in your order of worship for Galatians 3, 7 to 14, and we're going to look at that today, but I'm going to read to you right now, Genesis 12, verses 1 through 3, if you want to follow along in the Bible you can. I'll probably be finished by the time you get there, however. So I say to you, hear the word of God. Now the Lord said to Abraham, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you that make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you, I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Let us pray. Father, I pray this morning that all the families of the earth certainly will be blessed in the person of Jesus, but I pray that all the families in this place might be blessed with the blessing of Abraham. I pray that you would open the eyes of the blind and the ears of the death. I pray that you would be in my head and in my thinking, in my heart and in my understanding and in my mouth and in my speaking. In Christ name we pray these things, amen, and amen. Well, for most of this week, I and two of your elders were in Denver, Colorado at the General Assembly meeting for the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, and if you're not familiar with Presbyterianism, what the General Assembly meeting is, is it's a once a year meeting that they hold in order to punish pastors with ADD, and it was effective, and you can ask the elders who went with me. In reality, it's a meeting once a year of elders and pastors throughout the denominations to take care of business, and those of you who know me at all really, I guess, no, I'm not a big fan of long meetings, especially ones that last a week. And so I'm always looking for, you know, how can I squeeze lemonade out of these lemons? And the highlight of General Assembly for me personally was the plenary speaker. In other words, they have worship services in the morning and evening, and they've usually, someone pretty famous comes in and speak, and the person who spoke this year was a man named Richard Pratt. You've probably heard me mention him before. Richard Pratt is one of the reasons I'm even a pastor at all. I was on my way to graduate school for English, and I met him. He was a professor at Reform Seminary, and I said, I'm going to go to graduate school for English, and he said, you need to come work for me at Reform Seminary for a couple of years, and then go and do the English thing. Well, obviously I never made it there. And Richard taught me lots and lots of things. And among other things, well, let me put it this way, we met one morning, you know, we sort of pulled away from the crowd, and I always like to encourage people with what they've taught me, because it's encouraging to me when someone comes after 10 years, and they say, you know, it's 10 years, and I still tell myself, you know, you've got to preach a gospel to yourself. And so someone like Richard, I want to tell me, Richard, you taught me this, you taught me this, and here's how I'm still using it in the ministry. And he didn't ask me to do this, but I decided this morning to put a shameless plug for Richard up there. He was my teacher at Reform Seminary for years, and then he resigned from me and teacher to do something that everyone said he was crazy for doing and wouldn't work. And now it's probably the most cutting-edge missions gig in the world. I wrote it for you, so you can check it out. Third mill dot org, among other things, every sermon that I've ever preached is there. Don't let that stop you from checking it out, but basically their vision and mission is to bring seminary level education to the whole world for free. Right now the web pages in about five different languages. So I just give it to you to check it out. But the thing that was interesting is when I was thinking even more about what did I learn from Richard, what did I learn from Richard Pratt, and what did I learn best, and the thing that Richard taught me more than anything else is he taught me how to argue. Now if you asked Judy, we'd been married about six months when I got to the seminary. She would tell you I didn't need any help learning how to argue. I was doing fine by myself, but Richard really did teach me how to argue, but he taught me how to argue from a biblical perspective. In other words, how do you defend the faith? How do you argue for what you believe? And he's a master at that. And really, you know, there's all these different programs out there, you know, growing kids, God's way, or God's way for finances, or God's way for this, or God's way for this. Let me give you in a brief, significant God's way to argue. It's from Proverbs 26 verses 4 and 5. And wives, make sure you're right down verse 4 because verse 4 starts by saying don't answer a fool according to his following. You don't do it. Otherwise you'll become like him. But then very next verse, verse 5 says answer a fool according to his following. Otherwise you'll become wise in his own eyes. And everything that I do is built on that foundation. Let me tell you how it works. For example, as my wife affectionately calls it woodworking camp last week. And one day at lunch, I was sitting around my work bench and what do you know I ended up sitting around sharing the gospel with everyone in the class. And one of the guys, very sweet guy at some point said, I don't believe, I don't even think there is a God. Now, what is your instinct want to do? You want to start proving that there is a God, right? You want to say, well, there is, you know, there's all these perks that there's a God that, well, the Proverbs 26 forces don't answer a fool according to his following. In other words, don't answer him