Grace Changes Everything, November 16, 2025

Good morning, church. This is the day that the Lord has made and we will rejoice and be glad in it. I want to say good morning to those of you here in the room, in the worship center, to those of you who are watching online, good morning to you as well. We are so glad that you are connecting with us today virtually. My name is Justin Billson. If I haven't met you yet, I'm one of the four teaching pastors here at Fellowship. We are one church now in seven locations as God is expanding the reach of our church by his grace and for his glory into North Little Rock. And so God is moving throughout central Arkansas as we continue in our mission, which is making disciples who live by God's grace and for his glory at home and across the world. And so I'm excited about what God is doing in and through the life of this local church. And so today we're continuing our verse by verse voyage through the book of Galatians. And so I want to invite you to join me in Galatians chapter three. We're actually approaching now the middle part of the book. And so we've covered chapters one and two in entirety. And so today we want to look at chapter three, verses one through 14. So before we read the passage, I want you to do me a favor. I believe that anytime we gather in the Lord's house, one of the things, of course, yes, we gather to be encouraged, but we also gather to be an encouragement. So would you do me a favor and look at someone around you or next to you and just say, I'm glad you're here today. Would you just tell them that for me? Tell them, I'm glad you're here today. Amen. Amen. Amen. And that's so important for us as a church family to remember those around us because you never know who needs to hear and to receive those words to know that I'm glad that you are here today.

And of course, even if you're not physically in the room with us, we're glad that you're joining us today virtually. So again, this series, grace changes everything as we're walking through the book of Galatians. Let's turn again and look at Galatians chapter three, verse one through 14. Listen to what the apostle Paul says. He says, Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you only this. Did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish having begun by the spirit? Are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain? If indeed it was in vain, does he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. Know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham and the scripture for seeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith. He preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham saying in you, all the nations be blessed. So then those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. Verse 10 for all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse for it is written, curse be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law and do them. Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by law for the righteous shall live by faith. But the law is not of faith, rather the one who does them shall live by them. Verse 13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us for it is written, cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree so that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promised spirit through faith. It's the word of the Lord to us today, Galatians chapter three, verse one through 14.

As we walk through this series again, Grace Changes Everything, I want to talk today about the life of faith, the life of faith. Let's pray and ask God's blessing over our time in the word. Father, thank you for the joy that is ours to be in your presence. We know Lord that your presence is not confined to the four walls of this building. We know that wherever we are, whether we're here, whether we're at home. whether we're in school, whether we're at our job, whether we're out walking in nature or driving in our car, your presence surrounds us. But thank you that the reason why we can approach your throne with grace and your throne of grace, knowing that we receive forgiveness and knowing that we have been saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. Thank you that we can approach you and call you Father and that you call us son and daughter. Thank you for the blessing of what Christ has done for us. Father, we thank you for the opportunity to sing your praises, to encourage one another, to be encouraged by one another, and now to open up your word and ask that you speak to us. Your word is life and light and every week I stand before your people. I ask that you would let this word come alive. Let it challenge us, let it encourage us, let it convict us in the areas that we need to grow. Thank you that your word is life-changing. It never leaves us the same. We open our hearts and minds to receive what you wanna say to us today through this text.

We love you, Lord, and we thank you. Hearts are ready to receive, in Jesus' name, amen. Church, our text this morning, if you by chance are unfamiliar with it, is according to one biblical scholar that I discovered this week, he says that it is one of the most closely studied portions of Paul's letters. He argues this because he says that this letter, this section of the letter, holds within it a concentration of themes that are central to the gospel. It discusses Paul's attack against legalism, and it holds the strengths of his arguments in support of what he calls a law-free gospel. This is a powerful passage that we're going to unpack together today. And before we begin this verse-by-verse voyage through chapter three, verse one through 14, I wanna take a moment to recap what we've covered up to this point, because by chance, you may have forgotten what we've covered up to this point, or maybe you're just joining us in the series and you have no idea of the context of what's happened in chapters one and two. So let me give you a brief recap. Chapter one, the Bible says that the apostle Paul speaks in defense of his mission and his message. His critics are opposing his apostolic call.

