ATTN: As many of you know, I teach part-time at a Christian high school, and one of the classes I’m teaching is Calculus. It is the highest math in high school and in order to be in my class, you have to have a B or better in Pre-calculus class. I have five students in my class this year and they are the brightest students in the school. So, just to be in my class, my students had to work hard and meet many standards over many years. However, to be in my family, my children had to do nothing! My wife did all the work with my help, my children are born into our family. They met no standard. They can barely pass 5th grade math, let alone Calculus, and yet I love them more than any of the kids in my Calculus class.

Now, imagine how ridiculous it would be if my children all of sudden said to me one day, “Mr. Hong, (Not daddy) would you give me a Calculus exam so that I can pass it and prove that I belong to this family? I don’t like the fact that I didn’t do anything to earn my way into this family. So, let me prove my worth. Let me pass your Calculus test so that I know I belong in this family.”

That in a nutshell is the summary of the Book of Galatians. The Christians in Galatia had done nothing to belong to the family of God. God did all the work to give birth to them and adopt them into His family. To complete the transaction, they simply had to receive the offer of belonging to God’s family. But now, all of sudden, they want to prove their worth to God that they deserve to belong to His family by meeting some standards called the law. As you can imagine, Paul, a godly man who wrote this letter to them, is flabbergasted just like I would be flabbergasted if my children wanted to prove their worth in belonging in my family. He rebukes them by saying, “Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3)

He is saying that they are accepted into God’s family by receiving what God has done for them, namely His Son Jesus dying the death they deserved and living the perfect life they never lived. That being true, now are you trying to prove that you really deserved to be adopted all along? That’s a slap on God’s face! It implies that what God has done for us isn’t quite enough. We have to supplement it! As ridiculous as that sounds, I see church people trying to earn their way to God all the time. Perhaps because we live in a meritocratic society where our worth is measured largely by our abilities and talents. Just think about college entrance and the job interviews…. But even Christians get their self-worth from their abilities and talents, which shows that we have adopted the world’s values.

ILL: For example, I remember a young lady who was rather attractive telling me about a man, who was older, short and bald, who had shown interest in her, and she told me that she felt insulted. Why? Because he should have known he is not in the same league as her. How dare he? To her, her looks and her youth and her job put her at a certain higher bracket than him who had a mediocre job and a very average looks. If you don’t got the looks, at least have a great job but he had neither… What is that but a demonstration of the meritocratic mindset – your worth is tied to your abilities and talents.   (come back to this and draw out what her attitude should be) Now, we may sit back and judge that young lady for being shallow but let’s be honest. Don’t you and I ask people , “So, what you do for a living” to quickly gauge that person and place him in our minds according to what he does, how much he makes, what community he lives in?

But the gospel turns all of that upside down. God does not operate by meritocracy – abilities and talents. He operates by love and grace. The only thing that matters that God sees in us is faith working through love. God doesn’t want employees working for Him trying to meet His quota. God wants children that love and delight in Him.

But then why did God give us the law? If we do not become God’s children by obeying the law, by meeting a certain standard, but by believing, then why did God give us the law? That is what Galatians 3:19-25 is about. Let me give you 3 reasons as to why God gave us the law. 1) To restrain the effects of sin. 2) To serve as a mirror to show our sinfulness. 3) To point us to Christ ultimately.

1) To restrain the effects of sin

Or to protect us from the effects of sin. V. 19 “it was added because of transgressions.” I believe this means that the law was given to mankind to at least to present a barrier to doing something bad to harm themselves. For example, the 7th commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” if that commandment was not there, you can imagine that there will be more killings in the world. There are people who get so furiously upset at another person that he takes up his knife or gun to kill him, but he remembers, “But I’m not supposed to kill. It’s against the law” and I will spend the rest of my life in jail and so he restrains himself.  God gave us the law in His grace to protect us from harm.

We have a house rule for the girls that they cannot get on Youtube on any of the devices. Why? Because there are harmful things on Youtube I don’t want them exposed to. However, the law has no power to change hearts. Simply telling them, “no, you cannot watch Youtube” to my children does not make them want to not watch it. A man named John Calvin, a brilliant theologian of old, said, “by means of its fearful denunciations and the consequent dread of punishment, to curb those who, unless forced, have no regard for rectitude and justice.” In other words, because some people fear punishment that comes from the law, they would restrain from doing something otherwise they would have no second thoughts about doing.

However, this is the least effective purpose of the law. We know that just telling someone what the law is and telling him to obey it will not get him to obey it. As a matter of fact, the human heart is such that, if you tell him that he must behave a certain way, he will do the opposite. ILL: I remember when I was teenager, I got up one day and I thought I should clean my room. It was really messy even to a teenager boy’s standard. Now, my mom walks in and says, “Look at your room. It’s a pigsty. Why don’t you clean it up?” What do you think I did? “Mom! Get out my room! I will clean it up when I want to!” All of sudden, I didn’t want to clean it up anymore just because my mom said it. That shows how rebellious my heart was.

So, the second reason for the law is: 2) to reveal how sinful we are.

2) To reveal how sinful we are.

