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Once again, good morning. Please turn in your Bibles to Galatians chapter 3. Galatians chapter 3. We'll be looking at verses 23 through 29. We'll start in 23 and finish the chapter. Galatians chapter 3. Let me go ahead and read those words. But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed.

Therefore, the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free man. There is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants, heirs according to promise. Think for a moment, if you will, just to consider if you're wanting to get from Los Angeles to Tokyo, how's the best way to get there?

Now, for those just geography-wise, you know, Los Angeles is there on the west coast of North America, and Tokyo there is on the east coast of Asia, and there is really a little body of water between it, between the two, and it's called the Pacific Ocean. Now, suppose your two options for travel are aircraft or swimming.

Which do you think is a better option? Which do you think is going to get you there? Well, for Paul, the notion of achieving God's righteousness by trusting in your own ability to obey the law is as ridiculous as trusting in your own strength to swim the Pacific Ocean.

The chasm between man's sinfulness and God's righteousness is so much greater than even the Pacific Ocean. Now, suppose someone offered you a ticket to go from Los Angeles to Tokyo, and you refused it, saying, no, I'm going to swim. Thank you. What would you say about such a person?

Yeah, you're a fool. You're a fool. Or suppose somebody said, yeah, I'll take that ticket. Just drop me off in Hawaii if you can get me halfway, then I'll swim the rest of the way. What would you say about that person? Well, the same thing that Paul said in Galatians 3:1, you foolish Galatians.

How do you think you're going to be able to get to God's holy standards? That power is not in yourself. So, this whole idea that these Judaizers were convincing the Galatian church to believe in their self, in their own ability to be able to cross that chasm between man's sinfulness and God's perfect righteousness in their own strength, was absolutely ridiculous.

They were trusting in the law, they were trusting in themselves. Yet, what Paul is saying, which has been revealed from the very beginning, is that it is faith alone, faith alone in God's mercy, faith alone in God's benevolence, faith alone in God's provision. That's what's necessary for you to cross this great chasm between your sinfulness and God's holiness, and it's ridiculous to think that there is any other way.

That's Paul's thinking. And that's what he, we step back into the middle of his defense of this gospel, this gospel of faith. But it brings up a good question. If the law does not bring about righteousness, why the law? Why? What's its purpose? Look back at verse 19.

That's what Paul asked. Why the law then? It doesn't bring about righteousness. What's its purpose? And so we step back into our passage this morning, right in the middle of Paul's defense, or Paul's continuing to describe the purpose of the law. And that's where we find ourselves this morning, picking up midstream of Paul's thoughts of explaining why the gospel.

Very last thought that we looked at in verse 22 last time, but the scripture has shut up everyone under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Last thought we looked at was this incarcerating ministry of the law. The law, it didn't come to invalidate the gospel, it didn't come to, but it did come to illuminate the gospel by incarcerating people under.

Under sin. So, this ministry of incarceration. And it incarcerated so that we would understand the great liberator, or so that we would look for that one who would be able to free us from the curse of not measuring up to God's righteousness, who would bring us out from that curse.

Well, so we stand right now here, some 4,000 years later than when God gave Abraham the promise, when God preached the gospel to Abraham. Here we are, some 4,000 years later. The promise was given to Abraham. The Mosaic law then came, and then Christ came, and here we are, 2,000 years later, and the gospel is still going forth.

And what I want to talk to you about this morning are two epics in human history. Paul is going to outline these two major epics so that we will understand the distinction between the law and the faith. The law and the faith. Now, in this context, we often hear it described as the law and the gospel.

That's not the language that. Paul is using here. He makes a distinction between the law and the faith. And sometimes we pit the law against the gospel. And that thinking is foreign to Paul's mind. Now, the law isn't at odds with the gospel at all. And so he uses this expression, the law, but he'll also use the expression, the faith.

And so that's the terms that he uses here. And so that's the terms that I'm going to focus on. The two epochs in human history. But these two epics in human history happened historically, but they also happened personally. We can divide all of human history really into this period of law and the faith, period, the law, period of the faith.

But we can also look at our own personal histories and divide our lives into that period before faith came, when we were still under the curse of God for falling short of God's revealed righteousness. And so think about this. As we go, as we're looking through this history, this is more than a lesson in human history.

It's a lesson of personal history. Where are you today? Are you under the law or are you in the faith? Most important to consider as we're going through here. I want you to know the distinction between the law and the faith and the purpose of the law and the faith so that you will appreciate the beauty of the gospel, which takes us from the curse to the blessing.

