We're in Galatians chapter three.
If you would like to turn there. Title this message, the promise
by faith, the promise by faith. The first question I have for
us is why do believers believe? Why do believers believe? It is the work of grace in the
heart of the Lord's people. It is his work of grace. It is his doing that causes his
people to believe. And did you know that's the only
way and only reason anyone can believe? Is if the Lord himself
causes us, makes us, enables us, And then after he does that,
he has to keep us too. Isn't that true? He does everything.
This is all by his purpose. It's the Lord's design. It's
according to his will. And it's all for his glory. All
for his glory. Why does God elect believe? There may do, not by their choice,
but his. Not by their will, but His. Not
by their actions, but God's actions, what He has done. Not their work,
but His finished work on the cross of Calvary. Now let's read
Galatians. I just wanna read one verse this
morning, and that's where you'll find our title is in verse 22. But the scripture hath concluded,
all under sin. that the promise by faith of
Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe. You notice that word of right
before the words Jesus Christ, that's the source, that's the
sum, and that is the substance of faith. Always looks to him
and all things never examined self. Here's the issue with the
Galatians. They're examining self. They're saying, well, we're
Jews and we are of Abraham seed because we're of the circumcision.
So you're not one of gods because you are not circumcised. They're
bringing in law and they're saying, I can see myself as being righteous
because I've done this, but I can't see you as righteous because
you haven't done it. Paul's telling them this is of the promise by
the faith of Christ, not your faith, but this is all of promise. Everything under the law was
a contract, but everything under grace is by grace a covenant,
a covenant. What is the promise by faith.
That's our title. What is the promise by faith
of Jesus Christ. Is it well if you do your part,
God will do his part. No, that's a contract. Is it
well if you take the first step, God will take the rest. No, that
would be a contract. It is God. who is rich in mercy,
wherein his great love, he loved us, he saved us before time ever
began and then saved us in time. He chose to do that. He chose
to redeem his people. The promise is in election. The
promise is in redemption. The promise is in regeneration.
The promise is the Lord's salvation for his people. That's the promise.
Abraham received this promise looking to the cross. The cross
hadn't happened yet, but Abraham believed God. Why? Because the
Lord gave him faith to believe. Why did the believers believe?
The Lord makes you do it. And I love the fact that we can't
help but believe. A believer cannot not believe.
First thing, I think I said that right. Believer, you can't help
it. You can't help it. You just believe. I was talking
to Mac yesterday and he was saying, it's unbelievable. I was like,
I know, I agree 100%, it's unbelievable. It's a glorious truth. Lord has
to make us believe it. Lord has to make us believe it.
Well, the promises by faith. It's not if you live a good moral
life, you'll have a good standing with God. It's not if you do
this or do that, God will be pleased with you. There is one
that is good and it's God, that's it. You and I are not good. We're of this clay, this dust. We're creatures of dust born
in sin, totally depraved. You know what totally depraved
means? It means we can't get to God. We can't please God.
We have no hope of doing anything towards God that would count
as righteousness. And anything we do try to do
in order to establish righteousness with God is called iniquity.
It's called iniquity. Oh, we need a substitute, don't
we? We need a substitute. And that, that is the promise. Lord said, I'll be surety for
them. I'll be surety for them. That's the promise that he said,
I will take their place. I will bear the reproach of their
sin. I will become cursed for them
on the tree. This is the promise. This is
the promise by faith. And the only way we can believe
this, and the only way we can receive anything from the Lord,
spiritually speaking, is by the faith of Christ bestowed. We
can't receive anything spiritually unless the Lord makes us alive
and gives us faith to believe it and receive it. There's a lot of preaching going
on right now about living moral lives and being kind to others.
I'm not against speaking on trying to live not a frivolous life. There's nothing wrong with that.
But what they're doing is is they're establishing a righteousness
by that. And God says, no, I'll disannul your covenant. I think
we should be kind to people. I don't think we should be rude
and ugly to people if we're able to be kind, but not for righteousness. We don't do that for righteousness.
