Abounding Grace

Pastor Ed Taylor: Today on Abounding Grace, get back to the basics. It doesn't matter what new fad is taking place or what new trend. It doesn't matter what new church growth strategy or some weird thing that's coming into the church. It's essential that we keep our noses in the book and our knees on the ground.

Church, please read your Bible and pray every day, because there's a lot of weird stuff out there. Churches get into it, pastors get into it, believers get into it. There's just a lot of weird stuff that loves to work in the realm of confusion in our lives. And it doesn't matter what the new stuff is. We need to hold on to the truths that we have learned.

Why? Because the Bible is able to make you wise for salvation. And what do we teach the kids, maybe you learned it growing up? The B-I-B-L-E, that's the book for me. I stand alone on the Word of God, the B-I-B-L-E.

Guest (Male): From Calvary Church in Aurora, Colorado comes another edition of Abounding Grace with Pastor Ed Taylor. We're in the middle of a helpful study in Galatians and on our next two programs we aim to complete chapter 4. Now if we had to sum up the first four chapters of the book, we could do so with these words: Grace is the only way to live.

And that's also the title we've given this message from Pastor Ed. So let's see together why Jesus is all we need and the freedom that is ours in Christ.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Open your Bibles, would you, to Hebrews chapter 10 and Galatians chapter 4. We're going to end up in Galatians and we're going to finish the chapter today. But we're going to start in Hebrews chapter 10, and I've entitled our Bible study "Grace is the only way to live." Or you could say, "Grace is the only way to live your life." That really is the summary of the first four chapters of Galatians. I mean, it's the summary of the whole book, but in the first four chapters, Paul the Apostle, writing to the churches in Galatia, is establishing the theological framework and foundation of the necessity of being saved by grace through faith. That that is the way of salvation. You and I are born again and saved by the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross, not by your own good works. Can I get an amen on that?

You've got to grasp this. This will give you the freedom that you've been looking for in your relationship with Jesus. And he really asks the question, he says, "Do you know what you're doing when you turn to the law for salvation? Do you really understand what you're doing and where you're going and what you are adopting into your life?" The law can't save you, ever. The law has no saving power. It can only reveal to you your need for a Savior. We've learned that the law was a tutor. It was a tutor until Jesus came and the tutor was teaching us our need for a Savior. It has no power to save, no power to sanctify, no power to change you. The truth is that you have all that you need and you are free as you possibly could be in Christ to live a life that pleases him. His grace is sufficient.

The Galatians were pagans. They were living life as they would every day, no real background in Judaism, no real background in the Torah or the law. They were just pagans. And all of a sudden God sent a missionary into their lives, preaching the simple gospel to them. They believed the gospel and were born again. Began to live their lives by faith, learning the scriptures and growing in their relationship with Jesus. That is until false teachers came and said, "No, no, no, that is not enough. The man that came and taught you that is not telling you the whole story. If you really want to be saved, you need to be circumcised."

Are any of you circumcised? No, nobody told us we needed to be circumcised. And they began to lay this heavy burden on them to keep the law. Really, what they were teaching is that the way to salvation was to become a Jew first, then you could be saved by following the law and accepting Christ. But that is not the way of salvation. The old covenant is replaced by the new covenant. Jesus fulfilled all that the old covenant required. So now you and I, we keep the old covenant by faith in Christ because he did it for us. Paul wrote the whole book of Galatians to explain to them about the significance of grace.

The Galatians were Gentiles, pagans. The Hebrews, when the book of Hebrews was written, were Jewish Christians. They had a background in the law. They were raised in the rabbinic system. They were raised under the sacrificial system. They knew the law, or at least knew of the law. The Galatians were tempted to go to the law for the first time. The Hebrews were tempted to go back to the law because Christianity was so challenging for them, so difficult. They were both facing similar temptations. The temptation to believe that Jesus wasn't enough. That Jesus' death on the cross and resurrection wasn't enough. And it is.

The encouragement to both the Galatians and the Hebrews is to stay strong, to abide in Christ, and to live their lives trusting God by faith. The truth is that Jesus is the best. Paul writes to the Hebrew believers then and to us today that Jesus is all you need. You have everything you've been looking for by faith in Jesus Christ. Notice with me in verse 10 now to the Hebrew believers. Paul is writing almost the exact thing as he did to the pagan or to the Gentile believers.

