Galatians 3:10-11 - On Whom Will You Rely?

There’s an old story about a company that manufactured drill bits. They were facing big financial losses, and so their leaders gathered to discuss the declining demand for their bits. And the CEO asked the leadership team, “How can we revive the drill bit market?” Well, there was a long, awkward silence. Then one member of the team spoke up. He said, “Sir, I think the market isn't for bits—it’s for holes!”

What did he mean? Business guru Peter Drucker famously said, “The customer never buys a product. By definition, the customer buys the satisfaction of a want.” In other words, people respond to their own sense of need. Then they purchase what they believe will meet the need.

Whether you’re an adult or a child – or perhaps you see yourself “in between” – your sense of need is always there. We demonstrate it from the time we’re born. It’s part of why we do everything that we do.

But the sinful nature within each of us affects our response to every need. The human race is naturally helpless under sin’s power, and with sin guiding us, even words or behavior that seem selfless have a self-serving bent, because the sinful nature is always sinfully focused only on the self. The world is full of people pursuing what they want in sinful, selfish ways – and that includes all of us.

However, Christ has set His people free from that helpless state. When we are born again, we are brought into an unalterable union with Him. After that, sin still affects us in this life, but it no longer reigns over us. The controlling power of sin is broken by Jesus Christ, and as a result, by God’s power at work in us, we can begin to respond to our sense of need according to God’s ways.

There’s a wholeness – what Scripture describes as a blessedness – that comes from relying on the ways of the triune God. But conversely, relying on our own ways breeds emptiness. It produces what God’s Word describes as a cursedness in our lives. And these realities of blessedness and cursedness are in view here as the apostle Paul continues his argument against the Judaiziers in Galatia.

But even as Paul makes his case for the gospel of God’s free grace to these people in a specific time and place in history, God speaks to us. In what area of your life do you feel a deep sense of need right now? What do you want – and how have you gone about getting it? On whom do you rely? There is a blessed way, and there is a cursed way. So let’s look at each one.

Now, as I began looking at this, I thought of Paul taking the approach of a good lawyer. Then finally on Thursday, I was able to listen to Brock’s sermon from last Sunday. That’s when I found out that he had taken the same approach. So, I’ll continue that theme.

As we’ve been pointing out, some in the Galatian church were saying that faith in Christ alone was not enough. They said more was needed to stand approved before God and their fellow believers, though it was never clear how much was enough. These Judaizers claimed that if the Gentiles Christians didn’t obey OT ceremonial rules and the traditions of men born from those rules, then they couldn’t have assurance of being declared acceptable by God.

And so Paul argues against the Judaizers and for the gospel of God’s free grace. Like a good lawyer, he gives examples of precedent. Earlier words and deeds of God back up Paul’s argument. Exhibit A was Abraham.

In verse 6, Paul quoted Genesis 15. Abraham “believed God and it was counted to Him as righteousness.” This was before his circumcision. That wouldn’t take place until years later, as Gen. 17 records. Abraham was accepted by God – he was justified and found righteous before God only by God’s gracious declaration.

There was no law of Moses yet for keeping, but here God saved a man by grace through faith. For that reason, verse 7 says “it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham.” Nothing else is required.

But now, allow Paul to admit Exhibit B: Moses. With verse 10, Paul goes to the OT again – to the book of Deuteronomy. Written by Moses, the word “Deut.” means “second law” or “repetition of the law.” Before God’s people were to enter the Promised Land, the covenant between Him and His people was reviewed for recommitment. This quote in verse 10 is from Deut. 27. There, Moses tells ancient Israel that if they go against the ways of God, a cursed life will result.

But what is the relationship between this quote and Paul’s gospel argument? If we go further in Deut. – to ch. 30 – it becomes very clear. OT Israel was obligated to live according to God’s law, and yet at the same time, the law itself made it clear that they would be unable to do so.

However, God made allowance for that. Chapter 30 reminds them of His grace. The chapter says they will experience blessedness, but also cursedness – and so they should always return to the LORD. They should humble themselves, and come back to God – which of course would be impossible if God were not gracious and merciful.

Moses – like Abraham before Him – understood that God’s grace was necessary for a person to be accepted by God and found righteous before Him. Moses urges the people to live according to God’s ways but also to rely on grace. A life going against God’s ways – including His grace – would not be good. The life lived in reliance on yourself and not on God will not be a blessed life.

Put differently, the life lived in self-reliance is a truly cursed life. That’s a continual theme throughout God’s Word. Look at verse [10] again. It says, “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse.” If you’re counting on your own willpower and ability, that is a cursed life, “for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” No one is able to obey God perfectly.

You have to realize that ancient Israel was in covenant with God not because they were able to abide perfectly by His law, but rather, because He chose them according to His grace because of great love for them and according to His promise to Abraham for the outworking of His redemptive plan.

