What if the way into God's family has always been simpler than religion made it seem?

Most of us carry a quiet sense that something is off. Maybe you feel a distance from God that you cannot quite explain. Maybe you have friends or family who are in crisis, or who seem hostile toward God, or who are searching through different beliefs trying to find something that sticks. If our default setting were perfect peace with God, none of that searching would be happening.

So the question is: how does that gap get closed? How do we get right with God?

Religion usually answers that question the same way. Here is a list. Do these things. Avoid those things. Be good enough and God will be happy with you. Whether it is a specific church tradition or a completely different faith system, the basic framework tends to be the same: what you do is what gets you accepted.

The problem is that Scripture is blunt about this. No one is justified (accepted by God) through following laws. It cannot happen that way. That is not a discouraging word. It is actually clarifying good news, because it simplifies your search. If someone walks up to you with a list of requirements for earning God's approval, you can save yourself the trouble. The list will never be completable.

So what is the actual answer? Jesus was cursed so that we can be blessed by adoption into God's family.

That is the whole thing. And in Galatians 3, Paul unpacks why this has always been the plan, going all the way back to a promise God made to a man named Abraham thousands of years ago.

A last will and testament from the beginning of everything

Paul makes an interesting move in Galatians 3:15-18. He compares what God did with Abraham to a last will and testament. Most of us have some idea what that is: a legal document where someone writes down what they want to happen to their belongings after they die. Once it is signed and ratified, no one else gets to change the terms.

God made a covenant with Abraham, a deep and binding promise. He told Abraham that through his family, the whole world would be blessed. And buried in that promise was something remarkable, hidden in plain sight every single time God spoke it. The blessing was not just for Abraham. It was for Abraham and his offspring—singular, not “offsprings,”—plural.” Paul looks back at that word and points out it was always pointing to one specific person: Jesus.

God baked Jesus into the terms of the promise before anyone fully understood what the promise was. The inheritance, meaning eternal life, God's acceptance, his very presence with us, was always headed toward Jesus as the ultimate recipient. And here is the remarkable part: if you are joined to Jesus, you are joined to the promise.

Access to God's family is available through trust.

Abraham himself never earned his way into the covenant. He simply trusted God that what God said was true. That trust was counted as righteousness. God did not demand that Abraham perform, He invited Abraham to believe.

Why the law exists at all

If trusting God is the answer, why did God give all those rules in the first place? Paul addresses this directly in Galatians 3:19-22.

Here is a helpful principle: God uses things we know to teach us things we do not. He is communicating to human beings who have limited understanding, and he uses familiar categories to get truth across.

The law was a temporary safeguard while God was preparing a permanent solution.

Think about it this way. If you are cleaning a pool and have to drain it first, you do not let your kids run freely through the backyard over what becomes a nine-foot hole. You set up a temporary boundary, not because the boundary is the goal, but because you need everyone safe until the permanent solution is ready. The boundary was always going to come down. It was just protection for the in-between time.

The law served a similar purpose. It kept God's people distinct and separate from the surrounding world during the long stretch of history between Abraham and Jesus. But more than that, it kept their attention on a problem: sin. Because whenever you try hard to follow a list of rules perfectly and keep failing, you cannot avoid noticing that something in you is broken. The law was not the solution. It was designed to keep our eyes on the problem until the solution arrived.

God's plan includes temporary safeguards while he prepares permanent solutions. Not everything you are going through is permanent. Not every season of difficulty, confusion, or waiting is the final word. God is working, and he knows what you need in year nine to get you to year ten.

The permanent solution

Galatians 3:23-29 describes the shift. The law was a guardian, like a caretaker watching over children until they came of age. But once Jesus arrived and the permanent solution was installed, the guardian's job was finished.

Now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. For in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith.

God accepts us when we trust Jesus. That is the plain statement of this passage. And what follows is one of the most sweeping declarations in the New Testament: “there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). Every category the law used to divide people, every line that marked who was in and who was out, collapses when you come to Jesus. The invitation is for everyone.

If you trust Jesus you are in Christ and you are Abraham's offspring, an heir according to the promise (Galatians 3:29). The inheritance that God promised to Abraham and his offspring, that always pointed toward Jesus, now includes everyone who trusts in Jesus. You get brought into a story that started long before you were born and will continue long after this life ends.

What reasons do you give why Jesus should not accept you?

Here is an honest question this passage raises: what reasons do we give for why Jesus should not accept us?

Most of us have a list. You do not know what I have done. You do not know how badly I have failed. You do not know my family history or what I have believed up until now or how many times I have walked away. You do not know me.

He knows. And he says as many of you as have trusted him have been justified before God.

When you list out those objections ask yourself: Are those reasons valid? Or are those feelings lying to you?

No one is excluded from access to God's family. The invitation is not for someone else. It is for you. The access is exclusive only in the sense that there is one way in, and that way is Jesus. But the door is open to every single person regardless of where they came from, what they have done, or how far they feel from God right now.

No fancy words. No magic formula. Just: God, I do not understand all of it, but I want to trust you. Would you take me?

If that prayer is stirring in you today, it is worth saying. And if you know someone carrying a list of excuses for why God cannot possibly want them, would you tell them? Would you be the person who says the door is open, the invitation is real, and there is room in God's family for them?

We would love to walk any of this out with you at Neighborhood Church in Ocala.

Editor note: This blog summary was generated from a sermon transcript processed by AI and reviewed by a human editor. It is provided for convenience and engagement but may not fully reflect all of the original sermon emphases or explanation. The original writing and delivery of the sermon were done without the input of AI. Please refer to the full message and more importantly the Scripture for complete context and teaching.