Galatians | Never Move On (November 5th, 2017) - Mike Armstrong

Get your Bibles open to Galatians chapter 3.

Galatians 3 · chapter mention

Galatians chapter 3.

Galatians 3 · chapter mention

Alright, now, as you guys are getting yourselves kind of flipped over to that, uh you've probably all heard the phrase before.

Um, it's time to move on.

It's time to move on.

You've heard that before, right?

You know, maybe you maybe you thought of that when you were considering a job change or or or a career change, and you're like, you know, I've been doing this, you know, for for quite a while.

I I need a change of scenery.

It's it's time to move on.

Okay, or or maybe you've been in like uh a debate with somebody, or maybe it's been an argument with your spouse or something like that at home, and and and your spouse is just going on and on and on and belaboring that point over and over, and you're like, I get it, buddy, just move on already.

Right?

Just move on from your point.

Let's get to something different, please, for the love.

Right?

Or maybe for you, it's you know, your favorite, your favorite band breaks up, or you know, it's uh you know, a celebrity divorce hits the news and and you hear them say it, you hear them say it, it's just it was just time to move on.

It's time to move on.

Okay, well, our passage today shows us um that very thing, but kind of from the other end of it, how crucial it is uh for us as the church, as Christ followers, uh to never move on when it comes to the truth of the gospel.

To never move away from it, never swerve, never leave that at all.

Now, the reality is though, we all do it.

We all we all move on from it in in certain ways.

We try and we try and fill our deepest longings with with things of the world.

We we attempt to perfect ourselves through our our moral or religious performance to God.

When when the gospel tells us what?

It tells us that Jesus gives us everything we will ever need, period.

He gives us everything.

And it's the gospel that that states this very clearly to us and and reminds us of this when we forget, not if we forget, but when we do.

The gospel is the the remarkable news that that propels us forward as Christ followers to functioning optimally.

Functioning optimally in just day-to-day life and operating well as Christians.

I mean, do you not want that?

Do you want life to be full of joy and to relate to your Lord and to relate to life in all kinds of different ways?

Do you want to do that well?

Of course you do.

Okay, we should never move on, never move on from the gospel.

Okay, so let's read this now.

Galatians chapter 3.

Galatians 3 · chapter mention

I'm gonna read verses 1 to 14.

He says this, oh 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 work miracles among you do so by 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 it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.

And the scripture, foreseeing 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, Cursed 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, uh 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.

Lord, we come before you.

And God, we again just continue to cry out for more of the same, more of the same thing that we cry out every Sunday and hopefully every day too, Lord.

We need you.

God, we need your spirit to move in our hearts.

We want and and cry out for your spirit to move in this church, Lord, among your people.

Lord, as we get God's word open and as we teach through it, and as we look at it and figure out how to apply this to our lives, Lord, I pray that you would bless us.

Lord, I pray that you would bless us so richly.

And God, as we all struggle and as we all stray and forget the gospel and kind of leave it in the rearview mirror and try and do all of kinds of things on our own to try and impress you, thus forgetting the good news of the gospel that you are, you already accept us through your son Jesus.

Lord, I pray that again you would continue to cram this into the darkest corners of our hearts.

Lord, give us a deep love for Jesus that that motivates all obedience, motivates all of life.

God, would you help us?

Would you help us?

We pray all these things in your name.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, so I will never move on from the truth of the gospel.

I will never move on from it.

Okay, Paul has been, he's been pressing this point through the entire letter.

And News Flash, he's not done.

We're gonna be talking about this all the way through to the end.

And what we're gonna see here today, and as we've been seeing, he's gonna continue to kind of peel back the layers as to the why.

Why do we not stray away from the gospel?

Here's the first thing.

Okay, you've got notes there, it'll be on the screen.

Okay, because it's not only how I come to Christ, but it's the key to my growth as well.

It's the key to my growth as well.

This is huge, huge for us.

