Forgive us of our sin, in Christ's
name, amen. Galatians chapter one. Now the
difference between what we preach and believe and what other churches
preach and believe is found in Galatians chapter one in the
first verse. It's very, very simple. It's clearly addressed all in
Galatians. Paul's message to the Galatians is that he's dealing
with an issue, a very particular issue of them mixing law and
grace. They're taking, and it's actually
not that they're doing a whole bunch of things. It's just one
particular thing that they're adding to. And you would think,
well, that shouldn't be such a big deal. But the way that
it is rebuked shows us that even adding one thing is a severely
bad consequence. It's detrimental. It makes void
the sacrifice for oneself is what it does. What were they
doing? They were saying it's Christ
Jesus for salvation, but you have to be circumcised. That
was it. That was it. That's the whole
message here in Galatians is what he's dealing with anyways.
But the message here in Galatians is found here in the first verse. It's not complicated. It's a
very simple message. It's that Jesus Christ, by his
own will and purpose, He is salvation for his people. Salvation is
of the Lord. He is salvation according to his own will and
purpose for his people, the free offering of him, plus nothing,
minus nothing. That's it, that's it. This is
the loud and clear declaration in verse one. Let's read this.
Paul, an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus
Christ in God, the Father, who raised him up from the dead. Let's read that again. Paul,
an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and
God, the Father, who raised him up from the dead. The Galatians
are doing what so many others make the mistake of doing. They're
mixing lull with grace. And I do understand that Paul's
talking about his apostleship in order to give Evidence that
it's not him that called himself. It was God that called him, but
this can be applied to salvation as well. Salvation is not by
men, not by man, neither the will of man, but by Jesus Christ
and by God, the father that raised him from the dead. It's interesting
the Lord laid on my heart to go to Galatians because he's
really dealing with the same issues that he was dealing with
the Hebrews in. We're basically going to continue talking about
the same thing that we've been talking about for the last I
don't know how long we were in Hebrews, a year? I don't know,
it was a while. But he's talking about mixing
law and grace and how detrimental that is to the truth. You can't
have that and be saved. You can't have law and grace.
It's not what you do, it's what Christ has done. It's not what,
by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to
his mercy. That's how he saved us. So to begin with, the Lord's
correction of this toxic belief, we have, One of the clearest
definitions of salvation in scripture, that it's not by man, not by
man, neither the will of man, but by Jesus Christ. That's what
I've titled this message, by Jesus Christ. You can't get any clearer than
that, really. If you sit there for a moment and you say, well,
if it's not by men, then that means it's not by councils. It's
not by denominations. It's not by church organizations.
It's not by church membership. It's not by any men that gather
together. Then he says man. Well, it's
not by an individual man. We have not the power. We have
not the capability. We have not the understanding.
We have not the ability. And then he says neither by the
will of man. We can't will ourself to be saved. Our will is bound
by our nature. We would choose something other
than Christ every time, wouldn't we? So he's being very clear
that even though it is his apostleship here, we can also apply that
to salvation. That's exactly the same. The salvation is of
the Lord alone. And he's setting the tone for
the entire book with this. Now this letter, and I'll just
go ahead and tell you what the message of Galatians is. It's
grace and peace. This is the, this is the message.
