Amen. All right, take your Bibles
now and turn me to Galatians chapter three. All right, I'm gonna give you
a brief introduction. I'm not gonna go into great detail
like I did last time. I think I've been doing that
and I know I wanna go over and over it again, but we do have
to move forward some. So. You remember in this chapter,
the Apostle Paul is making the distinction now between the two
covenants. He makes a distinction between
the covenant of the law and the covenant, what he calls, of promise. The promise of God, which was
given to Abraham, is the same promise of God, the same covenant
of God that is given to every believer. The covenant of the
law is a contractual covenant dependent upon your perfect obedience,
which is evident we have all failed. No one is justified by
the law on the side of God, that's evident, that's clear. But the
covenant of God is a last will and testament that cannot be
added to or taken from. God made a promise, made a covenant
for an elect people before the foundation of the world. In that
covenant, he made Christ the federal head, made Christ the
mediator, made Christ responsible for the delivery and salvation
of all those children. When Christ came into the world,
he accomplished that. He came into the world to redeem
us from the curse of the law. being made a curse for us, for
it's written, curses everyone that hangeth on a tree. He redeemed
us and then what happens in this covenant is the Spirit of God
comes to everyone that is named in that covenant and gives them
life, gives them faith. gives them joy, peace, meekness,
temperance, all of these fruits of the Spirit, according to the
will of God. If you believe, it was according
to the will of God. If you still believe, it is according
to the will of God, by the power of God, the grace of God. And so then, I dealt with this
last week, the law was like a schoolmaster, It was like a tutor. It was like
a man that for a time was to instruct little children. But
when the children were full grown, you no longer need it. That's
what the law was for. The law never stopped the covenant
of promise. It never hindered the covenant
of promise. It was never to be added to the
covenant of promise. It was always just pointing to
the covenant of promise. Pointing to Christ. And so then, verse 25, after
faith has come, you're no longer under a schoolmaster, for you're
all full-grown sons. That's what children means there,
full-grown sons. By faith in Jesus Christ. How
do you know you're a full-grown son? What does that mean? That means that the full grown
son doesn't need to be under a tutor. He's the heir of all
things. And so the measurement of this
is faith in Christ. How do I know if I'm a son of
God? Faith in Christ. There it is. Not circumcision
as they were trying to make it. Not any outward thing that you've
done. That's not evidence. You take David, for example.
If David's evidence was his faithfulness to his wife, if that was his
evidence, that's what he leaned on. Well, we know he failed. He failed in that. So what's
evidence of his being saved? It definitely wasn't his faithfulness. What was it? It was faith. Because
even after he failed in faithfulness, he still believed in Christ. And so it is with us. And so,
now that we are all children, look at verse 27. This is going
to be my text from 27 to 29. He says, For as many of you as
have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ, There is
neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor
female, for you are all one in Jesus Christ. What Paul is going
to deal with here is unity. I tried to deal with this last
week. I didn't get much further into it, but Paul, the idea of
circumcision made division. The law makes division. Paul
is preaching that we who are in Christ are in union and our
union is only found in Christ. In Christ. Now when the Apostle
says as many of you have been baptized into Christ have put
on Christ. Now what the Apostle here is
he's not supposing that some had not been baptized. He's not
saying, well, some of you have been baptized and some of you
haven't been baptized. What he is supposing here is
that all that were baptized with water doesn't necessarily mean
that you knew Christ. He's saying as many as, I don't
know, as many as. Now the whole church had been
baptized with water, but he's talking about something very
specific. Not just the ordinance of baptism. There were many who were baptized
with water in this church of Galatia. Paul later says, I stand
in doubt that you are in Christ at all. Some have made a profession of
faith, but do not know Christ. And how is this manifest? How
do you know if one's made a profession? and they submitted to baptism,
but how do you know that they're not really baptized into Christ? Well, because they're going to
add something to Christ. Just like these Galatians were
adding circumcision to Christ, they were superimposing the covenant
of the law on the covenant of promise. And Paul is saying,
look, I don't care how many times you've been baptized with water,
you're not baptized into Christ. There's a Quite a few people
in our generation that believe that baptism somehow mystically
does put you in union with Christ. That water baptism has something
to do with your salvation. Listen, if that's true, then
you're not in Christ. You're not baptized into Christ.
But all who know Christ and believe on him alone without the deeds
of the law, without the merits of the flesh, These saints, these
sons, most surely will be baptized as an act of faith. Baptism is
an act of faith and obedience to Christ. Why then are we baptized? If
baptism has nothing to do with our salvation, why? What's the
purpose of our baptism? Because baptism is the only public
profession of our faith. It is the only public profession
of our faith in Christ, is baptism. I've talked about J.D. a lot.
