Open your Bibles, if you would,
to Galatians chapter 5. Galatians chapter 5. Now, in
the book of Galatians, Paul is dealing with the error which
the Judaizers have bought into the churches in Galatia, which
is you must be circumcised and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
order to be saved according to them. And in chapter 4 of the
book of Galatians from verse 22 to the end of that chapter,
the Holy Spirit gives us an allegory to help us understand the difference
between law and grace. Turn with me if you would to
Galatians chapter 4 first, and then we'll be in chapter 5. Name of the message is Stand
Fast. Now the Old Testament is full
of allegories that point to the Lord Jesus Christ as the only
Savior for sinners. Galatians chapter 4 verses 22
to 31, let's read that. For it is written that Abraham
had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a free woman. But he who was of the bondwoman
was born after the flesh. But he of the free woman was
by promise. Which things are an allegory?
For these are the two covenants, the one from Mount Sinai, which
gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is Mount
Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem, which now is and
is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem, which is above,
is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written,
Rejoice, thou barren, that bearest not. Break forth and cry, thou
that travailest not, for the desolate, hath many more children
than she which hath a husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was,
are the children of promise. Now let that sink in right there
for us as believers. He's writing to believers. He's
just told these born-again, blood-washed saints that he's writing to that
they're the children of promise. remembers who's writing this,
this is Paul, he's been stooped in Hebrew history, hasn't he? He's been taught. Now he's finally be given an
understanding of the promise to Abraham. So we as the children of God
are the children of promise, the true Israel of God. But as then he that was born
after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit,
even so it is now. Why do people of the world persecute
those who are born again? They've always done it. Look at that. Nevertheless, what
sayeth the scripture? Cast out the bond woman and her
son, For the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son
of the free woman. So then brethren, we are not
children of the bondwoman, but of the free." Now there's no real understanding
of the Old Testament until it's understood as a revelation of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Because The failure to see Christ
the Messiah in the Old Testament left the Jews in their blindness,
didn't it? They're still blind, even to this day. And many Gentiles
are also likewise blind, right? You remember what John Newton
penned? And every believer can say this. I once was blind, but
now I see. but lost, was lost, but now I'm
found." It's wonderful. So we can't understand the Old
Testament until we realize it's a revelation of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It speaks of Him. Many believe the Old Testament
is a book of laws to live by. They try to live by the laws
that are in that book in the Old Testament, right? But we
saw this morning in Sunday school that if you break one, if you
breach the law once, you're guilty of it all. So people who are trying to live
by the law are just heaping condemnation upon themselves. And you know what they are? They're
self-righteous. They're trying to justify themselves
before God. Christ fulfilled the Old Testament
Scriptures, beloved. They were all about Him. They
were all about His work. They spoke of Him. What He would
do while He was on this earth. And again, He came to what? Save
His people from their sins. The Old Testament said, there's
someone coming. And the New Testament reveals
him, doesn't it? It's wonderful. The New Testament is merely a
record of Christ's fulfillment of the Old Testament. It's a
record. The message of the Old Testament
and New are the same. Salvation through the Lord Jesus
Christ. Salvation is of the Lord, it
says in the Old Testament. And in the New it says, neither
is there salvation in any other. And that's speaking of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Salvation's of the Lord. Who was Jesus Christ? He was the Lord of glory incarnate
in the flesh. Salvation's only in him. And
that's God's message. And as a preacher, that must
be my message and the message of my brothers who get up and
proclaim the gospel. That must be our message. Christ came to save sinners,
of whom I'm chief, Paul wrote. And I know we as believers, we'd
stand in line with Paul and say, no, it's me. And the allegory which we just
looked at clearly stated that Ishmael was born of the flesh,
but Isaac was born of the spirit. And God plainly declares to his
enlightened children, now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the
children of the promise. Children of promise. Let that
sink in for us. Boy, may that be warm our souls
this week and be a balm to us. We who are born again are the
children of promise. And that's not my opinion, is
it, or yours. That's what the scripture states. And who's the
author of the Scriptures? The Holy Spirit of God, right?
