Galatians 3

WELCOME

Pastor Chris Paavola:

Well, hey everybody. Good morning. It is wonderful to be with you. My name is Chris Paola. I’m the senior pastor here at St. Mark and we are, today we are going to be having a fun conversation about legalism. If you’ve ever wondered why Christians come across as so legalistic all the time, and just so I don’t know, judgy, judgers and judgmental ish today is for you, you’ll get a little bit of an explanation of why that is or if you are wondering why, if you’re a Christian, you’re wondering why people call us legalists and what it is that we’re doing. Somehow that tips our hand to say that again, today will be just an important part of just like a good conversation for us. I think there’s a little bit of legalists in all of us here. I’ll give you a quick test. If you’ve ever been upset by the way people dress at church, you might be a legalist. If you’ve ever looked down on the way someone else is worshiping, you might be legalists. If you’ve ever asked the pastor to pray for you because you think he has a better in with God than you do, I get this one all the time. You might be a legalist. If you ever think, I can’t pray to God right now, what I’ve done is too horrible, he wouldn’t listen to me. You might be a legalist.

If you’ve ever thought what I’ve done is too terrible, God could never forgive me. You might be a legalist, legalism, y’all legalism. It just has this way of creeping into Christianity and we don’t see it. We don’t notice it. And it’s one of those things that unless we are constantly keeping vigilant against it, it will show up in the way that we walk through this Christian life. And we’re going to talk about it today and as we go through this series that we’re in called Galatians, where each week by week we’re going chapter by chapter, verse by verse through the book of Galatians. And the series is different because a lot of times when we come to church, we’re looking for that one kind of thing. We need that inspirational thing that’s going to take us and encourage us through the week and keep us positive in the week ahead.

I’m going through this thing in my marriage, I’m going through this thing in my health or something. I need that verse that’s going to pull me up out of the doldrums and give me a pep talk. And that’s fine and it’s okay, but it’s different to just open the Bible and read it and let God speak to you about what he wants to talk about. So we’re not guiding the conversation here, we’re letting him guide the conversation. And that takes a little bit of maturity. So this morning I fully understand there’s times and there’s places where we can tune into W-I-I-F-M, what’s in it for me? But today we are absolutely just going to let God have the conversation with us. And what he wants to talk to us about is this thing called legalism. And we’re going to do so by looking at Galatians three where the apostle Paul who’s writing this letter is the earliest manuscript.

We have earliest composed document that we have of the New Testament. He’s talking to this group of people in this region called Galatia, and he’s calling out legalism. And when Paul does this, just be forewarned, this is Hedy heavy stuff, he’s going to remember Paul is like a Jew of Jews, right? He’s like the highest top gun Jew guy, right? So Paul is going to demonstrate his prowess in Judaism and just how well versed he is. And he’s writing to these guys who have an understanding of Judaism and he’s like showing them through Jewish scripture in Angel Galatians three, how this idea of salvation by faith and your righteous by God, not by what you can do, not the works that you can do, legalism, not by the law, but by faith. And he shows how this has been God’s plan all along. And he just walks through the Torah, walks through the Old Testament with proof text after proof text, and it feels like overwhelming.

And so as we go through it, I’m going to try to try my best to explain what he’s talking about and to give ideas of why he is referencing different things. But just brace yourself. This is a heady, heady chapter, but again, it’s really, really important for us if we’re going to understand legalism. Now, every week in this series, we’ve done this and you guys have told me you like this and we’re going to do it. Grab your Bible in front of you or grab the Bible that you brought with you, hold it up nice and loud and hi and proud. And here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to just say a quick prayer before we open it to just ask God to bless our time together.

BIBLE PRAYER

Pastor Chris Paavola: This is my Bible.

Response: This is my Bible.

Pastor Chris Paavola: Lord, help me believe it.

Response: Lord, help me believe it.

Pastor Chris Paavola: Use it to teach me.

Response: Use it to teach me

Pastor Chris Paavola:  Correct me

Response: Correct me

Pastor Chris Paavola: Encourage me

Response: Encourage me and change me.

Pastor Chris Paavola: Open my heart, open my minds to hear what you have to say in Jesus’ name. And now you guys can be loud here. Say amen.