I miss him. I wish he was here with us. I
know that he is in glory and he does not want to be with us.
Nor would I dare try to take him from that. I love him and
I'll see him one day soon. But Brother J.D. Farmer came
into our congregation and heard the gospel of Jesus Christ and
he was so elated with it. He loved, he believed on Christ. Immediately, he says, his profession
was that very night, he believed on Christ. Now J.D. before this was a very religious
man. He was a very, he professed to be a Christian many, many
years before he ever heard the gospel. And I was preaching through
Romans 10, and it says, you know, how shall you call on him in
whom you haven't heard? And how shall you hear without
a preacher? How shall they preach except they be sent? And after
I preached that message, J.D. run in my office, very upset
at me, and he said, Pastor, you mean to tell me that you don't
believe I was a Christian before I came here? I said, well, J.D.,
I don't know if you're a Christian now. I don't have a clue. That's
not my business to point out who's a Christian and who's not.
But I can ask you one question. Did you hear of Christ, this
Christ that I'm preaching? Did you hear of Him before you
came here? No. How shall you call on somebody
that you don't know? If you didn't know Him before
you came here, then how can you claim to have been saved? Well, he came back a couple of
weeks and he said, I want to be baptized. Why? Because the baptism he had before
was just nothing. He was publicly confessing a
savior that didn't exist. And now he desired to publicly
confess the Christ that he had believed. And that's what baptism
is. It is a public confession of
something that has already happened. Does it add to what has happened?
It just tells everybody, I identify with that guy. I identify with
that guy that's being preached, Jesus Christ, as all my hope,
and I want everyone to know it. That's what public baptism is
for. And so then baptism does not put us in union with Christ,
but rather testifies of it, tells everybody. That's what it does.
If you have believed on Christ, if God the Holy Spirit has taught
you who you are, you know who you are? I am the sinner. Has the Holy Spirit taught you
that Christ is all your hope? That his blood is absolutely
sufficient to save me and cleanse me and make me acceptable to
God? I believe that. I believe him. then you should be baptized.
You should be. Because this is the only public
confession of faith. And to forsake it, to neglect
it, is to deny Him before men. The act of baptism is confessing
Christ to be our King. And if Christ is your King, why
should you not obey your King's command? Go you into all the
world, preach the gospel, baptizing them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Why? Because we baptize
them in the name of the Father because of the Father that chose
us. We baptize them in the name of the Son because the Son redeemed
us. Baptize them in the name of the Spirit because the Spirit
called me and quickens me and keeps me. We baptize in the name
that this is salvation is of the Lord. That's what we're confessing. Mark 16, 16, whosoever believeth
and is baptized shall be saved. He that believeth not shall be
damned. Notice that it didn't, he that believeth not is baptized
not. Baptism is just an act of obedience and it's a simple ordinance. We were talking about this. Some
young lady wanted to be baptized and she wanted her grandpa to
do it. There's nothing in scripture
about that. I mean, It's okay, but most people
think of baptism as some sentimental ceremony. You know, God made
baptism a very, you know, every time I baptize somebody, they
expect, they get all their family together and they expect this
big hoopla. And then in, what, 20 seconds, it's over. There's
no big hoopla here. It's not meant to be a big ceremony. It's meant to be simple. It's simple. It's saying this
to everybody, I am one with Him. That's what it's saying. If you've
been baptized, you have been baptized into Christ. You're confessing a vital union.
Peter said, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name
of Jesus. You know what that is? The name of Jesus by the
authority. I don't baptize by authority.
I don't baptize by the church's authority. I baptize because
my king said to. That simple? I don't need any
explanation. Why baptize him? He said to.
Why should I be baptized? He said to. Simple, isn't it? Repent and be baptized in the
name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall
receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. And so all who are baptized
into Christ, we are baptized into his body in the hope of
our resurrection. That is, we are brought not into
union with him. My baptism doesn't literally
bring me into union with him. It just testifies of it and brings
me into communion with him. So all who are truly baptized,
listen, you have put on Christ. You have put on Christ. You put
on Christ really before you were baptized. Why would you be baptized
if you haven't put on Christ? What is it to put on Christ?
It is to believe on Him. It is through faith we are experimentally
made in union with Him. And then we are We are baptized, we put on Christ
before we were baptized. And listen, we put on Christ
when we were baptized. Now, before we were baptized,
we put on Christ's righteousness by faith. You see, by faith,
we are now in a vital living union with him. Before faith,
were you in union with him? Before faith, we were not in
union with him. We only had one nature. We were
not in union with God vitally, experimentally. Now, according
to the purpose of God, you were already in union with him in
that covenant. Remember, I told you about the
covenant. You were already in union, according to that covenant.
