Okay, this evening we're going
to be in Galatians, Galatians 3. Galatians 3, verse 22. I wanted to jump over here to
Galatians because we find that men are always looking to glory
in the flesh. Whether they think they are or
not, whether they admit to it or not, they glory in the flesh. And one of the more prominent
ways that they do this, glorying, is by exalting the Law of Moses. They exalt the Law of Moses and
they make it something, they make the Law of Moses something
that must be taught consistently and submitted to by believers
for their sanctification. And I was thinking on the way
over here, I was remembering that Noah was called a preacher
of righteousness. And he was long before the law
of Moses. And that man was called a preacher
of righteousness. How was he able to preach righteousness
without the law of Moses? I don't know what they would
say to that. But for the law man, Christ simply
is not enough. He's not enough. for salvation,
and he believes and teaches that there is something yet more for
the sinner to do to bring home his salvation. To make it effectual
to the uttermost, it must be through his adherence to the
law to sanctify himself and to perfect salvation. And this is
because on one hand, they're ashamed of Christ. They're ashamed
of Christ. And before the eyes of their
peers, they continued to preach and to speak of the law of Moses,
lest they should be judged by their religious self-righteous
peers. They don't want to be judged
by them, so they themselves continued to preach and speak of the law. But Paul said in Galatians 5.11,
Brethren, if I yet preach circumcision, And he's saying, if I yet bring
to you and declare to you that there's something that you sinners
must do in order to be saved, that you must contribute something,
some aspect of something to your salvation, especially in the
law, why do I yet suffer persecution? Why are my countrymen so angry
with me and accusing me of preaching against the Law of Moses. For
then, if I preach circumcision, then is the offense of the cross
ceased. If we introduce, if we tell men
that there's something they must do and can do for righteousness,
they're not that offended. It's when you tell a man there's
nothing you can do. It's by the grace and mercy of
God alone, apart from any works, that man is saved. That's when
they get angry. Because now you're saying all
their sacrifice of years of religion is worthless and vain and has
done nothing for them. It's obtained them no favor with
God. And then on the other hand, they
just don't simply believe the promise of God in Christ. They don't believe that God really
brings salvation by grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. They don't
believe it. They just don't believe it. But the apostles, they taught
in Acts 4, 10, 43, Peter said, To him, to Christ, give all the
prophets witness, that through his name, whosoever believeth
on him, has faith in the faith of Christ, shall receive remission
of sins. They shall receive forgiveness
of their sins from God, because of the Lord Jesus Christ. So,
tonight I want to show you that the promise of salvation by Christ,
which is our salvation, is Christ himself, that Christ is sufficient
to save the sinner. He's sufficient to save. And
so our title is, Christ Sufficient to Save. Christ Sufficient to
Save. And we'll have two divisions.
The first one will be a little longer. We'll look at the conclusion
of scripture regarding man, and then we'll see the salvation
by the promise of Christ. So let's first read Galatians
3.22. That's going to be our primary text in Galatians, and
we'll look at some of the other verses, but primarily it's verse
22. But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise
by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. So the Lord makes it very easy
for us all. We're told that the scripture
hath concluded all under sin. We don't have to argue about
that or wrestle about that. Every single one of us is totally
and utterly dead in trespasses and sins. And Paul confirmed
this when he was speaking of working his way towards the grace
of God, towards sinners, when he said in Ephesians 2, 1, And
you hath he quickened, made alive, who were dead in trespasses and
sins. So that God, to this day, does
not look to the sinner for any part of their salvation. He's
not looking to you, sinner, to contribute, to finish off the
work, to provide the capstone to your salvation. He looks alone
to His Son, the perfection of His Son, Jesus Christ, for the
sinner's salvation. He's looking alone to the Lord
Jesus Christ, who came as the surety of His people, the one,
the guarantor, the one who who agreed to come and pay your sin
debt off in full, so that there's nothing left for you to do or
to complete. Salvation is completely and utterly
yours in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's not even simply that God
just made a choice to say, well, you know what, I'm going to just,
let's go with Christ here for salvation. No, God had to send
a son because there is no law, no work that you or I could do
to earn or obtain reconciliation with holy God because we're that
dead in trespasses and sins. If you look back at verse 21,
Galatians 3.21, our text is Galatians 3.22, Look at 321, it says, is the
law then against the promises of God? God forbid, for if there
had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness
should have been by the law. And so when we look at all the
history of Israel, when we look at Israel when it came out, Egypt
and at Mount Sinai were given the law and you had those people
there gathered together under that same law. They kept away
from themselves, all the other nations, and kept them at arm's
length, saying, don't come near me, I'm holier than thou. Yet
they themselves could not keep the law of Moses. They themselves
failed to keep the law of Moses and God provided them for us. We see all their history and
how they constantly and consistently fell and sinned, just like the
Gentiles fall and sin against the law of nature in their own
hearts. No man or woman keeps the law
perfectly. In Galatians, what we see there in verse 22,
that's not the only time Paul used that language, that the
scripture hath concluded all under sin. Turn over to Romans
3. Romans 3 and go to verse 9. Romans 3.9, what then? Are we
better than they? He's saying, are the Jews who
have the law better than the Gentiles who have not the law
of Moses? No, in no wise, for we have before
proved, both Jews and Gentiles, all, that they are all under
sin. As it is written, there is none
righteous, no, not one. There is none that understandeth.