Okay, verse one, take a look at this as we walk through these verses.

Okay, verse one, Paul says this, Oh foolish Galatians.

Okay, so he's getting off to uh an intense start, right?

Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?

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

Okay, so Paul, he continues to express bewilderment and even frustration, as we've seen kind of right out of the gate in this letter, as early as you know, chapter one, okay, with these Galatian people.

Why?

Because they were they were moving on from where they once stood.

They were moving on from all of that.

He calls them, he calls them foolish.

He says that they've been bewitched, is the word there.

It means deluded.

You guys are you guys are being a bunch of suckers.

You guys are getting duped.

And of course, this is all from the false teachers.

False teachers were getting their hands in there and they were teaching a gospel of works.

You've got to earn your salvation.

Um, it doesn't just come by grace through faith.

But Paul, again, he reminds me of the gospel here.

He says this, he says, It was before your eyes.

Take a look, before your eyes, that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.

He was publicly portrayed as that.

He says, and you believed it.

Right at one point, you're like, Yeah, I received Jesus.

He is my Savior.

In the in that I stand.

Okay, but over time they were like, I'm gonna walk away from that spot, and I'm gonna now take the kind of take the reins on myself here and uh do things how I want to do it.

Their actions were no longer in line with what they claimed to believe, to borrow some of the terminology from last week's passage.

Okay, they claimed to believe something, but their actions weren't backing it up.

Now keep going.

Okay, he says, let me ask you only this.

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

And so what he does is he asks them a rhetorical question where the answer is supposed to be super obvious.

And so he kind of sets this up as like a door one door number one, door number two kind of scenario here.

So he says, door number one, did you receive the spirit?

In other words, did you get saved?

Did you were you justified?

Were you declared righteous and clean and accepted by God and and all of that?

By hearing through your works and your effort and your ability to keep the law?

Okay, that's kind of door number one.

Or, or door number two, did you receive the spirit?

Did you get saved?

Receive the spirit, that's what he means by getting saved there.

Okay, by by simply hearing the gospel and trusting by faith that Jesus did it all for you.

Okay, so what's the obvious answer here?

Door number two, right?

Door number two, uh, for sure.

Okay, you don't get you don't get saved, you don't receive the spirit as as Paul puts it here by by works.

You you receive the spirit by faith in Jesus Christ.

It's a gift.

Right?

They would have they would have read all of this in the letter.

Remember, this came to them as a letter and they would have read it together as a church.

And they would be like, all right, I'm tracking with you, Paul, right?

I'm I'm picking up what you're putting down here for sure.

I get it, okay?

But then look what he says here next, verse 3.

He says, Are you so foolish having begun, keyword, having begun by the Spirit, are you now, okay, are you now being perfected or completed by the flesh?

Are you now being perfected by the flesh?

Now, do you realize what Paul is saying here?

When when I first kind of realized and recognized what this verse was talking about, honestly, it hit me like a sledgehammer.

This was massive for me.

This was so huge.

Okay, he's confronting them because again, they started off right.

They had once trusted Christ alone for their for their justification, which is which is great, but now guess what?

They were trusting in their works to achieve their sanctification.

Do you see how that was happening?

Now listen, listen, we are all guilty of this mistake.

Okay, Paul is telling us very clearly here, and this is massive for us as the church here today, that the gospel isn't just how to get saved, how to be justified, it's also the key to your growth.

It's also the key to your sanctification if you are a Christ follower.

He says here in verse 4, did you suffer so many things in vain, if indeed it was in vain?

Does he who supplies, okay, so this is present tense, talking about sanctification here, does he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you, again, this is all present tense, right?

So post-salvation, does he do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith?

So in other words, does the Spirit of God work in our lives, performing miracles and answering prayers that we have and encouraging our hearts when we're down and healing us when we are broken and drawing us back to him when we are lost?

Does he do that as Christ's followers because somehow our our works and our our moral efforts convince him that he'd better do it?

