Galatians Week 7 • Galatians 3:15-25

Show Notes

Sunday, February 16th • Beau Bradberry

"Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith." — Galatians 3:23-24

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Creators and Guests

Host

Beau Bradberry

Senior Pastor

What is Willow Ridge Sermons?

Sermon audio from Sunday services at Willow Ridge Church.

Some people would say it's only, some people would say that's too many, but I've only had

two traffic tickets.

The second one came, I was headed up to Clemson, South Carolina of all places, and I got caught

for going 59 into 45 outside of Abbeville, South Carolina.

Pretty convinced I'm the only person that was on that road that day, so I was getting

the ticket, right?

They weren't letting me slide on that one.

But the first ticket that I got, I was working at a sporting goods store in North Augusta

and we had to park toward the backside, a back end of the parking lot.

And we shared a parking lot with the Kmart that was there.

And so where I was parked, I could see the front of my little 1992 Mitsubishi Mighty Max.

It was the truck that I had.

And so I came towards the front of it and I got in and I began to drive back to my house.

I hit Bergen Road.

I'm at least two miles away from the entrance of our neighborhood.

And in my rear view mirror, I see the lights no one wants to see.

I see the blue lights flashing.

I glance down, I'm going 45 miles an hour.

I remembered back to the stop sign that was previously there and I remember coming to a full stop as I got there.

I realized that there's even these curves that you've got to go through on this road and I didn't go too fast because it had been raining out.

And so I was clueless as to the reason why and I pulled over.

And the police officer came around and he said, do you know that you have a broken taillight?

And I said, no, sir, I didn't know that.

I didn't know that I had a broken taillight.

And here he is looking at this 17, 18 year old and he said, how can you not know that?

I said, sir, I have no clue.

But I did not know that I had a broken taillight.

And so I told him where I had been that night.

I told him where I was headed.

I had been at work.

I'm headed home.

I live with my parents.

This is where I'm at.

And pleaded with him to show grace and kindness and mercy.

And he didn't.

And he wrote me a ticket.

I went home and told my dad what had happened.

And we hopped in his truck and we went back to the parking lot.

And sure enough, in the parking space where I'd parked, someone had bumped into the back of my truck and broken the taillight.

Here's the deal.

I had good reason.

It wasn't my fault.

But in the reality was, in that moment, I had broken the law.

Even though that I thought, even though that I didn't know,

even though I could list all of the reasons why I shouldn't have gotten the ticket.

Now, I should have gotten the ticket for going 59 into 45.

There was no excuse for that.

But I shouldn't have gotten it.

I had broken the law because the law says you can't operate a car with the back taillight broken.

So I deserve the ticket.

You see, getting a driver's license gave me freedom.

It gave me freedom to drive.

It gave me freedom to go.

It gave me freedom to do anything that I wanted to do under the authority of the law.

As we've been talking about understanding the law, understanding our freedom, understanding the grace that we have in Christ,

we have to be careful that we don't come to a mindset as Christians that we can do whatever we want to.

And so today, what we want to look at is the answer to this question.

That as Christians, as believers, as followers of Christ, what is my relationship to God's law?

What is my relationship?

What is your relationship to God's law?

If I'm free, then what do I do with the rules?

If it's about faith to be saved and faith to grow, which is what I've preached, which is what God's word says,

then what do I do with the standard?

What do I do with God's law in my life?

And I think this is a hard one for us as we practically play this out in our life on a day-to-day basis.

If I am forgiven for sin's past, if I am forgiven for sin's present,

and if in only a way that our powerful God works,

if I am already standing in complete forgiveness,

even in future sins, then what is my relationship with God's law?

That's something we have to wrestle with.

That's something that you and I have to begin to understand and come to grips with.

It's yes, we have been forgiven.

Yes, we have been forgiven fully.

Yes, nothing can separate us from the love of the Father.

Yes, we cannot earn it.

Yes, in our own ability, we even can't grow in it.

It all happens through faith.