They're even spreading false rumors that he did not receive his gospel from God, but that he got it from the Jerusalem apostles. And so Paul writes in the beginning of his letter to remind his readers that this mission, this mandate, this message that I have came from God, not man. He also notes that my life is evidence of God's redemptive work of grace, because in chapter one, around verse 24, it says that this Paul, this man Paul, is the very one who is now preaching the gospel he once tried to destroy. That's what we see in chapter one. Chapter two, we see that Paul travels. After 14 years, he travels again to Jerusalem to stand before the Jerusalem council. The Judaizers, that group of religious elites, they're proclaiming that the Gentiles must be circumcised if they wanna be part of the family of God. But Paul argues that the Gentiles are engrafted into the family of God, not through their obedience to the law, but through faith in Christ. Bible says when Paul speaks before the council and the Jerusalem apostles, Peter, James, and John, the Bible says that they discern the grace of God upon Paul's life, they welcome him, and it even says that they extend the right hand of fellowship to him. Sometime after this, we see the text shift away

for a moment from Paul to Peter. Peter, the apostle to the Jews, the one who walked with Jesus, it says that he traveled from Jerusalem to Antioch, and while he was in Antioch, the Bible says that he began to enjoy what is called table fellowship with the Gentiles. He's eating with them, he's engaging with them, which according to Jewish law was against the rules because Jews and Gentiles did not interact and engage with each other, but he's displaying gospel unity in the text. He's sitting with them, he's communing with them and eating with them and engaging with them, but all of a sudden, the Bible says some men from Jerusalem come to Antioch. Peter becomes afraid, those from the circumcision party, he sees them, he realizes that they are, and he becomes afraid, so much so that the text tells us in chapter two that slowly but surely, Peter starts to back away from the Gentiles until one day, all together, he stops interacting with them completely. He is now, according to chapter two, verse 14, not walking in step with the gospel, and so Paul confronts him as if to say, dear brother, I love you, but I also love the gospel way too much to sit here and stand by and let you do what you're doing because what you're doing, dear brother, is wrong,

and you need to be called back to the gospel that you said you believed in, and so Paul outlines the gospel that he believed. and that he preached in verses 15 through 21 of chapter two. That takes us through chapter one and chapter two. So now we get into chapter three, but before we get to chapter three, I want to make note of one key verse in Galatians chapter two, verse 16. Paul raises this argument, this thesis, this claim. He says that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. Person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. Paul in Galatians chapter two, verse 16 makes this argument, and the beautiful thing that we're gonna see as we walk through chapters three and four in the coming weeks is that the evidence that Paul offers in chapters three and four support the argument he makes in chapter two. So in essence, the claim that he makes in chapter two, verse 16, he's gonna then provide evidence in chapters three and four to show us why he can say that a person is not justified by works, but through faith in Jesus Christ. And it's interesting to me if you read the text that he does not provide evidence from his life, but he challenges the reader to see evidence in their life. What do you mean, Justin? If you look at verse two, you will see that Paul begins

by challenging them to remember their own experience. Consider, believer, how you receive the spirit by faith. He then calls them to look at scripture. Verse five, he says, consider how God supplies the Holy Spirit to the believer. The Holy Spirit is not a reward for your good behavior. He is a gift that God supplies and gives to you as the spirit of truth to dwell in you and with you. Paul then shows the reader that there are these two paths, one of works and one of faith. This is what we see in the text. And before we walk through it, I find it interesting, and I don't know if anybody else noticed this, but I find it interesting that Paul, who is the same one in Galatians 1 and 11, who calls the readers brothers, and as we'll see in a few weeks in chapters four, verse 19, he calls them little children. So he called them brothers in chapter one, he called them little children in chapter four, but what does he call them in chapter three? Foolish, foolish Galatians. Now, he is not saying that to offend them, but what he is saying is, or what he's expressing is tough love. It's coming from a place of deep passion, conviction, fatherly concern because the believers have been led astray. Paul is so concerned that he even says, after all you've seen and heard from me, after the gospel has been preached to you,