There is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of
the way. They are together become unprofitable. There is none that doeth good.
No, not one." And then Paul lists a bunch of unflattering descriptions
of every one of us, Jews and Gentiles, that shows our sinfulness
and our deadness, whether we have law or have not the law
of Moses, we're all filthy, vile sinners before God. we earn no
favor with God by our works. And Paul concludes in Romans
3.20, saying, Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall
no flesh be justified in his sight, for by the law is the
knowledge of sin. So the law makes known to us
that we are sinners. The law of Moses will make known
to us that we are sinners, that we are corrupt, and when we're
honest, we see there's nothing that I can do to save myself.
And the law only declares us excuse, right? Our conscience
excuses us because we've fulfilled what the law says or condemns
us because we're accused in our conscience because we know we've
broken the law. But the law doesn't give any
help. It gives no help to the sinner
whatsoever to do the law, to fulfill the righteousness of
the law. There's no help in it. It just tells you You either
met the law's requirement or you came up short and you're
condemned. You didn't meet the law's requirement. And speaking
to an exactor of the law, one who is an exactor, one who says,
no, no, no, no, no, you've got to say it just like this. You've
got to preach and teach and specifically call it the Law of Moses. That's
what he was getting at, that it has to be called the Law of
Moses. You've got to drill home the Law of Moses for the people.
Otherwise, they don't know that they're a sinner. as if no one
can know that they're a sinner if they don't have the law of
Moses specifically traced out for them each and every time
by going back to the Ten Commandments. And that's not what the scriptures
are teaching. That's just being an exactor
of the law. But there's multitudes of self-righteous
sinners who don't know or believe the law of Moses. And they're
self-righteous sinners. They break the law of nature. They break the law of their understanding
of right and wrong that's written on their heart. In Romans 2.12,
if you're still there in Romans, look over in chapter 2, verse
12. It says, for as many as have sinned without law shall also
perish without law, and as many as have sinned in the law shall
be judged by the law. Because God's revealed to many
who don't have the law of Moses, He's revealed them some sense
of what's right or wrong. There's a little variations here
and there, but generally they know what is right or wrong.
