Hebrews so I think it would be
fun to do Hebrews because I'm doing it on Tuesday and I'm really
loving it I think it would be fun and I think it's fitting
Romans Galatians Hebrews you know we're sort of good there
tonight I want to go through the entirety the Lord willing
of the basic outline I look at and I think there's no way but
we might we might go through the basic point of the third
chapter of Galatians and so for that let's just get started and
read and then when I'll pause I'll talk and then I'll read
some more. Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? It was
before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you this, did you
receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun
by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you
suffer so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain? Does
He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among
you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith, just
as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness?
Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.
And the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles
by faith preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying,
in you shall all the nations be blessed. So then those who
are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.
So we'll stop there and talk about this. Paul has expressed
himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ. Paul has charged the
Galatians with receiving a false gospel, that is, that little
element of circumcision or law keeping or works to any degree. as assurance or adding to salvation,
adding to redemption. And he has basically said that
God has given him the gospel and then he has preached the
gospel and that if God's gospel is tampered with that those who
hold fast to the tampered gospel have no gospel. And then in chapter
3 as we closed out last week we see he says, you foolish Galatians. foolish Galatians. I think that
sentiment should ring in our ears for a moment. What in the
world is foolishness? Well, I'll tell you, you might
not be able to put your finger on everything that is foolishness,
but it is foolish to play with the gospel of grace. It is foolish
to play with the sovereignty of God. It is foolish to assert
one's opinion, or theories, or traditions, or histories, or
teaching alongside or over in authority the Word of God. It
is foolish. It is foolish not because it
is damaging to the system or that it does something to the
architecture of Christianity, but it is foolish because it
mocks God. It mocks God. And Paul asks a
series of questions here in his rhetoric in chapter 3. And I
want to go through them in not rapid way, but in a sequential
way to show just how important it is to understand what this
foolishness looked like. This is what foolishness looks
like. First he says, who has bewitched
you? Now being bewitched, that's not
a word that we use much. Growing up, I watched the television
show Bewitched, and there was always controversy. Is this a
wicked, evil thing to watch? Is it comedy? Is it good television? Does it honor the Lord? I don't
think there's any honoring to the Lord in any type of television,
whether it be Christian TV or not, especially that I don't
know of any sovereign grace television productions. It's almost all
Christian movies and television by that label. Preach a false
gospel. So, enough said of that. But
bewitched. It's as if Paul was saying to
them, someone has come along and cast a spell on you. And
everything that you said you believe now, you have somehow
forgotten. You have somehow placed Christ
underneath or beside some other thing that could possibly be
equal. Or as important, that you've
taken Christ down off the cross and you've put yourself up there
with Him in some way. You have been bewitched. Who has bewitched
you? Now the crazy thing about that
question is He doesn't ever give them time to answer. And that's
the whole point of a question that is rhetorical. They are
to be poured out into the ears, into the minds and the consciences
of the hearers. And then we in turn, in the same rapid succession,
answer those questions in our minds as quickly as we hear them.
And the first thing that would come to my mind if I were a Christian
in Galatia, when I heard the elder of the church read this
letter and say, who has bewitched you is one of two things would
come to my mind. If it were me, I would say, am
I bewitched? Am I bewitched? Has somebody
deceived me? Has somebody cast a spell on
me? Is there something going on that I'm not aware of? And
that is one of the primary realities of being bewitched. It's that
you don't know it. You don't know it. And then he
explains. It was before your eyes that
Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. It was before your
eyes. Some of you saw the history unfold. Some of you heard the gospel.