I am convinced, Paul says, the only way you could leave the gospel of grace and go back to believing in the law, you must be under a demonic spell. You must be under a demonic spell, which is why Paul asked the question in verse one, the rhetorical question, who bewitched you? Who cast a spell over you? Because clearly the only way you could leave the gospel of grace, abandon the gospel of grace, and go back to believing and trusting in the law, you must be under a demonic spell. Because Paul says, you yourself saw Christ publicly portrayed as crucified. Now he's not suggesting that they physically were there when Jesus was crucified. He knows that, but what he's saying is, that phrase as crucified, he's saying that you heard the gospel from me and I preached it by God's grace in such a way that it became so real and so vivid to you that it was almost as if you were physically there yourself, that you saw it. You didn't just hear it, but you saw it. You understood and you believed. And for some reason, yet you have abandoned the gospel of grace and you've gone back to trusting in the law. And so that is why Paul says that is not only wrong,

Galatians, that is foolish. Strikes me again about the use of this word foolish is not that Paul is writing to offend. He's not calling them fools. He's not even saying that they're unintelligent or unlearned. What he is saying is the way you are living is foolish because you're living in direct contradiction to the gospel, which church for me that I believe is the summary of the text in a sentence. If you wanna know what this text is about, verses one through 14, if you want me to summarize it in a sentence, here is the summary of the text in a sentence. The Galatians were living in contradiction to the gospel they once believed. That's Paul's argument. The Galatians, yes, you are great people and you're wonderful people and you're doing good things, but here's my concern with you. You are now living in contradiction to the gospel you once believed because you have abandoned the gospel of grace and you are trusting in the law. He's concerned about them. That's why in verse three, he said. is you receive the spirit by faith. You receive the spirit by faith. So why are you now relying on your works to help you become spiritually mature?

Christ has set you free from the law by becoming cursed for you. Meaning he took upon himself the curse that was rightfully yours and mine. And he went to the cross as a condemned criminal who died for the sins of the world. And through his sacrifice, which was completed on the cross, we are now free from the weight of the law. Which the Bible tells us we could never fulfill in the first place. Because I don't know if you know this, but this is a powerful passage of scripture in James chapter two, verse 10. Look at what it says. James chapter two, verse 10 says, "'Whoever keeps the law but fails in one point "'has become guilty of all of it.'" The idea here is James is suggesting that if you wanna walk according to the law, okay, but here's the reality. If you wanna walk according to the law, you gotta follow it perfectly. Because if you misstep one time, you're guilty of all of it. And that's why the scripture is clear. The law cannot save. And if Christ has set you free from the law, Paul is trying to understand why would you foolishly go back

to the very thing you've been freed from? Paul's struggling to comprehend. Because these believers, it's not that they didn't know, they had heard the gospel, they knew the truth, they believed, and yet, they were living in contradiction to it. They were living in contradiction to it, and this is what Paul wants to address in the text. And as I sat with that church, there's a verse in this text that came alive for me. I told the first service that it is always my prayer at all of our campuses for our church collectively that anytime I'm preaching or anytime one of our teaching pastors, my other teammates or our campus pastors, that anyone is preaching to you, I pray that the word comes alive for you. But I also pray that for myself in my own study time because I want to preach to you out of the overflow of what the word has come alive in me. And so there was a verse that I just kept coming back to, and it's verse three. It stuck with me, church, this week. Paul, again, asked that rhetorical question. He says, are you so foolish? Having begun by the spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Church, those words pierced my heart. It pierced my heart because I know, yes, I know Paul is writing to a particular group of people

