Breaking the Curse | Galatians 3:1-14 | Pastor Jake Brown

Our passage of scripture for today's sermon is Galatians 3, 1 through 14.

Galatians 3, 1 through 14.

O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?

It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

Let me ask you only this.

Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

Are you so foolish, having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

Did you suffer so many things in vain?

If indeed it was in vain, does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by the works of the law, or by hearing with faith?

Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness, know then that in those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

And the scripture for seeing the God that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, In you shall all the nations be blessed.

So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse.

For it is written, Curse be every one who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law, and do them.

Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for the righteous shall live by faith.

But the law is not of faith, rather, the one who does them shall live by them.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree, so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith.

This is the word of God.

O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?

Paul has been defending his apostleship.

But here, clearly, he more pointedly turns to the Galatians.

He's had something to teach them along the way.

But here he says, hey, it's like somebody's cast a spell on you.

Something's going on that's weird.

Look there in verse 1.

It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

Now, notice it says portrayed.

Most likely these people weren't there when Jesus was crucified, but he's saying, I came and told you the gospel and you heard it in power.

This was portrayed to you.

You know Jesus' crucifixion.

See, the churches in Galatia were forgetting Christ crucified.

How can we forget something so important?

If we're honest, we forget too.

I've heard this called spiritual amnesia.

You can go to a faithful church that preaches the word, and by Tuesday or Wednesday, can't remember a thing that was said or sung.

Totally diving face first into our sin, making excuses for our sin, justifying our sin, trying to earn ourselves back by works, forgetting the gospel.

And the truth is, our need runs even deeper than just forgetfulness.

Christ came to break a curse.

As we look at today's passage, we're gonna see it with four looks.

Four looks.

We're gonna look back, we're gonna look up, we're gonna look out, and we're gonna look to.

Look back, look up, look out, and look to.

Some of you are like, Really?

That's that one?

Yep, I don't know.

There's not just three of them, there's four, so better get moving.

Starting in verse 2, let's look back.

And here we're gonna look back at your experience.

Because this is what Paul is telling the Galatians.

He just said, Who's bewitched you?

And he's gonna remind them of their own experience.

Let me ask you only this, which by the way is already just a funny statement by Paul.

Because he says, I want to ask you only this, and then he's gonna ask him a whole bunch of questions.

It's like a very preacher thing to do.

I have, you know, just one more point 30 minutes later.

Yeah, okay.

Gonna ask you only this.

Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

Christians, how did you receive the Spirit?

Paul here assumes the Galatians' conversion.

So he's speaking to Christians, right?

And he says, was it by works of the law?

Basically, did the Lord pay you because your works were so good that now he gave you salvation?

Or was it by hearing with faith?

Did you hear the gospel and believe it?

Faith and hearing are often linked in Scripture.

One of my favorite verses, I think I quoted probably too much in my preaching, but it's because it ties into preaching, is Romans 10, 17.

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Notice what that verse says.

Faith comes from hearing.

So you must hear to have faith.

And it says, hearing itself comes through the word of Christ, which means as God's word goes forward, the Holy Spirit empowers that word to open ears to hear the gospel.

And faith comes from that.

Look back at your experience.

Christian, remember your conversion.

Did you become a Christian because your good works finally outweighed your bad works?

Or did you hear the gospel with faith?

Verse three says, Are you so foolish?

He's already repeated foolish twice now, so he's trying to make a point.

Are you so foolish?

Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?

Y'all the Christian walk continues and finishes the same way it starts.

According to Scripture alone.

Salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, for the glory of God alone.

And that's not just our justification.

That is all of salvation is the work of the Spirit in our lives.

This is insulting to good hardworking Americans.

What about my part?

What about what I do?

You know, I cooperate with the Spirit, it's about my effort involved somehow, right?

No.

It's not.

We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus.

And yes, that should produce good works.

There should be fruit in your life that shows what God is doing and has done.

But those don't add to that salvation.

They don't get us more salvation.

Saving faith produces good works, but good works never accomplish or add to saving faith.

Look back at your experience.

Remember your conversion, Christian.

Did you begin by the Spirit?

Look back at your experience.

Remember your walk with the Lord.

Are you becoming more like Christ because you've earned it?

Is that the Christian life?

Is that what we want to preach?

No.

No, that's why he's calling the Galatians fools.

That's not how this works.

There are a lot of different opinions out there about the Star Wars sequel movies, the Disney ones.