No, of course not.

But listen, so many of us, listen, so many of us operate as though that's how the Christian life works.

That's how we live once we get saved.

And so we think, well, I I better come to church now.

And and now, and we twist it so easily.

And you know, now that I come to church and I've been reading my Bible pretty well, and I'm trying to get my family here, and I pray, and I'm trying to be uh, you know, a good husband or a good wife and all of that.

Now we like now God owes me.

Right?

Now He He owes me the comfortable life that I want.

He owes me the answers to my prayers.

He He owes me that person in my family that that has wandered off from the faith and that they come back.

And we try and we try and almost like manipulate God.

We we treat it as a works-based thing.

Look what I'm doing, dancing and performing over here.

Are you impressed?

Lord, are you not entertained?

To quote a movie.

Right?

That's how we we do it.

We think, we think, yeah, Jesus, Jesus saves me by his blood.

That's entirely a work that I merely receive by faith, but but from here on out, it's you know, the onus is on me to achieve my growth.

Is that how you operate as a Christian?

Right?

I better do it.

I gotta perfect, as Paul says here, or or complete myself through my my moral, my religious, my my righteous efforts.

Listen, church, we need to understand that by grace you have been saved.

You have been justified.

We've been talking about that a lot.

But on top of that, or and by grace you are sanctified and you grow.

Okay, my entire salvation, your entire salvation from from start to finish, the finish line being when we are face to face with our Lord and Savior, listen, the entire thing is a work of the Lord by his grace.

We don't earn it ever.

We never do, at no point do we.

To think that we can is listen, it's to move on from the gospel.

It's to walk away from it.

It's by grace.

Now, now check out this quote on the screen.

It says this Christians think that we are saved by the gospel, but then we grow by applying biblical principles to every area of life.

But we are not just saved by the gospel, we grow by applying the gospel to every area of life.

Right?

Love that, that's so good.

Right?

In other words, Christians basically tend to kind of operate like this.

They tend to think, well, sweet, Jesus saved me, that's pretty awesome.

Right?

I've got heaven, you know, going for me at some point, anyways.

So now I guess I gotta just kind of live my life trying really hard to be like Jesus.

Right?

And that's the overall mentality and thrust of our life.

And that's kind of how we think.

I I it's now it's on me.

Right now I've got to do the work.

Okay, so if I struggle with gossip, for example, let's let's let's kind of target that one.

If I struggle through gossip and I realize that needs to go, I need to change in that area.

If we're legalistic Christians moving away from the gospel, the motive of our heart tends to be to try and try not to gossip.

Why I realize that I shouldn't do that, so I'm gonna try not to now.

Okay, and and I and I'm gonna combine that maybe with just asking the Lord, just take it away from me, Lord.

Just remove the sin from my life.

Would you please do that?

And we kind of we kind of go through all of that.

But do you see how that's kind of trying to follow a law in order to be transformed?

In order to grow?

I need to follow a rule.

I need to measure up to this rule, and I need to be a good person, and the better that I try and do that and do all of that, well, maybe maybe that's the way that I grow and I get better.

Okay, what that is, it's uh it's a reliance on my on my ability to behave as the thing that changes me and transforms me.

All right?

It's being perfected in the flesh, as Paul says.

It's a works-based approach to our to our growth and what the Christian life is.

And it's it's a really subtle but deadly way that we just move on from the gospel and we leave it over there.

Okay, so how does how does real keeping in step with the gospel, spirit-fueled growth happen?

Right?

How do we actually change and how do we see some of these sins disappear?

And how do we actually become like Jesus?

Because the Spirit Himself is working in me and and and he's holding the reins of my sanctification and he is doing the work, and it's not a passive thing where I do nothing.

Obviously, there's some kind of involvement I have.

So how do we get there?

How do we do this?

Here's what Tim Keller says: He says the Spirit works as Christians don't rely on their own works, but rather consciously and continuously rest in Christ alone for their acceptability and completeness.