You all who have come to know Christ heard Him, preached and
taught, knew the gospel. You heard the gospel through
me and through other men of faith who preached to you the crucified
Christ. How now have you come to forget
that that ever took place. How now have you come to grasp
hold of something other than Christ? Why has your hermeneutic
changed? Why are you looking at the Scriptures
through the lens of Judaism rather than the lens of grace and the
lens of sovereignty and the lens of the power of God? And so now
Paul continues in his line of questioning. He says, let me
ask you this. Did you receive the Spirit by
works of the law? Did God look into your life and
see the exquisite way in which you followed after Him and the
way you spoke and studied and prayed and followed the rules
of engagement and the context of worship? And did He say to
Himself, look at the pleasantries of this pious child of Mine,
I shall give life. Now, of course, the answer to
that, even with our legalist neighbors, they would all say,
absolutely not. But Paul's argument is, but then
what you do by implication shows either you have never believed
or you have been bewitched. You have been fooled. You have
begun to listen to something that is not the Spirit. If you
think that God gave you the spirit of life because of your obedience,
because of your morality, because of your adherence to the precepts
of law. I really want to finish this
whole chapter tonight. If not, I'm going to skip over and talk
about something at the very end. Are you so foolish? Are you so
foolish to think that you received the Spirit by works of the law,
or did you receive it by the hearing with faith? having begun
by the Spirit, life given to you by God the Spirit, now you've
begun that way, you've been born again by the Spirit of God, you
are in Christ because of God's merciful gift of faith, because
of your awareness now by God the Spirit of the finished work
of Jesus, now are you so foolish to think that that's how you
were born, now you maintain your life by being perfected in the
flesh? Now this, see I could really
take some time here and maybe I will by the Lord's mercy in
the weeks to come. But I think Paul deals with this very clearly
and in a snappy way. We are not growing more and more
righteous. We are not getting better concerning
sin. Now we may in our own eyes and
we may in the eyes of others. We may even by the standard,
if we all were to measure out sins, we would put them on a
scale from horrible to not so bad. And we would think, well,
not buckling my seatbelt is not so bad, but running my car into
my neighbor's garage because his dog pooped in my driveway,
pretty bad. Or killing someone because I'm
mad versus killing someone in self-defense. Are they even sinful
to do that in self-defense? And people would argue that it
was. I argue that it's not. Or I told my boss that I was
late because I had an upset stomach, not because I was trying to finish
the last section of Spider-Man and forgot that I had to go to
work. You know, the movie, one of the movies. I just, just a
few more minutes. Is that lie really bad? Or I
didn't read my Bible all week and I skipped church last week
because I was preparing for the Super Bowl. You know, is that
a really bad sin? The list could go on. There is
no such thing as being perfected in the flesh. And in the economy
of God's righteousness, there is no such thing as a sin that
is lesser or greater than the other. There are greater consequences
in the temporal world concerning our sin. If I run my neighbor
over versus grumble under my breath, there's a big difference.
But before the holiness of God, I am guilty of death forever.
I'm worthy of death forever. And the only escape of that is
that Christ satisfied God's wrath for me, gave himself for me because
of his love for me, and God is satisfied with me, and I am justified
before him, and that is mine by faith alone, not by the works
of the law. So there is no man, woman, or
child in this world who has ever grown and matured in mortification
to the point that they could ever be called more holy, more
righteous, more set apart, or the word that is so often used,
sanctified. Cultural, historical Christianity
has massaged very eloquently a conflation of growing and maturing
with salvation and redemption to the point that they are just
Galatians. Worse, the bewitched Galatians
who have adopted Judaizers theology. You are not perfected by the
flesh. You are not perfected in the
flesh by the Spirit. You are either perfected in Christ
or you stand condemned before God. There is no in-between. And the majority of Christianity,
whether it be free will, Arminian style, evangelical minded, Protestant,
I care about the world, let's preach some type of Christ. If
they're not preaching the Christ who saves sovereignly, ultimately,
to the uttermost, period, they're preaching a false Christ. And people who believe that have
been bewitched. And let me give you an example
in Scripture of what that bewitching looks like. It looks like what
Paul tells the Thessalonians, that God will grant a great delusion
to cause them to believe the lie. The lie of the angel of
light is Christianity in a box, but not grace. It is easier for those in the
cults and world religions to quickly see the truth of the
gospel than it is for the religious in the Christian culture. Are you being perfect in flesh?
No, you fools. Did you suffer so many things
for nothing? Did you suffer for the sake of the gospel for nothing?
Did you just assert that you believed in Christ and consequently
deal with all the pain and the harassment and the persecution
for nothing? If indeed it was for nothing.
You see what he's doing here. He's challenging the believers
to see what they're stepping in. He's not saying this is true
of them. He's questioning them so that
they would recognize that what they were doing when they gave
any credence whatsoever to this encroachment upon grace, that
they were dumb as a bag of grits. They were fools. They were bewitched. Does He who supplies the Spirit,
He's already said over there, right? Jesus Christ who gave
Himself for our sins to deliver us from this present evil age,
grace and peace to you. Jesus Christ who what? Gave me
the gospel of grace. Does He who supplies the Spirit
to you, and works miracles among you, do so by works of the law
or by hearing with faith. Which is it, church? You see
what Paul's done? You cannot have it both ways.
