Okay, take your Bibles and turn
to Galatians chapter 3. Galatians chapter 3, I'm going
to look at the first five verses with you this morning. Paul spent time, we saw in chapter
2, speaking to the address that he had with Peter and the issue
that he took with Peter who, though Peter lived like a Gentile. He believed that we were saved
entirely by grace, was now pretending, posing as though he were living
as a Judaizer under the law. And Paul said, what you're doing
is not right. You're walking contrary to the
truth of the gospel. And so he was describing for
us beautiful truths about our salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ
by grace. And so having declared the grace
of God in Christ, he now speaks directly to the Galatians, to
the Church of the Galatians. And he does so using a series
of five questions that we'll be looking at in verses one through
five this morning. Now, through these questions,
Paul instructs the sinner. He instructs the sinner who's
been charmed by the persuasion and the argument of the legalist
that now comes with smooth words and fair sounding arguments and
words. He comes to break them out of
that spell, out of that which they've been charmed by. And
so these questions, they serve as a reminder to you that believe
Christ when we get to thinking, when we get to looking at ourselves
and thinking that there's something that we need to do and putting
our hand to the work, these questions reset our false understanding,
our wayward thoughts, and thinking that there's something we do
to sanctify ourselves and to make this work better or more
effectual for us. It's a reminder to us that, wait
a minute, This all began with the grace of God. This was all
done for me by the grace of God, who gave me his spirit when I
yet sat in darkness. But he called me through the
preaching of the gospel, gave me his spirit, gave me an ear
to hear what was being declared, and faith to believe it. And
if it began in the spirit, then it shall continue in the spirit. If it begins in grace, it will
continue in grace. And that's what Paul is declaring
here. And so we see that the battle
is the Lord's. The battle is the Lord's. And
it's the life that we now live in the flesh. We live by the
faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Me, a sinner, an unworthy sinner. He did this for me. And so this
work in us is a spiritual work of the Lord, and we're going
to testify to the grace of God, by the grace of God, declaring
the grace of God, if indeed we are his children. And so Paul
worded it this way when he was writing to the Corinthian church
in 1 Corinthians 3, verses 11 through 13, he tells us, other
foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus
Christ. Now, if any man build upon this
foundation, gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, and
turning to the law is a building on the foundation. Continuing
in grace is a building on the foundation. Those that are called
of God continue building on that foundation in the grace of God.
It's a walk of faith, it's a spiritual work. Whereas others turn from
what they've heard, reject what they've heard, and begin to build
by the law. which was wood, hay, and stubble. Fleshly things that burn up.
Fleshly things that are weak and cannot save. Fleshly things
that do not last. And Paul says, every man's work
shall be made manifest, for the day shall declare it, because
it shall be revealed by fire, and the fire shall try every
man's work of what sort it is. Is the work a work of flesh,
or is the work a work of the spirit? in the grace of our God. And so these questions, they
shake us out of our slumber under the spell of the legalist, under
the charming words of the legalist. And they remind us, wait a minute.
I'm going off the path here. I'm going out of the way. And
the Lord brings us back in grace to see and to behold all my salvation,
all my hope before God is not in the things that I'm doing.
or not doing. It's in Jesus Christ. His blood
is sufficient for me. And so we see that everything
that we have is of the Lord. It's all of his grace and it's
by his spirit and by his spirit, the spirit of his son, we are
preserved and kept. in the way of truth, in the way
of our God. So I've titled this, Through
Faith, Not Works. Through Faith, Not Works. And
Paul says in Galatians 3, 1, O foolish Galatians, O not understanding
Galatians. You're not getting it. You're
not understanding what's being declared, what's been declared
to you, and what these legalists are saying. That's the same word
that Christ used when he was speaking to the disciples on
the road to Emmaus. He said, O fools, and slow of
heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken unto you. And so he's declaring to us that
He's saying, you that are not understanding. You're not understanding
which is being said. Who hath bewitched you? Who has
charmed you? Who's put this spell upon you
that ye should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ
hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? Now, obedience
to the truth. What's obedience to the truth?