Then what is my relationship to God's law?

Well, Paul's going to write about this starting in Galatians chapter 3.

Let's start reading.

We're going to read verses 15 through 25.

He says this,

Notice this in verse 17.

This is going to be important for us.

This is what I mean.

The law, which came 430 years afterwards,

does not annul the covenant previously ratified by God

so as to make the promise void.

For if the inheritance comes by law,

it no longer comes by promise,

but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.

Why then the law?

It was added because of transgressions

until the offspring should come to whom the promise

had been made,

and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.

Now, the intermediary implies more than one,

but God is one.

Is the law then contrary to the promises of God?

Certainly not.

For if a law had been given that could give life,

then righteousness would indeed be by the law.

But scripture imprisoned everything under sin so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

Now, before faith came, we were held captive under the law,

imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.

So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith.

So now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.

And so Paul recaps, and then he moves forward.

He recaps about us understanding our relationship to the law.

And he goes into understanding for explaining to us the reminder of how the promise and the law go together.

And he puts in here in verse 17 what we pointed out,

that the promise came 430 years before the law.

And so it's important for us to know that in the timeline of how God sets things into motion

is that the promise precedes the law.

What Paul does here in verse 15 is he gives an illustration of a will.

And I want you to think of a will in terms of a covenant.

And what he says is when a will or a covenant is made,

external circumstances do not change what was made in the promise of the will.

So once the legal document, once the covenant has been made,

once it has been set, once it has been legally binding,

then the outside circumstances that may affect everything else do not affect what is there.

And so he says this is the context in which the promise was given.

And so all of the things that have happened on the outside of the promise,

all of the other things that have taken place doesn't change the truth,

doesn't change the hope, doesn't change the joy of the promise.

And so I want to remind ourselves this morning of the promise.

I'm going to read in Genesis 15, starting in verse 1.

God's interaction with Abram, who will become Abraham, says this,

after these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision.

Fear not, Abram, I am your shield.

Your reward shall be very great.

But Abram said, O Lord God, what will you give me?

For I continue childless.

God's told him that he's going to have a child, going to have a son.

And the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus.

And Abram said, Behold, you have given me no offspring, and the member of my household will be my heir.

This isn't what God had told him.

And he's coming to God with questions, with concern, with faith.

And behold, the word of the Lord came to him.

This man shall not be your heir.

Your very own son shall be your heir.

And he brought him outside and said, Look toward heaven, and number the stars.

If you were able to number them, then he said to him, So shall your offspring be.

And he, Abram, Abraham, believed the Lord, and it was counted to him as righteousness.

So God comes to him, Abraham comes to him, and says, Look, I don't have a son.

My heir will be my servant.

You told me that this promise is based in and is rooted in the fact that I will have an heir.

And God takes him outside, shows him all the stars in the sky, and says, From you, this will be your lineage.

And so what we see is that from the line of Abram that there will be a Savior, and from Abram's line will come the Savior of the world.

And so for this now to not happen, for the Savior to not come from Abram, would mean that God would have to change his mind.

That God would have to move away from what he promised, and that's not what God does.

So promise and law become mutually exclusive.

So God's going to do something amazing in Genesis 15.

Abraham, later on in Genesis 15, will ask this question to God.

How do I know?

How do I know that I will obtain this covenant?

How do I know, God, that you will see this through?

How do I know that this will not be broken?

And God answers him.

Genesis 15, verse 9.

God said to him, Bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle dove, and a young pigeon.

In verse 10, he brought him all these.

Abram cut them in half and laid each half over against the other, but he did not cut the birds in half.

So God tells him, Go bring me these animals.

Abraham does it, and then Abraham immediately knows what God is doing, and Abraham jumps into action.

What Abraham does is he takes all of these animals, and he cuts them in half.

And he creates before him a path.

So you have half and half and half and half, and there's a path that goes through the middle of them.

And what Abraham is doing is he is establishing in his culture what was done to establish a covenant.