according to his presuppositions, answer him according to your presuppositions first. And so what I did was I said, well, you know, a, I believe there is a God and b, he's revealed himself in the Bible. That's what I'm starting from. Now you move on to verse five. Help me out with something here. Can you prove that there's not a God? Well, no, he can't prove a negative. That's what I thought. Okay. Well, you answered them according to their own worldviews so they don't become, you know, the wise and their own eyes. Why am I telling you all this? Because I was reading through this passage this week, during our meetings. And it hit me that the apostle Paul is doing exactly that in chapter three of Galatians. In other words, he's making an argument for the gospel. And the first thing he does is he does not answer the Judaizers or the false teachers according to their folly. But then he does answer them according to their folly and what we're going to look at today. In other words, he doesn't answer them according to their presuppositions and then he does answer them according to their presuppositions. And so if you remember it last week, what we looked at was Galatians three, one through five. And apparently, well, let's do this. Apparently the Judaizers had come in and had said you need to not only trust Jesus, but you need to trust Jesus and be circumcised. And the Galatians said, well, you know, Paul never told us to be circumcised. And then the Galatians and the Judaizers, the false teachers would say, have you guys ever heard of Abraham? And they say, yeah, yeah, we heard Abraham. In fact, yeah, Paul taught us a little jingle, didn't he? Well, how'd it go? Father Abraham had many sons. Many sons had Father Abraham. I am one of them and so are you. So let's just praise the Lord. That it? That's it, right? And the Judaizers said, Paul got the song wrong. Really, how's it going? Father Abraham had many sons. Many sons had Father Abraham. I am one of them, but you are not, unless your men get caught, you want to be a child of Abraham, you've got to get circumcised. Apparently, that's what they taught. And so that's what Paul's addressing. And so instead of going right to their presuppositions about Abraham, the first thing he does is address them in a different way. And that's what we looked at last week. He addresses the issue from experience. He says, how did you even get here? How did you become a Christian? Did you become a Christian through works of the law or through the work of the spirit? The God who does miracles among you, does he do the miracles because of works of the law or because of his spirit? All these rhetorical questions. He has six of them. And the answer every time is spirit, I guess. And he says, the works of the law have no place. They have no place here. And then in verse six, he bridges us to Abraham. So he goes from not talking about what they have talked about to directly addressing what they have talked about. That's what we're going to look at three things this morning. We're going to look at, number one, we're going to look at the blessing of Abraham. Second thing we're going to look at is the curse of the law. And the third thing we'll look at is the great exchange. So after Paul talked about their experience of the gospel, look at it in verse six. I don't know if I have it printed for you, but he says just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Well, he's talking about how did they receive the spirit. And in other words, he says, this, he who supplied the spirit to you and works 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. So now Paul is doing something very interesting because what he's going to do is he's going to use the law, the Old Testament law to show the Galatians that righteousness can come only by faith. In other words, the very thing that the Judaizers are telling people to believe in order to be justified says that it doesn't work that way and Paul's going to show them. And one thing to keep in mind is that when the Jewish people talked about the law, the law included everything from Genesis to Deuteronomy, including the stories. It wasn't just the law. So when he tells talks about Abraham, Paul is quoting to them the law. And what does the law say about Abraham? Well, the law says among other things that if you want to be right with God, at some point you need to become what's known as a son of Abraham. You need to have the blessing of Abraham. You see what the Judaizers were probably doing is they were quoting Genesis 17 and Genesis 17 is where God gave Abraham the covenants of circumcision. And it says, you don't get circumcised, you gave God off, you're out of the covenant community. And they said, see, it says right there in Genesis 17. Well, what Paul does is he says, we're going to go back a little bit further. And he takes him back to Genesis 15. And remember in Genesis 15, what happened is that God came to Abraham who was childless and his wife was 100 years old and barren. And he said, come outside, come out here, you got to see something. He showed all the stars of the sky. And he says, see those stars. Your descendants would be more numerous in those stars. Look to the north and the south and the east of the west, how far can you see? Everything is going to be numerous. And remember, scripture says that Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. In other words, how was Abraham counted righteous before God? Was it because he obeyed the law? He couldn't have. The law wouldn't come for another 430 years. Now some people tried to say Abraham was so obedient that he obeyed the law even before it was written, but