Paul links the spirit and the gospel in the most inseparable terms.

The spirit works as you apply and use the gospel.

Love that.

Okay, so let's go back to our example of gossip.

Okay, let's just stick with that one here.

But I mean, you can apply this to any issue, any problem in your life, any sin, any disobedience whatsoever.

You can apply this.

But again, we'll stick with gossip to try and hopefully keep it a little bit more simple.

First thing, we need to be willing to think a little bit more deeply about these things than we tend to.

We need to really kind of get below the surface and the symptoms of our gossip and all of that and start to think down into the root.

Okay, we tend to, you know, kind of gossip, right?

We we have some juicy tidbit that we we feel we need to share with somebody, and then you know, we kind of we realize it's wrong.

Oh, yeah, the Bible says that we probably shouldn't do that, and and so maybe we confess that, right?

And we may or may not even care, right?

We may or may not even have any kind of godly sorrow about that whatsoever.

We just know in our heads that we shouldn't do it, right?

And then maybe we probably we probably try harder next time.

Well, next time I'm in a situation like that, I'm just gonna hold on to it.

Okay, and we kind of just I think hope it goes away.

Right?

Maybe the Lord will just kind of do something, and and it's not to say that the Lord doesn't do things in those situations, he can and he does.

Okay, but it's not the ideal way, and we never want to wander away from the truth of the gospel and all of that.

Okay, applying and using the gospel to borrow from Tim Keller's quote there is when you and I we think down to the root, the heart motives of uh of why we gossip.

You know, why do we do it?

Okay, so if you think about this, okay, what are the typical heart issues at the core of the sin of gossip?

Well, I think for one, we we love the sense of control.

We love that.

I know something about somebody, and I love that that makes me feel like I'm up here and they're down there, and we revel in that.

We love it.

It it it gives us a sense of power.

That's another thing.

I feel like I'm I'm better than that person.

I can control them, I've got power that I can exert over them now.

There's there's a sick sense of pleasure that we get out of that by making somebody else look dumb in front of other people.

And so we gossip and we and we slander.

We love the sense of acceptance that we get from the people that we're gossiping to.

Right?

And just look at them, they're lapping this up, and and they so approve of what I'm telling them right now.

Right?

You see how that is at the root of gossip?

It's not just that your your mouth says some words that aren't very nice.

At the core of your heart, there are some seriously whack things going on.

You sense that?

It's gross, right?

It's gross.

Now we begin to truly change when we recognize that at all these root motives, it's how our heart is trying to complete ourselves.

Paul uses the word why?

Perfect.

It's how we try to perfect ourselves.

He says it in verse 3.

Meaning this, that somewhere deep inside ourselves, okay, we sense that we are in some way incomplete.

And that control, that that power that we love, that that pleasure that we feel when we gossip over someone, we sense that those things will bring us an inner sense of completion.

Right?

If I if I do these, now I will feel like I am whole.

Those things will perfect me.

Listen, we counteract this and we usher in the spirit, the spirit's heart-transforming power, and we actually grow when we apply the gospel message directly to where our heart is not believing it.

You see in this gossip example how your heart just does not believe the gospel at all.

Right?

The gospel tells us that that Jesus, through his Holy Spirit, is the one who completes us and perfects us by his grace.

The sin of gossip is never gonna fulfill you.

That's never gonna give you the joy that your heart seeks at all.

It is empty, it is broken.

Your heart will continue to rot the more that you give into it.

Not to mention, you are driving a wedge of disunity between yourself and other relationships.

You are harming the church, the church that Christ died for.

No sin, no disobedience, no idol, no nothing will ever fulfill you.

It will never perfect you.

Only Jesus does.

You have to insert the gospel in that place and remind.

yourself, you know what, I'm not in control.

Lord, would you forgive my sense of this warped, perverted sense of control that I feel over this person?