Isn't that wonderful? Do we deserve to be called the
children of promise? Absolutely not, do we? No, we don't merit
it at all, we don't deserve it, we can't earn it. But praise
be to God, the Scriptures declare those who are born again of the
Holy Spirit of God are the children of promise. Hallelujah. Did Isaac have anything to do
with the promise that God made to Abraham? Isaac wasn't even born, was he? He had nothing to do with it.
But we had nothing to do with the promise that our Heavenly
Father made to the Lord Jesus Christ in eternity. Isaac's physical and spiritual
birth was a miracle, right? Because Sarah was past her time
of having children. It was a miracle that only God
performed, right? Did Isaac contribute anything?
He contributed nothing, did he? Nothing. He contributed nothing
to his existence in life. He was born. Well, beloved, we're born again
by the Holy Spirit of God, and we contribute nothing to that. Absolutely nothing. It's all
by the mercy and grace of God. And Isaac inherited all of Abraham's
riches, didn't he? Just because he has a son. Because he was the only heir.
He inherited all the riches of glory because he was a a joint
heir with Jesus Christ. In all of God's promised children,
we have a full inheritance, beloved. We have a full inheritance reserved
for us in heaven and it cannot be defiled because it's in Christ. Praise the mighty name of Jehovah. Ishmael was cast out because
he was a product of the flesh and not a child of promise. And
who was it that made the difference between Ishmael and Isaac? It was God, wasn't it? God told
Abraham to cast out Ishmael. Who made us to differ? God made us to differ, didn't
he? He made us to differ. So these
truths cannot be denied. All who are trusting in the works
of the flesh, they will be cast out of God's sight forever. Because they cannot be heirs
with God's promised children. They cannot be heirs with God's
promised children. And it's only God who makes the
difference. It's only God. There's absolutely
no room for man's work in the salvation of God's people. And the allegory we just read
brings that forward, doesn't it? Makes a plain distinction
between law and grace, works and grace. The two just cannot
mix. They cannot mix, beloved. They're
like oil and water. They cannot mix. And the problem that men have
with that is it goes against their pride. Surely there's something
I have to do. No. Trust Christ in Him alone. And we do that by God's grace,
don't we? And by God's mercy. Let's read verses 1 to 6 in Galatians
chapter 5. Stand fast, therefore, in the
liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled
again with the yoke of bondage. Behold, I, Paul, say unto you,
that if ye be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. Now
again, the Judaizers had come in, and they said, you must be
circumcised and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ in order to
be saved. And what does Paul say here?
Very clearly. He says that circumcision won't
profit you nothing in the eyes of God. Because we're saved by
grace alone plus nothing, right? No works of man. That's a work
of man, isn't it? That's a work of man. For I testify
again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the
whole law. So if one says you must be circumcised in order
to be saved, along with having faith in Christ, now they've
got to fulfill the whole law. And we saw on Sunday school today
in James 2, verse 10, that if you break the law on one point,
you're guilty of it all. And that brings forth the universal
depravity of man. the universal guilt of man before
God. And it says, Christ is become
of no effect unto you, whosoever you are justified by the law.
The law can never justify us, can it? Never. And it says, ye
are fallen from grace. Now people take that and run
with that verse. This is speaking of those who have professed Christ
but have proven to be false, proven to add works to salvation. For we through the Spirit wait
for the hope of righteousness by faith. For in Jesus Christ
neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision,
but faith worketh by love. So he's bringing forth that that
was a ritual in the Old Testament, or something they had to do in
the Old Testament, but now What is the circumcision
now? It's the circumcision of the
heart, isn't it? And that's performed by the Holy Spirit of God. It's
an operation of God, the Holy Spirit. And we see here the Holy
Spirit has moved the Apostle Paul to give us these encouraging
words in the first verse of chapter five. Look at this. Stand fast.
Stand fast. Therefore in the liberty wherewith
Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the
yoke of bondage, Well, we know he's talking about law and grace,
because we read the last portion of chapter four. And remember,
there was no chapter breaks in these letters when they were
sent. They're just letters sent. So he's still on the same theme.
He's still talking to them against the Judaizers that say you must
be circumcised in order to be saved and have faith in Christ
also. It's no different than someone saying you have to be
baptized to be saved. That's just adding man's works.
