Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:05] Village Church.
[00:00:08] My name is Ryan Chaney, and I'm the youth pastor here. I'm really excited to be able to open up the Bible with you all today.
[00:00:15] I'll be down here in the front after the service if you want to come up and chat. I'd love to chat with you, but I have a question for you guys.
[00:00:22] How many of you have ever made a promise? Show of hands, if you've ever made a promise?
[00:00:28] Okay, yeah, definitely a lot of us. It's a pretty universal human experience.
[00:00:32] Now, how many of you have ever made a promise? And after you made the promise, you thought, oh, no, what have I gotten myself into? Show of hands.
[00:00:41] Okay, still. Still a lot of you. All right, so two and a half years ago, my wife and I went on a trip to Florida with a group of friends without kids, and we went to Universal Studios theme park. And. And it was a lot of fun. We had a great time. We took a lot of pictures. And when we got back, our kids were very excited to see all these pictures. As you might guess, they were five, three, and one. So as soon as you pull the phone out, the kids come running. So they wanted to see all the pictures. Now, we didn't go to Disney World, and our kids have never been to Disney World, but they know about Disney and they know that it's in Florida. So for them, they just thought, theme park, Florida. They must have gone to Disney World. So we had to assure them that we did not go to Disney World without them.
[00:01:27] But my son, who was 5 at the time, he asked me, and he says, dad, when are we going to Disney World?
[00:01:34] And I said, without thinking a whole lot and without consulting my wife, which is a really. That's a really important clarifier in this story. I can't stress how much that's important here. I said, we'll go to Disney world when you're 10.
[00:01:49] Now, village church. I have no idea why I said that.
[00:01:53] I don't know why I made that promise.
[00:01:56] I thought, you know, 10 sounds like a really good age. His sisters will be 8 and 6 at that point, you know, sounds great. But as soon as I said it, I looked across the room at my wife, and she just, like, gives me this look, like, why? Why would you say that? Why would you make that promise? And in my head, I thought, that's five years away.
[00:02:20] It's a really good goal to shoot for. We've always wanted to go, like, let's set a target.
[00:02:24] And, you know, five years, that gives us plenty of time to save up the million dollars that it costs to take a family of five to Disney World. You know, we have time to take out a second mortgage or sell a kidney or whatever it is.
[00:02:36] But can I just say, that was two and a half years ago, and those two and a half years went by a lot quicker than I expected. And my son is turning eight next month. So I realized I've got about two and a half years left to make good on this promise. And I do intend to make good on the promise. And I now realize that by sharing this with all of you, I'm kind of doubling down on the promise because I now have a lot more witnesses and accountability.
[00:03:03] But I do intend to make good on this and keep this promise. But promises can be a very sensitive subject for a lot of us. They can actually carry a lot of baggage for us, especially if you've ever broken a promise yourself or somebody else has broken a promise to you. Just the word promise can actually dredge up some pretty negative or cynical feelings. But promises carry so much weight for us, whether we're children or adults, because they're like anchors.
[00:03:33] They are things that we can hold onto that keep us grounded, secure, and stable. We trust in a promise because we trust the person who made the promise. That is why broken promises are so disorienting. Right? We feel like our anchor and our support that we had has now been just completely ripped out from underneath us.
[00:03:55] So my question for you today that I want you to consider during our time is what. What promises are serving as your anchors right now, today? What promises are serving as your anchors? Where are you placing your hope? What are you relying on for your stability and support?
[00:04:14] Some of us, we're not anchored to God's promises. We're anchored to our performance or our reputation or the approval of others.
[00:04:23] And those anchors don't hold when life gets rough.
[00:04:27] Promises are actually a really essential part of the biblical storyline, and making and fulfilling promises is what God does.
[00:04:35] In fact, if you just follow this thread of promises, what we call covenants in Scripture, that God makes throughout the entire biblical narrative, you'll find you can kind of map out the entire storyline of Scripture by just keying in on these important moments and markers where God makes a promise or a covenant with someone.
[00:04:55] Open up your bibles to Galatians 3.
[00:04:58] We're jumping back into our series in Galatians and in our text today. You're going to see that this idea of promise is very important, and it's front and center in Paul's mind here in chapter three, in fact, he uses the word promise or promised eight times in just 16 verses. So as we read the text, every time I point to you all today, you're going to say promise as we read the text.