So we'll just walk through this. First, I want to see this period of the law, this epic of the law. Paul uses two metaphors here. We'll look at the first in verse 23. But before faith, in the Greek, it's really before the faith came, or before the faith was to come, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed.

That first metaphor is that of a custodian. Remember, the last thought in verse 23 was that one of the scripture having shut up everyone under sin, imprisoned is a word. So you get this kind of idea of a custodian, someone who keeps someone in custody. So before the faith came, verse 23, 23, before faith came, that speaks of a time in history before the promise had come or been revealed, the promise that God made to Abraham's seed, that is Christ.

Notice what Paul says, but before faith came, we, we, who is he speaking of? He's speaking of all nations, not just his Jewishness, but the nations, we, not just the Jews, we were kept in custody. There was a custodian that was confining humanity to a limited space. And we can think about this custodian in a negative light and in a positive light.

If we're thinking of this custodian, the law being a custodian, we can think of the law being like a prison warden holding someone in. And that certainly fits with what was just said in verse 22: that the law didn't want people to get out of the notion that they are sinners.

It's a custodian. It has shut everyone up in sin. Now, Paul is going to keep using this custodian, tutoring, and guardian kind of language as we continue to go on. But here, there's a, you could think. Of it as a negative, in a negative sense, that the law isn't going to let anybody get away with sin.

It's going to shut everybody up in sin, lock them in sin. But there's a purpose behind all that. So you can think of a more positive custodian figure would be that of like a schoolmaster. Think of a schoolmaster of a boarding school that confines students until the point of graduation.

If you're a student there, it might feel like a prison, but the idea is that of preparing for the next phase. And so look at what it's doing. Before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up. That is, to be kept for something, to be shut up for something.

What was that? To the faith, for the faith. The law isn't trying to shut up people from the faith. Make sure you understand that. The law has a positive impact. It's not saying, okay, I'm going to keep you so that you can't have faith. No, it's the idea that it keeps people under the understanding that they are sinners, but it has a purpose so that they would seek, so that they would be kept.

For the faith. That's the idea. See, the goal of the law was not to keep people from exercising the faith, it was to keep people from exalting themselves and seeing their need for the faith. And the idea of faith, when he talks about the faith, it's talking about the object.

The object of the faith is the promised seed to Abraham, the content that was yet to be revealed. The word there is which was later to be revealed. A good translation of that is really on the verge of. Before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was on the verge of being revealed.

That's the first, a custodian. Then in verse 24, he goes on to give another metaphor or image of the tutor, I mean, of the law. Verse 24. Therefore, the law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ so that we may be justified by faith. The law has become a tutor.

Now, what is a tutor? Well, a tutor is someone who helps a person get to the next phase to understand. A superintendent of some sort that is to help guide a person into what's coming next and to prepare them for what is coming next. And in ancient times, the word is actually a boy attendant.

That's the word. A tutor is a boy attendant, a child attendant. And that these were customarily slaves. A tutor was a slave in a household who would often have to superintend, pay attention, and be responsible for the proper upbringing of the child in the home, the sons in the home, into the proper upbringing and conducting them into adulthood.

That's what a tutor was, was to somebody to conduct children in the home to adulthood. And so, important to notice here, a tutor, the law, therefore, has become our tutor. That's in a perfect sense. The law has become, it has become something and it has never ceased to become that.

It's a continual, lasting effect. It has become the nation's tutor to Christ. And not just the nation's tutor on a global level. Level, but on a personal level as well. That's the tutor. This custodian, this tutor. Let me say a couple words about how this custodian and tutor was introduced.

Now, keep in mind, you remember when Abraham, when God came to Abraham, there wasn't a lot of fanfare. He comes, he talks to Abraham face to face or however he did, person to person, no mediator. That's the idea. And he told him what he was going to do.

He was going to bless all the nations and his seed. But the giving of the law was something different. It was glorious. It was earth shattering and earth shaking. You remember that in Exodus 19, 18, Mount Sinai was in all smoke because of the Lord despended upon it in fire.

And the whole mountain quaked violently. In Deuteronomy 33, 2, Moses speaks of that the Lord came from Sinai and dawned on them from Seir. He shone forth from Mount Peron, and he came from the midst of ten thousands of holy ones. In his right hand, there was flashings of lightning before them.

You see, that was the giving of the law. It was spectacular. This was the Tudor that was introduced. And by the way, all of the world empires knew about this law, even if from a distance, even if they didn't know the details of it. They knew who the Jews were.

