that he wants to make sure that
those knuckleheads who continue to make a fuss about their theological
projects and their theological distinctions at the cost of unity
and intimacy and ministry, at the result of fear and frustration
and discord, Paul's like, I want you to charge them to stop talking. And then in that stopping of
talking, I want them to be submissive to what you're teaching, and
I'm going to tell you what to remind them of. And he reminds
this young elder, he says, the aim of our charge is love that
issues, that comes from, that goes forth from a pure heart. And a pure heart, as we remember,
is illustrating the intention. illustrating the point, illustrating
the idea that, you know, Paul's like, listen, I love you, that's
why I'm saying what I'm saying. I'm doing what is right and I'm
obeying the commands of Christ because that's what love does.
Love obeys, you see. And people get triggered by that.
No, no, you're teaching the law. No, I'm not, I'm teaching grace.
We obey because of grace. You have to fear the Lord. He's
crushed Christ for you. But love that issues from a pure
heart and a good conscience that we are at peace. We are content
with what we are in Christ and whose we are. We are content
with the theology that is taught us by the Spirit through the
Scripture. We are content with knuckle-headedness in our own
life. We're content with the ups and downs and the ebbs of
flow or the weakness of our faith. We're content with the trials
and the frustrations and the good times and the bad times
and the sincere faith that we have. This is the intention.
This is the point of the New Testament, honestly. That the
saints of God, that the elect of God, that the redeemed of
God, that the born of God, that those who are indwelled with
the Holy Spirit, those who know that they have a place in heaven
and eternity because of Christ, those who have been given faith
by the Spirit of God to trust and rest in the finished work
of Jesus, to know that when He said it was finished, He did
all that was required to justify us and to satisfy the wrath of
God, and to credit us His own righteousness before the Father
of righteousness. A pure heart. Love is our charge. And so, as I step into this pulpit
each week, I try really hard to be bitter. I try very hard to be cynical. Because throughout the week,
it's real easy. Can't wait to get to church.
I'm going to preach to who's not there. You ever had that
conversation with yourself? You ever gone and sort of went
in the mirror of your own mind and looked deeply and thought,
I'm going to set the record straight. And you just pump yourself up
for all the things you're going to say and do the next time somebody
or something gets in your way or becomes a problem for you.
How are you going to set that ball straight? How are you going
to deal with that co-worker? How are you going to tell your spouse
or your child? By the mercy of Christ, by the
mercy of God, everything I desire just goes out the window when
I stand here. Every frustration, every aggravation, and you should
be thankful for that. We all think Pastor James is
joking when he talks about his murderous heart and his aggravation
and his anger and things of that nature. You don't get to see
it. Few people ever get to see it, but it's there. And there
are demons who will teach you that if those things exist inside
of you, if your mind is not walking around on heavenly clouds, and
if your heart and your affections are not perfectly centered in
Christ-likeness all the time, that you are not born of God.
Well, beloved, then guess what? Neither was any subject recorded
in the pages of this book. When we are born again, we are
not void of our humanity. God has not changed our depraved
nature into divine nature. That is why we always, every
second, every breath of every day, rest and hope and trust
in the righteousness of Jesus Christ to our account. Because
if you and I think that we are getting better before the God
of righteousness, we have lost our ever-loving minds. That if
there's anything, God would go, well, well, well, James, my goodness,
we've gotten really good lately. There is no good list. We're all on the naughty list.
The whole world is on the naughty list, but some of us are written
in the book of life. And the book of life is written
by the decree of God. And the names, as we saw in Isaiah
this morning, of the Redeemed of God are written on His hands. And God, through the natural
means of the wickedness of men, pierced the hands of Jesus, the
God-man. And he said it was finished.
So it's finished. So I get up here and God causes me to issue
from a pure heart. Love is my charge. Love is the
charge of Christ. A sincere faith. A true and divinely
granted revelation of the divine work of God in the promise of
the incarnate Christ. That's what Christmas is all
about, right? The coming of Jesus. Verse 4 of 1 Timothy 1, you're
not allowed to turn there, I'm just reminiscing a little bit. Paul says, do not let them devote
themselves to myths and genealogies and endless controversies which
promote what? Speculation versus rather than
the stewardship that comes from God. That is by faith. So see, when we spend our time
debating, thinking, talking, chewing, spitting, vomiting,
recutting, reswallowing the cud of theological fodder, we are
not doing anything but promoting speculations and philosophies.
