Latest / Calvary Church with Ed Taylor Podcast / #14814 - Grace Is the Only Way to Live - Galatians 4:21-31

Transcript

#14814 - Grace Is the Only Way to Live - Galatians 4:21-31 · Calvary Church with Ed Taylor Podcast

• 0:03
  Welcome to the study of God's Word with pastor and author Ed
• 0:07
  Taylor, recorded live at Calvary Church in Aurora, Co.
• 0:11
  To learn more about the many resources available through
• 0:13
  Abounding Grace Media or to tune into our live stream services,
• 0:17
  visit us online at Calvary Co dot Church or download our free
• 0:22
  Calvary Church app. Now.
• 0:24
  Here's Pastor Ed to take us into our study.
• 0:28
  Amen. Open your Bibles with you to
• 0:30
  Hebrews chapter 10 and Galatians chapter 4.
• 0:34
  We're going to end up in Galatians.
• 0:36
  We're going to finish the chapter today, but we're going
• 0:39
  to start in Hebrews chapter 10 and I've entitled our Bible
• 0:42
  study. Grace is the only way to live.
• 0:47
  Or you could say grace is the only way to live your life.
• 0:51
  That really is the summary of the 1st 4 chapters of Galatians.
• 0:55
  I mean it's the summary of the whole book, But in the 1st 4
• 0:58
  chapters Paul the Apostle writing to the churches in
• 1:01
  Galatia, is establishing the theological framework and
• 1:05
  foundation of the necessity of being saved by grace through
• 1:09
  faith. That that is the way of
• 1:12
  salvation. You and I are born again and
• 1:15
  saved by the finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross, not
• 1:20
  by your own good works. Can I get an Amen on that?
• 1:23
  You've got to grasp this. This will give you the freedom
• 1:26
  that you've been looking for in your relationship with Jesus.
• 1:30
  And he really asked the question.
• 1:31
  He says, do you know what you're doing when you turn to the law
• 1:36
  for salvation? Do you really understand what
• 1:39
  you're doing and where you're going and and what you are
• 1:41
  adopting into your life? The law can't save you, ever.
• 1:47
  The law has no saving power. It can only reveal to you your
• 1:52
  need for a Savior. We've learned that the law was a
• 1:55
  tutor. It was a tutor until Jesus came
• 2:00
  and the tutor was teaching us our need for a Savior.
• 2:03
  It has no power to save, no power to sanctify, no power to
• 2:07
  change you. The truth is, is that you have
• 2:10
  all that you need and you are free as you possibly could be in
• 2:14
  Christ to live a life that pleases Him.
• 2:17
  His grace is sufficient. The Galatians were pagans.
• 2:22
  They were living life as they would every day.
• 2:25
  No real background in Judaism, no real background in the Torah
• 2:30
  or the Law. They were just pagans.
• 2:32
  And all of a sudden God sent a missionary into their lives
• 2:36
  preaching the simple gospel to them.
• 2:38
  They believe the gospel and we're born again.
• 2:41
  Began to live their lives by faith, learning the scriptures
• 2:45
  and growing in their relationship with Jesus.
• 2:47
  That is until false teachers came and said no, no, no that is
• 2:52
  not enough. The man that came and taught you
• 2:55
  that is not telling you the whole story.
• 2:57
  If you really want to be saved you need to be circumcised.
• 3:02
  Are any of you circumcised? No, nobody told us we need to be
• 3:05
  circumcised. And they began to lay this heavy
• 3:08
  burden on them to keep the law. Really, what they were teaching
• 3:13
  is that the way to salvation was to become a Jew first.
• 3:17
  Then you could be saved by following the law and accepting
• 3:21
  Christ. But that is not the way of
• 3:23
  salvation. The old covenant is replaced by
• 3:26
  the New covenant. Jesus fulfilled all that the Old
• 3:31
  covenant required. So now you and I, we keep the
• 3:35
  Old Covenant by faith in Christ, because He did it for us.
• 3:41
  Paul wrote the whole book of Galatians to explain to them
• 3:43
  about the significance of grace. The Galatians were Gentiles,
• 3:48
  pagans, the Hebrews. When the book of Hebrews was
• 3:52
  written to Jewish Christians, they had a background in the
• 3:55
  law. They had a background.
• 3:58
  They were raised in the rabbinical system.
• 4:01
  They were raised under the sacrificial system.
• 4:03
  They knew the law, or at least knew of the law.
• 4:06
  The Galatians were tempted to go to the law for the first time.
• 4:10
  The Hebrews were tempted to go back to the law because
• 4:14
  Christianity was so challenging for them, so difficult.
• 4:18
  They were both facing similar temptations.
• 4:21
  The temptation to believe that Jesus wasn't enough, that Jesus
• 4:26
  death on the cross and resurrection wasn't enough.
• 4:31
  And it is the encouragement to both the Galatians and the
• 4:34
  Hebrews is to stay strong, to abide in Christ, and to live
• 4:39
  their lives trusting God by faith.
• 4:42
  The truth that Jesus is the best.
• 4:45
  Paul writes to the Hebrews then and to us today that Jesus is
• 4:48
  all you need. You have everything you've been
• 4:51
  looking for by faith in Jesus Christ.
• 4:55
  Notice with me in verse 10. Now to the Hebrew believers,
• 5:00
  Paul is writing almost the exact thing as he did to the Pagan or
• 5:04
  to the Gentile believers, verse one.
• 5:07
  For the law, having a shadow of the good things to come and not
• 5:11
  the very image of the things, can never, with these same
• 5:15
  sacrifices which they offer continually, year by year, make
• 5:19
  those who approach perfect. For then would they not have
• 5:22
  ceased to be offered? For the worshippers, once
• 5:25
  purged, would have no more consciousness of sins.
• 5:30
  But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year.
• 5:36
  Let's breakdown what Paul is saying here.
• 5:38
  First of all, if you like to write in your Bibles, let me let
• 5:40
  me show you a few things to mark.
• 5:41
  First of all, you should circle the phrase the law, and then
• 5:45
  also circle the phrase can never, and then also circle the
• 5:50
  phrase make those who approach perfect.
