A Different Gospel – 08/24/2025

Podcast

Welcome and Prayer: Jim Calhoun

Come, Lord, join us here today
This morning we pray for children
For the innocent
Those used
Abused
Neglected
And Forgotten
Those caught up in
ideologies of power
And greed
Used as pawns
In the attempts of some men
To dominate,
Control
To establish a kingdom on earth
In the name of their god
For their own satisfaction
While children are reduced
To collateral damage
Shamelessly
Wantonly
Carelessly

For those children
who are hungry, starving
We pray they will be fed
And cared for
And restored to health
And loved

For those children
taken from their homes
We pray for safe return
And a path to recover
And that they be made whole again
And loved

For those in fear
We pray for their peace
In hope that their suffering will end
And the freedom to grow and heal
And to be abundantly,
Profoundly loved

For those children who have died
We ask for mercy
And justice
And peace
Solace for their families and friends
And your continuing love

And for those with us
Whose wounded child
Still abides within
We ask for healing
And recovery
And freedom from fear
And to be made new

And that we might
find a way to help
In some little portion
Other children
Who are suffering
Amen

Morning Talk: chuck smith, jr.

“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” Galatians 3:15

Intro: In the first half of this chapter, Paul scolded the Galatians

You know how sometimes, as a parent,
– when you’re very worried about your child–maybe they did not arrive home on time
• when they finally show up, your worry turns to anger
◦ if ever our lectures were rougher than they needed to be,
◦ it was because we had agonized over their safety
• I think that’s a little piece of what is happening here
◦ Paul has called the Galatians “foolish” and asked “Who has bewitched you?”
◦ that is because they had him worried about the stability of their faith
– it is often the people who are most concerned with pleasing God,
• that are misled by false preachers and teachers
◦ they desire so much to be absolutely right with God that they fall victim to someone who seems knowledgeable
• anyway, Paul’ agitation rises to the surface in these short, clipped statements that barely say enough
– here in verse 15, he presents Abraham as an example of being true to a promise

Why Abraham? What is so important about him?

First, God’s covenant/s with Israel began with him
Second, Abraham predates the law by four centuries
Third, being chosen to represent God to the world,
Abraham became the spiritual “father of us all” (Ro. 4:16)

Perhaps it will be helpful for us to revisit Abram
(this was before God changed his name to Abraham)

In a vision, God told Abram, “I have a great reward for you”
Abe asked, “What reward, if I have no seed, no offspring, to inherit it?”
God answered, “Count the stars if you can. Your seed will be like that”
Again Abram disputed, “How can I know this is really going to happen?”
Instead of giving him an answer, God gave him specific instructions.

Later, that afternoon, Abram sacrificed a heifer, a goat, and a ram,
all three years old. He also prepared a turtle dove and pigeon.
He cut each animal in half, and laid the halves opposite each other in two rows,
with a path between them. – Then he waited.

As the sun set, Abram began to doze, but soon woke up in a cold sweat.
A darkness spread across the rough terrain–
an eerie dark that was more than just the absence of light,
and as it crept over Abram, it filled him with dread.
The voice of God came to him through the dark,
“Your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land; they will be slaves and mistreated for four hundred years. Then I will bring them back here, bringing great wealth with them. In the meantime, you will life to a ripe old age and die in peace.”
In the silence after God finished speaking, a light appeared,
like a fire burning in an oven or a bright torch,
and it moved along the path between the animal carcasses,
from one end to the other.
Then and there, the LORD made a covenant with Abram.

