We're going to be in the book
of Galatians chapter 3 if you'd like to turn there. Galatians
chapter 3. False prophets have came into
the Church of Galatia, and they begin spreading the lie. And the lie is subtle. The lie is, well, we go back
to the garden. What did Satan tell Eve? Thou shalt not surely die. Just
change one word. One word, that was it. That's
how subtle the lie could be. So they begin saying, yeah, you're
saved by grace. But you have to do the works
of the law as evidence of that. Only the ones that are, they
were using circumcision. They said only the ones that
are circumcised are true, true Israel. Only ones that are circumcised
are really the Jews, Abraham's seed. And Paul's telling them,
he's asserting with the authority that God gave him, Abraham's
seed is a spiritual seed, not a physical seed. God's chosen
people are from every race, every tongue, every nation. God elected
a people out of those. That's what it says in the scripture. Every nation will be represented
there. Paul boldly asserts there can be no mixture of law and
grace, cannot be any mixture. whatsoever. Calling it oil and
water would not be justice. Call it light and darkness, perhaps
it would be closer. But serving the law for righteousness
or justification is an impossibility, cannot be justified. We cannot
have righteousness by the law. Paul's gospel, our gospel, is
what he's declaring here, this indisputable truth about who
God is, about who we are, and what do we have to do with salvation,
and what does God have to do with salvation? Salvation's of
the Lord. It's not of man, it's not by man. It's not what we
do, but it's what he did. Our gospel is clear, and our
gospel is plain. Now let's read Galatians 3, 19. Wherefore then serveth the law? It was added because of transgressions,
till the seed should come to whom the promise was made, and
it was ordained by angels in the hand of a mediator. Now a
mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. We're gonna stop reading right
there. I've titled this message, Wherefore Serve Ye the Law? Wherefore serve ye the law. Why are you serving the law?
What's the point of serving the law? That's what Paul's asking
them. Why are you serving the law? What are you hoping to gain
from serving the law? And he establishes the promise.
See, the law can't contradict the promise. The law can't do
anything against the promise because the promise was given
before the law was given. The promise is eternal. The promise
is everlasting, and it's how God saved his people from their
sin. The law was given in time for the purpose of revealing
sin, revealing what we are by nature. I've used the term mirror
many times. That's what the law is, is a
mirror. It shows you what you are before God, and it shuts
us up to Christ, doesn't it? It shuts us, says, you gotta
have a substitute. I can't justify you, but he can. He's our justification, isn't
he? Now, those who would serve the law, they're left to themselves. They will remain ignorant of
God's grace unless the Lord does something, just as we would,
but for the grace of God, there go I. Why would one want to serve
the law? What would be the purpose of
serving the law? Well, there's a couple reasons. One could be
justification, try to be justified before God. Men think that if
I keep the law or do the things which are written in the law,
that God will see me as justified. meaning I've justified myself.
I've made the work of Christ effectual because I've done something,
and I've justified myself. That's not true, is it? We read
in Romans chapter three, and I may even have us go and turn
it in there, I don't know, but it says we're justified freely by
his grace. That's how we're justified. Well,
maybe it's not justification they're seeking. Maybe it's validation.
Now, how would one become validated by keeping the law? Well, they're
thinking about, they're becoming more holy. They're becoming more
sanctified. I used to do that, but I don't do that anymore.
I'm becoming more sanctified. I have validation. I have evidence.
I can see evidence. Things have changed in my life.
I'm not the same I used to be. This is what people say. But
what is Christ made into us? All of our wisdom, all of our
righteousness, all of our sanctification, and all of our redemption. No,
we don't go to the law for evidence. We don't go to the law for validation.
You wanna know whether you're a believer or not? A believer
believes. Who are you looking to? Who are we looking to? Are
we looking to self? That's not looking to Christ.
A believer believes. That's the only difference between a believer
and a non-believer. A believer believes Jesus Christ successfully
saved his people. They believe that he is all their
hope of salvation or they will have no salvation. A believer
knows that they can't keep the law and they don't try to keep
the law. The law wasn't given as a rule of life for believers.
That's preached to a lot. Oh, you should keep the law.
It's a rule of life. No, it's not. No, it's not. It was given
to reveal sin, sin, to show you what you are, not what we do,
what we are. Why do we do the things that
we do? Because of what we are. I use the example of a dog often
because I have dogs, I guess. My dogs don't cluck. I have chickens,
too. My dogs don't cluck or crow. My dogs bark. Why? They're dogs.