• 5:53
  It's a very straightforward truth.
• 5:55
  The law cannot make you perfect. It is incapable of perfecting
• 6:00
  you, sanctifying you, saving you, glorify experiencing
• 6:04
  glorification. The law has no power, it can
• 6:08
  only tell you, it can only reveal to you.
• 6:12
  Now of course, the law reflects the character and the nature of
• 6:15
  God. Like in any relationship, there
• 6:17
  are definitions of that relationship.
• 6:20
  What we may call today boundaries.
• 6:22
  There are boundaries to enjoy relationship that there is
• 6:25
  there. There is an important
• 6:26
  understanding of who you are, who I am, and how our
• 6:29
  relationship will work. Yes, the the law also reveals
• 6:34
  the holiness of God. And we've looked at this in
• 6:36
  previous studies, even in our midweek study as we're going
• 6:39
  through Exodus, we looked at the significance of the law when
• 6:43
  Moses was up on Mount Sinai in chapter 20.
• 6:46
  But as you think of the law, just remember it has no power to
• 6:51
  save you. It can only reveal to you God's
• 6:54
  desire, God's righteousness, God's holiness, what will be
• 6:57
  good for you when, when you read a law and and you come to the
• 7:01
  conclusion, I don't know man, that just seems like real heavy.
• 7:03
  No, God has given you direction for your life so that you might
• 7:06
  live a healthy, enjoyable life. And one of the ways to live a
• 7:10
  healthy enjoyable life is you shall not steal.
• 7:14
  If you choose to follow through with that instruction from God,
• 7:18
  you'll live a good life. You won't not have to worry
• 7:21
  about hurting someone else when you take what's theirs or go to
• 7:25
  jail or have to pay the price. There's a lot to be learned
• 7:28
  because these are good for us as well.
• 7:32
  But understand this. The law has no power.
• 7:35
  It's a very straightforward he says can never make those who
• 7:39
  approach our perfect what and how do we know that?
• 7:44
  Well, the Bible in the old covenant would make provision
• 7:47
  for your sin through animal sacrifice once a year and the
• 7:52
  high priest would take an innocent animal actually 2A2
• 7:56
  innocent animals 1. He would pray over and then send
• 8:00
  into the wilderness and we know that today is the scapegoat.
• 8:05
  The scapegoat could run away and they would be representative of
• 8:09
  the sins of the people laid upon that goat's head running into
• 8:13
  the wilderness. And it's a picture of your sins
• 8:15
  being removed from you. As far as the east is from the
• 8:18
  West. Can you imagine that goat?
• 8:20
  That goat's taken off, man. You're going to watch it run and
• 8:22
  go, ha ha, I made it. I'm alive, My brother, not so
• 8:26
  much, but I'm alive. I'm out of here.
• 8:29
  And and you think about the freedom that God gives and your
• 8:31
  forgiveness. Like your sins, you are free and
• 8:34
  forgiven. You are forgiven today by the
• 8:37
  blood of Jesus Christ. The other animal sacrificed.
• 8:40
  His blood was shed. Why?
• 8:43
  For the covering of sin. The covering of sin.
• 8:46
  The animal sacrifice had to happen every single year on the
• 8:50
  Day of Atonement. It was incapable.
• 8:53
  The system was incapable to remove sins, only cover them.
• 8:57
  Only cover them. Why?
• 8:58
  Because it was pointing. It was pointing to, as it says
• 9:02
  here, the law is just a shadow. The substance was Christ, the
• 9:07
  Lamb of God that will take away the sins.
• 9:10
  Take away, not cover, take away. As far as the East is from the
• 9:14
  West, this Lamb of God, Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God.
• 9:20
  And he says not only a theological argument, but in
• 9:22
  verse three he gives you a very practical.
• 9:24
  Do you know I love that about the Bible?
• 9:26
  By the way, the Bible is very practical.
• 9:28
  You don't need to be a Bible scholar, a seminary student, to
• 9:31
  understand most of the Bible. Most of the Bible has very
• 9:34
  simple statements that are easy to understand.
• 9:36
  Now, our text today is a little challenging.
• 9:38
  It's one of those challenging texts, but I'll help you with
• 9:40
  it. Most of the time it's very easy.
• 9:42
  This last verse in verse 3, in those sacrifices, there's a
• 9:45
  reminder of sins every year. He's just saying every time you
• 9:48
  see that that animal being sacrificed, you're remembering
• 9:52
  you're not perfect. The law didn't make you perfect
• 9:54
  this year, and it didn't make you perfect last year, and it
• 9:57
  didn't make you perfect 30 years ago.
• 9:59
  Your whole generations you've been sacrificing as God has
• 10:02
  intended, and two things are happening.
• 10:04
  One, their sins are being covered, but two, they're being
• 10:07
  reminded your sins need to be covered.
• 10:10
  The law can't perfect you. You are in need of a Savior.
• 10:17
  I also want you to notice Paul writing to the Hebrews.
• 10:20
  He says in verse one that he uses the word shadow.
• 10:24
  These are types and pictures. We're actually going to learn
• 10:27
  another type in picture today in Galatians.
• 10:29
  But the law was a shadow of the good things to come.
• 10:33
  The children of Israel under the Old Covenant just lived with
• 10:35
  shadows. They they had these types and
• 10:38
  pictures pointing forward. They lived by faith, trusting
• 10:41
  that God would one day, any day, fulfill his promises by sending
• 10:46
  Messiah to save and to rescue them.
• 10:49
  The endless offerings of the law could never make a person right,
• 10:53
  holy or good. And can we pause here for a
• 10:56
  moment and bring it into the 21st century?
• 10:58
  Here, let's bring it into our your good works and human
• 11:02
  efforts will never make you perfect.
• 11:05
  They they will never merit anything more from God than he's
• 11:09
  already given you. He's given you your best, his
• 11:11
  best. Now you have God's best, his
• 11:14
  only begotten Son. But your human efforts and your
• 11:18
  good deeds and how you attempt to do good works for God do not
• 11:23
  perfect you. They are.