at a particular point in history about a particular issue. But for whatever reason, I kept feeling the prompting of the Holy Spirit to make that question personal to me. I know Paul wasn't talking to me, but I kept wanting to make that question personal and ask myself, Justin, have you been foolish? Have I, have I been foolish? As I sat with that question this week, church, probably you would respond the way I did, but immediately my flesh became defensive, right? I needed to, I felt this need to defend myself from the consequences of that question because no, I don't strive to live foolishly. I don't consider myself to be foolish or a fool. I wanna live wisely. I wanna live a life of faith, a life that is Christ-like, a life that is gospel and grace-driven, a life that is mindful and thoughtful and self-controlled and one that prioritizes long-term results over immediate gratification. I wanna walk wisely. I wanna follow in the footsteps of my Savior. And I do not want to live foolishly as one who is careless and impulsive and it makes no thought or concern about those around them and makes decisions based on current desires or trends or feelings or the opinions of others. This is not how I wanna live. And if you're like me, I would say,

I would not consider myself to be a fool or to be foolish, but when I allowed the passage to work its way through my heart, I realized here's what Paul is really saying. Paul is suggesting to the reader that foolish, look at this, I'll read it slow so we can grasp it. Foolish living is when you rely on, live by and rest in the law instead of the grace of God displayed through the sacrifice of Christ or trust in something in addition to Christ's sacrifice for your salvation and security. You read it again. Foolish living is when you rely, when I rely on, live by or rest in the law instead of the grace of God displayed through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ or we trust in something in addition to Christ's sacrifice for salvation and security. That, ladies and gentlemen, is what Paul says is foolish living. So that's when the central truth of the sermon, that's when the sermon, that's when I got it, that's when I understood, and here's what I want you to take away. If you remember nothing else today, remember this, that Paul is saying, and the sermon wants you to know, the sermon wanted me to know, God wanted me to see that we live foolishly when we live in contradiction to the gospel.

We live foolishly when we live in contradiction to the gospel. This idea that I can trust in Jesus and my good works and my good behavior, that this idea that I can trust in the law or my perfect obedience, no, that is in contradiction to the gospel. We are not saved by our works, we are saved by grace through faith. Fellowship, when I realized that, I had to be honest and admit, I, Justin Bilson, have lived foolishly. I have lived foolishly, why? Because there was a time in my life and my journey with Jesus that I was so convinced that my eternity with him was secure, yes, by my faith in Jesus, but also I wanted to add my good works onto the table. I wanted to put my good behavior on the table. I wanted to put my perfect living before him and say, look, I deserve to go to heaven, right? Because I've been a good Christian, I've done the things good Christians do. I was so convinced that it was Jesus and my works and my behavior and my right living, but the weight of perfection became too much for me to bear. And in my brokenness, God met me and by his grace, the truth of the gospel was revealed to me again to say, Justin, it is not Jesus and, it is Jesus alone. It's not Jesus and, it is Jesus alone.

It is not Jesus and your works, it's not Jesus and your obedience, it's not Jesus and your right living, it is Jesus alone. Friends, if you hear that story, you hear my testimony, my life story, you hear that today and maybe you resonate with that because maybe there is a part of you that either did or still does struggle with the reality of this. Maybe you have convinced yourself that it's Jesus and, but by God's grace, you are here today and you're hearing the gospel. And I pray that like mine, that your eyes will also be open to the truth that we are not saved by our works, but through the grace of God, by the grace of God, through faith in Jesus Christ. That is the gospel. And so if Paul challenges the reader to not live foolishly, then it begs us to ask a sobering question, a sobering question, a question to sit with, to consider. Here's the sobering question, here's the central question I want us to spend the last few moments asking. In what ways have we been or are we currently living foolishly? If foolish living is living in contradiction to the gospel, if it's trusting in my works and my own righteousness and my doing, if that's foolish living, then in what ways have we been or are we currently, if we're honest, living foolishly? There's three ways that I wanna show you.

