03/28/26 -6 Pts. From Galatians III

In the last 2 wks we have seen Paul expose the faulty mindset to attribute your value to the people around you & living to please them in exchange for acceptance when it means you have to have to betray who God class us to be. Last wk in Gal 2 Paul exposed that we are not defined by our past. In our culture your life is work built on the past to attribute to your worth. It is also attributed to your social circle, but Paul killed both of those. Let’s be honest we want life to have value, to have meaning, to have purpose. I refuse to buy into the narrative that we are all here be happen stance. But I also believe we absolutely have free will.  What are you worth? Where does that value derive from? Paul digs into this in Chapter 3:

3:²³ Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. ²⁴ So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. ²⁵ Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.

V23 Paul refers to OT times as it applied to the Hebrew bc the Gentiles were not exposed to the law or the coming gospel in a broad spectrum. The exchange of obedience to the law in Deuteronomy 28 are plenty. The problem was as we discovered last wk. no one can keep the law. It was the law that exposed us to death, yet it was the law that served as the manner in which God guarded them because it was he that created a covenant with them. As a matter of fact it is notable that He created multiple covenants with them. In those covenant the Lord protected Israel as long as they fulfilled their end of it, but sometimes had to be subjected to hard love. The Lord did not & will not abandon them entirely. This guardian was based on their faithfulness & the Lord knows the hearts of men.

Then Paul speaks of a deviance, a turn in this aspect of the guardian because things took a turn, a sizable turn when Jesus came, create the new covenant with the Father & the Gentiles were exposed to the this covenant because as covered last wk. Jesus fulfilled the law, but did not destroy it. In the time frame since the birth of the church, Israel, the Hebrews have turned cold to the things of God which does not shock the Lord at all, as a matter fact it is part of his plan because there is something deeper at work.

The Hebrew have not been forgotten, Romans tells us they were veiled to the truth so the plan of God could play itself out & the enemies of God could be shown up. The enemies of God are something not appropriately taught but it more than the mentally ill, or the demonic army led by the fallen choir boy that Jesus beat with an ugly set of sticks to make up a cross. See Psalm 91 for that, maybe I will teach on it in the future.

Nonetheless this veil will be torn later & the church will be the means to which the veil is torn. So what is their value now? Remember I asked what are we worth in the scale of things? Where do we derive purpose & meaning & even reason in this life? It cannot be our possessions, or our relationships or even our position in church. Then what is it?

²⁶ So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, ²⁷ for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

Notice how Paul says this, all children of God through faith. None of the stuff I mentioned is what qualifies us because it is all about faith. Notice the condition, baptized into Christ, replacing the ceremonial act of circumcision, but baptism is more than just a sign, it is an exchange because this is spiritual baptism, the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That is why clothed with Christ is mentioned here. You are clothed in his righteousness. This indicates that our clothes are not enough, our insurance is not enough, our savings is not enough, our work is not enough. The true value of life is not about anything in the physical material world.

²⁸ There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. ²⁹ If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

Your worth is in Christ, not in your job or education. Your worth is not attributed to your influence, or your reputation, because remember your past is dead. In the 1^st lesson of the series we taught that living to please the Lord is essential we can see here that our acts mean nothing but there is one thing that does mean something.

Children of God. This is the bottom line in black & white. It is all about Jesus fulfilling the Abrahamic covenant. If you are in Jesus you are part of that. You know this by whether or not you have Holy Spirit, that is the baptism the covering that now is the guardian in our lives. This means that your spiritual life is more than significant than your physical one it God can use your spiritual life to direct your physical life.

• Your worth is not tied to your network of human beings or devotion to anything of the world.

Faith is your key to this.

Faith that Jesus is the Messiah.

Faith that Jesus bled & passed away for our sins on the cross

Faith that Jesus is risen from the dead

Faith that Jesus has overcome the world.

Faith that Jesus defeated the enemies of God

Faith that Jesus is the only way to God the Father

Because Jesus is our only worth in life!