at verse 14, especially the last
part. We kind of dealt with some of
this last week, but where we ended was going into verse 14. Galatians chapter three. I'm
gonna go ahead and read verses 11, and I'm gonna read past where
we're gonna go today, just so that we can have a little bit
of context to what we might be talking about today. Starting
in verse 11, it says, but that no man is justified by the law
in the sight of God is evident, for the just shall live by faith. The law is not of faith, but
the man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ hath redeemed
us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for
it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. that
the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through
Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through
faith. Brethren, I speak after the manner
of men, though it be but a man's covenant, yet if it be confirmed,
no man disannulleth or addeth thereto. Now to Abraham and his
seed were the promises made. He saith not unto seeds as of
many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which is Christ. And this
I say, that the covenant that was confirmed before of God in
Christ, the law which was 430 years after, cannot disannul
that it should make the promise of none effect. For if the inheritance
be of the law, it is no more of promise, but God gave it to
Abraham by promise. Heavenly Father, we come now
to you once again, and we're grateful for the time that we
have together as a church. We're thankful for those that
you have gathered here this morning. And Father, we pray for the Spirit
to be among us. We ask, Lord, that you might
help us in our praise and in our worship this morning. We
pray that you'd help us in our understanding of these things.
Again, as always, I ask, Lord, that you might help me to preach
and to put forth truth, Lord, to keep me from error. from speaking
in the wisdom of man, but that I might speak the things of God,
Lord. I ask that you might edify your people through this word
today. And Father, we're so grateful and so dependent upon you. We're
so thankful for justification that we have before God because
of Christ and his blood. We thank you, Father, that we
have been forgiven of all of our sins and that we have been
reconciled to God and that there is an inheritance for us in Christ
Jesus that we hope for, Lord. And we just thank you for that
promise. And we know that you are a God
that cannot lie. We know that everything that
you say, that you say is true and that it will never change.
And Father, by those promises, we look and we hope that we have
that inheritance that has been put before us, even Christ Jesus. And Lord, we just look forward
to that eternal life that we have. and through him. And Father, once again, we just
pray that today that Christ will be glorified in all that we do
and all that we say, even the meaningless, seemingly meaningless
things that we do, even like fellowship and just talking and
visiting with one another and encouraging one another. Father,
we pray that all of that will be to the glory of your grace. For it's in Christ's name that
we pray. Amen. Well, brethren, last week we
looked at The verse is in 12 down through 14 or 13. And we
were speaking about that the law is not a faith, okay? The child of grace or the ones
who are just, if you look there in verse 11, that the just shall
live by faith. The just are those people who
have been saved and redeemed by Jesus Christ. They are the
just. They've been justified. And so,
therefore, they are called the just. We're not just or right,
righteous, that word just and righteous is kind of synonymous.
We're not righteous in and of ourselves. Whenever we were justified,
and I didn't really go into this a whole lot, but I did mention
this, that the opposite of justification is not righteousness. I mean,
unrighteousness, okay? The opposite of righteousness
isn't, I'm sorry, the opposite of justification is not unrighteousness. Therefore, when someone is justified,
that doesn't make them righteous, okay? It doesn't make them righteous
as far as inwardly, who we are. It doesn't make us righteous.
There is an idea or a thought that is taught in some places
that whenever we are justified, then that means that makes us
inherently righteous in ourselves. But that's not the case. Justification
is a forensic term. It's a term that is a term of
legal matters. Whenever one is justified, that
means that that person is counted not guilty, not actually not
guilty, right? So if a criminal comes before
the court and there's something put forward in the place of that
criminal to satisfy the justice of that court or what that crime
needed to punish them with, or what the court needed to punish
them with, if something came that was equitable in the eyes
of the court to take the place of that person actually having
to do that payment, then that person is then justified. But that doesn't mean that there
was never any guilt there. And that doesn't mean that that
makes that person from now on go on without ever having any
guilt. See, there's some people think
that whenever you're justified before God, then that impute
or imparts righteous living in your life and you begin to be
a righteous person in the flesh. And that's not true. The flesh
is just flesh. It will never get any better.
It's never gonna be able to please God, right? So justification,
the opposite of justification is not unrighteousness. The opposite of justification
is condemnation. So whenever a person is justified,
they are no longer under condemnation. So that legal action that takes
place because of what Christ does for us, and that's what
justification is based on, it's what Christ did, not what we
do, right? It's not based upon our good
works, it's not based upon our believing, or our repenting,
or our acting good. Justification is based upon the
work of Christ alone, and because Christ did that in our place,
as we sing last week in verse 13, that Christ has redeemed
us from the curse of the law, The curse of the law being condemnation,
right? We were condemned because of
our transgression against the law. The soul that sinned shall
surely die, yes. And so the wages of sin is death. So the curse of the law is condemnation,
death. And the Bible says, as we've
seen last week, Christ hath redeemed us from that. He has came and
purchased us out of that condemnation. There is therefore now no condemnation
to those who are in Christ Jesus. Why? Because he hath made a curse
for us. For it is written, cursed is
everyone that hangeth on the tree. So whenever Christ became
a curse for us or was condemned in death for us, that took the
place of us. That's called substitution. Christ
substituted in our place and in the court of God, in the justice
of God, the righteous and holiness of God, what Christ did on our
behalf pleased the father. It was enough to satisfy him. And because of that, the father
could then justify the people for whom he stood. So in justification,
we was granted or redeemed from the curse of the law, which means
now there is no condemnation. So the opposite of justification
is no condemnation, or the equal of justification is no condemnation. Okay, not righteous, not becoming
righteous, but that we are no longer under condemnation. But in justifying us, we are
given the righteousness of Christ and that's imputed to us Therefore,
when God looks upon us, he sees the perfect obedience of Christ,
he sees the death of Christ. The life that was required, the
death that was required. The life that is required in
perfection that God and the law demands, Christ did for us. The death that we deserve because
of our actual sinning in the flesh, Christ did that for us. So therefore, whether it be the
living, or whether it be the dying, Christ has substituted
both of that for his people. So then therefore, we are not
held to our living or our having to die in the eyes of God because
Christ has done that for us. So therefore, righteousness or
staying right before God or being pleasing to God in fellowship
with God, all those things does not hinge upon how you live and
how or if you should die. You'll never have to pay that
price and die for that. And Christ did all the living
for you. So everything that is required of the law for you to
live, God has already provided in Christ Jesus. That is the
blessedness of the gospel, brethren. That is why we say to everybody,
rest on the finished work of Christ. That's where you're going
to find that rest is only in what Christ has done. Because
if you look to the law and continue to try to make a righteous or
to stay righteous before God, you're going to become weary
in well-doing. You're going to become weary in trying to please
God because you're going to find at every turn that you do not
do enough. You're never going to do enough.
