Galatians 3:1–25

Opening Statement: The Big Idea that catches the attention.

Hey Y’all?

Yall good? ready for break?

What did y’all think of fields of faith last week?

If you went down, and I haven’t had a chance to talk to you, come see me after we are done tonight.

Introduction Story: A story that invites the listener into that topic, creating credibility and connection immediately.

Anyways, let’s play a game really quick. Normally I don’t do this. but this is going to go along with what we are talking about.

Normally I’d tell you a story, but let’s do things different tonight.

I’m going to hand you piece of paper and it has a list of things and tasks, I need to see who is the most efficient of you in here.

Keep it face down until I say go.

Pass them out, who needs a pen? cool.

Segue: How this message will tie into the introduction story.

Okay, So I believe there are different kinds of people in this world. Those that read instructions and those that do not read instructions.

Some of you saw the tasks and got them done fast, but you missed the point of the paper which was to read all the instructions first. if you had done that, you would have done everything correctly by doing exactly what was asked of you.

It’s like legos, if you’ve ever played with legos you’ll start putting them together, think you get what is going on and then you’ve goofed one whole side cause you thought both side was gonna be symmetric. now your bat mobile pulls to the left a lot.

So here is the thing I want you to think about tonight, being a good person without christ sends you to hell just as fast as not being a good person without christ.

Background: Explain the background of what is happening in the text we are about to read.

So that is kinda where we are at tonight, we are in Galatians.

we have been talking about legalism a lot in these first couple chapter.

Legalism is basically Christ plus.

Paul is getting in to the nuts and bolts of what Christ actually did.

So we are going to look at what covenants are and what they mean in the bible.

Text: Preaching Text for the day’s message. Just one major text.

So with that let’s get in to the text and see what is going on here in Galatians 3. So does anyone need a bible? If you need a bible, throw a hand up and we will get a bible to you. It’ll help to have the text in front of you.

But before we do that, let’s pray for our time in the word tonight.

pray

Okay cool, well let’s read this whole passage and then let’s get a sense of what is going on here. Galatians 3:1-25, not the whole chapter, we are going to look at that in a couple weeks. But lets read this whole thing.

Galatians 3:1–25 ESV

1 O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. 2 Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? 3 Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? 4 Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? 5 Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith— 6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness”? 7 Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. 8 And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, “In you shall all the nations be blessed.” 9 So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. 10 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.” 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall 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 hanged on a tree”— 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. 15 To give a human example, brothers: even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. 16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many, but referring to one, “And to your offspring,” who is Christ. 17 This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. 18 For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. 19 Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. 20 Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. 21 Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not! For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. 22 But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. 23 Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. 24 So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. 25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian,

Okay cool, so the Galatians are asking basically the same question that every single Christian eventually asks after they have studied long enough. And that is,

“what is the point of the law?”

Why do we have the Law?

what even is the point of the Old Testament?

I know I have had this thought, this question. And it’s a good question? Because from that it leads to a question to why we do what we do? Why do we eat pork when the OT tells us not to? Why do we still hold to some parts of the law and not others? What is the point of having it?

So let’s look at what covenants in the bible are.

So what is a covenant? Anyone want to take a shot at that?

So a covenant in the simplest terms in a contract. It’s a promise. in the bible, it is a promise made by God. This is how god keeps his promises, and makes his promises.

So the first covenant that we see in the bible is the one God made with Abraham. God told Abraham at 99 that he would be the father of a giant nation and that all nations would be blessed through his genealogy.

Paul addresses this is in verses 1-6. Paul goes to answer the question how were old people saved in the OT. Which I know that I have been asked before by a couple of y’all. So how were people saved in the OT? What saved people?

On the surface, it the law saved people, but the law wasn’t around with Abraham. Moses is the one who recieved the law? SO how did God save His people? Faith in God. Look at verse 6 Galatians 3:6 “6 just as Abraham “believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness” So Abraham is saved through faith in god, that god would save his people and keep his promises.

Which reminds me, I believe I have a gift card to give out. a couple weeks ago, not last week but the week before, I had give you a phrase to remember. Anyone remember the phrase?

Sola Fide, so text me your name and the first one to text me gets to answer.

So what does sola fide mean? Go.

Okay, so lets keep going. Where do we get the law from? It’s in the OT but where do we get it from? It is called the law of moses, because it was given to moses by God? There’s a ton of different parts to the law, there is the societal law, the ceremonial law, worship laws, custom laws. When you start looking at the law it seems simple, but it’s actually super complex. there are close to 600 something laws that are meant to be kept.

Y’all know I love sports. And this may surprise some of you, I have never played organized football. So when I watch football there are some parts of the game that I don’t understand. Like, for the most part, i get what is going. Football is not that hard to get the concept of, at the end of the day, you’re trying to get the football in the end zone. but if you started asking me about defensive formations and even offensive formations I’m gonna fake it til i make it. Like I’m pretty sure I know what shotgun formation is, and play action pass. but when you start talking about nickel formation and dime formation, and dollar formation, which I didn’t really know what that was until i played madden the other day. I still couldn’t explain it, but i know it exists. but the things that gets the most is the rules, and how they have changed in my life time. When they invented football it was probably the most simple game, “hey take the ball over there.” but even in my life time the way the rules are read an interpreted it seems like you need to have a law degree to figure out exactly what a catch is. When I was coming up, a catch was any ball that pretty much didn’t hit the ground. But now with instant replay they are getting too technical about a catch. i don’t think we can define a catch but you know it when you see it. Like yeah he caught that, or no he didn’t catch that. We are trying to define things that we can’t quite define.