When Christ came into this world, you were in union with him. He
was your federal head. And you knew of none of those
things. We knew of none of those things until when? Until we were
vitally experimentally made in union through faith. When that
Holy Spirit, when the Holy Spirit came and gave you life, at that
moment He created something in you that wasn't there before. He gave you what He promised,
a new heart, a new mind, a new will, In other words, a new nature. That's what these three things
are necessary for nature. It's got to have a mind. It's
got to have a heart. It's got to have a will. Otherwise, it's
not a nature. That's what I mean by nature.
He gave you all those things. When? When you believed. Now, did your believing have
anything to do with it? Nope. It was given to you, too. My faith
was given to me as well. And so then we put on Christ. But listen, when we are physically
baptized as a public profession in submission to Him, we are
confessing that union with our King. We are confessing it. Now, this idea of baptism, I
want you to understand the word baptized means immersion. Immersion. When you are put into
the water, you are immersed, completely surrounded by it. That's what we are when we come
to Christ. We are completely put into Him. We are surrounded
by Him. Not only that, we are filled
with Him. One person tried to describe,
he said, Paul's prayer was that you be filled with the fullness
of God. I don't know. Think on that a
little bit. Can you explain that? Yeah. I tried to. He gave a good illustration
of it. He said the only illustration I can think of is you take a
bottle of water and you fill it to the top where there's no
air in it whatsoever. You seal it up. It's full. And then you throw it in the
ocean. You are filled as much as you
can be with the fullness of God and then what? You're thrown
in the ocean, you're surrounded by it. That's what it is to be
in Christ. He is in you and you are in Him. Union. Union. And this is what we confess.
The illusion is then the putting off of that priestly garment.
When the priest came to the temple, He came in his own clothes. He
came in his own robe. He had a suit he picked out at
home, and he put on that suit and went to the synagogue. But
then he had to do what? He had to take that off. He could
not be accepted with God. He could not enter into the presence
of God without the proper robe and without blood. Remember,
he had to put on that linen garment, kill the animal, and what? That
robe is covered in what? Blood. And then what'd he do?
He goes inside. And so this is the illusion to
put on Christ. When we are baptized into Christ
by faith, we take off that common garment, all of our merits, all
of our religion, all of that, what Paul calls dung. We take
it off. Our suit was covered in dung
when we came in. And what do we do? We throw that
off. And we put him on. Put him on. Go to Revelation
chapter 19. Revelation chapter 19. Being
baptized into Christ is a vital union with him. It's putting
him on. Revelation chapter 19. So we're putting on the righteousness
of Christ. Look at verse 6, Revelation 19
verse 6. And I heard, as it were, the
voice of a great multitude, as voice of many waters, as a voice
of mighty thundering, saying, Hallelujah! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth. Word means all powerful. All powerful. You know what that
means? That means all powerful. You see, don't you realize that
all power belongs to Him? All of it. All power is His. Then what do they say? Let us
be glad and rejoice and give honor to Him. For the marriage
of the Lamb has come and His wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she
should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white." And what is
this? The fine linen is the righteousness
of the saints. I want you to see this. The beauty
of the bride is really not her own. The beauty
of the bride described here is not her own. It is essentially
the beauty of the lamb. Remember, the bride is not praising
her garments. She's praising him for her garments. The beauty of the bride is the
beauty of the lamb. Her beauty is his beauty, which
she, what, put on. It wasn't her garment. She didn't
make it. She put it on. She willingly, of her own accord,
had given herself to Christ. The bride had come out of Babylon
and put away from herself the corruptions of the great harlot.
She washed herself from all uncleanness in the fountain of Christ's blood.
And she has put on the Lord Jesus Christ. How? By faith. By faith. This is how she made herself
ready. But notice this gorgeous apparel
was given to her. Listen to me. It was granted
by the Lord God omnipotent, who reigneth. He granted that she
should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white. This morning
if you are in Christ, if you have put on Christ, it is because of his grace and
power that you have made yourself ready. And the garment you now have
is not your own, it's his. Is there any need then to add
to his garment? When you have put on Christ,
what would you dare put on to his garment? What would you take
from the dung that you put off and put on his? Please, name it. If you can name
it, you got a problem. If you can name it, you've not
been baptized into him. The garment we wear is the righteousness
of the saints. And it is the righteousness of
Christ, really. And by His righteousness and
by His blood we are forgiven, we are pardoned of our sins.
It is the righteousness of our justification and acceptance
with God by the imputation of Christ's righteousness to us.
