Notes – All We Can Earn Is A Curse

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How many times have we said, “I’ll do better next time.” Or, “I’ll never do that again.” Or maybe, “Well you can’t win them all.” How many times have we said, “I wish I hadn’t done that.” Or “I should have never said that.”

These Judiazers who were coming against Paul’s teaching that salvation comes by grace through faith and that alone and saying that a person had to keep the law to be saved must never have thought about how many times they had regretted actions they had taken or things they said.

But you see Jesus never had to say any of those things. He never took a step out of place, never had to regret an action, never had to apologize for a misspoken word because he never misstepped, never acted inappropriately and never spoke a wrong word. Out of all the billions of people that have ever lived He is the only one who can make that claim.

So knowing that, what would make a person believe that they could earn salvation by working at being perfect? The Rabbis and the Jewish religious hierarchy realizing that they continually failed to keep the law perfectly made for themselves a stop-gap. Pedigree. The Jews of Jesus’ and Paul’s time held on to the idea that being genetically connected with someone great like Moses or Abraham and having the mark of circumcision would lead to inherited merit. It was as if they though that being descendants of the patriarchs somehow circumvented their accountability to the law. What a lot of work religion is! All of this thinking and questioning and struggling to merit worthiness on your own power. Every night going to bed wondering if you did enough that day to satisfy God’s requirements for you to go to heaven. “What if I die tonight and I messed up somewhere today and I didn’t even realize it?” Man Jesus just said,

Matthew 11:28-30 Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

He is talking about the labor and the burden of a religious system based on your performance. He says my yoke is easy and my burden is light because He has already borne the burden, He has already doe the work.

John 19:28-30 After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said ( to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” 29 A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

The Greek word for finished in the scriptures is tetelestai. It means to end, or complete, or to completely pay off a debt. So the debt has been paid, finished, all done, no more work to do… So let’s read our text for tonight from Galatians 3.

Galatians 3:10-14 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” 11 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” 13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— 14 so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith.

With sin, our failure to keep the law, comes debt. This is where the curse comes from because we are unable to pay the debt and so we are assured of judgment. In our culture when we fail to keep the law we break out in handcuffs and go to court. We know we are guilty and so does everyone else. If we go to court without an attorney things will not go well and we will probably receive the strictest sentence. But what if when we go to court we have a top notch attorney? Things are looking better, right? But what if He’s not just a really good attorney what if He’s the Son of the judge? And what if on the way into court He posted your bail and already paid all the restitution and fines that could possibly be leveled against you?

Colossians 2:13-14 And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, 14 by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross.

Colossians 3:10 For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.”

Let’s define this term, ‘The Law.” You can say that the law would refer to any attempt to justify one’s self before God. The law would be any performance standards that we set to achieve a right standing before God. Religious rules and regulations by which we attempt to earn God’s approval. Verse 10 is telling us that we are cursed if we attempt to earn God’s acceptance because if we are going to set those standards for ourselves we have to be perfect in all areas of our performance. There will be no wiggle room. We won’t be able to say, Look Lord I was perfect except in this one area this one time.” No we are bound to keep the whole thing perfect every day, all day, 24/7/365.

James 2:10 For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.

I have said before that we can measure our ability to keep the law in just the first commandment.

Exodus 20:3 “You shall have no other gods before me.”

Go ahead and go through the 10 Commandments and see if you have not violated most if not all of them. No one can obey the law perfectly and because breaking even one commandment brings a person under condemnation. Trying to achieve salvation through obedience to the law is a no-win situation. No one can perfectly observe and obey all the things written in the book of the law. The law demands perfection — an impossibility for sinful humans.

Galatians 3:11-12 Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” 12 But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.”

So what are we really saying when we are attempting to earn our way into heaven? The Mormons teach that you must do your two year missionary duty on a bicycle in order to earn God’s grace and they have many, many more rules designed to guilt a person into obedience. The J. W.’s assess their position in the heavenly hierarchy by counting hours spent going door to door promoting the Watch Tower magazine. The more they do the more they will get in heaven, or actually in the new earth because only a very hard working 144, 000 are going to heaven. But the point is that what we are saying when we attempt to earn God is that Jesus was lying when He said, “Tetelestai!” We are saying He lied because in fact it is not finished there is still more that we need to do. But why the cross at all if there was more that was needed to save us from our debt? Jesus My Redeemer is a song we sing, it is not called Jesus My Partial Redeemer. Jesus did not shed His blood to get us part way there. How ridiculous would that be?

Galatians 3:13 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”

See it says Christ redeemed us, it doesn’t say He partially redeemed us and now we must perform perfectly to get us the rest of the way.

Revelation 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.

There is no caveat in which He says, “But when the check comes get out your wallet because I am not paying the whole bill.” Does this mean that because He has redeemed us completely that we can pray a prayer, ask Him to forgive us and be our Lord and then just live any old way because not only did He die for our past sin He died for our present and future sin as well? No not at all, there is a response required on our part. But it is so important that we understand that it is a response to what He already did and not an attempt to earn a position. Understanding this changes the whole dynamic of our efforts. I know people who are J.W.’s, there are a lot of them on Kauai where I used to live. They were always anxious and worried as to whether they were being good enough or if by failing in some area that maybe they didn’t even know about they were going to be disqualified. What a terrible way to live and what a sad place to be with God. That is why I always say, “relationship not religion.” Such a huge difference between agonizing over your performance and fearing failure and performing out of love because your success is in the bag because it was a gift bought for you at a price.

Hebrews 12:1-2 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.

The writer is saying since the whole world is watching, the unsaved and the saved and even the Saints of old, let’s get rid of the garbage that could hold us back and run like the wind to serve the Lord and the increase of His Kingdom. We are not going to run a race with a back pack full of cinderblocks, so get rid of the dumb stuff, sin, pride, ego, resentments, anger all of it. Then run like the wind for the Lord because He is the writer of this whole love letter that is our Life hidden in Him. He is the founder and perfecter of our faith. And because He loved us so much and got so much joy in seeing us adore Him He hung on the cross and did all the work and was able to say Tetelestai, It is finished. You see folks all we can earn is a curse. Heaven is a free gift.