We're gonna be in the book of
Galatians chapter three. Both hours this morning, Lord
willing. Galatians chapter three. I have
a very simple gospel message this morning for us. And the
reason why is the gospel's simple. It's not complicated. We don't
complicate the gospel. The gospel preacher, one that's
a true gospel preacher, sin of the Lord is not sent to debate
the gospel. He's not sent to argue the gospel. He's commanded to preach the
gospel simply. Paul told Timothy, preach the
word, be instant in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke and
exhort with all long suffering and doctrine for the time will
come when men will not endure sound doctrine. We are to preach
simply. We are to preach the truth in
love simply. That's what I hope to do this
morning. There's a lot of pseudo-intellectuals out there that want to talk about
what they know. Our job is to preach who we know. We declare
him. In doing so, it honors him, not
us. I'll tell you what I know. That
means that's something I've discovered that gives me glory. But if I
tell you about him, he gets all the glory because that's a revelation,
isn't it? He's had to be the one to show me that. Gospel is
declared, it's preached as God's commanded. Paul here is doing
exactly what I just described. He's not debating and he's not
defending and he's not arguing, he's declaring what he wants
delivered to them before. Okay, this is the same thing
I've told you before. This isn't something new. I'm
not gonna go and say, I'm not gonna defend what I said before,
I'm just gonna declare it to you again. And if the Lord's
people If they're the Lord's, they have ears to hear. They'll
hear what the Lord has to say. He's declaring that righteousness
by the law is impossible. No flesh. He said this. How many
times have you said something similar? There's no flesh is
justified by the deeds of the law. You can't get more simple
than that. Can't no flesh is justified by
the deeds of the law. He does this by making another
clear gospel explanation, exclamation, I should say. In Galatians 3,
just two verses this morning, 13 and 14, it says, that the blessing of Abraham
might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive
the promise of the Spirit through faith. There's four things in
those two verses that are answers to four questions, and the questions
are the title of this message. Who, what, how, and why. Who, what, how, and why. That
if we answer those questions, we have a simple gospel message.
So who is the topic? Who is the subject about? What
did the Lord tell the Pharisees? Search the scriptures, for in
them you think you have eternal life, but they are they which
speak of me. Who's the topic? It's the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's the subject. He's the sum
and substance of the gospel. He is salvation. He is the Lord's
salvation. The Lord Jesus Christ, the God
man, the fullness of the Godhead bodily, the Word of God, the
Alpha and Omega, the sovereign creator and sustainer of this
universe, the one that is seated on his throne as the successful
redeemer of his people. This is the subject. You know
what the Lord's people wanna hear? Him. You came here, H-E-R-E
this morning, to H-E-A-R about him. You came here to hear about
him, didn't you? That's why we're here. We came
here to hear about him. He's the ruler of heaven and
earth, the judge of the earth, the sovereign king of kings and
Lord of lords. Revelation tells us he's the one which was, which
is, and which is to come. Oh, He's the way, the truth,
and the life. He's the alpha and omega, the first and the
last, the beginning and the end. I'm reminded the Bible starts
with these three words, in the beginning, God. That's how it
starts. And in the very last part, Revelation
22, the last two verses, 20 and 21, he which testified these
things saith, surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so come Lord Jesus,
the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen. So it
starts with God and it ends with the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It starts with God. It ends with God. And you know,
what's in the middle. These are they which are written of me. It's all about him. It's history. His story. History. H-I-S-T-O-R-Y. History. His story. He wrote it. He purposed it.
He ordained it before time. He's God. He's God. This is our
subject this morning. This is our topic. This is the
who that we're looking at. The Lord Jesus Christ. He purposed
before time Before time, He purposed all things according to the determinate
counsel of His own will, even His death. Over in Acts chapter
two, Peter was preaching on the day of Pentecost to them, and
he said, and you have taken with wicked hands and crucified the
king of glory. But he also says this, but it
was ordained of God by the determinate counsel. By the determinate counsel
of God, you've taken with wicked hands and slain and crucified.
