Scripture: Galatians 3:10-18   
Sermon Series: Galatians – Set Free, Live Free – Sermon 08

Are you familiar with The Curse of the Billy Goat? If you’re a Cubs fan, you are. The owner of the Billy Goat Tavern, William Sianis, was expelled from Game 4 of the 1945 World Series against the Detroit Tigers at Wrigley Field because his pet goat, Murphy was bothering other fans. According to legend, Sianis put a curse on the Cubs that they wouldn’t win that one or any other World Series. Before the curse the Cubs had won the World Series twice in the 1900s. When they lost in 1945, the curse gained credibility. It wasn’t until 2016 when the Cubs won the world series for the first time in over a century, that Cubs’ fans believed that the curse had been broken.

Today we want to talk about a much more serious curse. It goes all the way back to the dawn of time in Genesis 3. Because of it we’ve all been cursed. We were cursed when our first parents, Adam and Eve, disobeyed God and sinned. The entire human race was cursed. But God is a loving God and wants to bless us. God had a plan from the beginning to Reverse the Curse. Please turn to Galatians 3:10-18 (p. 914). “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.’ Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for ‘The righteous shall live by faith.’ But the law is not of faith, rather ‘The one who does them shall live by them.’ 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. 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.”.

Some of life’s issues are either/or rather than both/and. For example, you’re either married or single. You can’t be both at the same time. The same is true with salvation. The Bible teaches you’re either cursed or blessed. Salvation is either by faith or by works. There are no alternatives. Add even one deed of human effort to salvation, and you pass from grace to Law, from a divine gift to human effort. You move from life to death, from blessed to cursed.

Here we have terrible news and terrific news. The word curse is used five times in these verses. Everyone is cursed because of sin but Jesus was cursed so that we could be blessed.  It’s why the word “promise” is used five times. Blessed is God’s promise. The message of the Bible is that everyone is cursed because of sin, but Jesus was cursed so we could be blessed. He was cursed for us to Reverse the Curse.  If you’re taking notes…

1. Being good brings the curse because it’s impossible, vs 10-12. 

Who would you like to have the approval of? Have you ever noticed how hard we work at trying to get another person’s approval? We want to have the approval of our neighbors and friends. A child desires the approval of her parents. An employee works hard for an employer’s approval. All of us seek the approval of others even though we may not be conscious of it.

Inherently, people have an instinctive desire for the approval of God, while they may not know His name. All over the world people are seeking the approval of the Divine. It’s why every people group is religious in some way. Every person either consciously or unconsciously seeks the approval of God, even though, paradoxically, the Bible tells us that by nature, we’re in revolt against him (cf. Romans 3:10-18). The crucial question that every religion in the world is attempting to answer is: How do we find the approval of God? Or how do we come into a right relationship with God?

Galatians 3 answers that question. How can someone get in a right relationship with God? How can we be justified and live? It starts though with some very bad news.

We are all condemned by the Law. “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them’ (Galatians 3:10).  No one is justified by the Law. You must obey “all” of it, but it’s impossible.

Paul wrote Galatians to refute the teaching of a group known as the Judaizers. They taught that the only way to have the approval of God is through complete obedience to His Law. In other words, for a person to have the approval of God he/she needed to do everything written in the Law.

So, all who rely on observing the law are under a curse. Paul supports that by paraphrasing Deuteronomy 27:26: Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law. While we don’t have Judaizers today, we have lots of people who hope they’re going to heaven because they’re a good person or that they obey the Ten Commandments. Paul points out that it’s an impossibility. Why? Three reasons.

Anyone seeking favor with God by obeying the Law must obey it all the time.Those attempting to obey the Law must always continue at it. There’s no white space for a legalist. He must continue day after day obeying the Law.

That individual must continue to do everything in the Law. He must obey the law 100%. He can’t do 99.99%. He can’t pick and choose which commandments he’ll obey. He must do all of it. He had to be perfect.

It’s like dangling from a helicopter on a chain with 613 links in it. 613 is the number of commands in the Mosaic Law. So, how many links in that chain need to break before you fall to your death? Only one, right? In the same way, if you break just one command in the Law, you’re condemned.

He must continue to do everything written in the Law. It’s not enough to obey the moral law of God or what we know as the Ten Commandments. He must obey the entire Law, including the ceremonial law. Obedience to the law of God as a means of entering into favor with Him is impossible. None of us are capable of perfectly obeying the law of God.

