Bibles this morning to the book
of Galatians and I'm going to begin in chapter 1. I want very much for this to
be a worship service for us to honor our Lord. I want him to speak to all of
us But I want to speak of our Lord. And may each of us be led
to adore him and to honor him as we gather together. We need
the spirit of grace, don't we? There's no question about that. And I ask for the Lord to be
with us now as we enter into the message. Now, my subject
is Christ redeemed us. That's the subject that I think
the Lord has led me to this morning. This book of Galatians was written
to several churches. These were churches in a large
segment of Asia Minor churches that were established by the
Apostle Paul during his first missionary journey. Churches formed in Bithynia,
Cappadocia, Phrygia, a couple of other cities. And these were
locations where Paul went, preached the gospel, God was pleased to
save sinners by his grace, and then a local church was established. His message, he sets forth right
at the beginning of this epistle. Look at the first three verses
of Galatians 1. First of all, he identifies himself
and gives his credential, Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither
by man, but by Jesus Christ, and God the Father who raised
him from the dead, and all the brethren which are with me under
the churches of Galatia." And there were about five of them. And then he says this in verse,
the third verse, grace be to you and peace from God the Father
and from our Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins
that he might deliver us from this present evil world according
to the will of God and our Father. Here's the apostle. He writes
this letter by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. And He sets
forth immediately the good news of finished redemption by our
Lord Jesus Christ. This is a salvation that God
Himself has finished through the person and work of His dear
Son. The message that the apostle
went forth preaching throughout Galatia to all of these churches
was simply the message of the redeeming grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ. The message is not complicated. It is the message that our Lord
Jesus, He suffered, bled, and died in the stead of the guilty,
and therefore the guilty must go free. It's the message of
substitution. Our Lord took the place of his
guilty people. It's the message of satisfaction. Everything divine justice demanded,
our Lord Jesus fully satisfied when He suffered, bled, and died
upon the cross of Calvary. And the evidence that He did
everything God demanded is His exaltation. He was raised from
the dead. He ascended back to heaven. He's
seated at the right hand of God the Father. One of these days
He's coming back to be bowed before and to be adored by all
of our race and by all of the angels. Now, he writes this letter
to these churches at Galatia, and he wants them to know right
from the beginning that his message is not of his own making. The message he gave forth, the
message that he preached, the message that God blessed as he
went throughout Galatia preaching this message was not one that
he invented or he concocted in his own mind, but rather it's
a message that was given to him, a message that he was instructed
about by our Lord Jesus. Notice what he says in chapter
1 verse 11. But I certify you, brethren,
that is, I want you to understand that the gospel which was preached
of me is not after man. For I neither received it of
man, neither was I taught it. But by the revelation of Jesus
Christ, He wants them to know, first of all, the messages of
Christ and His redeeming grace. And then He wants them to know
that this message that He preaches of Christ and His redeeming grace,
it came to the apostle Paul directly from the Savior Himself. He did
not receive His message from the other apostles, though they
preached the gospel. He did not receive His message
from some man, though men are used of God to preach the gospel
of God's redeeming grace. But rather, our Lord Jesus says,
He taught me the gospel Himself. This is not of me, He says. Now, the reason He wrote this
letter is because there had crept in to these churches in Galatia. There had crept in these people
that he calls them Judaizers. That is what they did. They came
in and they were preaching, and they were men who had some ability,
some charisma to get people to follow them. And these men said,
you know, believing on Jesus Christ, that's good. But to really be saved, you've
got to keep the law of Moses. Because if you don't keep the
law of Moses, if you're not circumcised, if you don't go through the other
rituals of Moses' law, then you're not really fully saved. And the people of Galatia were,
like most people, very gullible. When somebody comes in and speaks
with some degree of authority, and they're likable, and they
have a magnetic personality, and they are gifted in oratory,
they're really good preachers, really good speakers, well, these
people gave them a hearing. And they began to say among themselves,
you know, that makes sense. To be saved, you believe on Christ
and then live right. It said living right, that brings
works into the picture. Because salvation is all grace. And so as he writes to them,
he gets to the third chapter, And here's how he begins the
third chapter. If you'll look at chapter three
of Galatians, he says in verse one, Galatians chapter three
in verse one, he says, oh foolish Galatians. Now foolish here means you're thoughtless. You're not
thinking these things through. And the message that you're listening
to and believing, you haven't given consideration to the results
or the consequences of believing this message. Because you see,
the results or the consequences of believing the message of salvation
by law works, by deeds, by your efforts, by your good works,
the results or the consequences of that is eternal death. But
these people were foolish. They gave no consideration to
the end of these things, what it would mean in the end if they
truly embrace this. So he says, you're foolish. You're
without understanding. You're not giving proper understanding
or thought, meditation, to what it is you're hearing. Does it
make sense to you, I'm asking you, does it make sense to you
that our Lord Jesus came into this world, He humbled Himself,
He was obedient unto death, even the death of the cross to save
sinners, and then on top of what He did, then we have to add our
own obedience? Does that make sense to you?