You're going to completely fail. You're going to fall. You're
not going to have the perfect righteousness that God requires.
And it's going to become a burden to you. It's going to become,
I remember before the Lord taught me about how justification works
and about Christ only in salvation. And whenever I thought that,
yeah, we were saved by Jesus, but we had to maintain all these
good works and we had to continue to stay right with God, you know,
and everything. Whenever I was in that belief
system, I remember, and I've told this to our church before,
for those that heard it, I remember lying awake at night as a young
man, teenager, young 20s, just starting to kind of preach around
and stuff and things. I remember lying in my bed, and
I remember thinking to myself, man, I just missed it here, I
missed it here, I missed it here. And I'm trying to go back, and
I'm laying there praying to God, and I'm trying to go through
every sin that I knew that I'd, or every failure that I'd done
that day, and trying to pray and ask God for forgiveness,
and then saying, you know, oh, wait a minute, you know, there's
probably something that I don't know about, so forgive me for
those sins that I don't know that I did. And then I had people
that was telling me, well, you can't just say that. You've got
to name them. You've got to name each and every
sin, you know. Otherwise, God ain't, I mean,
you just can't throw a blanket prayer out there and say, Lord,
forgive me for whatever I've done. You've got to know what
you've done so you can repent of it. You see how futile that
is? And listen, I remember lying
awake at night trying to remember, Lord, bring to remembrance every
sin that I've committed against you so that I can ask forgiveness
for it. But whenever I heard that all
my sins, even the ones that I don't even know that I'm doing, that
Christ has taken those sins and has forgiven those sins, and
that his blood covered every single one of us. You guys have
heard me here, and for Kevin and his wife that haven't been
here, there's a little saying that I use here all the time,
and it seems to be somewhat controversial to some, but if you think about
it according to the gospel, it's not. but we are going to sin
every sin that Christ has died for, no more and no less. If Christ died for my sin, then
I'm not gonna sin more than what Christ died for, and I'm not
gonna sin less than what Christ died for, otherwise Christ died
for something that I didn't do, right? So we are gonna sin every
sin that Christ died for, no more and no less, and listen,
Every good work that God has ordained before the foundation
of the world for us to walk in, we are gonna do no more and no
less. We're not gonna do more good
works than God ordained for us to do, and we're surely not gonna
do less good works than God ordained, because it's the Spirit of God
that works in us to will and to do His good pleasure, and
the Spirit will do all those good works that were ordained
for us in us. It's a spiritual thing. It's
worked out by the Spirit, not by us. The Spirit of God is the
one that works those in us, and we don't do it. It's a spiritual
thing. And so we have all of our reliance upon Christ, right? That's the greatness of the gospel.
The greatness of the gospel is the message of you don't have
to measure up. Christ did it for you. But what
do we hear preached so often in all these churches that you
see around in the land is you have to measure up. You have
to do something. You have to keep up a righteousness before
God. You got to keep doing this, keep doing that. You've got to
confess your sin and come before the church and shake the preacher's
hand or whatever, you know, whatever the thing is. But yet it's so
simple. Christ alone, Christ alone. And
so we've seen in our scripture, last week, that Christ redeemed
us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us. For
it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree. And we
started the first part of verse 14. The reason for him being
made a curse or redeeming us out of the curse is so that the
blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus
Christ. And we stop there. And if you
remember, we talked about what the blessing of Abraham was. In verse eight, we see, and the
scripture foreseeing that God would justify the heathen through
faith, preached before the gospel unto Abraham saying, in thee
shall all nations be blessed. So then they which be of faith
are blessed with faithful Abraham. And we looked at what was the
blessing that God give to Abraham, or what was the blessing that
was told to Abraham that he was gonna receive? It was the imputed
righteousness of Jesus. Remember, we went back to Genesis
15, and we've seen that it was Christ for righteousness, that
Abraham heard the gospel, that the word of the Lord came to
Abraham and told him about this blessing that was gonna come
upon him, and that this seed that was gonna be of him is gonna
be his righteousness and the Bible says that Abraham believed
God and Abraham accounted that seed for him as righteousness. That was the blessing that Abraham
received and that he heard is that there would be a justification
or that there would be an imputing of righteousness upon him by
that seed. That seed would be his righteousness.
Jehovah Sid Canoe, the Lord our righteousness. Now, we're down
into verse 14. The reason that he was made a
curse for us is so that, and this is just repeating what we've
already seen, that the blessing of Abraham might come on the
Gentiles, not just the Jews, but the Gentiles also, through
Jesus Christ. Now, there's a break there, and
in my Bible, there is a little I think it's a semicolon there,
okay? Semicolons aren't in the Greek
text, right? There isn't punctuation there.