[00:05:22] Sound like a deal?
[00:05:23] Let's practice promise. Nice. I knew you guys could do that. All right, so what is a promise? A promise is a declaration or an assurance that a particular thing will happen.
[00:05:36] If you were with us two weeks ago, or for any of our sermon series in Galatians, you might remember that there's this group in the Galatian Church called the Judaizers, and they're teaching this false gospel.
[00:05:49] They're teaching that faith in Jesus plus the law equals salvation. So they're adding to the simple and true gospel. And they taught that observing the law was required for salvation, that circumcision or eating kosher, they were requirements for salvation.
[00:06:06] Paul is not happy about it.
[00:06:09] Village church, even though this letter was not written to us directly, it is written for us.
[00:06:15] And to be honest, I'm not too worried about you all becoming Judaized. I don't think there's a group in our church that would be the Judaizers that are really hung up on the Mosaic Law. And I'm not worried about you being tempted to follow the Mosaic Law. But what I am worried about is what false promises you or I might be placing our faith in. I'm worried about what traditions you may be trusting in, what things you might be adding to the Gospel, what works you're relying on to make you right with God. So let's look at Galatians 3. 15.
[00:06:49] So Paul picks up his train of thought, and he says to give a human example, brothers. I'll pause there.
[00:06:56] Paul here is given an example and an illustration, but for what?
[00:07:00] Well, the point he was just making a few verses earlier. So we have to go back just a couple weeks to remember Pastor Dean's sermon from two weeks ago and what came before this in the letter. So do you know what came before verse 15, verse 14. I knew you guys would know that. He says this in verse 14 so that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we might receive the promise. No, I was just checking. All right. Good job. Receive the promised spirit through faith.
[00:07:32] Now, it's hard to emphasize how big of a deal this verse is, because the whole biblical storyline from Genesis 3 on is about how God is going to make things right that humans put wrong through sin. So there's a promise made to Adam and eve in Genesis 3. And from then on you're kind of wondering, you're asking yourself the question, who is the son of the woman that will make things right? Who is the seed and offspring that was promised? And then we get to Genesis 12 and we meet this guy named Abraham and there's a promise made to him that God will bless all the families of the earth through just one man. And from that point on you're asking yourself, how is gonna. How is God gonna bless all the families of the earth through just one man? And what does that blessing look like?
[00:08:20] And Here in Galatians 3:14, Paul answers it and says, this is the fulfillment.
[00:08:26] Jesus is the fulfillment of this promise. The promise of to bless all the families of the earth. This promise from Genesis 12. So Paul shows us that the blessing promised to Abraham ultimately includes justification through Jesus and the gift of the Holy Spirit. Look at verse 14 again. So that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. Now that Jesus has ascended, he's given the promised Holy Spirit to those who trust in him. And. And so Jesus fulfilled the Abrahamic covenant. In fact, Jesus fulfilled and is the fulfillment of a bunch of promises and covenants. In scripture, a covenant is a type of promise, but it's much bigger than that. When God makes a covenant, it's a binding agreement between himself and the person or a group.
[00:09:16] So I wanted to just kind of go through a few covenants and promises that Jesus fulfilled to figures like Adam and Abraham and Moses and David.
[00:09:24] So I thought I'd put them in front of you and fun fact. Did you know if you take a name and you put it in its adjective form, it makes you sound a lot more scholarly.
[00:09:33] Did you know that? It's true. So that's what these mean. Jesus fulfilled the Adamic covenant to Adam because Jesus is the seed of the woman that would crush the head of the serpent, who is Satan. Jesus fulfilled the covenant to Abraham because he is the one who would bless all the families of the earth and, and create this one multi ethnic family. Jesus fulfilled the promise to Moses because he is the one who perfectly obeyed God's requirements. He was the perfect sacrifice and he's our great high priest. And then Jesus fulfilled the promise to David because he came from the line of David who was the righteous king.
[00:10:14] There are so many other promises and covenants that Jesus fulfilled, but I'm just highlighting some of the big ones. But verse 14 here is so important because Paul is saying that the promises of God are for Gentiles too.