It is His robe that we have put on. And so then by faith we put
on Christ. And in baptism we confess this,
I have put on Christ. That's what baptism is, put it
on Christ. So the teaching of scripture
is not the act of water baptism that puts on Christ or puts us
in union with Christ. But it does teach all who are
rightly baptized as believers in Christ symbolically are professing
what has happened to them in reality. Has this happened to
you? You put on Christ. You that have
put on Christ, you that have been baptized, you've made a
confession of this. You have publicly confessed this.
But you've put on Christ. And if you have not, you should,
because that's what he said. Paul in Romans 6 says, no you
not, as many of you as baptized into Jesus Christ were baptized
into his death. Therefore, we are baptized with
him by the baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised
from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should
walk in newness of life. I want you to think about the
act of baptism, the symbolic act. of what you're doing when
you are baptized. When you stand in the water,
you stand confessing, I'm identifying as Christ, with Christ as my
federal head. He's all to me. When I am in
the water, when you are immersed in the water, Paul said, you're
baptized into his death. That is when Christ lived, I
confess, I lived in him. He's the one that obtained my
righteousness. When he died, I died in him before
the justice of God. I'm already dead. What can the
law do to me? If a man's convicted of murder
and he goes to the electric chair and he dies, what more can you
do to him? He's paid the price. I was dead. I've already died in Christ. I confess that. That's my confession.
When he died, I died. You know what? When I come up
out of the water, I'm confessing his resurrection. He come up
out of the grave. He is now ascended to the throne
of God. And where am I? I'm in him. That's
what you're confessing in baptism. So Paul shows us the end then
of our faith namely our union with Christ and our union with
each other. Look at verse 28. If we've all
are sons, sons of promise, sons by adoption, sons by purchase,
we are now by the experience of grace been baptized. We've
been all put on Christ. You put on Christ. I put on Christ
too. Same Christ, same righteousness.
Your righteousness any better than mine? Now listen, your morality
may, at times, you catch me at the wrong time, boy. I'm sure
you can elevate your morality, but you can't elevate your righteousness. Your righteousness is just the
same as mine. Your offering for sin, is your
offering for sin any better than mine? No, it's the same offering,
isn't it? Same righteousness, same offering,
same king, same glory, and we're in him. You're in him as much
as I'm in him. We're not half in, half out.
All in. All in. And what's the conclusion
of this? He says this, there's neither
Jew, verse 28, there's neither Jew nor Greek, bond nor free,
male nor female. Why? Why no more distinctions? For you are all one in Christ. You're all one in Christ. We who are baptized into Christ
have put on Christ and testified that we are one body. We are
the body of Jesus Christ. And we all being one body, then
have what? One head. Isn't that right? How
many heads you got? I mean, you got one. The illustration is clear. It's
plain. We are the body and Christ is
our head. Christ is our head. Therefore,
in Christ, all social, economic, racial barriers are completely
and utterly dissolved. I don't care what color you are.
I have no clue. I don't care. If you're in Christ,
you're the same as me. I don't care where you came from.
I don't care which country you come from. I don't care which
government you're under. I don't care if you're a political
class. It doesn't matter. We make these
distinctions in our flesh, don't we? We all do. But in Christ is the only place
where this is truly done away with. No other place in the world,
but in Christ. If you're in Christ, listen to
this. I want you to hold on to this. If you're in Christ, nothing
else matters. You being rich does not matter. And you being poor does not matter. It does not matter if you are
a king or you are a slave. It does not matter if you are
healthy or if you are sick. None of these things determine
or have anything to do with our union with Christ, they're all
gone. They're all gone. And because we are in union with
Christ, I want you to know this, you and I are heirs of everything. You are heirs of everything. Everything's yours. And just as equally, everything's
mine. Why? Because we are in the one who
owns everything. Name something that is not his.
What does not belong to Christ? I know this, I do. I like this idea of slavery.
People don't like it, I do. It just depends on who your master
is, don't it? My master is Christ. Paul, a
bond slave. He's just proud. He's so glad,
so happy to be a slave of Christ. If you're in Christ, nothing
else matters. You belong to the Father in election,
you were redeemed by the blood, you're quickened by the Spirit.
Listen, you are Abraham's seed. You are Abraham's seed. Verse 29, if you be Christ, then
are you Abraham's seed, and what heirs? to the promise of God. Therefore we are heirs of all
things, not according to merit or race or gender or works or
religion, but according to the promise of God. See how he brought
it back around to the promise? He brought it all back around
to this. You're sons, you're heirs, you're one with Christ
according to what? A covenant that God made with
himself for you. A covenant of promise. And I'm gonna say this because
things going on over there in that country, Israel, I mean,
there's a lot of people have a difficult time letting go that
that country has any bearing toward God anymore. They've been cut off. When they
crucified the Lord of glory, that nation had been cut off.
