Good morning, our text is found
in Galatians chapter three. If you would like to turn there. Galatians chapter three. Galatians chapter three, Paul
continues to correct the error of the Galatians about mixing
law and mixing grace. They are confident in their actions as
far as their circumcision goes. They believe it set them apart
from the Gentiles. And they also believe because
they're Jews, they're children of the promise because they're
Jews. And that's the issue here. By
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Paul lays one final blow to the
self-righteous Judaizers that we see here. Now this is not
something old. This is the same thing today.
Just because it's not Judaism doesn't mean that it's not legalism. There's a lot of legalism in
today's age, and it's the same as what the Judaizers believed.
They believed they were justified or made righteous by the deeds
of the law. And what Paul has set forth in
the last four verses from this, he's established that not only
did righteousness not come by the law, but we were never under
a schoolmaster. The Jews were under the schoolmaster.
The law didn't come to the Gentiles. It came to the Jews. He said,
you're grown children now. You don't need a schoolmaster.
You don't need the law. We have the fullness of the gospel.
That's what Paul's establishing. people look at all sorts of things,
all sorts of internal desires or external items, things, in
order to see evidence of salvation, in order to see comfort about
their salvation. And if you remember in false
religion, oftentimes they would If you were in false religion,
you might know some of this, but men would compare themselves
to other men. They would say, well, I've done this and I've
done that. So this makes me righteous, or I don't do this. I don't do
that. That makes me righteous. Well, that's what these Judaizers are
doing. They're saying, no, we are the circumcision of Abraham
because we've been circumcised. We're the ones that promise came
to. And Paul's like, you missed the point. This was all spiritual. This wasn't physical. This was
not a physical covenant whereby God was gonna save you by that
covenant. This was a physical covenant
to show you, the law was to show you that we're all guilty before
God. And it was a spiritual promise,
wasn't it? That's the covenant of grace. That's the everlasting
covenant. If I've ever been clear on this subject, I wanna be as
clear as I can be today. God has never looked at bloodlines.
He has never looked at race. He's never looked at national
origin. He's never looked at birthright.
As far as for salvation, He doesn't look at anything like we look
at. And that is alive and well today. People believe because
they're born a certain way that they're entitled to some kind
of standing with God. And it just doesn't work that
way. God doesn't look at you and I and determine to justify
us or to cause us to be found righteous because of you or I.
God looks to his son. If we are going to be justified,
if we're going to be found righteous, we have to be found in Christ.
We have to be found in the one that is righteous, that is just.
Now Israel, physical Israel, they were God's chosen people
in the Old Testament, but they were not God's chosen people
unto salvation. Not all of them. You remember
Korah? Whenever Korah and Dathan, when
Moses was up on the mountain, came back down with the law.
Well, after that had happened, a little later on, they were,
offering sacrifice. Moses and Aaron, the other priests,
were offering sacrifice to the Lord. And Dathan and Korah said,
well, you're no better than we are. Did you bring us out here
into the wilderness to be our masters over us, to have control
over us? And they said, we're going to
burn incense unto the Lord ourself. We don't need a high priest.
That's what they were saying. We don't need a high priest. Now, understand
the severity of this is they're literally saying we don't need
Christ. That's the point. That's the picture there. Well,
we know what happened. Moses said, well, this time this
evening, we'll see, God will answer. And the Lord told Moses,
get away from them, I'm gonna kill them. And he did, he opened
up the earth and he destroyed 250. And it actually says of
them, it actually says that they went down alive into the pit. Now, if they were the elect of
God unto salvation, they would have received mercy, would they
not have? So they were not the elect of God. So all of the nation
Israel, are not God's chosen people according to eternal life. They were God's chosen people
to receive the promise of the Messiah. They were God's chosen
people to receive the covenant of works. They were God's chosen
people in that regard, but not unto all of them, not into eternal
life. So who are God's chosen people? Well, that would be the
church. the Church of the Old Testament, and the Church of
the New Testament. They are not all Israel, which are of Israel. You know, if you believe the
Lord by faith, if the Lord's given you faith to believe Him,
He says right here in our text, and we're gonna read it in just
a second, I'm gonna get to that. But he says, we're Abraham's seed.
