All right, at this time, if you have your Bibles, would you turn with me once again to the third chapter of the book of Galatians? Galatians and chapter number three, and today we're gonna be looking at verses 15 through 18. Verses 15 through 18, for sake of context, we're going to read verses 15 down through and including verse 22. I told somebody this week that I feel this is the most challenging portion of the book of Galatians thus far, and reading through to the end of the book, it's probably the most challenging portion of Galatians period. And I also said that the exposition of the book of Galatians has been the most difficult one that I personally have ever done. And I've preached through multiple books of the Bible now, and this has served to be a blessing, but it is certainly a challenge as well. And so we just want to be faithful to God's Word. We want to think God's thoughts after Him. We want to speak God's words after Him. We don't want to be creative and novel. We want to just stick to those old paths of the faith and the truth of the Bible that never changes. Amen? Amen. Well, if you found Galatians 3, would you stand with me in honor of reading God's Word? Galatians 3, beginning to read in verse 15, the Word of God says, 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 into 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. Verse 19, 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 the grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever. Let's pray. Father, we ask for your help as we study and preach your word today. I pray God that you would give us clarity and understanding and God that there would be correction. If, uh, if there's any error, Lord in myself or anyone else, I pray, God, that you would help us to be conformed to your image through your word today. Lord, bless the hearing and the preaching of your word that you would receive all the glory and honor and praise. Cleanse me of sin, empty me of self, and fill me, God, with your spirit. Help me to be a blessing to these, your people, and God will give you all the thanks and praise. In Jesus' name, amen and amen. Thank you for standing. You may be seated. The title of the message this morning is the promise of God, the promise of God. And in this short portion of scripture that we're looking at, there's a tremendous amount of truth, but we see one of God's attributes. One of the attributes of God that has been revealed to us about himself is that he is, big word incoming, immutable, immutable. The immutability of God means that God is unchanging. Because God is unchanging, His Word is also unchanging. There is no fluctuation, variation, or vacillation in God. A.W. Pink defines the immutability of God in this way. He said, He is unchanging God in His being, attributes, and determinations. We see this stated for us in passages such as Malachi 3.6. where the Word of God says, for I, the Lord, do not change. Hebrews chapter 13 and verse 8 says, Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever. In James 1 and verse 17, every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. God's immutability, that is, his unchanging being and purposes, is not only incredibly important, but it's also incredibly comforting. If God was changing in anything about his being, his plans, his purposes, his word, that would mean that he was not perfect, but rather that he would be imperfect. In other words, if something or someone is perfect, they do not need to change because any change from perfection would be an imperfection. God is perfect. And in his perfection, he is immutable. He is unchanging. So what does that have to do with Galatians chapter number three? Well, everything really. God made a promise to a man and to his offspring. It was the man of the Ur of the Chaldees in Genesis chapter 12. And that promise stands even to this very day, even to this very hour. How can we be sure? We can be sure because the God who made that promise is unchanging in his being. attributes, and determinations. What's even greater, though, is that God has already proven to us that the promise and its benefits are present and perpetual. In other words, they continue and they have no end. We live in the already and the not yet of God's promises being fulfilled. God has already in the perspective that in Christ Jesus, he has already satisfied the righteous demands of the covenant of works, a task that no man could accomplish. But the not yet is that while all who have received the Lord Jesus Christ by grace through faith are indeed in the covenant of God's grace and recipients of the full blessings and promises of God to Abraham. We are not yet, though, enjoying the fullness of that blessed gift. The day of the Lord is coming. We read it in 1 Thessalonians 5 this morning. The day of the Lord is coming, and in that day, the Lord Jesus Christ will make all things new. What was lost in the garden on the day in which sin entered the world will be completely restored in a new heaven and a new earth. And there will be no corruption of sin there. It will never touch the new heavens, the new earth. And therefore eternally, we will live with our God and our redeemer forever. Praise the Lord. Amen. Praise the Lord. This is all again, based upon the immutability, the unchangingness of God and the unchangingness of his promise. Look at verse 15, where we see the permanence of the promise, the permanence of the promise. The Apostle Paul, writing to the Galatians, says to give a human example, brothers. He's going to illustrate in a way that we can dumb it down, if you would say, to an earthly experience. He says, even with a man-made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. In other words, God's gospel, God's covenant of grace is immutable, unchanging. Now, Keep in mind