Some of you pretend like they don't exist.

That's okay.

They're not great, let's just be honest.

But they have some good moments.

And one of my favorites is in The Force Awakens, when Finn, our new character, who in that movie was so promising and they let us down later, but that's a holder aside.

And he says, we can use the force.

And Han Solo, Harrison Ford, in his classic character, looks at him and says, That's not how the force works.

Y'all, if you've become a Christian and now you say, Well, God did all he can do, now it's up to us.

Y'all, I got I got news for you.

That's bad news.

That's not the gospel.

Gospel means good news.

If it's just up to you, we are out of luck.

Okay?

If it's up to me, we're not going to make it.

But if it's up to God's grace, there's hope.

Salvation continues by grace through faith in Christ, there's hope.

Verse 4, did you suffer so many things in vain?

If indeed it was in vain.

Now this verse is actually debated a little bit.

Because that word suffer could mean, did you, is your experience in vain?

But it does seem to be suffer usually when Paul uses it.

So perhaps he knows something about the churches of Galatia that we don't really know.

We're not sure what kind of suffering he means.

But he's asking, did you suffer in vain?

Basically he's saying, Is your faith futile?

Were you never really a Christian?

Have you just been suffering for no reason?

Now Paul isn't judging the Galatians, but he is warning them.

Notice what he says there at the end of that verse.

If indeed it was in vain.

So he's not saying it had to have been in vain.

He's saying it could have been in vain.

If you're trusting in your own works, your faith was in vain.

Look back at your experience.

Remember, suffering for your faith if you have.

Many of us in here have been kept from suffering by God's grace, but suffering may come.

In suffering, will your faith prove worthless?

Did it prove worthless?

Or did the spirit give you enduring faith?

Verse five, does he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

Look back at your experience.

Remember the mighty works of God.

We have differences of opinion in here of how the Spirit is active in our lives now.

But certainly the Holy Spirit is giving new life and saving people.

And if you look at your life and you look at God and you say, God, why can't you just do a miracle in my life and just show me that you're real?

Y'all, the greatest miracle in Scripture is salvation.

The fact that any sinner would turn to God is a miracle.

In our own flesh, we wouldn't do that.

You know why?

Because we like our sin.

That's what scripture tells us.

We like the darkness.

But God is so gracious to us.

In his kindness, he draws us to repentance.

And we find true joy there.

Do you remember his mighty work in your life?

Do you remember the things he's kept you from?

Did the Lord only work in response to your works?

Or did he work in spite of them?

So we look back at our experience.

That's what Paul wanted the Galatians to do.

Next we look up, and I don't mean look up, like we're looking for God in the clouds, or we're looking at the gym ceiling or the buzzing lights.

We're gonna literally look up like a book.

We're gonna look up at Abraham's example in the Old Testament.

Verses 6 through 9, we start talking about Abraham.

Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

This is quoting Genesis 15, 6.

Now, first, why are we talking about Abraham?

This is the New Testament, we're talking about the gospel, talking about the churches in Galatia.

What in the world?

Some of you you're like, I don't know my Bible at all, I don't even know who Abraham is.

We started with that verse today, and I don't know what's going on.

Like, Abraham is one of the fathers of Israel.

Way back at the beginning of Genesis, you have stories of Adam and Eve, you have Cain and Abel, you have lots of generations, you have the flood.

Okay, some of you are familiar with Noah and the Ark, you've heard of that.

You have the Tower of Babel, chapter 11, and then you get introduced to this guy named Abram, who later gets called Abraham.

It's the same guy, so whichever one you use is fine.

Abraham is the name that the Lord gives him.

But maybe you've heard God called the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

This is that Abraham.

So we're talking about Abraham here because there were Judaizers amongst the Galatians that were trying to force them to observe circumcision and Old Testament law.

They're most likely appealing to Abraham.

Why?

Because God's covenant with Abraham had to do with circumcision.

So for us, it seems like why this is a lot of left field, Paul.

Like, how did we just get to Abraham?

He probably is anticipating their arguments.

The Galatians hearing this probably knew what he was talking about, so that's why it's important for us to clue in.

Second, it seems to insinuate here that Abraham was saved like Christians today.

Is that true?

The answer is yes.

Why do I say that?

Because he believed God right there in the verse.

Faith in Christ is believing God.

Abraham believed that God would save his people from sin through the promised one who would come.