First way, number one, is that I believe we live foolishly when we try to rely on what we can do instead of what Christ or what Jesus has already done. Notice the distinction. We live foolishly when we choose to rely on what we can do instead of what Jesus has already done. This is verse one, Paul says that it was before your eyes that Jesus was publicly portrayed as crucified. That phrase, as crucified, when I was reading it this week, I kind of brushed past it, but as I studied it more and more, I found that it's very, very important because this text is written in ancient Greek and I won't bore you with all the nuances of this, but ancient Greek language, there are certain words that are written in different tenses. Some are in perfect tense, some are in past tense, some are in imperfect tense. This word or this phrase, as crucified, the tense that it is written in, here's why it's important, it shows the reader, as crucified, the tense it's written in suggests that it is a completed action with lasting results. As crucified is a completed action with lasting results. Justin, why are you telling me that? Here's why I'm telling you that, because Paul, in that phrase, is communicating the heart of the gospel to the reader, that the reason why you can believe this gospel of grace is not just because Jesus died and left his work undone.

No, the gospel is that Jesus died and it was a completed action with lasting results. It's a completed action. It is finished, it is done, it is complete. And not only... did he save us from sin, but he did what the law could not do. One of my favorite theologians, John Stott, he says that the law says do this, but the gospel says Christ has done it all. The law requires works of human achievement, but the gospel requires faith in Christ's achievement. The law makes demands and bids us to obey, but the gospel brings promises and bids us to believe. Church, this is what Paul is essentially saying. Stott affirms Paul's message that to rely on, to live by, to rest in anything other than Jesus, or to add our works to his completed work is foolish. It's foolish. And yes, many of us know this, we understand this in theory, but let's be honest, at the core of our heart, we struggle to accept this because there's still a recovering striver in all of us. We still wanna make it work. We still wanna show him. We still wanna impress him. We still wanna do our best. We still wanna show that we can do it. And we have to remember that when Jesus called us

and he said, pick up your cross, he did not say pick up your cross and strive. He said, pick up your cross and what? Follow me. One of our campus pastors, Cody Calhoun, who's a campus pastor at our Benton location, he actually shared with us his story of how by coming to Fellowship, God did a work of grace in his heart to help him to understand grace in a more deeper and richer way. There was a lengthy interview, but we caught a snapshot of it. Now I want you to watch this and then we'll come back to the rest of the message. So watch this as he shares his story. So my name is Cody Calhoun. I am the Benton campus pastor, and I've been here for 12 years, Southwest Little Rock boy originally. Came to faith in 86, and my parents were really instrumental in that in bringing me to church and helping shape my faith. Growing up in a missionary Baptist context, I'm very thankful for it. I'm very thankful that Sunday to Sunday, the Bible was open and we walked through the Bible, but the culture in of itself was not really gracious. I grew up thinking I came into the faith, Jesus saved me, but now it's my turn to get busy.

It's my turn now to earn this. It's my turn to make him proud of me by the way I perform. So if you just do what I do, don't do drugs, don't drink, don't cuss, don't chew, and don't date girls that do. If you just live the right way, God will be pleased with you. And conversely, if you mess up, God's gonna be so displeased with you. I had a heart for the Lord, and then I would sin and mess up and I'd make mistakes. I would get on the cycle of, well, if I sin once and He's displeased, then what's the point? I would feel convicted. The Spirit would convict me of sin. And my response to the conviction was, Lord, I'm gonna try so much harder. I'm gonna be so much better. I'm gonna put Scripture on the walls of my dorm. I am gonna go do things for you. It's gonna be so much better. I was so naive. And I remember one day thinking, I'm not gonna sin today. Like, today's the day. I am so tired of displeasing God. I am not going to sin. And I went through the day and I even, there was some guys at church.