You don't take another person's property. You don't steal from
them. You don't tell lies. You don't commit adultery. You
don't murder. Things like that. That's according
to the light of nature. And governments are set up that
have certain laws there that help people understand there's
a right and there's a wrong. You don't just do whatever you
want, what feels right to you. There's consequences for you
offending another person and sinning against them. And then
Romans 119, because that which may be known of God is manifest
in them, for God hath showed it unto them. So no man keeps
the law of Moses perfectly, and no man even keeps their own sense
of what's right or wrong perfectly. All are sinners and all have
sinned against God. All have come short of God. Alright,
now the thing is, whether we know the Law of Moses or not,
we're still guilty and we're all condemned in Adam. In Adam. You can't get around it. We're
all dead in Adam. In Romans 5, Romans 5, look at
verses 13 and 14. For until the law, sin was in
the world, but sin is not imputed when there is no law. Nevertheless,
death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned
after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who was the figure
of him that was to come." So, the proper understanding of Paul's
argument here is that all were in Adam, And due to his rebellion
against God, God separated his fellowship from Adam and all
of Adam's posterity. He withdrew from that fellowship
with Adam. And so all come forth, when we
are born and we come forth of our parents, We all come forth
out of fellowship with God. We don't know God. We're dead
to the things of God. We don't know them. We have no
spiritual life. We have no light. We have nothing
whereby we know how to worship and approach and be accepted
and reconciled to the true and living God. Not by nature, we
don't. It's a revelation that God must
give to us in Christ. And so God is just to impute
to us Sin he's just to to impute to us sin because he's calling
us. He's saying what we are He's
telling us exactly you are sin because I'm calling I'm imputing
to you sin because you are a sinner you've sinned against me you've
rebelled against me in Adam all have sinned in Adam and died
in Adam so Therefore, we don't need to hammer specifically on
the Ten Commandments of God, because whether you have the
Law or not, we're all sinners. We've all died in Adam. And to
limit ourselves to the Law of Moses is to is to make it seem
like we're only sinners because we know the law of Moses and
have broken the law of Moses. But we're all sinners regardless. We're all ruined in Adam's fall. And so because of that, there's
nothing that you or I can do to earn God's favor. And so we
strip men and women of looking to whatever it is that men and
women are hoping in and trusting in. some form of their goodness,
whether it's through the Law of Moses or not, we strip them
of that and say, God won't receive it. He won't accept it. And I
can't enumerate them all because we all have so many different
ways that we try to do it. We just tell you there's not
a single thing that you can do in your flesh, in your mind,
in your heart that would make you right with God. There's only
one way to the throne of God, and that's through the Lord Jesus
Christ, through His precious work to reconcile us. And if
you consider what the apostles preached, turn over to Acts.
I won't read Acts 2, you can go over to Acts 10, but in Acts
2, when Peter began preaching to the Jews, right, the Holy
Spirit had fallen upon the Jews and they're out there speaking
another language, so that all heard these men glorifying God
in their own language, and what did he begin with? He began with
the promise of God. He began to quote Joel, that
this, what you see here, These men and women, these men rather,
speaking another language that they have never studied or heard
of before, they do so by the Spirit. This is according to
the promise of Joel. And then he reminded them that
they rejected God's Christ. They crucified God's Christ. And he never said, you broke
the law thou shalt not murder. Now, he didn't even have to refer
to it. He just said, you've killed Christ. You've crucified Christ. Now, it was according to the
will of God, but that's what you did. But look over in Acts
10, 10, 35, and 36. Here Peter begins, this is when
he's with Cornelius, the Gentile, and he says, Acts 10.35, he says,
But in every nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness
is accepted with him. Now that's not the law of Moses,
but the law of nature for those that are outside Israel. If you
can work righteousness with God and you fear Him, you'll be accepted.
But no one can. No one does it perfectly. And so Peter, he preaches the
promise of God in Christ. Because the promise of Christ
is to all, whether you're a Jew or a Gentile. So he preached
the promise of God. Verse 36. the word which God
sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ,
he is Lord of all." And so, without going into the Law of Moses,
he went right to the promise of Jesus Christ. He said that
if you're, you know, you that are perfect, you can save yourselves,
but for those that are not perfect, it's by the promise of the Lord
Jesus Christ. And so that's what they said.
And then Paul, when he was at Iconium in Acts 14, look over
at Acts 14 and just look at verse 15. Here's what he said to the
people. Acts 14, 15 says, we also, they
were getting ready to sacrifice to them as Zeus and Apollos,
and he says, we also are men of like passions with you and
preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto
the living God, which made heaven and earth and the sea and all
things that are therein. Turn from your vain, dead religion.
Turn from worshiping your false gods and your false deities and
trusting in them and trusting to yourselves. He said turn from
those things. But he doesn't teach them the
law of Moses. He just teaches them those truths
that are true of every believer, that we are turned from our vain,
dead religion. Now, if they were pricked in
their heart, they would say, well, what do you mean? Why do
we got to turn from these things? Why so? And he could tell them
why we turn from them. Because God, that doesn't please
God. That's no deity at all. That's
a vain, dead, worthless, idle God that cannot save. And you're
trying to save yourselves through your works. And God will not
receive your works. He will not receive you by these
things. He receives only those who come to Him through His Son,
Jesus Christ. So we speak of these things. We preach the truth of God. We show forth. All men are ruined
in that. But every time we don't necessarily
speak of the law of Moses so that people understand that they're
sinners. You can preach that all are sinners through their
various ways that they're trying to comfort themselves that everything's
alright between them. and God. And so, you don't need
to say the Law of Moses, alright? So, we do this, we strip men
of their vain confidences in the flesh, whereby they think
they add something to their salvation, whether completely, the whole
of it, or some part. of it, all right? And so we declare
the utter ruin of man and Adam's fall and it's not that we show
forth that man has, we don't speak to man like they have some
ability in themselves to contribute to it, all right? Some teach
leading up to salvation that there's some light in man, this
little light of mine and something that they can do to to see what
you're saying and change their mind and make a decision for
Christ. But we know that all are dead
in trespasses and sins. It's a revelation by God to give
a sinner that light and understanding that they are the sinner in need
of the Lord Jesus Christ and that He alone is their salvation.
