A PROMISE IS A PROMISE
Galatians 3:15-18
S: God’s Faithfulness
Th: Grace-Full Living
Pr: WE CAN TRUST GOD.
?: Why?
KW: Reasons
TS: We will find in our study of Galatians 3:15-18 three reasons that explain why we can trust God.
The _____ reason that explains why we can trust God is…
I. HE PROMISES BLESSING (15-16).
II. HE FULFILLS THE PROMISE (16).
III. HE ACTS CONSISTENTLY (17-18).
RMBC 6/18/00 AM
INTRODUCTION:
ILL Notebook: Pastor (good news…bad news)
You know, for pastors, ministry is a series of good news and bad news. Listen to these scenarios:
Good news: You baptized seven people today in the river.
Bad news: You lost two of them in the swift current.
Good news: The Women’s ministry voted to send you a get-well card.
Bad news: The vote passed 21-20.
Good news: The Deacons accepted your job description the way you wrote it.
Bad news: They were so inspired by it, they formed a search committee to find somebody capable of filling the position.
Good news: Mrs. Jones is wild about your sermons.
Bad news: Mrs. Jones is also wild about soap operas, the “Gong show” and the “Texas Chain Saw Massacre.”
Good news: The women’s softball team finally won a game.
Bad news: They beat your men’s softball team.
Good news: Church attendance rose dramatically the last three weeks.
Bad news: You were on vacation.
Good news: Your deacons want to send you to Holy Land.
Bad news: They are stalling until the next war.
1. Have you ever wondered where you stood with someone?
If you were the pastor at that church, you would have to wonder, wouldn’t you?
ILL Personal: Al Graffam visiting (where do we stand?)
Back when we were in the early process with the church here, Al G. came to visit us in Pennsylvania. We had him over for dinner and we were having a great time talking about the church and ministry. At one point in time, I finally asked, “Al, where do we stand with Randall?” And he said, “Don’t you know? You’re are number one guy!”
That’s what I needed to know!
We like to know where we are in the relationship.
Is this something that is going to go on?
Or are the prospects not so good?
1. Where we stand with God is of utmost importance.
It is, after all, a matter of eternity.
Is God smiling and happy when we are doing it His way, but frowning and displeased when we disobey?
Is it true that we need to obey God so that He will continue to love us?
Is it true that when things are going well, God is pleased with us?
TRANSITION:
This, actually, is very natural thinking.
In fact, it gives us insight into this letter written to the Galatian church.
It helps us understand the context to which Paul was writing.
For the context was…
1. Context: The Judaizers had infiltrated the Galatian church.
The Judaizers were a group of very conservative “Christians” who had come into the church after Paul had left and contradicted his teaching.
They were taking what Paul said, and twisted it.
Paul was angry at their deceptive methods and considered them an extension of Judaism’s Pharisees.
In fact, he called their gospel, no gospel at all.
1. They were teaching a form of legalism that equates works with faith.
The people in Galatia were told that the way to be right with God was to believe in Jesus and follow the right set of rules.
They were bewitched into thinking that you start the Christian life by faith, but you complete yourself by works.
The Spirit was sort of a booster rocket to get you going, but then your own engines kick in and the flesh completes what the Spirit began.
Paul considered this impossible and ludicrous.
This nullifies grace and dishonors Christ.
For not only is justification by faith, so also is our sanctification (our Christian growth).
In the passage that we considered last week, Paul argued that the same gospel that God communicated to Abraham was the same gospel he was proclaiming.
He was no innovator.
He was not making up something new.
In the next section of Scripture, to the end of the chapter (which we will finish next week), Paul finishes off the Judaizer argument.
Since he has proven that they cannot derive support from Abraham, he now anticipated their appeal to Moses.
1. They argued that the law was added to make clear what our part is in the process.
The Judaizer’s anticipated argument probably would have been something like this:
“Well, Paul, we don’t agree with you about Abraham; we think it was his works that showed him worthy of the promised blessing.
But let’s grant you your point that Abraham was justified by faith.
Maybe that’s the way God wanted to start Israel’s history.
But there is no way you can escape the fact that 430 years after Abraham, God thought it necessary to add the law through Moses at Mt. Sinai.
And if the law, with its six hundred plus commandments, does not teach that our inheritance comes on the basis of works, what does it teach?
When we tell Galatian believers who have begun with faith to exert their own efforts now to complete their sanctification through works of law, we are doing just what God did.