It's faith in Christ. It's believing the word of God,
which says you cannot save yourselves, you cannot work a righteousness
for yourselves. Look to my son, the one whom
I've provided. He's the refuge. Look to him.
That's to obey the truth. And Christ said in John 640,
he said, this is the will of him that sent me, that of everyone
which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life. The only law that's spoken of
there is the law of liberty, the law of faith. There's no
yoking bondage of the law of Moses declared there. It's beholding
the Son. looking to Him, trusting Him,
resting in Him. And Christ says, that faith,
I'll raise that one up who believes. I'll raise him up at the last
day. And so to those who do not believe
in Him, He then says, ye shall die in your sins. John 8, 24,
he says, you that don't believe me, you that see me and hear
my words and do not believe, you shall stand before holy God
in your sins in the day of judgment, and you'll give an answer for
your works. And your works will not save
you. You will die in your sins. For if you believe not that I
am he, not if you don't work harder under the law, Not if
you don't submit yourselves under the law, you're gonna die in
your sins. No, if you believe not that I am He, the Christ,
the Son of God, the one whom God sent to save His people.
And so Paul's making clear to these Galatians that they've
departed from the gospel which he preached to them. And what
he preached to them is Christ crucified, just like what he
told the Corinthians. In 1 Corinthians 1.23, we preach
Christ crucified, and you've departed from that gospel. Paul
describes Christ crucified here as before whose eyes Christ hath
been evidently set forth crucified among you. So to preach Christ
is to declare What? What are we saying in Christ
Crucified? What are we declaring there?
We're declaring that God was manifest in the flesh. Great
is the mystery of godliness. God, the Son of God, took upon
Him flesh and came to work salvation for His people. Why? Because we're all sinners. As
it's written, there's none righteous. No, not one. There's none that
understandeth. There's none that seeketh after
God. They're all gone out of the way. And carnal man thinks,
well, I have a way. I have a way that I'm coming
to God. I have a way that I think is right before God. You may
be spiritual. You may be religious. You may
be a strong adherent to the law of Moses. But that's not the
way of God. That's not the way of salvation.
God has provided the way, and the way is Christ. He is the
way unto the Father. And so man who's in his own way
has become unprofitable. There's none that doeth good,
no not one. Take all the philosophy of the
Greeks, Aristotle and Plato and all those other guys. It's all
a false way that cannot save. It cannot save. And man puts
his hope and confidence in his own wisdom and the wisdom of
other men. Any man that comes in his own name, him you will
receive. But if a man comes in the name
of the Father, in the name of the Son, in the name whom the
Father has given Jesus Christ, him you will not receive. You
will not believe him. And so our Lord is showing us
that we cannot change our nature so that we can work a righteousness
under the law. As Jeremiah said, can the Ethiopian
change his skin, the color of his skin? Can a leopard change
his spots? Then may you also do good that
are accustomed to do evil. In other words, if these natural
things cannot be changed, and they can, then neither can we
change our nature to start doing good and doing that which is
acceptable and pleasing to God by our own works and our own
strength and our own flesh. God is showing us that we cannot
save ourselves and he's shutting us up to all our works and all
our ways that we would be shut up to or brought to the Lord
Jesus Christ and see there's no other way of salvation. that
we would rest in the salvation of God in Christ. Therefore,
he says in Romans 3.20, by the deeds of the law, there shall
no flesh be justified in his sight. Because by the law is
the knowledge of sin. How then can a man be saved but
God? But God who is rich in mercy,
for his great love wherewith he loved us. even when we were
dead in trespasses and sins, hath quickened us together with
Christ. He sent his only begotten Son
into the world that we might live through him. And so we've obtained this life,
this eternal life, through the Lord Jesus Christ. By Christ
dying as the substitute of his people. To preach Christ, we're
preaching the substitute. We're preaching that I cannot
save myself, but God in grace and in mercy has sent His darling
Son, the Anointed One, the Chosen One of God, the One who fulfills
all the will of God perfectly. And He came and laid down His