Lord, would I, would I, would my heart love that you were in control and that you died to rescue me from a sin like this, that the pleasure that my heart truly wants is found in you?

So listen, whether your sin is is gossip or or it's lust or it's anger or it's drunkenness or it's laziness or it's all of the above and more.

Listen, don't move on from the gospel.

First of all, by continuing to give, to kind of give in to thinking that these sins, these things will give you that sense of perfection that you crave.

These things won't perfect you.

They will not complete you.

Again, you need to repent of all of this.

Looking to these false saviors, that's a really good way of looking at it.

These are false saviors that will never accomplish what only Christ your true Savior has already accomplished and will give you.

And then secondly don't move on from the gospel by thinking that you can grow as a Christ follower through your works, through your flesh-filled attempts of perfecting yourself and behaving correctly.

Okay, repent of that desire that you have I have it too we all have it to be our own saviors.

We're self-saviors as well.

Only Jesus saves.

He justifies us he sanctifies us.

End of story.

That is it I will never move on from the gospel because number two it reminds me that righteousness is received by faith not earned.

It's received by faith not earned now you might have noticed here, well hang on a second haven't we talked about some of these things before we've talked about the gospel yeah you bet we have and we're going to continue to but we're kind of coming at it from different angles every single week and we're looking at the same glorious truth that Jesus Christ died to save us from sin.

We simply receive that we're looking at how that applies to all areas.

Okay take a look at verse six here look what he says he says just as just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.

Now does it kind of feel like he just took a vicious left out of nowhere?

Like oh okay now all of a sudden we're talking about Abraham.

They're not really sure where that came from really at all.

Why go there?

Well you got to remember the context here and what Paul's dealing with he's dealing with these Judaizers these these false teachers who are getting in there and trying to drag people this this Galatian church back to a gospel of works okay to be to be truly accepted by God.

Faith in Jesus is great but that's only part of it you need to also get circumcised you need to not eat these foods you need to you know the list goes on.

Okay but Paul's like I love this he's like fine you want to go there?

Great I can go there all day I can I can go to the law let's I'll you know I'll show you that that Abraham okay the father of the Jews okay the the original guy here would actually agree with me.

Okay?

He would agree with me on what salvation uh really was and really what it's really all about.

What a genius move.

Right Paul he's just taking out the big old axe and he's just hacking down okay he is hacking down the argument the the beliefs of these of these false teachers.

Okay and so he takes us back to Genesis chapter 15.

Genesis 15 · chapter mention

You can actually jot that down we're not going to turn over there.

Okay this is what he refers to here with Abraham and he explains that Abraham's salvation Abraham's righteousness was never attributed to him because of his works.

Okay it was never about that.

In Genesis 15 we learn that God made a covenant with Abraham his name was Abram at the time his name would later change to Abraham promising him that he would be his God and that his descendants would be more numerous than the stars of the sky.

That's what he promised Abraham.

Now the crazy thing about all this is that was was Abraham a young guy?

No Abraham was ancient right he was 99 years old right he was 99 years old his wife Sarah was 90.

Okay so not exactly in their prime childbearing years right not at all and so Abraham looked at this this this this promise that seemed impossible okay and how did he how did he handle that okay Paul quotes Genesis 15 verse 6 when he says here in our passage that Abraham believed God.

Genesis 15:6

Okay he believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness okay so so Abraham's righteousness all right it wasn't something that he earned through his morality or something like that.

It says that he what it says that he believed God meaning that he by faith okay by faith trusted God's promise to give him a child a child of his very own through his wife Sarah and then many more after that and it says that it was counted that's an important word it was credited if you will to him as righteousness excuse me now to be clear here all right his faith wasn't itself some meritorious act that earned him his salvation some people will look at that and be like well his faith really impressed God and so therefore God said oh okay uh now you're saved that's not the way it works.

