Freedom from Legalism

Galatians 3, Dave did an awesome job, Pastor Dave, last week of sharing the word, and he left me with a cliffhanger that I didn't know he was going to leave me with.

So I'm going to have to dig into that at some point, but I'm going to leave it to the end of today as we jump into Galatians 3.

It says in Galatians 3, verse 1, it starts out strong.

Galatians 3:1

He says, Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?

You think about that word bewitch.

It means to influence or affect especially injuriously, as by witchcraft, or to cast a spell on means tricked.

How many of you ever been tricked?

Ever felt tricked before?

We went on a missions trip one time, and as would go, the guys were in one cabin, the girls in another place.

And one morning I woke up after doing my devotions, and our church van that was parked outside of our cabin was just totally destroyed with toilet paper and stuff thrown all around, and the girls had been up to some mischief that night.

And the boys came out and they said, Who did this, Pastor?

We gotta get them.

And I said, just shh.

I said, don't say nothing.

I said, let's clean it up.

We'll get it all clean and we'll make our plan of attack later.

I said, but clean up.

I said, don't give them anything because that's what when you play a trick, you want to receive on the other end what happened.

And somebody get mad and all that.

I said, don't say nothing.

So we got it all cleaned up, and all day, nothing, not a word from my guy.

They did great, which is amazing.

And nothing.

And so the next day we made our plan, and as the girls went in, we found bunches of frogs.

Just bunches and bunches of frogs.

And we got all these frogs and got them into the girls' staying place in pillows.

They were in all their stuff.

And man, it ran around.

I mean, they went nuts about these frogs.

So we got what we thought was it.

Oh, you want to trick us?

We got you.

We tricked you.

Well, them guys didn't know about Heather, the secret weapon.

So the next night we come in and they had devised a very devious plot.

And we go in and there's this girl.

I won't say her name, but we'll just say teenage girls can be dramatic.

Anyone understand that?

Teenage girl, a little bit of drama.

So I'd experienced some drama from this girl throughout her time in youth ministry.

Well, we come in and she is breathing very heavily.

Pastor Egg.

And she's doing this, and this, I don't know what's going on.

And I'm having a problem.

And I'm like, look, I can do a lot of things, but a nurse I am not.

And so I'm like, I'm looking, I'm looking at the other ladies with me.

I'm looking at Heather.

I'm like, is she okay?

And so I just finally, the ladies weren't doing anything.

I'm kind of looking to Heather because she, you know, she's the nurturer in my home, and she goes to the kids and she fixes things.

And I'm sort of like, you know, always off to the side that Heather be, all right.

But this was starting to scare me.

And uh Heather was acting like she was a little bit disgusted by it.

And and we both know that this girl's a little dramatic, but I'm like, Heather, I think I think this is real.

And Heather's like, I don't got time for it.

She's just walking around, and the other guys are noticing Heather's disgust too.

And I'm like, I can't believe this.

And so finally I do what a preacher can do in a situation like this.

I think we all need to pray for her.

And so I don't know what else to do, but I'm gonna lay hands on this girl and pray.

And Heather's like, I don't remember her saying it, but I feel like she was even like, I'm not praying for her.

It's too much.

And I remember the other boys looking at Heather in this moment, and the boys were like walking out of the house.

They were like, I cannot believe her.

And she has this one like final, and I'm just getting ready to pray down God on her, and she's like, Gotcha! And I'm like, What?

There's nothing wrong with her! And then I'm looking at Heather and I'm like, she was so mean about it.

She was not gonna help her.

This girl, she's just being dramatic, Rick.

I'm like, so we have been tricked.

All right, we have been tricked.

We didn't try again after that.

You know, I'm trying to assess, calm the situation, pray over.

I was about ready to pray a good one too, but we had been tricked.

And so, have you ever felt tricked?

It says here in verse one, oh foolish Galatians.

You've been tricked.

This is what legalism is.

Legalism, in essence, is law above the gospel.

Let me say it again.

It's law above the gospel.