We can start with the Egyptians. You remember Pharaoh in Exodus 5:1, Moses says, You need to let my people go. And Pharaoh says, Who is the Lord? That I should obey his voice to let Israel go. Guess what? The Egyptians learned who this Yahweh was. And as Pharaoh saw his entire army drown in the sea, he came to understand that the God of the Jews is greater than all the gods of the Egyptians.

And so that should prompt a question. God wanted these people to go out. What did he want? What did he do once he got you out there? Oh, he gave you his law. And what did he want in that law? What did he want from you in that?

Should lead people to ask the question. And the answer is right there all along. God wants you to love him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and he wants you to love your neighbor as yourself. That's what he wants from them. From them and from you.

You remember when they are about to go into the land of Canaan? Everybody knew who the Jews were. You get evidence for this in Joshua 2, when the spies are in Rahab's house, and this is what Rahab says. She hides the men and says, I know that the Lord has given you the land, and that the terror of you has fallen on us, and all the inhabitants of the land have melted away before you, because we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you.

We've heard about what you've done to the kings before you. And when we heard of it, our hearts melted because the Lord your God, He is God in heaven and earth. The Canaanites got it, even from a distance. Enough for Rahab to have faith and be put in the hall of faith, even though she was a Canaanite, put in the lineage of Christ.

You remember the Assyrians? Oh, they knew who the Jews were. Sennacherib learned that. You remember Sennacherib comes down to attack Jerusalem, and in Isaiah 37, 10, he tells, he says this to Hezekiah, Don't let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.

Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, destroying them completely. So will you be spared? Did the gods of those nations which my fathers have destroyed deliver them? This is Sennacherib. And what happens? The angel of the Lord goes out and struck down 185,000 of Sennacherib's army, and he leaves.

Then he goes in to worship the house of his God, and he is killed by his own children, not even safe in his own family. Yeah, no, the Assyrians knew who the Jews were. You remember the Babylonians? They knew who the Jews were. You remember Nebuchadnezzar after God humbled him?

What does Nebuchadnezzar say in Daniel chapter 4, 34? I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes after this humbling period toward heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation.

Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt, and honor the king of heaven, for all his works are true, and his ways are just, and he is able to humble those who walk in pride. Yeah, the Babylonians knew who the Jews were. They knew who the God of the Jews were, at least from a distance.

And enough of them inquired. In fact, you see the wise men coming from the east. There's enough information out there. There for them to come and know the timing of the Messiah, all that. Oh, they knew. What about the Medes and Persians? Oh, they knew this tutor to the nations was communicating something more than just to the Jews.

That God was dealing with all of mankind. He's dealing with them, and that interface is through the Jews, testifying to one Jew, the seed, the promise, Jesus Christ. Oh, yeah, you remember the Medes and the Persians? You remember Darius after Daniel's deliverance from the lions? He says, This, I make a decree that in all the dominion of my kingdom, men are to fear and tremble before the God of Daniel, for he is the living God and enduring forever, and his kingdom is one which will not be destroyed, and his dominion will be forever.

Well, they understood who he was. The question is: do you understand who he is? Are you learning the lesson from the great tutor, this glorious tutor to the nations that are pointing us and pointing you to Christ? We can keep going. Go later into the Persian period. You remember the whole book of Esther?

You remember Haman wants to kill Mordecai. He created all these gallows out there to go out and Hang Mordecai. And then he starts falling before Mordecai. Things aren't working out well. And listen to what his own wife said to him. Esther 6, 13. Then his wise men and Zarish, his wife, said to him, If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to fall, is of Jewish origin, you will not overcome him, but will surely fall before him.

You see, they knew who the Jews were. They knew there was a protection there. They knew that God had a purpose for them. And many of them dialed in to what that purpose was. Although many, the vast, probably did not. I mean, you come to the Romans. God was dealing with the Jews according to the law.

And as he was, he was schooling the nations, pointing him to himself. Even Pilate is going to say in John 19, 4, I find no guilt in him. It's the Roman centurion who's going to lift up in Mark 15, 39 and say, truly, this man was the Son of God.

And even after the desolation of Jerusalem, God, it was clear that he was doing more than just disciplining Israel. He was teaching the nations what he had promised the nations, what he had promised Israel and promised the nations in the world. His law. He said, If Israel does not uphold this law, they too will come under my curse.