• 11:25
  If you attempt to live that way, then you've got things
• 11:28
  backwards. You aren't saved not by good
• 11:31
  works, but you are saved for good works.
• 11:35
  They come through us. We're not trying to earn God's
• 11:38
  favor. And we were raised that way.
• 11:40
  You know that we were raised that way as very young age.
• 11:42
  We were raised and not, not really a bad way to be raised
• 11:45
  actually, that if we do good, we'll be rewarded and we'll be a
• 11:49
  good little boy today. Or if we do bad, we will suffer
• 11:53
  the consequence. We will be punished that good
• 11:56
  and bad. We were all raised with that.
• 11:58
  Unfortunately, I, I, me being, when my growing up, I was more
• 12:01
  bad than good. So I was always being punished
• 12:03
  always. And so I, I always felt distant
• 12:06
  from my parents because of my behavior.
• 12:08
  It was the consequences of my sin.
• 12:10
  It was the difficulty of my sin. But, you know, in my, in my
• 12:15
  behavior, having to be disciplined all the time, it
• 12:18
  didn't change my mom and dad's love for me.
• 12:21
  They didn't love me less because that's how we think.
• 12:23
  We think, well, if we're good little Christians, good moral,
• 12:26
  upstanding men and women in the community, then God will really
• 12:30
  love us. But if I blow it, if I make a
• 12:33
  big mistake, then God won't love me at all or love me less.
• 12:37
  That's not how it works. You and I, we can't have more of
• 12:41
  God's love than we already have. Here's what's happening with
• 12:45
  those feelings. Let me define them for you.
• 12:46
  What's happening with those feelings?
• 12:48
  What happened to me as a little kid, always being in trouble and
• 12:51
  feeling distant. What's happening is I'm not
• 12:54
  enjoying my relationship. I don't get to have it.
• 12:58
  I, I feel distant from God, but he hasn't moved.
• 13:01
  I feel condemnation and shame, but that's not coming from Him.
• 13:06
  I have all these things as consequences for my behavior,
• 13:09
  but it doesn't change the love of God for me.
• 13:12
  Your good works and your human effort cannot in any way merit
• 13:18
  the love of God. He's already given it to you,
• 13:21
  and it can never make you perfect.
• 13:24
  Never, never, ever, ever when Jesus came and took on a human
• 13:29
  body. Notice with me jump in chapter
• 13:32
  10 in verse 4 it says it is not possible that the blood of bulls
• 13:38
  and goats could take away sins, not possible.
• 13:43
  And then he says in verse 5. Therefore when he that's
• 13:47
  Speaking of Jesus came into the world, he said sacrifice an
• 13:51
  offering you did not desire, but a body you have prepared for me
• 13:55
  in burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin.
• 13:58
  You had no pleasure. Then I said, Behold, I have come
• 14:02
  in the volume of the book. It is written of me to do your
• 14:06
  will, oh God previously saying, sacrifice an offering, burnt
• 14:11
  offerings, and offerings for sin.
• 14:13
  You did not desire nor had pleasure in them which are
• 14:17
  offered according to the law. Verse 9 when he said, behold, I
• 14:20
  have come to do your will, O God.
• 14:22
  Look, this is what he's the explanation when Jesus came to
• 14:26
  do the will of God, this is what happened.
• 14:28
  He takes away the 1st that he might establish the second.
• 14:33
  So let me define those. You can circle 1st and you can
• 14:35
  write next to it. Old covenant.
• 14:37
  He takes away the old covenant and replaces it with the second.
• 14:41
  What's the second, the new covenant In a few moments from
• 14:45
  now, we will, as a fellowship family of Jesus following
• 14:49
  Christ, we are going to participate in what's known as
• 14:52
  communion. And one of the things we're
• 14:55
  going to do is we're going to take the cup and we're going to
• 14:57
  read the scripture and we're going to read that Jesus says
• 15:00
  take drink. This is the blood of the new
• 15:04
  covenant. This is this is the symbol, this
• 15:08
  is the reminder of all that I'm going to do for you and for us.
• 15:12
  Now we get to look backwards. All that he has done for us.
• 15:17
  It's important. Jesus came to take away the
• 15:20
  first so that he might establish the second verse 10 By that, by
• 15:25
  the finished work of Jesus, we will have been sanctified
• 15:28
  through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all, not a
• 15:34
  repetitive sacrifice. Jesus doesn't die over and over
• 15:37
  and over again. He has died once for all that if
• 15:42
  you place your faith in Jesus Christ today, your sins will be
• 15:45
  forgiven. He died for you.
• 15:47
  He made salvation available for you.
• 15:50
  He made forgiveness available for you.
• 15:52
  He's made the newness of life available for you.
• 15:55
  He's made the restoration of relationship with your creator
• 15:58
  God available through the blood of Jesus Christ.
• 16:03
  And before we leave here today, you can receive him and choose
• 16:06
  to follow him and repent of your sins.
• 16:10
  Experiencing the newness of life, the blood of Jesus Christ
• 16:13
  is sufficient. Now one more thing before we
• 16:16
  jump into Galatians. I was just, I was so encouraged
• 16:19
  in verse 7 where it says, behold, I have come in the
• 16:23
  volume of the book. It is written of me to do your
• 16:27
  will. O God.
• 16:29
  This is a statement teaching us that the whole Bible is about
• 16:34
  Jesus Christ, all of it. And the volume of the book it
• 16:38
  has written of me. Jesus says I'm all over again.
• 16:42
  We've been studying verse by verse through the book of Exodus
• 16:44
  and we've been learning about the Tabernacle and all the
• 16:46
  pieces of the Tabernacle and all everything that it's going to
• 16:49
  take to build this little worship tent.
• 16:51
  And each single element that's used is a picture and a type of
• 16:56
  Jesus Christ to come. And we looked at each one of
• 16:59
  them so that every time they would come to worship and every
• 17:02
  time they would see the smoke arising from the sacrifice,
• 17:05
  every time they'd see the priest working the people of Israel be
• 17:08
  reminded that Jesus is coming. God will keep his promises.
