Gospel Gifts: We Are Heirs Of Promise

Thank you. This summer we want to explore various sections of Scripture that tell us what has happened since Jesus has come and we have learned of Him through the Gospel. And so it will be in a number of different books. And this morning I want you to turn to the book of Galatians. Of course, it's difficult to drop right into the middle of a book, which we will be doing this week and next.

But we're going to try. We want to see a particular blessing, a particular gift, this week and next that we have because of the coming of Jesus and of the Gospel. Too often we think of the gospel saying, be saved and go to heaven. It certainly does say something about that, but it says much, much, much more. It has radically changed everything. And so we want to explore that in these coming months.

I'm going to read from Galatians chapter 3, beginning in verse 15, and reading to the end of the chapter. We'll be looking at verses 26 through 29 that you follow so we get the context of these verses. To give a human example, brothers, even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring.

It does not say, and to offsprings, referring to many, but referring to one. And to your offspring, who is Christ? This is what I mean. The law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the 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 an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one. Is the law then contrary to the promise of God Certainly not For if a law had been given that could give life then righteousness would indeed be by the law But the 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. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. and if you are Christ then you are Abraham's offspring heirs according to promise let's pray oh Lord our God we come to you now and ask that you would open this text to us that we might understand what the gospel has done what the gospel has changed help us now we pray so that we can rejoice in the great benefits that are ours because of what Jesus has done on our behalf Thank you, in Jesus' name, amen.

A few weeks ago, many of us attended the graduation ceremonies of a number of high schoolers, and as those young people received their diplomas, they entered a whole new world. They left high school and entered the world of adulthood, a world where they no longer needed passes to walk in the hallway, a world where permission is no longer needed to go to the bathroom. A world that no longer requires rules to govern every little bit of their life, every little aspect, every corner of their life.

Well, the Apostle Paul is saying to us, with the coming of Jesus, we've entered adulthood. We've left the law, the old covenant law that we find in the Old Testament, a law that supervised God's people in every way. Now, in this part of the book, he is arguing against some folks who have come to the churches and have said, the law that should govern us is the law of Moses.

It the law that God gave his people Certainly he doesn mean to do away with that And the Apostle Paul is arguing in this book that that is exactly what happened when Jesus came The old passed away and something new came. Something entirely different. Now, as we just read, he said God made a promise to Abraham and then he gave the law, and now you're trying to get back to promise.

What about the law? What did that do? And as you read through this text, here's what he says. The law was given for a purpose. It was to show us our sin. He says, Scripture imprisoned everyone under sin.

That is, the law showed everyone they were sinners, but the law did not give any relief from that. Now something has come. His name is Jesus. The Gospel has come. And we have been freed from that old covenant. So having been delivered from the realm of that old covenant law, Paul now describes life in the realm of faith.

In this new covenant community, This new covenant that now governs us. How is it different? What happens? Something radical happened when Jesus appeared on the scene to deliver from the law and usher us into the realm of faith. And here is Paul's explanation of one of the gifts of the Gospel. He says, you who believe are sons of God.

You who believe are one. You who believe are heirs of the promise. All those things happened because of the Gospel. We become sons of God in a way that the Old Covenant people never could be. We become one. We become unified in a way that they never could.

And we are heirs of the promise that they were not. Now, in a way that they were not. So let's look at this together. Verses 26 and 27, first of all. For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.

You who believe are sons of God. You are sons of God through faith in Jesus. Now, he talks earlier in the context that we just read that we were locked up in law's prison. And through the bars, as it were, you can see Jesus. You believe in him. And as a result, God declares you righteous not because of any obedience to the law God declares you righteous for the sake of Christ This is new Delivery from the law by believing in a person A person who is a sin bearer A person who takes the curse upon himself so that we do not bear it any longer.

And as you leave that prison of the law, you find that you are sons of God. When you walk out of your high school, you enter the world of adults. the law our civil law starts treating you as adults they they start treating you differently when you leave the prison of the law you enter the world of sons of god no longer under the supervision of the law no longer under all those minute little things that tell you everything that you need to do why not why aren't we under that because he says for verse 26 for in christ jesus you are all sons of God through faith. By becoming sons of God, you no longer need that supervision.

Remember that in the Old Testament, every part of your life, every single part had some kind of regulation. Right? Before you could celebrate the Passover, what did you need to do? You needed to go through your house in every corner of it and get rid of all the left over things you could find. Right? Some of you women are saying, it's hard enough just to clean my house, but to look for every speck of leaven in the house, man, that's a lot of work.