Paul said in Christ you were freed, but you've been tricked.

You've been bewitched.

They put a spell on you with rules.

S.

Lewis Johnson said one of the most serious problems facing the Christian church today, listen, is the problem of legalism.

Legalism, he said, wrenches the joy from the believer, and the joy of the Lord goes away from their worship and vibrant servant.

Nothing is left from legalism but a cramped, somber, dull professional service.

The Christian under the law, he said, is a miserable parody of the real thing.

He said it's a parody, it's a trick.

It's not the truth.

Let me pray.

Father, we love you and we ask, God, that you would just share your presence with us this morning.

And God, I pray for our church, Lord, that we would follow what your word says and nothing more and nothing less.

God help us to be people who live in that freedom.

And God, not just the freedom here, but outside.

God, people are in bondage by other people's thoughts and their theories and their what ifs and what fors.

God help us just to care about what you think of us and live in that freedom.

Bless the word today in Jesus' name.

Amen.

First thing this morning is this the ploise of legalism.

I want you to know today that Satan is a legalist.

In the Hebrew, the word Satan is Hasidan, and that word means accuser.

The word accuser means a prosecutor.

Prosecutor of what?

Of the law.

1 Corinthians 15, 56 says, the sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

Now, Romans 8.1 said to the Christian, Now there is now therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

We're not condemned if we're a Christian.

But what legalism seeks to do is pervert that, to tell you that there has to be more.

And there is a problem of legalism.

And listen, we went through an age of it, let me tell you.

When I was growing up, my mom has said this phrase that she did not feel comfortable wearing slacks on the church property.

Y'all remember this era?

I was talking to my mom this week.

I said, Mom, when was it like that you finally, because she doesn't do that anymore, she doesn't just wear dresses, and dresses are fine, paint whatever.

But she said, I was 55 the first time that I didn't wear a dress.

My dad, oh my goodness.

I grew up in the time we were in bus ministry together.

My dad owned nothing but white polyester shirts.

I mean, the kind that would itch you and irritate you, and polyester suits.

And he had 47 shades of brown suits.

I guess that was what was most popular.

My dad would mix and match his browns.

You know, the 70s, ugly, ugly, ugly as sin.

You should have been cast out of the church for wearing the ugly brown suits.

But that's what dad had.

And we worked in the bus ministry, blazing hot in the summertime.

50 kids on a bus, polyester suit, long white shirt.

I'm talking, I mean, the man was sweating up a storm.

That's what he had.

The first ministry that Heather and I were in, up until about 2013 or so.

I wore suits every Sunday.

I had a blue suit, I had a gray suit, I had a cream suit, I had a tan suit, I had a black suit, I had every kind of suit, and that's just the way it was.

Now listen, there'd be some people here.

Don't mishear me.

I don't think there's anything wrong with getting dressed up.

You dress up as much as you can come in here in a tuxedo.

That's okay with me.

Because listen to me, you can be legalistic the other way, also.

You can look down on somebody and say, well, they're just too uppity.

And that's just the same.

Look.

And so don't mishear me and say that, oh, well, well, he said you shouldn't be dressed up.

And this is what happened all that time.

Those people would say, we were taught to give our best unto the Lord.

And that was our best.

And listen, I get that.

That's okay.

It doesn't say that in the Bible about your clothes, but that's okay to think it.

Nothing wrong with wearing your Sunday best.

That's what they'd say.

I remember the first time at Calvary Baptist Church when I walked in there and a man was wearing jean pants on the platform.

And I said, hold up.

Wait just a minute.

Is this the way we're gonna be around here?

Like, what is going on in the church?

Right?

Facial hair was frowned upon because you know Jesus could have a beard, but why would he want you to have one?

You know?

Like, remember?

Remember if you went to the movie theater, that was Satan's house.

If you went to Blockbuster Video, Satan.

If you went to the pool hall, even more Satan.

Right?

These things are not in this book.

These are made up.

And somebody got up here in front of a platform for years and preached as if it was a gospel.

