Transcript
00:00.161 --> 00:04.747
The more time you spend with him and a place of boldness, you'll realize that it doesn't matter at all what other people think.
00:05.249 --> 00:06.977
You'll realize it doesn't matter.
00:07.017 --> 00:09.183
The only one you need to live for is the Lord.
00:09.544 --> 00:11.709
The only one you need to please is the Lord.
00:12.350 --> 00:24.089
Listen, it is vital in the season that we're moving in as a world, as a country, as a Christian people, at a pivotal time, that the fear of man be broken off of you.
00:24.250 --> 00:25.494
In Jesus' name.
00:26.336 --> 00:28.422
Welcome to the City Light Church podcast.
00:28.662 --> 00:34.963
Thanks for joining us today as we look into God's Word and discover the hope and truth that he has for us.
00:35.705 --> 00:41.124
If you want to connect with City Light Church, feel free to visit us at CityLightNYCcom.
00:41.465 --> 00:44.071
That's CityLightNYCcom.
00:44.793 --> 00:51.908
Pastor Boyan Jansik and his team believe that the power of the Holy Spirit is already working in our hearts and minds.
00:52.650 --> 01:02.429
As you listen to today's teaching, remember that you are deeply loved by God, that you are surrounded by his grace and that he has a real hope and a future for you.
01:05.120 --> 01:08.447
We're in Galatians, chapter four.
01:08.708 --> 01:15.317
I believe this is part five because some chapters have been split up into two messages, but we're in Galatians, chapter four.
01:15.337 --> 01:22.073
We're in the middle of this series called Clash of the Covenants, because it is vital, it is foundational.
01:22.540 --> 01:28.873
It is absolutely a necessity that we know what covenant, what arrangement we have with God.
01:29.361 --> 01:34.561
And there is an old covenant, there is a new covenant and you must pick one that you want to live under.
01:36.225 --> 01:38.088
And you cannot mix the covenants.
01:38.148 --> 01:43.225
And that's what you find most often in the church A little bit of the old, a little bit of the new.
01:43.847 --> 01:59.956
Come up with your own non-biblical, confused covenant and then wonder why prayers aren't getting answered, wonder why you feel distant from God, wonder why you feel shame, guilt and condemnation, wonder why you're walking civil war and there's no peace and you never feel at rest in your relationship with the Lord.
02:00.257 --> 02:02.424
The answer is you haven't fully discovered grace yet.
02:03.085 --> 02:04.348
You're living under mixture.
02:04.769 --> 02:09.886
And the whole of Galatians is Paul trying to wake the Galatians up who started off in grace.
02:10.287 --> 02:21.141
But very quickly the Judaizers came who added to the completed work of Jesus, because the gospel is Jesus plus nothing equals everything.
02:22.866 --> 02:30.425
Judaizers come in and they bring in mixture and they say well, jesus, plus stuff that you do equals everything.
02:30.967 --> 02:34.296
Well, you don't have to do anything, he already did it all.
02:35.218 --> 02:41.175
He cried out it is finished, paid in full as far as your salvation goes.
02:41.236 --> 02:42.760
You don't have to lift a finger.
02:44.303 --> 02:46.648
Hallelujah, amen.
02:48.431 --> 02:54.283
So I used to read Galatians in my late teens, early 20s, before the Lord opened my eyes to Galatians.
02:54.323 --> 02:56.788
I had a really hard time getting into it.
02:58.111 --> 03:03.310
The gospel is I got into because Jesus is speaking to you right where you are.
03:03.651 --> 03:08.085
You can always and the words of Christ in red and I mean it's all the word of God.
03:08.126 --> 03:13.191
But sometimes as a teenager, and you really say you just want to read those words in red and they're like water to your soul.
03:13.231 --> 03:18.936
But then I get to Galatians and Paul's talking about these Judaizers and they want him to circumcise people.
03:19.277 --> 03:21.143
And I'm sorry but I couldn't relate to that problem.
03:22.246 --> 03:26.960
Feel me, and there's nobody here in 2023 chasing you around, going.
03:27.060 --> 03:30.435
You got to get circumcised in order to be accepted by Christ and I'm going.
03:30.777 --> 03:31.038
What's?
03:31.058 --> 03:34.609
Some guys are cringing at me right now Just the very mention of it.
03:36.174 --> 03:39.423
I believe he used that example of circumcision not because that was.
03:39.905 --> 03:41.891
It's a metaphor for mixing of the covenants.
03:42.333 --> 03:50.132
But that face, that should be the face, a cringe, like what I have to do.