And I'm going to have a hard time not getting ahead of myself
for next hour, because in verse three, he talks, he says, grace
and peace be unto you. And the second hour it's by grace
alone. That's what I've titled that message. This hour is by
the Lord Jesus Christ, by Jesus Christ himself. But the message
is grace and peace. Well, how does one have grace
and peace? Through Jesus Christ, there's no other way. You can't
have peace without having grace, and you can't have grace without
having Christ. It's that simple. That's the message. He's saying
if you do anything to this, other than that, you don't have salvation. You don't have Christ. The first verse declares that
like salvation, Paul's apostleship was not his own doing. He didn't
seek it out. He didn't desire it. You know
what Paul was doing whenever he was called? We remember his
name was Saul at the time and he was a murderer. He persecuted
the church. He was going with papers and
he actually had papers in his hand to deliver. to for the execution
of true believers of true Christians. That was what he was doing. And
God shone forth a bright light from heaven and a voice came
knocked him off of his horse into the dirt. And he said, Saul,
Saul, why persecutest thou me? And Saul said, what would you
have me do, Lord? He immediately recognized he wasn't God like
he thought he was, didn't he? And the Lord blinded him that
day for three days and sent him down to a man to teach him the
gospel. The Lord saved him. The Lord saved him. But Paul
didn't seek that apostleship, did he? He wasn't looking for
it. He wasn't looking for salvation. He wasn't looking for the apostleship.
He wasn't looking for anything. And yet the Lord came to him,
and that's exactly what he does for a sinner. He comes to where
they are, even though they're not looking for Him, they're
not searching for Him. They may not even be desirous of salvation.
Most of the time, that's the case. I wasn't looking for God
when He found me. Were you looking for Him? No.
We wouldn't know where to look if we wanted to look, would we?
You might've been sitting in a church pew and the Lord made
it clear, like when the gospel came, but that doesn't mean that
you were, when you see God, then you stand in awe and you say,
I put my hands over my mouth. I thought I was looking for God,
but now my eyes have seen the King. That changes everything,
doesn't it? Certainly does. We did not ask
for salvation and he did not ask for apostleship, yet he found
himself the beneficiary of it. Beneficiary of it, why? Because
it was by Jesus Christ, his own will and his own purpose. This
is so true of salvation. It's not of this earth, neither
can it, you can't discover salvation on this earth by looking for
it. Did you know that? Can't find it. It comes from God. It's God's salvation. Salvation
is of the Lord. Can't find it by looking on the
earth. Salvation belongs to God. It's by his own will begat he
us. How do I know that it's of God?
Well, Hebrews 1, we just came from Hebrews. It said when he
had by himself purged our sins, he sat down. He did it by himself. He was finished. The work was
done. Salvation is of the Lord. The only way we're gonna have
salvation is by Jesus Christ alone. That's the message Paul's
delivering to these Galatians. This great salvation, it's the
free gift of God. It's freely given to the Lord's
people, freely by His grace. It's not something that we earn
or something that we merit. I wrote a bulletin article. It's in your bulletin this Sunday.
It's a little article that says, if you can find one thing, if
we, I included myself in this, we or anyone else can find one
thing in themselves as to why God would save us or why God
would love us, then we have a righteousness outside of Christ. It's that
simple. We're not saved at all. We're
not saved at all. But oh, I didn't put this part
in, but it's the truth. The other side to that is that
Christ is your wisdom, your righteousness, your sanctification, and your
redemption. There's a reason for that. He has called you out
of darkness into his light. He has made his word effectual
to you. He has shown you the truth that
Christ is all in salvation. This salvation is freely given
to the Lord's people, chosen of the Father before time, and
to add anything you do to it, or anything that I do to it,
if I add one thing to it, Oh, I make it, I make myself void
of it. That's what I'm doing. Making
myself, well, I can't change salvation and I can't make salvation
void, but I can definitely, if the Lord doesn't choose to come
to where I'm at and save me, I can, left to myself, hell will
be my eternal home. I'll never choose God. I'll never
choose God. If we decide to add something
to it. What we're doing is we're declaring.
Now what do I mean add something to it? I wanna be as simple as
I can. This is a simple message this morning. But what do I mean
add something to it? Well, it wasn't a whole lot of
things that the Galatians were doing. It was the one simple
thing. It was circumcision and it was for righteousness. They
were taking what God told Abraham that on the eighth day circumcise
your sons. And it's a sign, it's a token of my covenant for you.
