If you take your Bibles now and
turn back with me to Hebrews chapter 11. I want you to take
your place in Hebrews chapter 11, but I also want you to go
and hold your place in Galatians chapter 3, because we're going
to be spending a little time here in Galatians to understand
what this means. So hold your place in both of
these places here. Now, I've entitled this message, The
Sojourner's Rule of Life. The Sojourner's Rule of Life. Now, it says in verse 8, By faith
Abraham, when he was called, This aspect of faith tells us
this, that all who believe in Christ must be first called. We by nature are born dead in
trespasses and sins and by no means can come to Christ except
God draw us. That's the words of our Lord
Jesus Christ in John 6, verse 44. No man can come unto Me except
the Father which hath sent Me draw him. As it is written, they
shall all be taught of God. So as you hear the preaching
of the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is the Spirit of God that
teaches you of your nature. He teaches you who you are by
nature. He exposes your guilt, exposes
your sin, reveals the holiness of God, the standard of God,
And by grace gives you faith to flee to the only one who can
save you, Jesus Christ. He shows you Christ. He reveals
Christ to you. And by faith we flee to Him. As Noah, he did not, as we just
read that, Noah being warned of God of things not seen. I've
not seen hell, but I definitely feared it. I feared the judgment
of God. And I saw the only hope and refuge
was Christ. And we fled to Christ because
we were called of God, as Abraham was called and was given faith. Even so, we are called to faith
in Christ. And notice this, he was called
into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance.
What did he do? He obeyed. He obeyed all faith
obeys. And what is it that we obey?
We obey the gospel. The gospel of Jesus Christ is
this, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.
He that believeth that is baptized shall be saved, he that believeth
not shall be damned. We obey the gospel simply by
continually believing the gospel. We believe on Christ. As he obeyed, he continually
believed. And this was witnessed by his
perpetual continuance in the land. Now, he obeyed, and he
went out not knowing whither he went. Now, in verse 9, we're
going to begin now. The apostle here in verse 9 reveals
an aspect of faith that is very practical. Very practical. He says, by faith, Abraham's
soldier in the land of promise. Him being called, Abraham having
been called of God to faith, obeyed the gospel in believing,
and now we see how he walked in this world. We see the rule
of his life. The rule of his sojourn in this
world was what? By faith he sojourned in the
land of promise. He sojourned among the wicked
inhabitants of Canaan by continual faith. Now, the apostle in the
book of Galatians, and if you want to take your Bibles and
open there to Galatians chapter 3 now, the apostle in the book
of Galatians testifies to us that Abraham, Abraham is the
father of all believers. seeing that he is the prime example
of every true believer. He is the prime example of how
a believer is to live in this world. And so what he does is
he sets up Abraham in opposition to those Galatians who would
live by the law. Some Galatians who were that
said that they would begin by faith, they believed in the grace
of God, they believed in Jesus Christ, but yet they said, well,
now that we believe, how do we live? Well, you've got to obey
the law. So he sets up Abraham in opposition
to them as a prime example. And I'll tell you, there are
many churches, many believers who are bewitched, who are deceived,
to believe that salvation begins in faith, but somehow is made
perfect. Somehow their salvation is finished. Somehow they are made more acceptable
or more holy by obedience to the law. Look what Paul says,
because we say it to the same of these churches today. He said,
O foolish Galatians, who have bewitched you that you should
not obey the truth. Remember, faith is always to
obedience. Obedience is what? Faith in Christ. That's what it is to obey the
gospel. He's saying, why have you disobeyed the gospel in turning
to the law? You've not obeyed the truth. He said, before whose eyes Jesus
Christ has been evidently set forth, crucified among you. What I learned, only this would
I learn of you. Received ye the Spirit by the
works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Now, how were you called
to faith in Christ? Were you called by obedience
to the law or were you called by the power and grace of God
the Holy Spirit through faith? Which is it? Well, the answer is simple, the
hearing of faith. We were called by the power and
spirit of God, not by the law. He says, Are you so foolish as
having begun in the spirit are now made perfect by the flesh?
