Fishkill Baptist Church
Sunday, August 23

      • Isaiah 1:18ESV

      • Psalm 34:1–3ESV

  • Rejoice
  • Christ Our Hope In Life And Death

      • Deuteronomy 6:10–12ESV

      • 1 John 3:1–2ESV

  • It Was Finished Upon That Cross
  • This I Believe (The Creed)
  • Doxology
  • Intro: Theme/Topic (What’s the problem, the question, etc.)
    There’s a scene in that great Star Wars movie, The Empire Strikes Back where Darth Vader makes a deal with Lando Calrissian…
    Help me capture Han Solo and his friends, and I’ll leave your city alone.
    Lando agrees and betrays his friend. Now it’s time for Vader to keep his end of the deal…
    But Vader orders Han to be tortured — not part of the deal…
    Then Han is frozen in carbonite and given to a bounty hunter — again, not part of the deal…
    Then Vader orders Princess Leia and Chewbacca to be taken to his ship…
    Lando has had enough and protests: “That was never a condition of our agreement!”
    Then Vader says, in that iconic James Earl Jones voice: “I’m altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further!”
    Then Lando mutters what the audience is feeling: “This deal is getting worse all the time.”
    We watch this scene and it makes us upset. But the truth is we live in a world where deals get altered all the time…
    Every few months you get an email notification: “We’ve updated our terms of service.”
    You didn’t ask for new terms… But the deal you originally signed up for has been changed.
    The streaming service you pay for now shows ads on the plan you’re paying for.
    Your insurance company quietly narrows what it covers.
    Your phone carrier restructures the plan they said would never change.
    In our experience, deals get altered. That’s just how things work.
    The problem is, this can shape how we read the Bible. When we first come to faith in Jesus Christ, we’re told it’s a free gift of grace to be recieved by faith alone! There’s nothing we need to do! This sounds too good to be true!
    But then we keep reading and we discover the 10 Commandments and all the other Old Testament laws. We even see in the New Testament all these imperative commands for how we should live…
    And it’s so natural for us to think, “Oh, the deal must have been updated.”
    Grace was the original plan but then God saw a need to add some conditions.
    The law must just be God’s amendment to His promise — the new terms of service!
    And this is the question we need to wrestle with today:
    Can God add conditions to His promise of grace? Isn’t that what His law is for?
    Let’s see how Scripture answers this question. Turn with me to Galatians 3. We’ll be looking at verses 15-18 this morning. If you’re using a pew Bible, you’ll find it on page 1156.
    Now it’s been a few weeks since we were last in Galatians. So, while you’re turning there, let me give you a quick review…
    Remember, Paul wrote this letter because false teachers had come into the churches of Galatia and were telling these new believers that faith in Christ was a good start — but it wasn't enough.
    You also need to live like Jews by obeying the law of Moses to be fully accepted by God.
    And Paul is furious — because it's not an upgrade to the gospel. It's a different gospel altogether — which is no gospel at all!
    When we began chapter 3, Paul reminded the Galatians of their own experience — you became Christians by hearing and believing, not by doing the works of the law.
    You began by faith, and you continue to live by faith.
    Then in verses 10 through 14, Paul addressed the law head-on. The law pronounces a curse on everyone who fails to keep it perfectly — and none of us can.
    But Christ redeems us from that curse by becoming a curse for us on the cross, so that the blessing God promised Abraham could come to us through faith.
    Scripture
    Now let’s pick up from there with today’s text. If you’re there, please stand with me if you are able out of reverence for God’s Word, and follow along with me as I read...
    Galatians 3:15–18 ESV
    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. 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. 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. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise.
    This God’s Word!
    Prayer
    Father, thank You for Your Word, that makes us simple people wise. And is sweeter to our souls than honey on our lips. May we taste and see this morning the beauty of Jesus that transforms — making us more like Jesus! We ask all this in Christ’s name — AMEN!
    Intro: Formal (give context to passage, setting the scene, big idea)
    Now, here's what Paul is doing in this passage. He's anticipating the next objection.
    In the verses before this, he already showed that the law can't save us — it curses us.
    And Christ bore that curse so we could receive the blessing by faith.
    But someone might push back and say, "Okay, Paul, I'll grant you the law doesn't save. But maybe it was meant to update the promise. Maybe God started with grace and then, a few hundred years later, added conditions. Isn’t the law is just the amended terms of service."
    And Paul says: not a chance! His answer is almost startlingly simple.
    Remember the Big Question we’re wrestling with:
    Can God add conditions to His promise of Grace? Isn’t this what His law is for?
    And the answer I want to show in you this text is a resounding NO! And this is the main idea of this sermon:
    What God has promised, He will keep — and nothing can change that. Not even His own law.
    And Paul supports this in three ways that will guide us through this passage.
    First, we’ll look at what the deal is — what God actually promised Abraham and who that promise ultimately points to.
    Second, he shows us how the deal is kept — the stunning way God signed this covenant and what it cost Him to keep it.
    And third, he tells us why this deal will never change — why the law, which came centuries later, cannot alter, amend, or add a single condition to the promise God already made.
    Now, let's jump right in to my first point: what is the deal?