We believe that God has saved and is saving his people through the promised one who has already come.

We're just in a different time, still trusting in God for salvation in the same Messiah.

Does that make sense?

Old Testament salvation, same as New Testament.

For some reason, I grew up thinking, yeah, back then they just had to keep those rules, and if they didn't, they didn't make it.

Do you know what that would mean?

That would mean nobody made it.

Heaven would have been real empty till Jesus got here.

Not the case.

It's always been for those by faith.

Abraham wasn't saved by his works.

Abraham wasn't saved because he was godly.

He was saved because he believed God.

Romans 4, verses 2 through 5 says this for if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about.

Romans 4:2–5

But not before God.

For what does the scripture say?

Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.

Now, to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due.

And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.

Now, I had to get rid of notes right here on Romans 4, 2 through 5, because that could have been a whole separate sermon.

Okay, but I just want you to get a couple of things out of this.

It says to the one who does not work, insinuating that Abraham does not work, we do not work for our faith, but believes in him who justifies.

We like that, because we're like, yeah, God justifies, but look, look who he says he justifies.

In him who justifies the ungodly.

I don't know if it's this church, but I imagine all of us have been part of a church in kind of Americanized, especially Southern Christianity, where like, it's good news to say Jesus saves sinners as long as you repent, but when we're actually around sinners, we're like, I don't know about you, though.

God saves sinners.

He justifies the ungodly.

He doesn't say you got to be godly, and then maybe I'll let you into my family.

No.

He saves us while we were yet sinners.

That's when Christ died for us, right?

That's good news.

Please note, faith itself isn't what saves, but faith unites us to Christ who saves.

Okay?

It's not your amount of faith or your quality of faith, it's the quality of the Savior.

Now, we said we're going to look up Abraham's example.

We see that in Genesis 15, and we're looking up what it says in Romans 4.

I encourage you to read those passages for yourself.

Yes, I'm giving you homework.

Genesis 15, Romans 4.

If you're looking for follow-up on this, I've just repeated them.

There you go.

Read them for yourself.

Even better, grab a friend here or not, and read them together.

Consider Paul's argument in Galatians 3.

Verse 7, he continues it.

Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

There's a whole geopolitical thing to unpack right there, y'all.

It is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

God's people are not his people by our first birth, but by our second birth.

When you trust in Christ by faith, Abraham is your father in the faith.

Why does this matter?

Because if you are counted as a son of Abraham, as a child of Abraham, you receive his inheritance.

That's really good news.

Because God made Abraham some wonderful promises.

Abraham's children are not just biological descendants of Isaac.

They're those of the promise by faith.

Now we said look up Abraham's example.

If you want some more chapters on that, go to chapter 12, chapter 17, those who get more of the covenant that you read about in 15.

But know that all the promises made to Abraham are fulfilled in Christ.

The blessings that Abraham and his family would receive, we receive.

So let's just praise the Lord.

Right arm, Father Abraham.

Okay.

And you do all the arms and the legs, and you turn around.

You want to know something great?

That is a theologically sound song.

If you are in Christ, you are counted amongst Abraham's children.

Y'all, that should change how you read the Bible right there.

Do you know how many times the promises to Abraham are referenced in the Old Testament?

Next time you're drudging through a prophet and you're like, man, there's a lot of woes and curses, and this is hard.

Look for that language.

Because suddenly you'll start seeing a phrase like, and all the nations will be blessed.

And you're like, oh, that's calling back to a promise that I receive in Christ, that we receive together in Christ.

Father Abraham had many sons.

If you don't get anything else from that, that's a good one to take away.

Some of y'all are like, I'm never coming back here.

I can't believe he just sang that song.

It's all right, y'all.

It's okay.

Flatten up a little.

Verse 8 And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, In you shall all the nations be blessed.

If you don't believe that Christ is the fulfillment of all the scriptures, that verse wrecks all your theology.

How on earth is the scripture foreseeing that God's going to justify the Gentiles?

How is that that the gospel is preached beforehand to Abraham?

What does that mean?

Gospel means good news.

It's the good news of who Jesus is and what he's done for us.

That the eternal Son of God came and lived among us, took on flesh like ours, and lived without sin, paid the penalty for our sin at the cross, in our place, was dead three days, rose from the grave, ascended to the right hand of the Father, and one day will return, holding the keys of Hades.

Oh, that's good news.

And you look back at the story of Abraham and you're like, I don't see all that.