It doesn't say that his faith was righteousness it says that his faith his belief was counted as if or as if it was righteousness okay so God credits righteousness to him his his spiritual bank account so to speak here meaning that that God is is awarding a legal status upon Abraham and treating him as though he were righteous even though functionally practically speaking on a ground level he was still sinful.

That's what justification is and the same thing goes for for you and I it's the same thing for us.

God declares us righteous as we trust in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

He treats us as though we did what Jesus did.

Even though practically we've still got sin in our hearts and we've still got you know a long way to go you feeling that we've still got a long way to go in terms of our terms of our sanctification okay it's what it's what Luther said he put it well when he said that we're simultaneously righteous and sinful that's how that's how we are we're declared clean by God right we're declared clean by him the moment that we trust Jesus for the first time and and get saved we're declared clean but practically speaking we're still sinful and and we are in need desperate need of God's spirit to move and transform us and work in us and make us more like his perfect son.

Can you now take a look at verse 7 Paul continues here he says Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying in you shall all the nations be blessed for a foreshadowing to us so then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham the man of faith and so what Paul's doing here is he's striking a fatal blow to these false teachers.

He's like salvation was listen it was never about works your hearts got it all twisted up and you you saw the law and you saw all these rules and you think well if I just kind of do my best maybe that will be enough to get God to let me into heaven someday and and and and make sure and and say that we're all we're all good between between he and us.

It was never all about that at all.

That's not what it was we're gonna talk about the the law more next week I believe and and how do we as Christians deal with the law now right how do we appropriate this and relate to it properly and and all of that we're gonna get we're gonna get into all of it.

But here Abra is saying that salvation was never about works it was always about faith it was always about believing God so he's like enough already enough already these are the false teachers with with bringing people back into slavery bringing back to the the law and and making that this system of salvation that's that's never gonna work that was never the intention that's that was never God's plan from the very beginning see I'm showing you your first father Abraham would agree with me take that right that's what he's saying you cannot earn this you simply receive it.

Never move on from that look we're going through a lot of weighty material here aren't we?

Right we are like as they say swimming in the deep end if you will but there's nothing fluffy about all of this and I get it like it's a lot to kind of process and and maybe for you you're realizing for the first time like wow I'm I'm so you know I am relying on my works to try and perfect me as a Christ follower and and I forget about the gospel and you're trying to think through what are all the different ways that that I do that and all of that is great and all of that is necessary and all of that is imperative that we do that.

Right?

It really is.

But let's not forget that the core response at all of this as we come face to face with the gospel and we realize who Jesus is and what he has done for us and the true the new reality that is ours each and every day let us not forget that the core response is to worship.

It's worship.

If rough is if for us it's just a mental exercise we're like I gotta think make sure that I'm acting and behaving properly we're kind of missing it.

Our hearts need to be engaged by this we need to thank the Lord for what he has done.

We need to praise him we need to be like thank you Lord for saving me.

Thank you for being so gracious to me when I continue to go back to this this dirty filthy well and I try to look to my performance and all of that to try and bring me completion and perfection Lord would you forgive me of this thank you Lord for your grace that exists for me that is new every single day.

Lord thank you for your kindness thank you that you are not done with me yet that you're not gonna cast me aside just because I make a mistake here and I make many many many of them thank you Lord for your goodness and your generosity and your kindness and your love Lord I worship you I worship you as you think through the gospel and its many implications for life and hopefully you're seeing that make sure that you worship him and you pause wherever you are not just at church not just during a sermon not just during singing at home anywhere worship him thank him in gratitude.

I mean Christ doesn't just toss me aside because I failed again and again and again this week nope he loves you he's forgiven you secured salvation and he is working in you it's slower than we would all like we're not all where we would love to be but God is on the move he is doing things.

Let's praise him for it I will never move on from the gospel last thing because it shows me how awful it actually is to rely on my flawed works bad plan.

Right just awful plan.