Heather told me I never heard this before, but her preacher talked about wearing pleated pants.

That that was, you should not wear pleated pants.

I'm like, what?

What kind of nonsense is that?

I mean, this is crazy.

But this is the ploy of Satan and has been for a long time.

If I can just add something else and get them off the main thing.

Swindah said this about legalism.

It is a killer.

It kills churches.

It says if a pastor is a legalist, it'll kill the congregation.

If the congregation is legalistic, it kills the pastor.

Legalistic people with their rigid list of do's and don'ts kills the spontaneity of worship and the spirit of the church.

Now I want to clarify, don't hear me wrong today and go home saying that he said we can't have rules.

It's not that.

Legalism is not having rules or standards for church and school and work or your home.

The Bible even says in 1 Timothy 4 7 to be disciplined in yourselves for the purpose of godliness.

But it's the extra stuff.

It's extra on top of what this says.

Look at your neighbor and say, Don't be extra.

It's extra biblical, not biblical.

Now let's read verse 1 through 5.

He said, Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truths before whose eyes?

Listen to this.

You saw Jesus Christ clearly portrayed as crucified.

This only I want to learn from you.

Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law?

Remember that the problem is circumcision, so they're worried about you got to be circumcised.

Did you receive the spirit by doing that work or by hearing of faith?

Are you so foolish?

Having begun in the spirit and you now being made perfect by the flesh?

Have you suffered so many things in vain?

If indeed it was in vain, therefore, listen, he who supplied that spirit to you and who works miracles among you, does he do it by works of the law or by the hearing of faith?

He says this.

Legalism focuses on rules over relationship.

It's about rules.

And Paul said there in verse 1 that you saw Christ crucified.

When I preached him, it was as if it was as vivid to you.

And it was then that the Holy Spirit came on you and brought you into a relationship.

And he asked this question Did the rules, Galatians, ever bring you a relationship?

When did being circumcised bring you into a relationship, Galatians?

Did being a Jew ever bring you into a relationship to salvation?

If so, then why did Jesus even die on the cross?

Why did he die?

Jesus did great miracles, he said.

He said, which commandment produced a miracle?

Galatians, tell me, which commandment, which rule was it not coveting?

Because if it was not coveting, you'd stop being covetous, wouldn't you?

Was it honoring your father and your mother?

Teens, that's a good one.

Is that what did the miracles?

I mean, you know, did that raise the Dead Sea up?

Because God seen the Israelites were a bunch of mamas and daddies boys obeying their parents, and he said, Oh, Red Sea split.

Look at them, loving their mamas.

Which commandment?

No.

Romans 5.8 said, God demonstrated his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

It wasn't because we heaped up something good.

It wasn't something we earned to get there.

That's why if you could lose your salvation, you would, because it's not your works anyway.

If it was about your works, you'd definitely lose it.

Let me take you to Romans 8.

Go over to Romans 8 just a second.

Rules over relationship.

I want you to look at verse 16 and 17.

A relationship, not rules, a relationship.

Look at what it says.

The Spirit, Romans 8, 16, 17, the Spirit himself bears witness with our Spirit that we are children of God.

And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.

If indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together.

He says it's through a relationship we become children and sons and heirs of God.

Children have a relationship.

There's three kids in this building that have the rights to be my children.

And none of them follow enough rules to be granted that right.

Wyatt?

Callie?

It's not anything that you did that made you my children.

It's all about what we did.

And by the way, nothing that you do can make you not my child.

That's right.

That's good.

Today, church, your freedom lies in the fact that it's all about what Jesus Christ did for you, and it's nothing that you did for him.

He offered a relationship through the cross.

A relationship, not a rulationship.

You heard me?

Not a rule relationship.

Y'all say relationship.

You can do better.

Say relationship.

Not relationship.

And that's good.

Somebody got to write that one down.

Matthew 15.

I want you to see something in Matthew 15.

What was going on forever and ever and ever that brings these things to light?

Matthew 15, 1 and 2.