Response: Amen

GALATIANS 3

Yeah, that’s perfect. Good job. We’re going to be going through Galatians three, like I said, and we should have it on the screen perfect. If you guys remember to bring you up to speed in chapter one, he tells us why he’s writing this book of Galatians. There is this group of people in Galatia. This is about a thousand miles away from Jerusalem who started believing in Jesus. He planted a church there and then he went to plant another church somewhere else. And afterwards he hears that back in Galatia. There’s some Jews who also started joining the church and started following Jesus.

And he’s like, great, the church is growing. So they got these Jews. But these Jews started confusing the Galatian, the Gentile Galatian believers because they were like, wait, if God’s going to love us, if we’re going to please God, we’ve got to follow the Jewish law. We’ve got to be circumcised. We’ve got to stop eating pork and we’ve got to observe these Jewish holidays. That’s what God told us to do. If God’s going to love us and we’re going to be God’s people, we have to follow God’s ways. And Paul’s like, no, you’re trying to find a righteousness before God apart from the works of Christ. And so these Judaizers in verse seven of chapter one, there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ is the entire reason he’s writing this book. So when he gets into chapter three here that we’re about to dive into, when he gets into chapter three, he is writing to these people because he puts it together.

He’s like, wait a minute, wait a minute. I’m writing this letter and it’s going to be read in the living room of this house where the church is meeting. And in that living room is going to be that Jewish guy who’s trying to convince everybody else and really compelling and convincing arguments that there are things we need to do to earn God’s love and on God’s favor and good standing with God with these Jewish laws. And he’s like, I got to counter his arguments. I have a hunch of what he’s saying. So being the Jew of Jews that I am, I’m going to write to that guy directly and give a defense of righteousness by faith. And so all of chapter three, all of chapter three has to do with this idea of justification by faith versus the law, justification by faith versus the law.

That’s what the entire chapter three is about to be about. And so he starts out, so that’s what we’re about to delve into. He starts out and he says, Verse 1 “Oh, foolish Galatians”, and this sounds kind of like a harsh intro to chapter three. It seems like this is kind of like a moniker of people in the region. They were kind of the foolish Galatians and they kind of wore it with pride. There’s a couple other ancient texts that mentioned foolish Galatians. And so it’s a little it. It’d be like saying all Texans wear cowboy hats or all people in Colorado wear Birkenstocks and beanies or people in Michigan wear Stormy Kromers. It’s kind of this moniker, Ken, that you are a stereotype of Michigan. So oh, foolish Galatians wearing your stormy Kromers, “who has bewitched you?” Now in your bibles, who has a different word for bewitched there? Just shout it out. What words does it have for that? It’s kind of a hard word to translate.

Cast a spell on you. Yep, seduce. Anyone have seduce in their translation? Some translations have that hypnotize. Anyone have hypnotize? Okay, there’s one. Yep. So it’s kind of a hard word, but it’s this idea that someone came along and said something that was so alluring to your flesh that you pulled towards it and it started to make sense to you and it pulled you away from the gospel. It distorted the gospel that he was talking about in one verse seven. “It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.” Now listen, this is confusing, but nobody in Galatia was there when Jesus was crucified. Nobody was present. Nobody from Galatia walked down to Jerusalem to watch this crucifixion. So what he’s referring to here is at the end of chapter two last week where we talked about, I have been crucified with Christ.

It’s no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. Meaning that as I lived among you, Christ crucified was on display, a righteousness before God, by Christ. The death and resurrection of Christ that I put my faith in was on display for you. It was clearly as I lived among you, I wasn’t trying to earn any more of God’s favor. I was walking in God’s favor because of my faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus. It was clearly portrayed as crucified right before you. Verse 2 “So let me ask you this.” And then he goes into a series of questions. And again, this is kind of a polemic style. Plato did this, Aristotle did this. This is a rabbinical teaching style. They ask questions. Sometimes they leave long pauses, sometimes they’re rhetorical, but he’s trying to give voice to his critics by asking the question of the critic.

