Scripture: Galatians 3:19-29                                                                 
Sermon Series: Galatians – Set Free, Live Free – Sermon 09

I have a confession to make. No judging! I’m an oldies music fan. If I have a choice between a Christian station and the oldies, the oldies usually win.

One of my favorite bands is the Eagles. I always loved their song, Hotel California. It’s their most popular song. The meaning of the lyrics have been discussed ever since its release. Don Henley who co-wrote the song said it was “a symbolic piece about America in general…it is a fine line between the American Dream, and the American nightmare.”

Too often Christians are so caught up in our stained-glass subculture we miss what Chuck Colson called the redemptive element. There’s a line in Hotel California that describes our human condition apart from Christ and intersects with our text today, We are all just prisoners here, of our own device. For a culture that demands freedom, we’re so enslaved. We’re prisoners of sin, captives of our own sin natures.

God gave the Law to show that without Christ we’re slaves to sin yet because of Christ’s cross, we can be free and heirs of God. That’s God’s plan. That we’re transformed From Hopeless Captives to God’s Children. Please turn to Galatians 3:19-29 (page 914). As we read this passage, listen for these key words: imprisoned, captive, slaves, guardians, heirs and 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 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 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’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise.”.

This passage is one of the most important for understanding Paul’s argument against a works salvation. It’s one of the most important when it comes to understanding the relationship between Christianity and the Law of Moses. That doesn’t mean it’s easily understood. So, if you’re asking: What’s going on here? you’re not alone. Let’s work through it together. If you’re taking notes.

1. The Law reveals who we really are, vss. 19-20. 

Lately, I’ve had several friends who’ve dealt with melanoma, a form of skin cancer. Usually, you notice melanoma when you look in the mirror and notice a spot that shouldn’t be there. Paul says, Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions (Galatians 3:19). Why did God give the Law? So, we’d see the cancer of sin. Paul doesn’t want to discard the Law, but he wants to put it in its proper place. He’s not promoting antinomianism, which believes there should be no laws. That’s Haiti today. That’s a Mad Max world.

The Law was given so we’d recognize our sin.In a world of multi religions and relativism, there are moral absolutes. I had a friend in Danville, Illinois, Dale Cassidy, who owned a used bookstore I happened to frequent. Dale was an atheist. One time as we were talking, he told me there were no absolutes, no right or wrongs. So, I responded, “You don’t mind then if I take these books without paying for them.” Dale held up one finger and said, “Well, there’s one absolute.” Every culture has laws about murder, stealing, adultery, etc. They go back to Creation. It’s how we know sin is wrong. The Law is God-given.

If we’re honest, the worst sinner that you know is you and the worst one I know is me. I love Paul’s transparency. The Message renders 1 Timothy 1:15, Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners. I’m proof—Public Sinner Number One—of someone who could never have made it apart from sheer mercy. Can you relate to that? I can. How would we know sin is sin unless God had given us a moral yardstick? God gave us the Law to show us how sinful we are. The Law drives us to Christ. It drives us to the cross.

British expositor, John Stott wrote, “Not until the law has bruised and smitten us will we admit our need of the gospel to bind up our wounds. Not until the law has arrested and imprisoned us will we pine for Christ to set us free. Not until the law has condemned and killed us will we call upon Christ for justification and life. Not until the law has driven us to despair of ourselves will we ever believe in Jesus. Not until the law has humbled us even to hell will we turn to the gospel to raise us to heaven.”

God uses the Law to convict us. We know we’ve got a conscience when we feel guilty. Our conscience helps us discern right and wrong but can’t free us from guilt or shame. The conscience can only reveal to us we’re a spiritual mess. It can lead us to understand we need the grace only Jesus can give.

Craig Moore was driving in Manchester, England, when he was photographed by a speed camera. He already had a lot of points on his license. One more violation and he might lose his license and job. So, he returned with some explosives and destroyed the camera attempting to destroy the evidence.

What he didn’t realize was that the recording device was in the base of the pole. His explosives only wrecked the camera. In fact, the camera recorded him setting up the charge which caused $22,000 in damage. He was sentenced to four months in jail, but he didn’t lose his license after all. The camera was just a warning device to get motorists to slow down. Even if he did get a ticket, judges in England rarely revoke someone’s license if it means they’ll lose their job. But after Moore admitted his guilt to the judge, his boss fired him. Fear of the law can make you do weird things. Someone said, The law is the light that reveals how dirty the room is, not the broom that sweeps it clean.