[00:10:28] All families, all nations, all people groups, all of them can be made right with God. The word we use for that is justified to be made right with God. And all happens through Jesus of Nazareth, the promised One. And all can receive the Holy Spirit through faith. But Paul continues on to help his audience understand. He says to give a human example, brothers, even with a man made covenant, no one annuls it or adds to it once it has been ratified.
[00:10:58] Paul is using a human example to explain a spiritual reality. So just like in Paul's day, we have plenty of covenants that still function in our society today. Modern day covenants in our context. And the first one is one we all know, the marriage covenant. And that spans generations, it spans cultures, right? And because God created it, it's not man made, but it is a human experience.
[00:11:22] And it's more than just a contract because it's personal right, it's binding. And it establishes this covenantal relationship where two become one and vows are exchanged and promises are made.
[00:11:36] And then we have what we call a will or a last will and testament. It's a solemn arrangement or an agreement by one person who's saying what they want done with their assets and their estate after they've passed on. And once it's been ratified, agreed upon and signed and established, it's now set and it can't be changed after the death of the person. It is a legal document then the US Constitution, it's essentially a civil covenant. Once it was ratified, it became legally binding and it's now the supreme law that governs our land.
[00:12:11] But Paul is saying that even man made covenants and promises once they're established and ratified, there's no changing it. And if you do want to make a change, you basically have to create a new covenant, a new agreement. And it's a very extensive process, but you can't just cancel it or ignore the covenant. Verse 16, Paul says now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say and to offsprings referring to many, but referring to one and to your offspring who is Christ.
[00:12:47] This is what I mean. The law which came 430 years afterward does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God so as to make the promise void.
[00:12:59] What Paul is saying is that God made a promise.
[00:13:04] God established a covenant and made a promise to Abraham not because Abraham was deserving, but simply because it was God's choice and it was God's prerogative. And this promise, once he made it, it was as good as gold.
[00:13:17] This is how God's covenants are different from our man made covenants. Once it's established, there's no amending it. There's no changing it at all, because God doesn't change.
[00:13:29] But remember Paul's audience in this letter to the Galatians. There were a lot of Gentiles, but there are also a lot of Messianic Jews. Those are people who were Jewish, but they had now trusted in Jesus as the Messiah. And so some of these former Jewish people, they held the Mosaic covenant in such high regard that they thought that nothing superseded it, nothing came above it. They were having a hard time accepting that the Mosaic Law was not in effect anymore. And even some of the Gentiles were made to think and believe that the Mosaic Law was the end all, be all. But Paul is saying, because this whole law and whole system that you hold in such high regard, guess what?
[00:14:13] There's something that supersedes that, that's even higher and that's more important.
[00:14:17] Something that came 430 years before the law came, and that is a promise.
[00:14:23] It's like the marriage covenant. It's like if I married my wife, we recited our vows and we made promises to each other. And then a few years into our marriage, I was like, hey, Rachel, I've been thinking. What if we created, like, a code of conduct for our marriage? What if we made, like, a system of laws for our marriage? Stuff like that will enhance our marriage, maybe set expectations, delineate our roles. Like good things like planned and required date nights once a month, and we're going to put that into writing. Or always committing to give each other a hug and a kiss before leaving for work. That's a good thing, right? Or a schedule for our chores like dishes and laundry. And we made this into a code of conduct, and all the stuff in it was good and we implemented it. But then over the course of the years, I got so caught up in this code of conduct that I thought that that is how I relate to my wife and how I know that that I live in good right relationship with her.
[00:15:21] And I completely forgot all about our marriage covenant and the promises that I made to love and to cherish her, to genuinely care for her. And I only related to her on the basis of this code of conduct. If I was like, well, Rach, I did the dishes every time I was scheduled, so we should be good, right?
[00:15:39] What would my wife say to me if that were my approach?
[00:15:44] Probably say a lot of things, but she'd probably say, you're missing the point.
[00:15:49] The law, the Code was never meant to be the thing, right? It was meant to point to the thing. It was meant to remind us of the promises that we made to each other.
[00:16:00] Paul is logically dismantling their wrong theology and their wrong thinking. He's showing them where their thinking is faulty. This promise and covenant that God made with Abraham, nothing can change it, nothing can make it void, nothing can cancel it.
[00:16:16] God will make good on that promise. In fact, he's saying he has already made good on that promise through Jesus.