That's all that is. Baptism is just an outward show
of an inward conversion. That's all that is. But there's
sects out there that say you have to do this or you're not
saved. Well, that's a false gospel, just plain and simple. Anyone
that says, anyone, and I mean anyone, that says you have to
do something along with heaven, faith, and Christ, you can mark
it, it's a false gospel. And I mean anything you have
to do. Something you have to perform. And remember, a work
is not just something we do, it's something we think to as
well. It's an action of thought as well. The Greek word covers
that, that it's an action of thought and deed. So thinking
I have to do something to be saved other than Christ alone,
that's false. It's false. So we're to stand
fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, beloved. And God's preachers, we're constantly
encouraging God's saints, God's born-again people, to cling to
the Scripture that says Christ is the end of the law for righteousness.
He's it. He's the end of the law. He came,
we saw this morning, to fulfill the law, right? In our place. He's our righteousness. He's
our righteousness. Therefore, stand fast in that
blessed truth, beloved. Stand fast in the truth that
Christ is my righteousness. And Jesus Christ perfectly obeyed
the law of God in our place, right? According to the will of the
Father, He made us righteous. Christ has made us righteous,
justified. That means we're rendered righteous. And He made us righteous in God's
sight. And nothing that we can do enters into that equation,
nothing. He did it 2,000 years ago. We
weren't even born. So stand fast in that truth,
beloved. Stand fast in that truth. He made us righteous. How? By the sacrifice of himself.
He sanctified and perfected forever all his children, his people. Now, we're still sinners, aren't
we? We're still sinners. We still
struggle with sin. We will to the day we die. But in God's
eyes, he looks at us and sees Christ, the righteousness of
Christ. That's wonderful. Stand fast
in that truth, beloved. This week stand fast in that
truth. And Jesus Christ is every believer's
surety. He's seated in the heavens. He'd
make an intercession for us right now. For all his promised children.
For every one of his saints that he purchased with his precious
blood. He's Lord of all. He's a sovereign
ruler over the whole universe right now. And you know what? Here never,
ever, ever let one for whom he shed his blood for perish. Never. That's wonderful. We'll never perish in the flames,
or we won't see the wrath of God poured out upon us in hell,
and we won't He saved us. He's going to keep
us. No matter what. Do not lose one. Every born-again,
blood-washed child of God whom he died for 2,000 years ago,
even the ones who aren't born yet, if the Lord tarries and
there's some that aren't even born, he will get every one of
them. Every one of them. They all shall be saved. So stand
fast in that blessed truth, that if you're a child of God, you're
a child of promise, and He'll never leave you nor forsake you
or let you go. Stand fast in that truth. That's
liberty, isn't it? That's liberty for us. Now we,
brethren, as Isaac was the children of promise, our God is immutable.
He cannot change. What He purposed must come to
pass, right? Remember last week I said he
saved us on purpose? Right? It came to pass, didn't
it? Hallelujah. And every single
one of his sheep that he's purposed to be saved will be saved. It
shall come to pass. Stand fast in that truth. Stand
fast. All has been fulfilled by Christ.
Nothing was left undone. There's absolutely nothing for
us to do. It's all completed. It's all finished. And we're free from the ceremonial
law. We're not under the yoke of bondage anymore, beloved.
Temple worship, Aaron priesthood, holy days, animal sacrifices,
all these ceremonial laws under the Mosaic economy typified Christ,
and he fulfilled them all. He fulfilled them all. And God's
born-again children are free from the moral law as far as
righteousness is concerned, because Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness, for us. That's freeing, isn't it? Stand
fast in that truth, beloved. And God's enlightened children
and born-again children are being set free from the power of Satan,
from the power of darkness, and from the power of sin. Sin doesn't
have the grip it once had upon us. Now, we still sin, but it doesn't have the grip
it once had on us. It's not our master. Christ is our master. And now what happens when we
sin? We grieve, don't we? We grieve. And again, someone
says, well, I don't sin that much. Just say, ha, just look
at your dreams. Right? Oh my. We have the liberty as believers,
think of this too, we have the liberty as believers to approach
the throne of grace. To approach God's throne. We
have that liberty to do that. to take our cares and our worries
and anything in our life, any situation in our life, to the
throne of grace. We have the privilege of doing
that. Stand fast in that truth, beloved. Stand fast in that truth. We have the liberty to come here
and to worship God in spirit and truth. To hear the gospel. of salvation
in Christ and Him alone, of a complete, perfect, synatonic work accomplished
by the Lord Jesus Christ and Him alone. Rejoice, beloved. Rejoice. And we have the liberty
to love our brothers and sisters in Christ, right, and to enjoy
one another's fellowship. And we also have the liberty
to forgive one another, the liberty to overlook each other's faults,
The liberty to bear one another's burdens. The law of Moses does not give
us that liberty. It's strict. But in Christ, we have that liberty. Stand fast in that truth, beloved.