what Paul is arguing against. We have to always and forever understand the context of the entirety of the letter. The Judaizers are impressing circumcision and obedience to the law of God upon Gentile believers in order to be fully justified. In other words, they were saying that they were not full Christians because yes, they trusted in Christ, but they were, they were not circumcised and they were not obeying the law. And and so it was a gospel of grace plus works. It was a gospel of faith plus works Recently just a couple weeks ago. Somebody asked me they say now when you keep saying the works of the law What exactly do you mean by that? What do you mean when you say works of the law? Well, it's quite simple if God gives us a law right and we disobey that law What do we call that when we break one of God's laws? starts with an s Sin. So if you break one of God's laws, you have committed a sin, but, but a remember there is both a positive and a negative demand of God's law. There are things that you should not do. And for everything you should not do, there's a positive opposite that you should actually do. If you don't do the positive, or if you break the law, negatively speaking, both of those are what sin. So works of the law, that is simply to say full obedience to the law. In other words, It's sinlessness. And then added to that is this idea of circumcision, which is a cutting away of the flesh. And a person, now think about that again. We've already thought about it, but remember, these are things that were being impressed upon the Galatian believers in order that they would be recognized fully as members of the covenant of grace. And Paul, He already pointed out for us that anybody who would preach a different gospel, let them be accursed. Right? And then he gives us an example of the apostle Peter, who, who was living in a contradictory, hypocritical way. One day he was fellowshipping with the Gentiles who were uncircumcised and they were eating pork and shrimp and he was enjoying himself. And the next day, the Judaizers, the Jewish boys show up and Peter says, Hey, sorry. See you later, guys. Can't do this no more. And he was saying something by doing that. He was saying that I can't participate with you as brothers and sisters in Christ anymore, because I've got to go act like a Jew. And by doing so, he was impressing upon them that they would live in a like manner. Peter the apostle was setting a precedent. He was demonstrating. And Paul even points out, he said he even led Barnabas and others astray to commit the same sin. And now Paul has been belaboring this point that the gospel of grace justification is by faith alone, apart from works of the law. And he's pointing now back to this covenant that God had established with Abraham and made him a promise. And he's engaging in a battle against the false teaching and worse than the false teaching. It was a false gospel. And he illustrates a principle of contractual or covenantal rule. When a covenant is established, no one ends it or adds to it or subtracts from it once it has been ratified or established. And so again, thinking in terms of who it was that was making the covenant with Abraham, it wasn't just the run-of-the-mill Joe Schmoe, it was God Himself. And by the way, when God makes a covenant with man, man's not a negotiator in the covenantal business. You understand that? When we look back at Genesis chapter 12, or Genesis 15, or Genesis 17, or Genesis 22, or Genesis 28, and we hear the covenant of God's grace and also a covenant of works, we never see where man turned around and said, well, God, I'd like to negotiate that point. No, God sets the demands. God makes the promises. God makes the law. Amen. It's God who's the author of these things. And so again, Peter, Paul is using this illustration here that when a, when a covenant is established, you can't change it now to, to illustrate for, for us in a, uh, in a way that maybe we would recognize, uh, personally speaking, if I were to tell my wife today, I am going to take you to the beach. And she smiles. And I say nothing after that, right? Nothing after that. But in two weeks, I get to thinking about the promise that I made my wife. I'm going to take you to the beach. She's laughing because she knows I would never say that. But two weeks later, I got to thinking. You know what, I really don't wanna go to the beach. I will take you to the beach, but we've gotta make sure that first, I get to go on a hunting trip, okay? You can go to the beach, but I'm gonna go also on a hunting trip, okay? And furthermore, because we're going on a hunting trip, probably gonna need a new bow and arrow, okay? So that's, we're just gonna tack that on to the arrangement, okay? Now, my wife, my wife, before the witness of God could go back and she would say, uh-uh, that's not what you said, right? That's not what you said. You said you would take me to the beach. I never said it. Praise the Lord. But she could go back and she would say, that's not what you said. You have added to, you have changed what you told me. And Paul is saying, listen, when there is a... and this should cause us now, obviously we're talking covenantally speaking, I believe God has made it clear to us that He expects us to keep our word. Amen? He wants us to keep our word. And so when we take a vow of any sort, of any kind, we take a vow before God as our witness, we should take it seriously. But Paul says the promise that was made can't be altered because it was established and it was established, we're going to see in a minute, in Hebrews, the right author of Hebrews actually says that God established that promise and He gave an oath. And because there was no one to swear higher than Himself, He swore by Himself. But anyway, the point is this, when God Himself