You are either in Christ or you are working along with Christ.
And if you're working along with Christ, he will say, depart from
me, you worker of iniquity, I never knew you. Judas worked with Christ and
for Christ. Thomas was saved by the mercy
of Christ. Thomas was found in Christ. Judas was found beside Him. Justice Abraham, the hearing
with faith is how He who supplies the Spirit works miracles among
you by faith. the miracle of the new birth,
the miracle of faith, the miracle of assurance, the miracle of
understanding, the miracle of perceiving the gospel. It's a
work of God. And Abraham believed God by faith,
and it was counted to him as righteousness. Did God give Abraham righteousness
by the works of the law? No. And as you'll see over here, there were 430 years after Abraham
was justified by the Spirit of God before the law ever existed. No then. Of course, the answer
to these things are obvious, right? The believers go on, what
have we done? We're such fools. Listen to these
people giving ear to these people. Do you know why so many times
Christians get so offensive and irritating and just obnoxiously
rude? It's because they give ear in
the name of being cordial. to such nonsense and such foolishness. Because they don't know how to
handle the debate when the enemy comes along and wants to tap
us on the shoulder and say, hey, hey, hey, hey, you better put
this on your collar. It'll make you a better Christian.
Here's a better bumper sticker for you. Here's a better movie
for you to watch. Here's a better function of your
family. Here, do this, look this way
and walk in this manner and you'll be a better believer. You can't
be a better believer. God the Father has granted you
the faith to see and know that he knows you or you don't. Can you be a better Christ follower?
Yeah. Can you be a better lover of
the Lord? Absolutely. Can we grow better in our love
and service to one another? Good works, which always refers
to the service of one another in the faith. Yes, we can grow. We can do that. What's that got to do with our
justification? Nothing! Because God does not always grant
the same measure of power to each of us. Just like he did
not give the same measure of suffering to all the apostles,
John died in his old age sitting in a room on the Isle of Patmos.
Yes, in exile, but in a leisurely place while Paul had his head torn
from his body. While Peter was crucified and
died of asphyxiation by being hung upside down. Know then that it is those of
faith who are the sons of Abraham. It is we who are the recipients
of the promise of eternal life who are truly counted as the
sons of Abraham. And the scripture, verse 8, foreseeing
that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, the scripture preached
the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, In you shall all the
nations be blessed. Now, I'm not going to get on
this. I just want to say this. Paul
just said that was the gospel. Now, does it include all? No,
but that's good news. That's the good news of God and
Jesus Christ, that through Abraham, all the nations would be blessed. So then, those who are of faith
are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. Why Abraham? Because he's the
father of Israel. Literally. And he is through whom the promises
of God came from the garden. To Abraham. To us. in Christ alone. So we who are of faith, we who
believe in Christ, we who believe in the witness of God concerning
his son, grace, grace upon grace upon grace. Are counted as offspring. We
are the sons and the daughters of promise. Not the sons and
daughters who got in line. Not the sons and daughters who
did it rightly. Not the sons and daughters who came to our
senses and believed of our own volition. We are the sons and
daughters of promise. We are the ones to whom God promised
life. And the only identifier is that
we believe in the proclamation of the promised one, Jesus. And
everything that he did for his elect. Paul goes on to explain, verse
10. For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse. For it is written, Cursed be
everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book
of the law, and do them. Now it is evident that no one
is justified before God by the law. Notice he says that, it
is evident. For the righteous shall live
by faith. But the law is not of faith, rather, the one who
does them shall live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse
of the law by becoming a curse for us, 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. So let's
unpack this. Paul reasserts. Anyone who relies
on the works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, and
he quotes several Old Testament passages there. This specific
one comes from Deuteronomy 27 someplace. I don't know exactly
off the top of my head. Cursed be everyone who does not
abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. So what this is saying is the
exact same thing that John, that Paul says in Romans 3, All have
sinned and fall short of the glory of God. All, none are righteous,
none seek after God. So now it is evident. Paul appeals
to the Old Testament law to prove that even in the giving of the
law, the Deuteronomy, the second reading of the law, even after
the second giving of the law, he shows and appeals to the argument
of the Old Testament law itself that no one is anything but cursed
because of the law. No one is justified before God
by the law for the righteous. So what does it mean to be justified?