And so sometimes, unfortunately, whenever these punctuations are
added in by the translators of the scriptures, sometimes those
punctuations are put in to make the flow of the reading a little
bit easier, but sometimes it makes the understanding of the
scriptures a little not right, okay? To me, there's a break
there. There's two things that we're
seeing. We're seeing that the blessing of Abraham might come
upon the Gentiles through Jesus Christ. And then there's a second
thing that we might receive the promise of the spirit through
faith. Two different things there. The
reason Jesus became a curse for us is so that we might receive
that imputed righteousness of Jesus Christ to our account.
But not only that, see, the pewter rations is something that happens
outside of me. It's something that happens in the legal courts
of God, okay? If we can imagine this, and again,
I say God doesn't have to have books to write things down and
to remember, but if we were to look in the court of God, we'd
see that ledger that has the names of all the people of God,
and out beside that, it has Righteous, righteous, righteous, righteous.
Every one of us is righteous before God, okay? Why? Because
in our accounting, in our ledger book, some of these young kids
and stuff, they probably don't even know what a ledger is. You know, we have a checkbook.
We used to have checkbooks that we would write checks, and then
whenever you'd write a check, you'd go back in your ledger,
and you'd see this is how much money I had. Here's the check
that I wrote. Now this is how much money I
have left, right? You're keeping accounts of what's
owed, what you're indebted to, right? Or how much money you
have. Well, in the ledger book of God, it shows that on our
account, we don't owe anything. There's nothing owed. It's all
been paid for. And that at the end of that,
what is the amount that we have still in our bank? The inheritance
of Christ. Everything. We have everything. all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places, we have eternal life, we have Christ himself as our
reward. So that not one of those pieces
of reward, however you want to vision those things, not one
piece of reward is going to be taken away from us. You know,
the Bible says that at the judgment seat of God that every man is
going to give an account for himself. And those things that
are done in the flesh, those are going to be wood, hay, and
stone. It's all going to be burned up. But whatever's done in the
Lord, you know, all that stuff is like gold and fine silver
and gold, and I might be misquoting how it goes. But anyway, there's
going to be rewards and there's going to be loss during this
thing. Brethren, if you think about
it, a lot of times we apply things in Scripture whenever we read
it. We don't apply it in the right way. Whenever we stand
before God, we've already been judged. If you're a child of
grace, you have already been judged before God in Christ Jesus. So every man that's gonna stand
before God, if you remember at that judgment day, there's gonna
be a separation, the sheep from the goats, the righteous from
the unrighteous, the weak from the tears, there's gonna be a
separation of the elect of God from the non-elect of God, from
the saved, and from the reprobate, okay? Those two groups are gonna
be separated at that judgment. And then every man that has not
been found in Christ Jesus who already their account has been
cleared. It's righteous. Even if they
were to come up and be judged of God in their person, the only
judgment that can be given to them is righteous because Christ
has atoned for all their sins. There is not one sin that they
will have to give an account for before God because Christ
has stood for every one of those sins. So even if that judgment,
and I'll be honest, I don't know. Will we have to come before,
personally, before God and be held in account? Is he going
to say, you know, open up the books and he's going to say,
well, the only thing that we can do is we can plead Christ.
If we come before God, we plead Christ. His blood has forgiven
me of all these sins. And I believe that our advocate,
I believe Christ will stand for all the elect and then in front
of all of the rest of mankind, the non-elect, Christ will then
declare His righteousness in redeeming these people who were
just like these people but yet because of his grace and mercy,
he made them these people. That even though that they were
just like these people and deserving of wrath, just like these people,
because they had transgressed God, because of his blood and
his righteousness, these people are now being saved, therefore
displaying God's justice, displaying God's mercy, displaying God's
love. All the attributes of God, all
the characteristics of God, all the greatness of who God is being
displayed because of what Christ did on the cross. And so these
people here, there will be no condemnation. There is no account
to give before God because Christ has taken all those sins, but
yet all these people, they will give an account before God and
their works will be weighed. And their works will be weighed
and they will be found wanting. They'll be found wanting. They
will not be able to stand before God and make any kind of plea
because they are guilty before God. They refuse to trust in
Christ alone, which is their nature. They're not gonna be
able to do that. And so we see that at this judgment, we see
that the account is already there. The account is cleared. We are
not guilty. So that's a legal matter that
happens in the heavenlies. That's a legal matter that happens
outside of ourselves. But there's something else that
when Christ was made a curse for us, that it brought for us.
The reason that he did that is a second fold, something that
we experience. See, there's something that happens
outside of us, but there's something that happens inside of us also.
Look at verse 14, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit
through faith. Now we know that this is not
talking about being born again or being quickened, right? Because we don't receive the
Spirit by faith. The Spirit comes whenever it
wants to come. Remember Jesus told Nicodemus
that the wind blows wherever it lifts us. No one knows where
it's coming from or knows where it's going. And he says, so it
is with everyone who is born of the Spirit of God. The Spirit
comes and we don't know. We don't know. But yet, everyone is born the
same way when the Spirit comes in and causes us to be born of
God, right? So, we know that it's not being
born again because being born again, we don't receive that
by faith. Faith doesn't initiate the Spirit
to come into us. So this is talking about something
else. It's not talking about being born again. So what would
this be talking about? What would be the promise that
we might receive the promise of the Spirit? Well, whenever
we have been born from above and have the Spirit of God in
us, we have been given faith, and that faith, as we've talked
about, reaches out to what Christ has done alone. And so then that
spirit that is in us and then that faith that's been given
to us is able to receive or to comprehend and to give it, we're
able to apply it to ourselves. Believe that it's ours, that
eternal inheritance that has been given, that was promised
to Abraham. That was promised to Isaac. That
was promised to Jacob. That was promised to all of the
seed of Christ. Promised to Christ first, but
all of his seed in him. And Lord willing, maybe the next
time we're together, we'll look at what this seed is all about
and show how the Bible teaches these two seeds. But anyway,
the promise of the Spirit, that we might receive the promise
of the Spirit through faith. Now, what I believe that this
is, the promise of the Spirit, is I believe that we now are
able to believe that we are His children, that we are His. The Bible talks about that faith
is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not
seen. Faith and hope go hand in hand. Faith, hope, they are all undergirding,
and we have our assurance because faith and hope undergird that.