    What Is The Deal?

    Before Paul tells us why this deal can never change, he makes sure we understand what's actually at stake.
    And the key word is promise. Paul uses it four times in these verses — and he later connects it to the word inheritance in verse 18. But it's worth stopping and asking: what exactly has God promised?
    First, Paul says these are promises made to Abraham. This sends us back to Genesis where God on multiple occasions God gave these incredible promises to Abraham.
    And when you put all those occasions together, God's promise to Abraham has three parts:
    I will make you into a great nation
    I will give your descendants a land to call home
    And through your seed, all the nations of the earth will be blessed
    Now in Galatians 3, it is this blessing that Paul focuses on. He talks about it in verses 8-9, and 14 and this blessing is the focus of promise here in our text today.
    So, what is this blessing? What does it mean to be blessed through Abraham’s seed?
    Be honest — when you hear the word blessing, where does your mind go?
    If you're like most of us, it goes to things working out. A clean bill of health. Kids who are doing well. Financial stability.
    And none of those things are bad — God does give good gifts.
    But if that's all blessing means...
    Then what do you do when the diagnosis comes back bad? When the marriage is struggling? When the money runs out? Are you no longer blessed?
    Let me tell you what I think blessing means in the Bible, then will walk you through a series of texts to prove it to you.
    The blessing promised to us through Abraham’s seed is this: To have the presence and favor of God Himself. Now let me prove this to you.
    Listen to how the Bible talks about blessing — and notice what keeps showing up.
    Psalm 21:6 ESV
    For you make him most blessed forever; you make him glad with the joy of your presence.
    Psalm 16:11 ESV
    You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
    Psalm 89:15 ESV
    Blessed are the people who know the festal shout, who walk, O Lord, in the light of your face,
    This phrase: “The light of your face” is a way of expressing favor.
    Leviticus 26:11–12 ESV
    I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people.
    And we see this promised blessing of presence and favor come into it’s fullness at the end of the Bible in Revelation 21:3
    Revelation 21:3 ESV
    And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
    Do you see it? From the Psalms to Leviticus to Revelation — the deal has always been the same:
    God with us. His presence. His favor. That's the deal.
    And that's what we need to know before we can understand why it must never be altered.
    And this is the focus of the promise that Paul presses into here in Galatians 3. We represent the nations that will be blessed along with Abraham in verses 8-9.
    And that blessing comes to us not through the collective people of God but through a singular descendent.
    This how the promise has always been narrowed.
    Not through Ishmael but through Isaac… Not through Esau but through Jacob… Not through the other sons of Joseph but through Judah… Not through Saul but through David…
    And the ultimate fulfillment of this promise comes to us through the singular offspring. And Paul tells us who in verse 16. —
    Through Christ alone!
    And notice how Paul connects the promise to the Holy Spirit in verse 14. Why? Because the Holy Spirit represents the very presence and favor of God.
    Paul explains the purpose of this in more detail when he writes to the Ephesians:
    Ephesians 1:13–14 ESV
    In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.
    Church, right now — today — we experience the presence and favor of God through the Holy Spirit who lives in every believer…
    But a day is coming when we'll experience this in a fullness we can't even imagine.
    What we have now is real… But it's a deposit — a taste — of what's coming.
    Now if you're sitting there thinking, “This sounds almost too good to be true — the very presence and favor of God, promised to someone like me?” — you're in good company. Because Abraham had the same reaction. Look at Genesis 15:8...
    Genesis 15:8 ESV
    [Abraham] said, “O Lord God, how am I to know that I shall possess it?”
    This is a fair question. Let’s look at the answer in my second point now.