Stand fast in that hope. Look what it says in verse one
again. Stand fast, therefore, in the liberty wherewith Christ
hath made us free. Look at that. It's not a question. It's not, well, he might have
made us free. I love these little hinge words. Hath made us free. And be not again entangled, and
be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Don't go back
to that bondage. of do, do, do, do, do. And we
can slip into that. Oh, we can, we can. I got lots
of grave clothes still, beloved. And sometimes we read the scripture,
and one of them grave clothes just fall right off, and you
go, oh, hallelujah, Lord. Because we're all recovering
Pharisees, aren't we? Right? We are. And we stand fast, though,
as God's people. in the liberty where Christ has
made us free. How do we do that? How do we
stand fast? What's a practical application
for us to do that? Well, we look away from ourselves. What is natural man consumed
with? Self. What can we even be consumed
with as God's people? Self. Right? So to stand fast in that liberty
is to look away from ourselves. And how do we do that? By keeping
our eyes, the eye of faith, focused on Christ. That's how we stand fast in that
liberty, beloved. We must keep looking to Christ,
right? As believers, we must. We don't have any other hope.
If we get our eyes off Christ and we start looking at, oh,
what's going on over here in this country? Oh, my goodness. What's going on over here in
our country? Oh, my goodness. Right? Oh, this person made me mad the
other day. Oh, my goodness. When we get our eyes looking
on Christ, all that stuff just kind of fades
away, doesn't it? It does. I'm talking from experience. It does. I'm preaching to myself. We must rest and trust in Christ
and Him alone. He's our all in all, He's our
everything, isn't He? And we must never forget that
God has forgiven us for Christ's sake. We're forgiven for Christ's sake,
beloved. Because of Christ. Because of what He's done for
us. And we must be constantly reminded that our God is a covenant God, that we're His covenant children,
the children of promise. That's what was brought forth
in that passage in Galatians chapter 4. And we also must be
reminded constantly that Jesus Christ met all the conditions
of that eternal covenant for us. He did it all. So again, like Brother Tim James
says, the gospel is a proclamation to God's people and God's lost
sheep of what Christ has already done for us. And we need to keep hearing it
over and over and over again. You know why? Because we're prone
to forget. God's covenant of grace was absolutely
ratified, which means to be approved and confirmed or sanctioned by
God. How? By the precious, precious
blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. That covenant is sealed in his
blood, beloved. You think of the stamp when we
used to pay it in full. It's stamped in blood red. And he did that for us. He did
that for us. He met all the conditions of
the eternal covenant of grace. And so that's why we need a steady
diet of the glorious gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ and his
perfect redeeming work. It's finished, it's perfect,
it's done. And he did it for his promised
children. And in hearing the gospel constantly,
it enables us to stand fast, because what does the gospel
do? It points us right to Christ. We come in here, we sit, and
we love our fellowship together, but when the gospel is preached,
we're focusing on Christ, aren't we? When we're singing songs,
we're focusing on Christ. When we're hearing the Bible
read and the prayers to our King, the prayers to God, to Christ. He gets all the glory. He gets
it all. And remember this, stand fast
in the fact that Christ hath made us free. Stand fast in that
fact. The law has no claim upon us
now. The wrath of God against us has been extinguished. I mean
extinguished. There's no smoke coming from
the ground. It's gone. It's extinguished.