Okay so we just Paul just reminded us here to live by faith like Abraham did now he gives us the only other option if you refuse to live by faith guess what this is where you stand.

Here it is verse 10 for all who rely on okay that's a really important phrase there you might want to underline that okay it means to trust in for all who rely on works of the law are under a curse.

Okay we don't just like throw the word curse around very lightly do we these days right that's probably a heads up of whoa he's talking about some serious things here right we're under a curse if we rely on works of the law for it is written cursed be everyone not some everyone 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 by before God by the law for the righteous shall here it is live by faith.

Live by is a huge thing this is what Abraham did of course but the law is not of faith rather the one who does them shall live by them here's what Tim Keller has to say about that those two words live by.

To live by something means to rely on it for our happiness and fulfillment whatever we live by is essentially the bottom line of our lives what gives us meaning confidence and definition.

And so so Paul's saying here he's like he's like all right go for it rely on live by your works if if you really want to go ahead but just know that if you do that understand that you will be cursed you will be cursed for that if what does that mean?

Well if you're an unbeliever you'll be cursed with with separation from God forever.

If you don't trust in what Jesus did for you on the cross it means that your sin is still held against you and you're cursed with separation unless unless you can manage to somehow follow the entire law perfectly okay because God's standard is perfection.

God's standard isn't good it's certainly not good enough it's it's perfection because to be in a relationship with him to to go to heaven all of that means you need to be perfect.

Because sin separates now can any of us obey the law perfectly no we are terrible at it right we we are awful at it we're we're we're flawed we we can't even follow the Ten Commandments let alone the entire law there are 613 laws in the old testament and we can't even follow we can't even follow one of them right now if you're a believer if you're a believer if you're a Christ follower and and you functionally rely on or live by your flawed works for your you know your happiness your fulfillment your meaning your confidence your definition as as Keller talks about your identity all of that if you're relying on your works to inform all of those things it says that you're it says that you too are cursed okay not in the same way as as an unbeliever okay you won't be separated from from God for eternity but cursed in the sense that you will never truly find those things.

You will never find that that happiness your soul creates because you're filling it with the wrong things.

That fulfillment that you are created to long for and find fulfilled in Christ when you're trying to find that in money and cars and women and sex and all of that listen you're gonna be you're gonna be hollow and you're gonna be empty your you know your life's deepest meaning you're gonna find it it falls short it's it's it's dry it's dust you're not gonna have you're not gonna have confidence anymore because you're resting it in things that fall short and fall apart your works your failures all of it you're never gonna find those things.

You'll only ever feel pain probably at some level on a on your heart.

Again a sense of hollowness you'll be overly sensitive when you don't get these things you'll be fearful and you'll be driven by fear in a lot of different ways you'll you'll be purposeless.

Like what is life all about?

I thought it was about these things.

Well it's because you're not finding your hope in Jesus you'll maybe be angry deep down in your core why am I such a furious person all the time and I'm constantly losing it and you just kind of get a sense here of of misery that's that's kind of the curse that he's talking about here.

You'll never find your fulfillment if you're relying on your on your works.

That's an awful way to live it's a toy it's a terrible way to go through life.

And again it's because you're not holding on to what Christ has already done for you.

You have moved on from the gospel and you're trying to find it in in something else and that's why Paul continually through this and here in verse 13 he reiterates what Christ has done for us.

Take a look here he says Christ redeemed us he freed us from the curse of the law right he became that curse for us for it is written cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.

So being hung on a tree in those days was a sign that you were cursed.

Okay and he says so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles to you and I so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith through faith worship team come up right now and we are going to sing in just a few moments but before we get to that we're gonna take communion together.

We're gonna remember Christ's broken body and his shed blood that's what communion is it's remembering the gospel it's remembering what he has done reminding ourselves that as his followers as his church on the cross he became the curse so that you and I don't have to that is awesome right that is incredible let's glory in that let's glory in that not just today but every day let's go for it