life as the substitute of His people. we preach the substitute,
the one who came bearing the sins of his people on the cross
as a sacrifice to the Father to make an atonement for our
sins who believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. that his people
are testified to by their faith in Christ, which God gives them. To behold, this one is righteous,
and he obtained my salvation and put away all my wicked works
and all that separated me from the true and living God, so that
by faith in his blood, through faith in his blood, we have life
and acceptance with the Father. and we're not shut out, we're
received by him. All who come to the Father through
Jesus Christ, all who come to him seeking mercy, he says, I'll
never cast them out. I won't turn you away. You that
are sinners, you that have no righteousness, you that are filthy,
you that have wicked works and remember horrible things that
you've done and said and thought, Christ says, come to me. Come
to me. My blood is sufficient to wash
away all your sins. You have nothing to be ashamed
of in me. You come and rest in me, for
my blood has prevailed and put away the sins of my people. So
we're justified in Him. We preach Christ, the mediator,
the one chosen of God to reconcile us to the Father, to bring us
near unto our God and to be received of Him, to have fellowship with
Him, to have knowledge and understanding of our God through Jesus Christ,
the Son. He says, I'll turn over to 2
Corinthians 5, verse 18. 2 Corinthians 5 verse 18 All things
are of God, who hath reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ,
and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation. to wit, to
know, to bring understanding and light, that God was in Christ,
reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses
unto them, and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation,
so that we, as the body of Christ, this church here, have been constituted
by our God, brought together by our God to go, to preach,
to declare salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ. That's how men
and women are saved. That's how we come to know the
true and living God. That world is not every individual. when it says reconciling the
world, is saying that it broke beyond the boundaries of the
Jew who's one by nature, a physical descendant of Abraham. It breaks
beyond those boundaries and goes out to the Gentiles who sat in
darkness, having no light, having not the law, having heard no
prophet, But now the light of God, the Lord Jesus Christ, has
come forth, broken forth, broken beyond those boundaries, and
come to us. And God is gracious to us to
give us an ear to hear what is said and to believe that word. Now then, we are ambassadors
for Christ as though God did beseech you by us. We pray you
in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God. We declare to sinners
what Christ crucified is declaring, that we cannot save ourselves,
God has provided. a sacrifice. God has provided
a remedy. God has provided deliverance
and life and salvation for all who hear him and all who believe
him and trust him, who have no righteousness of their own. For
he, for God hath made Christ to be sin for us, him that knew
no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. And so to believe Christ is to
trust the sufficiency of his blood is sufficient to wash away
all my sins and to make me righteous and accepted by my God. That's
what Christ crucified declares to us. And so to reject him,
to reject that salvation, is to say, that's all right. I'll
stand before God in my wood, hay, and stubble works. I'll
stand in my own works. And Christ says, you'll perish
in your sins. You'll die in your sins, because your works will
burn up in the fire of judgment. And so Paul says, who hath bewitched
you that ye should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus
Christ hath been evidently set forth crucified among you? They were turning back to the
law through circumcision, which is what? A cutting away of the
flesh. And what they cut out was Christ
crucified. That's what they ended up cutting
out. The most precious, most wonderful truth of the gospel,
Christ crucified. That's the good news. When you
turn back to the law and you start cutting away at the flesh,
you cut out Christ crucified, the most precious, precious part
of all the word of God. And so, if God didn't grant them
repentance, they would die in their sins. They'd die in their
sins. What is your hope? What is our hope? Our hope is
Christ. He's all our hope of acceptance
with God. The Jews, their hope was in their
works under the law and what they could do, what they could
bring to God by their works and their own flesh and their hands.
That was their righteousness, and it was not accepted of God.