The wrath of God is extinguished in Christ. He bore it all in
our place. And we are now saved and redeemed
by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Think of this
too. We've been ransomed from the slave block of sin. What
was the payment? The blood of Christ. more precious than any gold and
silver in this world. You keep all the gold in this
world, all the silver in this world, and people say, well,
that's precious. It doesn't even compare to the blood of Christ.
Just ask His people. We'll be more than happy to tell
you. It doesn't even come close. So may
God help us to stand fast in this wonderful liberty that we
have in Christ. Let's read verses two and three
now of Galatians chapter five. Behold, I, Paul, say unto you
that if you be circumcised, Christ shall profit you nothing. For
I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he is
a debtor to do the whole law. So again, we must keep these
verses in context. People like to rip verses out
of context. We must keep this in context. The subject before us is the
difference between law and grace. There's nothing wrong with circumcision
if it's done for health purposes. There's absolutely nothing wrong
with that. But if a man submits to circumcision to make himself
more acceptable in God's sight, scripture says Christ shall profit
him nothing. There it is. Nothing. Christ
must be received as our only and sufficient Redeemer. If we
add anything, anything, anything, even a pinprick, anything, it's
no longer grace. It profits us nothing. Christ, in Christ alone, is the
only one, the only one in whom we can find favor with God. Remember
what God himself said? This is my beloved son in what?
In whom I am well pleased. He's pleased with Christ. So Paul brings forth here that
circumcision profits us nothing. And if we're trying to gain merit
and favor by God for it, as people are attempting, all people are
attempting to do is add their own righteousness, supposed righteousness,
to the finished work of Christ. And circumcision is just one
thing. Again, you can say baptism. You
can say following the law. You can say, and again, the law
is holy. We love the law of God. I don't
want people to think we're antinomians, because we're not. We love the
law of God. We just know we can't keep it. That's all. But praise be to God, Christ
kept it for us. But we're no longer under the law. That's
why Paul writes, stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ
hath made you free. We're no longer under that law.
And it had a claim on us, didn't it? It did. It had a rightful
claim on us. Let's read Verse 5 now, it says,
Christ has become of no effect unto you, whosoever you is justified
by the law, you have fallen from grace. Now we must again keep this verse
in context. People take this and they rip
it out of context and they say, see, you can lose your salvation.
There's absolutely no way that God our Father will fail to keep
his promised children from coming to Christ by faith. There's no
way. It's impossible. He will get every one of his
sheep. Those our Father promised the
Son shall come to him and they shall be in glory. And there's absolutely no way
that our Lord Jesus Christ, our blessed surety, would allow one
of those he purchased to perish. Not one. He said this, master
my sheep hear my voice and I know them and they follow me and I
give unto them eternal life so that's eternal life he gives
us and they shall never perish neither show any man pluck them
out of my hand my father which gave them me is greater than
all and no man is able to pluck them out of my father's hand
I and my father are one John 10 27 to 30 so it's not possible
for God to bestow his sovereign grace on his chosen blood-bought
Saints In vain. God will never allow us to fall
from grace. He won't. Now, if it was dependent
upon us, we'd be in a load of trouble, wouldn't we? We would
fall from grace. But it's not dependent on us. Those he saves, he keeps. But
there are many who make a profession of faith who do not possess Christ. Some in Galatia in Galatia professed
to believe what Paul had preached, but those Judaizers had bewitched
them and convinced them that they could not be true followers
of Jesus Christ unless they were circumcised, so to have faith
in circumcision. Now, if they continued in that
religious belief, in the religion of works, trying to be justified
by the law, they'd fall from grace. They were never true believers. They never were. John Gill puts it this way, from
the grace which they profess to have, they fall from grace,
from the grace which they profess to have, or from the gospel of
the grace of God, from whence they were removed though, or
through the influence of false teachers. So false teachers came
along and they were removed from the true gospel. The Apostle John wrote of them,
and he said, they went out from us, but they were not of us,
for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued
with us. But they went out that they might be made manifest that
they were not all of us. That's 1 John 2, verse 19. And we warn people, don't we?