that's a no go. Was it because Abraham was circumcised that God counted him righteous? It couldn't be. He didn't get circumcised till chapter 17. He was counted righteous in chapter 15. So Paul immediately begins by saying, you guys are telling people they need to be sons of Abraham and they do. The question is how do you become a son of Abraham? The question is what constitutes a child of Abraham? Is it a physical thing or is it a spiritual thing? Is it by faith or is it by works of the law? And in some senses it is an extremely pertinent question with regard to evangelism because there are at least two groups of people who claim sonship to Abraham and that's their claim to fame. One is currently still Jewish people but also is Muslims. Muslims would say they are children of Abraham according to the flesh. Remember Isaac was a child of promise and Ishmael was the one from whom the Muslim religion would come. And so the question for the Jew and the Muslim and the Christian because a lot of Christians believe that being a child of Abraham according to the flesh is somehow more important than a child of Abraham according to the spirit. It's a pertinent question. So what is it? Well, the first thing you got to realize is how Abraham was justified. Abraham was justified by faith and faith alone. Paul says that shows it. But then Paul, you know, the great thing about Paul and the great thing about someone who knows how to argue well is he's not just going to tell him that but he's going to keep pushing him in. He's going to keep digging. And so he says, you know, like chapter 15 is good. We know that Abraham was justified by faith. He was counted right just because of his belief. Let's go back to Janet to chapter 12 of Genesis, which I read for you. And remember in chapter 12 of Genesis, God goes to a Gentile named Abraham to a pagan named Abraham. The Jews did not exist and he calls him unto himself and says, I want you to go into another land. He says, I want you to go to a land. I will show you and I will bless you and I will make your name great and I will give you land and do you remember the last thing he said because Paul says it here. Let me read to verses seven through nine. He says, know them that it is those of faith who are sons of Abraham and the scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preach to gospel beforehand to Abraham saying, in you shall all nations be blessed. So then those who are faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. So the first thing you have to establish is how do you become a child of Abraham? You become a child of Abraham by faith. So if you are a child of Abraham by faith and who is included in that and Paul does something interesting because he takes the law and he says from the very beginning, the plan with Abraham, the father of the Jews was for what? For all the families of the earth, Paul says that God foresees, scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, said to Abraham, in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. In other words, Galatians, and other words of Presbyverians, that the plan from the very beginning was not that there would be a plan for the Jewish people and then there would be a plan B for Gentiles from the very beginning before there was a Jewish people. The plan was that all the families of the earth, Jew and Gentile would be justified one way that they would come in through one place and that would be through the blessing of Abraham, which we'll talk about what exactly that is later. And it even goes back further than that. My friend Richard preached at the General Assembly on Genesis 1, 26, or 28. Remember what Genesis 1, 26, or 28 says that it's where God tells Adam and Eve be fruitful and multiply and have dominion over all the earth. In other words, the goal from the very beginning of creation is that creation would be filled with the image of God. And all the way back to Adam and Eve, there was no Jew nor Gentile. That's a later thing. And so Paul says, how do you become a child of Abraham? It's by faith who can become a child of Abraham? Anybody. In fact, the scripture foresaw that the Gentiles from the very beginning, God, they were part of God's plan. I have a confession to make during General Assembly 1 night. I hijacked the elders and skipped the meeting. I went to see a movie and forgive me. And we saw the 18, which I can't recommend because it's about in the movie they're all ex-rangers. And I couldn't recommend it because while the stunts and things were not believable, their language was believable for rangers. So don't do it too much cussing in it. But remember, if you used to watch the 18, if you're old enough to have seen it, or if you have, I guess, TV land, remember at the end of every episode, what does Hannibal Smith say? He'd light up that cigar and say, I love it when a plan comes together. And what Paul is saying here is that you, Galatians, are the product of God's plan coming together. It looked crazy. It looks like it would never happen in yet just like the 18, against all odds, against everything going crazy and everything going wrong. At the end of the day, the good guy wins and Paul says, Galatians, you are sons and daughters of Abraham by faith. In fact, men and women, you're all sons of Abraham. And that's not a gender thing. That's a status thing. Eventually in Galatians, we're going to talk about the sun shift. You see, in the ancient Near East, in Abraham's day, it was a patriarchal society. So what it meant to be a sun was that you got everything and what it meant to be a woman is that you got nothing. I'm sorry about that. But what Paul is saying is