This is just one instance of many where the Pharisees are coming at Jesus.

Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus saying, Why do your disciples transgress the tradition?

Hear that word.

The tradition of the elders, for they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.

See, they had elevated rituals.

That's the next thing here this morning.

We focus on ritual over a redemption.

Why do they break the tradition?

People get caught up today a lot in their traditions.

Am I right?

Now, some of you, if Christmas doesn't go the same way that's been gone for 10 years, it's going to really hurt your feelings.

So I'm not just talking about church here.

I'm talking about what you like.

But what you like is tradition.

Alright?

I'm not saying it's biblical.

There's a lot of tradition, right?

We come from a rich history of.

And I'm not saying all tradition is wrong, but some of them is not about what's biblical.

Okay?

You got to understand that.

Some people, uh, you know, if they went to church back in the day and there was not three songs, a message, and a poem, they think, I'm not in church.

Where am I?

What is this place?

The pastor did not even give a poem at the end of service.

Where are we?

Did we check into the wrong place?

We can't have church like this.

There's no pews in here.

Look at these chairs.

Right?

Now we're a little bit past that, but I've been looking up pews lately.

I want a pew in my office.

Um I do.

I love church.

So I love the way that I love the church history.

But the tradition, this is the pew's not in the Bible.

You don't find that word in the Bible.

Lectern.

I've heard people talk about the lectern.

Oh, they took out their lectern.

I've seen preachers preaching without these.

I cannot believe he doesn't have a pulpit.

Find me pulpit in the Bible.

Now I know you're supposed to stand in the elevator.

There is scripture about how church is supposed to be, but there's things that aren't there.

That we have made godly things.

Traditions.

He said, why do they break the tradition of the elders?

The Old Testament law, now listen, here's what the Old Testament law did say that the priest had to wash their hands before entering the temple to offer sacrifice.

That was law.

Old Testament.

Exodus 3.20 is the verse.

There is no law requiring ritual washing before eating bread.

So all you parents who tell your kids to wash up before dinner ain't even in the Bible.

They should still do it because it's nasty.

But you ain't gonna tell them it's in the Ten Commandments.

Okay.

But that's just the start.

They twist a little bit of the truth of what was the law.

They disputed to Jesus the type of people he was associating with.

They couldn't believe that he would hang out with sinners, that he was saw with drunkards, that he was touching lepers.

What is he doing?

He was healing on the Sabbath.

That's in the Ten Commandments.

Remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.

He healed a man on the Sabbath.

What is he thinking?

Jesus did these things.

He healed a demoniac who was roaming around the tombs and it was considered unclean to be around the tombs.

They're getting mad at a man who cast a demon out of somebody who was possessed because he might have been unclean being around the graveyard.

My goodness, their focus is so off onto tradition.

Traditions.

You see, the rabbis kept adding preferential regulations because they liked them.

Not because it was biblical, because they liked them.

It was ritual madness.

And it's not new, it's not a new concept.

Every culture in history, since the onset of time, has done this.

This is the process of what happens.

First, they comment on the law, they get together, they comment on it, then they start to explain the law, and then they write a policy about the law, and then they go from a policy to a regulation about what they've talked about.

From regulation to this is biblical.

It's only biblical that we do it this way.

Let me tell you what the Bible says.

Now hear me, church.

In Revelations, it says, do not add a word to the word of God.

We don't add one word to the word of God.

In Revelation, it says you'll be in danger of plagues from God.

In Deuteronomy, about the law, he says, do not add a word.

In Proverbs, he says, if you add a word of God, Proverbs 35 and 6, you will be considered a liar.

You don't add to this book.

This book is complete.

But for years and years, through Satan, the prosecutor of the law, he's been saying, What about this?

What about that?

If we just get them unfocused on the main thing, we can get them off on some other thing, and it'll put people aside and people's needs aside.

And so we see all this tradition.

Well, that takes us to the second thing.

What was the purpose of the law?

We're gonna look at verse 19.

20 in Galatians 3.