I'm like, guys, I'm not sinning today. Like, I was so serious about it. And by the time I got to the end of the day, what really hit my heart was, Cody, you just spent 24 hours in spiritual pride. Like, you just spent 24 hours thinking that it was only about your behavior. You spent 24 hours trying to believe that if you performed and you acted right, it equated not sinning. When my own heart was swelled with pride and broken, just say, Lord, all right, I'm gonna get my stuff together now, rededicate my life. I keep going through this same cycle. I think growing up in a legalistic mindset had been a burden to me that didn't really come off until I got to fellowship. It was a decaf with Mike Marquez and Mike putting the words grace right there in the middle of the board and then talking about verse by verse why grace is everything. And still have the notes 12 years later. As Mike began to write, it was clear how grace shows up in the calling that we have, that he calls us to be his children. Our hope is one of grace. Our strength that we have every moment of every day

is an extension of God's grace to us. All of these moments put together are just the constant picture that we live in a state of grace with God. It is one that falls in love with Jesus to make my heart want to obey and follow. And the only thing that does that is God's grace to me. This change happened after I became a pastor of Fellowship Bible Church, after I was hired as the Benton Campus pastor. It was God's leading, God's calling, and God's grace to me, that he called me to fellowship, not to minister here, but rather for fellowship to minister to me. And as God began to chip away at that heart and that baggage that I'd been carrying, I became the kind of pastor that our Benton campus needed most. I love getting to visit with new people to fellowship. I love to get to that point when we're talking about fellowship and go, hey, let me tell you about grace. Let me tell you about why this is a gracious place. None of us get to pick our struggles, so we're gracious with each other. We all have history. We've all messed up somewhere, so we all need grace. We extend grace to each other in our relationships, and we don't view conflict as a bad thing, but rather something that we get to grow in grace

with each other. They're here for a little bit, and they get to hear about grace. And that burden that they've been carrying becomes so much lighter that you get to see it in their walk. You get to see it in their relationships. And I get to relive what clicked for me 12 years ago of being here at fellowship. I get to relive that with them and get to see them experience it the same way. And now they get as excited about fellowship as I do. It took me getting to hear the grace of God to begin to help shape and change me to be not just kind of pastor, and I'm thankful for that. But grace changes everything for me as a friend, me as a husband, me as a father. Me as a follower of Christ. I'm an example of how grace changes everything. Praise God for that. Amen. I mean, we technically end the sermon there, right? I am an example that grace changes everything. And the good news is that I can say that, and so can you. And if you're here and you've not placed your faith in Jesus Christ and you want to know about this saving and amazing grace, we would love to talk with you after service. And again, I would love to end the sermon there,

but there's two more things I wanna show you. So Paul says that we live foolishly when we rely on ourselves instead of resting in what Christ has already done. Second thing is we live foolishly when we do not live by the power of the Spirit who is at work in us. We live foolishly, Paul says, when we do not live by the power of the Spirit who is at work in us. Paul talks in verses two and verses five about the Spirit who is received, again, not as this reward for your good efforts. No, the Spirit is a gift, the Holy Spirit is the gift, the Spirit of truth who comes in our lives to dwell with us and to dwell in us, to empower us to be who God has called us to be. And I celebrate that truth, but it also reminds me that I daily need to ask the Lord, help me to live by your Spirit today. What does that look like practically? Well, practically for me, it looks like choosing to submit to the Spirit's guidance and to not walk according to my flesh. Why? Because when I'm living in the Spirit, for example, when I'm living in the Spirit in my marriage, I am kind and loving and sensitive to my wife. I hope so, I am right. Okay, she's shaking her head, yes.

All right, so I extend grace quickly and I love Sherita out of the overflow of God's love for me. But when I'm living by the flesh, I can be selfish and sarcastic and unloving and not gracious. I don't even have to look at her because I already know she's shaking her head, right? Yes, I know I can be these things. As a matter of fact, I know when I'm living by my flesh, can I be fully transparent with y'all? When I'm living by my flesh and we're at odds and I'm not happy and I go to bed and I'm frustrated, I will put, and it's a gift, I can actually do it. I can put all these brown pounds on the corner of our match. Did he just say brown pounds? Yes, I did. I can put all these pounds on the edge corner of our king mattress and y'all laughing, but you know some of you do it too. Don't touch me, don't come over here, leave me alone. I don't wanna be bothered with you, right? And we're laughing, but the reality is in those moments, the Holy Spirit convicts my heart and says, Justin, you know that's not Christ-like. You know that's not Christ-like. And I know many of us have moments like that, maybe not that moment, but moments like that where we're convicted by the Holy Spirit and he reminds us that's not Christ-like.