Well, the chickens don't bark. They cluck. Why? They're chickens.
A sinner doesn't sin to become a sinner. A sinner, we are born
in sin, shaped into iniquity. The scripture says a sinner sins
because they're a sinner. We're completely and utterly
sinful. That's what the law shows us.
Can't go to the law for righteousness. The law's not going to fix that.
Have you ever, has a mirror ever helped you become better looking? No, you might've applied makeup
or something, but looking in the mirror doesn't change you
at all, does it? Doesn't change what, you have to use a tool
of some kind to brush your hair, use makeup or something like
that so you can look pretty. This is the point, the law will not
help you in your state before God. You will remain dead in
trespasses and in sin, going to the law for righteousness. I wrote an article, a little
article there in the bulletin for today. It's about justification.
Every man and every woman in this world are living their life.
If they're wanting to be justified before God, they're living their
life one of two ways, either to become justified before God,
That's usually by keeping the law or by what they do or do
not do. Morally living right, being good to others. That's
the civil law, the moral law, and then how they present themselves
to God. That's the ceremonial law. But none of those things
can bring about justification. So either you're living to become
justified, Or Christ has justified you freely by his grace, therefore
you live looking to him. You live because you've been
justified. Not looking to become, but because
you've been justified freely by his grace. Who maketh thee
to differ is the question I wrote down next. We don't boast in
the fact that God chose to have mercy on me. God chose to have
mercy on you. There's no but where is boasting,
then it's excluded. That's what he says over there.
I believe it's in Romans three as well. boasting is excluded.
No, we don't. We don't boast in our doings.
We look to our Savior's doings. We boast about him, don't we?
We look to him, we rejoice in his finished work, but not the
flesh. We have no confidence in the
flesh. It's the Lord that chooses to illuminate our cold dead hearts
and shine his glorious light, his truth of the gospel. Illuminate
us, make us alive by his spirit. It's God that chooses to do that.
He's the only one that can speak the word of life. Lazarus, come
forth. And what did Lazarus do? Well,
I don't know if I'm gonna let you make me alive. Lazarus came
forth. Why? God was speaking to Lazarus. Peace, be still. And the winds
and the waves ceased. Why? He's God. He's God. And besides him, there is no
number. He's sovereign over the inhabitants of heaven and the
earth and under the earth. And none can stay his hand or
say unto him, what doest thou? He's God. He's God. If we add This is important,
all of this is important, but this statement's important. If
we add our works to the grace of God, we forfeit our acceptance
with God. Do we see that? If I add my works
to the grace of God, I have forfeited my acceptance before God. God will not accept anything
that I offer of myself. And I use this example a lot,
but you remember Cain. This is not a new mentality,
brethren. This is a mentality that started
in the garden. I mean, it's just how it's always
been. Men by nature will not choose
God. They will choose self. Cain brought
forth the fruit of his hands. Abel brought forth a lamb, a
lamb, and it says that unto Cain and his sacrifice, God had no
respect, but into Abel and his sacrifice, God had respect unto
his sacrifice and him. Why? It's the blood of the lamb
that's required, not the works of the hands. Cain stood before
the Lord and the Lord said, do you not know that if you do right,
you will be accepted? What was doing right? Offering
that which God requires, offering that which God accepts. And what
is that now? That's the Lord Jesus Christ.
It's the blood of the lamb. That's what we look to. That's
what we cleave to as all of our righteousness, as all of our
justification. Well, Cain didn't like that. Cain said, don't tell
me that my fruits and vegetables are good enough. They're good
enough, and I'm sure they were beautiful. I have a garden. It
ain't doing so good right now, but he must have been really
good in order to have all that he had to bring to the Lord.
And he thought what he had accomplished was going to please God. That's
what men and women think. If I live this way and I don't
live this way, God will accept me. If I don't say this, but
I say this, God will accept me. If I stop touching this, if I
stop tasting that, if I stop doing this or doing that, God
will accept me. No, he won't. He accepts one. His son, the
Lord Jesus Christ, that's who he accepts. Cain was so furious
he couldn't kill God, obviously, so he killed his brother. And
that's what the gospel will bring about. It will bring about, it
will bring a man and show him what he is. And if God doesn't
give grace and faith to believe, the man will say, we will not
have this man reign over us, away with him. Let his blood
be upon us and on our children. Paul couldn't have been any clearer
when he said it in Romans 11, six, if by grace, then it is
no more of works. Otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it
is no more grace. Otherwise work is no more work. There can be no confusion here,
brethren. This is not a complicated subject. If you seek justification
by what you're doing, you're not justified. It's that simple.