those who have faith, whether you are male or female, become sons, and that's a status thing. That's not a gender thing. In other words, you now have air, you are now an air and have a right to everything that Jesus does as a son of God, that you're an air to God's kingdom. So what's the last verse, say, in 9? It says, he says, so then those who are faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. So Paul lays it out. If you want to, if you want to have the blessing of Abraham, you have to have the same kind of faith as Abraham. And he says, you can have that or you can have a curse. He draws this thick black line between faith and between works. And so on one hand, you can either have the blessing of Abraham or you can have the curse of the law. What does he say about the curse of the law? Look at verse 10, he says, for all who rely on works of the law are under a curse for it is written. The curse should be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. I almost say, you know, it's one of those kind of things, we almost feel like what don't you understand about that?
All those who rely on works of the law are under a curse. And then I'll read it again, he says, for it is written curse to be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. Now, what's he getting out there? That's from Deuteronomy 27, by the way. Remember, Paul is quoting the law to show them that the law says it's not about the law. Imagine your your regulation, Christian, and Paul came through and said, trust Jesus, have faith in Jesus, repent to be baptized, and that's all you have to do. You don't have to be circumcised in order to be saved, you don't have to obey the law of Moses in order to be saved. And then these other teachers came in and say, oh yeah, you do. If you really want to, Jesus is good, but you need to also be circumcised. And you're sort of caught between, you know, what Paul said, we didn't have to. And then these guys, I imagine they were very persuasive or Paul wouldn't have thought he had to write about him or saying, you know, you have to do it. And Paul writes them and says, you know what, for all of you who are considering being justified by works of the law, let me remind you, you don't get to pick which laws you obey and which you don't. If you are going to rely on works of the law in order to be justified, you've got to take the whole shoot and match or nothing. He says, he says, he cursed everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. Every single thing written in the book of the law, if that's what you're going to choose is your responsibility. Now here's part of the problem. Many of you have been in Sunday school classes with me where we've done this thing called the tongue exercise, which I learned from Sunship Ministries. And the tongue exercise is just this. It's to show you how wicked you are, to be honest with you. I think I told you before I did it with a guy when I was at Eli Lilly who cussed a lot and he lasted about five minutes. But the tongue exercise is just this. You take a whole week and during that week, your job is to do two things. On one hand, it's to not cuss, but it's also not to complain, not to be negative, not to be pessimistic, not to run people down, not to gossip. You're not to do all the negative things that we do with the tongue. Most people last, by the time they get home from church. The positive side of that, however, is you're to use your tongue positively to bless people, to tell people about Jesus, to encourage people, that there are also a lot of positive things commanded about the tongue. And so at the end of a week, people come back and you say, how'd you do? And everyone's just utterly depressed because most people, you can't make it out of church before, before, before blowing it. And every now and then, someone, some Yahoo will say, you know, I, I did, I did fine. How'd you do fine? I shouldn't talk. But think about it. The law has both negative demands and positive demands. So if you don't talk, you did okay with the negative demands. But if you don't talk, you fail on the bless, encourage, tell people about Jesus, all these other things. So no matter what you do, you end up failing. And Paul wants to remind the Galatians, he wants to remind us, any of you who want to rely on works of the law, it's everything. It's not just the things you've chosen. It's just not worship style. Right? If we just had the right worship style, God would love you or if you just had the right this, God would care about you. Or if you did the right thing, it's everything that is written in the book of the law because if you don't do it, if you rely on it, you're under a curse. How many are willing to stand up and say, I am able at willing and ready to obey all of the negative things about the law and all the positive things on the law? I have what it takes. Crickets. That's what I thought. We don't. And Paul reminds them, you know, he takes you down and then the next thing he reminds us is from Habakkuk. He says, the righteous shall live by faith. And then what's he say after that? He quotes Leviticus. He says that the law is not a faith, rather the one who does them shall live by them. In other words, if you want to say that the law is the most important thing, then you will be judged by the law. If you want to say that faith is the thing, then you will be judged by faith. But now here is a problem. It's the law important. The law is very important. Are you and I responsible for obeying it? Have we this? Yeah, we have. So what's the deal? If I want to have faith, I can become a son of Abraham. If I want to try and be justified or counterrighteous by works of the law, I'm cursed. Well, how do I become one of the first things? A son of Abraham? How do I Bruce? We get that blessing of Abraham. You get it the same way that Abraham did, but you get it by putting your faith in something a little bit more specific. Abraham just put in his faith in the promise of Messiah. We on the other hand are given Messiah. And that's where Paul goes next. He takes us right to Jesus. You can either have faith or you can have curse or you can have faith in Jesus. Look at what he says at the end. In verse 13, he says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, where it is written. Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree.