But it gets worse, everyone who attempts to earn favor with God by attempting to do everything written in the Law is cursed. The word cursed means “to reject.” Disobedience to any point of the law always brings us under the curse of God and exposes us to the awful penalties of His judgment.

Favor with God doesn’t come by being good or obeying the Law because, The righteous shall live by faith. Paul quotes Habakkuk 2:4 as proof that favor with God doesn’t come by being good. No one can earn favor with God by obeying the Law. You can only enter into favor with God by faith.

There are two different roads for entering into favor with God. The first promises life to the doer, the second to the believer. The first makes obedience the way of salvation, the second faith. The first implies that we can make it by ourselves, the second says only God can justify us, because the whole purpose of faith is to trust God to do for us what we can never do for ourselves.

The bottom line is that being good/obeying the law and faith are mutually exclusive as a way of having favor with God. Hypothetically, a person could earn favor with God if he/she perfectly obeyed the Law, but no one can do it.

Let me illustrate. Some of you are “Germaphobes”. Let me ask a question: Do you ever get sick? During Covid medical personnel took more safety precautions than ever before. I’m sure there’s an exception but every one of them that I know got Covid.

It’s like one of those movies where someone is dealing with a deadly disease, like the movie, Outbreak. They accidentally get a needle prick and catch the virus. One needle prick of disobeying God’s Law means that we’re infected and guilty of all of it. James 2:10 says, For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become guilty of all of it.

So, any attempt at even trying to obey the Law as a means of earning God’s favor bring us under condemnation. The law never brings life. Its purpose is to condemn. It’s God’s thermometer showing us that we have a sinful fever.

Many people think they’re right with God because, as they’d express it, they’re basically “good people.” In order to use that word “good”, you must have some standard. So, what’s good? Everyone who believes it’s about being good, uses a standard that sets the bar much, much lower than God’s standard.

There are two common lies that send people to hell. First, most of us think that we’re good people. An accountant for the Mafia considers himself a good person. He only cooks the books and doesn’t shoot people. The only red on his hands is ink. But we know his standard is faulty.

God’s standard is expressed in the Law. It demands we do every single thing God calls us to do all the time. Nothing less is acceptable. No one does it, until Jesus. Being good isn’t good enough. It’s why we all desperately need Jesus.

Second, many think God is like Santa Claus. You have to be really bad like Ebenezer Scrooge to end up on His naughty list. They overlook that a holy God cast Adam and Eve out of the Garden for one act of disobedience.

2. Jesus Christ redeemed us from the curse, vs 13-14. 

“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” (Galatians 3:13-14).

What is redemption? The word redeemed is from the commercial world. In ancient times the purchase price of a slave was called redemption money. To redeem a slave meant to pay the price, take them off the market and set them free. There’s a divine exchange. One pays the price so the other can go free.

In the Old Testament capital punishment was carried out by stoning. After the criminal died, they’d often be hung on a tree or wooden stake, as a sign of their curse. Jesus’ cross qualified as a cursed tree.

Peter joins Paul preaching that Jesus was hung on a tree” and wrote Jesus “bore our sins in His body on the tree (Acts 5:30, 1 Peter 2:24). Sin entered the world by eating the fruit of a tree. Jesus solved the sin problem on the tree of His cross so that those who trust Him can one day eat of the Tree of Life.

Because Jesus was hung on a tree, Deuteronomy says He was cursed. Jesus fulfilled the demands of the Law by obeying it perfectly. He did what none of us could do. Then, He fulfilled the Law by taking its curse for us by hanging on the cross. But Jesus not only took the curse, He became the curse.

Because Jesus didn’t die for His own sins, He was able to redeem us from the curse of the law. This is what is known as the substitutionary death of Jesus. He didn’t die for His own sin. He didn’t have any. He took the curse that we’re all under, a curse brought on by our sin and guilt when He died on the cross.

Ray Pritchard shares a powerful analogy. Imagine that somewhere in the universe there’s a cesspool containing all the sins ever committed. The cesspool is deep, dark, and indescribably foul. All the evil deeds that have ever been done are floating there and a river of filth constantly flows into that cesspool, replenishing the vile mixture with all the evil done every day.