If you can be saved by something you do, Really, you have frustrated
the grace of God and made the coming of our Lord Jesus into
this world virtually useless. That's how serious this is. So
he says, O foolish Galatians, you're without understanding.
You're not considering the end of these things, the consequences
of your beliefs. And then he says, Who hath bewitched
you? that you should not obey the
truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set
forth crucified among you. Who has bewitched you? And the
idea is somebody has come in and they've charmed you. They've
kind of cast a spell over you. And I'll tell you, listen to
some of these television preachers who have a lot of charisma. They're
very dazzling with their words and they're kind of entertaining. You can understand how a natural
man would be actually bewitched by what they say. They charm
them. It's like they cast a spell over
them. And the apostle Paul says, you're
foolish, you're bewitched, And even though the truth has been
preached to you, our Lord Jesus Christ crucified among you, that's
the message I preached. Why are you so foolish? Why are you bewitched? Back in the second chapter, he
talked about believing on the Lord Jesus Christ But he speaks
of something else, too. I want you to look back at chapter
2 and verse 16. And let me remind you of this.
These churches that were established, this was in Gentile territory,
okay? Gentile territory. And the law
of God wasn't given to the Gentiles. It was given to the Jews. So
it's Jews who came in teaching, well, it's good, it's well and
fine to believe on Jesus Christ, but you gotta live right. You
need laws to go by. Then you're really saved. But
you see, God's law wasn't given to the Gentiles. It was given
to the Jews. Now notice what it says here
in verse 16 of chapter two. Knowing that a man is not justified. Stop right there, justified.
What does justified mean? Well, it means to be legally
forgiven by God and God declares you to be righteous. Simply put,
it's a simple definition. Justified. Who does the justifying? God does the justifying. So he
says, knowing that a man is not justified, your sins are not
forgiven, and you're not made righteous before God by the works
of the law. You see, he's tackling the problem
immediately. In fact, in chapter 1, he really
jumps on this issue. He says that these people who
are preaching this, it's another gospel, he called it, which is
not really a gospel at all. But he goes directly after these
false preachers. And he wants the Galatian people
to know, remember he writes a letter, The letter is sent to each of
the churches in Galatia, warning them of these men who came in
and they were steering the churches wrong. Their message was, certainly
Christ came and Christ suffered, bled and died and rose, but the
thrust of their message was, the life you've got to live. And the apostle, he writes and
says, now wait a minute, that's works, that's works. And so he says in verse 16, again
in chapter two, knowing that a man is not justified, so we're
not forgiven and we're not declared righteous by the works of the
law, by any works that we do, by anything we do. but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus
Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not
by the works of the law. For by the works of the law shall
no flesh be justified. He makes it real clear. Surely
nobody would misunderstand this. How are we justified? By the
faith of Jesus Christ. Now you can take that expression
one of two ways and you can take them both ways if you want to.
