01-29-12 Because He Promised

Our study of Paul’s letter to the Galatians

has brought us to the last 15 verses of the 3^rd chapter.

And it has also brought us to a passage

that, if we can see what it’s saying,

has the ability to bring a stability, a certainty into our walk with our Lord

that you may never have known before.

I need to warn you before we move into this passage

that some of what we do this morning

will, on the surface, seem rather obscure and academic.

But when we find the truth imbedded in this passage

and then apply it to our own lives

it will take on a life and a power

that will make it very worth our effort.

If you have been involved in our study of Galatians during the past few weeks

you know already what Paul is doing.

He is writing to a group of believers

who have become deeply confused about the foundation of their friendship with God.

In fact, many of them have thrown out the most basic

and most crucial truth in their Christian lives -

the truth that God has accepted them fully, absolutely, eternally

simply on the basis of their trust in the death of Christ as payment for their sins.

They have replaced this, the most essential truth of our walk with Christ,

with a return to the belief that their continued acceptance by God

depends upon their ability to generate a level of performance

that justifies His accepting and loving them.

Having begun by faith,

they now believed they had to maintain their union with God

on the basis of their performance as measured by the an external religious system.

As with all lies that attack our friendship with our God

this one had the appearance of wisdom

because it seemed to offer people the motivation they needed

to make changes in their lives.

But in so doing

it created two far greater and highly destructive problems.

First, it blinded them to the true nature of the love of God for us,

a love that is poured out on us

not because of what we do or do not do

but rather because of who we are as His unique creations.

And without a clear awareness of that love

they had only guilt and shame and fear and ego motivations

to try to move them ahead,

motivations that would always ultimately fail them

and drive them into the shadows in hiding from their God.

And second, it did what religion always does -

it put the responsibility for change solely on our own shoulders,

telling us that we must change ourselves for God,

a responsibility we can never fulfill.

When Paul heard of the lies his Galatian brothers and sisters had believed

he wrote this letter

in an attempt to bring them back to a faith/grace based walk with their King.

The body of the letter is a series of 9 reasons he offers the Galatians

for their return to simple faith in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We’ve looked at 5 of those reasons so far,

and this morning we’ll look at the 6^th.

And to move us into this 6^th proof

we need to first remember what we saw last week

in that remarkable passage about Abraham

and the results in his life of his one act of faith.

If you were here

you’ll remember that Paul took his readers back

to the earliest days of Abraham’s interactions with God,

took them back to that point at which God promised Abraham

that, even though he was childless,

he would become the father of a great nation,

a nation through whom the entire world would one day be blessed.

And we are told that, at that point, Gal 3:6 ... Abraham BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.

We saw the incredible, amazing significance of that statement,

a statement in which God redefined all of the lines between Himself and His creation,

a statement in which God took Abraham’s willingness to believe God at one point,

and then declared that because Abraham chose that faith

God declared Abraham righteous - holy, pure, sinless before God.

Through Abraham God modeled for us

the same amazing exchange He would one day offer the entire world through Christ.

All He asks from each of us

is our willingness to believe

that He is telling us the truth

when He tells us that Christ’s death removes all of our sin forever

and creates a Father/child relationship between us and Himself.

And with us, too,

when we believe God

He reckons it to us as righteousness.

OK, that’s what we saw last week,

and now this week,

as we move on in the passage

we are once again going to see Paul force us to a logical relationship to the Old Testament record

that no one had taken up to this point.

You see, as the Jewish scholars looked back at the life of Abraham

they had two huge blunders in their understanding of what was happening.

One of them we’ve already seen -

their failure to see what God was really saying

when he told us that Abraham believed God and it was reckoned to him as righteousness.

God granted a righteous standing to Abraham

simply because he chose to believe one promise God had made to him.

And the second big error in their thinking

came with the assumption that, 430 years later,

when God gave Israel the 10 Commandments

and established between Himself and Israel

a covenant in which He promised to bless them if they kept that law

and to curse them if the failed to keep it,

they then assumed that this Law Covenant now became the only available basis

for anyone trying to reach out to God and relate to Him.

They assumed that this Law Covenant

negated anything else that had come before.

But Paul comes along with this sixth proof of our union with God on the basis of faith alone

by telling us that the promise made to Abraham was not affected or altered by the giving of the Law.

In Galatians 3:15 he says,

Brethren, I speak in terms of human relations: even though it is only a man's covenant, yet when it has been ratified, no one sets it aside or adds conditions to it.

He’s telling us that this agreement between Abraham and God

was not just some sort of conditional promise

that God might choose to revoke somewhere down the line.