If you seek righteousness by the law, you have no righteousness.
It's that simple. But oh, if God has made Christ
unto us, all of our wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption of
Christ justified us freely by his grace, we've been justified.
We've been reconciled. We've been bought with the price.
God did that. God did that. If we are saved,
God must be the doer of it. Do you know why? Salvation is
of the Lord. Salvation is not of man, nor
the will of man, nor the will of the flesh, but of God. That's what he said in John chapter
one. All the Lord's people were born by the will of God. He's gotta do all the saving.
He's gotta do all the keeping and calling, don't he? And how
does he do that? Does he help you keep yourself,
or does he keep you by his grace? Does he help you by calling you
and offering you something, or does he call you effectually
by his grace? He says, I've loved you with
an everlasting love. Therefore, I've redeemed you.
Therefore, I've saved you. In spite of yourself, despite
of yourself. You would not choose me, I chose
you. I chose you. If we try to keep the law for
justification or for righteousness, we have no justification in righteousness.
Paul said, we're gonna get to it soon in Galatians 5.4, Christ
is become of no effect unto you, whosoever of you are justified
by the law, you're fallen from grace. In other words, you're
not justified. You either were justified by grace or we have
no justification. What does it mean to be justified?
Does that mean just as if I never sinned? No. It means you've never
sinned one time in God's eyes. Not one sin, not one trespass,
not one drop of iniquity. Never ever have you sinned. You
know why? Because those who were given
to Christ in the covenant of grace, elected of the father,
those for whom Christ died for, putting away their sin by the
sacrifice of himself, he justified them and gave them a new history,
a brand new history. It's his history, his story. When the father sees the son,
he doesn't see Caleb Hickman, Or no, when a father sees me,
he doesn't see Caleb Hickman, he sees the son. That's my hope.
When the father sees you, he doesn't see you, he sees the
son. That's our hope. Why? Because we died in Christ. He's the fulfillment of the law
on our behalf. He is the fulfillment of the
justice and the wrath of God on the cross of Calvary on our
behalf. He endured for us that which we could not endure. And
therefore he was raised again because we were justified. We were justified. Well, how do I know I can't become
justified by what I do? Well, the scripture's clear.
No flesh shall be justified by the deeds of the law. You can't
get much more clear than that. No flesh. shall be justified
by the deeds of the law. For by the law is the knowledge
of sin. That's what it's for. That's
what it's for. Man don't like this gospel because
they want something to do. They want to say, I want part
of this. I need to make a choice. I need to make a decision. I
need to be the one that decides to let God save me. You can't let God do anything,
and I can't either. He's God. He's God. He is seated on His throne as
the sovereign, successful redeemer of His people. Oh, people say
God's in control. That's true. That's true. And
in that sense, but he's purposed all things. He's not, he's not
playing chess with the devil. Do you understand what I'm saying?
When you say he's in control, it sounds more like he's moving things
around. No, he's, he's hands off. I mean, he's, he's literally
purposed it all and sat down. That's God. That's God, and the
glorious part of the whole entirety of it is that he chose to save
the creatures of dust that he created. He chose to save his
people from their sin, us worms, us creatures of sin, he chose
to save us. The reason this is such a controversial
topic or a strong topic is because if you try to keep the law for
righteousness, you're saying, without saying it intentionally,
you're saying, or if I did, I would be saying, the blood of Christ
was not good enough. That's what we would be saying.
If we try to go about establishing our own righteousness, regardless
of what law or what we do to do that, we're saying the blood
of Christ did not accomplish my salvation. It was not good
enough. That's what we're saying. That's
why it's blasphemous. That's why it's horrible. I mean, it's just utter blasphemy,
isn't it? Keeping the law as part of your
salvation or evidence of your salvation, that's not just a
bad idea. That's a futile idea. It's not
going to do any good whatsoever. It's not going to accomplish
anything. It's not going to accomplish anything. It's a fatal idea.