Yeah, it was. It's a lot of work. Right? You couldn't eat certain foods. You could not eat certain kinds of foods. If we were under the law, then half of what we're going to see in the back for dinner today, you wouldn't be able to eat.

It would be against the law of God to eat most of what we would be having. right? There's so much that was, that you couldn't have a pulled pork sandwich anywhere, right? I mean, just you couldn't, it's not possible. The law was still in force. We have much more freedom now. We don't have this minute supervision.

He says, you are sons of God through faith that is expressed in baptism. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Paul Paul almost seems to equate faith and baptism here. You're all sons of God, he says, through faith, but then he says you put on Christ through baptism. How can you say that, Paul? I thought you put on Christ by faith, not baptism. to deal with this, okay?

In a number of places in the scripture, it appears that almost baptism and faith are equated that at certain points, and this is one where it says you were baptized, you put on Christ when you were baptized. Well, wait a minute. Didn't I put on Christ when I believed and then three weeks later when I was baptized, wasn't I already clothed in Christ? I mean, does this mean that everybody has to be baptized or they're not clothed in Christ?

It's a good question. What is he talking about here? Well, let's consider faith and baptism like this. Disclaimer to my family. This is only an illustration. Do not take this literally.

Let's say Becca and I promise our house and our property to Emma. All right? She inherits the house and the land that goes with it. And so we draw up a document and have it notarized. That is, an official seal is affixed to it. It's a sealed document in the sense of it has an official seal that says, this is the real thing.

That document guarantees the transfer of the property from us to her. And when we die, her brothers and sisters say, oh no, oh no, that's not going to go. And she can produce the document, right? And with that document, she gets the property. Now, did she get the property because of the document or because of the promise? Well, she got it because of the promise.

Because there would be no document without the promise, right? So she hands over the document, she gets the property, but she gets it because of the promise. The document is only the tangible, visible sign of the promise. that the promise was made. Alright? It's not wrong to say that the sealed document transferred the property to her. It's not wrong to say that.

But that wouldn't be the complete truth, would it? It's because of the promise. Well, just like that sealed document, baptism is God's official seal that guarantees your status as sons of God. So Paul can say that you've been baptized into Christ. Baptism is the outward, visible, tangible sign of an inward spiritual grace. It talks about what's already happened.

It the official seal that says you exercised faith in Jesus Christ Now there a lesson to be learned here as well if I can get off on a little bit of a rabbit track We need to recall, we need to remember that baptism is very important. And let's not treat baptism lightly. It doesn't save us. It doesn't actually clothe us in Christ. But it is the seal that says, you belong to Jesus.

And every time we witness a baptism, you ought to be saying to yourself, there it is. There's the tangible sign. There's the seal. There's the official mark that says it's true. It's God's visible guarantee that such faith makes you a son of God. This baptism then speaks of the kind of sonship you possess.

A sonship like that of Jesus Himself. For as many of you who are baptized into Christ have put on Christ. You've been clothed with Jesus. You've been clothed with Jesus. By faith, expressed in baptism, you're clothed in Christ. I remember Jans and I, this is several years ago, I just remember this.

Jans and I were in Marion one day and we happened to meet Ben Graff. Now most of you know Ben. Ben was, at that time, he's a detective now, but at that time he was, you know, a policeman with a uniform. And he was clothed in a certain way. He was outfitted in a police uniform. Now, if you'd never met Ben, you'd know exactly what he was.

If you'd never met him before that moment, you would know what he was. You would know that he was a man with authority. He's an enforcer. You would know that, okay? just by the uniform. So by faith you're clothed with Christ. You are a son of God like Jesus.

You are a son of God. Now, not in the exact same way as Jesus, obviously, but you've been clothed with Christ and so God sees you in Jesus. And you begin to look like Him as you grow into that clothing. Therefore, sons of God, those who are clothed with Christ, you no longer need the supervision of the law because you become more and more like Jesus You don need the minute supervision of the law anymore You been clothed with Christ Now it doesn mean we don operate without any law We have the law of Christ now.

We have His commandments. So then, you who believe, here's the first thing. You are sons of God. You are sons of God. You are counted as sons of God. Now, what else happens?