He’s telling us that, from God’s perspective,

this was in effect a legal contract between Himself and His creation,

an agreement in which He grants us righteousness

in exchange for our choosing to believe His promise to us.

And Paul says, even with a human covenant,

once it has been established

it remains in effect no matter what other agreements may be made down the line.

And if this is true about human covenants,

how much more a covenant in which one of those involved is God Himself.

And just to be sure we don’t miss what’s being said here,

let me say it again -

in this passage Paul uses the term “promise”

and the term “covenant” interchangeably.

When our God makes a promise to us

it isn’t just that He’s telling us

something He’s thinking about doing,

or something He might do under certain conditions.

He’s establishing a covenant, a contract with us

with all of the terms of that covenant clearly stated.

And when God enters into a covenant

He keeps His part of the agreement absolutely.

His whole intent in this 6^th argument

is to show us that the foundation for our faith arrangement with God through Christ,

that arrangement in which we choose to believe what He has said about Christ

and specifically about Christ’s death paying our sin debt,

and in exchange for that belief He declares us righteous,

the basis for that is the PROMISE OF GOD.

And He illustrated that agreement through Abraham

by making Abraham a promise

and then when Abraham chose to believe Him

He reckoned it to him as righteousness.

And even though 430 years later

God offered a second contract to Israel,

one based upon their obedience to the moral law He’d given them,

that second contract in no way invalidates the one He made through Abraham.

Then he takes us back to the covenant upon which our grace arrangement is based.

But he does something fascinating with the promise.

Gal 3:16 Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, "And to seeds," as referring to many, but rather to one, "And to your seed," that is, Christ.

Gal 3:17 What I am saying is this: the Law, which came four hundred and thirty years later, does not invalidate a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to nullify the promise.

Gal 3:18 For if the inheritance is based on law, it is no longer based on a promise; but God has granted it to Abraham by means of a promise.

He tells us that God made this promise to Abraham...and to his SEED,

telling us that God specifically, carefully used the singular,

not the plural “seeds”

because it was an agreement he was making

both with Abraham and with one specific descendant of Abraham - Jesus Christ.

It was a promise that stated,

Gen 22:17 indeed I will greatly bless you, and I will greatly multiply your seed (Jesus Christ) as the stars of the heavens and as the sand which is on the seashore; and your seed (Jesus Christ) shall possess the gate of (his) enemies.

Gen 22:18 "In your seed (Jesus Christ) all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice."

So, there were really two distinct parts to this agreement God was making.

The first part involved Abraham

and all those who would follow his pattern of faith.

If we reach out to our God in faith,

choosing to believe what He’s said to us

He will accept that belief

and in exchange remove all of our sin from us forever.

And the second part of the promise

was really a promise He was making to Himself

in the person of Jesus Christ,

a promise to multiply the children of Christ,

granting Christ absolute victory over His enemies,

and promising to bless all the nations of the earth through Christ.

OK, I know I’m making this a bit more complicated than it needs to be,

so let me try to state what we’ve seen so far

as simply as I can.

God used His interaction with Abraham

to establish the most remarkable contract between Himself and His creation

that we could ever imagine.

It was a contract in which all He asked from us

is our willingness to believe and trust one thing He’s said to us.

And in exchange for that one act of trust on our part

He removes all of our sin forever and declares us righteous.

And then, second,

He also promised to bless the entire human race through Jesus Christ

and give Jesus Christ ultimate victory over all of His enemies.

From there Paul goes on to deal with the question

of why God would then obscure this whole thing

by bringing the Law Covenant into the works.

He says,

Gal 3:19 Why the Law then? It was added because of transgressions, having been ordained through angels by the agency of a mediator, until the seed would come to whom the promise had been made.

And in the rest of this chapter

Paul reveals to us two reasons why God gave His moral Law through Moses.

The first one

is that at some level it did help restrain moral corruption.

It did help prevent the world from totally destroying itself

prior to the arrival of Christ.

And it always fascinates me to see the way the law does this.

It isn’t that it does it IN us

so much as it is that it does it THROUGH us.

In our own relationship with the Law

we fight against it and resist it and defy it as our enemy.

But when we relate to one another,

and especially as we establish the boundaries of our societies

it is that moral standard we require from those around us.

We have all sorts of reasons we offer ourselves

at those points where we choose anger,

or lust,

or unfaithfulness,

or dishonesty.

But if another person cheats us,

or lies to us,

or breaks the marriage vows they’ve made to us

we hold them accountable because we know it’s wrong, and rightly so.