And we always have philosophies. That's what it means to think. Stewardship from God by faith.
This is what God has given, what God has promised, what God has
accomplished. And so the faith is not an intellectual
exercise. The faith that's granted to the
saints has nothing to do with our study and thinking and positing. Nothing. That's why Not to quote
the old wives of antiquity, but hell is going to be full of theologians
who were right. As one of my grandmothers used
to say, they're going to bust hell wide open. Let's hope not, but I get the
sentiment. It's not an intellectual exercise
unto salvation, however, There is some intellectual exercising
in salvation when we learn and grow and understand things. According
to the context of Scripture, nothing else. Few people have
ever read as many books as I've read. That's not a brag, it's
actually sad. There was a time where for four
years I read a book a week. And that was just for fun. As a child, I read encyclopedias.
Volume by volume by volume by volume. Oh, it's summer. Yay.
What are you going to do? World book. Y'all laugh. You binge Netflix and watch YouTube
all day. Quit. We didn't have that. If we had
that, that's what I'd have done. Did you know that the atomic
weight of... No, I didn't know that. I read
it in the world book. 1 Timothy 3, Paul writes these
words. He says, Great indeed, we confess,
is the mystery of Godliness. We're not going to deal with
this text today in the way that I dealt with it, but I want to
be in Romans and Galatians, but I want to lay this foundation
first. Paul gives these words. He was manifested in the flesh,
vindicated by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed among the
nations, believed on in the world, and then taken up in glory. And
we spent, what, a couple of weeks in that some months back. But
everywhere we look, we look at the New Testament, and you know,
when we're out of the Gospels, when we're out of the Good Report,
when we're out of the story, we get the instruction. And all
the New Testament letters are instructive. They're all God, through the
apostles, undergirding the prophetic promises of Messiah so that the
people of Christ, the gathered ones, the holy ones, the justified
ones, the elect ones, those who believe, whatever label you want
to put on what we are called, so that we as the church might
know more about our salvation and it might result in the praise
of his manifest revelation which we call glory, seeing Him for
who He is in all His fullness. That's what it means to see the
glory of God, to just like behold. See, we don't use that word behold
except in biblical context nowadays. And there's a reason. Because
it's an antiquated word for one. It's like, behold, my new shoe.
I mean, you know. Behold at the TV, son. Pay attention. Behold! No, it's presentation,
right? When someone says, behold, it
gives this idea of this divine gaze that we're supposed to look
at something that's pretty amazing. So when we look at God and we
see the amazing reality of the infinite depths of Him, we have
seen His glory. And the Scripture says in John
chapter 1 that that glory is Jesus Christ. That everything
God could ever be seen as is seen in Jesus Christ. That the
creation of the infinite universe is nothing. It's like the sneezy
mist of the mist of God's sneeze. It's at the back of the shadow
of the wind of the dust of His robe as He turns His back on
Moses. And Moses' face starts to shine. God has come into the world. God has come into the world in
human flesh, and in the same time, he did not cease to be
God. We were in Philippians 2 last week. Looking at this mind of
Christ, though he was God in all respects, he did not take
and brag on his equality as God, but yet he emptied himself. What
does that mean? He poured himself out to be obedient as a human
servant, to die on a cross for the justification of his people,
for the atonement of his people, to make his people one with God
in righteousness. to satisfy the justice of God.