Verse 1: "For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come, and not the very image of the things, can never with these same sacrifices, which they offer continually year by year, make those who approach perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? For the worshippers, once purged, would have had no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year." Let's break down what Paul is saying here. First of all, if you like to write in your Bibles, let me show you a few things to mark. First of all, you should circle the phrase "the law," and then also circle the phrase "can never," and then also circle the phrase "make those who approach perfect."

It's a very straightforward truth. The law cannot make you perfect. It is incapable of perfecting you, sanctifying you, saving you, or experiencing glorification. The law has no power. It can only tell you, it can only reveal to you. Now, of course, the law reflects the character and the nature of God. Like in any relationship, there are definitions of that relationship. What we may call today boundaries. There are boundaries to enjoy relationship. There is an important understanding of who you are, who I am, and how our relationship will work, yes.

The law also reveals the holiness of God. And we've looked at this in previous studies, even in our midweek study as we're going through Exodus. We looked at the significance of the law when Moses was up on Mount Sinai in chapter 20. But as you think of the law, just remember it has no power to save you. It can only reveal to you God's desire, God's righteousness, and God's holiness. What will be good for you? When you read a law and you come to the conclusion, "I don't know, man, that just seems real heavy," no, God is giving you direction for your life so that you might live a healthy, enjoyable life.

And one of the ways to live a healthy, enjoyable life is "you shall not steal." If you choose to follow through with that instruction from God, you'll live a good life. You will not have to worry about hurting someone else when you take what's theirs or go to jail or have to pay the price. There's a lot to be learned because these are good for us as well. But understand this: the law has no power. It's very straightforward. He says "can never" make those who approach perfect.

Well, how do we know that? Well, the Bible in the old covenant would make provision for your sin through animal sacrifice. Once a year, the high priest would take an innocent animal, actually two. Two innocent animals. One he would pray over and then send into the wilderness. And we know that today as the scapegoat. The scapegoat could run away and it would be representative of the sins of the people laid upon that goat's head running into the wilderness. And it's a picture of your sins being removed from you as far as the east is from the west.

Can you imagine that goat? That goat's taking off, man. You're going to watch it run, and it'll go, "Haha, I made it! I'm alive! My brother, not so much, but I'm alive! I'm out of here!" And you think about the freedom that God gives in your forgiveness, like your sins, you are free and forgiven. You are forgiven today by the blood of Jesus Christ. The other animal was sacrificed. His blood was shed. Why? For the covering of sin. The animal sacrifice had to happen every single year on the Day of Atonement. It was incapable, the system was incapable to remove sins, only cover them.

Why? Because it was pointing to, as it says here, the law's just a shadow, the substance was Christ, the Lamb of God, that will take away the sins. Take away, not cover. Take away as far as the east is from the west, this Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God. And he says not only a theological argument, but in verse 3, he gives you a very practical one. I love that about the Bible by the way. The Bible's very practical. You don't need to be a Bible scholar or a seminary student to understand most of the Bible.

Most of the Bible has very simple statements that are easy to understand. Now our text today is a little challenging, it's one of those challenging texts, but I'll help you with it. Most of the time it's very easy. This last verse in verse 3, "in those sacrifices there's a reminder of sins every year." He's just saying every time you see that animal being sacrificed, you're remembering you're not perfect. The law didn't make you perfect this year. And it didn't make you perfect last year. And it didn't make you perfect 30 years ago. Your whole generations, you've been sacrificing as God has intended and two things are happening: one, their sins are being covered, but two, they're being reminded your sins need to be covered. The law can't perfect you. You are in need of a Savior.

I also want you to notice Paul writing to the Hebrews, he says in verse 1 that he uses the word "shadow." These are types and pictures. We're actually going to learn another type and picture today in Galatians, but the law was a shadow of the good things to come. The children of Israel under the old covenant just lived with shadows. They had these types and pictures pointing forward. They lived by faith trusting that God would one day, any day, fulfill his promises by sending Messiah to save and to rescue them. The endless offerings of the law could never make a person right, holy or good.

And can we pause here for a moment and bring it into the 21st century? Let's bring it into our... your good works and human efforts will never make you perfect. They will never merit anything more from God than he's already given you. He's given you his best. Now you have God's best, his only begotten Son. But your human efforts and your good deeds and how you attempt to do good works for God do not perfect you. If you attempt to live that way, then you've got things backwards. You are saved not by good works, but you are saved for good works. They come through us. We're not trying to earn God's favor.