We have assurance not because of what we do on the outside.
A lot of times people want to make assurance about, well, how
much sin do you do now? Do you do less sin than you did
then? If I see that I'm sinning less, then I have an assurance
before God that I'm going to heaven. Why? Because I tithe
before, because I go to church, because I pray, because I read
my Bible, because I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't chew,
I don't go with the girls that do. See, we think that that's what
our assurance is. We're going to heaven because we're doing
better. We're doing good things. But that's not where our assurance
comes. Our assurance never comes from outward things. Even where
the Bible says that they might know that we, they know that
we are the children of God because of our love for the brethren,
right? That's one thing that the Bible says that you can know
who these people are is by the love for the brethren. But listen,
that can't be our assurance. I mean, I've been in church before
and had people that has come to church and maybe 15, 20 years
they've been there. They seem to love the brethren.
And then all of a sudden they go away and then they've turned
against the church and they don't even like the people in the church
anymore. See, we can't even use that outward
thing as an assurance. No, assurance is something that
is given to us by the Spirit of God. The Bible says that we
know that we are His because the Spirit bears witness with
our spirit that we are the children of God. So we receive the spirit
of promise, that spirit that comes into us in that new birth,
when it's there and it hears the gospel, it not only believes
that Christ has done all that He has done, That's part of it,
but it receives that promise to ourselves, that it's for us. And so the spirit of promise
there, receive the promise of the spirit through faith, is
receiving the inheritance, receiving the word that says, this is yours. Turn with me if you would. Let's
look at a few verses, because I want to maybe try to confirm
this by God's word, not by me just trying to convince you.
Romans chapter eight. And in Romans chapter eight,
we're gonna look at verse, verse 15, it says, For ye have not received the
spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit
of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father." And then the verse
that I just quoted, the spirit itself bears witness with our
spirit that we are the children of God, and if children then
heirs, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we
suffer with him that we may also be glorified together. So the
Bible here tells us that whenever we have been born from above
and the Spirit of God is in us, whenever we hear the gospel,
we hear the gospel of freedom. We hear the gospel of liberty.
The Bible says that the, You shall know the truth and the
truth shall set you free. The truth isn't going to bind
you up again under the law. The truth is going to release
you from that bondage. It's going to tell you that you
are no longer under the condemnation of the law, that you are no longer
under the restrictions of the law, the bounds of the law. The Bible says that the Holy
Spirit is given to us and it is a spirit of freedom that it
comes in and it cries, liberty to the captives. Whenever Christ
preached the gospel, the Bible said that whenever he went and
preached the gospel to those of the old, in Noah's days, and
I believe that he was preaching through Noah, whenever Noah was
preaching righteousness, he was preaching through Noah to those
people, and Noah was preaching that same gospel, that there
is gonna be a Messiah that is to come, and that he is gonna
be our righteousness. But anyway, whenever that message
was preached, it was a message of freedom. It was a message
of liberty. The Bible says that he came and he took captivity
and made it captive. He released those who were in
captivity. He set them free. Why? Because up until that time, until
Christ died, everybody was under the law. The Jews were all under
the law. They were under the bondage of
the law. And we know from Acts chapter 15, they even realized
that there was nobody that was keeping that law. Nobody could
attain to the perfection of that law. And therefore they knew
that the law was something that was strikingly condemning to
all Jews. But yet the gospel was come to
free them from that bondage of that, to release them from that
condemnation, to bring them out from underneath that condemnation,
And so we see now even the Gentiles are a part of that. The Gentiles
who never was under that is now given freedom in Christ Jesus.
And so they don't have to be under the bondage of the law.
That's why the argument that we had at the very beginning
of our look at Galatians, whenever we went back to Acts 15, when
Paul said, hey, you know, the Gentiles are coming in just like
we've been coming in. And they've never been under
the law. Why are we gonna put them back under the law, put
them under something that we nor our fathers could keep? Well,
that was Peter that said that. Why are we gonna put them under
something that we know that we can't keep? They're not gonna
be able to keep it. We couldn't keep it. So the spirit here bears witness
with our spirit that we have been freed from that, that we
have been that we are now the children of Christ, and it's
called the spirit of adoption. But we, ye have received the
spirit of adoption, whereby we call Abba Father. Now let's talk
a little bit about adoption. What is adoption? Well, whenever
we speak of adoption, we speak of something that is a child
who is not really your child, but is made your child, right? So, an orphan or somebody who
doesn't have a mom and dad, they are adopted by this husband and
wife and then whenever they adopt them, this child who is not their
child is now made their child legally, made their child even
though by nature, they're not his child, right? So, we have
been made children of God even though we are flesh. God has
made us children of God. He has adopted us. Now, what
has he adopted? Well, and I don't wanna get too
far into this, and we'll do a study on this before, or at one point
on down the future. But that life that's put in us
is the life that we had in Christ Jesus hidden with God before
the foundation of the world, it's eternal life. and the Bible
says that that life is perfect, it cannot sin. That's a life
that the Bible says is created in righteousness and holiness. So it is a perfect thing. So
adoption doesn't have to do with that because that's already in
Christ Jesus. What's adopted is this flesh.
