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[0:00] We welcome you to the media ministry of Bethel Community Church, knowing Jesus, making Jesus known. Alright, so our passage this morning is in Galatians chapter 3, so if you guys would turn there.

[0:16] Galatians chapter 3, technically in verse, we're starting in verse 26, but for context purposes we're going to start in verse 19. If I can find it. Alright, Galatians chapter 3, starting in verse 19.

[0:36] Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made. And it was put in place through angels by an intermediary. Now an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.

[0:54] Is the law then contrary to the promises of God? Certainly not. For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law.

[1:05] But the scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.

[1:20] So then the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. For in Christ Jesus, this is our passage today.

[1:33] For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek.

[1:44] There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male or female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs, according to the promise.

[1:57] So, as we were reading that, I just want to give you a context before, just what the book of Galatians is. So, Paul's writing to the church in Galatia. And he's writing to Jews and Greeks.

[2:09] And the problem here, that Paul's writing for, is that the Gentiles are trying to fall back under the law.

[2:20] And so, these false teachers came in and they're telling them that they need to, after they're saved, they need to then avert back to the way they were living before under the law. So, it's kind of like a faith in Jesus plus works sort of thing.

[2:35] And so, that's kind of the struggle that the Galatians are facing. And there's a battle between parties. And so, this is going to tie into our first point, which is inclusion.

[2:48] And so, the three points that we have today are inclusion, immersion, and position. So, inclusion is our first verse, and that's verse 26. It says, for in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith.

[3:01] And I want to point out the pronoun you. Previously, all the verses we read before, it said we. And so, the reason it says you is because now Paul is addressing Gentiles as well.

[3:11] So, before, when he was talking we, Paul was addressing himself. We, as Jews, have all of this. And then he says, but you. And so, he's talking to the church in Galatia and says, you are sons of God through faith.

[3:24] And so, he's bringing in, this is kind of the, like the point it says, it's the inclusion of Jews and Greeks. And this is really cool for us. Because this is our inclusion into this.

[3:35] It talks about in Ephesians, that we are now included in that, right? He tore down the wall of hostility between the Gentiles and the Jews, and now we are one in Christ. And so, now we have an opportunity to be sons of God through Christ.

[3:52] So, what about us today? Are you a son of Christ? Are you a child of Christ? Some of you guys have been coming here for a long time. Some, your whole lives. And maybe you don't know if truly you are a child of God.

[4:06] And you can never assume. So, if you would, yeah, hold on one sec. Yeah, you can never assume.

[4:17] And so, it says earlier on in that passage, Galatians 2, verses 16. It says, yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.

[4:33] So, we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ. And not by works of the law. Because by works of the law, no one will be justified. So, the question is, how are you a son of God?

[4:44] How are you a child of God? And so, it's clear in this verse, in verse 16, that it's through faith in Jesus Christ. And that is the very cornerstone of our salvation, our walk with God, is that it's through faith in Christ.

[4:59] And that's how we live today. And so, the problem that Galatians were facing was that maybe they're trying to revert back to not only being justified by faith, but then also by works.

[5:11] And then, so, if you continue on to the next slide, here's another verse that just kind of goes about the path that Jesus took in order for us to be saved through faith. And this is an example that Daryl Lynn always used.

[5:24] Some of you know him. It's called the wallet trick, but I put my wallet on my phone. So, a little two-in-one thing. So, just for example, this is man.

[5:35] This represents man. This represents sin. And this represents God. And so, there's a separation, right? My hands can't touch. God and man don't have a relationship.

[5:46] So, it says that he made him, Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God. So, let me say that one more time. He, God, made him, Jesus, who knew no sin, to be sin for us so that we might have the righteousness of God.

[6:01] And Jesus didn't stay dead. He rose again so that we can have a relationship. He took away our sins so that we can have a relationship with him if we believe in what he did on the cross to save us from our sins.

[6:14] And so, if you have never made a decision to trust in Christ Jesus as your Savior, I encourage you to do that today because the rest of this passage doesn't apply to you. Because Paul's writing to believers.

