Untitled Sermon (26)

Call to Worship

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Announcements

Bible Study tonight here @6:30 which is for everyone.

Just an update from last week, we only had one person interested in changing the service time to 10:30 so we’ll keep it the same.

We need to set another meeting with everyone badged and wanting to go to the Prison so we can begin to set a plan.

An update on the meeting that we had last Tuesday night (Glory to God).

Two Songs

Sermonette on the Lord’s Table

Lord’s Table

Call to Fellowship

Fellowship

1 Song

Sermon

Introduction

This morning I want to open back up our text in Galatians.

And I want to be upfront with you at the very beginning when I say that I realize that some of this may seem like it repeats itself.

However, I would encourage you to keep an open mind as you look at this text because I assure you, there are distinctions.

Distinctions concerning how the Law applies here or where Christ comes into the concept.

Much of what we’ve addressed so far in the way of Law verses the Gospel will be found in the text today.

However, I will also say this, though it may seem like everything repeats itself, be assured that there is a reason for it.

And you have no need to be here.

The purpose and function of Expository preaching is to elevate the work of Christ Jesus and to teach His work to us.

And because of this, often times some things may seem very repetitive.

But rest assured there is a reason for that.

What it takes for one person over here to understand something may not be what it takes for someone else to understand.

So please bear with me as we dig through this portion and we have the blessed opportunity to examine the Lords Words for us today.

It’s that way because the name of Christ is to be elevated.

Please turn with me in .

Read and Pray.

Can you think of a time in your life where you so knew that you were right that no matter what was placed before you, you weren’t backing down at all?

No matter what someone or some lawyer or judge may lay before you, you will not back down because the issue that you’re standing firm on is vital.

Today that is what we see here with Paul.

He is laying the sure enough foundation concerning the Gospel and how it relates to the Law.

And his demeanor is such that there is no backing down from him.

He’s been stating and restating the beautiful work of Christ and the inability of the Law to save sinners now for some time.

And the text for today is no different.

In fact I would argue that the text that lays before us today is of absolute importance in our knowledge of Christ.

In fact, a man that I greatly admire as a wonderful theologian says this about these verses, “Fundamental to an understanding of Biblical Christianity.”

That’s John Stott by the Way.

A man who had a profound way of wording something so that all manners of men may understand it.

What Paul is laying out before the Galatians is the central issue of the Christian religion.

It’s what it means to be justified before God.

It’s the exact opposite of what we truly deserve.

We deserve to be condemned by Him.

And yet, we stand here today in His favor.

Declared righteous and accepted.

And isn’t this what we desire most?

Isn’t this what we as human beings desire most in deepest portion of our heart?

I mean we can see this on a purely human level.

We have a desire to stand before men in their good favor.

It’s a distinctive desire to be in the good graces of one another.

To be in someone else's favor.

Think about this for a second.

In a parent and child relationship, our children carry this desire to please us as their parents.

Yes they make mistakes and screw up from time to time.

Yet they have this desire to be in your good graces.

To appease you.

For you to be satisfied in them.

For you to love them with the deepest of loves, that love that looks past their faults and their struggles and just sees them as someone you’ll love unconditionally.

They know that no matter what they can always come to you.

And they can always come to you because as their mother or their father, they will remain in your favor.

In the same way we have this desire with our employers.

We want them to be satisfied with the work that we do for them.

We want them to appreciate us.

As husbands and wives we have the same desire.

Now I have only been married for 13 years but I have figured this much out in that short time.

I don’t like to be in the dog house with my wife.

I mean I don’t literally sleep on the couch when I’m in the dog house but I sure know what it feels like to get the silent treatment.

And if after 13 years I know what this is like, I’m sure that you other men in here know what that’s like.

Now I wish I could make the same claim for women but since I’m trying to stay out of the dog house I’ll pretend as if our wives never leave our good graces....

The point though is that each of us have this desire built within.

We long to know that we are in the good graces of the Lord who made us.

That somehow, we know that God would be satisfied with us!

We long to know that God is satisfied with us.

And because of this, we take something that God gave us that was designed to point us to Him and we begin this process of trying to follow it for righteousness.

You see the intention of the Law was to reveal to us not only our sinful nature, but more importantly, it shows to us the Holiness of God.

It was never designed for us to follow as some form of checklist.

Instead it points us to the truth which is that we have a need to be justified.