And when two individuals established a covenant between each other, they would get these animals, they would cut them in half, they would make a path.

And then in a ceremony, the two individuals in the covenant would both walk through the path, symbolizing what they are agreeing to.

And that if they break the covenant, then what should happen to them is what happens to these animals.

So Abraham does what he's supposed to do.

Abraham gets the animals.

He cuts them in half.

He lays them out.

He makes them into a path.

But then the Bible tells us that Abraham fell into a deep sleep.

Does all the work.

Lays everything out.

And then he falls asleep.

And then verse 17 says,

When the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold, a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed through these pieces.

In the covenant, Abraham never walked the path.

And the promise that was made was not made through the ability of Abraham.

The only one who passes through the covenant is God.

In that moment, God says the fulfillment is not going to rest in you and in who you are.

The fulfillment of the covenant is going to rest in me, in me alone.

And so, yes, what we're going to see in our relationship with the law is God commands us how to live.

But he does not do so in an order that we might gain acceptance by him because he does the work.

He makes the covenant.

It is rested in him.

So it brings us back.

What is then our relationship with the law?

Paul tells us in verse 19, he says at first before Christ, it's very important that we know that the law was added or given because of transgressions.

The law was given because why?

People were breaking the law.

If people weren't breaking the law, no law would need to be given.

But the law was given because people broke the law.

And so before Christ, what the law is used for is to show you and I that, in fact, we are law breakers.

And not that we just fall short, but that we shatter it.

Not that we just barely miss, but in every single aspect of it that we absolutely destroy it.

Because the truth is, no matter what we try to justify, 56 in the 55 is one mile over.

It's breaking the standard.

It's the same as we go into and as we shatter the law.

But what we do is we have the tendency to see ourselves better than what we've been seeing before.

Better than what we truly are within it.

And so the law at the heart points out to the brokenness that is in our life.

What I'd like to do this morning is take some of the commandments

and begin to do an exercise where we align ourselves with them.

To show how the law will show us the brokenness that is there.

To show the brokenness of what we can no longer fulfill.

And I want to do it by looking at the last six commandments.

Now remember in this that Christ tells us that it's our actions, it's our words, it's our thoughts, it's our deeds.

It's all piled up into one, that determinant.

And what we'll see in our hearts, what we'll see in our lives, that short of Christ, every single one, at our core are lawbreakers.

So God establishes the law, honor your father and mother.

Honor your father and mother.

And we think that we work, we think that we pursue, we think that we try to achieve that.

But at the heart of the law that he gives, it's not just about mothers and fathers, it's about respect for authority.

The authority that God's placed into our lives.

So now let's begin to run through that.

The great relationship we have with our parent, but what about the authorities in our lives?

What about the immediate authorities of our boss at work?

What about the authorities of our government?

What about the authorities that are surrounded by us?

How many times in our life have we had an authority figure in our life and our thought process doesn't honor them?

Our conversations with others disrespect them.

And we begin to see the shattering of this.

The next one that we move to is do not murder.

And so for us in here, for the most part, we can say, well, good.

Right?

That's not something that I've done.

It's not something that I've been a part of.

But there's a phrase that is brought into Scripture that theologians talk about, which is murder of the heart.

And it's not that physically we've taken the life of someone, but it's in our thoughts and in our emotions where we wish evil on others in the intentions and in the things we do.

And so we use slander through the words.

We think evil about them when they've done.

And even as they've done things to us, we don't trust that God will do what God needs to do.

And instead, we act out.

So do not murder is not just about taking life, but it's about the slander of life.

Do not commit adultery is what we begin to see.

And we think about adultery, I think about my relationship with my wife.

I want to stand here before you today, and I will testify in this place that I have never been in a relationship outside of the relationship of me with my wife.

Since the day that I met her on December 15, 2002, have not pursued after another.

But does it mean that I haven't broken this?

Because it's not just in the actions, but it's in the thoughts.

It's in the look.

It's where our mind begins to go in the moment.