And that was back in the Old Testament. Well, these men were
saying, okay, well, that's still the sign that you're a true believer
if you're circumcised. And they were law-mongering,
so to speak. It was legalism. Legalism's alive
and well today. People that tell you don't do
this and do this, taste not, touch not, handle not, that's
all legalism for self-righteousness. But what Paul is teaching us
here And what we would be wise to heed is the fact that salvation
is by Jesus Christ alone. And if we add one thing to it,
it doesn't matter whether we're looking to a prayer we prayed.
Doesn't matter whether we're looking to a sin that we've never
committed in our mind. It doesn't matter whether we're
looking at something we have done, whether it's giving unto
the church or not giving unto the church. Whether we look at,
some people I know, I have family that they live in poverty and
they have a righteousness about that. They say, well, our treasure's
in heaven. And they look at what they don't have as part of their
righteousness. Then there's on the other side, there's people
that look at what they do have and think, well, I have favor
with God because I have this and I have this. None of that's
true. No, we don't look for evidences that God loves us or he doesn't.
We don't look at evidences that God loves Christ. God's pleased
with his son. I've got to be found in Christ
or God does not love me. It's that simple. It's by Jesus
Christ alone, not Jesus Christ plus my little addition of this
or my doing of that. No, it's not what I see with
these natural eyes. Don't be deceived. It's gotta
be Christ is all or I do not have salvation. I'm saying, by
adding one thing, I'm saying the blood of Christ was not sufficient.
That's what I'm saying. I have to do my part. It's the
most blasphemous thing a man or woman can say. It's saying
the blood of Christ is not sufficient. I have to do this. You can fill
in the blank. It's also to declare that Christ
died in vain. If I have to do something in
order to make Christ's work effectual for me, if I have to do something
in order to determine salvation for myself, if I must do something,
then it's saying Christ died in vain if I don't do what I'm
supposed to do. That's silly, isn't it? But that's
what men are saying and how tragic it is and what blasphemy it is. To add to or take away from the
finished work of Christ is to say God is a failure. He failed, but he didn't fail.
Why? Because salvation is not by men,
nor by man, nor by the will of man, but of God. Salvation's
of God. It's not by us. It's not what
we do or don't do. It's not what we have or don't
have. Well, I guess in a sense it is.
You gotta have Christ, but it's not physical things, is it? No,
certainly not, certainly not. We don't look at what these natural
eyes can see to determine God's favor or determine our righteousness. We look to the Lord Jesus Christ
by faith, by faith alone. We believe that he achieved what
he purposed. To say or add one thing to it,
then it's to say that he didn't complete the task because I'm
more powerful than he is. See how scary that thought is? I mean, it's damning is what
it is. It's frightening. It's the damning
of all heresies, the most. Let's read this again. Paul,
an apostle, not by men, nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and
God the Father who raised him from the dead. The reason we
can apply this to salvation is that it can be found in the Old
Testament, and it can be found in the New Testament, and it
can be found in all throughout the scriptures. Noah, let's start
with Adam before I get ahead of myself. What about Adam? What happened with Adam? Well,
he sinned. Our father Adam, he sinned and therefore us being
in his loins, we all died and therefore we are all born dead
and trespasses and in sin. Every one of us are sinners by
nature and sinners by practice and sinners by choice. We are
dead dog sinners. That's very clear in the scriptures.
But what happened whenever he sinned? Well, he decided that
he was going to fix it. And that's what most men come
to the conclusion of. I'm going to do something to
correct this. And what did he do? Well, they didn't have any
clothes on. And they were afraid because
they didn't have any clothes on. They were naked. And they knew that they didn't
want to stand before God without having clothes on, so they sewed
fig leaves together. And that's a picture of works.
They're sewing fig leaves together. They're covering their self up.
And it's the same thing as the Galatians are doing. Yeah, Christ's
blood is sufficient, but I need to be circumcised also. I gotta
put some fig leaves on also. No, it's Christ is all. It's
Christ alone. And the Lord came to speak to
Adam. And he called for him. And Adam
said, here am I. And he said, why did you hide
yourself? And he said, well, we don't have
any clothes on. We're naked. And he said, who
told you that? Who told you you were naked?