To be righteous before God. That is my gospel presentation. How is a man righteous before
God? And then the follow-up to that
is, and how do you know that applies to you? And it's a simple
answer. It's what we've learned our entire
time together. through the years. We are righteous
before God in a simple sense because of Jesus Christ, who
He is, what He did and for whom. He imputes His righteousness
and takes our judgment and we bear it not. And that's the answer. What does it have to do with
the law? What does it have to do with therefore now go sin
no more? What does it have to do with anything else except
life eternal in Christ? Now, the question then could
come for us, and we have the epistles, praise God, for the
believers only. The letters to the New Testament
were written only and always only to only elect, redeemed,
faith-granted people. Not one time does a New Testament
letter directly approach or communicate to a reprobate or an unbelieving
person. Never. To the saints, to the
saints, to the saints, to the saints, to the beloved, to the
brothers, to the sisters, to the elect, to the church. Never. And to all those scoundrels
who think they're saved but aren't among you. They're not even considered
in the writing of the New Testament. They are not the focus of the
apostles whatsoever in this writing. The Word of God in the same way
was written to the elect of God that they may know His grace. But yet it's written in a language
that all people can understand. A saved man, an unsaved man,
a smart man, a not so smart man, a rich man, a poor man, a pretty
man, an ugly man, and a woman in all those categories as well. But the only ones who can perceive
it for what it truly is are those for whom Christ died, who have
been given to him by the Father, and they have been granted such
a great blessing to see. The righteous justified means you're righteous.
It means you're perfect. It means in every, listen to
this, in every account Your character, your nature,
your mind, your heart, your essence, your being is just as God is. How is it that the righteous
live justified? By faith in the one who justified
them. By faith in the one who laid his life down for them.
By faith in the scriptures who teach of this one, Jesus the
Christ. But the law, in contrast, verse
12, is not of faith. It is not of faith. I've got
to finish it. The law is not of faith. Rather,
the one who does them shall live by them. And the one who lives
by them, as he's already said, must do them, and cursed are
the ones who live by the law but he gives us an out there.
Verse 13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by
becoming a curse for us. Now we have fancy terms, justification,
atonement, substitutionary atonement, limited atonement, all these
different theological phrases that have been constructed throughout
the years by men in their mother tongue. But in simple form, we see that
Jesus died in the place of those who believe, and those who don't
believe, He did not die for them. We see that those for whom Christ
died are no longer cursed, no matter how good they live. Even
if a man can be born and never disobey any way or sin in any
way, he is condemned before God. Because he's under the law. The
law of God shows the righteousness of God's justice. And if you
remember my teaching in Romans 3, I like to impose an equal standing with the idea
of God's righteousness and God's justice as synonymous. Christ redeemed us from the curse
of the law by becoming a curse for us. So as it is written,
cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree so that in Christ Jesus,
how are we righteous? It's because it's been granted
to us and we know this by faith. Just as it was granted to Abraham.
the blessing of Abraham would come to the Gentiles so that
we might receive the promised spirit through faith. We believe
God makes us alive, you see. Saving faith believes that. Saving
faith believes that God alone and his power made us alive. I am a believer because I believe
that God and his sovereignty caused me to be born again to
a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
That's an exact quote from Peter. But it's not enough, is it? It's
such a mess here in the region of Galatia that Paul wants to
keep on going. See, it says to give a human
example, brothers. Brothers, sisters, siblings in Christ,
you who are elect, been saved through Jesus Christ, who have
believed by the Spirit of God, To give a human example, brothers,
even with a man-made promise, covenant, no one annuls it or
adds to it once it has been ratified. even with a man-made contract.
What happens if you don't uphold your end of a contract? You get
your name on a piece of paper and the deputies serve you and
you show up before a Supreme Judge who decides they're going
to take your property and give it to the contract holder because
you didn't fulfill your end of the deal. So no matter what,
the contract's fulfilled, you see. Now the promises were made to
Abraham and his offspring. The contract and the covenant
made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, and to his offsprings,
referring to many, but to offspring, referring to one. and to your
offspring who is Jesus Christ. This is what I mean, Paul says.
The law which came 430 years after the promise, covenant,
and contract that God made with Abraham does not annul the promise
previously ratified by God. Now, I want you to look at this.