It wasn't your choice. That was determined by God before time
ever began. To know him is to have eternal
life. So that's the who. That's the
who this morning. Now the second question, what
did he do? What did he do? We'll look back
over at chapter three, verse 13, three words, Christ hath
redeemed. Now the first thing I want you
to notice is that word hath, that's a past tense word. That's
not a futuristic word. That's a past tense word. Hath
means that it's already happened. Doesn't say he tried to redeem.
Doesn't say he's going to redeem. Doesn't say he attempted to.
It doesn't say if you let him, he'll redeem. It says hath. Christ
hath redeemed us. Well, who's the us? We have to
go back to the beginning of the book to find out he's talking
to the Lord's people. He's talking to the church. He's
talking to the elect of God. Christ hath redeemed us. This is what he did. He redeemed
his people from their sins. What did he say on the cross
of Calvary? Some of his last words that he said, it is finished. Hath redeemed. Hath redeemed. There's nothing left to do. There's
nothing that is dependent upon me for salvation to be accomplished. That is good news to me. Is that
good news to you? Somebody that wants something
to do, somebody that is a pseudo-intellectual, as we mentioned before, somebody
that desires just to know things, they want something to do. They
want to know something about something. And the reason they
do that is for self-righteousness. I know something you don't know.
That makes me sit up a little bit higher than you do, so God
will recognize me. That's not true. God is only
pleased with his son. God is only pleased with what
the Lord Jesus Christ did. When Christ said, it is finished,
the veil in the temple was rent entwined from top to bottom,
signifying that we now can go boldly to the throne of grace,
having obtained mercy to find grace to help in the time of
need. It is finished. The work was accomplished. This
is what he did. He accomplished salvation. He
put away the sin of his people. This is what he did all by himself. This past tense clearly describes
the completion of his work. He hath redeemed his people once
and forever, always and forever. It is finished. It's never going
to not be finished. That means I can't mess it up
and you can't mess it up. Every chance I get, I want to
say that because that gives me such comfort and such hope because
if I can mess up about it or anything, but I can't mess that
up. I can't mess up my standing with God in Christ. Do you know
why? Because I'm in Christ and we are kept by the power of God
through faith under salvation, ready to be revealed at the last
time. We are kept by him, not ourself. He said, you're not
your own. You've been bought with a price.
This is what he did on the cross of Calvary. This is what he did. What hath he done, he redeemed.
That word redeemed, now that's a glorious word. Scripture says,
you were not redeemed with corruptible things such as silver and gold,
but by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, the precious
blood of the Lamb. That's what you were redeemed
with. The incorruptible blood, not the corruptible things of
this world, not the corruptible things we produce, not the corruptible
works of the law, but we were redeemed by the incorruptible,
perfect, precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now to redeem
means to pay, to redeem means to pay the price to recover from
the power of another. What does that mean? To redeem
means to pay the price to recover from the power of another. Well
understand we're born subject to bondage. We just talked last
week about the curse. And even here, It talks about
Christ being made a curse. We were redeemed us from the
curse of the law. We're born in sin. We're shapen in iniquities. That means we're under bondage.
We're born dead. We can call it slavery if you
want to, but there's no way we can get out of it. No way we
can get out of it. Nothing that we can do in order
to change our state before God. That's why Christ had to die. That's why Christ became a man. We're under the curse of the
law, which is death, with no hope of changing that ourself. Go to Galatians 4, just page
over, Galatians 4 verse 1. And we're getting a little ahead
of ourselves in Galatians, but it's going to keep reiterating throughout
the whole book. I mean, it's just how it is.
Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing
from a servant, though he be Lord of all, but as under tutors
and governors until the time appointed of the father, even
so we, when we, even so we, when we were children were in bondage
under the elements of the world. But when the fullness of time
was come, God sent forth his son, made of a woman, made under
the law to redeem them that were under the law, that we might
receive the adoption of sons. And because you are sons, God
hath sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts, crying,
Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a
servant, no more a servant, but a son. And if a son, then an
heir of God through Christ. The purpose of him coming was
to redeem them that were under the law. God sent his son to
redeem all of his elect that were under the law. That's the
whole message here, isn't it? You've been redeemed. He's telling
the Galatians, stop trying to become redeemed. You already
are, if you're his. Stop trying to do something in
order to please God. Christ already has done that. Stop trying to
offer up yourself as any part of your righteousness. Christ
is our righteousness. That's what he's saying. That's
what he's trying to, that's what he's declaring to them. Here's
the reason why Christ had to come. God had to become a man
for this reason. Romans 8.3, for what the law could not do
in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own son
in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin condemned sin in
the flesh. Christ condemned sin in the flesh. How did he do that? Well, Hebrews
chapter one, verse three said, when he had by himself purged
our sin, he sat down, he sat down. This, this is how he did
that. Everyone he loves has now been
justified, made the very righteousness of Jesus Christ in the Lord Jesus
Christ. I got a little bit ahead of myself
because that was the next question, how? How did he do it? We know
who did it. We know what he did. Now how
did he do it? How did he do it? Well, we already said he became
a man, but here's our problem. The wages of sin is death. Scripture
goes on and says, but the gift of God is eternal life through
the who? Jesus Christ, our Lord. That's
the good news of the gospel. The wages of sin is death, but
the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
So the law has me charged The law has me guilty of trespass. The law has me guilty of transgression.
The law has me guilty of iniquity, because we all try to fix our
sin. We're guilty before God. We're under the curse of the
law. It was what just was said recently.
Anyone that doesn't continue with all things written in the
law, they're cursed. They're under the curse of the
law. So that's the good news here, is Christ was made a curse. for his people. He took that
curse unto himself so that you and I would be set free from
the curse of the law. So if I am under the curse and
if he doesn't take my penalty, then justice still must be served. When there's a transgression,
whether it's a physical transgression, you go speeding down the interstate,
go 100 miles an hour down the interstate, and you get caught,
you're going to get a ticket. There might be some times you can do
a little bit over, and they won't get too much trouble. But you
do pretty quick, where you just came from a trip, and I saw people
after people pulled over on the side of the road. Had one car
blow past us. I don't know how fast they were going, but I come
up on them a little later on, and they're pulled over. Had
three troopers behind them. I thought, boy, you're going
to jail, man, or something. I don't know. They're serious about you.
Transgress the law, what happens? You have to face the consequence.
Justice has to be served. And if man, if man and their
pea brains serve justice, don't excuse the guilty. Don't you
think the holy God of this universe, he will not acquit the guilty.
He will not. Justice must be satisfied. Wages of sin is death. Now, I
just told us we're born guilty. We're born in sin. I told us
that we are guilty under the law, under the curse of the law.
So what is our punishment for that? Death, eternal separation
from God. Eternal separation from God.
So what's the good news of the gospel? For he, God, hath made
him, the Lord Jesus Christ, to be sin for us, his people, who
knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God
in Jesus Christ. That's the hope. That's the hope.
That took away the penalty. He took our penalty. He took
our curse. He took everything that we were
guilty of unto himself and he suffered the wrath of God in
our room instead as our substitute surety on the cross of Calvary.
God hath made him sin for us who knew no sin. He said, when
he shall see the travail of his soul, he shall be satisfied.
God was satisfied with his son. This is what he did. By his soul
being offered up to God, by himself bearing our sin of all of God's
elect, he was made a curse and thereby we are relieved. The
debt has been paid. We have been redeemed. The payment
has been made. We're no longer guilty in God's
eyes. We're not just innocent in his
eyes. Somebody told me one time that the word justified means
just as if I would have never sinned. That's not it. I've told
you this before. I love this. Justified means
you never sinned, period. Not just as if, no, you never
sinned. How can that be? Well, that's the glorious news
of the gospel. You had no part to do with it. God did it so
perfectly well, you've never sinned one time in his eyes.
And the way God sees it, that's how it is. That's how it is. How did this happen? What did
he do? Well, God looked upon his darling
son and saw my sin upon him, and the sword of justice unsheathed,
and it pierced the heart of the precious Lord Jesus Christ for
his people. But the Lord said, when he said,
awake, O sword, smite the shepherd. Lord had to draw it. The part
that we can't fathom is the Lord said, it pleased the Lord to
bruise him. Think about that love that he
has for his people. It pleased, pleased the Lord
to bruise him so that I could be redeemed. That's exactly what
he's saying. Pleased the Lord to bruise him
so I could be made the righteousness of God in Christ, yes. Please
the Lord to bruise him so that you could be one with him? Yes.