If you began your your Christian life by the spirit, are you so
foolish as to think you're going to make yourself perfect by obedience
to the law? He said, Have you suffered so
many things in vain if it yet be in vain? Listen, you continue
in this. Your faith is vain. That's what he's telling him.
He said, All those things you suffered, that's in vain if you
continue in this way. He, therefore, that ministered
you the Spirit and worked a miracle among you, doeth he by the works
of the Lord, by the hearing of faith. And now then he sets out
Abraham as the example. Listen, he said, Even as Abraham.
even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for
righteousness, by grace and the calling of God Abraham, he was
called to faith, and obtained the righteousness of God. Know
ye therefore that they which are of faith The same are the
children of Abraham. You who are of faith, you are
the children of Abraham. You are the true Israel of God. That's what he's telling them.
These people thought that circumcision made them Israel. No. No. Faith. Faith is the evidence
that you are the sons of Abraham, the children of faith, the children
of promise. And the Scripture foreseeing
that God would justify the heathen through faith, What did he do? He preached to a heathen. He
preached to Abraham, the heathen. Abraham is the prime example
of how God justifies the guilty, the sinner. He preached the gospel
to Abraham saying this, In thee, that is in Christ, shall all
the nations of the earth be blessed. And what's the result? So then,
they which be of faith are blessed. with faithful Abraham, not those
that be of the law and faith, but those that be only of faith
are blessed with faithful Abraham. Now, all who would be brought
from faith to law, Paul says, listen to the law. Listen, don't
you hear what the law says? If you think your sojourning
begins by faith, and then you begin to continue by law. He said, if you listen to the
law, anybody that wants to be under the law, have you actually
heard what the law has said? Look at verse 10. For as many
as are of the works of the law, any part. It don't matter which
part of the law you want to pick. He said, if as many as are of
the works of the law, you are under what? Curse. Under the curse. As it is written,
cursed is everyone that continueth not in every part of the law. People who want to sojourn by
law, you know, they pick and choose. They pick and choose
which aspect of the law they want to obey. They say, well,
you know, you should obey this part of the law. You should obey
this part of the law. What about sacrifice? Isn't that
part of the law? Why not sacrifice? Well, you
can't. There's a mosque built right
on top of where God said to sacrifice. God ended that sacrifice. You
can't offer sacrifices anymore. So what do men say? Well, that
part's excluded now. No. Listen, listen to what it
says. Cursed is everyone that continueth
not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do
them. Men separate the law, God does
not. Men separate the law into categories.
They start taking portions of the law that they think they
can obey, and then discard the rest. God doesn't do that. If you're under the law in any
part, you're under the whole law. And if you're under the
law, you're under the curse of the law. Now, why are you under the curse?
Because you've not continued in all things written in the
book of the law to do them. Suppose you could do it right
now. Suppose right now you could obey the law perfectly. You're
still under the curse. You know why? Because before,
you failed. There is no way that anyone is
going to be justified by the law. No way whatsoever. Look
at this. But that no man is justified
by the law in the sight of God is what? It's evident. It's evident. And so then, if
the law is totally excluded from the believer, then what is the
rule of our life? Here it is. Four. shall live,
shall sojourn by faith. And listen. Look at verse 12. The law is not of faith. You
see that? The law is not of faith. But the man that doeth them shall
live in them. All of them. But those who would
live by faith, look at the object of our faith. You that are of
faith, look at the object of your faith. Christ, Christ is
the object of our faith, isn't He? And look at His work. Christ
hath redeemed us from the curse of the law. You were under the
curse, but now you have been redeemed from the curse. How? By being made a curse for
us. For it is written, Cursed is
everyone that hangeth upon a tree. Now why did he do that? Why did
he do that? Here it is in verse 14, that,
in order that the blessing of Abraham, the blessing of Abraham
might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might have
the promise of the Spirit, how? Through law or faith? Through faith. So how did Abraham
live? How did he soldier? By law or
faith? Now, it can't be of both. This is
the deception of modern religion, is that you begin by faith, and
somehow the law is mixed in with that, and you've got to obey
the Ten Commandments. You've got to set the Ten Commandments
on your walls, and you've got to look at it, and you've got
to obey it. in order to live. You can't. The law is not of
faith. There's no mixture here. It's
either law or faith. It is not a combination of both.