And so all the way through, he’s kind of having this imaginary conversation with the Jewish guys sitting in the living room, okay, “did you receive the spirit by works of the law or hearing with faith?”  So did you receive the spirit? Did God pour out his spirit and give you the gift of faith and salvation because of something you did? Because you prayed the right prayer, you gave a lot of money, you did the right dance, you made the right pilgrimage. Did God give you his spirit because of something you did? Yes or no? No, it’s an emphatic no. Or did he give you his spirit by hearing with faith? Yes. So you received God’s spirits when you believed, when you heard with faith the word of God that Christ died in your behalf and rose from the dead. Verse 3 “Are you so foolish?” There’s that foolish thing he’s kind of picking on them, those foolish Galatians “having begun by the spirit.”

And again, I’m highlighting all the questions having begun by the spirit. “Are you now being perfected by the flesh” like you got salvation from God? I’m saved. I’m in a right standing. I’m a child of God because I believe in faith. I got it from here and I’m now going to improve on that. I’m going to add to that. I got it from here. Thanks God. Now I’m going to work out my righteousness and earn more favor from you. Why did you start this way and then be like, thanks God, I got it from here. No, no, you continue just as you started in faith by believing, hearing in faith the word of God. And then he goes to another question, Verse 4 “Did you suffer so many things of in vain if indeed it wasn’t vain”, meaning it was dangerous. It was dangerous occupation to be a Christian in that time when you put your faith in Christ, everybody knew you were a Christian.

Your job was at risk, your livelihood was at risk, your family might disown you, you might be imprisoned, you might lose your life. So you dared to believe this gospel that Jesus Christ died and rose from the dead and now you’re going to move on from it. You risked so much, why would you? There’s so much sunk cost already. Why would you move on from this? And then he asks another question, Verse 5 “Does he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you, do so by works the law or hearing with faith?” And they put a dash in there, but you can see the question Mark A. Little bit later on. Does he who supplies the spirit to you and work miracles among you? Do so because you are a good person? Does God do miracles? Does he answer your prayer? Does he heal on Cindy’s hip that you just prayed for?

Does he give you safe travel to Chicago that you just prayed for? Does he do those things because you’re a good person? No, because you believed, you hear with faith and there’s the same phrase, hearing with faith, hearing with faith. So we see it repeated in verse two and then again in verse five. And then he introduces a new guy in Verse 6  “Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.” And here he is quoting Genesis 15 verse six, huge, huge verse. God looks at Abraham’s man living in the land of earth and he says, go to the land, I will show you and I’m going to make you a father of many nations and I’ll bless the world through you and you’ll be a father of many. And Abraham believed God. And when Abraham believed what God told him, it was counted to him as righteousness because he believed not because Abraham was a really good guy, there was no law to even follow.

Not the law hadn’t come yet that would come another 430 years later, not because Abraham gave a lot of money to the temple, not because Abraham was really generous to the poor. He chose Abraham and said through you, I will bless the world, Abraham believed and God credits it to him as righteousness. You have a right standing with me even though you’re a rebel, even though you’re a sinner, even though you are my enemy, I have now declared my righteousness because you dared to believe in me. And this is a key, key, key verse really is like a linchpin. It’s a hinge verse. Genesis 15, six, for all the arguments he’s about to make, and this is we’re just getting started. He’s about to quote the Old Testament a lot, but it all comes back to this guy Abraham Verse 7 “know then that it is those of faith who are sons of Abraham” Sometimes this was like a kind of a derogatory term of referring to a Jewish person and be like, oh, he’s a son of Abraham.

It’s somebody who is a Jew. Now Paul makes the pivot though anyone who believes, anyone who hears with faith, anyone who has faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus is now a son of Abraham. Not by flesh, not by the things that they do, but because they believed God, just like Abraham believed, just like I believed, just like you believed you are now children of God because of faith. And then in Verse 8 “and the Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preach the gospel beforehand to Abraham.” This is the gospel in you. “All the nations will be blessed.” And I’m going to get to this in a moment, but here’s this word gospel in you. All nations will be blessed. Who’s doing the verbs there? Who’s doing the action?