All the crimes of sinfulness have been committed in the hearts
of humanity. And God has a people for himself that he has elected
to save. Therefore, he said, let there be light. And the world
was was drawn into being by his command so that he could put
his son, the eternal God, in the womb of Mary that he created,
that he could come into creation and pull a people out for himself,
snatch them out of the chaotic void of darkness and show that
he is the creator of righteousness. against the depth and depths
of depravity. Now that's what we call a good
report. That's a good report. This headline is just in national
news. I mean, could you imagine? There is no debt anywhere in
the world. It's all been paid. And there's
400 million dollars in everyone's savings account right now. Well,
what happens? I don't know. That's unfathomable. It's impossible. It can't take
place. It's not going to happen. There's
no way for it to function. Just like there was no way for
a people to be forgiven and to be called righteous before righteousness. But God did it by sending His
Son into the world. The mission of Christ was to
finish the work of salvation. And the message of Christ is
to reveal this mission and to express His mind in His obedience. This mystery of God, this mystery
of godliness that Paul refers to not only there, but also in
other places where he writes. This truth of God the Son pouring
Himself out, like I was talking about last week. The truth of
God the Son purchasing Himself a people. The truth of God the
Son being worshipped as God. The truth of God the Son giving
himself as a human being to the righteousness of God, to bear
the wrath, the truth of worship in the heart of the believers,
in the mind of the believers, with the life of us as believers,
to the glory of God the Son. Great indeed. Turn with me to
Romans 16. Paul gives this doxology here
in Romans 16. It's very frustrating for me
to just pop into a verse here and there, but the reality of
what I want us to leave with today in the short time we have
is to be reminded of the reality of the Incarnation, the coming
of Jesus Christ in the flesh, and that God has walked the earth
in a human body. And though he was truly and fully
and absolutely in every way human, he never ceased to also be absolutely,
fully and eternally God. And that's supposed to make our
minds go, what? And then we go, okay. And then
that's the end of it. We don't need 16 volumes of encyclopedias
and theological writings to effectively and poetically chew on that.
We're supposed to just eat it and absorb it and taste and see
that it is good and it is God and his absolute mystery has
revealed himself by sending himself in human form truly to satisfy
his own conditions for his own covenant to save his own people.
But there's no greater reality than that. There is nothing better
that I can tell you today. There is no instruction that
I can give you that's greater than the gospel of grace. There's
no counsel, no food, no financial stability, no relationships,
nothing, no cures, nothing that is greater than the gospel. And
some of us in certain seasons of life go, I just don't have
that. I just don't see the greatness. I know that it's great, but I
don't feel it. Well, that's the problem. We're looking to feel
rather than to know. And God granted faith is not about
how we feel about what God has done. It's that we know what
he's done. This gospel is the point of the
world. It's the point of creation. This gospel It's the point of
God's revelation. Now to Him, Paul says, Romans
16, verse 25. Sorry, I'm not doing the whole
chapter. Verse 25. Now to Him who is able
to strengthen you according, I love Paul's words here, according
to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ. according to
the revelation of the mystery that was kept secret for long
ages, but has now been disclosed and through the prophetic writings
has been made known to all nations according to the command of the
eternal God to bring about the obedience of faith. To the only
wise God be glory forevermore through Jesus Christ. So it is. Amen. Amen. This gospel, this good report,
this teaching, this understanding, this apprehension, this work
of God to create the world and create all the peoples and to
put everything in place and to purpose all things, even when
a bird flies somewhere, it is in the sovereignty of God. This
gospel is our strength, beloved. Jesus Christ coming to the earth
is our strength. And it's preaching and teaching
and proclamation is how that strength is continued to be strengthened. You notice Paul makes personal
this gospel. He says, my gospel. And he's
not saying this is my gospel. He's not saying this is my interpretation.
He's not saying this is my education. He's not saying this is my expertise.
He's not saying this is what I say. He's saying this is mine. It belongs to me. This is for
me. This is my Jesus. This is my
Savior. This is my incarnate God. He
died in my place. He lives for me. This is possessive. This is inclusive. So the proclamation of this gospel,
Paul, it's personal. Paul's not a theologian to tout
his education. Paul says his education was all
for not loss. Consider it nothing for the priceless
gain of knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection. The
gospel is our strength. and we hear it, and we know it,
and we can think about it any given moment. But beloved, let
me tell you, one of the greatest realities of our poor, sad lives
is that when we are not hearing the written Word and sharing
with the saints the reality of what is written therein, we are
devoid of spiritual thoughts. And we may think we're having
spiritual thoughts when we're on our coffee table, coffee talk,
table talk, you know, doctrinal things. Or we may think that
we're having spiritual talk when we're really putting our x-ray
vision on and going, mm-hmm, I see how y'all living. And we're
really digging our nosy, busybody, baloney, garbage eyes into each
other's lives, trying to peel apart who's spiritual, who's
not, because somewhere in the middle of the night, God crowned
us Jesus, too. And it's not the case. That's not
spiritual at all. That's not walking by the Spirit.