First of all, he's saying the way we're justified is by the
faith or the fidelity or the faithfulness of the Lord Jesus
Christ. We're not justified by believing,
hang on now, faith doesn't justify you. Your faith and my faith, though
necessary and gifts from God, our faith can't put sin away. Our faith can't make us righteous. You say, well, what does faith
do? Faith receives the Lord Jesus Christ, whose faithfulness to
God in His substitutionary sacrifice in His life first and then in
His death, the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ, that's what justifies
us. It's His work. And this is what
I want you to see. Oh, that the Spirit of God would
convince you of this. That you would, if there's anybody
in here who's, you have a little legalistic spirit in you, which
all men and women have by nature, because we want to do something. We think we need to do something.
all that the Spirit of God would convince us, the work is done. It's not sin or do something. See, this is where these Judaizers
were. They were just polluting the
churches of Galatia with their false gospel. They said, you've
got to do something. Well, what was it that Paul preached
when he was there in all of these various cities? He preached the
work is done. by Christ Jesus himself. He talks about the faith of Jesus
Christ. We're justified by the faith
of Christ. I say it can mean one of two
things. He's also saying that faith is of Jesus Christ. If you believe the author or
the origin of your faith is the Lord Jesus Christ. So any way
you look at this matter of salvation, It's all of the Lord. It's all
of His grace. And I say again, and I know some
of you read about the Reformation, and I appreciate those guys a
lot. But we've got to be careful. When we say justification by
faith, that doesn't mean that our faith has the power or the
authority to remove our sins. It doesn't. Is repentance necessary? Well,
sure it is. Our Lord Jesus Christ went forth
preaching repentance, but repentance doesn't put anybody's sins away.
That doesn't wash them away. That doesn't take care of our
guilt. Our repentance is an admission
to God of what we are. It's a, Lord, I'm sorry. I'm
sorry for what I am. I turned from my sin. I turned
to the Savior. But repentance and faith in no
way, shape, or form removes even one sin. You've got to get that
out of your mind. They don't make you righteous.
See, you've got to stand before God. To be accepted by God, you've
got to stand before God in perfect righteousness. Well, where am
I going to get perfect righteousness? Well, you can look within. You
ain't going to find it there. And you can believe, and I hope
and pray you do believe, I pray that God will give you faith,
but your belief doesn't establish any kind of righteousness between
you and God. Rather, faith receives. It receives. That's what faith
is. Faith is a receiver. It's not
a giver. It's a receiver of the Lord Jesus
Christ. and the work that he did for
poor sinners upon the cross of Calvary. And this one, the faith
of Christ, his faithfulness to do the work that God called him
to do, he is the one from whom our faith originates. It's the
faith of Christ. Do you have faith? Well, it's
of Christ. He gave it to you. He didn't have to give it to
you, but he gave it to you. So here's the issue in these
churches. These false teachers were preaching
a gospel that was really no gospel at all. It wasn't good news.
It wouldn't be good news for me or for you if I stood up here
this morning and I talked about the things that you need to do
in life to establish righteousness. That wouldn't be good news because
you can't do anything to establish righteousness. You can't do anything
that will erase your sins. I'm a preacher. I'm going to
start doing better. I'm going to turn over a new leaf. I expect
if you turn over that leaf, you're going to find it's as dried up
on the other side. It's on this side. You're not
going to be any better off because it's your leaf. What you need is new life, not
a new leaf. And the new life comes from God,
the Holy Spirit. And with that new life, there
comes repentance and faith. So this is the issue. And now
we drop down to the very meat of the message in verses 10 through
14 of chapter three. And let me read these verses
to you. Chapter three of Galatians verse 10. For as many as of the
works of the law are under the curse." You say, I'm going to
be good. I'm going to obey Moses' law. Well, I got news for you. You're
not blessed. You're under a curse. And I'll
tell you why you're cursed. 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. Look at the next verse. But that no man is justified,
remember justified, forgiven, declared righteous. You got that
in you? You filed that away in your memory
banks, have you? Okay, that's justified. Forgiven of all sin, they're
erased, and you stand perfect and holy and sanctified and righteous
in the sight of God, that no man is justified by the law in
the sight of God. It's evident. Isn't it evident
to you? It's evident to me. It's evident
when I look in the word of God and I see the demands of God's
law. It's evident to me when I look
within and I see some degree of my sinfulness within. It's
evident. And it's evident when I look
in the word of God. For the justified shall live
by faith. And he says in verse 12, the
law is not a faith. The law doesn't involve believing. The law involves doing. So the
law is not a faith. But the man that doeth them,
if you can do them, if you can do the laws, you'll live in them. Well, we can't, so is there any
good news? Verse 13, Christ hath redeemed
us from the curse of the law. Well, how'd he do that? By being
made a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is
everyone that hangeth on a tree. And our Lord Jesus hung on a