It's quite literally calling God a liar. When the Lord said
it is finished, that's what he meant. When God speaks, he's
clear, and he's assertive, and he has the authority to speak
the truth only, and it's always true because he's the one that
said it. Why is it that everything God says is true? Well, number
one, God's the one saying it, and number two, that's all he
can say is the truth. That's our Lord, isn't it? That's our
Lord. Let's read this again. Galatians 3.19 and 20. Wherefore then serveth the law. It was added because of transgression. It was literally given to reveal
what was already there. Because the transgression was
already there, God gave the law for us to realize, oh, I'm transgressing. That's why it was given. It was
added because of transgressions. Not for transgressions, but because
of transgressions. Till, I like that word till,
because that means it stopped at some point. This is until
the seed should come to whom the promise was made. Now, who
is that? promise was made to Abraham, promise was made to
the son before time ever began in the covenant of grace. The
promise was between God, I'm going to save my people from
their sin. That's the promise. That's the
promise. And this promise see, that's
Christ. That's Christ himself. It was ordained by angels in
the hand of a mediator. That can be a little bit confusing
if you don't, but we take it in the context. Ordained, it
simply means it was brought. It was brought. Angels are ministers. It was brought. Who's the mediator?
Well, that's the law. That's Moses at that time. So
Moses received the law is what it's saying there. Moses received
the law. Then he goes on to say, now a
mediator is not a mediator of one, but God is one. God is one. So what we have here is the reason
the law was given as transgressions until the promise of the seed
came, the Lord Jesus Christ. Why? Christ is the end of the
law because of righteousness, because of righteousness. Trying to keep the law is saying
that being born of the incorruptible seed of Christ is just not enough.
It's just not, and there's gotta be more. There's gotta be something
I have to do. I have to have part of it somewhere. If God
says no, I'll disannul your covenant. You can't have any part of salvation,
any part of your salvation. You cannot be the one that saves
yourself. God must be the one that saves
you. We're incapable of saving ourself. Can't save ourself. Paul said it this way, Galatians
2.21, I do not frustrate the grace of God for if righteousness
come by the law, that means either justifying righteousness or sanctifying
righteousness, because this is the two issues here. They're
saying, they're looking to their outside to try to determine if
they're justified based upon what they do, and they're looking
to their outside in order to get validation by saying, I'm
getting better. This is what this is all about
right here. So Paul's saying, if righteousness
come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain. Christ is dead,
it's that simple, isn't it? To seek righteousness by what
you do or do not do clearly and loudly declares that what Jesus
Christ did wasn't good enough. That's not true, is it? That's
not true. Why was he born? Why was he born? Call his name
Jesus, for he shall save his people. from their sin. That's
why He was born. He was born to die. He was born
to bear the sin of God's chosen people, God's elect. He was born
to become their surety, or He was already their surety, but
He was born to become their substitute surety. that whenever He died,
we were in Him as one of His seed. Just as we were in Adam
when Adam sinned, we were in Christ when Christ was upon the
earth. The ones given to Christ were given to Him before time
ever began. That's what Ephesians 1.4 tells us. That's what 2 Timothy
1.9 tells us. They were given to Him before
time ever began. Christ accomplished salvation.
to say anything otherwise, that you have to do your part. You
take, you ever heard, you take the first step, God'll take the
rest? That's just not true. If you could take the first step,
you wouldn't need God at all. Is that right? But oh, we need
the Lord. Lord, I don't need to take a
step. I need you to carry me. Isn't that about right? Lord,
I'm dead. You have to make me alive first.
Don't give me something to do. I'll mess it up. I'm a sinner.
And bound to this flesh, we cannot, cannot, cannot choose God because
it's against our nature. Our nature chooses self. Our
nature wants glory. Our nature wants praise. Our
nature desires to be God. This is just our sinful nature. We need a new nature, don't we? The destructive preaching in
most churches today makes God a puny God, makes him out to
be powerless, makes him out to be incapable of doing what he
wants to do. But who can stay his hand? Who
can resist his will? That's what the scripture says,
this preaching that if you do, then God will be satisfied with
you. That's a lie. There's only one that did anything.
And God was well pleased with him. And that's the Lord Jesus
Christ. This is my beloved son in whom
I am well pleased. That being said, this gospel
is too simple for most. They want more than this simple
gospel. It's foolishness to the wise.