We warn people about trusting in their works. Gospel preachers,
we continuously warn people, don't trust in anything you've
done. For salvation, trust only in Christ. Turn away from such
sinful foolishness and turn to Christ. And we tell them if they continue
in that state, they have nothing to look forward to but the fiery
indignation of God's eternal wrath, and that will occur. And it grieves us when they turn
a deaf ear, doesn't it? It grieves us when they mock
our faith. When we proclaim to them that
Christ is the only righteousness that we have, and they don't
believe. But always remember, we were there. Keep praying for
them. Keep lifting them up. Just keep lifting them up. Those who have aligned themselves
with us for a while, who seem to have embraced Christ and his
gospel, and then embrace a works religion, they turn away from
the truths that are proclaimed in the scriptures. And that's
even more painful for us, isn't it? My oh my. God is the only one who makes
his gospel effectual by his sovereign power and his sovereign grace.
He does not bestow His grace in vain, beloved. It's not bestowed upon us in
vain. He will make sure that we never fall from grace. That's good news, isn't it? That's
something to stand fast in, eh? He saved me, He'll keep me, and
He'll never let me go. And then He'll take me home to
glory. Why? Because we were children
of promise? Did we have anything to do with
it? Nothing. It's wonderful. So God is the one who makes us
to differ. He's the one who makes his gospel
effectual. Look at verse 5. For we, through
the Spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. Now
the word for there draws our attention to the previous verse,
making an obvious distinction between those who are mere professors
of Christ, who fall from grace, and those who profess Christ,
those who are the true followers of Christ, those who have true
saving faith. Look, it says, for we, through
the Spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness by faith. The
hope of righteousness. Who is our righteousness? Christ. He's our righteousness. In other
words, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts to
reveal the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ to us, to guide
us into all gospel truths. And that's what he does. He guides
us into all gospel truths, doesn't he? It's the Holy Spirit who
fills our hearts with joy, beloved. Nothing wrong with being joyful. We, we as the people of God,
we have more to rejoice about and be joyful than anybody else
in this whole world. I think sometimes we're afraid
to show some emotion sometimes and to rejoice. Why not? Why
not rejoice? We're saved, we're redeemed. Praise God. Hallelujah, right? It's amazing. It's amazing grace,
beloved, it truly is. Christ has entered into heaven
itself for us to appear in the presence of God for us. And it's
the Holy Spirit working in us, giving us faith to wait for that
day, to wait for His return. And we eagerly wait for His return,
don't we? Even so, Lord, come quickly,
we sometimes say. Come quickly, Lord. Oh, and this is why we must have
our eyes set upon Christ and Him alone. This is why. This is a distinction being made
here in these two verses between true followers of Christ and
those who are not. And we believe God. We believe
the record that he's given us. And we only believe that by the
mercy and grace of God, right? But we believe it. We believe
that salvation is all of Christ, all of the Lord. We believe that. How do we believe that? Because
God's given us the faith to believe that. all by the power of God, the
Holy Spirit, and the miracle of His sovereign grace. We renounce
any of our own works, don't we now? I remember in religion, all boasting
about how many doors are knocked on, or who I witnessed to that
week. You know, you get to church,
you can't wait to tell people who you witnessed to that week. Oh, I gotta tell
you. Just pride. Just pride. It's not about what we do. And we, who are the people of
God, have fled to Christ as our only refuge, haven't we? He's
the only refuge of our soul. He's the only one. We have no
other refuge. Other refuge have I none. And
we have a strong consolation from God himself that we are
the heirs of promise. And that absolutely nothing can
separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus
our Lord. Absolutely nothing can separate
us. Can death separate us from Christ?
No. Can persecution separate us from
Christ? No. Why? Because we're in His grip. In that grip, that hand is the
almighty hand of God, beloved. That's wonderful. Stand fast
in that truth this week. Remind yourself, I'm being held
by God himself. He has me in his grip. And in Christ, God sees us as
Christ is. He sees us perfect and spotless,
even though we're still sinners. He sees us as perfect and spotless,
pure, holy, undefiled, separate from sinners. He sees us in his
beloved son. Again, we're still sinners. We
don't even have to get into that, do we? We're still sinners, but
now we're saved sinners. We fled to Christ. And if we're in Christ, God loves
us with the same, think of this, I want us to really let this
sink in. If we're in Christ, God loves us the same as he loves
his darling son. Really? Yeah. Really? Isn't that
incredible? That's incredible. I ask you, do these truths bless
you? They do, don't they? They bless our soul. Then, through
the Spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness. If these truths
bless you, then through the Spirit, wait for the hope of righteousness.