Now imagine that while Jesus was on the cross, that whole cesspool is emptied onto Him. See the flow of filth as it settles on Him. The flow never seems to stop. It’s vile, toxic, deadly, filled with disease and suffering.

When God looked down at His Son, He saw the cesspool of sin poured out on Jesus. No wonder He turned away from the sight. Who could bear to watch it? Every vile deed and every wicked thought—all of it was laid on Jesus when He hung on the cross. What does our redemption involve?

Redemption always involves rescue. Redemption means that something of value has been lost or taken captive. It’s always about rescuing something. According to the Bible, we all need to be rescued. Our relationship was ruined by our own sin. We were taken captive by our sin and must be rescued.

Redemption always involves ransom. There’s always a price to be paid in redemption. Redemption is used for releasing something. You pay to release a slave, a prisoner of war, or a piece of property that’s been mortgaged. You’re buying something back, something rightfully owned by you or someone else.

That was us. We were made by God and for God. We belonged to Him by virtue of creation, but we were lost and taken captive. We must be ransomed, but there’s a price. The only way for Christ to ransom us from the burden of the Law was to perfectly fulfill the Law because we never could. Then, He must suffer the penalty for our failures to keep the Law, so we don’t have to,

Remember the movie, Saving Private Ryan, Captain John Miller is given a mission. He and a small squad of soldiers are sent behind enemy lines to rescue a soldier named James Francis Ryan, whose three other brothers have already been killed in action. Their mission – to find Private Ryan and get him out of harm’s way, so he can return to his grieving mother back in the States. They accomplish their mission, but it costs Miller and many others their lives. 

In a similar way, God sent His Son to earth to find us, to take us out of harm’s way, and to restore us to a relationship with our heavenly Father. Jesus accomplished that mission, but it cost Him His life.

Redemption always involves restoration. The goal of redemption is to restore what’s been ruined, and to return what’s been taken captive. God hasn’t rescued and ransomed us so we can continue to go on as we were, messing up our lives and living apart from Him. Colossians tells us, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14).

God’s intent from the beginning was that we would be His people, and that we’d be as eager to do good as He is to do good. Not because we have to, but because we want to, because we’re free too. When we’ve been redeemed, we’re free to say no to sin, yet free to say yes to God, His joy, goodness and purpose.

Does that mean everyone will be redeemed? No. Jesus died for the sins of everyone in the world, but the Bible teaches that only those who trust Him are redeemed. So, are you in the us who’ve been redeemed? If you’re not in the “us,” please receive Him today because that’s the only way to be redeemed.

Beth Moore shares an insightful moment in her life. She writes…

“I will never forget watching an evening talk show featuring the story of the parents and killer of a young college student. The killer was his best friend. The weapon was high alcohol content inside a speeding automobile…But the parents had forgiven the young driver…and if that was not enough, they had taken him in as their own. This young man sat at the table in the chair which was once occupied by their only son. He slept in the son’s bed. He worked with the victim’s father, teaching seminars on safety. He shared their fortune and supported their causes. He spoke about the one he had slain in ways only someone who knew him intimately could have…

Why did these parents do such a thing? Because it gave them peace. The interviewer was amazed.” Then, Beth Moore wrote, “I was amazed. I kept trying to put myself in the parents’ position – but I could not. Then, as the tears streamed down my cheeks. I heard the Spirit of God whisper to my heart and say: ‘No wonder you cannot relate. You have put yourself in the wrong position. You, my child, are the driver’.” We’re the driver and Jesus took all of the judgment of God for us. The curse on us was transferred to Christ. In love Jesus took it voluntarily on Himself to redeem us from the curse.

It’s very striking to see the contrast between the curse and the blessing in verses 13 and 14. Christ became a curse for us so that we might inherit the blessing. The blessing given to Abraham includes justification (being put into favor with God), eternal life (being received into fellowship with God), and the promise of the Holy Spirit (being regenerated and indwelt by Him).

3. The curse’s cure is the promise of an inheritance, vss. 15-18. 

When Leona Helmsley, known as the “Queen of Mean,” died in August of 2007, she left the bulk of her estate, estimated at more than $4 billion, to a charitable trust. She also left her dog, aptly named Trouble, a $12 million trust fund. Trouble lived up to his name by becoming the object of a bitter court case. While the judge sympathized with the family that it was an excessive amount to leave to a dog, he refused to overturn her will.