He gave our people a promise through Abraham which, you say, was received by faith, and then he added the law to make clear what our part in the process is.”
Now that sounds like a pretty tight argument, doesn’t it?
The Judaizers were saying, in effect, that this teaching protected the church from lawlessness.
People were not free to do as they pleased.
There was a code of conduct that must be followed.
Again, this is where the distinction that we have made the last couple of weeks, needs to be made between the “law-oriented” person and the “grace-oriented” person.
The “law-oriented” person follows the rules because he must.
The ”grace-oriented” person, however, is motivated to obey because he wants to.
More importantly, Paul has been arguing against this because thinking that we can be right with God by being good is a denial of our own salvation experience, a denial of Scripture, and now, a denial of God’s own gracious character!
But let us admit this…
1. The message of “grace alone” does sound dangerous.
All this talk about freedom can be chaotic.
Now, Paul is going to clear up what this freedom looks like in chapters 5 and 6, so we will have to wait till then to get that clearer picture.
But I did find comfort from an English stalwart of the faith, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones…
ILL Lloyd-Jones quote
There is thus clearly a sense in which the message of “justification by faith only” can be dangerous, and likewise with the message that salvation is entirely of grace…
I would say to all preachers: If you preaching of salvation has not been misunderstood in that way, then you had better examine your sermons again, and you had better make sure that you really are preaching the salvation that is offered in the New Testament to the ungodly, to the sinners those whose who are enemies of God. There is this kind of dangerous element about the true presentation of the doctrine of salvation.
When I read that, I took comfort.
For we must get the gospel right.
For I want to assure you that though it may make sense to you that law is important and ought to be done, that your faith is secure, not in your works, but in Christ.
You see…
1. WE CAN TRUST GOD.
He is absolutely trustworthy.
He will do what He says.
So…
1. We will find in our study of Galatians 3:15-18 three reasons that explain why we can trust God.
(15) Brothers, let me take an example from everyday life. Just as no one can set aside or add to a human covenant that has been duly established, so it is in this case. (16) The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. The Scripture does not say "and to seeds," meaning many people, but "and to your seed," meaning one person, who is Christ. (17) What I mean is this: The law, introduced 430 years later, does not set aside the covenant previously established by God and thus do away with the promise. (18) For if the inheritance depends on the law, then it no longer depends on a promise; but God in his grace gave it to Abraham through a promise.
OUR STUDY:
I. The first reason that explains why we can trust God is HE PROMISES BLESSING (15-16).
Paul begins this part of the argument by demonstrating that…
1. There were no legal grounds for overturning the covenant.
There were Roman, Greek and Jewish laws under which this statement was precisely accurate.
There were kinds of testaments, dispositions of property, inheritance arrangements and oaths that could not be cancelled or changed by addition.
In the same way today, when someone dies, the will is to be honored and not changed.
1. So then, the Mosaic Law can not be an annulment or an alteration of the Abrahamic covenant.
Paul is saying that the agreement God made with Abraham cannot be overturned.
It cannot be set aside or rendered ineffectual.
The covenant with Abraham was unconditional, and then was duly ratified by Abraham through the sign and seal of circumcision.
This showed that there were no legal grounds for overturning it.
ILL Notebook: Change (stories are still in them)
A daughter was visiting her mother’s home. They were sitting together in the living room talking and watching television. Facing a bookcase that had been in the same spot since she was a child, the daughter let her eyes wander over familiar volumes, many of which now had faded covers and frayed bindings. “These books look so sad,” she remarked. “Maybe we should go through them and toss some.” Her mother stood up and went over to the shelves. She took down several books, tuned a few pages and put them back. Then she returned to her chair and quietly said, “They are just fine. The stories are still in them.”
Just as the stories were still good, in the same way, so was God’s working with Abraham.
It was still good.
It still counted.
1. God’s promise of blessing to Abraham is fully intact.
It was to the Galatians.
And so it is to us as well.
I. The second reason that explains why we can trust God is HE FULFILLS THE PROMISE (16).
ILL Notebook: Jesus (carpenter)
Glenn, a weekend woodworker, cut off the tips of his thumb and index finger while using a table saw. The doctor bandaged his wounds and immediately sent him to a hand surgeon, whom Glenn discovered was a Christian. After the surgeon stitched Glenn’s fingers, he asked, “Do you get a lot of woodworkers in here?” “Sure do,” the doctor answered with a chuckle. “I only know of one Carpenter who was sharper than all his tools.”
You see, it is about Jesus!