And the whole foundation of our legal system

is deeply rooted in the moral boundaries given to us by God,

a legal system that, even with all of its corruption and abuse

does help keep our societies from total self-destruction.

And Paul tells us that God gave the law in part

because it does help to restrain evil in the world.

But there is a second reason why God gave His moral law to us.

He makes it clear that this law could never ever make anyone righteous.

He says, Gal. 3:21...For if a law had been given which was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law.

But no such law exists.

And yet he then goes on to tell us that there is one thing the law can do beautifully.

In verse 24 he says, ...the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.

What he’s saying is that even though the Law could never make us good,

it does a great job of showing us

our desperate need for Christ.

In effect what it does

is to point us back to that 1^st covenant that God made with Abraham,

that one in which we exchange faith for righteousness.

Paul then takes this whole thing one step farther

and tells his Galatian readers

that once the law has done this,

once it has pointed us to Christ,

it has fulfilled its purpose in our lives

and it is no longer the mediator between us and God

or the basis upon which we relate to Him.

Gal 3:25 But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

Gal 3:26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

Gal 3:27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Gal 3:29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to promise.

The message to the Galatians who were trying to once again relate to God on the basis of the law is obvious -

why would you ever want to go back under that tutor?

It’s done its work.

It showed you your need for Christ.

Why would you try to once again earn

what you have already been freely given by God?

For you are all right now already and forever children of God through faith in Christ.

And I want to be sure we see what he’s saying

in the final verse in this section.

In a single sentence

he summarizes the heart of this 6^th proof of peace with God through faith in Christ.

He says,

And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to promise.

In that statement

he’s telling us that through Abraham God brought into being

two distinct lineages.

There were his physical descendants,

all those who became the Nation of Israel - the Jews.

But there was another line of descendants

that began with Abraham as well.

It is made up of all of those

who have followed the pattern of Abraham

by reaching out to God through faith in His promise

and found themselves being brought into His family as sons and daughters of the King

simply because they have chosen to believe God.

There are all of those who are heirs according to the flesh -

those who have inherited the physical bloodline of Abraham

and who are physical sons and daughters of Abraham - Israelites.

But there is another whole race of people on the earth as well,

those who are heirs according to promise,

made up of people from every race, every tribe, every nation, every generation.

And once we enter that family

we discover that, There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

And the one thing we share in common,

the one thing that unites us all

both with one another and with our God

is that we have all chosen to hear and believe what our God has said to us about Christ.

OK, I know what we’ve done this morning

has been harder going for us

than some of the things we’ve studied in the past.

We’ve been talking about what may to our minds seem like

obscure incidents in the life of a man

who lived thousands of years ago.

And it could be very easy for us to miss the importance and relevance

of what’s happening in this section of Galatians.

So before I close for the morning

let me see if I can help bring it home in two crucial areas of our lives.

The first is in our own personal relationship with our God.

The central message that Paul is attempting to bring home to us here

is that there simply is nothing more significant,

nothing more powerful,

nothing more certain in life than a promise given to us by God.

All He asks from us

is our willingness to believe what He’s said to us.

That’s all.

And when we do

He responds to that act of belief on our part

by stepping into our lives through His Spirit,

removing our moral debt from our account,

nailing it to the cross of Christ,

and declaring us His righteous children for all eternity.

With the Galatians,

and with every one of us

there are a multitude of voices swirling around us

telling us that such an arrangement between us and God could simply not exist.

There must be more!

There must be something else I must do,

something else I must produce,

some level of performance I must achieve

before I can truly know peace with God.

And to all such thinking

Paul’s response is clear and simple - Abraham BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.

And through the example of Abraham

He calls each of us to plug in our own name.

Larry BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.

You see, it’s the only way to get there...

the only way to get to the heart of God,

the only way to gain entrance into the family of God,

the only way to find Him waiting for you there at the door,

His arms spread wide

reaching out to bring you to Himself.

Whatever else you’re demanding from yourself

before you will allow yourself to enter into peace with God, let it go.

And then, let me take this one step farther here

because, even though our entrance into the family of God

begins with our trust in just one promise made to us by God,

the promise that the death of His Son cleanses us from all unrighteousness,

that is not the only promise our God has made to us.

In fact, His conversation with us

is filled with promises He has made.

And everyone of them is just as certain,

just as solid,

just as secure and real and eternal as God Himself.

And whenever you find one,

hold to it,

trust it,

knowing that your God will never leave, and never forsake you no matter what -

which, by the way,

is one of His promises to us.