And what we see is the lust of the heart.

Do not steal.

You're like, great, that's an easy one, right?

I don't take what's mine.

But the question of stealing, of the heart of this, is acting integrity in all things.

So let me ask you this question.

With everybody in here being honest, you don't have to answer this out loud.

Have you ever looked at your watch?

You get off at 530 and at 525, you realize no one will care.

And we slide out the door, right?

The action of integrity, do not steal.

Do not bear false witness.

We all say we want to stand in truth, which is what this is.

That as people of truth, we should be known as people of truth.

So in all that we do, we constantly proclaim the truth about all things.

But, have you ever embellished anything, anything, to make yourself seem better than you really are?

We see violation after violation.

Do not covet, the Bible tells us.

Dealing with the heart of satisfaction.

Let me ask you this this morning.

Has someone that you know ever received something, a raise, a promotion, credit, praise?

And in that, you thought you were more deserving than they were.

And in your heart, became dissatisfied with where you are.

You see, what the law should show us is apart from Christ, you and I, just looking at 6,

not dealing with idolatry, not dealing with the Sabbath,

not even having the time to go with the Lord's name,

but you and I, at our best, are disrespectful people with murderous hearts

who lust and desire to take what is not ours while we deny truth and are dissatisfied with what God's given us.

That's what the law shows me about me.

That's what the law points me to what I'm capable of.

And it shows me my desperate need for Christ.

Because I'm not guilty that I've broken all.

I'm guilty even when I've broken one.

But we're in Christ now.

Paul says that the law was given for transgressors.

But we're in Christ now.

So what does the law grant us as believers?

The law moves us to something.

The law is going to position our hearts in a way that is going to bring glory and honor and praise to God.

And it is this, it is moving from the have-to to moving to the want-to.

It's going to be the establishment of what's there.

I think of this when I think about being a parent and establishing the rules that we have.

Just this past week, we had to have a family meeting where we sat down and explained some things and dynamics with our kids

of rules that we have put in place in our house that they're struggling with a little bit.

They're having a hard time.

They're having a hard time not only following, but they're having a hard time understanding.

And the question, a legitimate question was asked of us, was asked this.

Why do we have to follow this way?

And the answer that we gave was this.

Because one day, we won't be here.

One day, we won't be here to force.

One day, we won't be here to push in the direction.

And what we long for and what we desire in your life is the internal posture to you no longer have to,

but you want to because it's been ingrained in you of who you are and what we've called you to do.

So they no longer do this because they're going to be caught.

But they do this because it's who they are in their person.

It's no longer because they have to.

It's because they want to.

When we look at the standard of what God's law is establishing for us, we look at there and we see the good that comes from the glory of that.

We see the benefit of the life of the believer when he falls in line with respect.

We see the beauty in the life of a believer when she no longer covets what her neighbor has.

We see the beauty in the life of a believer where he does not struggle with lust but pursues his wife or pursues his singleness under the reign of the glory of God.

We see all of these things in the beauty of it and what becomes beautiful is when we do it, not because we have to, but when we do it, because we want to.

Because we want to.

Because we want God to be glorified.

We've got our favor.

We've got our standing.

We've been forgiven.

But it's about more than us.

It's about his glory.

It's about his rule.

It's about his reign.

And what we begin to see in this is obedience begins to grow in the heart of the believer.

Obedience, the more we walk with God, is what is seen.

Obedience is what is known no longer because we have to, but because we want to.

And so what comes from that is obedience grows from joy, not fear.

I'm obedient to the Lord, not because I'm afraid that he's going to punish me.

I'm obedient to the Lord because of the joy that's in my life, because of the fulfillment of the relationship of what's there,

that I see the beauty of God of what happens every single time when the gospel invades every aspect of my life,

that when I'm satisfied where I am, where I wish best for others who even wish to harm me,

when I glorify his name, and when it comes from my lips, it's from a heart of praise,

when I take the time to rest and rest in a relationship with him,

where I'm fully submitted and diving into his word,

where I no longer have to take what doesn't belong to me,

because I understand that everything, everything belongs to the Lord.