03:50.192 --> 03:50.733
What now?
03:52.116 --> 03:52.557
You're telling me?
03:52.617 --> 03:56.807
Jesus didn't do it all, and so I couldn't relate until I realized the Judaizers are everywhere.
03:57.208 --> 04:00.363
It wasn't a first century problem, it's an everyday problem.
04:00.824 --> 04:04.552
A Judaizer could be a person, could be a church, could be a doctrine.
04:05.060 --> 04:08.107
Oftentimes, most often, it's the voice of our own head.
04:08.868 --> 04:28.448
A Judaizer tells you that you, you, oh, god, something, and that you have to help out with salvation, that you have to add to the already completed work of the cross, because the whole Old Testament, the whole system of the law there was an emphasis on you, on me, hint.
04:28.729 --> 04:29.772
That's why it didn't work.
04:30.874 --> 04:33.941
It always failed because it depended on humans.
04:34.723 --> 04:39.132
Have you discovered yet that humans tend to fail in trying to please God?
04:39.673 --> 05:01.505
So the whole old system of the law was based on you working really hard, trying to keep religious, trying to keep holy crossing every T, dotting every I in an attempt to get God's righteousness, in an attempt to be found approved before God.
05:02.387 --> 05:04.732
Yet you always failed.
05:05.433 --> 05:05.774
Why?
05:06.656 --> 05:12.790
Because if you're guilty in breaking the law in one part, you're guilty of breaking the entirety of the law.
05:12.930 --> 05:13.893
It's a rough system.
05:15.221 --> 05:22.403
It's like you write a 5,000 word essay it's perfect, it's brilliant, but one comma you put in the wrong place.
05:22.443 --> 05:27.440
Your points are awesome, your spelling is immaculate, Sentence structure one.
05:27.570 --> 05:31.267
You put a comma in the wrong place and you get an F on the test.
05:31.397 --> 05:35.545
That's what it's like to live under the law, Under grace.
05:35.665 --> 05:44.510
However, living on the right side of the cross, you're not endeavoring to gain God's approval with your own self effort.
05:45.453 --> 05:48.641
You already have all of God's approval.
05:49.504 --> 05:51.028
You have all of your sins forgiven.
05:51.789 --> 06:07.548
You are adopted into the family of God, not based on what you do or can't ever do, but based on what already Jesus has done in the past 2,000 years ago for you Living under the law, living under the old covenant.
06:08.169 --> 06:09.432
It breeds insecurity.
06:10.333 --> 06:12.364
It breeds a performance mentality.
06:12.424 --> 06:14.249
You can never enjoy God, you can never rest.
06:14.269 --> 06:17.348
You always got to work for him and you're only as good as your last work.
06:17.428 --> 06:20.280
So you got to constantly impress him, you got to show up.
06:21.785 --> 06:23.230
It's a torturous relationship.
06:24.092 --> 06:27.863
This is why people run away from the church, because eventually they just all tuckered out.
06:29.466 --> 06:30.869
And it's no different from paganism.
06:31.610 --> 06:34.503
We do missions trip to Guatemala, where they're new Christians.
06:34.523 --> 06:36.028
They used to be pagans, they used to.
06:36.108 --> 06:47.387
They're the Mayan and they carry that mentality into their Christianity, where they're constantly trying to and appease an unappeasable deity.
06:49.171 --> 06:51.335
And it's exhausting, torturous.
06:52.779 --> 06:54.722
Under the new covenant you have rest, amen.
06:55.624 --> 07:00.874
Yet, because that is the cross of Jesus and the grace that affords us.
07:01.641 --> 07:03.225
That's the foundation for all that we do.
07:04.167 --> 07:08.269
This is why the enemy attacks it so much and this is why Judaizers will come.
07:09.032 --> 07:10.780
Judaizers are covenant mixers.
07:13.386 --> 07:18.358
They want you to get up from under grace and assume more responsibility.
07:18.599 --> 07:20.723
But really it sounds noble, doesn't it?
07:21.184 --> 07:30.772
But when you do that, you now move away from grace and, according to the very words of Paul, you nullify the grace of God.
07:31.555 --> 07:35.024
So pick a covenant and decide to live exclusively under that covenant.
07:35.545 --> 07:40.625
Hint, I would pick the new one, since that's what Jesus came to install and that's what he bled for.
07:40.705 --> 07:42.950
Amen, hallelujah.
07:44.633 --> 07:47.600
So let's continue in Galatians.