God adopts this flesh. And we are waiting the adoption
that's to come of this body. See, this body is what we are
adopted as his children, the elect who are still in the flesh.
We're not in the flesh, children of God. We are children of God
in the spirit. But one of these days, the Bible
says that this flesh will put off this corruption and put on
incorruption. we'll be given a glorious heavenly
body, likened to our Lord, and that heavenly body will be in
perfect harmony with our inward man. That life that's in us that's
perfect will be united with a body that is perfect. We'll have a
perfect body, we'll have a perfect spirit. And then at that point,
we'll be a whole man. We'll be a whole man. Now, so
the adoption that we see is the adoption of this flesh. God has
adopted this flesh. It's not his child, but it is
adopted and made as his child. It's called his child. And in
every rites has all the inheritance as if he was a child. Now, we
don't look like his child on the outside, do we? Some of us
know people that have adopted children from different nationalities,
right? You might have somebody who is
Caucasian who has adopted somebody that is from Africa, that is
African American. And you might have somebody from
China who has adopted somebody from America and they have a
child that doesn't look like them, right? So, we don't look
like, We are gods on the outside, but on the inside, we are his.
But on the outside, we don't look like we're gods. We walk
just like the other people walk, right? We have the same flesh
as everybody else, but God has adopted us in that way. Thereby, we can call him Abba
Father, even though by our nature, it doesn't seem like we are.
a child of God. And so what the Spirit has to
do, just like in a regular adoption, you adopt a child, especially
if that child has any age upon them, and they come underneath
that parent, there may be a period of time there where the parents,
they don't really, you know, there's still this kinda weird
feeling between this child that they've adopted, okay, really
a stranger, they don't know this child, this child doesn't know
them, and there may be a little bit of time for them to get used
to each other, and that child may never feel like they're actually
a child of those parents that adopted them. They know, hey,
that's not my real mom and dad, you know, and they may feel strange
for a while, but the love that that mom and dad will show to
that kid and then giving them everything that they would their
own child, Eventually that child will begin to think, hey, that
is, you know, I'm their child. I'm their child. Although maybe
not by nature, but I am their child. They treat me just like
I'm their flesh and blood. Same thing with us, brethren.
We often, especially whenever Satan and the things of this
world begin to boggle in our mind, we begin to think, you
know, I can't be his child because look at me, I don't look like
him. I don't act like him. I don't think like him. I didn't
come, I'm not him. I'm from Adam. I'm not from him. I'm from Adam. And so we might
begin to think, so that's why the spirit has been given to
us. So that inside of us, it will
bear witness with our spirit that yes, you are his. Yes, you
are his. The spirit of promise comes into
our heart and continues to bear witness with our spirit that
yes, you may not look like it on the outside. You may not be
attaining to what God is on the outside, but you are his. The spirit itself beareth witness
with our spirit that we are the children of God. And therefore,
if we are children of God, then we have every right and claim
to the inheritance. Not based upon our worthiness
because we're adopted, right? The adopted child can't say,
I'm owed that inheritance because that's my flesh and blood, that's
my dad. No, the adopted child, if the
adopted child receives any inheritance from those adopted parents, it's
only because those parents looked upon that child as their own.
and give that child the same inheritance that he would give
his own flesh and blood. Well, the Bible says that Christ
is God's only flesh and blood. His only begotten son. There's
only one who is the begotten of God, and that is Christ. He
is the begotten son of God. He is the natural heir to the
inheritance of God. To him is owed everything. He
owns everything. He's been given power over all
flesh. He's been given everything. He is the creator. Doesn't the
Bible say that all things were created by him, but they were
also created for him. All things are created for Christ
Jesus. They are his. He is the natural
heir to all the things of God because he is the only begotten
son of God. But the Bible says that we've
been made joint heirs. That means that we're equals.
Jesus is an heir and we're just as much as an heir as Jesus is.
That even though he's the true son of God, we are the adopted
children of God. And that parent, Christ, or that
parent, God the Father, has made us equal with Jesus. Now, brother,
I can't fathom that. How can I stand equal with Christ? but He has made us the righteousness
of God in Him. And it says here that the Spirit
has been given to us because Jesus was made a curse, because
He has sent His Spirit into us, where we can cry, Father. We
don't have to cry, stranger who adopted me. We don't have to
cry, hey you. We can look to God just as if
He was our Father. If Alessandro come to me, hey,
I have a love for this little man. Just in the time that they've
come, I've gained some affection for this little man. He's going
to become a big man one of these days. But he might come to me
and ask something from me. Hey, I'd be glad to give him
whatever I can. But at the end of the day, as
much as I might have affection for him and love him and everything,
it's not the same as my kid coming to me, and vice versa. There is something about your
own kid that you have the heart for because that's your kid.
Well, brethren, listen, when God elected us, adopted us to
Himself, there is no difference. There is no difference. He doesn't
favor us any less. He has made us heirs. And listen,
whenever we go to Him, we can cry, I'm a father, but I'm not
Alessandro's. Kevin's a father, but he's not
Zach and Waylon's, and the rest of my kids' father, okay? They
can go in and ask for things, and yes, we can give, but it's
not the same as if that's your own child. Well, listen, to God,
we've been adopted to him, but it's not this weird kind of adoption
thing where I know that's my legal dad, but it's not my real
dad. No, God loves us with an everlasting love. And the Bible says that we have
been made heirs, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and
joint heirs with Christ. That is amazing to me that we
are made that. And that's the promise of the
Spirit is that we will receive the same inheritance, that the
inheritance that was promised to Abraham, the just of the imputed
righteousness that was promised to Abraham, and the inheritance
of the land. Now, we know that in the Bible
there is a physical land, but that physical land represents
something spiritually. That spiritual land, we are going
to have eternal life. We are going to live with Christ
forever in heaven. Look with me, if you would, back
to Galatians and look in chapter four now. We're going to be dealing
with these verses here on down the road. but they go along with
what we're talking about. I'm putting forth that whenever
we receive the promise of the Spirit through faith, we are
receiving the promise of the inheritance, that we are receiving
not only the blessing that was upon Abraham, which is the imputed
righteousness of Christ, but we are, which is outside of us,
that is a legal matter, but we receive an experiential thing
by the Spirit of God that in us, in our spirit, keeps witnessing
to our spirit that you are a child of God. You might not think you
are, you might not look like you are, but you are a child
of God and it keeps telling you you're a child of God. Because
why? Why does the spirit have to do
that? Because we know we've been given spiritual minds. We've
been given spiritual eyes and ears. We know spiritual things.