God cannot not save His elect. There is no elect person that
will go to the judgment. God's promise is ratified. The conditions of that contract
are His to keep. And just because some other type
of contract looking thing came almost a half a millennia later,
makes no difference to the original because the original is the point. When did it come? When men started
thinking, you know what, I'm doing pretty good. I'm standing
before God in a way, whoo, look at me, here I come God, better
watch out, get my seat ready. Yeah. That's what happens when God
shows, oh really? Y'all think y'all got it? Let
me show you, you don't have it. Let me show you a glimpse of
my Son. Let me give the law to Moses.
And I'm going to show you what righteousness looks like. Love
me with all your heart and mind and soul. We're all done. But Jesus did. Have no other
gods before me. Do not covet. Do not lie. Obey your parents. This is Jesus
Christ, the offspring of Abraham and the promise eternal life,
who is the righteousness of God. And by faith, we are declared
the righteousness of God because we get God's holiness on our
count. That is good news, beloved. And
no amount of law bringing or contracts or covenants from here
to beyond can ever nullify that which God has ratified. Because if it could, then the
promise of life is void. 4 verse 18, the inheritance comes
by the law if it comes by the law. It no longer comes by the
promise. If the promise, if the inheritance
comes by the law, if life comes by the law in any way, in any
form, if it has any part, and this is where people who are
lost teach sheep sometimes how to twist scripture and they don't
even know it. They've been bewitched. And I'm going to unbewitch you
tonight. And no longer comes by promise
But God gave it to Abraham by a promise. Why then the law? Because that's the question.
What's the law good for? It shows us Jesus. That's the
big answer. Here's the contextual answer. It was added because
of wicked sinners and their sin, transgressions, until The offspring
should come to whom the promise has been made. The law came to
point to Jesus, so that when Jesus came on the scene, people
go, the law of God made flesh. The promised one. That is how
we are righteous. According to God, standing before
Him, justified as law keepers, because Jesus is the righteousness,
not the letter. And it was put in place through
angels by an intermediary, Moses, we know that. Now an intermediary
implies more than one, but God is one. And then he starts the
question again, is the law then contrary to the promises of God?
You see, it cannot be when you see it for what it is. Oh, that
was loud. Wow, guys, I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna break dance
up here before it's over with. I love this truth because this is where
I can sleep well at night. when all hell has fallen around
me and the world is ready to suck me into the abyss of nothingness
and my soul is pleading for some type of joy, this is it. And
nothing can shake it. Certainly not. Is the law contrary
to the promise of God? Certainly not. For if a law had
been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed
be by the law. Righteousness is never intended
to be by the law. This so-called historical verbiage
of the covenant of works and oh, the covenant of works is
an imaginative reality of men who study well, smart. But they fail to read this. It's
not a promise. It never was a promise. There
was never a covenant of works. It was a curse of works. Then righteousness would indeed
be by the law, but the scripture put everything in prison under
sin. That's what the law did. The law came and then what does
Paul say? Men are without excuse. Well, I didn't know. Well, you
knew now. You'd know now that your only way you're going to
stand righteous before me is the promised offspring of Abraham,
who was Jesus Christ, my son. Listen to him, for in him I am
well pleased. So you think those words have
some little significant, but that is the promise fulfilled. This is my beloved son with whom
I am well pleased. Scripture imprisoned everything
under sin so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might
be given to those who believe. Now, before faith came, verse
23, this is this is where the dumb stuff starts happening. Before faith came, we were held
captive under the law. Listen to the context. What's
he talking about? What's the imagery here? Captive under the
law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then
the law was our... What's your Bible say? Yell it
out. Master, schoolmaster, task... Guardian. What else? Anybody
else? So the law was our... Anything
say teacher? That's sort of what you said.
What is the context there? Is this a schoolhouse? We were held captive under the
law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So the
law was our nurse, teacher, instructor, guardian. The word guardian there
is better translated prison guard. The law was our prison guard.
He was our guard. He kept us locked in the cage
until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith.