Paul quotes Moses to prove that if you think you’re going to justify yourself before God by keeping His law, then you should understand that perfect lawkeeping is required. Ancient Israel couldn’t do it, and neither can we. Therefore, we’re all naturally cursed – which is a hopeless and helpless state.

But…Paul also submits Exhibit C: Habakkuk. Habakkuk was an OT prophet who lived long after Moses and 600 years before Christ. Habakkuk’s circumstances are very important.

By the time of his life, ancient Israel was a shell of what it once had been. It was divided into two kingdoms. The Northern kingdom had fallen captive to foreign enemies, and the Southern kingdom – where Jerusalem was – had fallen into great moral decline.

Their king was wicked. He did not lead them in God’s ways. Instead, he had led them into that cursed life of which God had warned them. And Habakkuk couldn’t stand that wicked Jews were oppressing their fellow Jews who were trying to obey God. So Habakkuk asked God, “Why are they allowed to do this?”

And God replied that those wicked Jews would be punished. But when God tells Habakkuk how this will take place, Habakkuk is not happy. God tells him that the Babylonians would conquer the Southern kingdom. Habakkuk thinks, “What!? That is God’s righteous and good plan?”

He questions why the Babylonians should be allowed to do this, because he felt that all of the Jews were at least more righteous than Babylon. Habakkuk reasoned that the Jews were bad, but they weren’t Babylonian bad. So again, he asks God, “Why?” And God assures him that the Babylonians will be justly punished, as will all sinners.

However, God then tells Habakkuk, “but the righteous shall live by faith.” Habakkuk and all the others who were saved by God’s grace – who truly knew God – would have to trust Him and aim to continually follow His ways – even though there was a hard road ahead.

The events that would play out would test their faith, and they would be tempted to rely on their own ways and not on God’s ways. But they would have to trust that God was still the same God of grace who declared Abraham righteous; and He was still the same God whose grace was proclaimed by Moses, and He would continue to be the same God that He had always been through the many ups and downs of His covenant people. And as Brock explained so well last Sunday, He is our God today.
 
Let’s turn our thoughts again to Paul’s argument against the Judaizers. Paul is talking about justification. God’s statement to Habakkuk was not addressing justification – or was it? Isn’t the question at the heart of justification this: “Is God for me or against me? How can I know that God is for me and not against me? And how could God ever be for a sinner like me?”

Habakkuk’s struggle with God’s will revealed that faith did not come naturally to him. Habakkuk wanted peace of mind. And apparently he reasoned that if he could just understand the plans of God, well then he could have peace. Centuries later, the apostle Paul would write that there is a peace that passes all understanding. It is the peace of God, and it comes to us and remains with us by faith. That peace can be ours by relying not on ourselves but on Christ.

William Hendriksen is helpful here as he commented on this quote from Habakkuk. And he writes, “Whether a person trusts in his own works or in his own reason, in either case is he not trusting in “flesh?” As I see it, therefore, to clinch his argument Paul could not have chosen a better prophecy from which to quote than that of Habakkuk. The passage fits the situation exactly! In every age it remains true that “the righteous shall live by faith.”

Justification – and all of life – must be faith in the triune God all the way. Trusting not in ourselves – our wisdom or power or feelings – but in the Lord. The life lived by faith is the only blessed life.

What does this mean for your life today? Moses and ancient Israel and Habakkuk were going to have to trust God. To trust Him would be the blessed path, and here’s why – because He can be trusted. Therefore, by faith, you can do all things that God calls you to do.

By faith, you can pick up a book in the lobby and read it and take the guidance it offers.
By faith, you can begin each day with prayer and make your needs known to God.
By faith, you can turn away from sexual immorality of every kind.
By faith, you can rest from your work on the Lord’s Day and be restored.
By faith, you can reject the sinful thoughts that trouble your mind.
By faith, you can reject the sinful desires that rise up from within.
By faith, you can stop trying to control everything.
By faith, you can stop looking for satisfaction in gossip, or nosyness, or bragging.
By faith, you can let the grudge go, even if it rears its ugly head every day.
By faith, you can forgive. By faith, you can show love. By faith, you can move forward.
By faith, you can ask for forgiveness. By faith, you can turn away from greed.
By faith, you can tell that person about the grace of God in Jesus Christ.

The list goes, according to your need. Relying on Jesus – with faith in who He is and what He accomplished for you, you can walk by faith. After all, “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.” So then, those who are of faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.”

If you are in Christ, you are blessed. Are you in Christ? Trust in Him today. The triune God will strengthen your faith through all the means He supplies. One of those is the Lord’s Table. Let’s go to it now together.

Please bow together in prayer.