1. The promise made to Abraham and to his offspring was only fulfilled in Christ.
As we have noted before, Paul, as a Pharisee was extremely well read in what we know as the Old Testament.
And when Paul was introduced to Jesus, he saw those writings the way they are supposed to seen.
Paul understands the context of the “Old Testament” is fulfilled in Jesus.
So, when it comes to God’s promise to Abraham, Paul saw that the context was more than just Abraham.
The promise was made not only to Abraham, but also to his seed, "meaning one person, namely, the Lord Jesus Christ."
1. It is Jesus, Israel’s promised Messiah, who extends the promise to His own seed.
The distinction Paul makes here was certainly not obvious to Abraham himself, who was looking for his own children as the fulfillment of the promise.
Paul interprets this passage from Genesis as, he argues, the entire Bible has to be interpreted, in light of God making himself known ultimately through Jesus Christ.
The whole Bible is Christ-centered.
All Scripture is ultimately about Jesus Christ.
And so Paul argues here that when God made those promises to Abraham, what he was really talking about was Jesus Christ, the distant offspring of Abraham through whom all the nations of the world would be blessed.
Our relationship with God is based on promise because ultimately, Jesus himself is the fulfillment of all of God’s promises for us.
He is our inheritance.
He is the blessing to all the nations of the world.
So this is what makes us the true children of Abraham.
I. The third reason that explains why we can trust God is HE ACTS CONSISTENTLY (17-18).
1. Ultimately, God has the same purpose in mind with both Abraham and Moses.
Whether we are speaking of Abraham or Moses, it does not matter.
The intention is the same.
They work together for the same purpose.
But this has to be clear.
The law, coming 430 years later, cannot change the basic nature of the covenant.
Keeping the law does not earn anyone anything.
We don’t do God any favors by doing what we are supposed to do in the first place.
Our inheritance is not earned.
It is given.
1. We are given an inheritance through faith, not the law.
Paul informs the Judaizers that the inheritance is received through faith alone, since the promise is contrary to their motivation to obey the Law of Moses.
God, in His grace, gave this promise to Abraham, who received it through faith alone.
Since Abraham was justified by faith in God’s promise, so the “men of faith” are the true children of Abraham and will inherit Abraham’s blessing.
All of this comes to pass through the means of faith and not by works!
APPLICATION:
ILL Notebook: Unbelief (Tupperware party)
One evening after dinner, five-year-old Brian noticed that his mother had gone out. In answer to his questions, his father told him, “Mommy is at a Tupperware party.” This explanation satisfied him for only a moment. Puzzled, he asked, “What’s a Tupperware party, Dad?” The Dad figured a simple explanation would be the best approach. “Well, Brian, at a Tupperware party, a bunch of ladies sit around and sell plastic bowls to each other.” Brian nodded, indicating that he understood this curious pastime. Then he burst into laughter. “Come on, Dad,” he said. “What is it really?”
Well, in the same way that Brian had a hard time accepting that women would go to such a party, the same kind of disbelief exists today about God’s way of grace.
For…
1. The only way to attain God’s blessing is to trust Him for His grace.
It is our inclination to trust what we do.
The tendency to depend on what I can do to earn a good spot is thoroughly ingrained into our system.
But until we come to grips with the hopelessness of our effort, there is no salvation for us.
Until we come to believe that even our Christian growth is dependent on the Holy Spirit in us, we find no blessing.
This does not mean that we do not act on what we know to be the truth.
That is a misinterpretation of our freedom.
We are free to do what is right by the power of the Holy Spirit.
1. The faith which saves taps into God’s power so that obedience results.
We do what is good because we want to.
This, again, is grace-orientation.
Our hearts are motivated to service because of gratitude.
Because the Spirit is the fulfillment of the promise, we are not dependent on the legalistic works of law for salvation or sanctification.
Instead, we are Spirit-empowered.
This being true, we can conclude that…
1. God is trustworthy; what He says He will do for you, He will do.
You do not need to trust in yourself.
Instead, find yourself fully dependent on God Himself, and you will find the grace to make it through.
BENEDICTION: [Counselors are ]
Trust God…He promises to bless you through the seed of Abraham; salvation is yours that is received through faith.
Trust God…Because He has kept His promise and sent His Son, not to condemn the world, but to save the world through Jesus.
Trust God…For throughout history He has been consistent, for His heartbeat has been the same from the beginning of time; He desires our companionship for eternity; rejoice that you are His pride and joy.
Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy—to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.