Act Deuteronomy 29, 22 says this: Now, the generation to come, your sons who will rise up after you, and the foreigner who comes from a distant land, when they see the plagues of the land and the diseases which the Lord has afflicted it, listen to this. All the nations will say, like, God, why did you do this to Jerusalem?

How could you let this happen to Jerusalem? Then all the nations will say, Why has the Lord done this to this land? Why this great outburst of anger? And they will say, because they forsook the covenant of the Lord, which he had made with them when he brought them out of the land of Egypt.

Therefore, the anger of the Lord burned against that land to bring upon it every curse which is written in this book. And the Lord uprooted him from their land in anger and in fury and in great wrath, and cast them into another land. You see, the standard for Israel was the same as the standard for the nations.

And all who do not obey the righteousness of God come under the curse of God. That's what the law does. It shuts up everyone under sin. Listen. If Adam didn't obey God and he was expelled from the Garden of Eden, do not think that you or I would have done any better.

If Israel didn't obey God and was expelled from the land, do not think the Hittites would have done any better. Do not think the Jebuzites would have done any better. And don't think us Americanites or we Americanites would do any better. We must learn from the law, learn what it requires of us as a nation, but also as individuals.

You see, the Christianizing of the Roman world is an undisputed fact of history. They turned from idols to the living God to such a degree that the whole pagan temples were put out of business and became obsolete. Yeah, the law was the tutor, the nation's tutor, a personal tutor, pointing to Christ.

You cannot understand who Christ is and what he did apart from the glorious tutoring ministry of the law. Let me tell you what the law is not. The law is not a tutor to another law. In other words, the law is not a tutor to another set of laws, like you might see in the Roman Catholic system.

Or that you might see in Islam, or any other kind of works-based system. The law wasn't just a tutor to get, let me get you past the baton onto a better law. It's not that. The law is a tutor to Christ, a person in whom, once you have put your faith and trust in, you become one with him.

The law is a tutor to drive you to Christ, to put you in the hands of Christ. That's the idea. To entrust you to him, to have you looking to him, not to itself. So, the law, what does it do? It sets forth the condemned condition of humanity.

That's what the law does. And everyone shut up under it, Jew and Gentile. So, what do we learn from all this? Well, we are to seek God's solution. That's the epic of the law. What is to come out of this tutoring ministry, this time period, this epic moment of time period of the law?

What was to come out of it? Well, we were to seek God's solution for our broken world and God's solution for the brokenness in our lives. And His name is Jesus. Jesus, God's solution. The law was to drive us to look for God's solution and not look for that solution in us, but to look for that solution in God.

So you have the period of the law before faith came. But then you have the coming of the faith. Look back at verse 25. But now that faith has come. The faith has come. But now the faith has come, we are no longer under the tutor. The faith there is a noun.

It's not a verb. Because we know that Abraham had faith, faith was around, the act of believing was around. But the content of that faith, who this seed is, now that has come. His name is Jesus Christ, the Nazarene. We know who he is, and we know what he did.

He went to the cross, sinless, bore our sin, came out of the grave, resurrected. Now the content. Now the seed has been revealed. The content of faith. Notice, but now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. No longer, that's a very strong word. We are no further under a tutor.

The nations are no longer under a tutor. In fact, the expression could be translated never. Again, we are never again under the tutor of the law. There's not another time period where we're going to go back to the Mosaic law. The law's custodial role in history was completed in history.

And now, where are we? Well, just like the law said, Deuteronomy 18:18, I will raise up another prophet from among their countrymen, from the Jews, like you, like Moses, and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him.

And it shall come about, whoever will not listen to my words, which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him. In other words, I'm going to raise up another prophet. You're not going to miss him. You're going to know who he is. And whoever does not listen to him, I will require it of him.

Whoever, Jew, Gentile, it's all. Whoever doesn't listen to him, that's I will require from him. I will require it of him. So again, just think about if Israel couldn't keep the law, we shouldn't expect any other nation or any other individual. The law states that everyone is shut up under sin.

There is no one righteous, the scripture states, not even one. There is not a single righteous inhabitant. Inhabitant upon the earth. The law paints a very dark picture, doesn't it? Not even a single one, not one righteous. But all that sets the black backdrop. The blackness, the darkness, from which the glory of one individual will be revealed.

One righteous person would have to come forth before a nation of righteous people would come forth. The gospel sets the background for that beautiful, righteous figure, that beautiful star to shine forth against the blackness of human sin. His name is Jesus Christ, and you cannot miss him. That's what the law does.