God Who’s doing the blessing? God, yeah. Did Abraham do anything in that in you? All nations will be blessed. Seems pretty passive, doesn’t it? We’re going to get to this, but the gospel is what God does. That’s the gospel. It’s what God does. It is not what you do. And when as we get into this conversation about legalism, we’ve got to keep that in mind. The gospel is what God does. Anything else that we do is the law. We’ll get to that in more in a moment, verse nine. Verse 9 “So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.” I mean he could not be. This entire thing is about faith right here. Okay? That’s a terrible handwriting. But this whole section right here is all about faith. Now he pivots and he is going to have this whole conversation about the law right here, okay?

Starting in verse 10, for all who, and this is get ready for a blitzkrieg of quotes from the Old Testament. Remember he’s writing this going, there’s a Jewish, there’s Jewish people sitting in that living room confusing everybody. I’ve heard the Jewish arguments before. I’ve walked through this as a Jew of Jews. I’ve got to quote a bunch of Jewish passages to show that this is God’s plan from the beginning. So he starts in Verse 10,” for all who rely on works of the law are under a curse for it is written cursed would be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them.” And here he’s referring to Deuteronomy 27, 26, he’s quoting verse. It is everyone who does not do everything in the book of the law. Meaning if you break one section of the law, you’re a law breaker.

It doesn’t matter if you broke one law or a thousand laws, you’re a law breaker curse. It is everyone. It does not do everything written in the book of the law. Nobody does. We’re all under the curse. That’s his point. Verse 11 “Now, it is evident that no one is justified by God before God, by the law for the righteous shall live by faith.” And this right here, he’s quoting Habakkuk to verse four, Verse 12 “but the law is not a faith. Rather, the one who does them shall live by them”. And here he is referring to Leviticus 18, five meaning the law is not a righteousness by faith. The law is just this is what God wants you to do. He’s showing you what his holiness is. Verse 13 “Christ redeem us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written curse. It is everyone who’s hanging on a tree”. And here in this section, actually I think I made a mistake here. Yeah, yeah, Deuteronomy, this is the Deuteronomy 27 verse 26. I’m sorry about that guys curse. It is everyone who hangs on a tree.

There you go. I misquoted. No I didn’t. Let me undo that. There’s two. This is 27, 26. I was wrong. This is 21 verse 23. It’s two sections of Deuteronomy. Sorry about that. Curse is everyone who hangs on a tree. It says this in Deuteronomy. It’s a prophecy about Christ curse. It is everyone who does not do everything under the law curse. It is everyone who hangs on a tree. Meaning when Christ died on the cross, the entire curse of the law, the damnation of the law, the separation from God was laid on him. All the penalty was laid on him for all the law breakers, it was laid on him in your place and it’s prophesied there thousands of years before Christ. Verse 14 “So that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentile so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith”.

Now, here he is referring to this covenant that he made with Abraham, this covenant of righteousness. Okay, you are righteous before me by not the law, but by faith. And he makes this covenant with Abraham and we’re going to hear about this. He’s going to now move into this section talking about the covenant of righteousness with Abraham. Now this covenant is like when it was established with Abraham, it was like they had the sacrifice of animals and it was basically signed on the dotted line moment. Probably the closest idea for us is when we sign a marriage like this is a covenant or we are entering into a marriage vow with one another or when I was 18, 19 and my parents let me get a credit card with a $500 credit limit on it at 23% interest. And when I signed that thing, when I signed that credit card and I maxed out my credit card buying CDs and video games, and then I was having to make payments on it, I’m like, why is this not going down?

I learned the hard lesson of 23% interest and I’m so glad that they put a very small limit on it because holy cow, was that a hard lesson to learn? But it didn’t matter how much I complained about my credit card, if I called up visa, if I said that this price is too high, the interest rate, the payments are too egregious, it doesn’t matter. I signed the contract and it is not, I can’t get out of it until I pay and fulfill the contract. A wild wild thing goes on here and he starts explaining this Verse 15 “To give a human example, brothers, even with a manmade covenant, no one annuls it.” That is like cancels it’s fancy word “or adds to it once it has been ratified”, signed meaning that when God made this covenant of righteousness, it was signed, sealed and delivered. God doesn’t acknowledge it.