Verse 28. there is neither Jew nor Greek there is neither slave nor free there is no male and female for you are all one in Christ Jesus you who believe are one alright because of Christ notice and it's not in our text it's in the original text it should say for or because now because of what he just said you're clothed in Christ because of that you are one There is now no Jew or Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male or female.

For you are all one in Christ. All distinctions disappear when we've been clothed with Christ. When you introduce the law, you introduce distinctions. Do you understand that? What has kept the Jewish people distinct from every other people? What is it?

It's the law. It separates them from everybody else. There are certain things we don't eat. There are certain things we do. We worship on Saturdays. We do this.

We do that. The law caused a distinction. And that's what God intended in the Old Covenant. He wanted a people that were exclusively devoted to Him. So He gave them a law that in every area of their life would separate them from everyone else. It would make them distinct.

But since you've been freed from that covenant, and now by faith you've put on Christ, all distinctions disappear. Now see the radical nature of this clothing. You're no longer Jew or Greek because you're first and foremost a Christian. You've been clothed with Christ, and so all you see is Christ. You're no longer slave or free. Why?

Because first and foremost, you are what? A Christian. You've been clothed with Christ, and so all you see is Christ. There no longer male or female because you are first and foremost what A Christian You been clothed with Christ so that all you see To put it simply, because you're in Christ, you're one. If I come home and say to my wife, Honey, I got pulled over by the state patrol today.

A patrolman stopped me today. And I got a ticket. She's not going to ask, was it a man or a woman? What was his name or her name? Was he white? Was he black?

Was he Asian? No one asks those questions. Why? Because none of those make any difference. If he's got the uniform on, right? He's got the uniform on, you don't see any of that other stuff.

You don't. Right? You don't see any of that. Why? Because no matter what I am or where I came from, no matter what my color, no matter what my name, no matter what my descent, that uniform says, I am this. We wear the uniform of Jesus.

Therefore, nothing else matters in our relationships. No matter what the race or sex or origin, the uniform says, we are one. Because we've been clothed with Christ, we're one and not many. Now that's a radical statement. now it's not claiming here that different functions have been eliminated men will never bear children right and when i'm with my mongolian brothers or romanian brothers or azari brothers you can see some distinctions in fact we'll eat differently right some things i wouldn't even want especially in Azerbaijan.

There are some things I just don't want to eat there. All right? So it doesn't mean that our different functions have been eliminated. The line of authority between you and your boss has not been eliminated, has it? If you're a Christian and he's a Christian, is he still the boss? Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Okay. Do our roles change? Can women become pastors now? That's what some would argue.

And the answer is no. No, they can't. Well, what is he saying then? He's saying something even more radical than that. Do we have different functions? He's talking about our relationships are no longer based on those differences.

Our relationships no longer based on those differences. Now, the world says the same thing, doesn't it? Doesn't the world say the same thing? Doesn't the world want to say to us, there's no difference between the races? Doesn't the world want to say, all the sexes are equal, right? And the world wants to say those things, right?

The world does want to say those things. But do you ever notice that it doesn't happen in the world? Do you ever notice this? How many normal-looking women are in the movies? At least in the lead parts. How many normal-looking women do the news?

Have you ever noticed that? It's like, do you ever see any normal-looking women doing the news? You don't. They're really good-looking women that are doing the news. The world says, oh, it doesn't make any difference. It does.

They relate to those women differently because, well, they're getting old and, you know. Does it matter how well-educated you are? The world says, oh, we're all equal, and yet the world says, oh, you better get an education because you don't want those kind of jobs. You know, the people who work in those kinds of jobs, let's feel sorry for them. Those poor pitiful people have to work on the line at Honda and all that.

Get an education so you don't have to do that. Right? The world does not operate that way. And frankly, frankly, the world wants to say race doesn't make a difference, but it does. It does. but God's people don't do that any longer. We don't relate to one another on the basis of whether you're a man or a woman.

We are equal. We are one in Christ. A brother of another race is not a race. He's a brother. A man who works with his hands is one with the fellow who works behind the desk. One is not above the other. and we don treat each other that way Alright And in the church we don treat women like objects And we don treat them as secondary That's what he's saying here.

We relate to one another because we are all one in Christ. Listen. If the church wants to see, I mean, if the world wants to see races reconciled, they ought to be able to look at the church. they want to see women and men acting really good together and not against one another they ought to be able to look at the church right it doesn't matter what our nationality is it doesn't matter where you're from you look at the church you see you who believe are one now the last thing verse 29 and if you're Christ then you are Abraham's offspring heirs according to promise what promise does he refer to here and I wrestled with this and thought about it and I believe the promise he refers to has three parts to it it's one promise it's the promise of justification.

