Abounding Grace

Guest (Male): Today on Abounding Grace.

Pastor Ed Taylor: God keeps his promises. He’s abundantly fair and abundantly righteous and abundantly just. The Holy Spirit is gracious and wonderful, leading us into the truths that God has given to us, and when God makes a promise, he keeps it.

Guest (Male): From promises to take our kid to the ballgame or to do something around the house or at work, we so often fail to keep our promises. God, on the other hand, always keeps his promises, and that we can count on. Pastor Ed Taylor underscores that today on Abounding Grace through this encouraging study in Galatians Chapter 3.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Open your Bibles to Galatians Chapter 3. We’re going to be in verse 15. I’ve entitled our Bible study, God Keeps His Promises. He’s abundantly fair and abundantly righteous and abundantly just. The Holy Spirit is gracious and wonderful, leading us into the truths that God has given to us, and when God makes a promise, he keeps it.

The churches in the region of Galatia are under attack. Paul the Apostle had gone through the region planting churches, sharing the gospel, establishing the believers in the doctrine of grace, the finished work of the cross, the blood that Jesus Christ shed for the forgiveness of sins. He taught them rightly and correctly that there is nothing that you and I could ever do to earn our salvation, nothing that you and I and the believers in Galatia could ever do to somehow merit and deserve what God has given to us, but in his grace, we can receive the gift of salvation through the repentance of sin.

This simple and sufficient, this thorough and complete life of grace through faith was under attack. The believers are confused. False teachers—we know who they are, they’re the Judaizers—these false teachers rushed into the area after Paul left and brought great confusion with false teachings.

I can already hear some of the questions that were being asked. They’re rolling into town and they’re hearing and go, wait a minute, wait a minute, Paul, he taught you what? You can’t trust Paul. Do you really believe that you can be saved by grace alone? Just the force of that question will make some people question, well, I don’t know, that’s what I was taught. And what do you mean I can’t trust Paul?

Before you know it, in the confusion, just like the cultists that come to your door or meet you at the market, they just want to get you off your feet a little bit. They want to get you a little bit uneasy because it’s in that confusion and uneasiness that they can give you their false teaching. Of course, it’s going to be compelling because it speaks to the confusion that they created. That’s how these false teachers are. They create confusion then to fill the blanks with their false teaching.

So what would they say? They would tell them you have to work hard in order to be saved. You have to keep the rules. And then of course, if you’re confused, you go, well, what rules? With that question, then all of a sudden they can give you everything they need. We know what the Judaizers did. They told the believers in Galatia, listen, you cannot be saved the way that Paul taught. You must, and remember what they told the men, for the men they said, you must be circumcised. And you’re like, what? I’m already saved, my life’s changed. No, no, you must be circumcised and keep the complete law, all of it. Not just the Ten Commandments, but all 600 plus of the commandments.

Basically, what they were saying is that you needed to prove you loved Jesus. That’s how. You want to be saved, you need to prove it daily by keeping the law, all of the law, completely. So far we have learned, though, that that is completely false. It is impossible for you to keep the law. At a very young age, you learned that it was impossible. The first time you were in rebellion against your parents, the first time you pointed the finger and said no, you failed.

You can’t recover from that because we learned that if you fail in one point of the law, you have failed in all of the law. When you break the law, you become a lawbreaker. What they were teaching the believers then was, hey, this is how you’re saved. You need to actually become a Jew first, a Jewish proselyte, and then from becoming a Jewish proselyte, you keep all the law and then maybe one day you will be saved.

Paul’s message in Galatians, the theme is found in Chapter 5. Notice with me in Chapter 5 in verse 1 there, you’ll see the theme. This could be the banner over every chapter. Over every chapter is this key truth and how important it is. Notice what he says in verse 1: Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Indeed, verse 2, I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing.

Paul is saying, look, you have to make a choice. You’re either going to live in relationship with God by faith and have a real relationship, or you’re going to leave that and you’re going to do your own thing. Christ doesn’t profit you anything. There is no relationship apart from him, and the relationship with Jesus is one of faith. It’s his work, it’s his freedom, it’s his love, his joy, not our works. He’s saying you’ve been set free.