I don't care what men think. And the gymnastics they have
to do to twist this scripture is amazing. But they try. They bend and they flex and move. They make it so dead gum complicated
that you can't understand it. And then they say, well, see,
I told you. No, it's simple. The law is not a faith. And anybody
wants to live by the law, you got to do everything. Don't tell
me you just want to do this one thing or that thing or this thing.
You do the whole thing. And so if you're a faith or the
law, which is it can't be of both. But for us who believe. We believe that Jesus Christ
has redeemed us from the law. This is our joy. This is our peace, is that I'm
not under the curse of the law anymore. Why? Because Christ
redeemed me. He bought me. He paid for my
sins that I owed to the law of God. I owed to the justice of
God. He was made a curse. 2 Corinthians
5 and verse 21, For God hath made him to be sin. God made Christ, who was sinless,
to be sin, who knew no sin. There was the
torture, there was the pain of Christ that He, who knew no sin,
bore our sins. in his own body on the tree,
that he suffered the full measure and weight of the justice of
God according to the law. He was punished, justly punished. Cursed is everyone that hangeth
on a tree. God says, Awake, O sword, and
smite the shepherd, the man that is my fellow. And he did. On Calvary's tree, God... You
want to see the law? You want to see what the law
does to a sinner? Look what God did to his son
when sin was found upon him. He punished him without measure. For what purpose? They were not
his sins. He was made to be sinned. He bore my sins. And my sins
were justly punished. All of them were punished. How
many times do we feel like we're being punished? Oh, you're being
chastened. There's no doubt about it. As
a son, the Father chastens His sons, scourges every one of His
sons. But truly, how many sins have
you paid for? Your chastisement, how many sins
does it pay for? Not one. Not one. My sins were paid for 2,000 years
ago on Calvary's tree when my Savior bore the curse of the
law in my state. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him, to make his soul an offering for sin. And Scripture says, he shall
see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. So who's the
object of our faith? It's Christ. He paid for our
sins. Why? That we should receive the
blessing of Abraham. The blessing of Abraham through
faith in Christ. That we would receive the same
promise of the Spirit that we receive the same righteousness
of God which Christ obtained, which Christ merited by His obedience
to the law. And so as Abraham sojourned,
and I want you to see this, why use Abraham? Why does Paul use
Abraham and not Moses, or David, or any of these other men? Simply
this, Abraham was called and believed God 430 years before
the law, even came into existence. Before the law of Moses came
down, Abraham believed God. And it was counted to him for
righteousness. 430 years before the law, he
sojourned. And we know that he did so by
faith. For Paul says it, by faith he sojourned. So every day, Abraham
walked upon the face of this earth. He looked by faith to
Christ. He was looking for the promise
of Christ every single day of his life. He sojourned by faith. That's why Jesus said this of
Abraham. He said, Abraham, rejoice to see my day, and saw it. Now, how did he see it? He saw
it by faith. One day we're going, you that
believe, we are going to heaven. We are going to a place that
God has prepared for us where no sin is ever permitted. A place of complete and perfect
peace and joy with no sorrow whatsoever. Now, I've not seen
that. Have you? So what do I do? By faith, I
continually walk in this world looking forward to it. Trusting
God that I should receive it. just like Abraham did. He sojourned
by faith. Even so, we must. Even so, it
must be with all who are blessed with faithful Abraham. For behold,
salvation was never by any measure to come by the law. So. How are we to walk? Every day. By what rule do you walk? It
is simply by looking to Christ who hath redeemed us, saved us,
and keeps us. Salvation is never by any means
of the law, not for wisdom, not for righteousness, not for sanctification,
and not for redemption. Why? For God hath made Christ
to be what? Wisdom and righteousness and
sanctification redemption he is all our salvation all of it
look at verse 21 of Galatians chapter 3 he said is that he
asked a very important question then if the if the law is not
to save us and the law is not to be our rule of life then what's
the purpose of the law matter of fact if you look in the previous
verse let's see it's verse 19 he asked that question right
Wherefore then serveth the law. What's the purpose of the law?