If we believe God by faith, we're Abraham's seed. This is the seed
of the promise. This isn't the seed of what you
see. And that's the whole issue here. They're looking at the
external, expecting to find something for something spiritual, and
it's not possible. We can't, what did the Lord tell
us? I have not seen, e'er hath not
heard, neither has it been revealed what the Lord has in store for
us. We can't see the things that God has accomplished and done
by sight. It has to be by faith, God-given
faith. God's elect are from every nation,
every color, every language, and every race. This is what
Paul is asserting. Let's read this, Galatians 3,
26 through 29. For ye are all the children of
God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been
baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew
nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male
nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you be
Christ's, then ye are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the
promise. If you be Christ's, you're Abraham's
seed. You're in Christ Jesus, you're Abraham's seed. That's
the whole point here. That's the whole point. I titled the message, There Is
No Difference. There is no difference. It doesn't matter whether you're
educated or whether you're uneducated. It doesn't matter whether you're,
as he said here, there's neither Jew nor Greek. That's the religious.
It doesn't matter if you're religious. It doesn't matter if you're Greek,
if you're educated. It doesn't matter whether you're bond or
you're free. Masters were considered, under the law of Moses, they
were considered exalted more than the slaves were. We see
that in the Old Testament clearly. The priest would have been more
exalted among men than the peasants would have been. We see that
clearly. He's telling us this, in Christ, all are one. There's nobody above anybody
else. We're equal. If we're in Christ, we're equal
in Christ. One. Now, we are told at a young age,
and you know this is something we hear, there's nothing wrong
with praising your children. Make sure to do that. Always
tell them good job. There's nothing wrong with that.
Tell them they're special. I'm not saying don't do that. But we're
told from a young age that we're special. Oh, you're special. You're unique.
And that drives our ego to the assumption, well, that means
I deserve this, or I deserve that. What does God say? that
we deserve nothing less of hell, nothing less than hell. Because
we're born in sin and we're shaping an iniquity. But men with their
ego, their own personal opinion of themselves, they exalt themselves
and believe that they deserve this, they're entitled to this,
they're entitled to that. And God says we deserve nothing less
than hell for our best prayer we've ever prayed, for the best
act of kindness we've ever did. Because everything we do is tainted
with sin, every bit of it. Now the second hour, we're gonna
look at this, the title, Who Are God's Children? But everybody
says we are all God's children. You ever heard that before? I've
heard that a lot. I was talking to somebody this
week, actually, they said that. We are all God's children. That's
not true. That's a lie. That's a lie. God does not love everybody. Christ did not die for everybody.
The Lord's not hoping that you will choose him. The Lord's not
wishing, like that song, Wish Upon a Star. The Lord's not wishing
on a star that you would choose him. That's just silly. The Lord
is God, sovereign, omnipotent, holy, righteous, doesn't want
for anything. He even told the disciples, if
I was hungry, I wouldn't tell you. I wouldn't tell you. Why? Because he had the power to turn
the stones to bread if he wanted to whenever Satan tempted him.
He just wasn't going to give in to that temptation, but he
had that power. Turned water into wine. I mean, he's God.
He's God. He died for his children. He
died for his children. And we're gonna hear at the second
hour who is his children, but they are the elect of God given
to Christ before time ever began. The covenant of grace far surpasses
the covenant of works. Before time ever began, God elected
a people. Christ agreed to redeem those
people. This is who Christ died for. Now here in our text, Paul's
clearly declaring that under the Mosaic Law, masters were
more favored than servants, as I said before. Priests were more
favored than peasants. Men were more favored than women,
especially when it comes to worship. But what he's pointing out right
now is that in Christ, we're all one. We're all one in Christ. There is no difference. There is no difference. Because
we're in the gospel age, Christ is the end of the law for righteousness
to everyone that believeth. Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness. There's no difference. Pertaining
to worship, pertaining to righteousness, God's elect all are one in Christ. This is good news. Because if
my salvation is determined by my actions, whether it be not
doing something or doing something, or whether it be something I, you could just put anything there.
I mean, you fill in the blank, whatever comes to mind, anything,
you can call it. And if it's dependent upon me,
then salvation's not of the Lord, it's of me. Salvation's of the
Lord, the scripture tells us clearly. So the only way I'm
gonna be saved is if I'm found in Christ. Romans 321, 22 says, but now
the righteousness of God without the law is manifest, being witnessed
by the law and prophets, even the righteousness of God, which
is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe,
for there is no difference. There is no difference. You believe
Christ, then me and you are equal in Christ, if I believe Christ.