[00:16:24] Verse 18. He says, for if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise. But God gave it to Abraham by a promise.
[00:16:35] So when I promised to take my kids to Disney World, imagine if after I made the promise, I came back and I put some conditions on it. I said, guys, I know I made this promise, but there are some things that you need to do in order for me to fulfill what I said. They'd probably be like, well, dad, that wasn't part of the original arrangement. Now they're young, so they probably wouldn't use those words, but you get the idea. They would understand that that wasn't part of the conditions. They would say, you made the promise simply because you chose to.
[00:17:05] And for me, the promise is all on me to follow through on. Nothing they do or don't do will change my responsibility. It comes down to my reliability and whether I'm a man of my word or not.
[00:17:20] Now, it's not a perfect analogy. It's not direct one to one correspondence, but you get the idea. Paul is telling the Galatians God made this promise and he's the one who's going to fulfill it.
[00:17:31] You can't inherit the promise by observing the law.
[00:17:36] In many respects, I think this is an honest mistake by some of the people in the Galatian Church.
[00:17:42] Two weeks ago, Pastor Dean gave the message on who bewitched you. That's the question Paul asked in Galatians 3, who bewitched you? Paul is pretty upset. He's emotional and he's angry and he's saying, you knew better and you were tricked and deceived because you were foolish and you wanted to be tricked.
[00:18:02] But here I don't think Paul is saying, you know better. I think he's communicating something that many of them had maybe forgotten about or maybe they hadn't heard it before at all, especially if they were Gentiles, or maybe they hadn't considered the implications of it. But he's saying the law is not the anchor.
[00:18:23] The anchor is the promise that God made.
[00:18:26] And it's a solid anchor, it's a solid foundation because of the character and nature of the one who made the promise.
[00:18:36] Many of these Galatians, there was some genuine ignorance about what he's saying. Some of them maybe didn't have the full picture. Now, I'm inferring a little bit as we read the text, using imagination, but I think there might have been like a light bulb moment for some of them as he logically walks them through the timeline of the promises God made. And I think they might have been like, oh, so you're saying that obeying the law is not how we receive the promises of God, it's not how we receive the Holy Spirit.
[00:19:07] I think Paul was probably like, yeah, that's what I've been trying to say.
[00:19:12] Paul is creating some new categories for some of them where the law should fit into their understanding of God's promise. Promises verse 19, he says, why then the law? It's like you can see Paul anticipating their question before they even ask it. It's like, okay, Paul, then why did God give us the law if we had the promise already? Why did we need the law? And he gives them two explicit reasons. He says it was added because of transgressions until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made.
[00:19:45] Two reasons. It was added because of sin, to reveal people's sinfulness and our need for a Savior, and to make it possible for them to be in proximity to a holy God as sinful people.
[00:19:57] Moody Bible Commentary said it this way. The law and all Scripture reveal that people are sinful.
[00:20:03] Indeed, they may be described as caught or imprisoned by sin.
[00:20:08] So the first reason is it was added because of sin. The second reason it was added to create and preserve a nation through whom the Messiah would come.
[00:20:17] The nation of Israel needed to be created so that the family promised to Abraham could be realized and ultimately lead to the Promised One.
[00:20:27] But the law was put in place temporarily.
[00:20:31] How do we know that? Look at verse 19. It says, until the offspring should come.
[00:20:37] Until the offspring should come. It was never meant to be permanent.
[00:20:41] Paul is saying, once the offspring, who is Jesus, the Promised One, came through whom all these promises to Abraham would be fulfilled. The law isn't needed anymore.
[00:20:53] He continues on and says, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.
[00:20:58] Now, an intermediary implies more than one, but God is one.
[00:21:02] This phrase was put in place through angels by an intermediary.
[00:21:06] It really had me confused for quite a bit. This week as I prepared, I was like, what's this about? So can I bring you guys all into the study with me and what I learned this week?
[00:21:16] In Deuteronomy 33, it seems Paul is referencing this passage In Deuteronomy, chapter 33, verses 2 and 3, which talks about God coming down on Mount Sinai where He gave the law. And in that passage, it says he came from ten thousands of holy ones. In verse three says, and all his holy ones were in his hand.
[00:21:36] So holy ones is a reference to angels.