We don't come and say, OK, well, since you've been since you've
lived this way and been so kind to people now, now the Lord's
going to let you into his heaven. It doesn't work that way. He's
looking to one, just one, the Lord Jesus Christ. He's looking
to his son. And if we're not found in him,
we have no hope. Men say, if you do this, God
will bless you with physical blessings. Did you know that's
a lie? That's a lie. The Lord never promised to bless
you with physical blessings. He did say, David said, I was
young, now I'm old. Never have I seen the righteous
forsaken nor his seed begging bread. But the Lord didn't promise
us health, wealth, and prosperity. The Lord promised us we'd be
hated of all, that we would be despised of everyone. Why? Because
he said, because I was. They don't hate you, they hate
me. That was the promise of the Lord. No, he didn't come to establish
a physical kingdom. If he would have, then we'd all
be rich, and we, well, it wouldn't be heaven, because we'd still
have sin, but you understand what I'm saying. The Lord went
to prepare a place, and that place is in him. That's where
our treasure is, is in Christ. This preaching about getting
rich because you serve God, there's no scripture, no scripture that
says that. No scripture that says that. The Lord did promise, I'll never
leave you nor forsake you. The Lord did promise many things. Takes care of his sheep, doesn't
he? He causes us to lay down in green pastures. The Lord takes
care of his people. The Lord takes care of his people. There's
no doubt about that. But our service unto the Lord isn't for
a result. It isn't for a result. It's because
of a result. Do we see that? Our service unto
the Lord is because of what the Lord Jesus Christ accomplished
and what he's enabled us to do by faith, by faith. So what is
the promise by faith of Jesus Christ? Well, he's speaking of
Abraham here. He just got done talking about
Abraham, if you remember, in a couple of places, and we'll see that again later on
as well, but he's called the father of the faithful. Why is
that? Well, the promise came to him first. The promise came
to him first. He didn't, This promise, we know
he's speaking of Abraham because he's the first one that received
the promise. Now he told Noah that he was gonna have a covenant
with him, and it was the covenant of grace, but the promise of
the seed, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Redeemer, came to Abraham.
So that's how we know this promise of the faith of Jesus Christ,
that's who he's talking about here. He said to Abraham, I will
establish my everlasting covenant with you and your seed. And it
wasn't a spirit, a physical seed. It was a spiritual seed. And
that's how we know. And actually we'll see this later
on. Uh, well look at verse 29. If
ye be Christ, then ye are, then are ye Abraham's seed and heirs
according to the what? Promise. The promise. That's
what we're talking about. The promise of the Lord. We're
heirs. Now the key word here, is faith. And that's so important
because faith gets misconstrued so often. We can never stop and
pause enough on faith and say, well, who does it, where does
it come from? Who does it look to and who gets all the glory
for it? If you can answer those three is the Lord Jesus Christ
and that's saving faith. But most of the time people talk
about their own faith and they talk about what they do and what
they don't do. And that's not faith, that's
sight. That's sight. The word here is faith, but it's
not mine and yours. Let's read verse 22 again. But
the scripture hath concluded all under sin that the promise
by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.
So the understanding is, is because of what the scripture and every
time, Most of the time, whenever they write the word scripture,
they're talking about the Torah, they're talking about where the law,
talking about the entire first five books of the Bible. It's
concluded that we're all sinners. So what's our hope then? Well,
he gives us our hope by saying, we received the promise by the
faith of Jesus Christ, and we're made to believe because of that.
That's what he's telling us. That's what he's telling us. Believing, that word believing,
that's another one that people, They like to say, had somebody
tell me, you have to believe. And I said, yeah, yeah, you have
to believe. But we can't because we're bound
to our nature. The Lord has to enable us. We're
asked to give us life. The Lord has to give us faith
for us to believe. Do you remember when you first
believed? You might remember whenever you started hearing
the gospel, but I remember a lot of times people would say, well,
I can take you to the place where the Lord saved me. Well, you'd
have to go to the cross first of all, if you wanted to do that. But when you
started hearing, All you knew is that now I'm hearing. And
it's kind of like that man. He's like the Pharisees came
up to this man who was blind that the Lord had healed on the
side, but they were angry about it. And he looks at him and says,
give God the glory. Is this man a sinner? And he
says, whether he's a sinner or not, I don't know this one thing.
I do know I was blind. Now I see. And that's just it,
isn't it? We find ourself believing one
day because the Lord gave us ears to hear, eyes to see, no
glory to us whatsoever. That's what it is to believe.