Everything belongs to him.

That I see the understanding of the joy that wells up inside of me when I'm obedient,

and so I'm obedient because it glorifies God.

I'm no longer obedient because I feel like he's going to punish me if I don't.

And so obedience grows from the heart of joy, but also this church.

Obedience grows from full gospel application.

We started this series, and we're going to continue on,

with the understanding that it's not just the lost people of the world who need the gospel.

It's the saved people of the world who need the gospel.

And what we do is we take the gospel, and we apply it to every circumstance of our life.

Married couples in here, what does your marriage look like when you apply the gospel to it?

Now the standard for your relationship is unconditional forgiveness.

Unconditional love is serving, is sacrificing, is desiring to see your spouse grow,

is desiring the best for them.

Gospel application.

What does gospel application look like in your job?

You're no longer the person that shows up late.

You're no longer the person that skips out.

You're no longer the person that has to be managed.

Why?

Because of the respect for the authority that is there,

and who you've positioned yourself under.

And the display of who you are represents the greater, the higher authority of who's above you.

And so the reason of why does so-and-so act this way at work,

and the truth of the matter is because the transformed life of Jesus Christ,

where it has been applied there in the gospel.

How does the gospel apply to your home, to your neighbors,

to both the people that you like and the people that you don't?

To the people who like you, and to the people who don't like you.

That we see that God gives us all the different people in where they are,

and in a hope that we can help grow them and share the gospel with them.

So the people that we avoid, we tend to turn ourselves to.

Because we apply the gospel to every aspect of our life.

No longer because we feel like we have to, but because we want to.

Because of what is inside of us, if it truly is, is what's inside,

is what is being shown to them.

That when the gospel is applied to my life,

what I find of what comes from me is honor,

is love,

is commitment of purity,

is satisfaction,

is truth,

because of the joy that is found in Christ,

in Christ alone.

Would you pray with me?

Lord, thank you.

Lord, that in our life,

you grant us grace.

Would you give us freedom?

Would you give us hope?

Would you give us joy?

Lord, all of this comes,

because of a covenant,

a promise that you made,

that you fulfill,

that you see through,

that doesn't rest in who we are,

but who rests in who you are.

It's founded in you.

It was not you and Abraham who passed through,

but it was you.

Lord, and in you we place our faith.

Lord, now as believers,

what we do is our response,

our worship,

our crushing of our idols,

the desire of a satisfaction of our hearts,

the fight against lust and the fight for purity,

or to be content and to be satisfied,

to show respect,

to show honor,

comes,

not because we have to please you,

but comes from who we are

in our understanding

of what you've done for us

and who we are now

in Christ.

Lord, this morning,

for those of us who are followers of Jesus,

I pray that right now

we could begin to look at those aspects.

Lord, and we could see where your kindness,

your love,

brings us not to a place of shame,

but brings us to a place of repentance,

where we can repent

for what we've been forgiven for.

We can understand that we've been set free

by the blood of the Lamb.

We can walk in hope

and newness of life.

With every head bowed

and every eye closed,

if there's anyone in here today

who thinks that you've established

your own resume,

your own spiritual standing

because of what you've done,

Lord, may the reminder of your law

bring us

to the understanding

that we are a broken,

sinful people.

And the only way

that we can be made new,

the only way

that we can be right,

the only way

that we can be forgiven

is not through anything

that we try to do

in and of ourselves,

but it is found

in the belief

and faith

of Jesus Christ,

of Him

as our Lord

and Savior.

And so, Lord,

I pray

as we go into a time

of response

that you'll draw hearts

to yourself,

that you will be glorified,

Lord,

and we will praise you

for all you are

and for all you've done,

or not because

we have to,

not because we're afraid

not to,

because we get to,

because we're so

filled with joy.

Jesus,

we thank you.

We love you.

It's in your name we pray.

Amen.