Says, What purpose then does the law serve?

It was added because of transgressions till the seed should come to whom the promise was made.

And it was appointed through angels by the hand of a mediator.

Now a mediator does not mediate for one only, but God is one.

So the purpose of the law for the people of Israel was this.

Paul mentions this law, and what he's not describing is the whole Bible.

He's describing the Old Testament law revealed to Abraham and then Moses.

And this is what that law was for.

Listen to this is what the law, the Old Testament law was for.

The law demands perfect obedience.

And what it does is it shows us the futility of our flesh.

The law shows us that we could not save ourselves.

It doesn't make us sinners, it reveals the sin in us.

And so let me show you verse 15 through 17 here.

He said, Brethren, I speak in the manner of men, though it is only a man's covenant.

Yet if it is confirmed, no one annuls or adds to it.

Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made, he does not say, and to seeds as of many, but as one, and to your seed, who is Christ.

And this I say that the law, which was four hundred and thirty years later, cannot annul the covenant that was confirmed by God in Christ, that it should make the promise of no effect.

So this is to break that down.

What's saying the law came 430 years after the covenant with Abraham?

The covenant with Abraham was this I'm going to send a seed through you.

And when the law came through Moses, it didn't take that and destroy it.

What it did, it didn't cut out the promise, it provided, it revealed to man his need of the still coming promise.

The seed was not of many, but of one.

The seed of Jesus Christ was coming through Abraham.

And the law pointed to all of us our need.

We could not do what the law demanded.

So we had to have that coming seed, the provision.

It didn't cut out the promise.

The law reveals man's need, it reveals our sinfulness.

But let me tell you what the Pharisees and the Catholic Church in the 1400 to 1500s and legalists still today would have you believe: that the law rules, and they're what you need to get you to heaven.

It's corruption, it's a ploy from Satan ever since the garden.

So that's what it meant for the people of Israel.

But what about the people of Christ?

Look at verse 24 and 25.

It says this.

Learning, the word in the Greek is Didoskalia, to be taught.

The law is a record of God's faithfulness, it's a roadmap for us to look back on.

The Bible says of itself, thy word is a lamp and a light, so that we could have hope and comfort.

Have you ever been sad?

And you open up the Bible and you physically feel different?

I had this happen a lot in my life.

I've been sad, I've been distraught, didn't know exactly what to do, and I'm beginning to read the Bible.

And as I read the Bible physically in my soul, in my inner being, I just began to feel different.

I don't know if my outlook changed, but because of what's in me, I started to feel better.

And it says there in Romans 15 4 that we were given this so that we could have comfort and hope.

God's word, the law, is for comfort and hope.

1 Corinthians 10, 11 says this.

Listen.

Now all these things happen as examples, talking about Old Testament law, and they were written aforetime for our admonition.

Admonition is the Greek word, naphysia, and it's a warning.

A warning for us of how we need to live our life.

So that's what the law was about.

It wasn't about writing something that you needed to keep to so that you could be saved.

You'll see often through the New Testament writers directly quote the Old Testament.

2 Timothy 3.16 says this church, all scripture, all of it, Old Testament and New Testament, is good for doctrine, reproof, correction, and righteousness.

It tells us what to do, what not to do, how to fix what we messed up, and how to stay right.

That's the purpose of the law.

It's the record of God's work for man and sin and our history.

That takes us to the last thing this morning, the promises of the Lord.

It says, But the Scripture has confined all under sin that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

But before faith came, we were kept under guard by the law, kept for the faith which would afterward be revealed.

Therefore the law was our tutor.

Okay?

The promises of the Lord.

When you hear about the promises of the Lord, Scripture says his promises are yes and amen.

When I was in fifth grade, we would go through, I went to a Christian school, and we learned a song that has never left my mind.

So y'all that work with kids, let me tell you, we would sing, every promise in the book is mine, every chapter, every verse, every line, all the blessings of his love divine, every promise of the book is mine.

Mine, mine, mine, Jesus is mine.

