Galatians 3:1-18
A few years ago, researchers at Harvard ran a study with a simple premise. They gave one group of people an IKEA flat pack to assemble themselves. They gave another group the exact same piece of furniture, already built. When they asked both groups how much they valued what they had, the results were consistent: the people who built their own flat pack rated it more highly, even when the drawer didn’t close properly, even when there were a few mystery screws left over, even when it wobbled.
The researchers called it the IKEA effect. We place higher value on things we’ve had a hand in making. The act of building something makes it feel more ours, more worth keeping.
It’s a fascinating quirk of human psychology.
You Foolish Galatians
Paul doesn’t ease into chapter three of Galatians. He opens with what might be the most affectionately exasperated line in the New Testament: “you foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?”.
There is love in the language, but there is also genuine bewilderment. Paul had preached the gospel to these people so vividly, so passionately, that it was like a billboard of the crucified Christ had been erected in front of their eyes. They had heard it, believed it, received the Spirit. They had been brought into the family of God by faith alone. Then, as soon as some false teachers arrived talking about the law and circumcision, the Galatians started quietly reaching back into their pocket for the Allen key.
The false teachers’ message was Jesus plus something. Specifically, Jesus plus the Jewish law; circumcision, food restrictions, the whole package. To be a real Christian, you needed to become Jewish. That’s what was throwing them into confusion.
For us in 2026, the specific add-ons look different. It might be God is pleased with me when my quiet times are consistent. Or I’m a good Christian because I’m on enough rosters at church. Or the reverse, I haven’t been living well for God this week, so maybe I shouldn’t come to church. I’m not quite worthy right now.
Different shapes, same problem. We keep reaching for the Allen key on something that is already finished.
Abraham Believed God
In Genesis 15, Abraham was old. Sarah was old. They had no children. God took Abraham outside his tent, told him to look up at the night sky, and said: count the stars if you can. That’s how many your descendants will be.
Humanly speaking, it was absurd. But Abraham believed God and trusted in His promises.
The word credited is like accounting. A credit was put into Abraham’s account, not his own righteousness, but a righteousness given to him because he trusted God. Not because he earned it. Not because he kept the law. The law didn’t even exist yet, it arrived 430 years after Abraham. A covenant established by grace cannot be undone by a law that came four centuries later.
In verse six, Paul makes an important distinction. He doesn’t say Abraham believed in God. He says Abraham believed God. These sound similar but aren’t the same. You can believe in God, acknowledge his existence, accept the general idea, and still not trust his promises. The demons, James tells us, believe God exists and shudder. But they don’t believe God. To believe God is to stake everything on what he says. To trust that what he promises, he will do.
That’s the faith credited as righteousness. That’s the faith that brings us into Abraham’s family. Not the right ethnicity, not the right law-keeping, not the right number of rosters. Trust in God’s promises.
Two Roads
Paul sets two roads before the Galatians, and the contrast is stark.
The first road is the law. Verse 10 makes the terms plain: cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law. Not most things. Not the big ones. Everything. The law doesn’t grade on a curve. If your standing before God depends on your performance, then perfect performance is required, and nobody delivers it.
The weight of that road is real and felt even when we don’t name it. When we measure our worth by how well we’re doing — our productivity, our parenting, our ministry, our exam marks — we’re on the law road, even if we’d never frame it that way. We will never be sure we’ve done enough. Criticism will crush us. Other people’s success will make us jealous. We’ll either collapse under the anxiety or manufacture a swagger to convince ourselves we’re okay. Either way, it’s exhausting.
The second road is the one Christ opens. Verse 13: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.
The cross looked like a curse, and it was. But it was our curse, not his. The one who kept the law perfectly, who deserved blessing rather than condemnation, took the curse onto himself so that those who deserved the curse could receive the blessing instead. He gets what we deserve. We get what he deserves.
That’s not fair. It’s grace.
The Jesus Effect
The IKEA effect says: I value what I build.
The Jesus effect says something different: I am valued because of what he built.
Paul puts it plainly in Ephesians 2:10. We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do. You are not your own flat pack project. You are God’s. He created you, knows the wobbly bits, and looks at you through the lens of his Son. Justified. Righteous. Loved.
That changes everything about motivation. We don’t do good works to earn our way in. We do good works because we’ve been made for them, because of who we are in Christ, not to become something we aren’t yet. We don’t work to be accepted. We work from being accepted.
When sin takes hold; anger, anxiety, the need for approval, the need for control, the question worth asking is: what do I think I need so badly right now that I’m furious about losing it? Comfort? Approval? Control? The answer is never try harder. The answer is look back to the billboard. See Christ crucified, clearly. Bring those little saviours back to the foot of the cross and say: Jesus, you are my comfort. Your approval is all I need, and I already have it. You are in control, even when I’m not.
That’s how growth works. We don’t grow past the gospel. We grow deeper into it. We don’t start at the cross and move on. We start at the cross, stay at the cross, and keep coming back to the cross.
When we fail, back to the cross. When we succeed, back to the cross. Put down the Allen key. It is finished.
Soul Revival Church gathers across the Sutherland Shire [Kirrawee, Yarrawarrah, Miranda, Cronulla] and Ryde.