• 17:12
  Fulfilment of all the promises of God will come.
• 17:15
  And they would be reminded over and over again.
• 17:18
  But I like this, the volume of the book.
• 17:20
  It is written of me. And today for us in this 21st
• 17:24
  century, this is a word from the Lord directly.
• 17:27
  Let me tell you, it doesn't matter what new fad is taking
• 17:31
  place or what new trend. It doesn't matter what new
• 17:34
  church growth strategy or some weird thing.
• 17:36
  That's the coming into the church.
• 17:38
  It's essential. It's essential that we keep our
• 17:40
  noses in the book and our knees on the ground.
• 17:44
  And what do you say, Ed? What do you mean by that?
• 17:46
  Well, let me just say it this way.
• 17:48
  Let me say it this way, Church, please read your Bible and pray
• 17:51
  every day because there's a lot of weird stuff out there.
• 17:54
  Churches get into it, pastors get into it, believers get into
• 17:58
  it. There's just a lot of weird
• 17:59
  stuff that loves to work in the realm of confusion in our lives.
• 18:04
  And it doesn't matter what the new stuff is.
• 18:06
  We need to hold on to the truths that we have learned.
• 18:09
  Why? Because the Bible is able to
• 18:11
  make you wise for salvation, The Bible says.
• 18:14
  And what do we teach the kids? Maybe you learned it growing up,
• 18:17
  the Bible. That's the book for me.
• 18:21
  I stand alone on the word of God.
• 18:24
  The BIBLEI didn't sing it to you because I don't want you to
• 18:27
  leave, but it is a song you teach the kiddos.
• 18:30
  It's the word of God. It's sufficient.
• 18:33
  It is the word of God is greater than any pastor's voice.
• 18:36
  Any, any person who wants to teach you, disciple you, the
• 18:39
  word of God is going to get you right to the Lord, right to the
• 18:42
  Lord. You open it, you're immediately
• 18:44
  in fellowship with God, and he's speaking to your heart.
• 18:48
  It's like sometimes you're like, man, I just don't hear the voice
• 18:50
  of God. Open the Bible.
• 18:52
  Read it. Yeah.
• 18:53
  But you know, I just don't really.
• 18:54
  I don't really hear the voice of God audibly.
• 18:56
  Great. Open the Bible.
• 18:57
  Read it out loud. You'll hear the voice of God.
• 19:01
  He wants to speak to you. And then your prayer life is
• 19:04
  what relationships are built on. Communication, receiving and
• 19:08
  sharing. Receiving and sharing.
• 19:10
  With all that in mind, come back now to Galatians.
• 19:14
  As we close up this chapter, he gives an illustration from the
• 19:18
  life of Abraham. The Judaizers and the Jews today
• 19:21
  very much Revere and respect Abraham, father of the faith.
• 19:25
  So he uses a true episode in the life of Abraham to prove a
• 19:29
  point, a point that's missed. And often that's what false
• 19:33
  teachers will do. They'll even take you to a
• 19:35
  scripture, but they miss the point.
• 19:37
  They'll take you to a scripture and try to confuse you, but
• 19:39
  that's not what it says at all. Or there's a deeper
• 19:42
  understanding from the context of that Scripture.
• 19:45
  So what Paul is doing here is going to take them back to that
• 19:48
  time in Abraham and Sarah's life where they were given a promise,
• 19:53
  a promise of a child. So notice with me Galatians
• 19:56
  chapter 4, pick up in verse 21. If you're there, Galatians 421,
• 20:05
  tell me you who desire to be under the law.
• 20:08
  Do you not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham
• 20:14
  had two sons, the one by a bondwoman and the other by a
• 20:19
  free woman. Let me define the words for you.
• 20:21
  Now bondwoman would refer to a woman named Hagar.
• 20:25
  Hagar. This was Sarai's handmaid.
• 20:28
  Hagar the other is a free woman. That would be Sarai.
• 20:31
  That would be his wife. So now we're looking back to a
• 20:34
  time Abraham and his wife and her maidservant Hagar Sarai and
• 20:39
  Abraham verse 23. But he who was of the bondwoman
• 20:44
  was born according to the flesh. What's his name?
• 20:48
  Ishmael. So this is a reference to
• 20:50
  Ishmael and he of the free woman through promise.
• 20:53
  What's his name? Isaac.
• 20:56
  OK, so you got the character so far, very important.
• 20:59
  It's a very important part and time in Abraham's life.
• 21:02
  Then Paul says, you know the story and they go, OK, we've
• 21:04
  heard that before. Then he says this in verse 24,
• 21:07
  which things are symbolic. So there's something to learn
• 21:11
  here now with Abraham's life that points toward the grace of
• 21:15
  Jesus Christ in the volume of the book.
• 21:17
  It is written of me. So now there's something in the
• 21:20
  true story, the real life story of Abraham and Sarai, that's
• 21:24
  going to point us to Jesus Christ and involve these two
• 21:27
  kids, Ishmael and Isaac, and how they were born.
• 21:31
  So they're symbolic of what it says. 2 covenants.
• 21:34
  The first covenant is the one from Mount Sinai that gives
• 21:37
  birth to bondage, Hagar. All right, so the first child in
• 21:42
  Hagar that came through Hagar represents one of the two
• 21:45
  covenants. Now we know the two covenants,
• 21:47
  there's the old covenant and the new covenant.
• 21:50
  So this is the covenant of the law.
• 21:51
  The sacrificial system says that when you think of Hagar and
• 21:55
  Ishmael, I want you to remember it's symbolic of the old
• 21:58
  covenant, verse 25 for this, Hagar is Mount Sinai in Arabia
• 22:04
  and corresponds to Jerusalem, which now is and is in bondage
• 22:09
  with her children. Jerusalem, the physical
• 22:12
  Jerusalem, the city here. She said he, Paul says it's just
• 22:15
  like Hagar. They're under bondage right now.
• 22:17
  They don't believe in Christ, that they are living life apart
• 22:20
  from Christ. They're living in their flesh.
• 22:22
  They're living and their own human effort.
• 22:24
  Verse 26 But the Jerusalem that's above, that's the future.