The Law was temporary.The Law was never God’s final plan. It was only there until Jesus came to pay our sin debt. Of course, certain principles in the Law, like the Ten Commandments, are timeless. They’re the expression of God’s will before Moses, during the Mosaic period, and today. It’s why they’re repeated in the New Testament (all but the Sabbath commandment). But most of the Law was temporary, designed to keep Israel healthy, safe and distinct from the nations around them until the Messiah arrived.

The Law was given through intermediaries. At the end of verse 19 we read,  “and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one” (Galatians 3:19-20).

It’s a difficult verse to translate. Let me quote The Message again: “Obviously this law was not a firsthand encounter with God. It was arranged by angelic messengers through a middleman, Moses. But if there is a middleman as there was at Sinai, then the people are not dealing directly with God, are they? But the original promise is the direct blessing of God, received by faith” (Galatians 3:19-20, The Message).

Paul points out the inferiority of the law compared to the promise to Abraham. The promise (the Gospel) was given directly by God; the Law was given indirectly through some middle people. Therefore, promise trumps law. 

The law was given to show us how badly we need a Savior. Romans 7:7, “Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” The law is like a mirror. It reveals the dirt, but you can’t wash your face with it.

Those who try to live by the Law know they fall short of the standard, so they “fake it to make it,” pretending to be something they’re not. Many live their lives trying to persuade themselves, others and God they’re good people, when they know it’s not true. The law has revealed their sin. They don’t know what to do with it, so they pretend they’re good in order to be accepted. It’s a terrible way to live, but the good news is that you don’t have to live that way!

2. The Law can never give life, vss. 21-24. 

In spite of what Paul wrote about the law’s purpose, people have tried to make it a way to be right with God. Many think if they obey the Law, they’re good with God. None of us can be good and we certainly can’t be good enough. So, Galatians teaches that being a moral person won’t get you into heaven. Many trust in themselves to be forgiven by God. A vital question is: If you were to die today and God were to ask you why He should let you into Heaven, what would you say?

The Galatians were being fed a lie that would sentence them to Hell because most answer something like this: “Well I’ve tried to be a good person. I’ve tried not to treat other people badly. I’ve tried to be ethical and moral.”

The Galatians thought obeying the Law would get them eternal life. The Law is helpless to give life.  For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law (Galatians 3:21).

Many who consider themselves to be Christians have this kind of understanding about Christianity. Someone has dubbed this “American folk religion.” It’s summed up in statements like “I’m not perfect, but I’m doing the best I can.” But it’s not what the Bible teaches about salvation. Ephesians 2:8-9, For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast.

Sin is thoroughly ingrained into our being. There’s nothing we can do to clean ourselves up. The Law points out our failure but can’t bring life. People have always tried to obey the Law to be right with God. It will never work.

Lawrence of Arabia brought a group of Arab chieftains to the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. They were very impressed by the then, modern conveniences of France. Those men of the desert were amazed at the marvels of modern technology. Nothing astonished them as much as the running water in their hotel bathrooms. Water for them in their arid countries meant life, power and wealth. They knew its scarcity and its value, yet here it could be acquired by the turning of a faucet, free and seemingly inexhaustible.

When they prepared to leave Paris, Lawrence found them trying to detach the faucets so that they might always have an ample supply of water. He tried to explain that behind the flowing taps were huge reservoirs, and if they were cut off, the faucets were useless…but they couldn’t understand. They thought that the faucets were magic instruments that would give them water forever.

Many view the law the same way. The law can’t give life any more than faucets alone can give water. The law was given to reveal the distance between God and man. It was temporary in the purpose of God. It can’t give life.

Philip Ryken compares the Law to chemotherapy. When chemotherapy is used to treat cancer, it doesn’t give life. Actually, it’s an instrument of death. The chemicals destroy good cells as well as cancer cells. It makes us feel worse so that we turn to Christ and know true healing.

The Law is a prison. What the Law did was imprison everything under sin. When Paul says the law imprisons us, he’s referring to the power of sin in our lives. The law was given to Moses to show us what sin is and to make us aware of our need for a Savior because sin and the Law imprison us. It’s imprisoned us because it reveals our sin and shows us that we can’t attain righteousness on our own. The only way to be free from the power of sin is to accept the promise of salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

Prison! What powerful imagery. We’re shackled and without freedom—not only because when we break the law, we become guilty, but because we can’t help but break the law. Without Jesus, we’re unable to obey! A failure of today’s church is to soft-pedal sin and judgement. God wants to give us His forgiveness and grace, but if we reject it, we face the penalties of His law.