That's what the scripture tells us, isn't it? It's foolishness
to the wise. And to the religious, it's a stumbling block. You know, as I was studying this,
I thought of this, this statement right here. It's literally unbelievable. The gospel is literally unbelievable,
meaning we can't believe it unless God causes us to believe it. It's unbelievable. Lord took Ezekiel out to a valley,
dry bones one time, And he says, they were very dry. They'd been
sun bleached, very dry bones. Well, that's us. That's us. And to think that we could change
from being dead, dry bones, we're fooling ourself. We're absolutely
fooling ourself. Nothing that the flesh does has
value in spiritual matters, meaning if I'm doing something, I'm not
accomplishing something spiritual in my flesh to have a righteousness
before God. It doesn't work that way. They
that are in the flesh cannot please God. Now we do preach
the gospel and the Lord blesses that according to his will, but
we don't preach the gospel for righteousness. We preach the
gospel because he is our righteousness. Ezekiel, can these bones live?
Ezekiel said, Lord God, thou knowest. Lord, if they're going
to live, you're going to have to be the one to do it. I can't
make them live. They're dead. They're dry bones. He said, they're
very dry. He said, prophesy, prophesy unto the wind, prophesy
unto the bones. And the bones stood up, and they
got muscles on them and skin. And he breathed life into them,
and they became alive. And he says, this is my people. This is Israel. This is my chosen
people. This is what I'm going to do
for every single blood-bought child of God. I'm going to take
them in their dead state. I'm going to make them stand
upright. I'm going to breathe the breath of life into them,
and they're going to be alive. That's what he does, that's how he does
it. And how are they now? How does he view them now? Justified,
sanctified, he even views them as glorified. We're in Christ,
seated in the heavenlies right now. We just haven't got to experience
it yet. Can these bones live? Lord, if they're gonna live,
if you're gonna save a creature of dust, a sinner, every fiber
of my being, you're gonna save me, you're gonna have to do it.
Because I can't, I can't do it. Keeping the law doesn't change
that in any way. As a matter of fact, keeping
the law for righteousness is actually adding iniquity to the
mountain of sin that we already have collected. The law was not given to fix
our sin, but that every mouth would be shut. and that the whole
world would become guilty before God, that we would be shut up
to Christ. So the question we have this
morning is wherefore serve you the law? It can't bring life.
Why serve the law? What reasoning do you have to
serve the law? What hope do you have in serving the law? The
law If we try to keep the law, all we're doing is pointing to
ourself. We're looking at our life, how we're living. We're
looking at our life, what we're doing. We look at each other too, don't
we? We compare two sinners comparing sins. Who's worse? Only thing the law can create
is a rebel and a Pharisee. That's it. One of the two, a
rebel or a Pharisee. Why serve the law? It can't make
you at peace with God. It reveals your enmity towards
God. It shows your inability to fix anything. It shows our
powerlessness. Shows him as holy and true and
righteous. Can't keep God's law. It was
not established to measure sanctification or to discover assurance. The
purpose of God's law was to shut up his people to Christ, to Christ. But we don't speak. against God's
law. I wrote this down to be very
clear as we've been talking about God's law. Uh, it makes it when
you're talking about, don't keep it for righteousness and things
like, well, what's the point of it? Think of the mercy and the
grace in God giving us his law. It revealed his holiness. It
revealed his requirements. It makes, it makes the salvation
that Christ accomplished that much sweeter because we see what
he had to be that we never could be in order for God to accept
him. He had to be perfect. He had
to be righteous, he had to be holy, he had to be God. Everything
God required, he provided in the perfect person of the Lord
Jesus Christ to show us you can't please me, I can't please him,
but God did. God pleased God on the cross
of Calvary and justified his people. Now, look at verse 19. Wherefore then serveth the law?
It was added because of transgressions till the seed should come to
whom the promise was made, and it was ordained by angels in
the hand of a mediator. Mankind was under the law until
the seed should come to whom the promise was made. The seed's
Christ. Jesus Christ, don't doubt that at all. The promise spoken
of, that's the promise of God the Father to God the Son before
time ever began. God the Son to God the Father
and God the Holy Spirit. And whenever they entered into
the covenant of grace to redeem the chosen people of God, that
was a promise. I will redeem them. The Father
said, I will resurrect you. I won't leave my Holy One to
see corruption. That's what he said, don't it?
He wouldn't let his Holy One see corruption. promises were
made. The glorious part of this is
we're the benefactors of that promise. We inherit, we are the
benefactors of the inheritance of this promise, meaning the
Lord Jesus Christ made a written will of what he wanted to happen
upon his death. You call it the Lamb's Book of
Life if you want to. But whenever he died, everything that he willed
to happen. Everything God willed to happen
that was agreed upon is going to happen. And how do we know?