The declaration that you are righteous and accepted by God. Look up in the context. Verse 22. So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith. I'm sorry, verse 22 is parallel. But the scripture imprisoned everything under sin so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

What's the promise by faith in Jesus Christ. Verse 24. It's justification by faith. That's the promise. We're declared righteous. Okay?

We're declared righteous. The righteousness that could not come from the law, is that what's promised? We're held prisoner by the law until that which was promised would come by faith in Jesus. And what was promised by faith in Jesus is our justification. So there's part of the promise. He also promised the Spirit.

If you look back at chapter 2, let's start in verse 13. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us For it is written cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith. We don't have to be justified, we get the spirit.

And lastly, as he's just said, we become sons of God. Alright? That's what we receive. Now here's the thing. we are called Abraham's offspring. Now earlier he said, as we read, who is Abraham's offspring? Jesus.

Alright, look at it. Chapter 3, verse 16. Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, and to offsprings. And some of the later versions say it does not say, and to seeds. but to seed. Not offsprings, not seeds, but to seed.

And that is Jesus. You say, wait a minute, when I read the Old Testament, it looks like he's saying, I'm making this promise to Abraham and to all your descendants. And the Apostle Paul is saying, it's all fulfilled in Jesus. Alright? If you want to learn anything about real important ways of interpreting the Bible, here's the primary thing you have to remember.

It's all fulfilled in Jesus. And that's what Paul is saying. He says, look, it's all pointing to Christ. And He is the seed that received the promise. The promise of righteousness? Yes.

God declared Jesus righteous. This is my Son with whom I am well pleased. Jesus had the Spirit. Was the Spirit given to Jesus? Yes, when He was baptized. The Spirit descended on him, remember?

It was given to him for his earthly ministry. And he is the Son of God. Now, what does he say to us in chapter 3 again? Verse 16. Now the promises were made to Abraham to his offspring. He does not say, and to offsprings, rather to many, referring to many, but referring to one, and to your offspring, who is Christ.

All these are true of Christ. Now what does he say in verse 29 Now if you are Christ then what You Abraham offspring All right? Think of it this way. I should have put this on the PowerPoint, but think of it this way. Everything in the Old Testament, everything in the Old Testament is fulfilled in one person, Jesus. It comes down like this.

It all funnels down into Jesus. There's one. All of it comes down. Everything in the Old Testament is fulfilled in Jesus. Now, it goes out like this. You follow?

From Jesus, it all goes out like that. So that what's true of Jesus now becomes true of us, who are united to Him in faith. That's the argument Paul's making. Jesus is the offspring to which God made the promise. We become the offspring. Why?

Because we're clothed in Christ. We've been united to Him in faith. We now become the recipients of the promise. The promise of what? Righteousness. Because of Jesus, you are now well-pleasing to God.

You are counted as righteous. Jesus was counted as righteous, so are you. You, because you belong to Jesus, also have the Spirit. And you, because you belong to Jesus, are considered sons of God. Because of Christ, we are heirs of that promise. You see, friends, with the coming of Jesus, everything hinges on Him.

You see, if you say, I want to go to heaven, believe in Jesus. But it's more than that. It's more than that. He was counted righteous. So are you. He was given the Spirit.

So are you. He is the Son of God. So are you. As you have your faith, as you put your faith and your trust in Jesus. You see, the gifts of the Gospel go beyond merely, goes beyond how do I escape from hell. The gifts of the Gospel go beyond that.

And here's one, or here's three, if you will. You enter the world of God's sons, a world of liberty. conform more and more to the image of Christ. You find the joy of unity where God's people are one. We relate to each other absolutely differently than we did before. You become an heir of unbelievable riches, of righteousness, of the Spirit, of becoming sons of God.

All of this is because of the Gospel. all of this through faith in Jesus. Let's pray. Father, help us to understand that with the coming of Jesus and the preaching of the Gospel, life is radically different. God, help us to remember that, I pray. Help us to rejoice in the transformation that has occurred, not just in us individually, but the transformation that has occurred in the people of God.

Lord, we thank you for these great promises. We thank you for the radical reorientation that has happened because of the gospel of Jesus. Help us to live in light of that gospel, we pray, for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you.