When we walk by the Spirit, we walk in a contentedness with
contentment. We have contentment in our soul
that we are secure in the righteousness of God, in Christ, and we are
objects. We are recipients of grace. And so when that is manifested
to us through the hearing of the word and the focus of our
gospel, we're not concerned about the dots and the crosses and
everything else of the lives of others. We're concerned in
how can we sacrifice ourselves for the sake of other people's
choice. See, that's gospel living and that's the only thing God
has called us to. I will not say what just popped
into my head. God has not called most people
to do what they're doing in regards to the truth. Because it disavows
the very simple instruction of intimacy, focus and worship. His gospel is our strength. Now
to him who is able, what is this gospel? Is it just the preaching?
No, it is Jesus Christ. See, this is a supernatural reality,
but it has practical implication. Supernatural reality of what
God has done, but he practically came to the world as a human
being. Righteousness for humanity is only obtainable when the perfect
human sacrifices himself in place of the imperfect. Paul says this is a mystery,
it's been revealed. I can walk up and my grandson's
at the age now where I can make something vanish and he looks
all through my hand as if he's just like seeing if I could stick
that screwdriver way down between my hand. He's just amazed. He
looks up at me, he looks again, he picks up the other hand, looks
in the front, looks in the back. He's almost at the age where
I can walk up to him. I don't know when it is, maybe in the next
few months. I can walk up to the kid and be like... And they saw you had nothing,
but you closed your hands. There's something in there now.
See, they're philosophy majors before they even can speak. Is
there something in there? Yes and no at the same time. Is the cat dead or alive? You
get it. I love it. And it's so awesome because when
you open your hands and there's nothing there, it's like mystery
revealed. What's in your hand? Nothing. Oh, it's so exciting.
Nothing. You ever been excited over nothing? Kids are excited
over nothing. So they turn about 12 and they're like, there's
not a dollar? Or only a dollar? But then there are other things
that are mysterious. We want to know, don't we? That's why
people buy tabloids. It's in history. What are the
rich elite doing? Wishing you weren't reading about
their nonsense. What's happening in the palace? What's happening
in the White House? What's going on in Hollywood? I don't care.
Do you really care? But it's a mystery. We're drawn
to this mystery. A mystery is an unknown. The
Gospel was an unknown. It was prophesied. It was expressed. It was proclaimed. But the reality
of it was unknown. And Paul says it has been revealed
when Christ was born. And it was revealed to shepherds. I like to watch the paintings
of renaissance eras. Amazing, amazing talent. But they're also clean and white. People that look like me weren't
shepherding sheep in Palestine 2,000 years ago. This didn't
happen. They didn't wear nice clean clothes,
have manicured faces, you know, chiseled. I mean, a lot have
been to the barbershop, these chiseled beards, curly mustache. They're worshipping Jesus. He's
clean. He's glowing a little bit. Born
in a microwave. I don't know. That's not what
it was like. It was a subpar experience with
subpar people. And I would hold some things
that I think Brother Mike and I were talking about, some ideas
we'll talk about later, the interesting things about sheep and their
birthplace and things like that. But shepherds are nobody. Shepherds
are like, ugh. Like, you know, we all want the
plumber, but we don't want him hanging around. Yeah, I just unclogged your pooper.
Mind if I sit for a spell? Nah, but you go away. I'm going
to be paid. Don't come in my house with those boots, okay?
How about you go away? Can you move your truck with
the big fake turd on the back of it? I've got company coming
over. The turdinator. I mean, did you see it? There's
your business model. Where does this stuff come from?
What was I talking about? Oh yeah, Jesus. Shepherds. They're filthy people, but this
is the revelation of God. He expresses in the fields to
filthy people that society is like, we can't have these folks
in town. And they get to witness the birth
of Christ. Filthy people. Why? Because Jesus came for filthy
people. Jesus came for people who were
hated. Jesus came for people who were sinful. Jesus came for
people who were dead. Jesus came for the sick. People who don't need cleaning
have no place with Him. This mystery is the revelation
of God's promise. I'm going to clean my people.
I'm going to make righteous my sinful people. I'm going to resurrect
my dead people. I'm going to give life to these
sinners. I'm going to bring to me those
who are orphans. Those who have spit in my face,
those who have abandoned my promises, those who have run from me and
squandered my wealth and eat from the hog pens. No, he couldn't eat from the
hog pens because he would have been stealing. Remember that? He wanted
to eat the hog slop. And Christ came to reveal himself
to these people. The very idea of washing someone's
feet. A lot of foot washing goes on
in my house, not service-wise. It's like, hey, go wash those
feet. We call them piggly wiggly feet in my house. If you don't know that, you know,
the old grocery store, Winn-Dixie feet for those of you who...