It's to look to Christ as all. This is something the Lord must
do. And he does this instantaneously. And it's a mystery. He says,
live and gives repentance and faith instantaneously. And we
believe, we believe. Now, with that faith, we receive
the promise. We're able to see the promises
of God are to his people, the salvation that was promised.
So understand, we believe in an eternal salvation first and
foremost. I don't want to misconstrue or make anyone think we don't.
We believe that 100%, but that being said, it was because of
the promise that the son made to the father and the father
made to the son and the spirit made. This was the covenant whereby
it couldn't be broken because God was the one that done it.
So in that regard, we were just justified in eternity, but the
Lord still had to shed his blood. The sacrifice still had to take
place in time for our sin on the earth, in the flesh, in order
for our sin to be put away, in order for us to be born again.
And that's what the Lord does by his spirit through his gospel.
That's what the Lord does. The Lord Jesus Christ successfully
redeemed his chosen people. He finished the work all by himself.
So we're talking about this promise. That was the promise. I will
save you and you will be saved. That's the promise. I will call
you, you're mine. I have redeemed you. That's the
promise. It is finished. That's the promise. And the only way to receive this
is by God-given faith. Or we'll never be able to believe
it. We'll always want to look. This
is the issue that he's dealing with at the Galatians. We'll
always want to see something outwardly, something physical,
something I'm doing or not doing. And that's the problem. It's
not by faith in it, it's by sight. If we're looking to something
physical, we're not looking to the Lord Jesus Christ. I said this already, but just
as Abraham believed God and he was made to live looking to the
cross of Christ, the Christ of the cross actually is who he's
looking to. He was looking to the Christ of the cross. we are
made to live looking back to the Christ of the cross and looking
to him now. And so everybody in the Old Testament
were saved the same way everybody in the New Testament was. They
were saved by faith. The Lord Jesus Christ gave them
life, gave them faith to believe. Now, faith is evidence of salvation. So I might've didn't say that
quite right. They were saved at the cross
and then they were given faith to believe. That's how they were
saved. They were saved at the cross and then they were given
faith to believe. Faith is the only way that we can receive
the things of the Lord. Faith never looks to self for
justification. Faith never looks to self for
righteousness. Faith never looks to self for
sanctification or for redemption. Faith never looks to self for
knowledge or wisdom. Faith never looks to self for
the things of God. If the Lord has given you faith,
you're looking to God to supply everything he requires. Everything,
and that's what he gives, everything he requires. Everything he requires. So what is the promise by faith of Jesus Christ? What
is the promise? Well, that when he died, he redeemed
his people. Do you believe that? that when
he ascended on high, he led captivity captive, that he was resurrected.
That's a promise. That's a promise that we have.
Do you believe that? That he is now seated in the heavenlies
as our advocate, as our mediator, as our high priest, as our justifier. That's the promise. Do you believe
that? Do I believe that? Is that your
hope? That's my hope. Because if I
don't believe that, the Lord has not given me faith. The Lord
has not called me out of darkness into light. He has not revealed
his face yet unto me. If I'm looking to justify myself,
thinking I'm not as bad as some people, the Lord's not my justification. If I'm looking at my life, seeing
that I'm not doing the things that I used to do and I'm getting
better and better, I'm thinking that I'm becoming more and more
sanctified. Christ is not my sanctification. If I think I
know something in the scripture that maybe you don't know, Christ
is not my wisdom. Christ is all to the Lord's people. Christ is made to be all to the
Lord's people. Another promise for us to remember
that if you, well, I'll say this, if you've been given the promise
by faith of Jesus Christ, then you have been made the righteousness
of God in Christ. You remember the verse that says,
He, the Lord God, hath made Him, the Lord Jesus Christ, to be
sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him? That's a promise. We weren't
there. Were you there for that? We were
there in Christ, but we weren't there physically, were we? We
didn't see the cross. We didn't see the crucifixion of our Savior. And yet we have his promise that
that was what was accomplished. He said, when he seen the travail
of his soul, he was satisfied. Do you believe that? Do you believe
God was satisfied with his son? That's the promise. What did
his death accomplish? The salvation of all the people
Lord elected. Do you believe that? That's what
he promised. That's what he did. Now, I want to make something
clear because this I'm talking about faith a lot, and I've made
it clear that we never look. We never examine ourself for
faith. We never look to faith. We never look for evidence of
faith. We look to Christ. And in looking to Christ, that's
the only way that you have any hope of having faith, because
that's all that faith does. You can't see faith. You can't
see evidence of faith. But what you can see is the Lord
Jesus Christ. That means he's given you faith.