makes a promise, The promise that he made to Abraham in Genesis 12, verses 1-3, is that he is making this unconditional promise to Abraham, and he is going to keep his word, and there's nothing and no one who can prevent it or change it. That's the entirety of his point here. It's established, it's established by God, and we cannot change these things. In Numbers 23, in verse 19, the Word of God says, God is not a man that he should lie, or a son of man that he should change his mind. He has said, and will he not do it? Or has he spoken, and will he not fulfill it? Rhetorical questions, and the answer is an abounding yes. God has said it, and therefore God will do it. Again, in Hebrews 6, verses 13 through 20, there's so many parallels between the life of Abraham and the book of Hebrews, but this is one of them. In Hebrews 6.13, it says, For when God made a promise to Abraham, since he had no one greater by whom to swear, he swore by himself, saying, Surely I will bless you and multiply you. There's the blessing. There's the promise. And thus Abraham, having patiently waited Obtained the promise for people swear by something greater than themselves and in all their disputes an oath is final for confirmation so when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable immutable character of his purpose He guaranteed it with an oath so that by two unchangeable things pause. What are the two unchangeable things? God himself and His word by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie. We who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this, the promise. as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. So what does this mean for us? If you have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ and have placed your faith in His all-sufficient life, death, and resurrection to save you, you can rejoice and have confidence today in the in the reality that God indeed not only has saved you, but also that God will preserve you until the day of your full and final redemption. That is to say, God does not change. God's word does not change. And God's promises do not change. It has been established. It is recorded. And God, the authority has placed His stamp upon it. The stamp was in blood, the blood of his son. Which takes us to our next point, verse 16, the person of the promise. The person of the promise. Verse 16 again says, 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. Now, this is challenging, but I think you'll get it. I think you'll get it. First of all, let's see the fulfillment of the promise is clearly defined for us as Jesus Christ being the fulfillment of the offspring promise to Abraham. It is Jesus himself According to the free and unconditional promise of God to Abraham, it included a land, it included a kingdom, and it included a king. And Jesus is the fulfillment of one and all of those things. To Abraham, the promise was made to him and his seed, and to the seed, the promises were fulfilled in Christ, but it's already, and it's not yet. There's an already, Christ has done it, we have received our redemption, but we're also being redeemed, right? I stated this way often and it's so helpful for us to think of it in these terms When we trust in Christ that we put our faith in him to receive the justification That is to say that God declares us as forgiven of our sins past present and future and he has also Imputed to us by faith the righteousness of God. We are declared by God to be righteousness Be righteous through faith in Christ. It's not our righteousness. It's Christ's righteousness accredited to our account Okay, that's the the clear teaching of it. But but we're living in this body We're living in this world and we're not experiencing the fullness of our salvation and furthermore even though we've been forgiven we also recognize that there's a battle going on inside of us that we we still live in this flesh and the flesh is still very fleshy and Because of that we do what? We sin, but the grace of God is at work in our hearts and lives, and He is saving us present and progressively from the power of our sin. That is to say, we're not yet sinless, practically speaking. but God is conforming us to the image of his son. That is a commitment that he has made to us. And though we're not sinless, we should indeed, as we grow in the grace and the knowledge and the truth of God, we should actually sin less. But what's also strange is, and I gotta just share this with you because it's so relevant to what I'm talking about right now. I had a conversation with a man this past week, and I was so thankful. It was without a doubt God Himself who brought this up in the conversation. We were just talking about life and catching up as an old friend of mine. And you know what he told me? He said, you know, Jason, the more that I read my Bible, the bigger of the sinner I feel I am. Think about that for a minute. He said, the more I study my Bible, the bigger sinner I feel I am. And then he said this. He said, I told that to pastor, preacher, so-and-so. And you know what that preacher told him? I'm not making this up. God is my witness. He said, the preacher told me, well, maybe you're not reading it right. What? He said, maybe you're not reading it right. In other words, and I bring this up because it's so necessary that we continually remember this, this preacher believes that he doesn't sin. That's what he believes. Now, here's the deal. Either that preacher doesn't read his Bible, or he reads it and he doesn't understand it, or he's a liar. It's one of the three. But I said to this man, I said, do you realize that that's how you should feel? That's how you should feel. When I read my Bible, I never walk away from my Bible going, wow, look at me. Right? I never walk away and beat my chest and say, I am, I