    How Is The Deal Kept?

    Abraham’s question in Genesis 15 is not expressing faithless doubt. It’s the honest response from a man who’s staring at promises that seem too big for him.
    And God doesn’t rebuke him for asking — He answers Abraham — not with words — but with a dramatic, visible act.
    God tells Abraham to bring a heifer, a goat, a ram, a turtle dove, and a pigeon.
    This may be very confusing to you but Abraham knew exactly what this meant. And he knew exactly what to do…
    He cut the animals in half and arranged them in two rows facing each other.
    Let me explain what's happening here, because once you understand this ancient covenant ceremony, you will never see the cross of Jesus the same way ever again.
    Today, a legal contract becomes binding when it’s signed in front of witnesses.
    In the ancient world, when a conquering king made a covenant with the defeated king, the terms of their relationship would be stated and include things like paying a tribute fee to the stronger king etc.
    Now the way this was ratified was not by signing a document but by participating in this ancient near eastern covenant ceremony.
    Animals were cut in half and lined up opposite each other. Then the obligated party would walk between the pieces.
    This walk was significant — It was as self-curse meaning: “If I fail to keep my obligations in this covenant, may I become like these animals — cut off from the land of the living.”
    This is where the Hebrew phrase “cutting a covenant” comes from — The Hebrew word for making a covenant literally means “to cut.”
    Some have suggested that this may be where our more modern saying, “to cut a deal” comes from.
    Now this is very important to understand before we move on. Because, there are two kinds of deals that can be made:
    A law-deal and a promise-deal.
    In a law deal, everything depends on the promisee — the one who has to perform.
    The weaker king would walk through the pieces because the obligations are on him…
    If he fails, he pays… If he succeeds, he earns.
    But in a promise deal, everything depends on the promisor — the one who makes the promise. The obligation is on the one who gave his word.
    Let me give you an example…
    If I told you I had $100 in my pocket and I want to give it to you — What do you have to do? — Nothing! You just have to believe me and receive it. That's a promise deal.
    But what if I said, 'I have $100 in my pocket, but first — go mow my lawn.' Now what kind of deal is that? That's a law deal. Now you have to perform.
    So, the question is what kind of deal is God making with Abraham and by extension us?
    Well, Abraham would have assumed that he, being the weaker party in this deal would be the one to walk through the pieces.
    But God does something shocking!
    God causes Abraham to fall into a deep sleep — Abraham is passive in this ritual, unable to act
    Then a great darkness settles over this scene.
    Then a smoking fire pot and a blazing torch appear and pass between the pieces. What does this mean?
    These are two symbols of God’s presence:
    Remember that smoke would one day fill the temple indicating that God’s presence was there.
    And remember that God was present with His people when He led them in the wilderness by a pillar of fire.
    The shocking point is this: God walked through the pieces — Not Abraham
    God was saying: “May I be cut off from the land of the living if I don’t keep this promise.”
    Do you see… this is a promise deal not a law deal!
    Everything depends on God, the promisor, and not on Abraham or on us, the promisee.
    God is putting His own life on the line to guarantee His Word…
    God is saying, “I will be faithful to keep my promise even if it kills me!”
    — This is not just a dramatic gesture. It’s prophecy.
    And for centuries... nothing.
    The promise sat there. Unfulfilled. Waiting. Until one Friday afternoon, outside Jerusalem, another great darkness fell...
    This time over Golgotha, where Jesus cried out from the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
    Do you remember what happened in Genesis 15 right before God walked through the pieces? A great darkness fell.
    And now, on Calvary, another great darkness falls.
    This is not a coincidence. This is the same covenant. This is the same God. Keeping the same promise.
    Do you see what was happening? —
    Remember what God said through those cut animals? “May I be cut off from the land of the living if I don't keep this promise.”
    And on the cross, that is exactly what happened. Jesus was cut off — from the land of the living, from the light of the sun, from the very presence and favor of His Father.
    Not because God broke the covenant — but because we did.
    — Friends, at the cross God was keeping His word.
    The sin that separates us from the very presence and favor of God — the blessing we talked about earlier — That sin had to be dealt with for God to keep His promise.
    So, He did, by absorbing the curse of the covenant Himself, in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ.
    And in doing this Jesus, the singular offspring of verse 16, became the one through whom the blessing now flows to the nations.
    He is the covenant keeper of Genesis 15 — the one who walked through the pieces and then paid the price on the cross!
    Friends, This is how the deal was kept.
    Not by anything Abraham did. Not by anything you or I could ever do. But by God Himself — walking through the pieces, bearing the curse, paying the price.
    The Promisor kept the promise. At the cost of His own life.
    Like Abraham in that deep sleep, we are unable to do anything to earn the blessing of God’s presence and favor! — We only need to believe…trusting that it’s true.
    And if you're here this morning and you've never trusted in Jesus as your Savior —
    Maybe you've been trying to earn God's favor, trying to be good enough, trying to mow enough lawns before you get the money —
    I want you to hear this: The deal has already been done. The price has already been paid. Jesus walked through the pieces for you. He was cut off so that you could be brought near. You don't need to perform. You need to receive. You need to believe that what He did on that cross was for you — and rest in it.
    And if you're a Christian this morning, but you've been living like it's a law deal —
    Measuring God’s favor by your quiet times, by your obedience, by your performance —
    Hear this again: The deal was kept by the Promisor, not the promisee. Like Abraham, you were asleep when this deal was signed. You contributed nothing. And that's not something to be ashamed of — it's something to rest in.
    Now the question becomes: If God Himself sealed this deal with His own blood, can anything that came later — even His own law — change the deal?
    This is what Paul answers in our final point.