He doesn’t amend it. Once he signed it with Abraham. That’s the covenant he made with mankind. You are declared righteous before God by faith. When you believe what he says, not by what you can do, no one knows it or adds to it since it has been ratified. “Verse 16 Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring, it does not say and to offsprings” plural, “referring to many but to one and your offspring” singular. And so he’s pointing out Hebrew grammar to these people. Notice guys, when you read that this is a promise made to your offspring, it’s a singular who is he referring to? The Messiah. And they’re going, oh wow, it really does say that. Verse 17 “This is what I mean the law which came 430 years afterwards.” This is not the McDonald’s symbol. This is stone tablets showing the covenant. Okay? So you have this covenant with Abraham and then the 430 years later you’ve got Moses and Mount Sinai, okay?

When God gives this law is what Paul’s saying. When God gives his covenant of the law and all the things that we can do to follow God, it doesn’t cancel out his covenants of righteousness that he made by faith of righteousness through faith that he made with Abraham. Moses does not cancel out Abraham. And he’s like You Jewish people understand this, right? For 430 years people were righteous before God because they believed. And what’s true for Abraham is true for Moses. It’s true for me. It’s true for you Galatians, and it’s true for you. Now today, your righteousness before God is not based on what you do. It’s based on the fact that you believe what God says. Huge, huge concept. And I’m going to get to this in a second. So we will take a little break here after verse 18. This is what I mean.

The law which came 430 years afterward, “does not annul a covenant previously ratified” or signed by God “so as to make the promise void”. Verse 18 “For if the inheritance comes by the law. It no longer comes by promise, but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.” Okay? Last week we talked about, if you guys remember, we talked about the three types of Jewish law. We talked about ceremonial laws. These are laws in the temple. And then there’s also Jewish laws of cultural things. Don’t eat pork, don’t mix fabrics, don’t shave, don’t get tattoos that separates them from the other nations. And then there’s moral law. Don’t kill. Don’t kill, don’t steal, don’t commit adultery. And Christ fulfilled all of these laws. And now we don’t follow the ceremonial laws and we don’t follow the cultural laws anymore because those have been fulfilled by Christ. But we still follow the moral laws this week instead of the three kinds of laws.

I want to talk to us today about the three uses of the law. And when I was in confirmation as a little kid, I learned this and I didn’t understand why this mattered and why this is important until I became older. Now I get it. And in seminary they’re like, this is a really helpful thing. This is a very Lutheran understanding. And when I talk about the Lutheran denomination, I think this is one of the most helpful things in explaining one of the differences between the Lutheran church and what you’ll hear here and what you’ll hear in other churches and how the law and legalism will seep into our Christianity. And it has to do with the three uses of the law. So we’ve had this whole conversation, and I want to kind of press pause here in verse 18 to have a conversation about the three uses of the law.

The first use of the law is this idea of a curb. So when a law is given, it curbs our behavior. So if this step right here was a curb, if I’m driving a car, what is the purpose of a curb? Right? Stop me from going off over into or to hopefully stop me from going off and over into the ditch, right? Or if you’re parking your car and you go up on the curb and you scratch the underbelly you and then you hit it in reverse, the curb is to stop you from going too far. And that’s one of the uses of law, any law, not just God’s law, right? So God’s law says, don’t murder. I get really angry at somebody and I want to kill them. But God’s law is like, oh, don’t do that. It’s behavior modification I shouldn’t kill because God’s law says I shouldn’t steal because God’s law says I shouldn’t. It’s curbing our behavior. And any law, this is true for any law. What’s the speed limit on capital right here, right? Five. It’s 45. 35. 35, okay.

Ain’t nobody following that, but it’s the law and it’s there to curb your behavior. Some people can do 70 when they’re going down capital and some people do trying to beat this light, but it is the law is in place and they are breaking the law. And the idea is you see the speed limit posted and you will slow down to some reasonable thing within the speed limit on this street because it is trying to curb your behavior. Everything inside of you wants to do 60 down, just like gun it down the hill and up because it’s a straight shot. No one’s pulling in front of you and blah, blah, blah. But the law is there to curb your behavior. So that’s the first use of the law, the second use of the law. Anyone know what this is? Remember it from confirmation. What’s that?