07:47.740 --> 07:48.984
We'll start in chapter four.
07:49.245 --> 07:59.154
That's where we are, and Paul had just finished telling us that we're heirs of God, that we're adopted into the very family of God.
08:00.237 --> 08:03.568
He explained that the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ.
08:03.668 --> 08:06.037
Why was the law our tutor to bring us to Christ?
08:06.057 --> 08:06.780
He said.
08:06.940 --> 08:09.126
Well, I would not have known sin if it wasn't for the law.
08:09.367 --> 08:11.902
The law didn't say don't do that, and I then did it.
08:11.962 --> 08:13.789
I realized I have a sin nature.
08:13.990 --> 08:15.696
I realized I'm powerless against it.
08:16.419 --> 08:17.942
And so the law shows you up.
08:18.283 --> 08:23.253
It's like a giant magnifying glass and an x-ray, and it detects sin in your life.
08:23.600 --> 08:24.583
What's the point of that?
08:25.144 --> 08:29.054
For us, as people, to realize that we're powerless.
08:29.937 --> 08:31.160
We are powerless too.
08:32.524 --> 08:33.326
Stop sinning.
08:33.747 --> 08:34.951
We're in and of ourselves.
08:35.031 --> 08:43.032
We're powerless to change our own lives around, and we're powerless in and of ourselves to receive any kind of forgiveness.
08:43.833 --> 08:47.905
We're lost, and so you get to the end of yourself.
08:48.186 --> 08:52.945
You know, to get saved or to get to the end of yourself, the doorway to salvation is one of humility.
08:54.530 --> 08:58.423
So you got to get to the end of yourself and realize I cannot do what's required of me.
09:00.749 --> 09:09.572
For many people the gospel doesn't open up until they realize that you have to be perfect to gain entrance into heaven Perfect, sin free.
09:10.675 --> 09:15.668
Whenever I explain that to someone and they get it, they all have the same look of horror on their face.
09:19.417 --> 09:22.526
Then quickly they look at me like, well, you're perfect, you know.
09:24.391 --> 09:31.291
And then I have to explain to them no, experientially, in and of myself, I'm not perfect, but I have been perfectly forgiven.
09:32.114 --> 09:33.598
You have been perfectly forgiven.
09:33.618 --> 09:36.144
You've been given God's right standing.
09:36.805 --> 09:38.969
You've been justified, pronounced, not guilty.
09:39.430 --> 09:45.211
All of your sins, past, present and future, have been taken out of the way.
09:45.672 --> 09:47.678
You have non-imputation of sin.
09:48.059 --> 09:50.708
You have been imputed the very righteousness of God.
09:51.330 --> 09:58.248
And so that's how you're heaven bound, because when God looks at you, he cannot find one speck or a Yoda of sin in you.
09:59.129 --> 10:00.131
It's beautiful, isn't it?
10:01.273 --> 10:06.047
Hallelujah, it takes the pressure off, yeah.
10:07.511 --> 10:07.972
And guess what?
10:08.012 --> 10:25.457
When the pressure comes off, you then live for Christ, when you truly get grace, you know, from the inside out, empowered by the engine of the Holy Spirit, the, the energio in the Greek, the energizing power of the Holy Spirit.
10:25.898 --> 10:30.764
What a difference that is when you just yield to him and now your spirit led.
10:32.266 --> 10:37.578
You're not trying to be religious, trying to be a good person, trying really hard to abstain from sin.
10:37.825 --> 10:38.808
Those people are miserable.
10:39.952 --> 10:40.574
You know they are.
10:41.306 --> 10:42.229
I tell you who knows they are.
10:42.249 --> 10:42.991
You talk to the world.
10:43.072 --> 10:43.674
They know they are.
10:44.305 --> 10:47.773
That's what they think of Christians, because they don't meet too many freed ones like you.
10:49.525 --> 10:52.386
Hallelujah Paul says.
10:52.426 --> 10:59.519
Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, does not differ at all from a slave.
10:59.825 --> 11:03.670
You have to establish that you are an heir, and this is under Greek and Roman rule.
11:03.910 --> 11:08.234
In the wealthy family, the young heir would have a tutor.
11:08.586 --> 11:11.531
I remember the law was our tutor, a tutor or guardian.
11:11.705 --> 11:24.974
Think of it as private school, but one on one, and this tutor or guardian would really stay close to the young child and train them and develop them and teach them, and oftentimes this child didn't have a lot of freedom.
11:25.225 --> 11:25.908
That's what he meant by.
11:25.968 --> 11:27.052
He's no different than a slave.