Men like to exalt themselves, don't they? The Pharisees, oh,
they'd love to exalt themselves. Look at me, look at how, and
the Lord even called them out for it, said, you'd like to walk
around and pray really loud so everybody sees you. You have
these robes on, you strut around like, you know, they were like
peacocks, you know what I mean? That's just how they acted, and
the Lord called them out for it. What about the one that was
in the temple, the one-time praying? He said, Lord, I thank thee that
I'm not like other men. Prayed thus within himself, Lord, I
thank thee that I'm not like the other men. I don't do this and
I do this and I don't do that and I do that. And Lord, I thank
you I'm not like that publican back there, that sinner. And
the publican wouldn't lift up his head to the ceiling, wouldn't
look up to the sky, but he beat upon his breast. He said, Lord,
have mercy on me, the sinner. Christ said one of these went
home justified. We don't have to guess which one that was.
One thought he was justified. The other one thought he wasn't
justified. And that's exactly the opposite of the way it was,
wasn't it? Lord has mercy upon whom he will
have mercy. And he never turns away a mercy
beggar. The issue that these at Galatia
had, the issue with us, the issue with our flesh, is that we desire
praise. We desire recognition. We desire to be worshiped. That's
just how we are by nature. We, by nature, believe that we
are entitled. We all are born saying, look
at me. What does the gospel say? What
does the gospel say? Look to Christ. Look to Christ
and live. Don't look to me. Don't look
at my works. Don't look at what I've done
as righteousness. It's not righteousness. My righteousness is filthy rag.
Look to Christ if you want to live. It's all from the beginning.
It's all about, look at me. I looked this number up because
I was curious. Did you know we have 8 billion people in the
world? 8 billion people. We just hit
that back in November, I think it was. And did you know 3.07
billion of those have Facebook accounts? That's almost half. That's a lot of Facebook accounts. Why do I care? Because a lot
of people say, look at me. Look at me. And if you're not
doing it online, you're doing it somewhere else. That's just what we do
by nature. The clothes that we wear, the things that we do,
we're doing it. We don't want to be seen as looking ugly or
whatever else. This is our nature. Do we see
that? This is our nature. Look at me. We're born screaming, look at
me, and we continue our lives that way, constantly pointing
at ourself, unless God in mercy reveals Christ. He takes that
finger and he turns it the opposite direction. Not unto us, O Lord,
unto thy name be glory and honor and praise. Men will look at
themselves so much. You remember Nebuchadnezzar,
and I've talked to you about this before. Nebuchadnezzar built a 90-foot
statue And whose image do you think was on the statue? He's
like, no, that doesn't look like me just yet. Go ahead and get
that left cheek a little bit better. I mean, he looked just
like him. Now everybody fall down and worship it. I'm the
man. I'm the king. I'm God, is what
he was saying. That's our nature. That's our selfish, self-righteous
nature. Look at, men will say, look at
my works, look at how nice I am, look at the family I was born
into. All these things are just the ugly mask of self-righteousness. They won't count for anything.
That's what Paul's telling the Galatians here. It doesn't matter. You're looking at the things
that does not matter. You're trying to keep the law,
that's iniquity. You're condemning yourself. Look to Christ. In
Christ, we are all one. We're all one. That's good news
if the Lord's ever made you a sinner because that means there's no
difference between me and there's no difference between you. He's not looking
at me. He's not looking at my faith. He's not looking at you
and he's not looking at your faith. He's looking at the faith
of Christ bestowed and he's looking at his son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Everything God required, he must provide and he provided in the
person of Christ. God looks on the heart. If we can see If we can physically see something
external, I used to do this or that. I don't do that no more.
Oh, did you hear about so-and-so doing this and that? I would
never do that. You ever heard that before? I would never do
such a thing. Yes, you would. Left to yourself. David, man
after God's own heart, what did he do? He committed adultery.
He murdered. We never have confidence in this
flesh. Paul said it very clearly. I
have no confidence in the flesh whatsoever. That's why. Because
left to ourself, the possibilities are endless. It's the Lord that
keeps us. And how does he do that? The
same way he saved us and called us by his grace. By his grace. Men will say, well, I'm not as
bad as that person because of fill in the blank. And that's
what's going on here in Galatians. They're saying, well, we're better
than you because of this. We can see this. If we can see
it, it's drawing attention to ourself. It's not giving him
praise. It's not pointing people to Christ. If we can see it,
it's pointing to ourself. draws attention to the flesh.