Ruler? Yeah, ruler. It’s also referred to as a mirror. What rulers more with the curb thing a mirror to show you your sin. Okay, so I open God’s word and I read in his law that whoever looks at a woman lustfully has committed adultery with her in his heart. And that shows me my sin. Like, oh, I just committed adultery and at God’s law showing me my sin, I open his word and it says, do not steal. And I’m like, wait, I stole. And so it’s a mirror to not. So it’s not just something that curbs my behavior, but when I read it, I’m reminded of how I have broken God’s law. It showed, it shows me how I have sinned against him. So it’s a mirror. The third use of the law is where legalism slips in to our Christianity. Anyone know what it is? Anyone? Curb, mirror guide, a curb, a mirror and a guide and a guide. The law is given to not only prevent our behavior and show us what we’ve done, but to lead our behavior. You could say that this is present tense, this is past tense and this is future tense. It leads you and directs you somewhere.

So when you hear a law that says from God that says, do not steal, okay, you’re offered a job where it would compromise some of your behavior and maybe would gray the line of theft. Okay, but it’s more than that. Love your enemies. Is that a command? When Jesus says love your enemies, is that a command? Yes. So then is it a law? Yes. And it’s a legality. It’s legalism. Love your enemies. That’s the law. Going back to our verbs, remember the gospel is God does the verbs. The law is you. Do the verbs Love your neighbor. Is that a command? Yes, it’s a law.

Love your spouse, honor your parents. Be devoted to one another. Be humble, forgive one another. Are these laws Absolutely. Who’s doing the verb you? And if you are doing the verb, it’s what law. If God is doing the verb, it’s gospel. Now here’s how this seeps into our Christianity. If you’ve ever walked out of church feeling guilty, like you need to do more for God, you need to leverage your gifts as God has serve your community with the gifts that God has given you. Is that the law? Is somebody preaching the law at that moment? If I tell you, serve this community with the gifts that God has given you, is that the law? Is that the law? Yes or no? Yes. And if you’re walking out hearing that you are feeling the weights of legalism. If you walk out of here and I’m telling you how to have a better marriage or I’m telling you how to live your best life now and I’m giving you some veiled form of DIY, do it yourself self-help Christianity, I have given you the law.

Is the law good? Yes, it’s good that you love your neighbor. It’s good that you love your enemies. It’s good that you love your wife. It’s good that you serve your community. It’s good that you’re humble. It’s good when I say give money to the church, that’s a good thing. But it’s the law. And if I tell you to follow the law without telling you what Christ has done for you, that I’m making you a legalist, everything that we do is in response to what Christ has done. When you forgive, when you serve, when you honor, when you’re humble, when you give, when you love your neighbor, when you forgive your enemies, all of those things, they’re in grateful response to what Christ has done for you. And if you forget that for a moment, you will be bewitched and seduced just like the Galatians into a form of legalism thinking there’s something that you are doing for God that is earning his favor.

If you look at any religion in the world, any religion, you’ll notice that they all tell you what you should do for God. Go to this city, make this pilgrimage, pay this much money, say these many prayers, this many times a day facing this certain direction, do this rain, dance, whatever it might be, and then God will love you. Then you’ll achieve nirvana, then you’ll achieve enlightenment. Then you might get out of purgatory. If you say this many Hail Marys, all of that is telling you what to do to get closer to God. And its legalism and it even seeps into Christianity when we forget to tell you first what Christ has done. And so yeah, love your neighbor because Christ loved you and gave himself for you on the cross. Yeah, give money to the church because Christ loved you and gave himself for you.

Yes, use your gifts to serve the Lord because Christ loved you and I promise you, you could watch it. I don’t usually villainize other churches, but I promise you, you could watch a dozen live streams of other churches this morning and nine times out of 10 you’re going to hear a command of what you should do for God, how you could be a better parent, how you could be a better spouse, how you can give more money, how you can achieve your best life now. And you’ll hear it devoid of what Christ has done for you. And this understanding of the three uses of the law reminds me that when I preach to you that I again and again have to tell you what you forget again and again, that Christ died for you and gave himself for you. And it’s liberating because now everything that you do, all of your obedience to the law is in grateful fil response for what Christ has done. And I hope every day that you’re in here, you hear what Christ has done for you.