And then there's others that turn back to the flesh after
they've heard of Christ and they confess, well, I only confess
Christ because of the work of God, but now I've got something
I've got to do to keep this thing going. I've got to cap this off,
I've got to do some part of the work. And it's like when the
Jews, when they came to the churches, the early churches, saying, except
ye be circumcised after the manner of Moses, ye cannot be saved. And that's what they were teaching.
In Acts 15.1, that's what they were saying. They wanted people
circumcised because in that little work there of circumcision, they
were now submitting themselves under the whole law. They were
going to be picking up the law and start doing all those things
in the law and looking to the Ten Commandments and do all those
things by the law. And they were subtly bringing
back in the law. So to the law man, He believes
that Christ alone is insufficient to save. He's just not sufficient
to save. What Christ did doesn't completely
save the man. There's still something that
he does to contribute to the happiness of his walk and the
comfort that he feels walking as he does before the Lord. So man's got to have his part.
He's got to be able to put his hand to the work to perfect it
and to sanctify himself because that's what they're teaching.
It's up to you now. to sanctify yourselves. By the works that
you do or the things that you don't do and steer clear of,
this is your sanctification. That's what they teach. And so,
through subtlety, what they do is they turn men away from looking
to Christ alone. And they say, you know, stop
looking over there at him. That's not all your salvation.
You've now got to look away from him and put your eye here on
this Law of Moses. You've got to study this Law
of Moses and make sure you're adhering to it the best that
you can. And so they go away from Christ
and they go right back to their favorite place, that fiery hot
yoke of the Law of Moses. And that's where they're bringing
you to. And when you talk to them, they'll tell you, well,
when I look at the law, it's humbling. I'm humbled. I'm humbled
by looking at the law. And even being humbled, he still
finds a way to look at it. Because he's doing pretty good
at it. He's working at it and, you know,
he's got some things he's still got to do. He's humbled. He's
humbled, but he's still doing it. He still finds a way to say,
well, you know, I'm doing this, I'm doing that, I still need
a little help over here, but I'm trying. And when he looks
back over the tenor of his life, he says, wow, yeah, I've really
done pretty good. I used to really struggle over
there with these things, but now through my judicious study,
careful study of the law, and doing the things that my pastor
says in the law, now I can actually say I'm doing pretty good. and
he's finding comfort in something that he's done in the law. It doesn't matter what he says,
but the child of God, having received the spirit of adoption,
they cry, Abba, Father. They cry out to the Father, because
they see what sinners they are. They see the hardness, the coldness,
the deadness of the heart, and so they're led, having the spirit
of Christ, they're not going back looking at the law of Moses,
for their righteousness and their comfort and their peace. They're
crying out, Lord, have mercy upon me. Lord, please give me
your spirit, help me to see, help me to rejoice in your son.
Turn my flesh from loving this world and desiring the things
of this world and the things that take my feet away, Lord. Thank you for your son, thank
you for his blood, and turn my heart, keep me, keep my heart,
Lord, looking to Christ and Christ alone. And why does he cry out
to God for mercy like that? Well, it's because he's stripped
of all his righteousness. He's stripped of all confidence
in self. He's not trusting in the fact
that he's doing or not doing the things that grandma taught
him when he was a little boy that's good or bad and, you know,
do this but don't do that. He's not trusting in that and
he's not trusting in the law of Moses and what he's heard
there at the dead letter religious place. He's not trusting in those
things. He's trusting in the Lord Jesus
Christ alone, and so he cries out to God for mercy instead
of looking to something that he does in the flesh to perfect
it. Why? Well, Philippians 3.3, for
we are the circumcision. We've been circumcised in the
heart by the Spirit of God, which worship God in the Spirit and
rejoice in Christ Jesus. and have no confidence in the
flesh. And, you know, all your law study,
all your looking away from Christ and back to the law and trusting
in it, because they're trusting it. That's why they're going
back to the law and they're trying every way they can to say, well,
when it talks about what's sin or not, that's the law of Moses.