It's not honoring to the Lord. Our standing before God is by
his free and sovereign grace, not by our merits at all. Not
by our works of righteousness, but his works of righteousness.
Not by us justifying ourself based upon what we do, but he
justified his people. That's our justification. Not
by us getting better, slowly becoming sanctified, but that
his spirit has sanctified us. We're not looking something to
do. The Scripture says in Romans
chapter 10, 9 and 10, that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth
the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart, God hath raised
him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart,
man believeth under righteousness, not doeth under righteousness.
It doesn't say, for with the heart, man doeth under righteousness.
It says, believeth under righteousness. And with the mouth, confession
is made into salvation. Somebody said, well, that confession,
that's the do part. Confession is evidence of a work
God's already done inside. He's already given faith to confess.
We couldn't confess if we're dead. He's already said live. Paul is saying to the Galatians,
you are looking to your circumcision, your heritage as part of your
righteousness, and this is a mockery of the blood of Christ. That's
what he's telling them. You look to what you do, you're
not looking to Christ's blood. If I look to what I do, I'm not
looking to his finished work on the cross, I'm looking to
myself. What did Paul say about that?
You know, his pedigree that he gives talks about being born at Israel,
Pharisee of Pharisee, he called himself. He said, circumcised
the eighth day, tribe of Benjamin, he keeps going. lessons that he'd learned and
things that he'd done. He says this about all of that, Philippians
chapter three, yea, doubtless, I count all things but loss for
the excellency of the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ, for
whom I have suffered loss of all things and do count them
but done. Why, that I may win Christ and
be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of
the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness,
which is of God by faith. That's what we hope in. We look
at all the things that we used to see. We don't glory in those
things anymore. We don't glory in ourself any
longer pertaining to spiritual things. We look to Christ because
he's the only one that satisfied the Father. He's the only one
that paid the debt that we owed that we could not pay. He's the
one that put away the sin of his people on the cross of Calvary.
That's why we look to him. We couldn't put one sin away
if we wanted to. Not one. And we can't go to the law to
fix it because the law cannot make one righteous. The law cannot
make one righteous. It can only expose our unrighteousness.
It can't make a man holy or a woman holy, it can only reveal that
we're unholy, that we're utterly sinful. That's what the law does. I keep saying this, it's a mirror.
It's just a mirror, it shows you what you are, it exposes
what we are. Now let's read our text again, Galatians 3, verse
26. For ye are all the children of
God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been
baptized unto Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew
nor Greek. There is neither bond nor free.
There is neither male nor female. For ye are all one in Christ. And if you be Christ, then are
ye Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise. It is not our
works that merits our salvation. It's the work of Christ that
merited salvation. It's not what we do that determines
our salvation. It's what the Lord Jesus Christ
did that determines the salvation of his people. It's not what
we do that determines our justification before God. It's what Christ
has done when he offered up himself as the lamb slain unto his father,
when his soul was made an offering for sin. That is our justification,
because God said, satisfied. I'm well pleased with my son,
so I'm satisfied. What was he satisfied to do?
He was satisfied with redemption that Christ wrought for his people.
He was satisfied with the justification Christ wrought for his people. He was satisfied totally with
Christ. And every one of his people were
made the righteousness of God in him. Paul's telling us that Christ
alone did everything required by the law. The law required
death and Christ died in his people's room instead. He took
the sin of his people. He was made to be sin for us
who knew no sin that we might be made the righteousness of
God in him. This is what Paul is getting across to the Church
of Galatians. He's saying you all are thinking it's something
that you do, that you can see, if you can physically see. It's
like there's no difference. It doesn't matter whether you're
educated. It doesn't matter whether you're religious. It doesn't
matter whether you're Male or female, it doesn't matter whether
you're bond or you're free. None of this matters. It doesn't
matter what you've done or what you haven't done. Come to Christ,
confessing nothing but Him, professing nothing but Him. Don't come to
Him saying, look what I have done or look what I have. If
you want to be saved, we come to Christ through faith that
God gives us. with an empty, outstretched hand
asking him for everything. We don't have anything in that
hand. Empty, outstretched hand saying, Lord, you're gonna have
to fill it. I have in my hand no price I
bring, simply to Christ I cling. It's not our doing, brethren,
that entitles us to salvation. Salvation is by grace, by bestowed
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. This is God's salvation. Our
righteous standing before God is singularly dependent upon
the perfect obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ to his father.