• 22:28
  Revelation 21 this is Jerusalem that comes down from above.
• 22:32
  Spiritual is free, which is the mother of us all.
• 22:37
  So Paul takes a, a very complicated doctrine, a very
• 22:41
  difficult thing to understand, grace and law.
• 22:44
  And then he uses this and you're like, wow, thanks.
• 22:46
  You've made it even harder to understand.
• 22:49
  But but no, it's just a picture. Do you use the same language?
• 22:51
  I use the same language many other times to try to illustrate
• 22:55
  for people. So he goes back to this time in
• 22:57
  Abraham's life and it's really to answer the question, do you
• 23:00
  understand the law? Do you get it?
• 23:01
  When you go back? Do you know what you're doing?
• 23:04
  You're going back to bondage or you're going to bondage for the
• 23:07
  first time. You were in bondage and
• 23:08
  paganism. Now.
• 23:09
  Now religiously, you want to go back to bondage religiously.
• 23:12
  That that's not you. You don't want to do that.
• 23:14
  That's really the answer to the question.
• 23:16
  You want so badly to follow these false teachers and submit
• 23:20
  to the law, but do you really understand?
• 23:23
  Let me give you an understanding.
• 23:24
  Paul says, I want you to remember Abraham.
• 23:26
  He had two sons, Ishmael and Isaac.
• 23:29
  But before he had two sons, God came to him and gave him a
• 23:32
  promise. He gave him a promise.
• 23:35
  He came to Abraham and Sarai when they were 75 years old and
• 23:40
  said I'm going to give you a son.
• 23:44
  They looked at each other and go I don't know about that.
• 23:47
  I don't think our bodies can do that and they couldn't.
• 23:52
  Their bodies were beyond childbearing years.
• 23:55
  It was be in a miracle for them to receive a child naturally
• 24:00
  through the womb. It would be a miracle.
• 24:02
  And that is what God was promising.
• 24:04
  I'm promising you a child that you could never do on your own.
• 24:10
  I'm giving you a gift that you could never produce on your own.
• 24:15
  Ever. And they received the promise.
• 24:18
  10 years pass and the promise was still yet unfulfilled.
• 24:23
  And you know what happens when 10 years pass waiting?
• 24:26
  Or maybe not ten years, maybe 10 months.
• 24:29
  Oh, maybe not ten months, maybe 10 weeks or 10 days.
• 24:32
  For some of you, 10 minutes will get to you.
• 24:36
  And what is waiting do for us? It makes us very impatient.
• 24:40
  We got to make something happen. God promised.
• 24:43
  Maybe one day, maybe they look at yourself.
• 24:44
  God gave us this promise 10 years ago.
• 24:47
  And Sarah becomes impatient, maybe a little frustrated.
• 24:50
  And according to the Scriptures, the Bible says she came to her
• 24:53
  husband and said, I know how, I know how the promise can be
• 24:57
  fulfilled. I got an idea.
• 24:59
  I've got an idea. I have a handmaiden that I can
• 25:04
  give to you. She is of childbearing years and
• 25:08
  you can come into her sexually, produce a child in her.
• 25:11
  And when she gives birth to that boy, that's the promise.
• 25:16
  And that's exactly what they did.
• 25:17
  Abraham, being the knucklehead that he was, said yes, and he
• 25:22
  volunteered himself to commit sin with his wife, even though
• 25:26
  perhaps it was culturally accepted.
• 25:28
  It could have been a culturally accepted thing to do, to have a
• 25:31
  handmaid and produce a child for you.
• 25:34
  But haven't you learned by now? Just because the culture
• 25:36
  approves of something doesn't mean God does.
• 25:39
  It is an important thing for us to really keep our eyes firmly
• 25:43
  fixed on the Lord so that we follow Him and not culture.
• 25:48
  They made a culturally appropriate decision, a sinful
• 25:51
  decision in the eyes of the Lord, and Ishmael was produced.
• 25:57
  And what a problem Ishmael was and has become in the side of
• 26:05
  the child of promise. Because after Ishmael was born
• 26:10
  at the ripe old age of 99, God comes to Abram again and repeats
• 26:16
  the promise. Ishmael is not the answer to my
• 26:20
  to my promise, Guys, I still have yet to work.
• 26:25
  And at 100 years old, Isaac was born from Sarai's womb.
• 26:31
  Isaac is the son of promise. We see now back in Galatians, we
• 26:37
  see he's the son of promise. He's also equated in verse 26
• 26:42
  with freedom. He is not the son of the flesh,
• 26:47
  it says in verse 23, or the son of bondage, verse 24.
• 26:55
  Those are the options before us, freedom or bondage.
• 27:01
  The options before us are waiting on God for Him to
• 27:05
  perform His work, or for trying to help God out.
• 27:10
  Have you learned by now, church, God doesn't need your help.
• 27:17
  He doesn't need my help. He's God and we are not.
• 27:22
  And when God makes a promise, we don't need to push it along.
• 27:26
  We don't need to make it happen. It's best to abide and wait,
• 27:30
  drawing on His power and His strength in our lives, not to go
• 27:34
  about the promises of God or to accomplish the will of God with
• 27:39
  human effort. That phrase human effort's very
• 27:43
  important because we are talking in our application in Galatians
• 27:48
  about legalism, grace versus legalism, the finished work of
• 27:53
  Jesus Christ to empower you to live a life that pleases Him or
• 27:57
  for you to take things into your own hands.
• 28:00
  Often you'll hear us refer it to it to the often you will hear us
• 28:05
  refer to it to be between a life of relationship or a life of
• 28:10
  religion or religious expression.
• 28:13
  And here's the thing, reason why religious expression is so
• 28:16
  attractive is because it reduces down the complexities of
• 28:20
  relationship to a list so that you choose first to be a moral
• 28:26
  person instead of a godly person.
• 28:28
  Do you know the unexpected things that happen in
• 28:30
  relationship? You know the type of trust
• 28:32
  that's necessary? You know the unpredictability of
• 28:35
  relationships? Well, a list of rules and
• 28:37
  regulations get rid of all that. Let me give you an example.