We know that we're sinners. We know that we transgress against
God. We know that we're not keeping
the law fully. The person who's not been born
from above, they don't know that. They don't realize. They think
they're doing good, right? They think we're doing good.
I was reading through Facebook just this last few weeks. There's
been several of these entertainers that has passed away. And most
of them entertainers, they're not saved. They're not Christians.
But yet everybody is talking about this guy being up in heaven,
playing his drums or playing his guitar or whatever, up in
heaven doing all that. Nobody goes to hell. Everybody
seems to go to heaven whenever somebody dies. It doesn't matter
how they lived. It doesn't matter what they believed.
Everybody goes to heaven. But that's not true. That's not
true. That's the mentality of the natural
man. The natural man always thinks that they've done good enough
that they're going to be in heaven. But see, for the child of grace,
we've been made to know that we're sinners. That's why that publican stood
and was praying to God, I'm thankful that you've not made me like
this tax collector here. Or I'm sorry, that that Pharisee
was talking about the publican. And the publican was down on
his face, crying to God, be merciful unto me, a sinner. He'd been
made to know that he was a sinner. This man who was a sinner thought
he was good before God because he wasn't like that sinner. That's
the natural man, that's the spiritual man. The natural man thinks he's
good before God and doing enough good works and that they'll outweigh
the other. This man who's been made to know of his sin because
he'd been born from above and given spiritual eyes, he knows
that he's a sinner. We know that we sin. We know
what the righteousness of God means. We know what the standard
is and we see ourselves not even getting close to the standard.
That's why the Holy Spirit has to be given. That's why we have
an experiential part of salvation as much as we do a legal part
of salvation. The experiential part of salvation
is that we might know that we are the children of God. Apart
from that, we're left in this quandary. We're left in this
gray area where we've been born from above and been given spiritual
understanding, but we've not been given something in us to
testify to us that even though you don't measure up and even
though that's not your real daddy, you're still a child. We need
the Holy Spirit in us telling us that because our perfect man
in us is always wanting the righteousness of God, but the flesh is always
warring against that, saying, ha ha, I've got you, I'm doing
bad, you're not worthy, and what does the Bible say? Satan uses
that. He's the accuser of the brethren.
He's always bringing up these accusations. You've never done
enough. Look at you, there you are again. Remember two weeks
ago, you prayed and told God that you weren't gonna do that
again? Well, here you are again, you're doing it. All those prayers
that I prayed at night, trying to remember back, oh man, I missed
one, I'm sure I missed one, I know I missed one. Forgive me, God,
for the ones that I don't know what I did. All those things,
that's the, excuse me, not the spirit of God, that's the spirit
of Satan reminded me those things. Saying, look at you, look at
you, look at you. But what does the Bible say? The spirit is
given to us to testify or to bear witness with our spirit
that we are a child of God, and if we are a child, then we are
heirs to all the blessings, all spiritual blessings in heavenly
places. All the things that has been given to Christ are ours. Look at Galatians chapter four. Look at verse five, or let's
start in verse four. It says, but when the fullness
of time was come, God sent forth his son made of a woman made
under the law. Why? To redeem them that were
under the law that we might receive the adoption of sons. Now, were
we already adopted before that? I believe we were. I believe
we were adopted in election, okay? I believe that we were
adopted in election. but we don't realize that, we
don't begin to experience that adoption until we are born from
above and that spirit of promise that has come into us begins
to testify or to bear witness of those things. It says, to
redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the
adoption of sons, that we might receive the fact that we have
been adopted. Okay, so that's saying, verse
five there, is saying the same as the end of verse 14. Let's
read it again, that we might receive the promise of the spirit
through faith. And we went back and saying that
we received the spirit of adoption, okay? Verse five again, to redeem
them that were under law, that we might receive the adoption
of sons. But look at it here, verse six.
And because ye are sons already, because ye are already sons,
God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts,
crying, Abba Father. See, you are already a son of
God. You are already a son of God
because or excuse me, you're already
a son of God, but the spirit is sent into you. We are already considered a son
of God. And the spirit of God was sent into us after whenever
God had raised up Christ and we were resurrected in Christ
Jesus. The Bible says we were quickened
with him. We had the spirit of God put in us to testify to us
all the things that are ours in Christ Jesus. And you say,
well, preacher, I think you're, I think that you're stretching
things just a little bit. You think that you, you know,
you might be making this something more than it is. Well, turn with
me to 1 Corinthians chapter two, We read this at the very first
of our exposition of Galatians, but in case you forgot, 1 Corinthians
chapter 2, look at verse 9. It says, but as it is written,
I have not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the
heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that
love him. Now we don't start out loving
God. We only love him because he first loved us. We only love
him whenever we've been born from above. So he has prepared
something for them that love him, and if he did, then he prepared
something before they loved him. But God hath revealed them unto
us. How did he reveal them? By his
spirit. See, we have to have the Spirit
of God in us first to know the things that God has prepared
for us. It says, but God hath revealed
them unto us. No eye has seen, no ear has heard.