How do we know that Jesus Christ was righteous? Know anybody else that was raised from the dead? There's not even another contestant in human history. He was raised from the dead. Why? Because he had done everything that God wanted him to do. He never violated a single command of God.

And that's what God told Adam. The day you eat of that, you're going to die. He never violated God's law anywhere. At any time. And he comes forth. The curse can't hold him. He's righteous. You see, on a personal level, let's take this down to our own level.

When a person believes in Jesus Christ, that person is redeemed from the curse of the law. You're freed from the curse of the law, not the tutoring ministry of the law, but freed from the curse of the law. And you are placed in a new category, a category of the blessed, the blessed existence.

And that category is called sons. You see, the law sets forth the condemned condition. The faith sets forth the blessed condition, the blessed condition. And I want to, real quickly, look at this blessed condition. Notice in verse 26: for you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

You are all sons of God. The blessed condition is described as being one of the sons of God. Sons of God. I want to talk to you about eight characteristics of them here, but the idea is. Of God. And you can use the word children of God, and some translations go there.

But here, I think we need to stay within the text. He uses the word sons of God. And the word sons doesn't stress maleness, it stresses status. The same status as the Son of God. And he's going to make it very clear: female male is not part of this status element.

It's irrelevant to it. Here we're talking about a status. This section tells us who the sons of God are. And who are these sons of God? They're ones, first of all, who have faith in Jesus Christ. They have faith in Christ Jesus. Let me make sure I pay attention to the word order.

They have faith in Christ Jesus. They have faith in the Messiah, Christ, who is Jesus. They understand God's purpose for the Messiah, who happens to be Jesus. I love Martin Luther's statement here. Notice he saith not, ye are children of God because you are circumcised, or because you have heard the law, and have done the works thereof, but by faith in Christ Jesus.

The law then makes us not children of God, and much less do men's traditions. These cannot beget us into a new nature. Or a new birth, but it setteth before us the old birth whereby we were born to be children of wrath, and so prepares us for the new birth, which is by faith in Jesus Christ.

What God is saying is like God's plain ticket, if you will, to the blessed status is through faith. You are all sons, y'all all are. That's the way it says, Y'all all are sons of God through faith in Christ. So it's through faith that you become in Christ, and it's in Christ you become of the status, sons of God.

You see that? Through faith you become in Christ, and in Christ you become sons of God. Again, I want to quote what Martin Luther says here: What tongue, either of men or of angels, can sufficiently extol and magnify the great mercy of God toward us, that we who are miserable sinners and by nature the children of wrath should be called to his grace and glory, to be made the children and heirs of God, fellow heirs with the Son of God, and lords over heaven and earth, and that by the only means of our faith in Christ Jesus.

How do you magnify? God for such great mercy, great benevolence to take us and take us from the lowest place and cross this great chasm. What power, what grace, what riches, what benevolence, this is what the Son of God accomplished for his people for you and me who are in Christ.

Would love to just park there, but I'm also watching the clock. Can't park too long. But I want to quickly just show you these eight characteristics of the sons. Who are the sons of God? All creation wants to know. Well, they're being revealed. First of all, they have faith in Christ Jesus.

Second, they were baptized into Christ. Look at verse 27. For all y'all, all of you were baptized into Christ. Now, some people like to say, well, water baptism. No, give Paul more credit than that. Paul does not replace circumcision with another ritual, water baptism. He's not there. His mind isn't going there.

The whole book is against a works and ritual basis for righteousness. It's faith alone. What is water baptism or what is baptism? That he's speaking about here. It's literally, y'all have been immersed, washed, cleansed, identified with Jesus Christ. What is pictured in water baptism is what he is talking about here: spirit baptism, being immersed into Christ's spirit.

Have you put on Christ's spirit? How do you put on Christ's spirit? By believing in Jesus Christ. That's how you become in Christ. They were baptized into Christ. Three, they have clothed themselves with Christ. Look at the second part of 27. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

That is, you have put on Christ, His holy disposition, His character. And this shows up in the way we start to live. We never feel the same way about sin. And nor do we feel like we have to blame and excuse and put our sin on somebody else.

Because of Christ, we can, like that, like we sung, we can run into His presence because of mercy and the covering that we have in Christ. We can be driven into His presence, even though we are sinners at times. We can still, when the finger of the law is pointing at us, we immediately run to Christ.

It's the disposition change. Fourth characteristic of the sons of God is that they're staying. Surpasses all other ranks in life. If you are in Christ, whatever your background is becomes irrelevant to the issue of your status. Look at what he says in verse 28. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female.