    Why The Deal Will Never Change

    To answer this, Paul gives a human example in verse 15.
    If even a man-made covenant or will cannot be changed once it has been ratified — Then how much more the covenant God made with Abraham?!
    And don't forget what we just saw in Genesis 15. God didn't just make a promise with words. He ratified it with a ceremony — walking between those cut animals, pronouncing a curse on Himself if He failed to keep His word. And then He kept it — at the cost of His own Son's life on the cross.
    That deal has been signed. Sealed. Paid for.
    And Paul's point is devastating in its simplicity: the law, which came 430 years later, cannot void a promise that has already been ratified.
    430 years. Think about that. The promise was already settled — Already sealed in blood — for over four centuries before the law was ever given at Sinai.
    A later document cannot retroactively amend an earlier covenant. The promise has seniority. The promise came first. And the promise stands.
    But Paul doesn't stop there. In verse 18, he makes an even deeper point. It's not just that the law came too late — it's that law and promise are fundamentally incompatible as the basis for receiving the blessing.
    They can't both be the ground for the blessing!
    Think about it:
    For a promise to work, it only needs to be believed. For a law to work, it must be obeyed.
    These are two completely different operating systems.
    And the moment you add conditions to a promise, it stops being a promise.
    It becomes a law that demands performance. And the gift becomes a wage.
    Remember my $100 illustration?
    As soon as I say "but first, mow my lawn," the nature of the deal has changed.
    It's no longer about the giver's generosity — it's about your performance.
    And that's exactly what happens if you add the law's conditions to God's promise. You don't improve the promise. You destroy it.
    And Paul lands his argument with incredible weight in the last line of verse 18. He says: "But God gave it to Abraham by a promise."
    Now, that line gets obscured in our English translation. Because the Greek word Paul uses here for "gave" has the word "grace" built right into it. A more accurate way to read this is:
    God graced it to Abraham. He gave it freely. Generously. With no strings attached. An undeserved gift.
    And church, that one word — graced — settles the whole argument.
    Because you can't add conditions to grace and still call it grace.
    You can't add performance to a gift and still call it a gift.
    The moment you do, you've altered the deal. And Paul has spent this entire passage telling us: this deal cannot be altered.
    What God has promised, He will keep — and nothing can change that. Not even His own law.
    Conclusion/Response (Gospel & Repent/Believe)
    We started this morning with Darth Vader — altering the deal, adding conditions, changing the terms whenever it suited him.
    This is the world we live in. Deals get altered all the time. The terms of service are always being updated. And it's so natural to assume that God operates the same way — that grace was the starting offer, but the law was the amendment.
    And so we asked the question: Can God add conditions to His promise of grace?
    And the answer from this text is a resounding no.
    What God has promised, He will keep — and nothing can change that. Not even His own law.
    We saw what the deal is — Not just land and descendants, but the ultimate blessing: The very presence and favor of God, flowing to the nations through one singular Offspring — Jesus Christ.
    We saw how the deal was kept — Not by Abraham's performance, not by ours, but by God Himself, who walked through those cut pieces, put His own life on the line, and then paid the price on a Roman cross. The Promisor kept His promise. At the cost of His own life.
    And then we saw why this deal will never change — Because it was ratified before the law ever existed, and because adding conditions to grace destroys it. You can't alter a promise into a law and still call it grace.
    Church, God is not Darth Vader. He does not alter the deal.
    And friends, here's why this matters for your Monday morning. Because many of us begin our Christian lives resting in grace — relying on the promise that Christ has taken our curse and given us His blessing.