That's the point. If you're looking to Christ as all your wisdom,
righteousness, sanctification, and redemption, truly, truly
been made to do that, then the Lord's given you faith to believe.
It's that simple. And without that, we won't believe. If we've been given faith, we
have the promise that he washed us from our sin by his own blood,
that he purged us, his people, by his own blood. He was successful. There's no more work to be done
for you or not. If we are the Lord's, and he's given us this
promise, there's no reason for us to fear death. Why? We died
in Christ. We're dead unto the law. We're dead unto death. That might
not make sense, but death died. The Lord Jesus Christ has the
keys of death, hell and the grave. We won't face the second death
because Christ died in our place will physically die, but not
spiritually will live forever will live forever. This is some
of those things that are As it was put earlier unbelievable
Lord has to give you faith to believe it. That's our hope. We have the promise, brethren,
that Christ is the end of the law for righteousness sake, that
he's made his people righteous and he is the end of the law.
We don't try to keep the law. Christ is the end of the law. We have the promise that the
inner man is perfect. Holy. Why? Because it bears the
image of the Lord Jesus Christ. When he sees me and he sees you,
we have the promise that he doesn't see you or me. He sees the blood
and he's satisfied. He sees his son and he says,
worthy, worthy. That's our hope. That's our hope. It's so important to understand
that unless God chooses to do the work, we cannot believe.
In John chapter five, you've heard me quote this many times,
the Lord told the Pharisees, you will not come to me that
you may have everlasting life. Why? My father's word is not
in you. My father's word is not in you.
That's what he told them. You have not my words in you. Then
in Matthew 16, he says this, he's talking to his disciples
this time, and he said, who do men say that I am? And they say,
well, some say you're Isaiah. Some say you're Elijah. Some
say you're one of the prophets. And he asked a life or death question. This is life and death. Who do
you say that I am? Who do you say? Now, the answer
that comes after, I mean, we can say he's Jesus Christ, the
Lord and savior of his people. We can say that, but still not
believe it. It's life and death. The only
way that you can believe that in the heart is by God-given
faith. That's what I'm talking about right now. That's the promise,
is that you would receive faith to believe. Without faith, it's
impossible to please God. It's impossible to believe God.
Who do you say that I am? Life and death. If he gives us
faith, we're gonna say the same thing Peter said. Lord, I believe
thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. And he said,
blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood hath not
revealed this to you, but my father, which is in heaven. And
there is the truth of the matter. Didn't come from Peter, did it?
It wasn't revealed by a man, was it? It was revealed by the
Lord himself. Now, when we preach this gospel,
the Lord, if he is pleased to, he sends his spirit and power,
and he reveals himself by the preaching of the gospel. The
same way Peter was made to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, the
same way that Abraham believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, because
the scripture says the Lord preached to him. That's how. And so he
believed on the Lord. He believed on the Lord. Flesh
and blood hath not revealed this to you, but my Father, which
is in heaven. That's so simple, yet men think that they can choose
to believe or not choose. It has to come from the Lord.
Look at verse 22 again. But the scripture hath concluded,
all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might
be given to them that believe. We're born sinners, and unless
God intervenes, we'll die sinners. We're born sinners, and unless
God intervenes, we'll die sinners. There's nothing we can do to
change our sinful state. And a lot of times, I won't even
say a lot of times, every time, an individual left to themselves
will say, I'm not that bad. I'm not that bad. I don't deserve
this. I don't deserve that. If the
Lord ever takes us and shakes us over hell, that's what he
does for his people when he gives them repentance. You see what
you deserve then. You see what it costs. in order for you to
be redeemed on the cross of Calvary. You see the endurance of our
Lord and Savior and the punishment, the agony that he went through
when his soul was made an offering for sin. We see that was our
death that we should have died, but he died it in our place.