You are all one in Christ Jesus. These are the major classifications in Paul's day: national origin, that is irrelevant to the issue of your status. Your social realm, whether you're a freed person or a slave, that is immaterial to your status. Or whether you are male or female, you are all sons of God.

That's immaterial to your status in the highest rankings of heaven and earth. What a gift. And though they are from all, though they are from all these different distinctions, yet they are all one in Christ. Their standing surpasses all other ranks in life, and yet they are all one in Christ.

Into verse 28, for you are all one in Christ Jesus, sharing the same status, the same oneness, the same Dignity as Christ himself. Too good to be true? This is the faith, and it is liberating. Sixth, they belong to Christ. They belong to Christ. Look at the beginning of verse 29.

And if you belong to Christ, that is, if you belong to Christ, you are in his kingdom, you are in his realm, you are under his dominion, you are his responsibility, you are in his custody, and he is the one who is going to shepherd and bring about all that God has purposed.

Seventh, they are Abraham's descendants. Look back at verse 7. I mean, look at verse 29. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's descendants. You are the seeds, the seed promised. You remember going way back to that night sky when God first comes to Abraham without the bells, without the whistle, without the angels, without the trumpets.

And he comes and he says, Abraham, come outside your tent. Let me show you the stars. So your offspring shall be. And Abraham believed God. Descendants, who are the? He wasn't talking about his physical descendants, he was talking about his spiritual descendants. Descendants. That promise that God made to Abraham that day, it was made to Abraham, but it was also made to his seed.

That is Christ, the individual through whom all the nations would be blessed. Through him, but it was also to another category of people. Who's that? All of those who would be blessed. And if you are in Christ, that is you. Something to celebrate. Notice God's faithfulness. 4,000 years.

We're looking at history. God's faithfulness. You can trust His faithfulness. He's mindful of you. He saw you in that starry night displaying you as a descendant of Abraham. That's it. If you're in Christ. And if you're not in Christ this morning, learn the lesson of the law. Come to the end of yourself and run to Christ.

Let the tutor toot you. Number eight, the last thing in verse 29: they're heirs according to promise. All that I just said. That blessed category of people, the descendants. God's faithful promise to Abraham, to Christ, and to that blessed category of people who would believe in him. Romans 8.19 says this, for the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.

It's like the whole purpose of creation is for the revealing of the sons of God. So as we think about the epics in human history, the law sets forth the condemned condition. The faith sets forth the blessed condition and describes them as the sons of God. You see, the journey of the nations in world history also parallels the journey of every soul in our personal history.

There's a time when us as individuals, we are under the law, under that righteous standard of God, and we don't measure up. And God convicts you of sin, and he shows you your sin, not to condemn you, but so that you will be driven, not to ultimately condemn you, but so that you will be driven.

He informs you of your status and the righteousness that he Desires and he's like, you're never going to get from where you are to perfect righteousness and perfect blessing in God apart from his gift. You might as well just try to swim the Pacific Ocean as to try to measure up to God's holy standards.

But the good news is all of this ministry of the law is to set forth the backdrop by which the good news will come, by which grace can be understood as grace. Think about a gem, a nice, costly gem. They always put it against the backdrop, a black backdrop, don't they?

They want it displayed. They want you to see, or think about the stars at night. You see the shining stars against the blackness of the sky. And so the beauty in the gospel is understood by contrast. The gospel is the costliest gem, and it takes us out from the curse of the law and it puts us into the faith.

It gives us the faith to believe in and it puts us into that blessed condition. We can appreciate the cross only when we understand the nature of sin and God's rightful judgment against us. And if you're convicted of your sin this morning, that's a good thing. Let it cause you to run to Christ and appreciate his forgiving work.

Hebrews 2:1 says this, For this reason, we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it. For if the words spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just penalty, how will we escape if we neglect so great a salvation?

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, what a great salvation we have in Christ Jesus. What beauty, what glory. And we thank you for the law and the years, the many years of striving with sinful humanity, demonstrating your faithfulness to your word, your commitment to the seed of promise, Christ who would come, and your ongoing commitment to apply his work to all, even today, who would put their faith and trust in you.

Father, you delight in Jesus Christ, and you delight in all of those who delight in Jesus Christ. Father, forgive us of our sins. Help us to run to you and meet you and experience the glorious transformation. Grace that comes from a relationship with knowing that our sins are forgiven and that there's a new life set before us in your grace and for your glory.

In Christ's name we pray. Amen.