And did he perfectly obey his father? Yes. Did he satisfy the
father? Yes. Was redemption actually
accomplished? Yes. So why go to the law? Because
our flesh says, look at me. Look at me. You see this? Look
at me. Unless the Lord keeps us from
it, that's what our flesh is constantly doing, wanting some
part of God's salvation. Oh, brethren, our justification
is freely by his grace. It can't be both. It can't be
justified by grace and what you don't do anymore. That doesn't
make sense, does it? Then it's not of grace. It's
what you do. can't be by, your justification can't be by grace
alone and what you're now doing, then it's not of grace anymore.
This is the message here. This is what he's telling them.
Our sin being remitted was not determined by our choosing the
blood of Christ. Our sin being remitted was determined
by the blood of Christ being shed for his people. That's our
hope. Our salvation was not determined
whenever we prayed a prayer, or we did a work, or we stopped
doing something and started doing something else, or we had circumcision
as the issue here, or being a Jew was the issue here. It doesn't
matter. He's saying all are one. If you
start looking at anything else, we're not looking to Christ alone. I love the fact that salvation
is a choice. It's just not mine or yours. It's all God's choice. And I love that men say, well,
you need to choose the blood. I'd love what the gospel says,
though. It's not by my choice, but it
was that Christ chose to shed his blood to accomplish something.
The blood was never offered to a human being. The blood was
offered to the Father. And the father was well pleased
with the blood of his son, with the sacrifice of his son, the
finished work of the cross. He justified all of his people.
That's why he was resurrected. He was raised because of our
justification. Understand this, there's no difference in this
church, those who've been justified. Church is one body in Christ
made perfectly righteous in him, by him, all by him and for his
glory, for his glory. The message here, the message
here is do not look to things seen. Look to Christ. Look to Christ. This is the message.
Don't look to self. Don't look at others. Don't determine
your righteousness based upon others' unrighteousness. That
actually doesn't help you at all. You can look at the worst
sinner that you've ever met in your life. That doesn't change
your sin. Doesn't make you any better. We're, you break the
law, we're guilty of all of it. The penalty is death. It doesn't
change. It's not, there's not degrees of punishment for this.
It's death, eternal separation from God. Brethren, this message is good
news to us. This is good news to us. There's only one place
that color race, origin, intelligence, standing, education, doesn't
matter. And people go around saying,
well, these things don't matter like they used to. Yes, they do. Yes,
they do. They try to say racism isn't
a thing. Yes, it is. It's never going to go away. Men by nature,
that's just how we are by nature. We see color. We see, and I'm
not encouraging racism. I'm simply just implying that
that's how we are by nature. There's one place where none
of that matters, and it's in Christ Jesus. It's not about
us. That's the whole point, isn't
it? Whenever you're in Christ, it's no longer about me. It's
all about Him. We just want to be found in Him. Isn't that the
truth? I just want to be found in Him. I don't care about where
I'm from. I don't care about I hate what
I've done, don't misunderstand when I say I don't care about
what I've done, I hate what I've done, I hate what I am, but it's all about
him because he is my only hope of justification before God.
He is my only hope of salvation before God. In the glorious kingdom
of God, neither color, nor race, nor origin, nor intelligence,
I'm thankful for the intelligence part. I wrote that one down too. I'm not the smartest guy. Intelligence
don't matter. It's not what you know, it's
who. I know whom I have believed.
What you know is irrelevant. If you know him, you're gonna
know everything he'll teach you. They shall be all taught of God,
scripture says. This glorious kingdom of God was wrought by
the Lord Jesus Christ by himself. And I love that we are one in
him, one completely. Do not look on natural things
of man. With God, if you're in Christ, there is no difference.
There is no difference. And what you're seeing, boy,
we get distracted. I know we get distracted. I do
too. It's a we, all of us. Don't look at those things. Look
to Christ, because in Christ, there's no difference. There's
no difference from one man or woman to another. We are saved
by grace alone, or we are not saved. This is the message here
in Galatians 3 verse 12. 26 through 29, there's no difference. There's no difference. Let's
pray. Father, we ask that you would take these words and bless
it to our understanding for your glory. In Christ's name, amen. Let's take a break.