We don’t meet Judaizers today, but who we do meet are legalists. Anyone that would come to you, and I’m sure you’ve experienced this, that you’ve had someone come to you and describe your Christianity as not enough. It’s not enough. They’ll always, when you hear that, there’s always someone with some kind of system to offer you to fill the blanks for it’s not enough. It’s not, you’re not doing enough. They pressure you and guilt you and tell you you’re not doing enough. In order to be saved, you need Jesus and.

We have learned by now, and if you haven’t, it’ll be repeated over and over again, if you add anything to the gospel, it is no longer the gospel. You have to be careful there. We are not saved by our good works, however our salvation and relationship to God leads to all sorts of good works because of relationship, because we are who we are.

You don’t need to prove yourself to God or even to yourself. Trying to prove that you’re a believer, it’s like our kids and our grandkids. None of our kids need to prove that they’re our kids. We know it. We see it in your life. We know your kids are your kids because they have a lot of your behaviors, they look like you for goodness' sake. They are your kids.

Nobody requires even those of you that brought in foster kids or adopted kids. They’re your kids. We don’t need to prove it. You never make them, hey, are you my kid? Show me the paperwork. Nobody does that. Nobody has those kind of relationships. How much more God? He’s not requiring you to prove you’re his son or his daughter. He actually declares it over you. By faith in Christ, he declares you are my daughter, you are my son. What does he require? For us to believe it. Believe it. God has done the work.

These false teachers and even false teachers today, they want to take you away from freedom and bring you into bondage. What does the freedom life look like in Christ? Well, you enjoy him. It’s no longer "I have to," it’s "I get to." and I enjoy him. I want to be in the Word, I want to hear, my ears are open, I’m receiving, I’m praying, I’m enjoying life.

But you meet somebody that gives you a list. Let’s just say you meet someone and they say here, these three things. These are the three things that a Christian should do the rest of their life. These three things. You know what your life’s going to become? You’re going to be in bondage to three things the rest of your life. That’s how you’re going to measure your life.

Right now you might be living that way. Yesterday, you did the three things. You finished them. You hit a grand slam. You were over the top finished. How do you roll into church today? Look at me. I’m such a good Christian. Why? I did the three things. Oh, really? Yeah, I did the three things.

But then maybe this morning, you did three things yesterday, this morning you failed in all three of them and you’re not even rolling—you didn’t even roll out of bed. You’re still in bed watching online because all you’re paying attention to are the three things. That’s bondage. Because there’s a lot more to your relationship with Jesus than three things. Are those three things perhaps significant? Like you want to improve on things, you want to grow? That’s fine. But if it becomes the measure of your relationship, you are now in bondage.

All you worry about, you’re not really concerned, Lord, what do you have for me today? Because you’re already convinced that the three things is what he has for you today. Lord, where do you want me to go today? How do you want me to act? With the three things, that opens up the door for you to do all kinds of other things that you don’t pay attention to instead of just abiding in Christ.

You can see what a mess the churches in Galatia in that region, what a mess they’re in, how confused they are. Even today, some of you, it could be the way you were raised, it could be maybe a religious system you were raised in that just uses guilt and condemnation to motivate you. But God doesn’t do that. God, his greatest motivator is love.

When you love someone, you’ll do anything and everything for them. It’s not, you don’t even think. Today on Mother’s Day, to think about how much love has led to so much sacrifice from your life. Nobody needed to tell you to do that. You didn’t need these are the top 10 things a mom does. You’re like following all these mommy blogs and everything, but they’re all confusing because this mom does that, that mom does that. You’ve got all this stuff, but what does the Lord have for you?

Well, he just has one simple: just love. You love those kids, it’ll motivate so much sacrifice and care and concern in your life. That’s true for any relationship. Love is the motivating factor, and the believers are going backwards.

Today is a Bible study. It is a theological understanding of covenants. I want to let you know ahead of time, covenants. We’re going to be looking—I believe I’ve grasped it and I’ve simplified it enough for you to understand what Paul is saying, but you will immediately at this place in our time in Galatians, you will immediately see the difference between studying a letter in the Bible and a narrative.

What are you talking about, Ed? Well, we just finished as a church studying the book of Acts. The book of Acts is the true story of God through his Holy Spirit starting the church and all the exploits of the church. Missionary journeys, deliverance of demons from unbelievers, salvation, village people, village chiefs getting saved, all of it. It’s just a story, a true story. As we study it, we get to study along and it’s kind of a fast pace and you go along and you pause here and there.