And we were raised that way, you know that. We were raised that way at a very young age. We were raised, and not really a bad way to be raised actually, that if we do good, we'll be rewarded and we'll be a good little boy today. Or if we do bad, we will suffer the consequence, we will be punished. That good and bad we were all raised with. Unfortunately, me being, when my growing up, I was more bad than good. So I was always being punished. Always. And so I always felt distant from my parents because of my behavior. It was the consequences of my sin. It was the difficulty of my sin.

But you know, in my behavior, having to be disciplined all the time, it didn't change my mom and dad's love for me. They didn't love me less. Because that's how we think. We think, well, if we're good little Christians, good moral upstanding men and women in the community, then God will really love us. But if I blow it, if I make a big mistake, then God won't love me at all or love me less. But that's not how it works. You and I, we can't have more of God's love than we already have.

Here's what's happening with those feelings, let me define them for you. What's happening with those feelings, what happened to me as a little kid always being in trouble and feeling distant, what's happening is I'm not enjoying my relationship. I don't get to have it. I feel distant from God, but he hasn't moved. I feel condemnation and shame, but that's not coming from him. I have all these things as consequences for my behavior, but it doesn't change the love of God for me. Your good works and your human effort cannot in any way merit the love of God. He's already given it to you and it can never make you perfect, never. Never ever ever.

When Jesus came and took on a human body, notice with me, jump in chapter 10 in verse 4. It says: "it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins." Not possible. And then he says in verse 5: "Therefore, when he," that's speaking of Jesus, "came into the world, he said: 'Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure. Then I said, "Behold, I have come—In the volume of the book it is written of me—To do Your will, O God."'"

Previously saying, "Sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings, and offerings for sin You did not desire, nor had pleasure in them" (which are offered according to the law). Verse 9: When he said, "Behold, I have come to do Your will, O God," look, this is the explanation. When Jesus came to do the will of God, this is what happened: he takes away the first that he might establish the second. So let me define those. You can circle "first" and you can write next to it "old covenant." He takes away the old covenant and replaces it with the second. What's the second? The new covenant.

In a few moments from now, we will as a fellowship family of Jesus following Christ, we are going to participate in what's known as communion. And one of the things we're going to do is we're going to take the cup and we're going to read the scripture and we're going to read that Jesus says: "take, drink, this is the blood of the new covenant." This is the symbol, this is the reminder of all that he's going to do for you, or for us now we get to look backwards, all that he has done for us. It's important. Jesus came to take away the first so that he might establish the second.

Verse 10: By that, by the finished work of Jesus, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all. Not a repetitive sacrifice. Jesus doesn't die over and over and over again. He has died once for all that if you place your faith in Jesus Christ today, your sins will be forgiven. He died for you. He made salvation available for you. He made forgiveness available for you. He's made the newness of life available for you. He's made the restoration of relationship with your creator God available through the blood of Jesus Christ. And before we leave here today, you can receive him and choose to follow him and repent of your sins, experiencing the newness of life. The blood of Jesus Christ is sufficient.

Now one more thing before we jump into Galatians. I was just so encouraged in verse 7 where it says: "Behold, I have come—in the volume of the book it is written of me—To do Your will, O God." This is a statement teaching us that the whole Bible is about Jesus Christ. All of it. "In the volume of the book it is written of me," Jesus says. I'm all over. Again, we've been studying verse by verse through the book of Exodus and we've been learning about the tabernacle and all the pieces of the tabernacle and everything that it's going to take to build this little worship tent.

And each single element that's used is a picture and a type of Jesus Christ to come. And we looked at each one of them so that every time they would come to worship and every time they would see the smoke arising from the sacrifice, every time they'd see the priest working, the people of Israel be reminded that Jesus is coming. God will keep his promises. Fulfillment of all the promises of God will come and they would be reminded over and over again. But I like this: the volume of the book, it is written of me.

And today for us in this 21st century, this is a word from the Lord directly: get back to the basics. Let me tell you, it doesn't matter what new fad is taking place or what new trend. It doesn't matter what new church growth strategy or some weird thing that's coming into the church. It's essential that we keep our noses in the book and our knees on the ground. And what do you say, Ed, what do you mean by that? Well, let me just say it this way: church, please read your Bible and pray every day. Because there's a lot of weird stuff out there.