People walk around barefooted in the grocery store and then
their feet are filthy on the bottom. Don't go to bed with
the piggly wiggly feet. Wash them. You wash feet. You wash feet
in cultures, in Palestinian cultures. You wash feet. I've had meals
in many Afghan homes through the years, and they don't have
tables. You don't sit at tables. You
sit on the floor, and the food is laid on a rug. And you sit,
depending on your flexibility, either way, you sit, but your
feet are there. The dudes you left, his feet
are next to your food, and your feet are next to his food. You
want them clean. See? So washing feet in the first
century was a custom for necessity so you didn't die from disease. See, God had taught his people
long before Louis Pasteur understood some things to wash your hands
and feet before you put stuff in your mouth and you won't die
from something stupid. Don't eat these types of animals
because you can't clean them enough. It wasn't that these
animals were bad. It's that they didn't need to
get sick in their nomadic process of traveling in millions across
the world. It's not about what's good, it's
about what's clean. The picture of that. Jesus gets
into this place where he's going to take off his clothes tie a
towel around his waist and he's going to do that which a Jewish
servant was prohibited by law to do. A Jewish slave, even a
Jewish criminal, could not wash feet. It was so menial that Israel
would not even let their criminals wash feet. So here's the rabbi, the master, washing feet. Peter wasn't going
to have anything to do with it. No, no, no, no, no. You're not
washing my feet. And Jesus says something sort
of like this. Well, if I don't wash you, you have no place with
me. You're not sitting with me and eating with me with your
nasty feet. And Peter gets it right, but
doesn't understand the revelation. He says, well, then by all means,
wash my hands, wash my head, wash my body. You know, head
and shoulders, knees and toes. Wash it all. I'm ready. Let's
do it. Just wash me. And then Jesus,
what does he tell him? I'm gonna wash y'all out when
I die. Oh, you ain't gonna die. The revelation. This mystery
is God's promise revealed in Christ. The promise is clearly
told by Scripture. The revelation of the mystery
that was kept secret for long ages. Verse 26 of Romans 16,
but now has been disclosed. by the prophets through the prophetic
writings and have been made known to all nations according to the
command of the eternal God to bring about the obedience of
faith to the wise and only wise God be glory forevermore through
Jesus Christ. See the mission of God and the
purpose of God is redemption. Jesus' mission was to fulfill
the purpose of God and the redemption of His people. All nations, all
tongues, all tribes. Not each and every person, but
His people of all nations and all tongues and all tribes. And
this is done by the commandment of God for the sake of the obedience
of faith. To believe and to trust in His
promises to the praise of His glory and His glorious grace. This is the point of the world.
So when we think about the holiday of Christmas, and all the silly
implications of all the seasons of life, and we get upset about
it, and we love it, and we don't like it, and then we do like
it, and then we hate the commercialization of it, and we forget it's all
about Jesus, and all that, I mean, because we've all been there,
depending on what age our children are. When they're needy and selfish,
and their Christmas lists are long, they're like, this is about
Jesus, no more Christmas. We get around these really somber, incredibly godly people. Oh, you have put a tree in your
house with lights. Okay. Oh crap, take the tree
down. It's like one comedian said,
it is like the antics of a drunk man. Let's take this tree from
outside, put it inside, take the lights from outside, put
them outside. I mean, you know, it's upside down day. It's crazy. But it doesn't matter why we
do what we do and what the festival means. The Scripture gives us
liberty to celebrate anything. You know
the roots of an offering plate? You don't want to know. You don't
want to know. You know the roots of this or
that. Man, there's some type of pagan root with everything
we do because we come through antiquity. History creates the
cultural norms that we live in and it's like cutting the ham,
the butt off the ham because the pot was too short. We didn't
know why. If we're going to devoid ourselves
of anything that is tied to anything pagan, we have to devoid ourselves
of anything that's tied to anything human. Folks, the Bible doesn't give
us that burden. So I say, let's celebrate the whole world turning
to the idea of the word Christmas and then forgetting that it had
anything to do with Christ. It's funny. It's funny. It's okay to have
a festival and then also keep a purpose, but that purpose is
not for today. That purpose is for every day
for the church. The coming of Christ is the mission and the
point of the world. The point of the world is the
revelation of God. Indeed, we confess the mystery
of Godliness. Turn to Galatians chapter 4. The work of Christ
has procured a people for himself in justice and righteousness.