Please the Lord to bruise him so that sin would be put away
and the curse would be gone forever? Yes. That's what he did. That's what he did on the cross.
Well, how do we know? Well, first of all, let me say
this. This is why it's utter foolishness
to say it was done for everybody without exception because everyone
would be redeemed. Everyone would be redeemed. But
how do we know that God was satisfied? Well, there's sufficient evidence
by the resurrection of Christ. And I want to say this on this.
I don't want this to be confusing because as I wrote it and I reread
it, I thought this is kind of confusing and I don't want to
confuse this. I'm going to go slow. I want to go as slow as I can
and maybe even reiterate it. If it is true that the Lord Jesus
Christ successfully redeemed and yet not everybody is going
to be redeemed and he died for everybody. Think about this.
Then it would it not be true also that the Lord would not
have resurrected him because until everybody was redeemed,
the work would not be finished. Is that not right? Does that
make sense? If Christ redeemed everybody and yet some are not
going to be redeemed, That's why it's just foolishness, I'm
telling you. The Lord Jesus Christ, we know he was successful because
the Lord resurrected him. There's the evidence that God
said these, the ones you died for, justified. Justified. If the Lord didn't see his people
as justified, if the Lord didn't see someone as justified, Christ
failed and therefore would not have been resurrected. He would
have remained dead. But was he resurrected? We have
the witness of all the apostles, all the people that saw him.
He hung around on the earth long enough to make sure people knew
he was resurrected for his witnesses, didn't he? And that's what Paul's
saying, that one that I saw, I'm delivering unto you. I'm
just telling you what I've seen. I'm not telling you what I know,
I'm telling you whom I know. If there's one thing left to
do, Christ died in vain. If the law can save us, Christ
died in vain. That was the end of chapter two,
verse 21. I do not frustrate the grace
of God, for if righteousness came by the law, then Christ
is dead in vain. That's simple, isn't it? That's
simple. But he finished the work. He
finished the work. How do we know? Well, turn with
me to John chapter 17. I think we looked at this last
week. Look at one through five. These words speak Jesus and lifted
up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour has come. Glorify
thy son, that thy son also may glorify thee, as thou has given
him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to
as many as thou has given him. And this is life eternal, that
they might know thee the only true God in Jesus Christ, whom
thou has sent. I have glorified thee on the
earth. I have finished the work which
thou gavest me to do. And now, O Father, glorify thou
me with thine own self, with the glory which I had with thee
before the world was. Either Christ is dead in vain,
or Christ finished the work. It's that simple. And the Lord
Jesus Christ is God and he cannot lie. He cannot lie. What does that mean? He finished
the work. He said, Father, I finished the work you've given unto me.
The work of redeeming the chosen people, the elect of God. He said it's finished, he cannot
lie. And the veil was written twain from top to bottom because
of his death. Because we died in Him, we resurrected
in Him, we're seated with Him, we have access to the throne
of God with no wrath. The scepter's raised to the Lord's
people now. The scepter's been raised to
the Lord's people. Now lastly, why did He do it? Why did he
do it? Well, I've probably already said
it three or four times, multiple, multiple thing, multiple reasons.
For the glory of God, absolutely. I've glorified thee, I finished
the work, I glorified thee, did it for the glory of God, for
the salvation of the Lord's elect. But here, Paul actually gives
us a specific reason, a glorious reason, as to why the Lord, why
the Lord did all this. One of the greatest hopes that
we have is the promise of Abraham. Look, let's read this again here.
Chapter. Go back to our text. I'm sorry.
Back to Galatians three. 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 to the Gentiles through Jesus Christ,
that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
Why did he do it? That the blessing of Abraham
might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive
the promise of the Spirit through faith. The promise of the Redeemer. The promise of the Redeemer.
And in the next hour, we're going to see our title is The Promise
Kept. promise kept. So Abraham in Genesis
17, he said to him, he came to him, he made, he told him what
was going to happen. He promised him I'd make an everlasting covenant
with you. He said, I'm your shield. I'm your exceeding great reward.
I am. I love when our Lord says I am.
And this is the promise unto Abraham that his seed, he would
have he would be redeemed. That's what he showed him on
Mount Moriah. That's what all that was about. Let me explain. Lord showed him
in depth. This is what I mean by it. You
saw it by faith. I'm going to give you, you're
going to still see it by faith, but this is what's going to happen.