And so that is what kinda happened with this law, everything became codified and defined to logical extremes, like the sabbath day, what defines work, it goes so far as to you can’t light a fire on sabbath.

So this is the second covenant with moses. And a lot of the time we try to see this as how people in the OT got saved as by keeping the Law, but that would mean God changed how he does things.

So what was the point of the Law, if they had this crazy law that was impossible to keep then why did they have it? So that they could go man, i really need God to help me follow him. This was to show that no one can be good enough for God.

Through faith Abraham was saved, Through the faith the people under the law were saved. The law pointed to the need of a savior. The Law acts as a mirror.

So what was going on in Galatians was they were trying to follow Christ and keep the law at the same time. But what Christ did and what Paul is telling the Galatians is that Christ didn’t come so that you had to follow him and the law, but that you would in following christ become like Christ and would keep the spirit of the law by becoming more Christ like.

The Galatians had gotten this backwards, they saw the law as a means of producing faith. Where salvation was attained through the law. And Paul says that if that was true, Christ died for nothing.

Just like asking what is a catch in football, when we try to define it we lose sight of what a catch does. Did we catch it? yeah he caught or no he didn’t catch it.

Christ came to fulfill the Law not abolish the law, so by following Christ we keep the spirit of the law, we are made holy by having faith in the only one who can keep the law. The only one who is sinless. Trying to keep the law only shows us that we can’t do it and that we need a savior.

Build: How does this story answer the question, solve the problem or relieve the tension that the Introduction Story began with? JUST ONE POINT, PEOPLE.

So what is Paul trying to tell them here in this passage? Because Paul is defiantly telling them something. He starts the passage off by called them fools. So what is it?

The Galatians are trying to be christ like by following the law. They are trying to earn the righteousness of Christ by following the law of moses. They are trying to add christ to the law.

So what Paul is telling them is, that we are set free from the burden of the law through Christ. Christ is the one who fulfills the law and is the one who can us righteousness. Through Christ we are able to have the relationship with God. We are able to come to God as we are. Paul is telling them through Christ we are made righteous and that the law which was truly a curse was cast on to Christ and he took the penalty for us and made a way for us to have salvation.

Statement: Same as opening statement. Some may refer to The Big Idea or Bottom Line. I don’t use those terms because I think they’re tacky.

So at the beginning of this I told you to think about something. being good without Christ sends you to hell just as fast as being not good without Christ.

That is true, The whole point of this passage is for us to see that we need Christ in our to be saved in order to be counted righteous before God.

Crescendo: How does The Gospel ultimately solve this problem? Preaching is about pointing to Christ & the Gospel, not good works, trying harder or moralism.

So what are we doing here? What do we need to see here in this passage? What does the Gospel say about how we live our lives?

In the thing i told you to think about, I told you that being good send you to hell just as fast and being not good. And that being good is actually a thing you can be? Yes we might say someone is a good person, or they’re a good dude, or y’al they’re good people. But does that make you truly good? Maybe by our own measure and scale we might be good. like compared to Hitler all of us are doing pretty well, but that isn’t the scale right? If we are measuring goodness then our scale is actually the goodness of God, how do we stack up to God? who is perfectly good? We don’t stack up very well at all. When our scale for goodness is perfection, non of us are good.

So being good isn’t good enough.

The truth is none of us are good. all of us are sinners, and that is what is separating us form God. That sin is what keeps us from having relationship with Him. But the good news is that Christ came and fulfilled the law so that following him makes us like him.

See there is more to the Christian life than merely being a good person. That is not the end goal, will following Christ make you a more loving, kind, compassionate, nice, gentle, self controlled person. yes, but that is not the Goal, the goal is to be like Him. The Goal is see Christ for who he is, and to have relationship with Him. The goal is not to be a morally upright person, the goal is know Christ.

Anything that we do here on this earth is not going to be enough to be righteous before God. Christ is what gives us that.

SO the good news for us is that we get to come to God just as we are. What the Galatians were trying to do and what some of us are trying to do is to be good enough to come to God. Be good before we come to God. trying to fix all of our messy problems and sins before we come to God. but the beauty of the Gospel is that we can come as we are, we can bring our messy selves to God and he takes care of our sin. Christ gives us His righteousness.

So if you are a follower of Christ in here this text is calling you not try and live under your on power but to let Christ be the one you rest in. you cannot live the Christian life under your own power, you cannot be like Christ without Christ. Follow Christ, know him deeper.

If you are not a follower of Christ or you don’t know what you believe. this text is calling you to stop trying to be good to find joy. At the end of the day, trying to be moral for the sake of being moral still has you separated from god for eternity in a place called Hell. You don’t have to try and have it all figure out before you come to God. You can come to god as you are, God won’t let you stay as you are, you will be transformed in to the likeness of Christ. Are we all going to mess up and sin, yes, but there is forgiveness of sin in the blood of Christ. Christ is the one who makes us righteous. Come see him as lord, come see him as king

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