How is that here?

It's here in what we would call seed form.

How are the nations to be blessed through Jesus Christ and his work?

Let's look up Abraham's example.

We said we do that, so this time we're actually going to read some of it.

Going back to Genesis chapter 11, verses 31 and 32.

Genesis 11:31

You can turn there or just listen.

We're going to cover the end of Genesis 11 and the beginning of Genesis 12.

You'll see why.

Genesis 11, starting in verse 31, Terah took Abram, his son, and Lot, the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai, his daughter-in-law, his son Abram's wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan.

But when they came to Haran, they settled there.

The days of Terah were 205 years, and Terah died in Hara.

Why would I start all that before I get to Genesis 12?

It's important.

Because it tells us where Abram comes from.

Y'all, he was a pagan.

Some of you may look back and think, oh yeah, he was always like one of the Hebrew people.

He was always like born of that line.

Nope.

From Ur of the Chaldeans.

He's coming into Canaan.

He's not in the promised land.

He's not part of these people.

And the Lord is going to make him promises.

Now, I don't see anything between the chapters it's like.

And Abram lived such a good life that the Lord rewarded him with this.

Genesis chapter 12 starts.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

Now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.

That's a pretty wildly unhelpful command.

Leave everything you've ever known.

I'll show you where you're going later.

Okay.

Some of y'all are like, that's what church planting has felt like.

Yep.

Thanks, members, for coming with us.

We're still, you know, following the Lord, trying to figure that out.

Some of you have had that in more realistic things.

Some of you when you became a Christian, you left a lot behind.

Some of us can't barely relate to that.

The Lord tells Abraham, go.

I always hear Tim Keller's voice when he preaches this and he says, get out.

Yeah, get out.

Go.

Why?

And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

God's going to give him a nation, a name, a blessing, and in him all the families, all the nations, all the tribes, all the peoples, all the language groups not might be blessed, not could be blessed, will be blessed.

Y'all?

Pagan Abram, not worshiping the true God, not in the promised land.

God comes to him and tells him, This.

And we're told here in Galatians by Paul that this was the gospel.

What?

I don't see Jesus' name.

I don't see anything about the cross.

What are we talking about here?

Oh, how else would all the nations be blessed except for the blood of Christ?

This man from other nations.

It's good news for us.

It's good news for every nation.

And it was the gospel preached in seed form.

Matthew chapter 1, verse 1, the first book of our New Testament.

Matthew 1:1

A gospel that tells us the account of Jesus' life opens with this line.

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

It's all fulfilled in Christ.

Paul quotes Genesis 12, 3, let's look again at that verse.

I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse.

And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

So to help our remembering problem, we've looked back at our experience, we've looked up Abraham, but now we need to look out.

Because there's a deeper problem here than just failing to remember.

We need to look out for the curse.

Go back to verse 9.

So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

Verse 10 for all who rely on works of the law are under a curse.

But unique language here.

It's not all over Scripture.

Makes some of us weird.

Kind of makes me think of like New Orleans and like voodoo stuff.

Maybe I've just been there too many times.

For it is written, Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all the things written in the book of the law and do them.

That's a quote from Deuteronomy 27, 6, which I know I didn't have to tell you because all of us have Deuteronomy totally memorized.

Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them.

Raise your hand if you've kept every law in the book of the law.

Nope, me either.

What does it say happens to us then?

We're cursed.

It's pretty serious language.

If you're here and you've not heard the gospel before, you're skeptical of Christianity, I'm glad you came.

Thank you for being here.

This is heavy language that I hope does shock you a little.

It makes you consider your state with the Lord.

Because if we stop here, this is all bad news.

If we got through, like, hey, you know, are you fools?

Are you are you bewitched?

Well, if you've broken a law, you're cursed.

All right, have a great week.

Like, that'd be really hard.

Maybe you don't believe we're cursed, but verse 11 says, now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law.

For the righteous shall live by faith.

It is evident.

How is it evident?

Because no one keeps the law perfectly.

It's evident.

It's obvious.

Now again, he quotes an Old Testament scripture here, Habakkuk 2.4, which again, I know y'all have Habakkuk down.

I'm just trying to remind you and help you.

Habakkuk 2.4, the righteous shall live by faith.

You might be familiar with that verse if you're a Christian, because it's quoted in Romans 1, 16 and 17, for I'm not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek, for in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith, for faith, as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith.