The law works like a mirror in that it shows how sinful we are inside. V. 22, “But the scripture imprisoned everything under sin, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.” What does “the scripture imprisoned everything under sin” mean? It is obscure. But we can get a good idea for it by reading what comes next – “so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.” In other words, whatever “the Scripture imprisoned everything under sin” means, it is something that led to the promise given to those who believe. It gave rise to faith. What could it be? Romans 3:20 gives us the answer: 20 For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight, since through the law comes knowledge of sin. So, what the law does is to let us know how sinful we are. The law is God’s standard for us. But the very fact that we want to go against it shows just how sinful we are. If you want to know how sinful your 4 year old is, just command, “Turn off the lights right now and go to sleep,” and he will say, “No. I’m not tired. I don’t want to. You can’t make me!” When we realize that we don’t want to do the very thing we should do, we know how sinful we are. The law reveals that to us.

Why is it that when we see the sign, “Stay off grass” we want to go on it? Why is it that when we are told we can’t do something, we want to do it? Doesn’t it show a heart that is in rebellion and self-driven rather than being submissive to God and His authorities such as parents? The law is a mirror that reflects our selfish and self-determining way back to us to show just how ugly we are….

For example, the last of the 10 commandments, “thou shall not covet.” How often have we looked at that Lexus sports car pass us by and we thought, “I wish I was in that.” We coveted. We just broke God’s law! We wanted something that wasn’t ours. It shows that we are not satisfied with where we are. We think having something else, or being somewhere else will make us happier, which shows how ungrateful we are. When you thought that, you were probably in your Honda or Buick, which millions of moped riders in rural areas of Philiippines or Thailand would’ve loved to be in.. How ungrateful are we? And what shows us that? The law which says not to covet. We know coveting is sin and it leads to misery but we do it anyway. How sinful!

Do you see how the law shows God’s standard, and that we fall short of it? What do we do when we realize that we fall short? Two options: 1) Try really hard to obey it. 2) Lean on Christ to do it for us. When we try to obey it, we will fail over and over. How often have you and me said to ourselves, “I can’t believe I did that again or I can’t believe I said that again. I swore that I would never…” Where should our thoughts go at that point? “I need a Savior. I can’t save myself!” So….

3) The law point us to Christ.

This is the most important function of the law. V. 19, “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.
            It says “until the offspring should come to whom the promise had been made…” And Paul makes it very clear who the offspring is. It is Jesus Christ. So, the law was given to man to hold him in place until Jesus Christ came. V. 23-25, “Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then, the law was our guardian until Christ came, in order that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.”
            So, think of the law as a hard but fair guardian and Jesus Christ as our loving parent. We are held by our guardian until our loving parent arrives. Think of a hard schoolmaster who is holding us in detention telling us how delinquent we are, which is true, but when our parent arrives, he will pay for everything and take us home. That is Jesus Christ. The law, although harsh, kept us safe until Jesus Christ came. It also let us know that we do not really measure up to God’s standard and we needed outside help. Let’s take the 1st commandment of the Ten Commandments this time, “You shall have no other gods before me.” No money, job, relationship, should come before god. Nothing should be valued more than God.

How did we do on that one? Have you been crushed or devastated because you lost something valuable? Maybe a business? Maybe a relationship? Maybe health? Your identity, significance, worth rode on it and you lost it and are absolutely devastated? That was your god – your idol – what you lived for, what gave you the motivation. You have and I have broken the 1st commandment and consequently all the following commandments. We need help. We can’t do it. We can’t put God above all things. We need a Savior. We need someone who will love God perfectly and give us the credit for it. That is what Jesus came to do. The law simply points out our inability and thus our need for the Savior in Jesus Christ.

That is why Jesus said “ I have not come to abolish them [the law] but to fulfill them” Matt. 5:17.

CONC: so, what are we to do with the law? 1. You shall have no other gods. 2. You shall not make idols. 3. You shall not misuse my name. 4. You shall keep the sabbath holy. 5. You shall honor your father and mother. 6. You shall not murder. 7. You shall not commit adultery. 8. You shall not steal. 9. You shall not lie. 10. You shall not covet.

Do we throw them away as Christians because we do not live under the law but under grace? No. We use them as a mirror to see where we are so that we can go to Christ to be cleansed. You do not keep the sabbath holy? You work 7 days a week without resting at all? You may lack trust. You think God cannot provide for you if you rested one day a week. It shows you are relying on your worldly calculation rather than trusting God. Turn to God. Turn to Jesus. See the law points to our need for Christ. In him is true rest. In him lies our worth. He is the very source of our satisfaction.

Let me summarize how the law and grace work together….

ILL: A woman who was in a bad marriage. Her husband was very demanding and gave her a schedule of things to do everyday – From early morning to late evening, she toiled to meet the demands of her husband. She secretly wished he would die. One day her wish came true and he died. She felt guilty that she felt good! Another man proposed to her but she wasn’t sure. But he really seems to love her and so she said yes. This marriage was different. He truly loved her and would do anything for her. She was so happy and loved him back. One day, she was cleaning the attic and a piece of paper fell out of her coat pocket that was hanging in the closet. It was an old list she kept to for her ex-husband. To her amazement she realized that the schedule she is keeping with her new husband is almost the exact same as the one her husband demanded her to. But when it seemed like death to her before, now, it was pleasure for her now to serve her husband like that….

That list is the law. Jesus Christ is the new husband. We love Him because He first loved us. He knows everything about you better than you. He knows you do not measure up. But He loves you enough to die for you. When that truth sets in our heart, when we love Him for loving us, we will be obeying the law without us knowing. Would you covet somebody else’s house, when you have Jesus?