[00:21:39] So it's saying the angels were present with God on that occasion. And the intermediary implied is Moses, through whom God gave the people of Israel the law. We could explore this more. There's scholarly debates on this and what it means, but it's a different sermon for a different day. Suffice it to say that God gave Moses the law directly. And it seems there were angels present who were somehow witnesses or part of the process.
[00:22:05] And Moses is the one who delivered the law to the people of Israel.
[00:22:09] But verse 21, Paul asks another question that he's anticipating they will ask. Is the law then contrary to the promises of God?
[00:22:18] Certainly not. For if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. But the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin so that the promised by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.
[00:22:34] Again, Paul anticipated their question. It's like they're asking, is the law then at odds with the promises?
[00:22:41] And Paul says, no. The law was actually a great thing. There are so many scriptures and passages in both the Old Testament and the New Testament that talk about how wonderful the law is, because it's God's instruction, it's God's wisdom, and it's further revelation of his plan of redemption across Scripture. The Mosaic Law is described as perfect.
[00:23:04] It's described as delightful and lovable. It's described as wise and admirable. It's described as right, true, and good. And I'm just picking a few. There's many more. Jesus himself loved the law, and he knew it inside and out. He. He said, I didn't come to abolish the law. I came to fulfill the law.
[00:23:25] But what could the law not do?
[00:23:28] It couldn't give life.
[00:23:31] Look at verse 21. He says, for if a law had been given that could give life, then righteousness would indeed be by the law. He's saying, the law couldn't make us righteous. It couldn't make us right with God. The law could not justify our working definition of justification. In Galatians has been God declaring us right with himself, God declaring us right with himself. The law couldn't do that. The law couldn't declare that. It couldn't make us right with God. In fact, justification only comes through faith and trusting in the promises of God.
[00:24:09] Salvation only comes through faith and trusting in the promises of God. Receiving God's grace only comes through trusting in the promises of God.
[00:24:18] And this faith, it's belief exhibited through active trust. It's not just this mental assent that I believe something I hear, it's belief. And then you're acting on it by placing your faith in something and acting according to it.
[00:24:32] So my question for you guys today that I want you to consider is, rather than the promises of God received by faith, what are you trusting in to give you life?
[00:24:43] What are you trusting in to give you true life? Is it being part of the church, being a member? Is it baptism or confirmation or maybe some other sacraments that you did as a kid? Is it doing good things for others?
[00:24:57] Is it looking presentable and polished? Is it fighting for different social justice issues that you're passionate about?
[00:25:05] Is it some cultural mantras that maybe you started to believe?
[00:25:10] Or is it relationships with friends or family or significant other?
[00:25:14] Some of those are good things. Some are actually even great things, but they're all false anchors.
[00:25:21] None of those things make you right with God.
[00:25:24] None of those things actually give true life. And Paul is showing them that justification and receiving God's grace and his Spirit has always been about placing faith in and the promises of God.
[00:25:38] Verse 23, he says now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed.
[00:25:47] So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith.
[00:25:54] But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith.
[00:26:02] For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
[00:26:07] Now, I was also a little confused by this when I first read it, because didn't Paul just say that Abraham had faith and that the promise came before the law?
[00:26:16] Why then is he saying in verse 25, but now that faith has come, almost implying or insinuating that faith came after the law? Anybody else confused by that? I was confused. Maybe just me.
[00:26:29] Faith here is being used as the equivalent word for the gospel and person of Jesus, or the full revelation of the gospel in Jesus. The Greek word for faith here and in most of Galatians in the New Testament is this word pistis and that word means faith. And it can mean how we typically understand faith, which is our belief or our conviction or our trust in something.
[00:26:55] Like when we say, what are you placing your faith in? It can mean that. But that word faith can also mean faithfulness.
[00:27:02] More specifically, Jesus's faithfulness, the character of the one that we can actually rely on. So instead we could insert Jesus or faithfulness of Jesus in this passage instead of faith.
[00:27:16] So we could read this passage more accurately as now, before Jesus came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faithfulness of Jesus would be revealed.
[00:27:28] So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by Jesus.
[00:27:34] But now that Jesus has come, we are no longer under a guardian. For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith in Jesus.