tree. that the blessing of Abraham
might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive
the promise of the Spirit through faith. And here's what I want
to talk to you about. Just real quick, now hang with
me a few more minutes. Three words. Cursed, redeemed,
blessed. That's my outline. Pretty simple,
isn't it? Got that? Cursed, redeemed, blessed. And I'll say this to
the people of God, to all of you who are true believers in
here and out there, anybody who's listened to this message somewhere
down the line, I'll tell you this, these three words, they
actually describe every believer. First of all, in our fallen state
in Adam, cursed. Right? I know that's right. In
our fallen state in Adam, cursed. Secondly, in our Lord Jesus'
redemptive work, redeemed. And then thirdly, it describes
our state in Christ, blessed. Faithful Abraham, I'm going to
give it to you real quick. First of all, cursed. If you do something, if you try
to do something for God to gain divine approval and to gain an
entrance into God's salvation, I'll tell you what the law of
God does to you. It curses you. You're cursed
because you can't keep God's law perfectly. No man ever did,
that's an absolute impossibility. And even if you could start doing
better, and maybe would say start sinning less, you've still got
the issue of sin, the nature of sin that's got to be dealt
with, and you can't deal with that. Our state in fallen Adam is one
of being cursed. I say again, if you do something,
try to do something for God to gain His approval, gain His favor. You know, I think if I maybe
write a check out to the church for an amount that the Lord knows
He'll show more favor to me. Maybe if I start reading the
Bible every day, God will say, well, there's a man who's reading
my word every day, and I'm going to show more favor to him or
to her. And I'm going to start praying,
too. And I know that'll please God.
I'll start talking to Him every day, and I'm going to earn me,
you won't say this in your mind, but what you're essentially saying
is, I'll earn brownie points that way. No, you won't. That's the impossibility. Oh,
hear me. God is not impressed with anything
you say or do or think. God is only impressed with his
son. You gotta get that. That's who
he's impressed with. And I'll tell you what's necessary,
that which is necessary is for the Spirit of God to cause us
to be impressed with Christ. With who He is in His divinity
and in His humanity, and with the work of redemption that He
has completed. Oh, to be impressed by the Son of
God. And I'll tell you this, Everybody
here, everybody who's watching, you watching there in your kitchen
or your living room or wherever you are on the internet, everybody here is either under
the curse of God's law or blessed in faithful Abraham
by the grace of God. Everybody's either cursed in
here now or blessed. You are. And there's no kind
of I'm in the middle here. You're under the curse or you're
under the blessing. If you try and do something to
impress God, I got news for you. You're cursed. Because you see, That law of
God shows no mercy. It doesn't know anything about
dealing in an easy way with you. God's law does one of two things. It says
you're innocent or you're guilty. That's all it says. You've seen
Lady Justice with a blindfold on, maybe holding scales of justice
in her hand. The reason she's got a blindfold
on is because true justice is really what we'd call blind justice. And of course, this originated
in Rome. And I don't know that there is
really true justice anywhere today in this world. Maybe there
is. But there's always extenuating
circumstances or favors shown to those who are wealthy or important,
dignitaries or whatever. But God's law, it is truly true
justice, blind justice. Nothing else comes into view
when it comes to the justice of God except this. You're either
innocent, Are you guilty? That's all the justice of God
does. It doesn't take into consideration your environment, what situation
was where you grew up, your standing in society. Justice of God takes
none of that into consideration. It only sees you either cursed We're blessed. That's true of
everybody in here. You remember when, you remember
reading about the death of John the Baptist. And I'm not going
to go into the whole story. You know how it goes. But anyway,
he wound up, they put his, stretched his neck out, his head's on a
chopping block. And there's a glistening sword
or guillotine or whatever it was right over him. You're gonna die. Let me tell you something. The
justice of God, God's holy law is like a guillotine or a sword
over top of you and it's ready to drop. And the reason it hadn't cut
your head off yet is due to the mercy of God. He's
withholding what you deserve. I know that's right. Now, if somebody had come along,
this didn't happen, but if somebody had come along and said, hey,
I'm gonna die in the place of John the Baptist, and kind of
helped him up, pushed him out of the way, and then laid down,
put his head out on that chopping block. That'd be substitution
right there. Let the blade fall on me. See,
that's what Christ did. That's what Christ did. Which
brings into the picture the second word, redeemed. You see, redeemed is a happy
word. Redeemed is a joyful word. Cursed
is not a joyful word. That's a sad word. It's a horrible
word. It's a true word, but there's
no joy in it. But redeemed? Redeemed how I
love to proclaim it. Redeemed by the blood of the
Lamb. Redeemed through His infinite
mercy. His child and forever I am. Redeemed's
a happy word. It's a joyful word. It means
the price has been paid for my freedom and liberation. It says here in verse 13, Christ
hath redeemed us. Who's the us? Well, he didn't
redeem everybody, but he redeemed us. He didn't try to redeem. He didn't put an effort to redeem.