They're trying to place it, stamp it on there everywhere that they
can to turn you away from Christ and back to the law, but try
as hard as you may, but the law will not circumcise your heart.
The law gives you no help in making you righteous before God. And so your law study to sanctify
yourself is putting confidence back in your flesh. You're trusting
in your flesh. You're saying God is now waiting
for you to figure this part out and to get it right. This is
what sanctifies you. This is going to be your happiness
and your peace and your joy. And we know when we sin and do
those things that we know the law of God, not the law of Moses,
but as God reveals things to our heart, we trust Him and we
seek Him by His Spirit to walk right before Him. We don't look
back in the law of Moses to figure out how to walk before Him, but
that's exactly what they want. you to do, but the law man, you
see him, you know, in Matthew 18, I was looking at this last
night, Matthew 18 verses 26 through 28, that's where there was a
man who owed a great debt to his Lord, a great debt that he
could not pay, and he was going to go to jail, his family, his
kids, everybody was going to be taken off to jail until he
paid it off, which would be never, and he cries out saying, Lord,
have patience with me, and I will pay the Oh, I'll pay everything
back. Just be patient with me. I'll
work harder. I'll get it all paid back to
you. But the Lord being gracious forgave him, or just frankly
forgave him all the debt. He said, you don't owe me nothing
anymore. It's done. It's put away completely. And
he forgives his debt. And what did that man do? He
went right back to the law of Moses. And he sees another person,
he's determined, I'm going to pay this man back. He maybe forgave
me, but I'm going to keep paying him back. And he goes and finds
somebody that owes him a little bit of money, grabs him by the
throat and says, pay me that thou owest. And that's what law
men do. They demand from you, you need
to be following the law too. You owe me righteousness. Don't
you sin against me. You better be perfect to me.
And the way you're perfect to me is by you studying this book
here. You got to study the law of Moses
so that you can pay me what you owe. And they don't like to hear
of grace because you might make them stumble. might stumble over
Christ, and now they're going to be angry at you. You're not
doing right by me by not trusting in the law of Moses and teaching
that, and so they get angry with you. But that man maintains his
law-keeping for sanctification. Therefore, not only is he self-righteously
humbled before the law, he's also cursed by the law. He's
cursed under, right? It says that there in Galatians
3.10. Galatians 3.10 says, For as many as are of the works of
the law are under the curse. For it is written, Cursed is
everyone that continueth not in all things which are written
in the book of the law to do them. And the men love to say
there in Galatians 3, you know, earlier, they love to say, well,
he's talking about justification. He's not talking about sanctification
there. That's just justification alone. But Paul always used the
term justification. Because when you were justified,
you were sanctified. It's all, any part of your salvation
always ties back to justification. And when you cease to look to
Christ for some part of your salvation, you cease to be confident
in the justification he's provided. You're now adding to that, and
therefore, you're on the outs of justification. You're not
justified, because the Spirit of Christ wouldn't lead you away
from Christ, back to the fiery mountain, law mountain there. It's not right. So if you look
at Galatians 3.3, which Galatians 3 is a chapter that they teach,
this is justification. This is justification. This is
not sanctification. But look at Galatians 3.3, where
Paul asks, Are ye so foolish, having begun in the spirit? Are
ye now made perfect by the flesh? And that's what they teach in
sanctification. They're perfecting their flesh. They're turning back away from
Christ, who is their justification, back to the law for their sanctification. To perfect their flesh. To get
their flesh right and have a good, happy walk. with the Lord. So they're turning to the law
to perfect, to keep, to maintain their happy walk in this flesh.
And they call it sanctification, but Paul calls it turning to
the flesh for your justification. He always used that term. And
speaking of it, and he asks, look at verse 5, Galatians 3,
5. And he says, He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit
and worketh miracles among you. He that's preaching to you the
Lord Jesus Christ, the grace of God by whom God pours out
His Spirit upon you, and that one who's working miracles, right?