[00:27:42] For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
[00:27:47] Paul is saying the law was just a guardian, it was a chaperone, it was a caretaker until Jesus arrived and fulfilled the promise that had been made well before the law was made. He's saying, before you were basically prisoners, but now you are sons and you're grafted into this family through faith and through trusting in Jesus. And that's essentially the whole message of the book of Galatians.
[00:28:14] It's the gospel of the crucified Messiah who creates a new multi ethnic family that's transformed by the Spirit.
[00:28:22] And there's more on the family and what it means to be part of God's family next week. But I have two. So what's for you guys?
[00:28:31] So what? Number one is the promises of God have always been received by faith.
[00:28:38] Have you ever considered this question? I remember thinking about this question before. How were Adam and Eve and Abraham and Noah and David and all these other Old Testament figures, How were they made right with God? How did they receive God's grace? How were they saved before Jesus?
[00:28:57] And the answer is very simple. Just by faith.
[00:29:01] Just as we as Gentiles on this side of Jesus receive the promises of faith. I want you to look at Galatians 3:8 for just a minute. We read this two weeks ago. So just look back a little bit before in Galatians 3 and this is really fascinating. Galatians 3:8, Paul says, and the Scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying in you shall all the nations be blessed. Did you catch that? What it says the Scripture preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham.
[00:29:36] The gospel. God was preaching the gospel to Abraham So what was the gospel for Abraham and for all these other Old Testament figures?
[00:29:45] Well, the gospel for them was the good news that the Messiah and Promised One would come.
[00:29:51] The gospel for us is the good news that the Messiah and the Promised One has come.
[00:29:58] Some, some have said that the cross echoes back and it looks forward.
[00:30:03] The Old Testament patriarchs and saints, they didn't have all the information. They didn't know that Jesus of Nazareth would be God in the flesh and would be the one they were expecting. They didn't know that after Jesus, the Holy Spirit would come. That's how progressive revelation works. But they did expect someone and they did trust in God's promises. And God held them accountable for what they did know. And he declared them righteous for trusting in God's promise.
[00:30:31] I would really encourage you when you go home, read through Hebrews 11. If you get some time today and in your community groups, you'll have a chance to look at Hebrews 11 together. But some people have called it the hall of Faith. It's all about these heroes of the faith, all these Old Testament figures, men and women who showed their faith by trusting in the promises of God and then being obedient to God.
[00:30:55] They acted on their faith and belief. But for all of us, them included, and for us, it's all about faith and it's all about Jesus, the Messiah.
[00:31:05] It always has been.
[00:31:07] So what? Number two, receiving God's promises by faith gives us a new identity.
[00:31:14] So trust in Jesus today.
[00:31:17] Verse 28, Paul closes out this thought and he says, there is neither Jew nor Greek. There's neither slave nor free. There is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
[00:31:28] And if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise. You guys are still with me.
[00:31:37] This verse has been misused and abused and wrongly interpreted over the years. But in context, Paul is describing what happens to you, what happens to me when we trust in Jesus. He's describing the nature of our spiritual identity, our position in God's family, and our place in the biblical storyline of his promises.
[00:32:00] Paul is not telling the Galatian believers or us that there are no longer legitimate categories or legitimate differences between each of us. In fact, some of the things in here are biological differences and ways God designed us that are actually really good. He was intentional to do. And then some are social and cultural labels that are just kind of part of living in the world that we live in. So Paul isn't trying to literally destroy those differences.
[00:32:29] He's saying that if we're in Christ, we're all on the same footing.
[00:32:34] We are all equally welcome to come to Christ. And when we're in Christ, we all have the same identity.
[00:32:43] We're justified, forgiven, redeemed, heirs of promise.
[00:32:50] And my encouragement to you is that can be your identity today, if you trust in Jesus as your Lord and Savior.
[00:32:58] Let's pray.
[00:33:00] Heavenly Father, thank you for your promises.
[00:33:03] Thank you that we don't have to earn our way to heaven or earn our righteous standing before you. Because if it was up to us, Father, we would be without hope.
[00:33:12] But we do have hope, God, your promises have been fulfilled in Jesus through his life, death and resurrection.
[00:33:21] Help us to place our anchors in your promises and in what your Word says.
[00:33:26] We pray all of this in Jesus name. Amen.