And in this sense of the word today, let’s change the definition to the Word Justified.

Now I wouldn’t do this unless I could back this up so bear with me for a moment.

What if justification means to be in favor with God.

And since you’re in the favor of God, it also would mean that you now have fellowship with Him.

You cannot be in the Fellowship of God unless you are in His favor.

But being in His favor, automatically places you in fellowship with Him.

So now the question becomes this;

How can we fulfill this deep desire of our hearts to be in God’s Favor?

How can we as a people who cannot seek after the goodness of God on our own find ourselves standing before the Lord and in His favor?

Paul aims to answer that question here today.

The very same question which the Judiazers of Galatia offered a different answer.

You see, on the minds of those Judiazers were verses such as .

You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord.

They would offer up an answer to this question which would differ from Paul’s answer.

They would tell the Galatians that they had the ability to be in the favor of God on the basis of their own doing.

Christ was the sufficient start, now on your own you must remain in the favor of God.

And while they had a true verse of Scripture, that knowledge of Scripture was only enough to bring upon themselves condemnation.

Their misunderstanding and misapplication of Scripture was enough to make them fall short of ever truly being able to be in the favor of God.

And the reason is this, having a knowledge of one portion of Scripture without a right understanding of Scripture as a whole on a topic will not help anyone.

Instead it causes confusion.

I think often times we’re all guilty of this, we peck at certain verses that hitch up real nice to our theological dogma and we ride them out until the end.

Here’s the problem though, Scripture doesn’t only tell us that the Law is not of faith, it also also tells us that the Righteous shall live by faith.

So what do we do with this?

On the surface, It would appear that with the following statement by Paul that we have some form of a contradiction.

It would appear that with the following statement by Paul that we have some form of a contradiction.

Paul quotes Habakuk 2:4 which says that the righteous shall live by his faith.

And then he turns around and he quotes Leviticus 18:5 which says, “You shall therefore keep my statutes and my rules; if a person does them, he shall live by them: I am the Lord.”

So how do we discern between the two?

I mean they’re both part of God’s inspired Word and they’re both given to us to have as knowledge.

How do we blend the two together so that we can understand Scripture as a whole?

So how do we apply the two?

How should we as believers see this crossroad between works of the Law and its application in our lives?

On the surface what you see is that there are two roads.

One is a promise given to the believer.

That person who has faith.

And that faith is the way of salvation.

The second road is to the doer.

The one who would seek after keeping the Law.

So which is true?

Is a man justified by faith or by works?

Do we enter into eternal life by believing or by doing?

Verse 10 actually offers us an invaluable answer to this question.

The King James reads this way; “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them.”

Let me read this for you out of my ESV for just a second which actually gives a much better and clearer translation.

For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”

Notice the very first part of that verse.

All who rely on the law are cursed.

They are a people without hope.

And why is that?

Because there is no man, woman or child who can actually abide by all things written in the Law.

It’s impossible!

Seriously, it’s impossible.

Let’s just for one moment take the Moral Law and ask the questions of our own self for today.

Where do we stand?

If on the basis of the first four commandments of the Moral Law, God were to judge us only upon today, where would we stand?

You shall have no other God’s before me.

Beloved, is the God of the Bible, the only God that you truly worship?

Or have you already allowed the God of your life to take over this morning?

Here let’s give it a little test.

When you woke up this morning, did your feet hit the floor in praise that you get to come worship the Lord your God with His bride?

Or, and here is what is more likely, you’re here because you have to come worship the Lord?

Chances are that although you wouldn’t bow your knee physically to another God, you’ve many times over bowed your heart to one.

If you would rather be doing anything else instead of worshipping the Lord your God, than chances are pretty high that you have an idolatry problem.

When coming to worship the Lord becomes something you do merely out of have to’s, I’d say that’s a good sign as to where you’d stand on the first Law.

Do I really need to go any farther?

I mean I think that the Law is obvious enough at pointing out our sins.

It’s also simple enough to show us the holiness of God.

And because of the Holiness of God, we cannot think of Him as some sentimental old Father Christmas as Stott says.

Because this is the position of every human being, this struggle applies to all of us.

There is only one who’s ever lived that doesn’t fall under this problem and that person was Christ.

Everyone else who tries to rely upon the Law is cursed and it is impossible for the law to save.