Mine when I'm weary, mine when I'm dreary, mine, mine, mine, Jesus is mine.

Jesus is always mine.

And so when I think about his promises, church, look at what he says here.

His promises pardon us from bondage.

That's what this says here.

We were confined before.

Through the law, we were stuck.

Jesus pardons from bondage, the curse of the law.

He says it was a tutor or a schoolmaster.

You know, there's a difference between a schoolmaster and a rules master.

When I was in 11th grade, I had a teacher in chemistry who was stuck on our school rules.

And uh we had school rules, I knew them, he knew them, but I was stuck on bending the school rules, and he was stuck on administering, so we had a clash.

And it continued most of the school year, and what it had to do with was being clean shaven.

We had to shave.

If you had any look of hair on your face about 12 years old, you had to start shaving in the school I went to.

And I didn't like that rule.

I didn't like to shave, so I tried to get away with it.

Well, because of that, I decided I didn't like this guy.

So because I didn't like him, I wasn't gonna listen to him.

Because I didn't listen to him, I failed chemistry.

Y'all listen to me here.

I failed chemistry, and because I failed chemistry, that cost me, I had had a job up to that point.

I had to pay$350 that my parents weren't gonna pay to go to summer school.

And then it cost me four weeks of work pay, which was at least$350 a week, to go to summer school, to take more chemistry, which I already didn't like.

Right?

And I went that summer through summer school, and I got an A in summer school, because I learned what the schoolmaster was trying to teach me.

By the way, I had to be clean-shaven in that school too.

They had rules at summer school too.

By the way, if he's ever watching today, I just want you to know I got hair on my face right now.

And the church accepts me, don't you, church?

It's okay.

Thank you.

My pastor's got hair on his face.

It's okay.

I'm preaching with hair on my face.

It's a big one.

I broke the rules.

But here's the thing, it was never about the rules.

The rules had me tied up.

I didn't listen to the man because of the rules.

But you can never live up to the rules.

Society is trying to shove rules down your throat right now.

They're going, if you live in certain places, they might shove your rules about your lawn, your RV being parked outside.

You got all kinds of rules.

Rules about the way you look, things you do.

It's never been about the rules.

Faith through Jesus Christ brings freedom.

And what it says is you don't have to be perfect.

You just gotta know someone who is.

Y'all hearing me?

Understand that.

2 Corinthians 5.21 said this.

Hear this church.

He made him who knew no sin to be sin for us on our behalf.

At summer school, the rules didn't change, the subject didn't change, but how I understood them changed me.

Listen now.

I wish I could tell this to all my church folks in the 80s.

How I understood these things changed me.

Understand that the law is not about me being perfect, but that I cannot be.

And I need Jesus because of that.

Then I can embrace grace and stop doing.

I can embrace grace and say it's God's grace.

And I can stop trying to live up to the Joneses if I'll embrace grace.

And I can stop trying to be more than I can be or being someone that I can't be.

There's freedom and knowing we're all just stewards of this human life and body trying to impart the same grace that we've been given.

So let's go back to Pastor Dave's cliffhanger.

Go back to Galatians chapter 2.

Galatians 2 · chapter mention

This helps us tie it all together.

Jesus pardons us from bondage.

This verse in chapter 2, verse 17 through 21, I had never read this this way before, but doing this study through Galatians has really helped me to understand differently.

Let's go ahead and read it.

It says, But if while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves are also found sinners, is Christ therefore a minister of sin?

Certainly not.

For if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor or sinner.

For I, through the law, hear this, please, for I through the law died to the law that I might live to God.

I've been crucified with Christ.

It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives within me.

All my life I've read this verse, and this is what I've taken it to mean.

I'm crucified with Christ.

Yes, that means, you know, I'm living by faith.

I'm living this life in Christianity.

I'm denying myself and my desires.

I'm, you know, the scripture says, take up your cross.

And that's the way I saw it.

But this is what it says.

For through the law, that standard of the law, I died.

He says, Through the standard of the law, I died.