And what does that mean? As a nation, the only thing that
separated them was the law. That's the only thing made them
distinct in the world. But now the law's done away with,
there's no more need for it. They rejected the Messiah, crucified
him, and God cut him off. Does that mean that the Jews
are not gonna be, some of them, no, they'll be saved just the
same way we are. There's no distinctions anymore.
People have a tough time letting that go. I feel for that country,
I root for that country. I think that's great that they're
doing that. I'm fine with that. They defend
themselves. They should, as a nation. But I don't have any clue. Surely
God may one day save more of them than he saves of us. But
why? Are they going to be saved the
same way? They're not going to be saved because they're Jews.
They're going to be saved because they're in the covenant of promise.
They're going to be saved because they're Abraham seed, spiritually. But Paul is... Now, listen, I
will tell you what he's not saying here. He's not saying that a
man ceases to be a man or woman ceases to be a woman. Believe
it or not, these fools will take that text and and try to twist
it to their wicked devices. No, not ceasing. If you're if
you're a slave, when you come to Christ, you don't get tell
your master, I'm not a slave anymore. No. You don't change. A woman doesn't change being
a woman, a slave, or king, whatever you are. What does change is the idea
that it matters in my relationship to him. But I want you to know this,
that we are all one. And yet, I want you to see this.
In your body are many what? Members. Each member has a function. It's different. It's a different
function. I don't know, I can't pick up
anything with my feet. Some people I guess can, but
you know, it's not really, see somebody picking up stuff with
their feet, it's not, you know, you go wow, because that's not
natural. That's just not, that's not common. My hands are built
for that. My feet are built for what? Walking.
My legs are built for stability. My mouth is built for speaking.
My eyes are built for seeing. The hands don't see, the eyes
do. Hands don't speak, the mouth does. So in this body, we're
all one, yet we do have distinct responsibilities, purposes. And I tell you this, we should
not envy someone else's gifts. God said I gave gifts unto men,
some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors,
teachers. And they're different. I don't
envy being an apostle. I'm not an apostle. I'm not an
evangelist. I'm not a prophet. I'm a pastor
or teacher. Why? Because that's the gift
given to me. And what gifts are given to you,
we all use them together for the glory of God. For the furtherance
of the gospel. And so there are distinctions
in responsibility, but me being a preacher doesn't make me any
more an heir of God than you. And I know men that envy this
office. I know if you envy this office,
you really don't understand what's in this office. I did for a while, I did. I wanted
to be a pastor so bad, I envied those that were. Several pastors
told me, don't do that. Don't do that. God put it in
my heart to do it. I'm glad to do it. I'm thankful
for it. Just because you're not a pastor
doesn't mean you're not vital. God's placed you in the body,
given you a place. And so you being one with Christ,
what should you do? You should do whatsoever God's
put in your hand to do. Some people think the church
is to facilitate this stuff. Well, I know we're supposed to
go witness. Aren't you going to organize a witnessing campaign
or something? What do you need me for? Aren't
you just a part of the body as I am? Aren't you one with Christ,
the same as I am? He commands you. Go you into
all the world and preach the gospel. Don't wait for me. Don't wait for me to organize
it. Go do it. Whatsoever God puts in your hands and heart
to do, do that. I remember somebody came to me
and said, you know what? I got a real heart for the people down
at the abortion clinic. And I said, why are you coming
to me? Go. Go. Witness. Don't wait for me to
organize it. That's not my purpose here. My
purpose is to declare the gospel to you, and then your purpose
is to take this gospel out there. See, we each have our duties
and responsibilities here in the body. But again, one does
not elevate above another because one's afoot. Does he envy the
hand? No! Be the foot! Be the hand! Whatever God has purposed for
you to do, do that. And then when you've done it,
What does that add? When you've done your responsibility,
when you've done what you're given in the body to do, do you add that to the righteousness
of Christ? Do you now think that I am more acceptable to God because
I've done my service? No. No, I'm thankful to do it. And when I've done all, I confess
this. that I am unworthy. I confess that I am a sinner
completely immersed into the body of my blessed Savior. And friends, a safer and better
place I cannot be. Baptized into Jesus Christ And I have by faith put on Christ. Of which I have publicly confessed.
And do constantly confess by my witness and testimony. Christ is all. Christ is all. And nothing else matters. I pray
God bless this. The stand be dismissed in prayer. Land dismissal in prayer, please.