Because Christ was resurrected. Not only is he the one that wrote
the will and died, but he's the one, he's going to be the executor
of the will. He's going to be the executor of the will. Now
compare that to the law. The law was a contract. The law
was not for an inheritance, not for a promise. The law was a
contract stating if you do your part, you can have peace with
God. If you do what you're supposed
to do, if you live perfectly before, how many times did the
Lord tell them, be thou perfect? Be thou perfect. They can't.
They couldn't be perfect. That's the whole point. He said,
you want to worship me, be perfect. It was to show them You can't
please God. All those sacrifices, everything
that happens, it was all part of the contract. They're bringing
in these lambs and they're worshiping, looking forward to the cross
whenever the Lord would put away their sin. It's a contract that
could never be kept by a man, but the God man kept it. The
Lord Jesus Christ on our behalf, he kept the contract. He fulfilled
the covenant of grace. He saved his people, redeemed
them back to God. This promise is not conditioned
upon you and I in any way. This promise was conditioned
upon the Lord Jesus Christ's work. This promise is conditioned
upon God, pleasing God. That is the conditions of this
covenant. The condition is not based upon
your decision. It's not based upon what you
do or don't do. It's not based upon anything about you. And
thank God it's not. Because if it was, somebody said,
well, if there was just one law to keep, I could keep it. Could
you? Because Adam and Eve couldn't. the same as they are. How long
do you think they were in the garden? Nobody's ever talked
about this before. The Scripture is not clear on it so I'm not
going to be too elaborate about this. But how long do you think
it took them to take that fruit? I mean, I figured it was probably
the same day, that afternoon. You know what I'm saying? I don't
think it was years and years and years went by. No, I think
that they literally, why? Because we're the same as they
are. Would we not be the same way? You tell a little child,
don't touch that. What do they do? You turn your
back and walk away. Walk out of the room, see what happens. Run
right over there and touch it. I said, don't touch that. Well,
that's why I did it, because you told me not to. That's our
nature. That's our nature. And going
to the law to try to fix that is not going to work. It's just
adding to the mountain of sin that we already have. We need
a substitute. We need one that pleased God. And that's who Christ
is, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. Now he mentions the hand of the
mediator here. That's Moses, the law given at Mount Sinai,
who was but a man. But then he says, now a mediator
is not a mediator of one, but God is one. What he's saying
here. The promise was given to Christ,
our mediator from God, and these two are one. He's telling us
God, and that's what the Lord said over in John chapter 10,
I and my father are one. So he's not a mediator of just
one, but God is one. He is one mediator over all his
people. That's what he's telling us here.
Meaning, uh, Meaning that Moses could not
mediate because he was not one with God. He wasn't born of his
bone of his bone flesh of his flesh as Christ was. So in closing, I'll say this. God, this promise, this promise
that's given here, I mentioned that it's, we're the benefactors
of it. That's what he says. That's what
we're going to get into chapter verse 21 and a little bit is
the law against the promises of God. No, that's the, that's
the whole point is that the law can do nothing against the promise
of God. Promise of God is everlasting. This promise was a promise of
eternal life that God gave to elect to his elect people by
the son that he would redeem them. He promised to redeem them. He made the promise. to Christ,
and Christ made the promise, I will be surety for them. I will be surety for them. Father
elected them, the Son became surety, and the Spirit said,
I will regenerate them. And there you have the full work
of salvation. The full work, and it was accomplished on the
cross of Calvary by the Lord Jesus Christ. We who believe,
we've obtained this promise. If you believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, you are the benefactor of this promise. You are the
benefactor of this inheritance, what Christ purchased with his
own blood. You're the benefactor of that.
Scripture calls us heirs of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ.
How can we enter into that? What does he not own? He owns
everything. He owns everything. This promise of eternal life
in Christ, because Christ put away our sin by his own blood,
because we are of his seed, we are of the seed of Abraham. We
are the true seed of Abraham, God's elect. The promise was
by faith. Christ is the seed by faith.
Do we see that? And we are born of his seed. Wherefore serve the law? Wherefore
serve the law? Why serve it? Not serving you. It's not serving you. It's not helping us, is it? Christ
is the end of the law because his righteousness is freely bestowed
upon his people all by his grace. Let's pray. Father, we ask that
you would take these words and bless them to our understanding
all for your glory. In Christ's name, amen. Let's take a break.