We see the full wrath of God being poured out upon him and
understand that was my wrath that I was supposed to receive.
That was my judgment. That was my punishment. That
was my scoffing and mocking. Those were my nails, my crown.
And yet he took it. freely and drink the cup, drink
it dry for his people. All has to happen for an individual
to go to hell is the Lord do nothing, nothing. But aren't
you glad the scripture says that his mercy and dearest forever,
that it's an everlasting mercy, that his grace is inexhaustible
and that he delights in showing mercy. He says, I have no pleasure
in wrath. He has pleasure in showing mercy.
I love the verse where he says, I will have mercy on whom I will
have mercy told Moses that it was re-quoted back in Romans
chapter nine, when Paul was writing said, I will have mercy on whom
I will have mercy. He didn't say I might have mercy.
He said, I will. Isn't that good news. I will
have mercy. We must not hold the tradition,
or hold to what we see, or hold to our works, or hold to our
outward anything, because all that is is iniquity. Not going
to accomplish anything. We're not looking to Christ at
that point. You know what men do? They think
they see fruit. Fruit, and that's something that
has been misconstrued a lot, but it's the, just like this
is the faith of Jesus Christ, that fruit is the fruit of the
spirit. It's not everything he requires
he must produce. I love the fact that his people
really do produce that because they're in Christ. I absolutely
love that. You're not gonna see fruit If
you could see fruit, you're gonna say, look how big my apple is.
Isn't that how it goes? Just like the regular, I mean,
I've talked about this before over here at the fairground. They have a pumpkin contest.
Who has the biggest pumpkin? That would be the same way. In
church, if we could see our own fruit, we'd say, my fruit's a
lot bigger than yours. It looks better. We'd brag about
it. What did the Lord say? It's not of works, lest any man
should boast. It's by grace, through faith. That's how it's
by. We're not comparing apples to apples. Faith looks to Christ. Faith doesn't examine one another.
Did you know that? Faith looks to Christ. They that are in the flesh cannot
please God. Oh, it's not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but according to his mercy. You who desire
to be saved. Do you desire to be saved? I
desire to be saved. I desire to be saved right now,
and right now, and right now. Do you desire to be saved from
self? Yes. Do you desire to be saved from sin? Yes. Do you desire
to be saved from Satan? Yes, I can't contend with Satan.
Only the Lord Jesus Christ can do that. Then believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
Come to Christ with God-given faith. Believe the promise. Believe
the promise. I write unto you, little children,
because your sins may be forgiven. They are forgiven. I write unto
you, little children, because your sins are already forgiven. That's 1 John. They're already
forgiven. Behold, what manner of love the
Father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the
sons of God. When? Now. Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ. Scripture tells us this, Romans
10, 9 and 10, that if thou shalt confess This is one that they
use in false religion a lot. They call it the Roman's Road.
This is part of the Roman's Road. What they do is they take you
down verse by verse, and they start by saying, for all have
sinned and come short of the glory of God. The wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our
Lord. Then they get to this part that says, that if thou shalt confess
with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shall believe in thine heart,
God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with
the heart man believeth unto righteousness, and with the mouth
confession is made unto salvation. Two things are wrong with how
they present that. Number one, you cannot confess
with the mouth what's in the heart in your flesh. It has to
come after the new birth. The only way that you can confess
Christ is if the Lord's already made you alive. If you can believe
it in your heart, you have a heart of flesh, not a heart of stone
anymore. He's given you a new heart to do that. Lord doesn't
want our heart, but this is the command. If thou shalt confess,
with thy mouth and believe in thine heart. There's a lot of
people confessing with the mouth, aren't they? A lot of people
confessing the Lord Jesus with the mouth, but they cannot believe
in their heart. Why? Because this promise is only
received by the faith of Jesus Christ bestowed. That's the only
way it can be received. If you believe in your heart, God hath
raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the
heart man believeth unto righteousness, which with the mouth confession
is made unto salvation. That word made is also evidence.
evidence of salvation. If you find yourself believing,
it's because you've received the promise by the faith of Jesus
Christ, and God is the doer of it. Let's pray. Father, we ask
that you would take these words and bless it to our understanding.
Thank you for everything given to your people that you require
in Christ's name. Amen. Let's take a break.