Because in that day the Lord's establishing for them to say,
The old is done. The old covenant is done. You're
saved now by the, well, you've always been saved by the blood
of Christ, but this is, you look to Christ and Christ alone, and
you walk by faith, by the Spirit, which God has given to you. And
so, he asks, doeth he it by the works of the law? By sanctifying
himself, looking back at the law of Moses, is that how he's
doing this now? Because that's what they would teach, is you
go back to the law now. and you're going to be a pretty
strong, powerful person there in the flesh. You're going to
be esteemed among the brethren there by your law-keeping. And
Paul asks, is he ministering the Spirit to you by the works
of the law, by looking to the law and being sanctified by the
law, or by the hearing of faith? The preaching of Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. That's how the brethren are strengthened.
That's how the brethren are encouraged. That's how the brethren are turned
away from the flesh and trusting in the flesh and looking to something
in the flesh for their comfort and hope and peace and joy. And he says there, he says, even
as Abraham even as Abraham, verse six, believed God and it was
accounted to him for righteousness. Know ye therefore that they which
are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham. And you
know, you think of Abraham, we spoke of Noah, you think of Abraham.
Abraham believed God and walked before God faithfully 430 years
before the law was given. And that man was a man of faith.
And we're called children of Abraham because we walk by faith. We look to Christ our Savior.
We believe Him. We walk by His Spirit, trusting
that He teaches us and keeps us and guides us. And so every
child of God in Christ, it says in 1 Corinthians 1, 30 and 31,
but of God are ye in Christ who is made unto us wisdom and God
has made Christ unto us righteousness, and God has made Christ unto
us sanctification, and God has made unto us Redemption, right? He's our sanctification and our
justification. He's everything. Why? Paul asks. That according as it's written,
he that glorieth let him glory in the Lord. And yet carnal man
says, I won't believe that. Now Paul tells us that's because
all men have not faith. 2 Thessalonians 3, 2. All men
have not faith. All right? So law men are saying
This work of justification, well that's God's cut of glory. We'll
give him that. We can't get around that because
Paul used that word consistently. That's God's cut of glory. But
this sanctification work, that's man's cut of the glory. We're
going to take this to ourselves. You have that. You can have the
more, we'll even call it the more glorious work, but we're
going to do this sanctification thing and that's going to be
our cut of glory in this work of salvation. This is for us,
don't touch it. This is our glory here, but you
can't get around it because Paul said, having begun in the spirit,
Are you now, on the back end, sanctifying yourselves by some
work in the flesh? Is that how you're going to perfect
yourselves and cap this off and present yourself to God? So,
that's not how it is. He that's justified is sanctified. And I'll give you a good verse.
Ephesians 2 10. For we are His workmanship. Not just in the beginning, but
throughout your whole entire work. We are His workmanship.
created in Christ Jesus unto good works, those sanctifying
works, those works that keep you and bring joy, that's all
His work. It's all His grace. It's all
His Spirit flowing in you and softening your hard heart and
turning you back to the Lord, constantly, consistently looking
to Him and depending upon Him, which God hath before ordained
that we should walk in them." So our walk is by faith in the
Spirit, by the Spirit, through the Spirit of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That's how we walk. That's why we preach Jesus Christ
and Him crucified, because it's a spiritual walk by faith and
we don't turn you back to that deadness and the oldness of the
law which ministers death and condemnation to you. That's why
we don't do that. As Paul said in Romans 8, 3 and
4, when he said, for what the law could not do, in that it
was weak through the flesh, and this flesh is still not resurrected
yet, it's still the deadness of the flesh, which he shows
you in Romans, but what the law could not do, in that it was
weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of
sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the
flesh, but after the Spirit. So we walk after the Spirit as
the Lord teaches us and guides us and reveals it to us, not
looking back to the law, which says an eye for an eye and a
tooth for a tooth, but we trust the Lord. And we walk by faith
and love toward one another, believing our God, trusting that
we are saved completely, all by the effectual working of our
Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that he accomplished this work.