If a person was hypothetically able to follow all of Gods commands all of the days of their lives

But the man of faith, they have something else to look forward to.

They have Christ.

That is the whole point of verses 10-12.

Because we are a people without hope and cursed by the law, we are also a people wholly dependent upon the Lord to do something profound on our behalf.

Because of our total inability to walk in obedience to God, we become a total liability to Jesus.

We all fall prostrate before the Lord with nowhere else to turn.

Nowhere that we would want to turn.

Because there is no other name given under heaven by which man may be saved.

Should we choose to seek after our own way the end result will always be the same.

We shall be cursed!

We need a redemption not our own.

We need one who is truly able to keep all of the Law.

That is why each and everyone of us are a liability to Jesus.

We are incapable of paying, providing or doing anything on our own behalf.

Therefore Christ!

Don’t you just love that.

Therefore Christ, the perfect and majestic one bore upon himself the yoke of the Law.

Living a perfect and a sinless life in perfect obedience to the demands of the Law.

And because of this He fulfilled the Law, making it possible for us to have hope.

Verse 13 says that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.

Beloved do you understand this this morning?

Do you truly understand that because of the wickedness of our hearts and our absolute inability, He who knew no sin became sin so that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.

Beloved do you believe that Jesus is your total rescue?

Do you truly realize that if it weren’t for Christ Jesus becoming accursed on your behalf that you would still be in that bondage?

He became a curse for us.

This should both shock you and shame you!

That Christ, the infinite King of all the world would take on the wretchedness of humanity and become cursed for you.

You want to know how we know this Gospel is truth.

There is no man who would dare dream it up.

The words used here are complex, startling and shocking!

This whole idea of Christ who is holy and righteous.

The man who knew no sin and lived for all of His time in eternity with the Father.

The Righteous King who had no reason to be separated from the divine Trinity, now came to earth and took on the fulness of humanity.

Becoming one who is cursed in the same way that all of us are, and ultimately hanging upon the tree of Calvary.

That beautiful and wretched cross where for the first time in all of eternity, the Father turned His back upon the Son.

Where Jesus who had enjoyed the countenance of God the Father and knew no sin now had the full measure of the horrid nature of sin upon himself.

At the moment when Christ truly took on the sin of the world, He became the most vile, grotesque and most obscene mass of sin that the world had ever seen.

And God being Holy and Righteous could not look upon iniquity.

At that moment He turned His back upon the Son.

The Lord averted His face and turned away from Christ and because of this Jesus cried out to Him on the cross.

My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

I want you to imagine this.

Jesus never once knew any form of separation from the divine.

He always knew what it was like to be in the presence of the divine as He is divine.

And yet, the fabric of the divine at this moment was torn.

Christ knew a separation that belonged to us and yet He took it upon Himself.

Beloved if for a moment you’ve ever wondered how God felt about your sin, I want you to think about this moment.

This moment where the perfect and the divine became a curse and bore upon himself the most horrid and miserable of appearances.

If you’ve ever wondered if God loves you, look at this moment.

My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

He had forsaken Christ because of His great love for sinful humanity.

Jesus is our total rescue.

Does God really Love me? Look no further than the Cross.

10-12 We are a total liability to Jesus.

We will never stand before God condemned beloved.

Not if we’ve been redeemed by Him.

13 The Cross is our total rescue

For at that moment when Jesus was the most hideous image of Sin that the world had ever seen, he payed for your sin.

He became a curse for you.

But not just for you.

For all peoples.

For the Jew, for the Gentile.

For the black and the white.

For the Chinese and the English.

Jesus became sin so that in Him, we might become the Righteousness of God in Him.

He took on the curse of God

14 The total blessing of God is available to all peoples.

This beloved, this is what we need to remember when we think about Christ’ atonement on our behalf.

Let’s pray.

(Communion time)

Men if you would please pass out the Lord’s supper to the congregation.

Beloved, if you would please hold the elements until everyone has gotten theirs and we will partake of them together.

Before we begin I would like to give just a word of encouragement this morning.

Beloved, if you are those who have been redeemed by the work of Christ, I would encourage you to rejoice in that this morning and partake of the elements.

Matthew 26

And as they were eating, Jesus took break, and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the disciples and said, Take, eat; this is my body.

(Eat the Bread)

And he took the cup, and gave thanks, and gave it to them saying, Drink ye all of it; For this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.

(Drink)

Pray and dismiss.