Whereas a letter—Galatians is what is known in the New Testament as an epistle, a letter—it’s more theological. As a matter of fact, Paul’s letters can be usually divided in two parts. The first part, like in Galatians the first three chapters, very theological. He’s making a theological argument, and then once you understand the theological truth, the second three chapters are applicational. Now, what do I do with it?

So we’re still in the first three chapters, and this one we get into the depth of understanding covenants and the promises of God. By the time we’re done, I think you’ll grasp it. So pick up with me Chapter 3, verse 15. "Brethren, I speak in the manner of men." So now he’s going to use a human example of covenants. He says, I speak like men, "though it is only a man's covenant, yet if it's confirmed, no one annuls it or adds to it."

If you like to write in your Bibles, circle the word covenant and write next to it agreement, binding agreement, or today we may use the phrase contract. When you sign a contract, you’re signing a covenant, you’re making an agreement, and the piece of paper defines it and you’re bound by it. I mean, I think many of us, you’re either renting a house or living in a community and you see it right when you drive in. It says that this is a covenant-controlled community.

What are they trying to tell us? They’re letting you know that when you moved in or bought that house, they signed an agreement that you cannot paint your house pink. You’re not allowed to do it. You go, what do you mean I can’t paint my house pink? Well, you’re in our neighborhood and you signed or the owner of the house signed and made an agreement that this is how you can live in this community. It’s a binding agreement. You can’t get out of it.

The only way to get out of that binding agreement is to leave and go buy another house somewhere that doesn’t have covenants. So a covenant is an agreement. He uses this example of just normal. He starts with us. He doesn’t even get to God’s binding agreements yet; he just talks about us. He says, look, when you sign an agreement, that agreement stands. If you change your mind, can’t change the agreement. If you want to say, oh, you know, I don’t want it that way anymore, you can’t. No one can add to it and no one can annul it. You signed on the dotted line and it is bound.

That’s why many times when you sign a contract and there’s a dispute, what happens? You go to the court system and you ask for a third party, for a judge or an arbitrator, to enforce what? The covenant. That’s what it says. They don’t agree with it, you do, and you need someone to define it and enforce it for the person that doesn’t want to follow it. Men can break agreements, but just because a man or a woman breaks an agreement doesn’t mean the agreement doesn’t exist. Are you guys with me so far?

So he just says, a man, we make an agreement, agreements stand. Where are we headed? We’re headed toward the end that God keeps his promises. Don’t forget that. Even when you and I make agreements, it’s expected that we keep our agreements. That’s what he’s saying.

Verse 16. Now he gets theological. "Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He does not say and to seeds as of many, but as of one, and to your seed, who is Christ." Now, if you’re reading from a New King James, you notice that the word seed is capitalized because seed is not referring to many descendants; it’s referring to one person. We see it, we don’t even need to guess or do any Bible study to find out. It says right here that the seed of the promise to Abraham and his seed is Christ.

This brings us right into the doctrine of grace. The promise was to Abraham, but ultimately the promise to Abraham was headed toward finality in Christ. Paul says the promise was made to seed singular. If you’re taking notes, you can jot it down. In Genesis Chapter 3, verse 15, same principle is used. When the curse is happening after sin entered into Adam and Eve’s life in the garden, you’ll remember God spoke to the snake, the devil, and he said this in Genesis 3:15: I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. You see from the context of the verse, seed here is referring to one person—he, his. Again, a reference to the coming of Messiah.

This is the plan of God from the beginning. So the promise was made to Abraham and through Abraham to his promised seed, Messiah. This reference is very important. It's very important you understand this because the world today isn’t blessed because there are many Jewish people in the world, many descendants of Abraham. That’s not why the world is blessed. The world is blessed today because through the Jewish nation, the Jewish Messiah of the world has come. That’s the blessing of God.

The blessing of God in more relatable terms would be this: you are a blessed people today right here in Colorado because Jesus Christ died on the cross to pay the price for your sins. He is the seed fulfilling all the promises of Abraham. The first argument that Paul makes in relation to going away is: I know you think that Abraham is the source of blessing, but Abraham is not the source of blessing, Jesus is the source of blessing. He’s basically saying this: in Christ, you have it all. Why would you leave Christ? Why would you leave this simple relationship with Jesus to go backward when you have inherited it all? It’s all yours in him.