The law complements the gospel because it points us to our need for the gospel. The law of God, as revealed through Moses, nature, and conscience, is to the gospel as baking soda in a chocolate chip cookie. Without the baking soda, the cookie won’t become light and airy but will instead be flat and dense. Without the law, the gospel might seem flat and uninspiring to you, but once the law does its work by showing you your limitations and impossibility of keeping it, the gracious gift and hope of the gospel begins to rise in our hearts.

“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” (Galatians 3:22-23). The law helps us see our sin problem and need for Jesus. Paul confessed that, “If it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin” (Romans 7:7).

The Law is a harsh nanny. Paul uses an example familiar to his readers – a nanny or guardian. Usually, it was a slave who supervised a child for their parents. In many Roman and Greek households, well-educated slaves watched over them during the day. They’d take them to school and bring them home. They’d discipline them and were not known for being kind to children.

In both cases, the prison and the nanny, they remove freedom. The relationship with the Law is not intimate or personal. It’s based on rewards and punishment, and in both cases, we are treated as children or worse.

God gave us the law, not to give us a better life, but to point the way to life, life in Christ. So, we must depend on Christ, who alone can give the life you want to live. Rules, no matter how restrictive, have no power to restrain evil. But life in Christ has the power to transform you from the inside out!

Catherine Booth wife of William Booth who founded the Salvation Army, said, “What the law tried to do by a restraining power from without, the gospel does by an inspiring power from within.”

3. The cross has made us heirs, vss. 24-29. 

Have you heard that song I’m so blessed by the Christian music group, Cain? The chorus echoes what Paul says here. “Cause on my best day, I’m a child of God. On my worst day, I’m a child of God.” If you get nothing else, get this – You are loved by God! God loves you unconditionally!

We are children of God.For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith (Galatians 3:26). The moment you put your faith in Christ, you not only became a child of God, you became His full adult child. It’s the meaning of the word “sons.” God doesn’t treat us like babies, but as His mature, grown-up sons and daughters. He enjoys relating to you as adults. He’s proud of what you’ve become in Christ, so quit trying to prove yourselves. You don’t have to do that with the Father, He already accepts you as you are.

We are baptized in the Spirit into Christ.When God looks at you, He sees Jesus! For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ (Galatians 3:27). When you trusted Christ as your Savior, the Holy Spirit baptized you into Christ. Literally, you were immersed into Christ, plunged into His righteousness, so that you’re no longer visible. For the early church, baptism and conversion went together. Baptism after salvation was a sign of commitment to new life in Christ. While baptism doesn’t save, it’s a first step of obedience for a Christ-follower. Once you’re a Christ-follower, the only thing God sees when He looks at you is the beauty of His Son.

In the Roman world, when a young man came of age, he went through a very significant ceremony. That young man was clothed with a special toga – the Toga Virilis – which signified his passing from childhood into adulthood. When that boy put on the Toga Virilis, the community began to recognize him as a man. He was granted all the rights and responsibilities of full citizenship. That’s the picture in verse 27. When you come to faith in Christ, you put on a spiritual Toga Virilis. You put on Jesus Himself. God grants you all the rights and responsibilities of adult citizens in His Kingdom.

We are equal in race, rank and gender with the Father.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 (Galatians 3:28). These three divisions polarized the ancient world but must not polarize us. No matter who you are – Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, black or white, rich or poor, young or old, Republican, Democrat or Independent, blue or white collar…as a believer in Christ, it makes no difference with God. He loves us all the same! He values you as much as He values the greatest saint who ever lived. We are all one in Christ, so we have nothing to prove. We are accepted in Jesus!

Some years ago, NPR interviewed Francois Clemmons, who played the role of Officer Clemmons on Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood for over 25 years. He was the first black actor to have a recurring role on a children’s TV series. Fred Rogers went out on a limb to cast Clemmons as a police officer and Clemmons knew this and expressed his reservations. He said, “I grew up in the ghetto. I did not have a positive opinion of police officers. Policeman were siccing police dogs and water hoses on people. And I really had a hard time putting myself in that role. So, I was not excited about being Officer Clemmons.” Still, he eventually agreed to take on the role.