[6:25] He says, you are sons of God through faith. And here's a question here. If you go to the next slide. Why does it say sons? Why not sons and daughters? Why not children?

[6:37] Why not children of God? It just says sons. And in Galatians 4-5, it says the same thing. It says, starting in verse 4, But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born unto the lost, to redeem those who are unto the lost so that we might receive adoption as sons.

[6:56] Ephesians 1 says the same thing. You are predestined before the foundation of the world unto adoption as sons. So, it says the same thing. And I'm thinking, like in today's culture, women and men are kind of like at odds right now.

[7:11] And so, I was thinking like if I was, because I'm a guy and so when I read that, it's totally fine to me. It's normal. He's definitely talking to me. So, if you're a girl, how does that look? You're not a son, right?

[7:23] But the cool thing is, is that in the Roman time, adoption wasn't the same as it is today. Today, adoption is, maybe you can't have a child and so you adopt one.

[7:34] A young child. Normally, after the age of 13, it's kind of the cut off point, right? It's like, it's really hard to get adopted after that point. Or, maybe you just want to adopt a child and so you go to a different country or somewhere and you adopt a child, but normally a young one.

[7:49] And so, the cool thing about this is that in the Roman time, that's not the way that it was. It was more the fact that, say, a king or someone who's really wealthy didn't have a son and they didn't have anyone to pass their inheritance on to.

[8:05] And so, they would adopt someone who would be close to them, but who would be older. And so, they would adopt them as sons for their inheritance so that they can gain their inheritance. And so, how this applies to us today is not that he's saying only boys can be adopted as sons of God.

[8:21] He's saying that, no, like the women weren't adopted in that time period because they weren't sought after. They were more considered as property in that sense. But the cool thing is, and the revolutionary thing about the Bible, is that God says, no, I'm adopting you all as sons.

[8:38] And so, the same hierarchy to have the inheritance that the men have. And so, women are included in this as well. And so, when it says sons of God, that's an amazing thing because it's revolutionary.

[8:53] And it also, it talks about in Ephesians 5, right? Like, there's always the question of, okay, women submit to your husbands. But then it's like, no, men submit to your husband and love your wife like Christ loved the church.

[9:05] And so, it's just this inclusion of women and men. And it's revolutionary in the day and age that this was put in. And so, that's a really cool point that God offers salvation and his inheritance, his being a child of God to both men and women, Jew and Greek.

[9:22] And so, it's an inclusion of all of those things. To the second point is immersion. So, I was studying this verse. And when I first read it, I assumed, you can go to the next slide.

[9:39] I assumed that, we'll just read it real quick. It says, for as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. I assumed that the Greek word for baptized means baptismal in the Greek, which is in Romans 6, it just means to be put into.

[9:56] Right? Just like submerge and not necessarily water baptism. But if you go to the next slide, I looked it up. And it's actually baptizo, which means to immerse, submerge, to make whelmed fully wet.

[10:10] And so, it's literally talking about water baptism. And I was like, shoot. Like, how am I going to explain water baptism? Because it goes against the verse before it. So, I was like, how am I going to do this? But anyway, I was kind of reading around and trying to figure that out.

[10:23] And Bill McDonald, he had a good point. William McDonald, he has a commentary. But kind of the basis of what he's talking about is that if you read it in context, it actually makes perfect sense.

[10:40] For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. And of course, those people are all children of God. And then they literally got baptized. And those people who got baptized put on Christ.

[10:53] Not because baptism puts on Christ. But because those people who literally got water baptism have also put on Christ. And so, I was wondering, like, what does put on Christ mean?

[11:04] And William McDonald has a good point. He says, just as a soldier proclaims himself a member of the army by putting on his uniform, so a believer identifies himself as one who belongs to Christ by being baptized in water.

[11:17] By this act, he publicly expresses a submission to Christ's leadership and authority. And he portrays visibly that he is a son of God.

[11:32] And it is certain that the apostle is not suggesting that water baptism unites a person to Christ. That would be a blatant repudation of his basic thesis that salvation is by faith alone.

[11:45] And so, basically, it's the steps in which this inclusion takes. And so, it's like, okay, Galatians, you are sons of God. You have also put on Christ.