I'm just using this text just to prove the point. We probably should go to chapter
3, but let me look. Chapter 4, verse 7 verses. Paul has just told these people,
this is the first letter Paul wrote, by the way. Which is why
he's a little more agitated. because he taught the people
of the region of Galatia. It's a region, it's not a city.
He taught the people of Galatia the gospel, the proclamation,
the power. He strengthened by grace that
God in his mercy has established salvation through the death of
his son, proven and vindicated by the resurrection of his son
and the promise of his son's return. He was raised in ascension
to the right hand of the Father where he intercedes on behalf
of his people. We see Hebrews We understand all of that. And Paul's given the contrast, the point of the law
is to kill, convict, to indict, convict, and kill humanity. So then again, the point of the
law is to indict, convict, and to kill humanity. And that's
just, it's righteous, it's loving, it's good. So, those born under the law
are dead already. Those who are sitting under the
righteousness of God, on their own merits, are done. And so,
Paul begins to teach, and he's like, listen, there's this guardian,
there's this teaching, there's this law, and we're dead. And
everybody's dead to it. So in chapter 4 verse 1 he says,
I mean that the heir, he's talking about the two sons, Ishmael and
the other one, that everybody knows. The daughter, I mean the son
of Hagar and the son of Sarah. He said they're both sons, they're
both born from Abraham, but one is the son of promise, the other
is not. So the point is, it matters according
to the promise. It doesn't matter according to
the biology, John chapter 1. It doesn't matter who your daddy
is, it matters what God has said about you. It matters what God
has promised. It matters what God has accomplished.
It matters what He has succeeded in. So Paul starts, I mean that
the heir, And he's talking about being Christ's heir. You're not
an heir to God. You're not God's people just
because you're born of Abraham. You're only God's people because
you belong to Christ. If you are Christ, then you are
Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. So he says, I
mean that the heir, as long as that he is a child, is no different
than a slave. Think about this for a second. Though he is the
owner of everything. So our children, own everything
we own, but yet they're not old enough, nor are we dead enough
for them to take possession of it. But he's under the guardians
and managers of the dates set by his father. So even in the
context of a child dies early, he has a steward. He has an estate. He has an executor. He has somebody.
And if there is nobody, it'll be the state to oversee until
that child becomes legally of age to own the property. To own
that. So in the same way, verse 3 of
Galatians 4, when we were children, we were enslaved to the elementary
principles of the world. Verse 4, but when the fullness
of time had come, God sent forth his son, the son of promise,
born of woman, born under the law to redeem those who were
under the law. So we might receive adoption
as sons. And because you are sons, God
has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, and
I'm going to translate this to something we understand, Papa,
Daddy, Father. So you are no longer a slave,
but a son. And if a son, then an heir through
God. Now what's the context here?
These people had learned the gospel, they knew the truth,
God the Spirit had granted them trusting, hoping, resting faith
in the finished work of Christ, and then along come the spider,
sat down beside her, and opened up the circumcision box and everybody
was scared. Along came the Judaizers, and
they said, hey, hey, hey, you got the gospel? This is good,
good news, good news, good news. Better news, though, is this. If you're not obeying the laws,
you're probably not in Christ. Sound familiar? Yes, it's the
false gospel. Every false gospel in the world
is an iteration of the Galatians. In our conference on January
7, one of the brothers that's coming is going to deal specifically
with this issue in Galatians. I pray you come. and learn the
different viewpoints on how we need to understand what the culture
has just sort of dumbly accepted as gospel truth. Circumcision is not effectual. Circumcision does nothing. Paul
makes that very clear. It doesn't matter. But yet, even
in the United States of America in the 50s, 60s, 70s, you know,
good Christian people circumcised their sons. in certain circles. Isn't that
something? So Paul's like, why are you going
to be a slave too long? This was a sign of a covenant.
It was a radical sign of the mutilation of the flesh. It was
for mutilation. Did it have an outcome that we might understand
medically or scientifically? Maybe. The point of it in the
scripture was to be a sign. I mean, a sign. Could you imagine
going into the temple? Hey, can you come in here? Let
me see your pass. And a flash. I mean, that's how
they checked. Where's your name badge? Can
you worship in here? I don't know. Let's check and
see. I mean, that's something else, isn't it? That's a prison
sentence in today's time. I'm just showing my name badge. So Paul's saying, look, it doesn't
do this. This promise of God is the gospel. This issue of
grace. See, Jesus Christ has come in
the flesh and taken on humanity and He has not ceased to be God.