A lot was given to a lot of promises were given to Abraham. If you want to jot them down, you can look them up for yourself. In Genesis Chapter 12, he was promised a new land, he was promised to be a great nation, he was promised to have a great name, and that all the families of the earth will be blessed through him. Genesis 12. He was also promised an heir and innumerable descendants. Genesis 15. He was also blessed that many nations would come from him and many kings, and that the covenant was an eternal covenant. Genesis 17. He was also promised in Genesis 22 many descendants as numerous as the stars, and that all the nations would be blessed through him.

The fulfillment of the many blessings, the fulfillment of all these promises are found in Christ. The promises of God did not come through the Jewish nation, but through a Jewish person, Jesus, the seed singular. The false teachers would come in and many of them would claim to be rightful heirs of God’s promises to Abraham just because they were his offspring. You’ll remember Jesus came against some of the religious leaders in his day saying, you guys think you’re descendants of Abraham? You’re not. You’re of your father the devil. You are not at all living according to the ways of God. He came strongly against them because they believed that their physical relationship, their lineage is what blessed them. Paul’s reminding them then and us now that the blessing in your life comes through the blood of Jesus Christ and it’s accessed how? By faith.

The covenant, the promise that God shared with Abraham, had been reaffirmed many times, but only Jesus fulfilled the Abrahamic covenant as the unique seed. So all the promises of Abraham are translated and transferred to Jesus. They don’t reside in a nation; they reside in a person. Jesus alone is our hope of blessing so that by faith in him, the promises to all people, all places, for all centuries, and eternal life is found in Jesus alone.

He gets to the next argument then in verse 17. Now he steps—if you look at these arguments, you kind of look at them as ladders. He explains a covenant, he goes back to the most important promise of the Bible, and then as you look at that promise, it ends in Jesus. Now he’s taking the ladder, now we’re going one more rung up in verse 17. He says, "And this I say, that the law, which was 430 years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed before by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect."

What were the false teachers doing? Calling the believers back to the law, back to the law. They said this is where you need to land, in the law. Leave Jesus and go back to the law. Now, he uses this number very quickly here, 430 years. That’s a tricky number for you Bible students. If you were reading ahead, you may have noticed that the law actually came 645 years later, not 430. This happens to be one of those texts that somebody may bring up to you and go, look, the Bible is filled with errors, filled with inconsistencies. To which you always have to say, prove it to me. Don’t just show it to me, prove it to me.

Because a careful study will explain this number. Now, it is true that the law came 645 years approximately after the promise to Abraham. But a careful study of the Bible will notice in Genesis Chapter 26, the Lord repeated this covenant to Isaac. And then later in Genesis 28, in verse 15 to be exact, he repeated the covenant to Jacob. It was after the repetition of the covenant to Jacob, that’s the date, 430 years later exactly is when God gave Moses the law.

The point that he’s making, and you would know this too, you would understand this because if you’re talking to someone and you’re trying to remember something and you pull an exact number out and it’s accurate, somebody goes, oh, that’s not the—no, no, the you only have the number you remember. It may not be the 645, but you remember a number in your head and you’re sharing it and you know it’s exact for what you remember. That’s all he’s doing here. He could have remembered 645, he could have remembered 430, and I didn’t do the math, but he could have used the number with Isaac.

But here’s what he’s saying. It’s really the bottom line here. That the law came after Abraham. That’s all he’s wanting to say. The law came after Abraham, and the law does not eliminate the promise made to Abraham. It doesn’t replace it.

Guest (Male): Hey, thanks for listening to Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed Taylor. We're going and growing through a study of Galatians right now. You can hear this message again online at aboundinggraceradio.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

Pastor Ed has a new book called Letting Go of Your Past. We all have some things in our past that threaten to undermine our faith and continually plague us, but we weren't made to live in the past. God wants to set us free. In Letting Go of Your Past, Pastor Ed shows you how to break free from former hurts and habits and start living in the freedom that Jesus alone provides.

We'll send you a copy when you support Abounding Grace with a gift of $25 or more. Our number 877-30-GRACE. That's 877-30-GRACE. You can also order online at calvaryco.store.

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Next time on Abounding Grace, we'll continue Pastor Ed's study of Galatians. Thank you for listening today. We'll look for you tomorrow as we open the Word together in search of God's abounding grace.