It's going to transact just like this. Whenever the father had
to execute the son on the cross of Calvary, it's what he showed
him on Mount Moriah. So we see that the covenant The covenant
was by grace alone, by the Lord's free and sovereign grace unto
Abraham. And this promise, this covenant
that was given to the Lord's people was fulfilled in Christ
Jesus on the cross of Calvary. That's what this was all about.
The Lord has made curse, why? Why did he have to die? Why did
he shed his blood? Obviously it was to honor the
father, it was to glorify the father, it was to save his people,
but he was the fulfillment of all those Old Testament prophecies.
He was the fulfillment of Isaiah 53. He was the fulfillment of
Psalms 22. He was the fulfillment of all these other prophecies
that took place. And He was the fulfillment of the promise unto
Abraham. He was the fulfillment. He was
the promise kept. He was the promise kept. The only way we can receive this
is by His Spirit. This is why the Lord said, I
leave you not comfortless. The only way we can receive this
promise is by Spirit, and that's the last part there, isn't it?
It says that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through
faith. What did the Lord, some of His
last words upon this earth before He ascended? I will not leave
you comfortless. If I go not away, the comforter
cannot come. He sent his spirit. He sent his
spirit to his people that we may receive this promise and
believe it by faith. Abraham was saved looking to
the cross. We're saved looking back to the cross. We're saved
looking to Christ Jesus alone, just as he was, just as he was. And it's all of faith. I've heard
men talk about Old Testament saints. Well, they were saved
different than we are in the New Testament. No, they're not.
No, they're all saved the same. By grace, you're saved through
faith. That's it, Old Testament, New Testament alike. We have
the promise delivered in the Old Testament, the promise fulfilled
in Christ, the promise kept by Christ. That's what we have.
We have the fullness of that promise. Now, they were looking,
you think we're looking through a glass darkly. They didn't have
his life story, everything that transpired. They didn't have,
they held all those types and shadows and pictures. And yet
even with all the glorious truths that we have, we still can't
see him unless he reveals himself to us, the same as he did them.
What was the difference between Noah and all those other men?
Scripture's clear on it. Every imagination was on evil,
that continually. Every imagination? You mean Noah's
too? It says every. Lord's word don't lie. So what
was the difference? Noah found grace in the eyes
of the Lord. Abraham, what was he doing? Well,
he was an idolater. He wasn't thinking of God. It
doesn't mention that he knew anything of God, but God came
and said unto him. It all starts with God. That's
what we, that's the who. Okay, that's the beginning of
this, the who. God, God, who is rich in mercy. But God, who
commanded his love toward us. But God, who commanded his light
to shine out of darkness. But God, God created the heaven
and the earth. God said, let there be light.
This is all him. This is all his story. This is
the difference. With all the men that were called,
it was of the Lord. He did the calling and he did
the saving and he does the keeping. This promise of the spirit, this
promise of Abraham, it calls us as people to receive all the
benefits of Christ by faith. It's no wonder the writer said
in first John chapter three, behold, what manner of love the
father hath bestowed upon us that we should be called the
sons of God. And I love this next part. Brethren, now are
we the sons of God. And you know, I like that word
now. Every time I now means now, and it's never not now. Now are
we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall
be, but we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like
him, for we shall see him as he is. He even tells us as he
is in this world, so are we. So are we right now. Isn't that
glorious? That's what he did. Oh, His people
are not just free from the punishment of sin and the curse of the law.
We've been made the sons and daughters of the Most High God
freely by His grace, robed in perfect righteousness of Christ.
Let's read this in closing one more time. 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 to the Gentiles through
Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through
faith. Who is the topic? The Lord Jesus Christ. Lord Jesus
Christ. What did he do? He successfully
redeemed his elect. Call his name Jesus, for he shall
save his people from their sin. How did he do it? By his own
blood, purged our sin. And why did he do it? To honor
the Father, in delivering the promise of Abraham to his people
by being the fulfillment of that promise and causing us to receive
the promise of the spirit by faith to receive it. Let's pray. Father, we ask that you would
take this and bless it to our understanding for your glory
in Christ's name. Amen. Let's take a break.