Friends, those people who say that the law teaches us of our
need of salvation have never been born of God. And they hammer
it, and they call us antinomians, and they defame the name of God. They blaspheme the Spirit of
God. They spit upon the blood of Jesus. And they have followings. They have great followings. The
Word of God, the law of God in evangelism is about as dumb as
having people drink poison so they can get healthy. To each his own, I guess, by
the mercy of God we see. And I know I get angry, I get
angry as the Spirit of God is angered and enraged over such
blasphemy. That's what Paul says, and we
talked about it yesterday, Hebrews 10, 31, enraging the Spirit of
grace. When we think the law has anything
to do with teaching us something to prepare us for Grace other
than grace alone is our only hope? We were imprisoned. We were held. Now we could massage those things
and people could, in a philosophical way, must come to a fight. Well,
it can be utilized and understood this. Well, we can understand
things in the lens we want to put in front of us. We can put
on rose-colored glasses or law-colored glasses or yellow glasses and
we can say, look at the tint of this. The text is playing. The context speaks for itself.
We don't go to a word study and look at dictionaries that are
written by men historically to determine what the Bible means.
We look at the context and the word in context has nothing to
do with teaching. Anything has everything to do
with imprisoning everyone. The law imprisons you. The law
convicts you. The law condemns you. And this
is not the only place. We just went, we went through
a good chunk of Romans very quickly over the last year and a half.
It's there as well. So now that faith has come, we
are no longer under, there it is, I'm losing my space. We are
no longer under a guard. We're no longer locked up. We're no longer shown that we're
guilty. We're shown that we're innocent. Because of the punishment
of Christ, the wrath of God is satisfied. Do you understand
that? For in Christ Jesus, you are
all sons of God through faith. For as many of you were found
in Christ, baptized into Christ, have put on Christ, there's neither
Jew nor Greek There's neither slave nor free. There's neither
male and female, for you are all one in Christ. And if you
are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offsprings. You are heirs according
to the contract of God, the promise of life. It is yours. Yours. And you cannot refuse it. You
cannot refuse the life of God. You cannot refuse the spirit
of grace. You cannot refuse. The way that so many people refuse
it, though, is that they attach the law to it. And they come to be aware of
the language of the gospel of grace, but then they add on the
garment of justification by works, assurance by works, confidence
by works, faith by works. And in doing so, they are condemned.
They're condemned. I'm astonished. Some of you were
so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ
and turning to a different gospel, not that there's another one,
but there are some to trouble you and I want to want to distort
the gospel of Christ. But if we or an angel of heaven
should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach,
let him be accursed. So it is not rude, unless we
are rude in the way we deal with it, to speak the truth in love
and say, what you are confessing is a curse. When people hold
to the law as an inkling of their hope, when they hold to morality
and to a transformative life. Someone shared with me a week
before last, in a circle that I'm a part of on some social
media, but I mean we know a lot of these men in real life and
engage often, but someone shared that faith in Jesus Christ allows us to see, how was it
put, is awaiting or trusting in the fact that Christ will
change and transform our lives. And I'm like, really? This is the biggest foolishness
I've ever seen. This is bewitching. This is bewitching. I'll read it to you. I want to
get it right because I want you to see just how frustrating this
is. Well, I might not be able to
find it. Lord knows. It doesn't matter. I'll talk about it after
service. Here we go. Faith is reliance upon the blood
of Christ to produce holiness in our lives. Now what's that mean? Depends on how you define holiness. But the word produce explains
it all. God isn't producing in our lives
a set of partners for Him. God is imputing His righteousness
to us. That's the big difference. Everything
we've learned today would violate that. Friends, that man is a
pastor. And that sentiment is very, very
abundant. It is a false gospel. And it is damnable. May we be
gentle, but forward. long-suffering and prayerful,
but unmovable in our understanding of what grace alone implies. And to know that a majority of
our fellow brothers and sisters in the faith are truly lost because
they hope in something other than Christ alone. May God grant
them repentance. which is the gift of faith. Let's pray. Lord, I pray that
what we have learned this day would challenge us and empower
us and equip us beyond our understanding, beyond everything that we have
come to hope in and our flesh, all the little
things that continue to gnaw at us and make us want to work
a little bit differently to just to be sure, help us to see that
there is no room for a safety net in the gospel, that it is
either Christ or it is nothing. That we are the sons and daughters
of the promise or we have no hope. that everything related
to eternal life has nothing to do with us or our lives, but
has everything to do with Your work through Your Son on His
cross for His people. Teach us this, give us peace,
and hold us as You promised to the very end. In Jesus' name,
amen.