11:27.505 --> 11:30.052
He had to go through the process of being tutored.
11:31.725 --> 11:43.498
As long as he's a child, it's not different at all from a slave, though in reality, he's master of all, but he's under guardians and stewards until the time this is great until the time appointed by the father.
11:43.865 --> 11:48.773
Today we have this arbitrary age 18, right, it doesn't matter where the kid is in their development at 18.
11:50.185 --> 11:53.033
Because society says they're old enough, get out the house, right?
11:54.025 --> 11:55.671
That wasn't so back in that culture.
11:56.245 --> 11:57.952
It was an appointed time of the father.
11:58.025 --> 12:00.293
The father said it might be 16 if you're really mature.
12:00.785 --> 12:02.370
It might be 25 if you're you know.
12:04.385 --> 12:06.271
It was the appointed time of the father.
12:07.525 --> 12:10.754
He decided when that child was an adult.
12:11.905 --> 12:18.639
Verse three even so, when we were children, we were in bondage.
12:18.805 --> 12:20.331
This is so key here.
12:21.225 --> 12:22.488
He's saying when we were children.
12:23.531 --> 12:40.974
When we were children was when we were under the law, under the system of law Remember the system of law you as a hamster on a wheel trying to get God's approval, but always failing, never, ever resting because there was no finished work at the cross.
12:42.125 --> 12:45.575
He's saying we were in bondage under the elements of the world.
12:46.125 --> 12:49.055
That is the Greek tastocia to kosmu.
12:49.285 --> 12:51.290
This is I'm not trying to be fancy and show off my Greek.
12:53.825 --> 12:59.990
This is so important because when Paul said elements of the world, everybody knew immediately what he was talking about.
13:00.685 --> 13:09.352
He used this phrase tastocia Stocia is a word that's found all over the Greek language, but especially when Plato was teaching little children the ABCs.
13:10.425 --> 13:14.995
And tastocia to kosmu is the ABCs of the universe.
13:16.545 --> 13:18.212
What are the ABCs of the universe?
13:18.745 --> 13:23.093
Paul says we were in bondage under the ABCs of the universe.
13:23.554 --> 13:30.155
Tastocia to kosmu that is something that all of his listeners would have immediately understood.
13:30.865 --> 13:34.715
This is something that Jews believed, greeks believed, romans believed.
13:35.465 --> 13:39.414
Anyone on any continent, in any culture, innately believes this.
13:39.455 --> 13:45.011
And that's this you do good, you get good, you do bad, you get bad.
13:46.265 --> 13:47.209
Most people believe this today.
13:47.249 --> 13:50.529
Right, if someone totally secular would call it karma.
13:52.092 --> 13:58.111
Or you break the golden rule, bad things happen and grace flies in the face of this.
13:59.345 --> 14:01.032
Grace is the exact opposite of this.
14:01.185 --> 14:01.908
You got to get that.
14:02.985 --> 14:03.587
This is not how.
14:03.627 --> 14:12.678
God is, while we were yet sinners, in total rebellion to God, our backs turned to him.
14:13.225 --> 14:15.995
There is none that seeks after him, there is none that desires.
14:16.145 --> 14:21.568
Before we came to Jesus, we didn't want him, we didn't love him, we loved our sin.
14:22.225 --> 14:25.054
But yet, while we were still sinners, christ died for the ungodly.
14:25.265 --> 14:31.012
When we were at our worst, christ came for us and it's not just at the cross.
14:31.665 --> 14:38.694
Still he does this over and over again that when you're at your lowest, when you're at your worst, when you've done bad, he'll come and give you good.
14:39.545 --> 14:44.400
So much so that Paul had to address this several times in the New Testament.
14:44.761 --> 14:48.312
Because warped people really that's us all.
14:48.352 --> 14:55.969
People will then look at that and go, wow, god is like so good, so can I do bad that even more good will come.
14:59.169 --> 15:01.874
So everyone always goes so quiet when I.
15:02.755 --> 15:05.585
this is a real thing, you know.
15:05.786 --> 15:09.514
Every single one of you have thought this as you're being immersed in grace.
15:12.225 --> 15:13.390
I'm preaching it to you straight.
15:14.265 --> 15:15.209
There is no fine print.
15:16.265 --> 15:17.510
There is no nuance here.
15:18.265 --> 15:23.114
God is infinitely good, and God is way better to us than we are to him.
15:23.785 --> 15:25.732
He's way better to us than we are to ourselves.