am so good. No, no. When I read my Bible, I say, Oh, wretched man that I am. But oh, isn't God good? Isn't Jesus Christ good that He would love a sinner like me and save me? And this is the promise, that we would be saved by the seed, and the seed is Christ. But there's also something here that I want to explore, okay? This idea of, Paul goes to, he's pretty specific in drawing a contrast here, right? Verse 16, he says, the promise says, and to offspring, it does not say to offsprings, meaning plural, referring to many, but referring to one and to your offspring, who is Christ. What's interesting is the word offspring, or some of your translations probably say seed, offspring, seed, the word in the Greek is sperma, sperma. This means, or the meaning is, that which is sown, and it also means that which is harvested. Now, a basic principle of sowing and harvest is that when you sow a seed, you do what? a seed and you reap it after the same kind, but unless you're a really, really bad gardener, you're always going to reap more than you sow, correct? Yes. But notice when you say I reap seed, there's an implication that the seed harvested is not singular, right? Although grammatically speaking it is. So I can say I have a seed, Or I can say I have a bag of seed. If I were a corn farmer and I said I have a bag of seed corn, that would imply there's how many kernels in that bag? Where are my farmers at? There's 80,000 kernels. in a bag of seed corn, okay? It's a bag of seed, or I could also grammatically accurately say it's a bag of seeds. But what's interesting is that bag of seed, which contains many seeds, if I plant one seed, I'm going to get what? More seeds. Now, this is where it's absolutely positively encouraging to us. And Paul is emphasizing, he's not trying to play tricks on us, not trying to play tricks with words, but he's pointing to a truth that goes beyond the natural into the spiritual. Christ is the fulfillment of the offspring singular of Abraham. Now, wait a minute. I thought Isaac was the child of promise. Well, immediate context, it would appear that way. But Paul doesn't suggest that that was the fulfillment of the promise, was it? No, he's saying that the son that was promised to Abraham is actually Jesus, right? And so as he sees this fulfillment of the seed, just the same, just the same, Jesus also is the fulfillment of the seed of the woman, Genesis 3.15. And he's the fulfillment of the promise, son of David, 2 Samuel 7, verses 12 through 14. But with the fulfillment of that promise, the son himself produces fruit as a result of his life being planted in the ground. Now think about that. So much so that we in Christ, through Christ, become the offspring of Abraham through faith. Our identity as Christians, as recipients of the covenant of God's grace promised to Abraham, we have an identity of what? Not being in ourselves, but being in Christ. When God looks at us, He sees us clothed in the righteousness of His Son, the fulfillment of His promise to Abraham. And this seed, this seed, Jesus taught this principle. He said, unless a seed falls to the ground and is planted, It can't spring forth and produce fruit. But what happens when Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the seed of Abraham, is planted into the ground? He springs forth as God raises Him back to life in victory over our sin. That He who knew no sin became sin for us so that in Him we could become the righteousness of God. And as Christ is springing forth with life in Himself once again, what does He do? He brings forth a harvest. And we are the harvest of God through the seed, the Lord Jesus Christ. Are you getting this? Are you understanding? This is great news. Amen. We are the fruit of the seed that died and rose again. We are the ones who now we are seen by God with the image of God and the bloodstains of the Lord Jesus Christ upon our lives. accepted in the Beloved as one of His children. We're justified, sanctified, adopted in Christ, and one day we're going to be glorified with Him. Notice also, this is far-reaching. I don't have a lot of time, but Romans 4, the Apostle Paul also, he sheds some light that's so easily missed. He's so easily in Romans chapter 4 verse 13. It says for the promise to Abraham and to his offspring that he would be heir of the land of Canaan. No, that's not what it says. For the promise to Abraham and his offspring would be that he would be heir of the world. And it did not come through the law, but through the righteousness In other words, the promise that God made to Abraham as he said, look to the north, look to the south, look to the east, look to the west. He wasn't talking about a little chunk of ground called Israel. He was talking as far as the eye can see. Listen, the world belongs to God and the substance thereof. And the promises are made to all the earth. And so we are, we're in this amazing reality of receiving the blessings of God through Abraham, the promise made to him. And this is again, another important aspect of what the apostle Paul is doing here. Paul is reading his Bible with a very specific lens, very specific lens. You say, what was Paul's Bible? Well, it only had 39 books, just so you know. It was the Old Testament. And Paul was reading his Bible with a very specific lens, and that lens was focused clearly upon one person. the Lord Jesus Christ. And so with a Christ-centered, historical redemptive, he was filtering everything that was taking place, historically speaking, through one, through the seed, the offspring of Abraham. And he says right here in verse number 16 of Galatians 3, that the answer there, the promised seed, is the Lord Jesus Christ. We gotta keep moving. The protection of that promise is seen then in verses 17 and 18. This is what I mean, he says. 