Have you eaten the tree? He's making him confess is what
he was doing. Have you eaten the tree that I told you not to? And he
said, yeah. He said, the woman. The woman that you gave. He didn't
even take responsibility for it. He said, the woman that you
gave me. That's us by nature, isn't it? Making somebody else
take the blame. It's not my fault I'm this way.
It's their fault I'm this way. That's just, that's our nature.
That's our sinful nature. What did the Lord do? Well, he
cursed, we live under a curse. Now man shall eat bread by the
sweat of his face and women shall, it'd be grievous for women to
have children. I mean, that was the curse. The
ground will bring forth thorns and thistles. It won't yield
its increase anymore. That's the curse. But sin is
the curse, sin, sin's the curse. And so there had to be a sacrifice
made. The reason is, we find in the
New Testament, the scripture says, without the shedding of
blood, there is no remission of sin. So God took a lamb. And
God killed that lamb so that he would be satisfied to cover
their sin for a time. And he clothed them in that garment,
that white garment, representing the righteousness of Christ.
So Adam's fig leaves, they weren't good enough. He had to have the
righteousness of the lamb, and that's the picture. We have to
have the righteousness of the lamb of God. God had to do the
sacrifice, and then he has to cover us. He has to wash us,
and he has to cover us. Now, why did he do all of that?
Why did he do all that? As a picture of our Lord Jesus
Christ and the finish work of the cross of Calvary. And what
did Adam do to deserve that? Not a thing. Not a thing. It's by grace alone. It's by
grace alone. What about Noah? The reason we
can apply these words right here, not by man, not by man, neither
by man, Neither the will of man, but by Jesus Christ and God the
Father who raised him from the dead. We can apply this to salvation
because of Adam. We can apply it because of Noah.
It says, at the time of Noah, and I mentioned this Wednesday
night, I think, but at the time of Noah, every thought of every
imagination was only on evil and that continually. Now whenever
he says every, that's all inclusive, isn't it? Every. There is no
absence of every, I mean, it encompasses Noah as well. Noah
was just, his thought was on evil continually also, but God,
that's the difference. He found grace in the eyes of
the Lord. How did he find it? Was he looking
for it? No. We could say that we found salvation,
but it was only because the Lord saved us and called us out of
darkness into light. That's how we found it. And that's
exactly the same with Noah. Noah found grace because God
bestowed it upon him. Not by what he did, it was all
because of the Lord Jesus Christ, who is our ark. That's what the
picture is there, the ark saving the Lord's people. That's why we can say that it's
not of men, neither by man or the will of man. Salvation is by Jesus Christ
alone, by Jesus Christ alone. What about Abraham? Abraham was
a, you know, Abraham worshiped idols. I might've said that before,
but Abraham worshiped idols until God came to where he was and
told him, I am the Lord. He fulfilled himself to him.
That's we worship idols unless God comes to us and says, I am
the Lord. And we bow just like Saul. Truth,
Lord, you are, I'm not. What about Moses? Moses was chosen.
He was on the backside of a desert herding sheep, and the Lord came
to him through a burning bush. See, God must be the one that
comes to where we are in mercy and reveals his Christ to us,
or we will either mix works with grace, or we'll remain dead in
trespasses and sin, not knowing anything about God. Either way,
we'll have it wrong. It's gotta be the Lord Jesus
Christ, if salvation is by the Lord Jesus Christ. Not of men nor of man, but of
God. But of God. I've already told you the next
part of what I was gonna say. I got ahead of myself. Where
it says men, that's plural. Just to clarify, it's not a group
of men. A group of men can't help you. And a not singular
man, that can't help you. Not our will, not our ability. So let's read this again. Paul,
an apostle, not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus Christ and
God, the Father, who raised him from the dead. There's sufficient
evidence here that everything required for the salvation of
God's people, God's elect, was accomplished on Calvary's cross.