[11:57] And what's next? What's the next point? And we're going to spend a little bit more time with this point. We'll go to the next slide. Our position.

[12:07] Our position. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is neither male nor female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.

[12:22] And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. So, when Paul says this, it's like a level playing field.

[12:33] It's like a new starting point. For in Christ Jesus, there is no Jew or Greek. There is no slave or free. There is no male or female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus.

[12:45] And as I was, like, trying to study this and just make it kind of as basic as possible, it's like, there's actually definitely a distinction between Jew and Greek. Definitely a distinction between male and woman.

[12:56] And there's definitely a distinction between slave and free. But what he's saying is that in Christ Jesus, we're all at the same playing field. We both are sons of God through faith.

[13:07] And we both have put on Christ. And so now we're at this level, this same playing field. And so, what Paul is saying is that it's not a differentiation between, like, our roles on earth.

[13:19] Because there's different roles that men and women have. There's different roles that a slave and a master have. There's different roles that a Jew and a Greek may have. But in Christ Jesus, we are all one in Him.

[13:30] And this made me think about 1 Corinthians 12. You don't have to turn there. I'm just going to read it. 1 Corinthians 12, verse 12.

[13:43] It says, And that this is the very cornerstone of that passage.

[14:18] Is that we're all one in Christ. And therefore, we are all one body. And our head is Christ. Because of that passage that he's talking about. So, an example of this is I work for Boeing, which is a company in Hazelwood.

[14:32] And it's globally. They have 144,000 employees worldwide. And they've, like, instituted this new way of doing things. They've instituted this new thing.

[14:44] And it's called One Boeing. And so, all of these different places. There's locations in Seattle, Southern California, Texas, St. Louis, Philadelphia, Chicago, England, Australia.

[14:59] Literally all over the world, there's these locations. And we have this thing called One Boeing. And so, the struggle that we come up with is that I'm in estimating and pricing. And then there's also an estimating pricing in Florida.

[15:12] And so, Fort Walton, Florida, something like that. And so, there's this constant, like, disconnect between us. Even though we are under this realm of One Boeing, there's this disconnect.

[15:25] Because we have different ways of doing things. We have different managers. We have different, I guess, what's it like? Like, cutoffs or like, I don't know.

[15:38] I can't think of the word. But, like, we have different standards of the way we do things. And so, under this whole realm of One Boeing in so many different places, it doesn't always work. But with Jesus being our head, and we're all one in Christ Jesus, it can work.

[15:53] Because the foot doesn't say to the arm, like, I want to throw the ball or, like, the ear to the eye. I want to see. Because we're all one in Jesus, and now we have a responsibility.

[16:03] And so, that definitely portrays into church today. Is that you may see, you know, Ed making food. You may see Mr. Kevin doing youth group. You know, you may see Dave speaking.

[16:14] We all have our specific roles, and we all start at the very base of that. We are all one in Christ Jesus, and it doesn't make a difference. And no one's better than the other person. There's no role that is better than the other person.

[16:27] Because we are all one in Christ Jesus. And I thought it was cool that earlier this year, we were at a Bible conference. Called Believer's Bible Conference. And Nate Bramson was speaking.

[16:37] He's just a missionary from Niger, Africa. And he was speaking, and he said, I could tell you, like, just a random person.

[16:48] Seven things you don't know about yourself before you know them yourself. And I was like, wow, that's interesting. So he picked a random person from the crowd, and he goes up to them. And he says, brings up Psalms 139 and says, You are fearfully and wonderfully made.

[17:02] You were knit together in your mother's womb. And you are unconditionally loved. And those are just three of the seven that he said. And he says he goes to random people, and he thinks about that.

[17:13] And that we are all one in Christ Jesus. And it doesn't matter, like, the differentiation between ourselves and others. Because God doesn't care about human achievement. He does care.

[17:25] But, like, in the face of Isaiah, when he says, Lord, all my works are as filthy rags. Our good works are as filthy rags to him. Because human achievement doesn't make you rank any higher than anybody else.