He really redeemed. He didn't put us in a state of,
well, we could be redeemed if we add our works or faith to
it. Oh, no. He hath redeemed, He redeemed
us. Who's the us? The elect of God,
the chosen of God. Everybody that the Spirit of
God shows them they're a sinner and they need a Savior, they're
the us. I can get in on the us, can't
you? I can't look into the record books of God and see the Lamb's
Book of Life, see if my name's written there, but I can get
in on this. I'm a sinner and I'm looking to Christ only for
salvation. I can get in on the us that way,
for sure. Christ hath redeemed us. I love the certainty of these
words. There's no possibility of misinterpreting
them. There's no condition placed upon
us. There's no hint of the possibility
of failure on the part of Christ. He hath redeemed us. He's redeemed
somebody. Because the Bible says he did. He didn't create the possibility
of redemption. Whoever the us are, I can tell
you this, they're redeemed, Joe. That's what it says. Ron, that's
what it says, right? Don, that's what it says, right? That's what it says. Whoever
they are. Well, I'm a sinner saved by grace. I'm a sinner looking to Jesus
Christ alone. And based upon the word of God
says, you're in the us group. Not through anything I've done,
but by the grace of the Savior. He put me among the number of
the us. And he bought us from the Sword
of God's justice, the blade of justice hung over our necks and
Christ said, take me instead. And he redeemed us. And when justice saw him take
our place, listen, justice was indeed blind. It was true justice
because the justice of God did not take into consideration that
he was the son of God. It didn't take into consideration
his own innocence. The justice of God saw all the
sins of all of God's people, imputed to, charged to, reckoned
to the account of Jesus Christ, and the law of God said, guilty. Because remember, the law of
God either says innocent or guilty. They found him guilty. Didn't
cut him any slack. and all of the hell that we would
have borne forever, our Lord felt it in his soul. Justice was indeed blind when
Christ took our place. We sing the song, he took my
sins and my sorrows. He made them his very own. He
bore the burden to Calvary and suffered and died alone and he
was cursed in our stead. You see, salvation doesn't mean,
well, then nobody has to be cursed. That's not what salvation means.
Salvation means a worthy substitute took our place and suffered the
curse of the law of God. and we rejoice in accomplished
redemption. And here's the third word, blessed. And in verse 14, it talks about
the blessing of Abraham. What was the blessing of Abraham?
What does it mean to be blessed as Abraham was? Abraham believed God and it was
counted to him for righteousness. That is, righteousness was imputed
to him I'll tell you what the blessing of Abraham is. Perfect righteousness reckoned
to our account. That's the blessing. You can't
get any more blessed than that. To be before God declared to
be absolutely righteous. How righteous have you got to
be to stand acceptable in God's sight? As righteousness as God
is. as righteous as he is, and in
Christ we are. And there are the three words,
cursed in Adam, redeemed when Christ paid our sin debt, blessed,
the result of that, blessed forever. Because the righteousness of
God has been imputed to us. Oh, glorious redemption. No wonder
we preach about the blood all the time. Salvation in, through,
and by Christ Jesus. And we're gonna take the Lord's
Supper now. This supper is all about accomplished
redemption. The bread speaks of his humanity,
the perfection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Wine speaks of redemption
by his blood. The men will wait upon you and
they'll serve the bread first and when all are served then
I'll have prayer and we'll eat the bread and then do the same
thing with the wine.