Churches get into it, pastors get into it, believers get into it. There's just a lot of weird stuff that loves to work in the realm of confusion in our lives. And it doesn't matter what the new stuff is. We need to hold on to the truths that we have learned. Why? Because the Bible is able to make you wise for salvation. And what do we teach the kiddo, maybe you learned it growing up? The B-I-B-L-E, that's the book for me. I stand alone on the Word of God, the B-I-B-L-E. Now I didn't sing it to you because I didn't want you to leave, but it is a song you teach the kiddos.

It's the Word of God, it's sufficient. The Word of God is greater than any pastor's voice, any person that wants to teach you or disciple you. The Word of God is going to get you right to the Lord, right to the Lord. You open it, you're immediately in fellowship with God and he speaks to your heart. It's like sometimes you're like, "Man, I just don't hear the voice of God." Open the Bible, read it. "Yeah, but you know I just don't really hear the voice of God audibly." Great, open the Bible, read it out loud. You'll hear the voice of God. He wants to speak to you. And then your prayer life is what relationships are built on, communication. Receiving and sharing, receiving and sharing. With all that in mind, come back now to Galatians as we close up this chapter.

He gives an illustration from the life of Abraham. The Judaizers and the Jews today very much revere and respect Abraham, father of the faith. So he uses a true episode in the life of Abraham to prove a point. A point that's missed. And often that's what false teachers will do. They'll even take you to a scripture, but they miss the point. They'll take you to a scripture and try to confuse you, but that's not what it says at all. Or there's a deeper understanding from the context of that scripture.

So what Paul is doing here is he's going to take them back to that time in Abraham and Sarah's life where they were given a promise. A promise of a child. So notice with me, Galatians chapter 4, pick up in verse 21. If you're there, Galatians 4:21: "Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons: the one by a bondwoman and the other by a freewoman." Let me define the words for you now. "Bondwoman" would refer to a woman named Hagar. Hagar, this was Sarah's handmaid, Hagar. The other is a freewoman, that would be Sarah. That would be his wife.

So now we're looking back to a time Abraham and his wife and her maidservant, Hagar. Sarah and Abraham. Verse 23: "But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh." What's his name? Ishmael. So this is a reference to Ishmael. "And he of the freewoman through promise." What's his name? Isaac. Okay, so you got the characters so far. Very important. It's a very important part and time in Abraham's life. And then Paul says, "You know the story," and they go, "Okay, we've heard that before." Then he says this in verse 24: "which things are symbolic."

So there's something to learn here now with Abraham's life that points toward the grace of Jesus Christ. "In the volume of the book it is written of me." So now there's something in the true story, the real life story of Abraham and Sarah that's going to point us to Jesus Christ.

Guest (Male): And we'll see what that is exactly on our next Abounding Grace as Pastor Ed Taylor continues our study in Galatians. You can hear this message again online at aboundinggraceradio.com or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also listen through our app. Search for Ed Taylor in the App Store or Google Play.

Pastor Ed Taylor: Hey, this is Pastor Ed and it's an honor for me to share with me my brand new book. It's called "Letting Go of Your Past." And one of the things I wanted to let you know right away is there's an audio version. We've never done an audio version before, but there's an audiobook version that you can get and take it with you in your ears. It's kind of cool.

But this book, God is using testimony after testimony after testimony. I've been traveling actually with it around the country, teaching at different churches and sharing a Bible study on how to deal with your past biblically and then making this resource available. And the feedback coming back is so encouraging. I just know it'll bless you. You can look it up and see the different themes that it deals with.

I believe it's like eight or nine chapters and maybe, I don't know, 25 different things that will help you. One of them is your identity in Christ. Just knowing who you are will open your heart to receive all that God has for you. The title again is "Letting Go of Your Past" by Ed Taylor. You can get it on our store. Our store is at calvarystore.com, calvarystore.com or wherever you get books. But I appreciate your prayers and your support and just continue, continue to pray for us and continue to pray for this little book because God is using it greatly.

Guest (Male): 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. Calvaryco.store.

Abounding Grace is made possible through the generous support of our listeners and as we continue delivering God's word one verse at a time, we're looking to our listeners for help. Together we can reach people with the love and truth of Christ and make a difference in these last days. To make a secure donation, drop by aboundinggraceradio.com or call 877-30-GRACE. 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.