Paul continues, “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” (Galatians 3:15-18).

This is amazing! When God makes a covenant, it’s a binding one. The covenant we must pay attention to is not with the one with Moses and the Law, but the one of promise with Abraham.

What’s the covenant with Abraham? God promised: “I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice” (Genesis 22:17-18). Paul has three points:

First: The promises of grace made to Abraham come nearly half a millennium before the requirements of the Law and can’t be changed. God gave Abraham the gospel long before He gave Moses the Law. The gospel has been there all along, all the way back to the promise to Abraham.

Second: The promises of grace have been all about Jesus right from the beginning. What did God promise Abraham? “In your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” Offspring is singular. The New American Standard Version is clearer. “Now the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, “And to seeds,” as referring to many, but rather to one, “And to your seed,” that is, Christ” (Galatians 3:16).

Where did we first hear that word, “seed”? Genesis 3:15. “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed.”

Before God gave the Law, God gave a promise: that a singular descendent of Abraham would bless every nation in the earth. God’s plan was to send One person to bless all nations. Who is that person? Christ (Galatians 3:16).

God’s plan all along was to save us not by the Law, but through the gracious gift of His Son. The gospel goes all the way back to Abraham, and all the way back to the Garden with Adam and Eve. It’s Jesus! That was always the plan! 

Third: the law is subordinate to God’s promise to bless the world through Abraham. Why? Because it was given first and can’t be annulled. The promise to Abraham was given directly by God to Abraham. The Law was given through intermediaries like Moses. The promise of grace is in every way superior to the Law. While it’s almost too simple to declare, we don’t earn promises. We simply believe them. That’s what Abraham did. When he did, God declared him righteous. In Genesis and today, it’s through faith alone that God delivers sinners. Like Abraham, we must believe God. We must trust in Christ’s cross and resurrection for our salvation. It’s all of grace!

Nearly everything we do in life is based on performance. If you go to school, you get grades based on your performance. At work, you get reviews based on your performance. We’re hardwired to judge ourselves based on performance.

Brett Favre, holder of many NFL passing records, three-time MVP, 10-time all-pro and Super Bowl XXXI champion, said, You’re only as good as your last pass. All of us are tempted to live by performance.

God tells us in Galatians; it was never meant to be this way. None of us can ever “perform” good enough. We aren’t and will never be “good” people. Philip Ryken writes, Salvation in Christ does not rest on a law that we inevitably break; it rests on a promise that God cannot break.

Here’s your question. Is your relationship with God based on the Law, which we break, or is it based on the free gift of grace that only comes from God?

It’s always been about the promise of grace. It’s always been about grace, not works or the Law. This isn’t some New Testament invention. Salvation isn’t by obeying the Law or good works or morality. It’s by grace. It’s always been by grace from the beginning. It was for Abraham and it’s the same for us.

My friend, it’s always been about Jesus; it’s always been about being accepted by God on the basis of grace through faith.

Fridtof Nansen, the great polar explorer, sounding the depth of the arctic seas, one day came to a spot where all his lines would not touch the bottom. When the last foot of line was let out, they tied on every piece of rope and cord on deck. Sheets were ripped up and strips of cloth tied to the line. Still the plummet did not rest on the bottom. That day Nansen wrote in the ship’s log the total depth fathomed and added, Deeper yet. His experience calls to mind the poet’s words concerning the cross:

Through all the depth of sin and loss
Drops the plummet of the cross;
Never yet abyss was found
Deeper than the cross can sound!

Conclusion

Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us (Galatians 3:13). My friend, if you have trusted Jesus Christ by faith, you’re in Him, forever free from the curse. It’s all of faith, trusting Him completely and you are redeemed for all eternity.

Redemption means that the believer has been rescued, ransomed and restored. It turns out though that there is one more R word associated with redemption. It’s receive. Redemption isn’t automatic. You and I must make a decision. God in His love gave us that freedom. If you have never received this redemption, you can receive it today simply by saying yes to God’s offer of forgiveness and new life. You can trust God and the gift of His salvation just like Abraham. All of us need to be rescued from our sin. There’s only One person to call on in faith, Jesus Christ. Have you received His redemption?

And if you’ve done that already, if you’ve been rescued, ransomed, restored, and redeemed, then praise God for it and go out and live like it, not because you have to, but because you’re free!