The old rule follower died.

Do y'all hear me?

The old rule follower, Paul says.

And Paul had a history with that.

He understood something about following rules.

He says, that person died.

Come on, somebody needs to know that the rule follower had to go.

He had to go.

And he said, No one can be justified by works.

The law doesn't do it.

He says, the law points out my need of a sin savior.

So he says, I accepted Christ.

Now I'm crucified.

The old rule follower is dead.

I'm crucified with Christ.

That's behind me.

That's gone.

The old rule follower is gone.

Now he says, I have faith and I can live.

Those people are so bound up by it all.

He said, I can live.

There's freedom in Christ.

There's freedom.

This is the secret to freedom.

Christianity is freedom.

If you're here today and you're not a Christian, you're choosing jail.

You're saying, Satan, lock me up.

If you're here today and you've not given your heart and life to Jesus Christ, you're saying, I am choosing the world's bondage, and they'll promise you a whole lot and leave you in chains.

He says, in Christ, that old person trying to live for the world's stuff is dead.

You wouldn't choose chains to possess false happiness based on whose rules?

Not even yours.

In Jesus Christ, you are accepted, listen to me, as a sinner.

Just as you are.

Just the way that you came.

Amen.

You're accepted just the way you are.

Matthew 16, 33 says, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these other things will be added unto you.

Seek ye first Him.

So what that whole thing is pointing out in Galatians 3 is a big word that happened in the Reformation that Martin Luther lived and died on, and that word is called justification.

Say justification.

Justification is this.

If you got notes and you want to write this definition out, it's the act of declaring one righteous before God.

This is hard for legalistic people to get.

Legalistic people don't want to hear this.

This is tough.

This is what it is.

Jesus imputed a payment.

When God, listen to me, stay with me on it.

When God looks at a Christian, he sees Christ's blood covering that Christian.

And it's just as if they'd never sinned.

If you have a relationship with Jesus, he looks at you with Christ's blood, and that blood goes clean.

Now we have a hard time with this.

Now stick with me.

I'm going to answer the other side that some of you are already thinking about.

Does this seem too good to be true?

It should, but it's not.

That's what opponents of the Reformation and the Judaizers thought.

It's not hear me to go back to sin.

I want you to look at verse 18.

It says, For if the inheritance, I'm sorry, in verse 18 in chapter 2, for if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor.

He says, I would not go to freedom so that I could go back to sinning.

I didn't go to God so that I could go away from him and become a great sinner.

I'm not freed by the gospel so that I can do anything that the old man desires.

He says, the old man was crucified.

To be saved, I've been changed.

And when I'm changed, I walk different.

So it's not that I can just go and live however I want.

I am changed.

Justification changes me.

He says, I wouldn't build that back up.

Why would I build that back up?

That's not freedom.

That's going back to slavery over and over and over again.

It's impossible for the gospel to take root truly and a person live their life the same.

Impossible.

You cannot be changed and be the same.

2 Corinthians 5.17.

Any man comes to Christ, he's a new creation.

All things are passed away.

Behold, all things are new.

You can't be chained up and be free.

It's impossible.

Church, listen to me.

He said, You must be born again.

Born again, you must be changed.

If you got saved and continually go back to the same life, you might not have gotten saved.

Justification, though, says once it's on you, that's what the Father sees.

And it's there.

And you are forgiven, and you don't have to live up.

You live in his grace.

But you won't want to live this way.

Hear me.

You won't look at what the world's twirling out there and go, ooh, if I just do some of that sin.

I want to be a good Christian, but I just want a little bit of that.

That ain't how it worked.

That ain't real.

Now I know the flesh is weak.

Don't give me a look.

I'm not going to say you're not going to be tempted.

We're definitely tempted.

But hear me.

Jesus justifies.

And when he justifies, we're free from bondage.

I'm just going to hit this for a second because we're going to jump deep into it next week.

But Jesus' power, lastly, is for bonding.

Look at verse 26 through 29 of chapter 3.