And there's a lot of people who profess to believe in Christ
today, and they come in through Christ, And then they're charmed
by the arguments when they begin to look and see things that they
don't think they should see. And they don't see the kinds
of change that they think that they should see. And they want
to see things differently and better. And they are charmed
by the arguments of the legalist that says, well, you know, I've
got a remedy for you. Here, just slip your neck under
this yoke right here. This will straighten you out.
This will give you the discipline that you seek. And God is the
comfort and the love and the hope that we had in our God.
And now we're working under fear and worry and labor and threat
of judgment and punishment. And we've left those everlasting
arms. and turned away from the truth
of the gospel. So don't be turned from Christ. You stay right there. You walk
by faith in Him. Keep looking to Him. Keep feeding
on the bread of heaven. That's your nourishment. That's
your sustenance. He's our preservation. He's all
our hope, all our joy. Now, verse 2, Galatians 3, 2,
Paul says, This only would I learn of you, Received he the spirit
by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? What a
great question to reset our wandering hearts that are being charmed
by this persuasion of the legalist to submit ourselves under the
yoke of the law of Moses. It gives us a fresh sight of
Christ to behold, wait a minute, I was dead in trespasses and
sins. I was in darkness. I was a fool,
not knowing the truth of God. But I heard His call. I heard His word summoning me
to look to Christ, to behold the sufficiency of God provided
in the Son. He did that by grace. I sat in
darkness. I wasn't working under the law.
I wasn't laboring. I wasn't doing anything to earn
God's favor or merit, God's favor or love or mercy for me. He caused
me to hear Christ. And that, if that was of, that's
of grace. And if of grace, that's how we'll
continue. It continues to be of grace. So then faith cometh by hearing,
and hearing by the word of God. Romans 10, 17. Our God gave us
faith through the preaching of the gospel. attending that gospel
word with his spirit who came and sought us out, caused us,
broke through our hardness and our wall and our blindness and
deafness and foolishness. He broke through that by his
grace and his power and caused us to hear the voice of the Son
of God and to believe him. Peter says that we're born again. not of corruptible seed, but
of incorruptible. This seed of Adam is corrupted. It's corruptible and is already
corrupted. It's deformed. It's already gone
astray. It cannot hear or believe. But
that which is incorruptible, the seed of Christ, is what the
new man is born of. by our Savior, by our Lord, by
the Word of God, which liveth and abideth forever. For all
flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of
grass. The grass withereth, and the
flower thereof falleth away. My knee, I tell you, my knee
the last few days testifies to the truth of that. This got inflamed
and was hurting. You know, and I look in the mirror
and I can see the flower just withering and falling off. It
just goes. The Lord shows us these things
in grace to remind us, yep, I really am breaking down. I am just withering
away. This is not my hope and my glory. Thanks be to God for His Son,
Jesus Christ, who is lasting, everlasting, who is life eternal. And He loves me. and is called
me by his grace? Thank you, Lord, thank you. The
word of the Lord endureth forever, and this is the word which by
the gospel is preached unto you, unto you. How precious you are
in the sight of God that he would cause you to hear his word and
call you to his son, to his everlasting salvation, to believe him. For
by grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves,
it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. And so it began in grace, it
continues in grace, and our Lord delivers us from the temptation. And he continues to deliver us
from that temptation that seeks to go its own way, as these Galatians
were tempted to do under the charm of the spell of the legalist. Paul told them, when they began
to look at others, they began to compare themselves to others
or compare themselves to the law. He said, that's not wise.
That's not wise. That's not wisdom there. Christ
doesn't teach us to do that. Christ tells us we're not anything
of ourselves, but we're everything in Him. We have everything necessary
to stand before our God. We're complete in Him. So does
a strict adherence to the law give you more of the Spirit?
