Galatians: Part Four (One)

Today’s message is going to open your eyes to how we desire to gain, attain and earn our righteousness with God.

Scripture tells us that our righteousness is a gift from God. God has awarded us a right standing with Him by way of His grace. We place our faith and trust in Christ and God rewards our faith not our work.

Galatians 4:1-3

Think of it this way. If a father dies and leaves an inheritance for his young children, those children are not much better off than slaves until they grow up, even though they actually own everything their father had. 2 They have to obey their guardians until they reach whatever age their father set. 3 And that’s the way it was with us before Christ came. We were like children; we were slaves to the basic spiritual principles of this world.

Let’s set the stage.

A twelve year old son loses his extremely wealthy parents in a vehicle accident.

The parents set up their estate in a trust. Upon their death everything they own will be transferred to the son. There is, though, a few stipulations in the trust. If the child has not yet reached his 21st birthday when the parents die, he will be assigned to live with his poverty stricken uncle and aunt until he’s old enough to collect his inheritance. He must also graduate from high school and be attending a college on a full-time basis. He must not get married before he graduates from college. He must not be in any legal difficulty and he must not have acquired any debt not related to his schooling.

At any point the son fails to adhere to the rules of the trust, the trust is void and will be turned over to the poor uncle and aunt.

The son is now a slave to the rules of the trust. If he fails to obey he will lose his inheritance. If he obeys he will be rewarded his inheritance.

There is no grace in the law. And aside from there not being and grace the poor uncle and aunt know if the son fails they will be richly rewarded.

What if it’s in the best interest of your guardians that you fail?

This is the world we live in.

The world says we must do certain things to acquire what we desire. The world system then works against us as it really doesn’t want us to receive our reward.

This would be a no win situation. You couldn’t ever do enough to gain your inheritance. Why, because the system itself or the guardian was not set up to save you but only to prove your disobedience.

I’ll continue tomorrow.