There's sufficient evidence right here in the last five words,
six words, who raised him from the dead. That's evidence that
everything God required, Christ satisfied. That's evidence that
every single person that Christ died for has been justified,
has been sanctified, has been made the righteousness of God
in him. How do you know? Because God would not have resurrected
a sacrifice that was imperfect. He would not have resurrected
a sacrifice that did not accomplish the goal or the task. All those
other sacrifices of the Old Testament, they died, but they're dead still
yet. They couldn't put away sin. But
this man, and I've already said this, this man, after he had
made one sacrifice for our sin forever, after he had purged
our sin, what did he do? He sat down. He sat down after
he was resurrected because the father was well pleased with
his son. He satisfied the law. He satisfied justice. He pleased
his father in every way. This is why salvation is by Jesus
Christ alone. The good news of the gospel is.
If the law demands death for you and I, because we sin and
we are sin by nature, it's not just what we do, it's what we
are. If the law demands death for us, the good news is we died
in Christ to the law. We died in Christ to self. We died in Christ to sin. We
were resurrected in him alive to live new, to be brand new,
made brand new. And the Lord, you know when he
sees us, he sees the blood, He sees his son, he sees perfect
righteousness because of the accomplished work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. We're made perfect by his blood,
made righteous by his sacrifice, made holy by his atonement. This
is what he did. This is what he did for his people.
Men, it's gonna be Easter soon and there's all kinds of things. I'm already seeing commercials
and movies and whatnots about it. His resurrection didn't merely
mean that now there's a way that you can be saved. That's not
what it means. There's not just a way that you
can be saved. It's the eternal declaration
that by Jesus Christ, all of God's elect are justified forever.
That's what the resurrection represents. Doesn't mean there's
just a way now made that if you do this, then you can have part.
No, it's a declaration that everyone that he died for has been made
the righteousness of God in him because he was made sin for us
who knew no sin. The transaction took place on
Calvary's cross was between the father and the son. We don't
have any part in that transaction. It's already been accomplished.
He just lets us know about it. In the fullness of time, he comes
to where we are, arrests us, shows us our sin, shows us we
need a savior. Shows us that our sin is not
what we do, but it's what we are. Our flesh is enmity against
God, and we need a substitute. And our substitute surety, the
Lord Jesus Christ, put away that sin on the cross of Calvary,
satisfying the law's demand, satisfying the justice of God,
and forever redeeming his people from their sin. I love what Isaiah
43 says, Isaiah 43, 25. I, even I, am he that blotted
out thy transgression for mine own sake and will not remember
thy sin. I, even I, am he that blotted
out thy transgression for mine own sake and will not remember
thy sins. Jesus Christ did this all by
himself. for the glory and honor of God,
for the salvation of his people. Sanctified them forever. No wonder
we get to rejoice with Isaiah again. And when he said in Isaiah
40, comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God. Speak
ye comfortably to Jerusalem and cry unto her. Tell her that her
warfare is accomplished. Tell her her iniquity is pardoned,
for she hath received double. double for her sin. What does
he mean double for your sin? What does he mean double? Well,
we have righteousness and holiness instead of sin. We have sanctification
and justification instead of our sin. We have peace with God
and grace to be saved. That's double. By the Lord Jesus
Christ alone, plus nothing, minus nothing. Do not look to the law
or try to keep a law or keep something that you do as part
of your salvation. The Lord will not have it. The
Lord will not have it. This is what Galatians is all
about. It's not by men, it's not by man, it's not by the will
of man, not by the choice of man, but it's of and by Jesus
Christ and the Father that raised him from the dead. Salvation
is through and by Jesus Christ alone. And you know who gets
all the glory in this? Look at verse five. Well, we'll have
to look at four first. Who gave himself for our sins
that he might deliver us from this present evil world according
to the will of God our Father to whom be glory forever and
ever. Amen. God gets all the glory.
God gets all the glory. 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.