Message of the Week

The Little White Community Church

Scripture: Gal. 3:6 -18 Feb. 9, 2025

Message: “The Children of Abraham!”

by Pastor George Gnade

Intro: 1. The Book of Galatians is all about being saved by faith in Jesus Christ and living by faith the way Jesus wants us to live.

2. In the passage we are studying today, Abraham is used by Paul as the best example of a man who lived by faith in what God told him. Because God Himself can’t be seen in all His glory, most scholars agree that Jesus took on the appearance of a man or an angel and talked to Abraham, even though he did not know Him as Jesus as we do today. 

a. Assuming this is true, for Abraham to believe in what God told Him was very similar to us believing in God based on what Jesus has taught us. 

b. In vs. 6, Paul quotes from Gen. 15: 6, where it says: “Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness.”  

A . Then Paul makes a very important statement in vs.7. He says: “Understand then, that those who believe are (the real) children of Abraham.”

1. “For the Scriptures foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles through faith and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham” (Vs. 8). 

a. If I asked you what the gospel is, based on what Paul was teaching the Galatians, the good news of the gospel is that Jews and Gentiles can be saved by simply believing in the Lord Jesus Christ. 

b. What did God tell Abraham? In vs. 9-10, God says: ‘“All nations will be blessed through you.’  So those who have faith are blessed with Abraham, the man of faith.”

2. Paul is teaching us Abraham had many descendants, but all those descendants were not saved. To be saved, a person must believe like Abraham believed. He must believe in what God teaches us and seek to obey the Lord the way Abraham obeyed the Lord.

a. Hebrews 11 is often called the faith chapter. It mentions many different individuals from the O.T. that were saved by faith by simply believing and doing what God asked them to do.

b. We are saved the same way, by believing in Jesus and doing what Jesus asks us to do.

3. Another way to say this is that in the O.T. they believed God would send us a Savior, and in the N.T., people are asked to believe in the Savior God has sent. But we are all saved by faith in the Lord, and by showing our faith by what we do and say. 

B. In the midst of this discussion, Paul starts talking about the Law. And in vs. 10, the very first thing he says might surprise you. “All who rely on observing the law are under a curse!”  What a contrast!

1. He continues: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in “the Book of the Law.” 

a. This is a reference to the first 5 books of the Bible that we believe were written by Moses. Of course this includes the Law given on Mt. Sinai. 

b. This law was very good. The problem is none of us are capable of keeping it. Therefore, while it may encourage us to do what is right, it also makes us feel guilty and realize we are condemned. 

c. In plain words, it has value but no solutions!

2. But the purpose of the Law was not to save us, but to point us to the Savior. In the midst of this discussion on being condemned, in vs. 13, Paul writes: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us!”

a. Wow! Here is the perfect man dying for imperfect people so that we can be saved by believing in Him, not by our ability to keep the law. 

b. In plain words, we are saved by faith in Christ, not by the works of the Law.

C. That allows Paul to go back to Abraham and what God taught him.

1. In vs. 14, Paul wrote: “God redeemed us in order that the blessing promised to Abraham might come to the Gentiles too through Jesus Christ, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.”

a. In saying one truth, Paul introduces another. First of all, he is saying that God promised Abraham that, through the coming of Christ, the whole world would be blessed. All God asked is that we believe in Him and live accordingly.

b. That created the best place to introduce another truth. Just as we are all saved by faith, God wants us to live by faith. 

2. Living by faith is different than trying to keep the Law of God perfectly. That only leads to discouragement. But living by faith keeps our eyes on Jesus. 

a. Now we are not trying to live perfectly in our own strength; instead, we are living to please the Lord in His strength.

b. In the N.T., now that Jesus has risen and gone to heaven where He reigns over all, He has also sent us His Holy Spirit to live in our hearts.

3. If the amazing promise of the O.T. was that Jesus would come, the amazing promise of Jesus was that the Holy Spirit would come!  We will learn more about that in Gal. 5 & 6.  

D. But there is one more lesson Paul wants to explain to us that goes all the way back to Abraham. This is found in vs. 15–20. 

1. People often joke about which came first, the chicken or the egg. In these verses, Paul reminds us that the promise (about Jesus) given to Abraham came 490 years before the law on Mt. Sinai. The Law can’t negate the promise. 

a. Some commentaries point out that this promise was affirmed in Gen. 15: 8-18. In those days, they cut the animals being used to affirm the covenant in two and arranged the halves opposite each other.  Then they would pass between them.

b.But God caused Abraham to fall into a deep sleep, and when the sun went down, only God Himself  passed between the pieces in the form of a “smoking pot with a blazing torch.”

2. This was God’s way of saying this promise did not depend on Abraham. It depended only on God Himself, who guaranteed that Jesus, the true seed of Abraham 

(vs. 16), would come to save us from our sins. 

a. The law given on Mt. Sinai could never save us. It simply reminded us that we needed a Savior.  God would never break His promise to send us that Savior. 

b. Now that Savior has come.

In conclusion: 1. Since He has come, “You are all sons of God through faith in Christ…There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Jesus Christ. If you belong to Christ, then (in Christ) you are Abraham’s seed and heirs of (this wonderful) promise” (Gal. 3: 26-29). 

2. Praise God, Jesus has affirmed this promise. Amen!