Look out for the curse.

We will die by the curse of the law, or we will live by faith.

Verse 12, but the law is not faith.

Rather, the one who does them shall live by them.

That's Leviticus 18.5.

I won't make the joke again.

I know we don't know Leviticus.

Nobody's making that joke.

Leviticus 18 5, the one who does them shall live by them.

That may seem like a really obvious thing to say.

The law is not faith.

But if I asked you, hey, can you tell me the difference?

I wonder how many of us could.

Can we differentiate the law and the gospel?

Can we differentiate when the Bible tells us to do as opposed to Christ's done?

Can you tell when you read the Bible commands versus promises?

This is the difference between cursed and blessed.

Look out for the curse.

If we're under the curse of the law, which we all are apart from Christ, how do we break the curse?

If you've seen any kind of fantasy or horror movies that have curses in them, guess what you gotta figure out?

How to break the curse, right?

Well, this is worse than that because this is a real curse.

Eternity is at stake here.

How do we break the curse?

We look to the cross.

Look to the cross, these last two verses.

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.

For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.

Do you know what redeemed means?

He purchased us.

He bought us.

Notice what it says, he bought us.

A people.

Not the possibility of salvation, not that maybe this will work out.

He purchased a people with his blood.

And he redeemed us from the curse of the law.

What is the curse of the law?

The curse of the law is thinking that we can do enough to be made right with God on our own.

We can't.

Don't be foolish.

Don't be bewitched.

Break that spell.

Look to the cross.

How did he break this?

By becoming a curse for us.

Well, Jesus took our curse on himself.

He's the only one who ever kept the law.

It's hard for us to keep the law for a day.

And Jesus kept it his whole life on earth and at the cross.

He took the punishment for our curse.

For it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.

That's Deuteronomy 21, 23.

Why?

Verse 14, so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

In Christ Jesus.

That's one of Paul's favorite phrases in the New Testament.

He uses it over and over again.

In Christ.

In Christ.

And we just gloss over it because we're like, what does that mean?

Y'all it means we have union with the Son of God, our Messiah.

We talked about sharing in Abraham's inheritance.

We share in Christ's inheritance because we've been united with him by faith.

To be in Christ is the most important thing in eternity.

Our union with him.

And so that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham, remember all those blessings given to him.

We've read some.

Genesis 12, Genesis 15, Genesis 17.

Go read them again.

So that those blessings might come to the Gentiles.

Who are the Gentiles?

Non-Jewish people.

That's a lot of us, if not all of us, in here.

It's easy to make application when it's that plain.

Christ became a curse so that this good news could get out to us.

Why?

So that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

Folks, the moment you turn away from sin and trust in Jesus, that trust is that faith in Jesus and His finished work, the Holy Spirit of God indwells you and empowers your life.

It doesn't mean you'll be perfect while you are in this life because we still have this flesh, but it does mean that the God who raised Jesus from the grave is with you wherever you go.

Drawing you away from sin, empowering you to do good works, helping you to proclaim the good news to your family and your friends and your neighbors.

And this is all received through faith.

Now this can sound too good to be true.

But all we have to do is look.

And remember.

If we're in Christ, we're not cursed.

That's how we break the curse.

Is you trust in him.

That almost feels like it would be an anticlimactic movie, right?

Every time there's a movie, there's a curse to break.

It's like, oh, we gotta do 17 things to have a good climactic action scene.

I could see them like getting out the Bible and being like, all right, we have the magic book.

How do we do it?

Okay, it says here that we trust in Jesus.

Roll credits.

Yeah.

Trust in Jesus.

Break the curse of the law.

Remind yourself regularly of the gospel.

Continue to gather together as you are today to be reminded.

Your works don't speak for you.

Christ's record speaks for you before God.

And if you're right with him, who can bring an accusation against you?

Why do you need to justify yourself in this life to other people in this world?

Don't be bewitched.

Don't be fooled.

Look and trust in Jesus Christ.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for your word.

We thank you for the hope of the gospel.

Help us to remember the hope of the gospel that we're justified by faith.

Help us to remember how the curse was broken through the cross of Christ.

Father, I pray that for anyone here who hasn't yet trusted in Christ, you by the power of your spirit would work in their hearts now to draw them to faith and repentance.

That they may find life and joy and peace.

And God, for those of us who know life in Christ, impress your word upon us.

Make us more like Him today.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.