All right, our Lord said he must be born again. So it's the spirit
that must give life and life to us in Christ. Otherwise, we
don't hear it. All we hear and see is just another carnal, fleshly
work that we've got to do. instead of trusting in Christ
and really believing that God saves us by Christ. And I found,
you know, that law men, they like quoting Matthew 7, 16. You shall know them by their
fruits, right? They always want to go and charge you with some
kind of sin, and you'll know them by their fruits, so you
better be diligent to memorize the Ten Commandments and make
sure you know them so that you don't bear some bad rotten fruit. But our Lord said, If you look
there at the Pharisees, they look perfect. They're whitewashed
on the outside. They look really good. But he
said, except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness
of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into
the kingdom of heaven. And so when they do that, they
always leave off the second half of that verse when Christ asks,
do men gather grapes of thorns or figs of thistles? All right,
so they want to turn you away from Christ and back to the law
of Moses for you to try and produce some kind of righteous fruit
which can bear nothing more than thorns and thistles. It's not
going to produce that which is good. But Romans 7, 4 and 6 is
very appropriate here. It's very appropriate here. He
said, wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the
law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married to another,
even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring
forth fruit unto God. For when we were in the flesh,
the motions of sins which were by the law did work in our members
to bring forth fruit unto death. But now we are delivered from
the law, delivered from the law completely, that being dead,
wherein we were held, that we should serve in newness of spirit
and not in the oldness of the letter. And so we're to walk
by faith as Abraham walked, being married to Christ, that we should
bring forth fruit of Christ our husband, that fruit unto God. And so It's by Christ, and we
stop giving that glory to Moses. We don't do that. And yet, these
exactors, they trouble those who rest in Christ. They trouble
those, they don't like it, they don't want to hear that you're
resting and trusting in Christ. It angers them because they know
there's a great disagreement there. You that are saying Christ
is sufficient and all for your salvation, that can't be. And
that's why they fight against it because they want to contribute
some part of their salvation in their flesh. But that's why
Paul said, such trust have we through Christ to God. We're
so confident in the one who came and suffered and died, who fulfilled
the law perfectly, every job, every tittle, he worked righteousness
for his people, perfectly fulfilling the law, that he would be a fit
sacrifice to go before holy God and bearing the burden, bearing
the sin of his people, put it away through his shed blood and
dying under the wrath of God to save his people from their
sins, to put that debt away, to pay it off completely so that
there's nothing more for us to do. All right, so we are turned
away from that law that ministers death and condemnation. All right,
and it's nothing new. This argument is nothing new.
This was something the apostles faced. If you look over at Acts
15, look over there at Acts 15 and go to verse 7. And it says in Acts 15, 7, when
there had been much disputing, Peter rose up and said unto them,
Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made
choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word
of the gospel and believe, and God which knoweth the hearts
bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost even as he did
unto us, and put no difference between us and them, purifying
their hearts by faith, sanctifying them." He purified their hearts
by faith. Now therefore, why tempt ye God
to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither
our fathers nor we were able to bear? Why will you saddle
the believers with the law? Why are you going to put them
back under that oldness of the letter there? But, verse 11,
we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, we
shall be saved, even as they. Saved all the way to the end,
from beginning to end, by the grace of God being poured out
upon us through His Son, Jesus Christ. It's all His work, and
we're thankful for that. Alright, now, I went long on
that, but This one won't take long, the second point here.
Salvation by the promise of Christ. Look there at Galatians 3.22.
Galatians 3.22, and then we'll flip over to Romans 3. But Galatians
3.22 says, but the scripture hath concluded, all under sin,
that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ, by faith of Jesus
Christ, might be given to them that believe. And so this promise
of Christ, the promise of Christ was given to us by the prophets
and the apostles. They all saw, they all agreed
and preached Jesus Christ. They all looked to his coming
and ministered Christ to us. Now listen to Romans 3, 21 and
22. where he says, but now the righteousness
of God without the law is manifested being witnessed by the law and
the prophets. So even the law of Moses gives
witness to this and says, yeah, that's righteousness there. That's
perfection. Even the righteousness of God,
which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that
believe, for there is no difference. Now, two times Paul uses this
phrase, the faith of Jesus Christ. Galatians 3.22, the promise of
faith of Jesus Christ. And then Romans 3.22, the righteousness
of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ. And they use that
wording and newer translations will call it in Jesus Christ,
but it's correct of Jesus Christ because it's not a weird way
of saying our faith in Jesus Christ. It's speaking of the
faith of Jesus Christ, the faithfulness of Jesus Christ. It's what he
did, what the work that he did for his people. And so Paul's
emphasizing for us how that Christ himself obtained eternal redemption
for us by the faithful work that he did unto the Father on behalf
of his people in sanctifying us. Turn over to Hebrews 10. Hebrews 10. Go to verse 9. Remember that
God's concluded us all under sin, so that none, there's no
part, there's no work, there's nothing of salvation left undone
for us to do, all right? And so it says, verse nine, then
said Christ, lo, I come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away
the first, that he may establish the second. The second is that
law of faith by Jesus Christ. It's Christ ministering the spirit
to us, working salvation, giving us life by his spirit in us. By the witch will we are sanctified
through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. We're sanctified through his
one offering one time for all time. We are sanctified. And verse 11, every priest standeth
daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices
which can never take away sins Right? Not the filth or the pollution
of our sin, but this is what lawmen continue to do, right?