If it has no value to the believer in his experience through this
life, then what in the world is the law for? Look, he answers
the question. It was added because of transgression
till Christ should come, to whom the promises were made. The law
only has one purpose, to expose guilt. condemn. That's it. Because of the transgression.
That's why the law was added to expose sin. To magnify the
holiness of God. and the exceeding sinfulness
of man." And then he asked this question, is the law against
the promises of God? No way is the law against the
promises of God. The law is good, Paul says in
Romans chapter 7. The law is perfect. There's nothing
wrong with the law. The law is great. We're the problem. We can't obey
it. There's no hope of being saved
by the law. He said this, he said, God forbid,
for if there had been a law given which should give life, then
surely righteousness should come by the law. If there was a way that God could
save you by law and not send His Son, He would have done it. But here's the problem. The Scripture
hath concluded all are guilty. This is why there's no law can
be given, because we are all guilty. We're all under sin. That the
promise should come how? How should the promise come?
What's the promise? Righteousness, eternal life,
peace with God. That was the promise given to
Abraham. How should the promise come? Not by law, but by the
faith of who? by the faith of Jesus Christ. That's how the promise was obtained. By His obedience to the law.
Only His obedience to the law. Only His sacrifice satisfied
the justice of the law. So by His faith comes what? The promise. He obtained the
promise. He earned it. He merited the
promise of God for His people in our stead. by the faith of Jesus Christ
that it might be given, that this promise might be given to
who? Them that believe. Therefore, you should rejoice. Believer, you should rejoice
in them. You who sojourn upon this barren world, this land
that is filled with trouble and pain and sorrow, this land that
only grows thorns and cuts to the quick, this barren wasteland,
we should rejoice, for Christ is the end of what? It's the end of the law. A man was trying to argue with
me about this, I don't like going back and forth, but I thought
he was really asking a question. I didn't know he was just trying
to make a statement. But he said, what do you do with that scripture?
Christ is the end of the law. Does that mean the law is deleted?
Well, who said anything like that? That's not what it means. It means the law is fulfilled.
The law is honored. The law is established. He is
the end of the law. He is the fulfillment of the
law. For what? Righteousness. Wasn't that the end of His work?
Righteousness. Now, who is this righteousness
given to? It's the end of the law for righteousness to everyone
that believeth. The law hath only and always
concludes that we are under sin, but the promise is of faith,
that Jesus Christ, by His own faith and obedience, obtained
righteousness. Therefore, so long as we live
here, you that are called of God, you that believe on Christ,
as long as you live in this world, what is our rule of life according
to the Word of God? Is it law or faith? Are you trying to live by the
Ten Commandments? Are you living by faith in Christ? We live by faith because Paul
made it clear that you can't be a both. The law is not a faith.
And anybody that tries to obey the law is not a faith. So the Scripture easily concludes
this. In Romans 1, verse 17, it says,
"...for therein the righteousness of God is revealed from faith
to faith, as it is written, the just shall live by faith." Now, believers, I want you to
see this, that you are not antinomian, you are not lawless. When I say
live by faith, does that mean that you're, that, shall we sin
that grace may abound? Is that what it means? Who said
anything like that? Matter of fact, it is faith in
Christ, it is the love of Christ that constrains us from sin,
isn't it? If we are looking by faith to Christ, surely we do
not long to sin. We long to be free from it. And so, believers, we are not
free from law. We're free from the law of Moses.