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. Now, what Paul is going to do now and through the next portion of this scripture, next week is going to be a challenge for me personally. Paul is making a law and gospel distinction here. He's not putting them up against each other, but there's an obvious tension between the things that Paul is saying and the elephant in the room, so to speak. And what do we do with the fact that God not only made this unconditional promise to Abraham, but he also gave a covenant that includes a conditional aspect of works, specifically circumcision. And later through Moses, that is the 430 years afterwards, he adds very specific laws. Primarily those laws were 10, and then they were multiplied to even more. And here's where we got to recognize this. that the covenant that God made with Abraham is not a flat line. I love my Presbyterian brothers and sisters, and their covenantal theology has a flat line. They see everything on one plane. But the covenant that we're looking at here, Paul is kind of doing a seesaw, right? He's saying there's continuity between what God promised Abraham, but there's also a discontinuity. And the struggle that we have is that we place each category in its proper place. And the continuity is this. He is saying that the promise itself is blowing past all the externals, all of the earthly and the physical. That is a biological, that is a works-based thing. But here's the deal. Those things are not irrelevant. No, they're not irrelevant because Jesus came and perfectly obeyed the works of the law because God had made that covenant just as sure as He had made the other. And so the answer that Paul gives here is that the law does not annul, it doesn't do away with that which was previously established, that is the unconditional covenant of grace, which was ratified by God so as to make the promise void. So then how is the inheritance, as mentioned in verse 18, the promise of this inheritance received? What do we do with the law? The reason that Abraham, as well as everyone else who receives the blessing of the promise given to Abraham, is due to the fact that the physical side of the Abrahamic covenant with his offspring, which by the way was conditional, the conditions being perfect obedience, was accomplished. And it wasn't accomplished by Abraham, it wasn't accomplished by Isaac, it wasn't accomplished by Jacob, it wasn't accomplished by Moses, it wasn't accomplished by David, not by Israel, but it was accomplished by Christ himself, so that in Christ the promises of God are yes and amen. The law did not annul the covenant of grace because the Christ of God, the seed of the woman, the offspring of Abraham, the son of David, the Lord Jesus Christ fulfilled all righteousness by actively obeying the full scope and spectrum of the law of God in order that his life would secure the promise that God gave to Abraham. Wow, that's a mouthful. I understand. We're getting a full portion here this morning. But listen, this is what I want to close with. God is not only immutable, but His promises are immutable. And therefore, the effects of His blessings are also immutable. God is unchanging, His promises unchanging, the effects of His promises are unchanging. Amen. Your salvation. Listen, it brings me great joy to tell you this today. Your salvation is as good as the God of your salvation, his work, his promise. Where is the room for doubt? Where is the room for fear? Where is the room for failure? It's not in Christ. Amen. It's not in Christ. We have, we have an all sufficient, all good, all gracious, all merciful, all loving, all kind, all just God of our salvation and Jesus Christ. Listen, you can go to work tomorrow and your, your employer will promise you a paycheck at the end of the week, but listen, he might not be able to deliver. But God makes you a promise today that if you will trust and believe in his one and only begotten son, that he will never leave you nor forsake you and forever and ever and ever he will save you because he is immutable. His word is immutable and his gospel is immutable. Hallelujah. Praise God. What a savior. Let's pray. Father, we thank you once again for your word. And Lord, I pray that everybody here, Lord, has looked to Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith, the seed that has accomplished our salvation and has made sure our full and final redemption. God, I pray that today you would just continue to warm and encourage and comfort our hearts by this truth. Lord, I also pray that, Lord, in the stillness of this moment, in the closing moments of this service, that, God, you would work in hearts. Maybe there's somebody here today, Lord, old or young or anywhere in between, who has never put their faith in Jesus. Pray that today would be that day when they see the sufficiency of Christ, the one who loved them and gave himself for them. the one who lived a life they could not, and died the death that they deserve, and then rose in victory over their sin, and has accomplished a full redemption for all, all who will believe, all who will put their faith in Him. So God, I pray that Your Spirit would quicken, make alive hearts that are dead in sin, and God, by Your grace, You would draw them to Yourself for Your glory. Lord, we love you. Lord, I pray also that you would help us, Lord, with confidence, as we think of the confidence that these things bring to our hearts. Lord, you would help us to go forth, Lord, living a life victorious, a life that is so certain. God, we know that there are so many seasons of change, but God, you and your Word is forever the same. And so God, give us confidence as we walk in this world and help us to proclaim this truth that changes lives forever. We love you. We praise you. We thank you. And we ask these things in Jesus' name.