They keep going back to the law of Moses to try and minister
the same sacrifices over and over and over again to try and
perfect and tweak and get more right some aspect of their righteousness
before the law, by the law. They're looking to the law. They're
still offering their sacrifices by studying the Law of Moses
and trusting in it, by trusting in that to perfect their flesh.
Verse 12, But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice
for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God, from henceforth
expecting till his enemies be made his footstool. For by one
offering he hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. not sanctified by some work you
do, but sanctified by the work which he did, that one-time sacrifice
of himself to put away sin forever. And so either you trust Christ
to save completely, or you take the side with the concision that
was around in Paul's day that said, except ye be circumcised
after the manner of Moses, you cannot be saved." You've got
to submit yourself back under the law of Moses, and that's
what they're doing. You're either siding with Paul,
the preacher of grace, or you're siding with the concision that
cuts the flesh and chops it up and tries to segregate and divide
that and put you back under the law. But our salvation, Peter
said, is according as His divine power hath given unto us all
things that pertain unto life and godliness by His Spirit.
He's not partially through the Spirit and in part turning you
back to your flesh to study the law. Alright, so I'll just close
it up here in Galatians 3, 24 through 26. Galatians 3.24, wherefore the
law which was given to the Jews was our schoolmaster unto or
until Christ. That to bring us is not in the
original. It's unto Christ. So that law
for the Jews was there to bring us up to the time when Christ
came. So if you weren't under the law
as a Gentile, you don't have to now go back under the law
to get to Christ. Christ has come. That law, we
don't need that law. We do need to be stripped of
our vain confidences, but it doesn't have to be going back
through the law and studying the law and doing all the law
says to then come to Christ. If you don't know you're a sinner,
you can say, look at the law. The law says don't do this. This
is the perfection of God. Don't do that there. And if you
do it, you've sinned. But that's all that you can do.
The law was made for an unrighteous man, for murderers and thieves
and whoremongers and people that break the law. You can put them
under the law and say, don't do that anymore, but to the righteous.
Why are you putting on the law? There's no law for them. It doesn't
say anything to them because they're walking in love. Alright,
so it's until Christ that we might be justified by faith.
All right, but after that faith has come, we are no longer under
a schoolmaster. And that faith that came is Jesus
Christ. He's the one. He's the perfection
of God. He's the law of God. He is the
perfection of God. He's the faith that we walk and
bear fruits of righteousness by him. For ye are all the children
of God by faith in Christ Jesus. So brethren, You that want to
bear fruit, it's by Christ. We're dead to the law. He said
in Romans 7, 4-6 there. We're dead to the law. It would
be the high crime of adultery. to be married to Christ, but
then to carry yourself back to that old husband, the law of
Moses, to bear his fruit and then come back to Christ and
say, look, look, I had fruit with this other man here. Aren't
you happy? No, no, Christ isn't going to
receive that and Moses wouldn't even receive that. He'd say,
get away from me. Don't come near me. And so We
don't go back to Moses to bear fruit. We rest in Christ. We look to the Lord Jesus Christ
to bear righteous fruit of Christ our husband. It's his work, not
our work in the flesh. All right. Let's pray and then
close in hymn. Our gracious Lord, we thank you,
Father, for your mercy. We thank you, Lord, for your
grace for the pouring out of your Spirit through your Son,
Jesus Christ. And Lord, we can only thank you
for the confidence that we have in the Lord Jesus Christ. And
I don't understand why anyone would want to take that away
from us and put us back under the yoke of the law, which the
Jews themselves admitted that they could not keep it, nor walk
according to it, nor was it a help to them. that Lord and not go back to
that law, not to trust or have any confidence in the flesh,
but Lord, fix our faith, fix our hope and our confidence in
the Lord Jesus Christ alone and help us to walk by His faith,
by His Spirit, by His perfection, Lord, trusting to His perfection,
trusting that He is all our salvation. It's in the name of our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ that we pray. Amen.