Is that going to improve your standing before God? Is that
going to improve your abilities and talents here in the flesh? Or does the Spirit give you more
of the Spirit? Does the Spirit teach you and
reveal more and more the grace of God to you in Christ? And
when you forget, just remember, how did this all begin? How did
this all begin? Was it by something I was doing,
or was it all the grace of God? Just like, think of Cornelius.
That's how it is with every one of us. Cornelius was there gathered. He didn't know anything. He was
just told to call for Peter, Simon Peter, and so he did. He
did that, and he gathers his family and friends there to hear,
and as they're hearing, Peter's preaching the gospel. He's declaring
the remission of sins, the forgiveness of sins through the blood of
the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit fell upon them. And
they began to confess the grace of God and the works of God,
declaring, showing forth that God was merciful and gracious
to them, so that they believed on the Lord Jesus Christ. And
Peter testified to the Jews, the Judaizers, who came and questioned
him why he went into a Gentile's house. And he said, well, hey,
wait, guys, I was just preaching the gospel. And the Holy Spirit
fell upon them, testifying that God saves by grace. Because they
didn't ever come under the law. All they did was hear and believe
the testimony of God in his son, Jesus Christ. And so that's how
we're born again, by the spirit, not by our effort, not by our
works. Unless we were born again, we
can't even see the kingdom of God. So our God does that for
us in his son. And so if we've been accepted,
in the Beloved. Was it by the works of the flesh? Or was it by the grace of our
God in Christ? It's by Christ. It's by Christ.
And he asks in verse 3, are ye so foolish, having begun in the
Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? No. And doesn't
that just, it just resets us back to the truth that it all
began in the Spirit. It's going to continue in the
Spirit as well. Paul asks them in verse 4, he
says, Have ye suffered so many things in vain, if it be yet
in vain? It shows the seriousness of the
way that they were going, the way they were going off track,
because they suffered for their faith, for their profession in
the Lord Jesus Christ. They suffered of the Jews, They
suffered of their own countrymen. They suffered of their government.
They suffered of their family. And Paul's saying, was that all
in vain? That conviction. that you had
willing to face the opposition of all that came against you
for your professed hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. Is that all
in vain? Did you receive that conviction
to stand firm in the faith of Christ by your works of the law?
No, you did that with the hearing of faith. You did that by the
spirit of grace turning you to Christ. And if you stood against
that opposition then, By faith, is standing in the law gonna
give you any more necessary conviction? Is there anything more that you
need? What lacked you? You didn't lack anything in Christ.
You lacked nothing. And so Paul finally asks in verse
five, 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? Well, the answer is evident to
you that believe. It's all by the preaching of
Christ. And you know. Lord, let me not
look to any other hope. You've provided everything in
your son. You taught me that. You blessed
me with that knowledge through the preaching of the gospel and
gave me faith by the measure of faith given to me by your
spirit. Look into Christ, trust in Christ,
believe in him. Lord, keep me right there. And so that's where our Lord
blesses his people. He meets us in Christ. by grace,
through faith, not through fleshly works, but through faith. That's
how the just man lives. He walks by faith. I'll close
with Hebrews 13 verses 20 and 21. Hebrews 13 verses 20 and
21. Paul says, now the God of peace
that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd
of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting covenant,
make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working
in you that which is well pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ. through Jesus Christ, not through
the law of Moses, through Jesus Christ to whom be glory forever
and ever. Amen. In other words, brethren,
it's a faith, not of works. Amen. All right, let's close
in prayer. Our gracious Lord, we thank you,
Father, for your wisdom, your power, your glory, your grace,
which you've shown to us and poured out upon us abundantly
in your Son. For Christ's sake, Lord, we hear
and believe and, Lord, do walk before you in faith. And we know
this is all of your work, all of your grace, Lord, we began
in the spirit. We began by your grace. Keep
us ever walking and trusting you by grace. It's in the name
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that we pray this. Amen. All right, brethren, let's take
15 and then we'll come back. Don't look at that clock. So
it's What was it, about 11.03 we'll
come back and start? Yeah, so 11.02. All right, see
you in 15.