And He has these two natures simultaneously and He keeps them
both today. And Him being sent into the world through the Virgin
Mary was not His start of His existence. Some people think
that. It's logical. Oh, Jesus didn't exist, and now
he does, and now he's God. I mean, I had somebody argue
with me one time years ago that Jesus was just born, and then
God indwelled him, like possessed him, and then changed him after
the resurrection. No, that's not what the Bible...
That's interesting. It's very creative, and honestly, it's
a little logical. But it's not what the Bible teaches. The Bible
teaches that God, the Son himself, came into human flesh. And he
keeps that human flesh today. He is always and forevermore
the God-man. But the flesh he has now is a
glorified flesh, not the flesh that we have. What is that like? I don't know. That appendix was
pulled out from between the map of Palestine and Babylon. Don't
have it. In John chapter 1, the Lord makes
it very clear through the Gospel writer, through the evangelist, That he was the Word, with the
Word, and was with God, and was God, and he was in the beginning. And that all things that exist
were made through him. Through what? The Son of God,
Jesus Christ. Hebrews chapter 1, the same thing. Colossians
chapter 1, the same thing. The fullness of deity dwelt bodily
in Christ Jesus. We have seen God's glory. No
one has ever seen the invisible God, the mystery of God. No one
has ever been able to put their eyes on God. But when God became
man, we see the fullness of everything that He is, not just in His stature
and His being and His essence, but we get to see Him in His
mind and His mission and His message. We get to know Him in
that way. He was born of a virgin by the
Spirit of God into the world for His purpose and for His praise. And so God finished the work
of redemption. The birth of Christ is about
God's divine mission of redemption. And all of these things, inclusive
the gospel, we can call the righteousness of God. Romans chapter 3 comes
to mind in there. Because without the coming of
Christ, We find ourselves, that's what I wanted to do, we find
ourselves over in Galatian Street only. Verse 7, Galatians 3, Paul writes
this, Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of
Abraham. I referred to it a minute ago, thought it was in 4. And
the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles
by faith, preaching the gospel before him to Abraham, saying,
now listen to that, Paul, by the mouth of God, by the divine
spirit, giving him these words, says that God preached the gospel
to Abraham, the gospel of Christ to Abraham. In you shall all the nations
be blessed. And that's the truncated version
of what Paul is referring to. Of course, he's referring to
the promise in the covenant. What is the good news? The promises
of God. Well, I don't want to get into
this. Well, you know, that's not sufficient. For salvation, yes it is. God's promise salvation is sufficient
for salvation. Remember what I said. Faith unto
salvation. And even that phrase is problematic
if you hear me wrong. It's not an academic or cognitive
exercise. It's a divine work. That then
brings understanding. Understanding doesn't bring life.
Life brings understanding. Believing the tenets and the
precepts of a proposition doesn't cause you to be born again. Being
born again allows you, by the Spirit, the ability that God's
granted you, to be able to understand the truth of the gospel and to
grow and understand election and understand grace and understand
justification as you're able, according to the writing of Scripture.
Paul says these words, so then those who are of faith are blessed
along with Abraham. They're approved of God. They
receive what God has promised along with Abraham, the man of
faith. For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse.
As it is written, cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things
written in the book of the law and do them. So I can be very
dogmatic and staunchly biopic when it comes to the purposes
of the law. I don't care what historical theologians have done
to exercise their three uses. I don't care about that expression. I care about the expression of
what Paul, therefore, what Christ is saying concerning the law,
and the law's purpose is to indict and to convict and to condemn
sinners. Period. Now it is evident that no one,
based on what Paul just said and I just reiterated in my own
words, verse 11 of Galatians 3, now it is evident that no
one is justified, how? Before God by the law, by obedience,
by doing well, by doing good, by striving, by trying, by changing
their heart. Nor does the Bible teach that
God changes us and presents us before Himself in some way that's
even better than we were before. What greater sin is there than
the sin of self-righteousness? Jesus says, according to the
New Testament gospel narratives, that those self-righteous people
are the ones who should wish they'd never been born. Because
they cause fear, and horror, and terror, and trouble, and
trials, and burdens, and they make Christians, they make the
sheep of God walk around worried that they're not doing it right,
and they're not going, oh, you're antinomian. No, I'm not. We exercise
church discipline, and we teach the truth according to the counsel
of Christ, but we are not going to conflate God's redemptive
work in the sending of the Son into the world to save His people
with the outcome of what is blessed. What is prudent, what is beneficial
for us as people. You do not have to eat in order
to be alive, but buddy, you are not going to live well. If you don't eat long enough,
you will die. You should be malnourished. The righteous shall live by faith. What does that mean? Trusting, resting, hoping at
peace with God through Jesus Christ Himself. The law is not
of faith. Rather, the one who does them
shall live by them. Our hope and our assurance And
the coming of Christ is in our response, in our doing, in our
obedience, in our motivation, in our maturity, that we have
misplaced our hope. And that's what happened in Galatia.