15:26.225 --> 15:38.518
And some of my greatest personal breakthroughs listen, the greatest things that have come to me were not at the end of a 40-day fast, at the end of praying three hours.
15:38.625 --> 15:45.789
I've done all those things, but the vast majority of things that I will boast about that the Lord did for me.
15:46.150 --> 15:47.053
They didn't come then.
15:47.425 --> 15:48.870
They came when I was in the gutter.
15:49.705 --> 16:00.810
They came after a stupid mistake, after I did something I shouldn't have done, after I made some idiotic, just faux pas and I'm like, oh man, I'm just such a mess up.
16:01.130 --> 16:02.333
And then God comes and goes.
16:02.353 --> 16:12.107
I love you and I don't give you bad for bad, I give you good for bad and what that does.
16:12.147 --> 16:22.169
Then now I'm on the floor in a puddle of my own tears and God is all right, we're going to pick you up, we're going to patch you up and I can watch you a present.
16:22.611 --> 16:23.434
Look what I have for you.
16:23.745 --> 16:27.353
I'm like I will serve you forever.
16:29.785 --> 16:30.468
That is grace.
16:31.845 --> 16:41.759
That is how God operates and that is completely opposite of to stoichiya, to kosumu, the ABCs of the universe.
16:42.446 --> 16:44.814
This is why so many people don't get the gospel.
16:45.225 --> 16:53.173
They don't get Jesus because they're approaching it in the way they've been trained by their parents, by school, by society, and that you mess up.
16:53.534 --> 16:56.429
Uh oh, the chickens are going to come home to roost now.
16:57.505 --> 16:58.569
When's the other shoe going to drop?
17:00.165 --> 17:06.074
That's when the Lord loves, loves to show himself better to you than you are to him.
17:07.185 --> 17:09.651
And the point isn't then you experience that a few times.
17:09.671 --> 17:13.288
You'll get that question wow, maybe the Lord doesn't mind sin.
17:13.408 --> 17:21.112
You know, he's just so awesome to me to yeah, he does, his blood, takes in away.
17:23.225 --> 17:25.806
His standard is holiness and no, we don't.
17:25.827 --> 17:27.553
Then sin, the grace should abound.
17:27.745 --> 17:28.568
Paul said God forbid.
17:29.485 --> 17:32.874
But what that does, and this is how a relationship with the Lord is built.
17:33.175 --> 17:36.794
When you meet someone and they're in love with God, you know why they're so in love with God.
17:37.346 --> 17:40.131
It's not because they live their life so perfectly, it's because they didn't.
17:44.946 --> 17:46.710
And over and over and over again.
17:47.051 --> 17:49.276
God still came to them and loved them.
17:49.905 --> 17:53.455
That is grace and that is what our love for him is founded on.
17:54.225 --> 17:56.920
And if I have this testimony, you're a better person than me.
17:56.940 --> 17:58.326
Maybe you don't, maybe your testimony's.
17:58.366 --> 18:01.292
I got saved and I've just been flawless ever since.
18:01.312 --> 18:01.772
Awesome.
18:05.265 --> 18:09.316
But yet you were born in sin and while you were still a sinner, turning your back on God.
18:09.705 --> 18:13.910
Christ died for the ungodly Amen and you're saved under the ABCs of the universe.
18:15.525 --> 18:20.868
Can you see how this is totally different than every faith system in the world, totally different than every religious?
18:21.610 --> 18:30.756
And the reason why people reject the Lord is because they've been given this false version of Christianity that's in line with the ABCs of the universe.
18:31.705 --> 18:35.607
This is why people will get saved, mess up and then run from church because they feel like they've messed up.
18:35.647 --> 18:37.052
They can never come back to the Lord again.
18:38.327 --> 18:40.755
Meanwhile, the Father is there with open arms saying come back to me.
18:41.667 --> 18:43.093
Who are you going to do to me when I come back?
18:43.406 --> 18:45.145
Here's what I'm going to do.
18:45.185 --> 18:51.776
I'm going to love you so much, I'm going to bless you so much that you will never, ever think of turning your back on me again.
18:52.566 --> 18:53.007
Do you think?
18:53.047 --> 18:57.889
When that younger brother came back to the Father, do you think he wasted any more of his money?
18:58.545 --> 19:01.970
I guarantee you the parable of the prodigal son.
19:04.094 --> 19:06.678
That father had one obedient son after that.
19:06.718 --> 19:10.591
I'm telling you right now he's overwhelmed with the love of the Father.
19:12.585 --> 19:14.673
We were in bondage under the L.