But we're not free from law. Here's your rule of life. Go
to 1 John. 1 John chapter 3. 1 John chapter 3, look at verse 22, it says, And whatsoever we ask,
we receive of him, because we keep his commandments, and do
those things that are pleasing in his sight. legalists to come along and say,
see, there it is. You've got to go back to the
law of Moses. You've got to go back to the Ten Commandments.
You've got to obey His commandments. Read the next verse. And this
is His commandment. What is His commandment? That
we should believe on the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and
love one another, as He gave us commandment." Now, you've
got a law. Here's your law to live by, faith
in Christ and love for the brethren. Now, go and obey His commandments. and they're not grievous to us. Is it grievous to believe on
Christ? Is that such a burden? Is that
such a weight to believe on the Son of God? No. It's a joy. It's our delight. Matter of fact, can you do anything
else but believe on Christ? I tell you, my faith is weak.
My love for Christ is low, but I tell you this, I do believe,
and I do love Him, and I do love you as He gave
me commandment. I know it's hard sometimes to
love me, But you know you got to. You got to. You must. He gave you commandment. And this is our rule of life.
I want to quickly go over this next couple of things. Anyone
who follows this rule of life, my second point is this. As we
sojourn in this life by faith, I want you to know that as we
do this, we are strangers. We are weirdos. We are insane to this world. Strangers. And so look at Abraham. Go back to your text and look
at Abraham here. It says, By faith Abraham sojourned in the
land of promise. Listen, as in a strange country. When we were lost, you know what? The world wasn't strange. The
world wasn't strange to us. It made sense. We were by nature,
even as others, children of wrath, haters of God. We followed after
the course of this world. We walked according to the lust
of our flesh. In other words, we were like
all the rest. We were like everybody else, like all of Adam's race,
dead in sin, chained to our lust, bound to our passions. And listen,
it was strange when we met a Christian, it was strange. They were strange. They didn't follow us. They didn't
go after the things of the world like we did. That guy's weird. Something's wrong with that guy.
Something's really wrong with him. Some of us walked according not
just to passions and lust, but we walked after the religion
of this world. I'll tell you this, even when I was young,
I was raised on the gospel of God's grace. I heard this gospel
since I was a child. I grew up under this. But yet,
you know what? I really liked Arminian doctrine. They had all
the pizza. They had all the entertainment. It was great. You know, every
time I felt bad, I'd walk down an aisle and feel a little bit
better for a week or so. You know, we were accustomed
to that. We were drawn to that. by nature. But when God called
us to life and faith, when God really exposed who we were, we
fled to Christ. We ran from everything we knew
and loved. We abandoned it and we went to
Christ. We fled for our very lives, laying
prostrate at his feet. You remember? Remember when He called you? Remember the guilt? We forsook everything we knew.
Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts
and let him return unto the Lord. And what we find? He will abundantly
That's what we found. When we fled to Him, we found
not wrath, but mercy. We deserve wrath, but we found
mercy. We found pardon. We found peace.
We fled to Christ. We abandoned our family, our
friends, our religion, and counted them at once as dumb that we
may win Christ and be found in Him. And from that moment on, we press
on in faith. toward the mark of the high calling
of God. We press toward the mark. By
faith, we continue to live. By faith, we were made the righteousness
of God in Him. And listen, the more we walk
in this world, the more we grow in grace, the more we walk by
faith, the more strange this world becomes to us. the more vile our flesh appears
to us. I thought at once when I became
a believer that I would get better. But yet I find only more sin. It's not that it wasn't there,
it's just being revealed to me. Our flesh becomes more vile. Our flesh appears to be more corrupt, and the more
we long to be like our Savior. And this is because of the warfare
that rages in every believer's heart. For the flesh lusteth
against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh, and these
are contrary one to another, so that you could not do what
you would. And so I'm sure that Abraham
and those around him thought him to be very strange. His God
was strange. His gospel was strange. His faith
was foolish. Consider that Abraham walked
around speaking about a promise that God gave him that he should
inherit this land. Now, mind you, Abraham owned
none of it. He bought none of it. And he
was telling everybody he was an heir of all of it. Doesn't
that make him look foolish? What if somebody came up to your
house and said, you know what? Wait, I got the deed for this
house, I bought this house, I paid for this house, it's not yours.