They were fine. They were at peace. And folks just like Pelagius,
if you know your church history, came along and said, you boys
and girls aren't living right. One thing you need to do to get
started is start circumcising each other. You need to start doing this,
you need to start doing that, you need to start doing the other.
Goodness, let's just all wear the silver suit. Call it the
Jesus foil. Be done with it. The law is not
a faith, but the one who does them shall live by them. So when
we live by them and we're not fulfilling them, we're going
to die by them. Verse 13, Christ redeemed us
from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. This
is why he was born into the world. For it is written, cursed is
everyone who is hanged on a tree. So that in Christ Jesus, the
blessing of Abraham, might come to the Gentiles so that we might
receive the promised spirit through faith. In other words, we know
and trust That God has given us His Spirit. We call Him Papa
because it is innate. Because we've been given and
shown the reality of the Incarnate Son. So here we are at this day
looking at the mission of Christ. And this mission of Christ is
to wash the feet of His people. The mission of Christ is to cleanse
us and to wash us. How did He do it? Through the
breaking of His body and the shedding of His blood, He washed
us before His Father. And that's why we take the Lord's
Table every week. To remind us of the time when
Jesus shared the same good report with His disciples and they just
still couldn't quite get it until the deed was done. But he secured them. He preserved
them. He even told Peter, we saw last
week, Satan asked to sift you. What did Jesus do? He interceded. He prayed for Peter that his
faith may prevail. You're going to deny me, Peter? Never. You're going to deny me,
Peter. You're going to deny me. I'm God. I know a little bit.
And when it's all said and done, you're going to come back to
me. It's not about your zeal, Peter.
It's not about your affection, John. It's not about your money. It's not about your ability.
It's not about your influence. It's all about Jesus. It's all
about Him. He's saying it's all about me.
I've done the work. I've got it. I've got you. I've bought
you. And there's nothing that can take you away from me, even
yourself. You will not escape me, Jonah. And you can be bitter all you
want, but in the end, your bitterness will be turned to joy. Because
you will see me, who I am. And I will eat with you, because
your feet will be clean. You can sit with me at the table
of the divine wedding. And we'll all be clean. And the
sea of glass is a symbol of peace. And sometimes I like to say it's
a symbol of cleanliness. No one has to wash anything. Hallelujah. Because we're righteous before
the Father now. And one day, our bodies will be made likewise.
Let's celebrate Christmas from that point today. Let's pray. I thank You, Father, for the
opportunity to worship and for the Word that You've given us
and for the joy that is coming to the world. Jesus Christ, Your
Son, And I thank You so much, Lord, that You've provided a
sacrifice for Yourself and Your Son, Jesus. Lord, from my studies
and all of the years of knowing and thinking through these things,
this teaching today, Lord, has led my head into four or five
hours of amazing and important things. May this coming year
be a time of learning and celebration and worship for us as a family. a family of faith. Help us to
grow closer to one another in truth, closer to one another
in spirit. Help us to pray for one another
and to serve one another and to do not the way the world teaches
us and makes us feel pressured and burdened, but Lord, as your
Word has taught us, to celebrate Christ together. To have good
times together. to be there for one another as
we've been equipped, as the grace that you've given us that saves
us also equips us to be ministers to one another, as you call us.
So, Lord, we thank you for family, for the family of faith. We thank
you for the family of life that those people that we call our
blood kin, some of which do not know the gospel, some of which
do not care. But Father, your will be done. You will call those
who have given to your son to truth. Let us be the heralders
of that truth as You've called us to. We thank You for it in
Christ's name. We thank You for heaven. Amen.