You hear the verbs of what God has done long before you hear the verbs of what you should do. And if you move away from here, I’m going to talk to my brother Paul who’s moving. It breaks my heart that you’re moving and he’s going to Texas though, so that’s not a bad thing. But anyway, he’s going. He’s moving away. As you’re looking for other churches, brother, please have that criteria. Do you hear the gospel proclaimed? Do you hear not that God loves you? No. Do you hear what Christ has done for you? And though everything that you’re commanded to do is in response. If you don’t hear what Christ has done for you, find another church please.

So, then Paul continues in Verse 19, “Why then do we have the law?” It kind of brings up this question. Well, why even have the law in the first place again? He’s giving voice to the Jewish guy sitting in the living room. “It was added because of transgressions.” God wanted to show his holiness to us, curb, mirror and guide “until the offspring should come whom the promise had been made and it was put in place through the angels by an intermediary.” I think he’s referring to Moses there. Verse 20 “Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one”, is the law. Then there’s another question. Verse 21 “Is the law contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not.” For “if a law given that could give life”, then God righteously surely would’ve done it. “Then righteousness would indeed be by the law”. If God could have come up with the law that you can do to earn good standing with God, he would’ve done it.

But there’s nothing, you’re all law breakers. He’s got to step in now. This is going to blow your mind. A covenant is fulfilled when the contract is complete or the death of the law giver. So when Christ dies on the cross, it fulfills the righteous requirements of the law because the law giver has died and then he rises from the dead and we enter into a new covenants established by his blood. Whoa. Heavy, heavy, heavy stuff. Verse 22 “But the scripture imprisoned everything under sin. Verse 22, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe”. Verse 23 “Now, before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed”. The law incriminates all of us. We are all law breakers. So then the law was our guardian. Anyone in verse 24, “The law was our guardian”. Does any of you guys have another word for guardian there? Oh, a tutor. What’d you say? Caretaker. Caretaker. Okay, caretaker. Anyone else? What’s that?

Anyone else have another word in their translation? What? Tutor? Someone say tutor. Anyone have school master teacher in their school master. Okay, there you go. School master. The word that he’s using is this Greek word that we get our pedagogue from. It’s an interesting word he’s writing to Galatians, right? He’s writing to gentiles. This is a Greek Hellenistic idea. Between the ages of six and 16, a child would have a pedagogue, usually a slave who would watch over the child, discipline them and teach them from the ages to six to 16. It was like our idea of a nanny or tutor, somebody who was hired by the parents to live in the house and nanny, tutor, discipline this child and the things that mom and dad want, while mom and dad were often away doing mom and dad things. So that’s what that word is.

He’s saying the law served as our pedagogue, as our tutor, as our caretaker, as our teacher, “until Christ came” the age of 16 basically “in order that we may might be justified by faith”. So here he is using kind of a Greek Hellenistic thing to try to get this message across. Verse 25 “But now that faith has come, we are no longer” under this pedagogue, this “under this guardian” Verse 26 “For in Christ Jesus. You are all sons of God”, like sons of Abraham in verse seven “through faith”. And then this is our memory verse for the week. If you guys are memorizing one of these verses each week, this is, I’ll draw a little heart so you can memorize it. Verse 27 “For as many of you were baptized into Christ have put on Christ”, for as many of you who were baptized into Christ have put on Christ, this is an awesome verse.

And anytime there’s a verse on baptism in my Bible, I draw a little water droplet looking thing, put a little reflection in it and I write the word baptism around it to help me remember this. And so it’s a quick scan, like, oh yeah, there’s that verse on baptism. Okay, so here is as many of you who were baptized into Christ, notice he’s making this connection between faith and baptism. If you believe, you get baptized, if you believe and you have children, you get them baptized, baptized them, be baptized if you believe it’s like this. And then thing that happens. And here at St. Mark, we love doing baptisms. This is why we do what we do. We do baptisms over there with sprinkling. We also do baptisms by immersion where we dip you and then you rise out. We baptize all the time. We love baptizing people.