Let me talk about what's quoted there. That's from Deuteronomy 21, 23. In the Old Testament, basically, it says that if someone is hung on a tree after they're executed as a criminal, if you really want to stick it to them, leave them up there overnight. Because if someone is left hanging on a tree overnight, they are to be considered cursed. So that's what the law says. And it's interesting when you start to research. I was reading about this and thinking about a general assembly and I'm a shouting because I thought it was so cool. As you research it and follow it through history by the time of when the Romans oppressed the Jews, the Jews uniformly had come to interpret that verse, that specific verse in light of being crucified. So in other words, if you could either be, if you've got hung on a tree, sort of like an old west or if you were impaled on a stake, you know, all of Vlad the impaler, if you're familiar with Dracula history, or you could be crucified. And as soon as I read that, everything just started clicking in my little ABD brain. What is why when Jesus was before Pilate and heard, what did the crowd yell? What were they instigated by the religious people to yell? They didn't say, they behead him. They didn't say beat him to death. They didn't say electrocute him. They didn't have it then. But you know what I mean. Instead, what did they say? Crucify him. Crucify him. Why? Because they not only wanted Jesus dead and out of their hair, they wanted to make sure he stayed dead. They not only did they want to make sure they stayed dead, but they wanted to make sure that when they killed him, that he would be cursed by God and they would never have to deal with him again. Crucify him. Don't beat him. Don't behead him. We want him hung on a tree because that is where he will be cursed. If they only knew, if they only knew how right they were, they were right. Jesus was hung on a tree and Jesus not, he was so cursed and he was so identified with curse that it says he became a curse. But the key words in this passage, Martin Luther say they were key in the whole Bible. He became a curse for us. Jesus didn't do anything wrong. He lived the perfect life. He lived according to the works of the law and therefore he was not under a curse. And so when he went to the cross, he bore someone else's curse. That's the great exchange. The Jesus bore the curse that you and I deserve. And he became a curse. And so that those who have faith not only become sons of Abraham, but they received the promised spirit. Remember Acts chapter two where Peter quotes Joel chapter two and God says at the end, at the last days when when when everything is getting ready to be culminated, I will pour out my spirit on who all flesh, not some flesh, not just Jews. I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. And all of this blessing comes through the cursing of another. The Jesus was cursed in order that we might be blessed. You know, finished with this, I read a great story this week about Kevin Bacon. It's an interview a reporter did shortly after the movie Footloose. And if you've not seen the movie Footloose, it's about 20 or 30 years old now. It's about religious people who don't like dancing and stuff. So some of you might want to check it out, be honest with you. I'm just saying. But he's doing this interview and he tells the story of a conversation he had with a six year old son. And his six year old son was asking about the movie Footloose. And he said, Dad, how did you do all that like crazy, like jump around and dancing? And he told that he said, I told my son, he's a wide didn't. There's a stunt person did that. And he said, you know that part where you were swinging on the bars, like what was that like? And he told his son, and he said, man, that was stunt person too. And he said, you know, the time of like in the movie when you were like, dude, backflips across the stage, what was that like? And he says, some person son. And his six year old son said, Dad, then what in the world did you do? And Bacon's response brought tears to my eyes. I received all the glory. Someone else did all the work, and I get all the glory. If you don't understand the gospel, that's it right there. Someone else has done all the work. His name is Jesus. Jesus did the works of the law that you could never do. Jesus bore the curse that you could never bear. And if you're willing to put your faith in him, some of you for the first time, some of you need to do it every day. I do. You receive God's blessing. You have God's spirit. And the question is, do you? Have you put your faith in Jesus? Do you trust him or you continually rely on your own works? Think about that. Let me pray. Father, I will pray that you would open our eyes to see the blessing of Abraham, to see the fact that Jesus has been cursed, that he who knew no sin became sin so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Father, we thank you. And gross name, amen, amen.