our hands did nothing in our hands we bring that there is nothing but the blood of Jesus remember it is no longer I that lives, but it is Christ that lives in me so break free from the shackles of legalism and religiosity instead abide in him and he abide in you.

Would you pray with me?