What does it look like, church, for you to walk in and live by the Spirit in every area of your life? What does it look like for you to live by the Spirit in every area of your life? Our daily prayer should be, Lord, I wanna live by your Spirit in every area of my life today. Because Paul says when we live in our own power and our own strength, instead of relying on the Holy Spirit who enables us to be who God has called us to be, when we try to do it ourselves and strive, Paul says that's foolish. We rest in our works instead of what Jesus has already done. Paul says it's foolish. And the last one, it's foolish, Paul says, when we fail to rest in the blessing and the promise of Christ. It's foolish, Paul says, when we fail to rest in the blessing and the promise of Christ. Very quickly, Paul lays before the reader two paths. There's the path of works, this idea that it is expressed through perfect obedience to the law, but there's also the path of faith, trusting in the finished work of Christ. Now, please note, these two paths are not two sides of the same coin. They are polar opposites because verse 12 says the law is not of faith. It's important that we understand that because Paul even calls on Deuteronomy chapter 27 to show the reader that the law reveals,

but it cannot repair. You say that again, the law reveals, but it cannot repair. It reveals, but it cannot repair. Why? Because the law shows us God's standard is holy. It is perfect. And if you wanna be accepted according to the law, then you have to follow it perfectly. Because according to the text, Deuteronomy 27 says, curse be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law. That's why Paul can then go on to say that no one is justified by the law because the only person who could keep the law perfectly is Jesus. So since we could not keep the law perfectly according to the law, we were cursed. But that's why the gospel and the good news is that Jesus came into the world, the only begotten son of God. He became, the Bible says, a curse for us. And that is the good news of the gospel that you and I, by God's grace, are a part of the us, that I can stand on this stage or anywhere in the world and proclaim boldly that Jesus didn't just die for anybody. He died for me. I can make it personal. It's one thing if I just said, well, Jesus died for those people over there. No, he died for me and he died for us.

We're a part of the us, praise God for that, to know that Jesus died on the cross for us, guilty sinners who were cursed to die and unable to save ourselves. And the beauty of today is that the reason we get to take communion, the reason we can take communion and remember and reflect on what Jesus did and look ahead in anticipation of his soon coming return is because we have placed our faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ. He didn't need to add to it. He didn't need to go back and finish it. His work was a completed action with lasting results. Church, we are members of his family through faith, not works. And Paul says that this life is a life of faith and building our lives on anything or anyone or anything in addition to Christ, Paul says is foolish. Let's live the life of faith. Let's not live foolishly because foolish living is in contradiction to the gospel. It's not Jesus and, it's Jesus alone. Let's pray. Father, thank you. Thank you for the sobering and the needed reminder. Forgive us when we have been guilty of living foolishly, of trying to add things, of trying to add our good works, trying to add things or trying to strive to impress you. Thank you for reminding us again. You did not call us to pick up our cross

and strive and impress you. You called us to pick up our cross and follow you. And by God's grace, you've given us your spirit. By your grace, you've given us your spirit to help us do what we cannot do in our own power. You've called us to be something that we don't have the capacity and ability in ourselves to be. But thank you that when we live according to your spirit, we can become who you have called us to be. So Father, help us to live every day, resting, relying, trusting in the finished work of Christ, knowing that it is enough and living in the power of the Holy Spirit, walking with him, abiding with him, knowing that he abides in us. And Lord, help us to live every day in a deeper awareness of your grace at work, knowing that we are evidence that grace changes everything. Thank you for that truth today. In Jesus' name, amen. Thanks again for listening to the word of God. We are blessed to reach you throughout the week through whatever platform you're listening on. If you're needing prayer or you want to talk to someone about your walk with Jesus, reach out to us at fellowshipar.com slash contact. Have a great week.