There’s one scene in particular that Clemmons remembered with great emotion. It was from an episode that aired in 1969, in which Mr. Rogers had been resting his feet in a plastic pool on a hot day. Clemmons recalls, “He invited me to come over and to rest my feet in the water with him. That icon Fred Rogers not only was showing my brown skin in the tub with his white skin as two friends, but as I was getting out of that tub, he was helping me dry my feet.” Clemmons says he’ll never forget the day Rogers wrapped up the program, as he always did, by hanging up his sweater and saying, “You make every day a special day just by being you, and I like you just the way you are.” But this time in particular, Rogers had been looking right at Clemmons. After they wrapped up, he walked over. Clemmons asked him, “Fred, were you talking to me?” “Yes, I have been talking to you for years, but you heard me today.” Clemmons then said, “It was like telling me I’m OK as a human being. That was one of the most meaningful experiences I’d ever had.”

God has been telling some of you for years, “I love you just the way you are.” Please, let this be the day that you really hear Him in your heart. Whether you are red or yellow, black or white, no matter what your background or struggles, God loves and accepts you just as you are. He treats you as His adult son or daughter. He treats us all as equally valuable sons and daughters because of Jesus.

We are rich heirs in God’s family.Because of your faith in Christ, God treats you as a rich heir. He treats you as better than a billionaire but you’re richer than that. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise (Galatians 3:29). Christ is a descendant of Abraham, the offspring of Abraham to whom God promised a rich inheritance. If you belong to Jesus, you’re part of His body, so that rich inheritance is yours. If you’re in Christ, as the offspring of Abraham, you get everything He gets. 

So, step aside, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates. When you trust Christ with your life, you’re an adult child of God who’s succeeded far beyond anything anybody ever imagined. You’ve nothing left to prove to God or anyone else.

So, stop trying to lift the unbearable weight of trying to earn God’s acceptance or anyone else’s. Instead, understand and know this in your heart: You’re free and you’re loved! You’re no longer a Hopeless Captive, you’re God’s child and part of His forever family.You’re free from the pressure to perform. God treats you as His adult, incredibly successful children.

Conclusion

Let me end with three lessons and a powerful story. Galatians 3:23-29 is the most upbeat portion of Paul’s letter that we’ve studied so far. In keeping with its spirit, let’s turn our application toward praise.

• Praise God for the prison.The law brought us to the end of ourselves, forcing us to face our desperate condition. Let’s thank the Lord for providing this humanly, inescapable penitentiary. Without it we may never have realized how much we needed His grace and mercy.
• Praise God for the harsh nanny. Like the guardian of old, the Law helped to keep us in line restraining sin, while it guided us toward our great liberator – Christ the Lord. Let’s thank God for giving us this prod to salvation.
• Praise God for the Savior. With His own blood Jesus made it possible for us to become united with the Father and all believers, past, present and future. Through faith we’ve been set free to serve and enjoy the living God. Let’s never take our redemption for granted, rather, let’s turn our eyes toward heaven and with humble gratitude praise Christ for all that He’s done for us.

In 2007, Luis Carlos, a wealthy Portuguese aristocrat died. As the illegitimate, unloved son of an aristocratic woman, he was rich, but he had no children to leave his inheritance to. Knowing this in advance, he came up with a unique way to determine who would inherit his fortune.

Thirteen years before, when writing his will, he asked a notary for a copy of the Lisbon phone book. He picked out 70 names randomly. The people he chose had done nothing to deserve or earn his favor. Most had never heard of him. Most, when they received the letter, thought it was a joke. But as a result of his death, their lives and their futures were changed.

In a similar but far greater away, Jesus’ death has changed everything for us. Like the people Carlos chose to bless, we’ve done nothing to deserve or earn His favor, but unlike those Carlos chose, God didn’t choose us at random. He loves us. He knew our name and sent His Son into the world with a specific mission to redeem us by faith in Jesus, to buy us back from sin. When we put our faith in Jesus, He sets us free. He adopts us into His family. He makes us His children so that we can call out to Him and know Him as our Father.

Paul summarizes the difference with: And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to promise (Galatians 3:29). Because of Jesus, because of the cross, we’re no longer hopeless captives. We’re no longer slaves. We’re God’s children.

Since you’re His child, God has made you, His heir. His promise was given to bless us. God’s law was given to convict us. God’s Son was given to redeem us. So, have you trusted Jesus as your Savior? Are you free? Are you, His heir?