Berean Community Church Wednesday Bible Study 11/15/2023 Galatians 3:10-14
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Father, you are worthy of praise and worthy of all glory and honor. And Lord, we sing and we proclaim that we depend on you. We need thee every hour. Lord, we need your grace and your mercy every hour. And Lord, for all who confess and call upon your name, we know that you give and you show mercy and you give and you show grace. And Lord, we know in Christ we are truly free from the curse of sin, from anything that binds us to hell. We are free in Christ. So we thank you. We worship you. We lift up your name. We pray that the word that goes forth and studied today may it be rooted in our hearts and may it translate to giving you worship in spirit and in truth in our actions and in our thoughts.
We thank you in Christ's name. Amen. Well, good evening.
Before we get into the text, just a word of caution for tonight, because we are actually going into a passage that has so much to do with our testimony and our identity. I feel like tonight actually should feel like Good Friday service, right? Where on Good Friday in the Passion Week, when we have it at church, everyone's coming very somber, very eager to reflect on the death of our Lord and for our sins. And Easter hasn't come yet, but we have that sobriety on a Good Friday. And so as we look at this text, just the weightiness should feel like that. So my word of caution is that we don't treat this just like an academic exercise tonight, as much as there are Old Testament passages that we need to look at.
It's very fascinating. You can end up in rabbit holes of what's being shared in the law and the prophets and stuff like that. But at the end of the day, if you're a Christian, we're looking at the cost and the price of our redemption. And so my hope is that each and every one of us, this really stirs within us greater affection, that this isn't just like, oh, Bible study, oh, when is it going to be done? But we're looking at the God of the universe dying on our behalf. And so I want to read this passage and then pray for us. And I'm going to take it back a little bit to verse 6. "Even so, Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham.
The scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, all the nations will be blessed in you. So then, those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham, the believer. For as many as are of the works of the law are under a curse, for it is written, cursed is everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law to perform them. Now, that no one is justified by law before God is evident, for the righteous man shall live by faith. However, the law is not of faith. On the contrary, he who practices them shall live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, in order that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that you and I also would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
So, here are the questions for tonight. What does it mean to be cursed by God? What does it mean to be blessed by God? And the more you dive into the curse, the more the gospel becomes good news, right? So, take your time with that. And three, what is this curse of the law? And what's the relationship between Abraham and the Spirit? And like I shared before, don't treat this just as academics. Treat this as your ransom having been paid, okay? Let me pray for us, and then we'll reconvene at 8 o'clock, or at 810. Father, help us tonight really to appreciate deeply this passage that speaks about the change of our eternity, which speaks of the great cost that you paid. And Lord, I pray the great reward that we have, simply because we believe.
I pray that every single one of us, as we dive into this text, will leave here not just astonished, but humbled and grateful. Would you remove from us every ounce of grumbling? Would you take away from us every desire to boast? Would you remove from each and every one of us, as we dive into your word, complacency? Would you feed our souls and ignite our hearts afresh tonight through your word? I'm going to pray this in Jesus' name.
Can someone from the AV team switch--it got unlinked. Can we switch it to the slide?