Keep in our eyes keeping our eye of faith upon Christ and
him alone. Our hope is Christ, not our works.
Our hope is Christ, not our feelings. Our hope is Christ, not our experiences.
Our hope before God is his grace, not our graces. Our hope before
God is Christ's obedience, not our obedience. Our hope before
God is Christ's blood, not our benevolence, not our works. And
our hope before God is Christ's righteousness, not our own righteousness. Stand fast in these truths. And
what a blessing that can give us as the children of God through
the week. Now let's read verse six. For in Jesus Christ neither circumcised
For in Jesus Christ neither circumcision availeth anything nor uncircumcision,
but faith which worketh by love. And notice these words right
here, for in Christ Jesus. That's the key. That's the key
of everything we looked at today. Am I in Christ? If so, I was
chosen in him before the foundation of the world. That's a truth. Am I in Christ? If so, I was
in Him when He was formed in the womb of the Virgin, when
He was born into this world, when He honored the law of God
by perfect obedience to the will of His Father who sent Him. Am
I in Christ? If so, I was in Him when He was
made to be sin for me, enduring the wrath of God as my substitute. Am I in Christ? If so, I was
in Him when He satisfied God's holy law and justice of God for
me by the perfect, sinless sacrifice of Himself. Remember, our sins
were just imputed to Him. He's sinless, beloved. He's perfect. Oh my. We were in Him. Am I in Christ? If so, I was in him when he satisfied
the holy justice of God for me by the sacrifice of himself,
enabling God to be just and justifier of all who believe. Am I in Christ? If so, I was
in him when he sat down on the right hand of the majesty on
high, and all God's children have been made to sit in heavenly
places in Christ. Is Jesus Christ in me by the
virtue of the new birth? If so, I am a brand new creature,
a brand new creation. God has created a new man in
me, which is what? Christ in me, the hope of glory.
Isn't it wonderful? What blessings, beloved. If Christ
is in me, God has given me faith to understand and believe the
gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. We understand why he came now.
We understand who he died for, sinners such as I. If Christ
is in me, I know it doesn't matter if I've been circumcised or if
I haven't been circumcised. I'm saved in Christ. I know it doesn't matter if I'm
a Jew or a Gentile, beloved, male or female, because in Christ,
we're all one. We're all one. What matters is
this. Am I in Christ? Am I in Christ? And is Christ in me? If so, by
God-given faith, I've been united to the true and living God. The Lord Jesus Christ and absolutely
nothing can take me away from Christ, and no one can take me
away from Christ. They may kill They may kill me,
but they can't take the soul. Right? My oh my. So all these blessed
truths of God make an eternal difference between law and grace,
and this is what Paul was writing about. This is what Paul was
writing about. And who was the true author of
these words? The Holy Spirit of God. And what's being brought
forth here is the truth that makes the difference between
law and grace. And they were needful in those days, and they're
needful today, too, aren't they? If we have not experienced the
miracle of the new birth, the love of God is not being put
into our hearts. Faith worketh by love. And in our unregenerate state,
we have no love for God, do we? No love for Christ, no love for
the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. To the contrary, the
scriptures declare the carnal mind is enmity against God, for
it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.
So then they which are of the flesh cannot please God. And
you know what? Outside of Christ, we cannot
please God. This is my beloved son in whom
I am well pleased. So it would make sense that if
he's pleased with Christ, he's pleased with all who are in him.
He's the head or the body. He's the vine or the branches. Those who are led by the spirit
of Christ were not motivated by the law of Moses, but by our
love for the blessed Redeemer. We're motivated now by our love
for Christ. My oh my. My oh my. What a Savior. What a Redeemer. It's Jesus Christ
our Lord.