If you haven’t been baptized, come talk to us. Fill out the form on the bottom of our website that says baptism. Fill out that form. If you have a child who hasn’t been baptized, we would love for you to be baptized because of what God does in baptism. Notice there’s two things I want to point out here. As many of you who were baptized half put on Christ, this is passive in Greek, it’s the he passive voice for this verb. We don’t have this in English, so we have to add the words have put on Christ or were baptized. We’re trying to just induce the passive voice into this. So it doesn’t say as many of you who baptized yourself and put on Christ, he says, we’re baptized and have put on Christ. It’s passive because again, who’s doing the verb?

No Christ, this is not us doing the verb. Many of you who were baptized means someone else is baptizing you have put on Christ someone else, put his robes of righteousness on you. Baptism is what God does. Baptism is God’s work. Baptism is what God does for us. You will go to churches, and again, this is just why theology matters, why digging into scripture matters. You will go to churches that say that baptism is something that you do for God. Ask your friends who go to that church or who talk about that way or the pastor at that church. Well then what about Galatians 3 27? Who’s doing the verbs in this verse? Who’s doing the verb God? God is doing the baptizing. God is doing the clothing of you. You are standing there passively being washed, being clothed with the righteous robes of Christ. Baptism is not something you do for God. Baptism is something God does for you. In baptism, he closed you with Christ. Later on Paul, we’ll talk about how you were buried with your sins in baptism, you are raised in baptism, you are marked, you are adopted in baptism. And in all of those things you do nothing in baptism. Who’s doing the verbs? God. And when God does the verbs, that is the gospel. When you do something, that is the law. Do you guys see this? It’s huge. Really? Do you remember our conversation a couple of weeks ago about justification and sanctification?

Sanctification is what we do for God, justification of what God does for us. And then in this whole conversation, you’ll hear a lot of people take this verse out of context. There’s neither slave nor free Jew, nor Greek male nor female. You’re all one in Christ Jesus. If you take it out of context, it sounds like nothing matters. We’re all one in uniform. No, it actually embraces diversity. And he’s saying you’re all one in Christ by faith. So this entire conversation from this whole chapter has been faith versus the law. And now because of faith, Verse 28 “There is neither Jew nor Greek slave nor free”. I’m writing to these gentiles and “there is no male nor female for you are all one in Christ Jesus”. Verse 29 “And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offsprings”. It doesn’t matter your “heirs according to the promise”. That’s Galatians three guys. I told you it was Hedy.

I told you this is a full meal. This is deep, deep stuff. But I hope that it shows you that your faith stands up to scrutiny. I mean this is prophecies thousands of years ago leading up to this. Now in just a moment, we’re going to collect an offering and we’re going to do an application of legalism and show a different way that we could do things. But one thing that I wanted to do to end this message is to do the creed. Every once in a while we’ll say a creed together. This is a statement of what we believe. Notice we’ve had this whole conversation of Abraham believed God, it was credited to him, has righteousness. You are heirs to the promise because you believe. Notice how the creed starts out. The first thing the creed says is I believe you hear the word of God and then you declare, I believe just like Abraham, just like Paul, just like the Galatians.

And we are responding the same way. We hear this word of God and we go, I believe. And because you believe notice in the creed who is doing all the verbs. It’s the gospel. What God is doing, not what you do, it’s what God is doing. So let’s say these words together with this new lens to look at the creed.

APOSTLES CREED

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord who was conceived by the Holy Spirit. He was born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under conscious Pilate. He was crucified. He died and was buried. He descended into hell. And the third day he rose again from the dead. He ascended into heaven and he sits at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty. From then he will come again to judge the living and the dead.

And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy Christian Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life everlasting. Amen.

OFFERING

Who is doing the verbs? God, that’s the gospel. Now we’re going to collect an offering. Legalism would say God commands us to give and he does. God commands us to give a 10th and he does. God wants you to give church. And if you go to a church and you feel the weight of the law and legalism pressing down on you when you give, it’s because you haven’t heard the verbs of what God does. You’re thinking about what you do and not what first God has done. So let remind you that God so loved you, that he gave his son and that his son died in your place and he rose from the grave and now eternal life is yours. He has freed you from an eternity apart from him because you have faith in the works of his son. And so in response to what God has done with the heart of gratitude, I invite you to give. Volunteers, will you please come forward to collect our offering?