    But as we go on, something shifts. Gradually, we begin looking inward. We start measuring God's acceptance of us…
    By our quiet times. By our consistency. By how well we're performing.
    And without realizing it, we've converted a promise-deal into a law-deal.
    And when you do that, you become radically insecure.
    Your assurance evaporates. And your Christian life begins to teeter back and forth between two ditches —
    Despair when you fail, and pride when you succeed.
    Both of these are signs that you've made it about your performance instead of His promise.
    So hear this: Your standing with God is not based on how last week went. The deal was kept by the Promisor. You can rest.
    God has made a promise-deal with you — not a law-deal. And the way you respond to a promise-deal is:
    Not with striving but with trust. Not with performance but with gratitude. Not with fear but with rest.
    Because this is a deal that cannot be altered.
    Let's pray.
    Prayer
    Father, we thank You that You are not a God who alters the deal. What You have promised, You keep — and You kept it at an unimaginable cost.
    Thank You for walking through those cut pieces when Abraham could not.
    Thank You for bearing the curse that we deserved. Thank You that on that dark Friday, Your Son was cut off so that we could be brought near — into the very blessing of Your presence and favor.
    Lord, forgive us for the ways we quietly convert Your promise into a performance contract.
    Forgive us for measuring Your acceptance by our effort rather than by Your Son's finished work.
    Teach us to rest in what You have done — not to strive for what we could never earn.
    Help us to walk out of here this morning not with a heavier burden of things to do — but with a deeper confidence in what You have already done.
    We ask all this in the name of Jesus — the singular Offspring, the Promisor who kept His promise. Amen.
    Closing Song: By Faith
    Closing Words:
    What a great song. "By faith" — That's how Abraham received the blessing, and that's how we receive it too.
    Final Gospel Appeal:
    And if you're here this morning and something stirred in you during this service — maybe for the first time you're realizing that you've been trying to earn what God wants to give you for free —
    I want you to know that today can be the day you stop striving and start resting in what Christ has already done for you.
    He was cut off so that you could be brought near. That's the deal — and it's available to you right now by faith.
    After the service, there will be people available right down here at the front who would love to talk with you and help you take that first step of trusting Christ as your Savior. You don't need to have it all figured out. You just need to come.
    Next Steps:
    And for those of you who are believers — maybe today is the day you take a next step in your faith.
    Maybe it's time to follow Christ in baptism.
    Maybe you want to deepen your faith by joining a discipleship group where you can grow alongside others.
    Maybe it's finding a place to serve.
    Whatever that next step is for you, we want to help you take it. Just scan the QR code on the screen, fill out the Next Step form, and someone will follow up with you this week.
    Missional Charge:
    Now church, as you leave here this morning, remember: we are the nations that have been blessed through Abraham's Seed.
    The very presence and favor of God dwells in us through the Holy Spirit.
    And that blessing was never meant to stay with us — it was always meant to flow through us to the people around us.
    So as you step into your week — into your workplaces, your neighborhoods, your homes — carry this promise with you. And when you meet someone who is striving, performing, trying to earn what only grace can give — tell them about the deal that cannot be altered.
    Benediction: Numbers 6:24–26
    “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”
    Amen — Church you are sent!

      • Galatians 3:15–18ESV

      • Psalm 21:6ESV

      • Psalm 16:11ESV

      • Psalm 89:15ESV

      • Leviticus 26:11–12ESV

      • Revelation 21:3ESV

      • Ephesians 1:13–14ESV

      • Genesis 15:8ESV

  • By Faith
Fishkill Baptist Church
lori@fishkillbaptist.org
845-896-9386
http://fishkillbaptist.net
15 members