No, it's mine. You'd think him a fool. But yet
this is truly and really the thing. God did give him that
land. It was really his. Now consider this, you that are
believers in Christ, consider that you are heirs of all things. Paul says in Romans chapter 8,
he says, if children, then what? Heirs. And join heirs with Jesus
Christ. So then this, all things are
yours. All things are yours. Now go
tell them that. And in faith believe it, because
it is true. We're not joking about this.
We are heirs of all things. But you know what? Abraham, as
of yet, did not receive it. It was his by inheritance. But he had not yet obtained it.
Now consider this. All things are ours. We've just
not yet obtained it. Think about righteousness. Righteousness
is yours. The righteousness of God obtained
by Christ belongs to you. It is given to you. You are righteous.
You are righteous, right, Now, go look in the mirror and
see if you can find it, if you can see righteousness. You can't,
but it's yours. Now, how in the world can you
attain that? It's by faith we receive this.
It's by faith we are the righteous. And one day, John says, it doth
not yet appear what we shall be. But this is the promise,
that when we see Him, we shall be like Him. We shall be holy
and righteous as Christ. And as we sojourn here, every
believer, I know this, that we are constantly plagued with this
rotting corpse of the flesh. We are constantly in conflict
with our flesh. We cannot actually see what God
has given us. But what's the remedy for this? Faith. Faith is always the remedy. Jesus said, let not your heart
be troubled. You believe in God, believe also
in me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not
so, I would have told you. If I go to prepare a place for
you, I will come again and receive you to myself. That where I am,
you may be also. Whither I go and the way you
know. What is the way? The way is Christ. I am the way. Where did He go? He went to glory to prepare a
place for us. Did He? Yes. Is He coming to
receive us? Yes. What belongs to us? Everything. And yet, as we sojourn in this
world, we know this, we are strangers. Our God is a stranger and foreign
to this world. Our faith is considered foolishness
by men. We, like Abraham, we sojourn
and dwell in a strange country. Listen, dwelling in tabernacles
with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs of him of the same promise. For he looked for a city which
hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God. I want you to see this, and I
want to deal with this later about this aspect of faith in
relationship to patience, endurance. Abraham was called of God to
faith, and he went out into a place that was a strange country. It
was a strange land. He was a stranger in this place,
yet he owned everything. Consider the endurance of faith. Abraham endured, having not yet
attained the promise, but he endured by faith. All the afflictions,
all the trials, all the difficulties, continually looking to God by
faith. And to do this, we have to trust
God's providence. You have to trust God's providence.
That no matter what we see, no matter what we think or feel
in this world. We say this, let God be true
and every man, including me, a liar. Including my experience,
including whatever I think or feel, God is true, and I know
this. He is the builder of His church. He is the foundation of His church. Jesus said, On this rock I will
build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against
it. So this is our confidence of faith, that we shall never
be removed from Christ. So then, in conclusion, how do
we sojourn this life? Through faith. Constant looking
to Christ. Always only to Christ. Living
by faith and love. Faith and love is our law. And as we sojourn in this life,
it is a strange place. It's a barren world full of troubles,
but yet the remedy is always the same. Faith in Christ. Looking to Christ. I'm so thankful
that He has been by grace called us. Aren't you thankful He called
you? Aren't you thankful He saved
you? He redeemed you from the curse of the law? That He gave
you faith. And this morning, you have faith
because He continually gives it to you. And yet, God has made
even a better place for us. We've not yet inherited all that
we're going to get. And so what do we do? With patience,
we wait for it. looking to Christ, the author
and finisher of our faith. I pray God will bless this and
help us as we sojourn into this wilderness, as we leave, that
God would keep us looking to Him.