Nobody knows these things. These are a mystery. These are
things that are unseen, unreceived. They're not received by the natural
man. And we're fixing to see that. but God hath revealed them
unto us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things,
yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things
of a man save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the
things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. See, we
can't know these apart from the Spirit of God. You couldn't have
known your adoption. You couldn't know that you were
a child of God until the Spirit of God came and told you that. Now look at verse 12. Now we
have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit
which is of God. Why? The word that, see that
word that? You can put the word so in front
of that. So that, here's the cause, the reason for receiving
the spirit of God. that we might know the things
that are freely given to us of God. Remember, we've talked about
this in that message. We are given the spirit of God
so that we might know what is freely given, not what's earned,
not what's worked for, but what is freely given, what is given
to us. Listen, isn't that what an inheritance
is? An inheritance is something that
is freely given. If I leave an inheritance for
my children, it's going to be small, whatever it will be, but
if I leave an inheritance to my children, it's not something
that they worked for. What is the only thing that qualifies
them for the inheritance that I might have to pass down? There's only one requirement.
They have to be my child. They didn't do nothing for it.
They didn't earn it, they didn't even make themselves, they're
not even my natural born children maybe. Like we talked about in
adoption. They didn't do anything to earn
what I'm giving them, but they're getting it freely. The Spirit
has given to us to tell us what we have been freely given. And the Spirit's never gonna
testify of what we're getting because we did something. The
Spirit will never testify to the child of grace, hey, you're
getting saved because you did this, or you're going to receive
eternal life because you did this, or you're going to go to
heaven because you're this. It's never going to tell you
that. It's always going to speak of Christ. The Holy Spirit is
given to us, and it will always tell. It won't speak of himself.
It will only speak of Christ. It won't speak of yourself. It
will only speak of God. The Holy Spirit will only speak
of Christ. It will always lead the child
of grace to look to Christ, to think on Christ, to be grateful
to Christ, to give acknowledgement to Christ. And listen, brethren,
that happens in our speech all the time. Listen, even all these
years after coming to know these truths, I still have to watch
how I talk because sometimes I want to give credence, I want
to give credit to man for something. But it's Christ who has done
all things. I don't give credit to the man. Listen, I have people
all the time, whether it's on Facebook or sermon audio, that's
sending in where they've listened to a message and the Lord has
blessed them by that and they come and they tell me, hey, that
was a great message that you preached. And listen, it's easy
for a preacher, after you hear that a lot of times, that you
want to just pat yourself on the back and it pumps you up
and gives you a little boasting and all like that. But I try
to, in my mind, to always point it back to Christ. If you tell
me thank you for that, I'm going to say, well, praise the Lord.
praise the Lord for that. You know, it's always giving
credit back to Christ. Well, the Holy Spirit isn't going
to give credit to anybody else. And if you're a child of grace,
he's going to tell you what's freely given to you. But he's
going to tell you how you got it. You got it freely. It is
yours, but it was given to you freely. He's going to tell us
about our inheritance, but we didn't earn that inheritance.
That inheritance was purchased for us because somebody hung
on the tree for us. Someone was made a curse for
you. Someone died for you. And if they died for you, stood
in your place, then that makes you eligible to be an inheritor. Now we have received not the
spirit of the world, but the spirit, which is of God, that
we might know the things that are freely given us of God, which
things also we speak not in the words which man's wisdom teaches,
but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with
spiritual. But the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, because the Spirit of
God is not in him. He can't, right? For they are foolishness
to him, neither can he know them." It's a spiritual inability. It's
not God saying, I'm not going to let you know this. It's an
inability that by nature they cannot know because they do not
have the Spirit of God. They're void of the Spirit of
God. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually
discerned, but he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself
is judged of no man, for who hath known the mind of the Lord
that he may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. So back to Galatians chapter
four, He says, to redeem them that were under the law, that
we might receive the adoption of son, we've been given the
spirit of God so that we might know what has been freely given
to us, the inheritance of God. And he says here, and because
your son's God has sent forth the spirit into your hearts,
crying, Abba, Father, verse seven, wherefore thou art no more a
servant, but a son And if a son, then an heir of God through Christ. Brethren, the Spirit of God,
the Spirit of promise, the promise of the Spirit is that we might
know what's been freely given to us. Now, one more scripture
and we'll be done. Look at Hebrews with me. Hebrews
chapter nine. I want to start reading in verse
11. But Christ, being come a high
priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect
tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building,
neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood
he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal
redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and
of goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctify
it and purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood
of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without
spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the
living God. You see, one of the things that
the Holy Spirit does is it comes and it purges our conscience
from dead works. It tells your conscience, hey,
listen, it's all right that you don't have to work for this thing.
You're a child of God. You've got it freely. You don't
have to work for your inheritance. It's given to you freely. So
the Holy Spirit is gonna purge us from dead works. So there's something suspect
about a person who professes to be a Christian who lives their
whole life long thinking that their law keeping is making them
right before God. Because one of the jobs of the
Holy Spirit that has been given to us is to purge our consciousness
from dead works. The things that we're doing in
the flesh, that's dead works. It says, and for this cause he
is the mediator of the New Testament, or the New Covenant, that by
means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were
under the First Testament, here it is, they which are called
might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. See, the
purpose that Christ died, and in that redemption that he purchased,
or that redemption that he made in his death, It was so that
they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance. Now look back at our passage
in Galatians. Is that not what this is saying?
Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law being made
a curse for us, for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangeth
on a tree, so that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the
Gentiles through Christ Jesus, imputed righteousness, that we
might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith, the
promise of the Spirit, the promise that the Spirit talks about,
the promise of eternal inheritance, the promise of what's freely
been given to you, the promise that you have been adopted of
God and that you are joint heirs with Jesus and that all the inheritance
is yours. Now, how do you know, Mike, that
it's talking about that, well, because of verse 15. Brethren,
I speak after the manner of men. Though it be a man's covenant,
yet if it be confirmed, no man disannulleth or addeth thereto.
Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not
in the seeds as of many, but as of one, and to thy seed, which
is Christ. And this I say, that the covenant
that was confirmed before God in Christ, The law which was
430 years after cannot disannul that it should make the promise
of none effect. See, this has to do with the
covenant. It has to do with the New Testament or the new covenant,
the covenant of grace. That's what was told to Abraham.
Abraham was told about the covenant of grace. The covenant of grace
tells us not your righteousness, but Christ's. You have received
the righteousness of Christ. And so it has to do with that
covenant. And if it has to do with that
covenant, then the spirit of promise is given to us to tell
us what that promise of that covenant is going to give. If
I write out a will, that is a promise that my children are going to
receive this inheritance, right? That's the promise. My kids can
look at that and say, hey, daddy put in that will that I'm going
to get the lawnmower whenever he dies. Ain't that wonderful? Kaylin, you want the weed eater?
You like to weed eat. The inheritance is there, and
the promise of that inheritance, we see, hey, we're gonna get
that. We're gonna get that. We're gonna get that. We're gonna
receive that. I didn't have to work for it,
don't have to do nothing. Dad's gonna give that to me for free. The Holy
Spirit does that, why? Because that will or that testament
that covenant was made. I made a covenant with myself
saying that my children are gonna receive that. So here it is. We've received the spirit of
promise, which is the spirit of adoption, which tells us that
everything that we see that happened legally, we experientially know
to be ours. The precious Holy Spirit's given
to us so that we might know what is freely given to us. And that too was purchased by
Christ for us, for you, if you're a child of grace. Isn't that
wonderful? Do you experience that? Is that
testimony in you? Do you feel that testimony of
him being yours? Well, if it is, then you're a
child of God. You're a child of God. Your hope
is in Christ. And if that's you, and you've
not ever been baptized, you need to be baptized. Join through
the church. But that's a message for another
time. All right, does anybody have any questions or any comments?
Or anything that you'd like to add to this? Any other scriptures
that might pertain? Praise? Job's glory? Prayer requests? Well, we'll pick up with that
the next time we're together. I'll be having surgery this Thursday
and Lori will be having surgery on Tuesday, not this Tuesday,
but the following Tuesday after my surgery for her gallbladder. I'll be having surgery on my
arm, so we won't have any services next Sunday, okay? I didn't know
when my surgery was going to be last week when I said we might
not have services today. But since they were pushed off
to this week, then we wouldn't have met. But we will not have
services next week. And we'll have to get with you
on the following Sunday. It depends on how everybody is
faring. I know the last time I had this
on my other arm, I had several days that I was not really able
to do much of anything. I was in so much pain that I
was knocked out by most of the pain medication, and don't know
about how she's gonna react to her surgery also. So, hopefully
we'll be good the following Sunday, but we'll let everybody know
ahead of time, okay? But we appreciate if you guys
would remember us in your prayers and everything. All right, anybody
got anything? Now we'll be praying for Kevin
and Jacqueline as they're trying to find a place to move. Pray for Daniel, just because
he's Daniel. All right, let's go to the Lord.
Father, we thank you for the day and we thank you again for
your mercy and grace in Christ Jesus. And Father, we thank you
for the work that you do in our lives through the Holy Spirit
by sending the Spirit into us, whereby we might cry, Abba, Father. Truly, Lord, we come so many
times before your throne of grace, feeling unworthy, to which we
are unworthy, but feeling so guilty and not able to even lift
our eyes towards you to ask for your help or for anything, but
Father, that you've given us the Spirit so that we might know
and that it might testify that we are your children and that
we can come to you and ask you for anything. If it be in your
will, Father, you said that you will not withhold anything from
your children that is of their need. And so, Father, we truly
ask that you might help us for those times where we do not feel
adequate enough to come to you, but Lord, that you might let
us rest in the promise of the spirit, the promise of our inheritance,
the promise of Christ Jesus. And Father, Lord, I just pray
that you might have edified your people today. I pray, Lord, that
everything that I have said has been of the truth and that if
there is error in anything, I say, Lord, I pray that you might correct
my thoughts and understanding of those things. Lord, I pray
for these brethren as they leave today, that you might keep them
safe this week and that you might be with them. Lord, I do wanna
lift up Kevin and Jacqueline, Lord, that you might help them
find a place to move. Lord, that you might let them
find a place that is suitable for what they need. And Lord,
that it might come in the right time that they've been given
to be able to get out of their house now. Lord, we just pray
that you'd be with me and my wife as we go through our surgeries,
that you might be with the doctors, nurses and all those who will
be attending. Father, I pray for our church as a whole, that
you might continue to keep us faithful to the word of God,
and that you might, as we leave this place, that you might use
us to testify of what Christ has done. And Lord, we pray that
if there's any others in this town that love your truth, that
love the gospel of Jesus Christ, and who believe these things
which we cherish so much, Lord, We pray that you would bring
them our way, and we ask, Lord, that you just might provide for
them food and fellowship in the word of God. Again, Father, we
thank you for all that you've done for us, for this day that
we've had to meet together, for these brethren that are here.
May you bless them today. Bless them in the weeks to come,
Lord. And we thank you for Christ Jesus
and the salvation that's in him, and we look forward to the return
of our Savior, and may he come ever so quickly. And we thank
you all in Jesus name, amen.