• 28:41
  You want to be a good Christian. I think that's a great sincere
• 28:44
  desire. I want to be a good Christian,
• 28:46
  but how I go about it is very important so that if I measure,
• 28:50
  I want to be a good Christian. And I, I come to you and I go,
• 28:53
  OK, these are the five things I need to do to be a good
• 28:56
  Christian. And I just kind of list them
• 28:58
  out. And, and I usually will list out
• 29:00
  things. If I'm a legalist, I will list
• 29:02
  out things that are easy to do for me.
• 29:05
  I'll smile, I'll say nice things.
• 29:09
  I something that I already have victory over.
• 29:11
  You know, I won't do this. I won't do that.
• 29:13
  And you live. But then you find out that you,
• 29:16
  you can't even keep your own list because just like the
• 29:19
  sacrifices that come, you're still in a human fleshly body
• 29:23
  and you still sin and there's still failure in your life
• 29:27
  constantly. Continually, some less, some
• 29:29
  more, but constantly. So instead of looking to the
• 29:33
  Lord for your strength and coming to Him in relationship
• 29:35
  and repenting of your sin, you go to the list.
• 29:38
  You go to the list. And here's what happens when you
• 29:40
  can't keep the list. It frustrates you.
• 29:42
  It frustrates you because you're like, man, I still can't, what's
• 29:45
  wrong with me? I'm not a good Christian.
• 29:47
  I don't know if I've ever been. And then you start beating
• 29:48
  yourself up, condemnation and on and on that list goes.
• 29:51
  And what happens with legalists is that when they can't keep
• 29:54
  their own lists, they start imposing it on others.
• 29:58
  And now they become the pharisaical sense sniffers of
• 30:02
  the new covenant. Why don't you do this?
• 30:05
  And why don't you do that? And why can't you do that?
• 30:07
  When God offers you something far greater than a list, He
• 30:10
  offers you himself. Let me give you an example.
• 30:14
  We've been talking about this for a while, but there's a big
• 30:16
  difference between having to read your Bible and wanting to
• 30:19
  read your Bible. Your motive is very important.
• 30:22
  So if I come to the Bible, OK, I have to do it because I'm going
• 30:24
  to be a good little Christian. I'm just going to read it so I
• 30:26
  can tell other people I read the Bible.
• 30:27
  You're probably not going to get much, but if you wake up in the
• 30:30
  morning, make your coffee and say, Lord, I'm ready to meet
• 30:32
  you. It's such a blessing to read
• 30:35
  your Bible and learn about you. It's amazing what you're showing
• 30:38
  me. It's going to change your whole
• 30:39
  perspective. So there you are, You're
• 30:41
  reading, drinking your coffee, have that motive of love to
• 30:44
  please the Lord and you're reading in it and you come
• 30:46
  across a verse. You come across a verse that
• 30:49
  says don't lie. And as you're reading it, the
• 30:54
  Holy Spirit says that's you, you're a liar and you need to
• 30:59
  stop lying. And you're like, whoa, where did
• 31:02
  that come from? Don't lie.
• 31:04
  I don't want to lie, but the Lord says you are a liar.
• 31:08
  If I was to come to you and call you out on that, maybe I have
• 31:11
  knowledge about your life and I go I, I would come hopefully
• 31:14
  gentler than that. But it's like, hey, bro, you got
• 31:16
  to deal with your lying. I'm not a liar.
• 31:19
  Who are you, Ed? All right.
• 31:21
  I mean, maybe you don't like the word lie, but you sure
• 31:24
  exaggerate all the time. That's lying.
• 31:28
  All those half truths. What do you think?
• 31:30
  You don't want to tell people the whole story.
• 31:32
  That's lying. Oh, and then you have a whole
• 31:34
  rainbow attached to what you say.
• 31:36
  So you have white lies, yellow lies.
• 31:38
  Green lies are truths, you know, have truths like all these
• 31:41
  little ways that you would like. I don't have the power to change
• 31:45
  you. I don't have the power to speak
• 31:48
  to you. That's deeper than your mind.
• 31:52
  But God does. And you don't need a list of
• 31:54
  rules and regulations because you have the Holy Spirit.
• 31:57
  So this week it's lying and you deal with it.
• 32:00
  So I'm so sorry, Lord, that was a lie.
• 32:02
  I'm going to go make it right. I'm going to go ask for
• 32:05
  forgiveness. And then you go through and you
• 32:08
  respond to the Holy Spirit. So next week it's not lying
• 32:10
  anymore. You might put that on your list.
• 32:12
  Don't be a liar. Don't be a liar.
• 32:13
  But God's already giving you victory over it.
• 32:15
  Next week, it's your mouth not lying, but how you treat people.
• 32:22
  That's not on the list, is it? But the Holy Spirit knows what
• 32:26
  you need. He knows because you have a
• 32:28
  relationship with Him and so you look to him and you say, Lord,
• 32:32
  just help me, search me and know me.
• 32:35
  Show me if there's any unclean thing in my life.
• 32:37
  Reveal to me the way of everlasting not I will be a good
• 32:42
  Christian. I will be a good Christian boy,
• 32:45
  a good Christian girl, and I will experience the rewards that
• 32:48
  come from being a good Christian.
• 32:49
  I will be moral. You know, I find people even
• 32:52
  within the church, they want it. Their whole goal is to be moral,
• 32:56
  and they hit the target, but they're not godly.
• 32:59
  They're not doing it for the Lord.
• 33:00
  They're doing it for themselves or for society.
• 33:03
  You see, you can be moral and never hit the mark of being in
• 33:06
  relationship with God. You could be a good person.
• 33:09
  How many? We know we have people in our
• 33:11
  lives. They are so good.
• 33:13
  They're good people. They love people, they serve.
• 33:16
  People are sacrificial, but they don't know the Lord.
• 33:20
  They're not doing it as an outflow of the goodness of God.
• 33:24
  That's the greatest motive. You know, the greatest motive in
• 33:28
  doing anything in this world is love, and it's not love for each
• 33:32
  other. Actually, that's not the
• 33:34
  greatest motive. Love me, you loving me and I
• 33:36
  loving you. That's not the greatest motive.