[17:37] Because we all come at the foot of Christ, dead in our sins, at the foot of Christ. But God says, I loved you. I died for you. I sent my son for you. And so now there's no distinction between Jew or Greek, man or woman, slave or free.

[17:51] And so God definitely portrays this in John chapter 4. And again, he breaks these barriers that were in place beforehand.

[18:02] He came to this world to destroy the hostility. And so this is John chapter 4. Starting in verse 1, it says, Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples, he left Judea and departed again for Galilee.

[18:24] And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there.

[18:35] And so Jesus, weird as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour. So Jesus is on his way. And he runs across this woman. A woman from Samaria came to draw water.

[18:49] And Jesus said to her, Give me a drink. For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food. And the Samaritan woman said to him, How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?

[19:03] For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans. And Jesus answered her, If you knew the gift of God and who it is, and who it is that is saying to you, Give me a drink, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.

[19:19] And the woman said to him, Sir, you have nothing to draw water with. And the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us a well to drink from, from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.

[19:32] And so Jesus said to her, Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. And the water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life.

[19:48] The woman said to him, Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water. And then Jesus continues and says, Go call your husband.

[19:58] And she says, I don't have a husband. He says, You speak correctly. You've had many husbands. The person you're living with now is not a husband. And this just goes to show that Jesus does not care about human achievement before salvation.

[20:10] He doesn't care about works. He doesn't care whether you are a Jew. Like, Paul is definitely the one who was to be sought after. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees to the law. He was perfect, right?

[20:21] And then you come to this Samaritan woman. He shouldn't have been talking to a Samaritan at all. He shouldn't have been talking to a woman at all. But God breaks down barriers, and He doesn't care because He is love, and He comes to love, and to live a life worthy of that.

[20:36] And He offers us living water, and He offers us the opportunity to come to Him. And so what does that look like for us, right?

[20:50] Right? That just shows the God that we worship today is a loving God. And it doesn't matter where you've been or what you've done, God is always right there.

[21:09] And so, as we go back to our passage, Galatians 3, it says, the last verse says, and if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

[21:23] And so back to this, Gentiles, again, were struggling with the fact that if I keep the Jewish law, will I be able to inherit Abraham's offspring?

[21:34] Like, will I be able to inherit the things that he has? And Christ is the offspring of Abraham. So in that, yes. But Gentiles also have the offspring or the inheritance by God.

[21:45] He has given us all things, right? And so like all the spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus, He's given us those. And so our inheritance is much better. Our inheritance is very good.

[21:57] And so not only are Jews able to get that inheritance, but then also Gentiles. And so if you'll go to the last slide. Yeah.

[22:10] So in conclusion, I know this message is short, but musicians can come up. In conclusion, we recognize that we are all have the same opportunity to come to Christ as sons of God, sons and women as sons of God.

[22:31] And we are all included in that, Jews and Greeks. We have all put on Christ. Those who have been saved have put on Christ. But those who have not been saved have not put on Christ.

[22:43] And you don't share in the same inheritance. You're not adopted as a son of God. You are actually considered a child of wrath. And then our last point, our position in Christ.

[22:54] So it doesn't matter whether we are a Jew or Greek, a slave or free, a male or female, we are all one in Christ Jesus. And God came to save us and makes us all one in Him.

[23:04] And so that's the God that we serve today. Our position in Christ, even with all these social constructs, Jesus does not see those. He looks at us through the filter that Jesus was put on through dying on the cross.

[23:17] And Jesus has saved us from our sins. We are one in Him. And that is why there's such division in this world. that this world, like World War II, it started because of racism.

[23:30] And it started because this people group didn't like a different people group. But in Jesus Christ, it doesn't matter to Him. Like we are all one in Him. And so as we go into the breaking of bread meeting, just recognize that what Jesus did for us in Him is He destroyed those racial barriers, those like sexist barriers, and He has made us all one in Christ Jesus as sons of God through Him.

[23:51] So let's close in prayer. Dear Lord, I come before You now and just thank You so much for all that You do. For Your love and just Your Son, the Lord Jesus, who came and died for us on the cross, God.

[24:02]  Just thank You for that picture that He gives us and just for the love that He shows. And then, we say we pray.