What this story describes is a formal ritual for enacting a covenant
– the sacrifice of the animals was an expensive investment
• but it’s believed that it was meant as a warning:
So may this be the punishment of one who violates the covenant
• “making a covenant” in Hebrew idiom, literally translated, is “cut a covenant”

Now we return to Galatians 3:15

When two people enter a contract agreement
– after it has been signed and notarized,
• neither one can go back and rewrite terms of their agreement
• that’s the first part of Paul’s point
– his application in verses 16-17, is that God sealed a contract with Abraham
• and from then on it could not be annulled or changed

But then Paul makes an odd observation
– when God extended the covenant to Abraham’s “seed,”
• Paul says seed is singular, and referred to one particular descendant
• I doubt that claim would be convincing today
◦ we are more technical in the way we use words
◦ but the style of rabbis followed the Hebrew Scriptures, which involve a lot of word-play
– we do not need to linger over what Paul does here
• we get what he is saying
• for Paul, that one seed refers to Jesus

The heart of Paul’s argument is that God sealed his covenant with Abraham
– and that covenant was based on a promise, “ratified” by God himself
• so the law, even though it came centuries later,
◦ could not alter or terminate that covenant of promise
• in a lengthier argument, Paul explained this to the Romans
“For the promise to Abraham and his offspring that he would be heir of the world did not come through the law but through the righteousness of faith” (Ro. 4:13)
– in verse 18, Paul says if God switched things up, if he changed the terms of the contract,
• so that now the inheritance came through the law,
◦ then it would no longer be based on his promise
• Paul insists that law and promise are two different types of covenant

So what is the point of the law? Why even bother?

The problem isn’t difficult to identify–humans are still human
– in fact, humans are still animals and the temptation is,
• to live according to our animal nature
◦ if we’re going to rise above that, we need law and order
◦ we need to know the rules and to be held accountable to obey them
• that’s the short answer to Why the law
◦ it was meant to hold our sinfulness in check until the fulfillment of the promise
– but here we find another difference between law and promise
• as the story goes, the law was given to Moses by angels (Acts 7:53)
• the promise was given by God directly to Abraham

We can see an obvious tension between the law and the promise
– so does one contradict the other? Paul says, “Certainly not!”
• IF there was a statute in the law that breathed its life into us,
◦ so that we were made righteous, then that is all we would have needed
• but that is exactly what the law does not do!
◦ it doesn’t heal or fix anything, but takes over everything (“imprisoned everything under sin”)
– the promise is the solution to the problems created by law
• it provides us a way to be right with God through Jesus
• this is what Paul means: made righteous by faith

Paul has one more point to make regarding the law

In Greek and Roman cultures, children were raised by guardians
– they provided training and discipline,
• but their main concern was to keep them out of trouble and have productive lives
• and the guardians main method of keeping children in line was severe punishment
– Paul uses the role of a guardian as an analogy for the law
• he says, in our immature youth, we didn’t know any better
◦ we needed strict discipline and that’s what the law provided
• but since Jesus has come, and brought us to maturity through faith,
◦ we no longer need the mean old nanny
◦ he says we’re all sons of God
This is inclusive of females, but Paul specifies sons, because the oldest son was a privileged role in the family
Once liberated, he became the master of his former guardians

The rite-of-passage for the Galatians, when they came of age spiritually
– was the threshold experience of their baptism
• that’s when they sloughed off the law and “put on Christ”
◦ the same way we put off the old self to put on new self
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, [they are] a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come” (2 Cor. 5:17)
– it’s as if Paul says, “Now look around you; everything has changed!”
• the law identified all sorts of distinctions and divisions of people
• but that disappears in the promise where there
is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male or female, for you are all one in Christ” Galatians 3:28-29

Conclusion: When my son Will was two years old, he was constantly singing – all the time

Songs about his toys, songs about his mom and dad, songs about cats and dogs
One day I told him, “O Will, to you everything’s a song”
He immediately sang, “Everything’s a song”
We were in a restaurant one evening, when I noticed people at other tables looking over at us
It was then I realized Will was singing loudly–I’d gotten used to it
For me, that’s what it means to be “free to be me”
Paul tells us, through his message to the Galatians,
“You are free to be you. Don’t let anyone spoil it for you”
Sing your heart out to God – in Jesus, everything’s a song