• 33:38
  The greatest motive is God's love for us, right?
• 33:42
  We love God. Why?
• 33:43
  Because He first loved us. Our response to love is the
• 33:48
  greatest motive. We love God with all our heart,
• 33:51
  soul and mind, and we love our neighbor as ourselves and it's
• 33:56
  the love of God that motivates us to serve.
• 34:00
  He uses Abraham back in Galatians and says, look, you
• 34:04
  have a choice, human effort, flesh bondage or freedom in
• 34:09
  Christ. That comes because God keeps his
• 34:11
  promises. You can even see it in Abraham's
• 34:14
  life, because it says in verse 27.
• 34:17
  For it is written, Rejoice, O Baron, you who do not bear,
• 34:21
  break forth and shout, you who do not travail.
• 34:24
  For the desolate has many more children than she who has a
• 34:29
  husband, talking about the present day Jerusalem as he was
• 34:33
  writing, all in bondage, waiting for Messiah, rejecting him.
• 34:36
  Verse 28 Now we brethren, as Isaac was, are children of
• 34:40
  promise. We're children of promise.
• 34:44
  We we are the result. Our born again life is a result
• 34:48
  of the promise of Jesus Christ coming and dying.
• 34:51
  We are like Isaac, but as he who was born according to the flesh,
• 34:56
  Ishmael then persecuted him who was born according to the
• 34:59
  Spirit. Even so, it is now 2000 years
• 35:03
  later, we can say the same thing today.
• 35:06
  The conflict between the Arabs and the Jewish people, the
• 35:09
  Israelis, is ongoing today. And it comes back to this, this
• 35:13
  impatient decision of Abraham and Sarah.
• 35:17
  So even now there's a persecution and an anti-Semitic
• 35:23
  flow in the world today because of this decision.
• 35:27
  The choice of bondage, taking things into your own hands, the
• 35:30
  choice of human effort. Verse 30.
• 35:32
  Nevertheless, what does Scripture say?
• 35:35
  Cast out the bondwoman and her son.
• 35:37
  For the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son
• 35:40
  of the free woman. So then, brethren, we are not
• 35:44
  children of the bondwoman, but of the free.
• 35:49
  All of our life we have learned this reward system and
• 35:54
  punishment system, but God wants you to know that the
• 35:58
  relationship He desires with you is one of love and grace and
• 36:04
  freedom, not to reduce things down, trying to to do things in
• 36:09
  your home, own human effort. Maybe you do have a problem with
• 36:13
  lying. So what do you do in your own
• 36:15
  own human effort? You say I will never lie again,
• 36:18
  which is a lie in and of itself. I won't do it.
• 36:21
  I'm going to do my best. And you know, you do your best,
• 36:24
  but you still fail. You see, when it comes to human
• 36:28
  effort, you got to remember this.
• 36:30
  When we do our best, that's the best we can do.
• 36:34
  It's like, oh, oh, that's rocket science, Ed.
• 36:37
  No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Listen, the best that you can do
• 36:41
  is the best that you can do. You can't go beyond your own
• 36:44
  effort. You can't go beyond your own
• 36:46
  power. You can't go beyond your own
• 36:48
  intellect. You can't go beyond your own
• 36:50
  resources. That's why you feel so
• 36:52
  frustrated. That's why it's so it's so hard
• 36:55
  for you because you're limited. You're limited in your
• 36:58
  abilities. You're limited in your
• 36:59
  knowledge. You're limited in your in in
• 37:01
  where you are and what resources you have available to you.
• 37:04
  But in Christ, you have unlimited resources.
• 37:08
  If today you want to make a conscious decision to stop
• 37:11
  lying, God is ready to empower you to speak the truth the rest
• 37:14
  of your life. Change you from the inside out.
• 37:16
  Change your whole character. You may have been known as a
• 37:19
  lying, manipulative person before you got saved.
• 37:21
  God can change all that if you let him.
• 37:24
  Because you're free. You're free.
• 37:27
  You're free to obey God. You're free to enjoy God.
• 37:31
  You're free to access his power. You're free to follow him.
• 37:36
  You're free to read your Bible. You're free to pray.
• 37:39
  You're free to worship. Because in Christ He has made
• 37:42
  the way for you. And that's really what Paul's
• 37:45
  saying. Do you want to go back to
• 37:47
  bondage? Remember Abraham and the problem
• 37:50
  he created in his own effort? Is that the kind of life you
• 37:53
  want to live? There are still problems today
• 37:55
  because of that. Do you want to live a life of
• 37:57
  problems for the rest of your life?
• 37:59
  Then go back to the law and leave the simplicity of Christ.
• 38:04
  And that's my word to you. I don't want you to go away from
• 38:07
  the simplicity of Jesus. I want you to enjoy this new
• 38:10
  relationship. I want you to enjoy the freedom.
• 38:14
  I want you to enjoy the freedom of being set free from your
• 38:17
  past, being set free from addiction and bondage.
• 38:21
  Even the thought of well, you know, I've always been this way,
• 38:24
  but in Christ, you don't have to be.
• 38:26
  You've always been that way. We we all know you've always
• 38:28
  been that way, but you don't have to be.
• 38:30
  God is ready. Well, and then just tell me,
• 38:32
  tell me yet Tell me what I need to show me what I need to do.
• 38:36
  Great. Repent, express godly sorrow for
• 38:41
  the sin that you've committed against a holy and a righteous
• 38:43
  God. Repent.
• 38:45
  See it for what it is. Allow God to reveal to you not
• 38:50
  only the pain of sin and the problem of sin, but the
• 38:54
  provision of power to forsake sin.
• 38:57
  It's available to all of us if we'll just follow him by
• 39:00
  simplicity. Let me show you the Scripture
• 39:02
  before we leave. Turn over to 2nd Corinthians
• 39:04
  chapter 5. So I want to end with the
• 39:06
  Scripture. It's going to be to the left of
• 39:08
  Galatians. Such a great passage, but Paul
• 39:15
  just summarizes the beauty of following him in grace.