For your sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, as many of you were baptized into Christ, have put on Christ, there is neither Jew, Greek, slave free, male, female, for you all are one in Christ Jesus.

If you're Christ, then you're Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise.

So when Jesus comes in, his blood, we're bonded together.

These are Christians.

We're baptized together.

If you had not been baptized, you need to be baptized, but he says, we're one.

All the way back to Abraham's promise in the law.

We're one to that seed of Jesus Christ.

We're partakers of the law that pointed us to it.

This right here was the formation of the early church.

And without these conversations with the Galatians, I don't know where we are today.

Paul is saying, we have got to fight for this truth of what salvation really is, what the gospel is.

When we allow Satan and we get bewitched and we get tricked and fooled by these other things, it's all wrong.

He says, you have to choose Jesus.

When you choose Jesus, Matthew 16, 33, seek him first.

Well, that made me think of my favorite illustration.

There was a young man and his father, very wealthy, owned a big estate, and the young man and his father began for fun, just something to bond over, collecting pieces of artwork.

So they'd go and collect all kinds of artwork through the community and getting some rare pieces, some Van Gogh, some Picasso, and started really filling up their estate.

Well, as life went on, uh the son was called upon to go to boot camp, became a soldier, and he got called on to go into battle.

He was in battle, and while he was there, he began to become friends with another young man, and this young man said to him one day, he was just looking off at him, and he says, This is a weird question.

I know this is gonna seem kind of strange, but would you mind if he said, I'm really just a novice, just a beginner, but would would you care if I painted a portrait of you while we're out here?

He said, No, go ahead.

And so he did.

And then again, he was just a novice painter, but he took his time and made this portrait of this young man.

Well, a few days later in the battle, things heated up drastically, and the enemy came in invading, and bullets began to be shot.

And as bullets were shot, the son, the one who had his picture made, jumped in the way of some bullets.

Taking a bullet pierced through his heart, he saved his friend's life that had painted a portrait of him.

Well, the young man who had painted the portrait got leave, and news came back home to the estate owner of what had happened to his son, and he was just tragically hurt.

So sad, and one day the one who had painted a portrait of his son came knocking at the door and he said, Sir, your son was my friend, and I have something for you.

He said, I'm really not very good.

I'm just a novice painter.

He said, but I just feel like this would be something that you would enjoy having.

And he pulled off a cover, and the father grabbed a hold of the portrait.

He said, Oh, my son! Oh, I love it.

My son was some of the last hours of him living, and he took the photo and he took it back and he placed it on his mantle.

From that time forward, anyone that came to the estate, the first thing he would say, Look at look at my son.

Look at my son.

Well, that man a few months later had a massive heart attack and lost his life.

And the estate came up for sale.

When the estate came up for sale, all of the town people got buzzing because they knew about the artwork collection.

They had heard tales about this great collection of art that was kept at this house.

And so people started buzzing, they all started getting there, and they came for this auction from all over.

And the auctioneer got ready to start, and they were there.

They wanted to see the Van Goghs, the Picasso, these great pieces of art.

And the auctioneer threw down his gavel and said, The auction will now commence.

He said, First item forbid.

And he pulled a cover off, and it was the picture of his son.

The people and the crowd began to get restless.

Why that picture?

Come on, we came here for the Van Gogh and the Bacasa.

We came here for real collectible artwork.

What are we doing with this?

And the auctioneer said, Who will take the sun?

Who will bid on the sun?

And finally, little hand in the back went up.

He said, I'll bid five dollars.

And the auctioneer looked around and said, Five dollars, and by now the people in the crowd, ear splittingly, had been roaring, What is this?

This is terrible.

Show us the real artwork.

What do we come here for?

He said, Five dollars once, five dollars twice, five dollars sold.

He banged down his gavel and he said, The auction is now finished.

What do you mean it's finished?

We came here for all these collectibles, all this artwork.

He says, There was one thing written in the fine print of this auction, it was this whoever gets the sun gets everything else.

Whoever gets the sun gets it all.