• 39:19
  In chapter 5, verse 14, Paul writes to the Corinthians.
• 39:25
  He says for the love of Christ constrains us.
• 39:30
  Next to that word constrained you could write, motivates,
• 39:32
  moves us. That's what that word means.
• 39:35
  The love of Christ constrains us because we judged us, that if
• 39:39
  one died for all, then all died and he died for all, that those
• 39:43
  who live shall no longer live for themselves, but for him who
• 39:47
  died for them and rose again. Love will cause you and me not
• 39:53
  to live for ourselves anymore, but to live for Him, to trust
• 39:58
  Him, to hear his voice clearly, to respond with a willingness.
• 40:03
  I know it's hard. Bible study is not going to
• 40:06
  solve every problem, but I'll tell you what Bible study does.
• 40:09
  It's going to get your eyes on the Lord, the Word of God in
• 40:12
  your heart, and that will change you.
• 40:14
  It'll change you every single time.
• 40:17
  Faith comes by hearing in what? Hearing by the word of God.
• 40:21
  When God's Word gets in you, it works every single time.
• 40:25
  It works deep as you allow the Holy Spirit to do it among you
• 40:30
  and within you. Amen.
• 40:32
  Amen. So, Lord, thank you for your
• 40:33
  word. As we prepare our hearts for the
• 40:35
  communion table, You know, we're looking at Abraham and Sarai and
• 40:41
  how challenging that is. But God is symbolic.
• 40:44
  It's a picture. He had two sons.
• 40:46
  One was of human effort, one was of grace, one causes problems,
• 40:51
  and one is peace and freedom. And we want God, peace and
• 40:55
  freedom in our lives. So we're asking now for your
• 40:58
  Holy Spirit to minister to us as we prepare our hearts to
• 41:02
  remember your shed blood, the body, it was broken on our
• 41:06
  behalf. We pray for the lost today for
• 41:12
  those among us on the radio, downstairs, online, somewhere on
• 41:19
  the podcast, wherever you know where they are sitting in a
• 41:23
  hospital room in a prison cell. I pray God that right now you
• 41:28
  would draw men and women to yourself and bring great
• 41:31
  conviction of their sin, that they might then respond with a
• 41:36
  heart of repentance and a desire to follow you, a desire to live
• 41:40
  for you, a desire to leave their sin behind, to repent and to
• 41:45
  choose to follow you. And so as we're praying, if
• 41:48
  you're here today, I want to invite you to receive the Lord
• 41:51
  Jesus Christ. If you haven't, like if right
• 41:53
  now you're like, I want to follow him, I need to follow
• 41:57
  him. I need to be born again.
• 42:00
  That's the answer for my life. Well, God would agree with you.
• 42:04
  That is the answer for your life that if you will turn away from
• 42:09
  your sins today, the Bible says if you confess with your mouth
• 42:11
  the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart God raised him from
• 42:14
  the dead, you will be saved. And you know and I know you need
• 42:20
  to be saved. So today, if that's you, you'd
• 42:23
  say I don't want to follow Jesus starting today.
• 42:25
  Would you just stand to your feet.
• 42:26
  I want to pray with you. I want you to give you a chance
• 42:29
  before we come to the table and that you might believe on the
• 42:34
  Lord Jesus Christ. Just stand up.
• 42:36
  I can get pastor come up alongside of you ministry to
• 42:39
  you. God bless you guys that today
• 42:42
  would be the day. God bless you right here.
• 42:45
  And I mean that with all my heart, like truly God's
• 42:47
  blessings upon you, life changing, the reality of the
• 42:52
  work of the Holy Spirit in your life.
• 42:54
  Who else would say that's me, we'll wait for you.
• 42:59
  The work of God in your life, we'll wait for you.
• 43:04
  That's how important you are. Someone's going to come up
• 43:07
  alongside of you. And that's our church following
• 43:09
  up with you. So you know you're not alone.
• 43:11
  God bless you guys in the back. Today is the day, now is the
• 43:17
  time. The Holy Spirit moving on,
• 43:21
  families right now and hearts. You guys that are praying, you
• 43:26
  know you can pray for your unsaved family.
• 43:28
  God bless you, your Co worker, your neighbor.
• 43:34
  There's a lot of people in your life that God is using you to
• 43:37
  reach. And who knows it might be this
• 43:40
  church, might be another church, but there are times coming.
• 43:44
  Their time is coming. We want to pray for them.
• 43:46
  Anyone else? I acknowledge you guys on the
• 43:48
  radio right now. I know I can't see you or ever
• 43:51
  hear you, but I acknowledge you, you guys watching online, even
• 43:55
  down in the overflow. God knows I don't want folks to
• 44:01
  be missed here, that the Lord would do a work in your life.
• 44:08
  Let me help you pray to God because that's the confessing
• 44:12
  part. You could talk to God and say
• 44:14
  something like God forgive me of my sins.
• 44:18
  I believe in Jesus, that he died for me and that he rose again
• 44:24
  from the dead. And I choose to be in a
• 44:28
  relationship with you, God, to accept your free gift of
• 44:33
  forgiveness. I choose to repent and turn away
• 44:39
  from my sins and to follow you the rest of my life.
• 44:47
  Thank you for sending Jesus. Thank you for entering into my
• 44:53
  life. Father, I pray for those turning
• 44:57
  to you today that it be real and genuine.
• 45:01
  That we get to see them grow and change.
• 45:04
  That we get to hear about generational change and all that
• 45:07
  you're doing in their lives. That the seed of the gospel
• 45:10
  would go down on good ground this morning in Jesus name.
• 45:17
  Amen. We pray that you've been
• 45:19
  encouraged by this Bible study delivered live from the
• 45:22
  sanctuary of Calvary Church for prayer, call us at 87730 grace
• 45:29
  that's 877-304-7223. To listen to this message in its
• 45:35
  integrity or to join us for our live stream services, visit us
• 45:39
  online at Calvary Co dot Church or download our free Calvary
• 45:44
  Church app. Be blessed as you worship Jesus
• 45:47
  this week.