Remember We Live By Faith

Introduction

Good Morning please open in your Bible’s to Galatians 2:15-21 that is Galatians 2:15-21. If you are using one of the Bibles scattered throughout the chairs today the text from today can be found on page 973 that is page 973. If you are visiting with us today and do not own a copy of God’s Word you can take that home with you. We are happy to gift you a Bible today.

Well today, we turn to the book of Galatians in order to learn what it means to live by faith. Today I want us to consider what role does faith play in the Christian life. Christians believe that people are born as sinners. A sinner is a person that has disobeyed God’s law. Christians believe that everyone is a rebel against God and has chosen to disobey God’s law and live life their own way. Therefore, no one is right before God on their own. God is a the judge and we are the guilty defendants. The Bible teaches that people cannot work of their rebellious ways that no one will stand before God and be found a good person due to their own deeds. Instead, you must place your faith in Jesus because Jesus lived a perfect life in your place and then died as your substitute to serve your sentence before the judge. He rose from the dead and since he satisfied the wrath of God in his death whoever, is united to him by faith, can live as He lives with him now and for all eternity. That message the we are guilty and that Jesus the innocent took our place is what we call the Gospel. Christians use that term as shorthand to communicate that message, and I will use that term I am sure throughout our time together today.

The good news of the Gospel is you are not saved or justified ( a term that means made right before God and appears in our text today) by works but instead your are saved by faith. And just to make things a bit more clear today we will see we are saved by faith alone. And not only are we saved by faith, but I pray we see that we now live by faith. May God use our time today to help us all see the role of faith just a bit more clearly. [Galatians 2:15-21]

By Faith We Are Justified v.15-16

As we jump into this passage we need to understand the context of the church in Galatia. Paul would have planted this church on his first missionary journey, and he is writing to them after he has left because he has heard that they are succumbing to some false teaching. The false teachers are teaching these newly converted Christians that not only do they need to follow Jesus, but those who did not grow up Jewish need to also be circumcised. They are teaching a Jesus plus gospel. That is to say belief in Jesus plus obeying the Old Testament law of circumcision is the only way to be right before God. As Paul opens the letter he is appalled that the Christians in Galatia would abandon the Gospel so quickly. He then begins to recount his own story of becoming a Christian and how God had sent him to the Gentiles (non-Jews) to preach the Gospel (faith in Jesus alone). He tells of how he went to Jerusalem after God had told him to go to the Gentiles and how in Jerusalem Peter and the other apostles agreed that Gentiles did not need to be circumcised to be saved, but only needed to believe in Jesus. However, even then this lesson was harder to practice than preach.

Because Paul tells of how he and Peter were both in Antioch and Paul had to confront Peter because, before certain men from Jerusalem showed up, Peter was eating with the Gentiles. These Jewish men show up and suddenly Peter is no longer eating with the Gentile Christians. This would have been a shameful thing for the Gentiles to have someone willing to sit with them until someone else showed up, and then suddenly Peter didn’t want to be seen with them. And Peter is so influential it wasn’t just him that stopped sharing meals with Gentile Christians but other Jews did as well, including Paul’s right hand man, named Barnabas.

It would be like a friend sitting with you at the lunch table until his big brother showed up. Once he wants to be your friend when no one cool is around, but once cool big brother walks into the room he ditches you. And not only him, but all your other friends follow!

So, Paul is upset that Peter has shamed these Gentiles. And as Paul confronts Peter we have here on our text the theological rational for Paul’s frustration. Paul is upset with Peter for abandoning the Gentiles because he is saying if they are good enough for Jesus to save then they are good enough for you to eat with no matter who is watching. And this theological rational, the truths about God that give the reason for eating with Gentiles, is the bedrock of our faith. Simply this, we are justified by faith alone!

So, our text begins by saying Galatians 2:15 “We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners;” The “we” is either referring to Paul and Peter or it is referring to the Jewish Christians in Galatia who Paul is writing to, either way the point is the same. Paul and these Jewish Christians are Jews by nature, or by birth. In Romans 3:1–2 “Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.” The Jews had the oracles of God or what we call the Old Testament. They had the knowledge of God that led to Christ and this put them at an advantage over the Gentile that didn’t have that knowledge of the Old Testament. So, in verse 16 Pauls says, Galatians 2:16 “yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.” Paul is saying though we are Jews and advantaged by the knowledge that we grew up with, that advantaged is still not enough. Even we Jewish Christians know that in order to be justified that we must have faith Christ. He making the case that even Jews who know the Old Testament and would get every answer on the Bible study quiz right are cannot be justified by their knowledge of the law. Their knowledge of the law and even their works of the law will not justify them, therefore they have believed in Christ in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law.

It was not a matter of they knew the law and they just needed to add Jesus to the law, but rather the law was not enough and through works of the law they could never be enough. Thus, they needed to believe in Jesus.

My kids are pastors kids. They will grow up being told stories from the Bible. At our house we spend most nights (sometimes we miss) imperfectly reading Bible stories to our kids, singing Bible songs, and teaching them to pray by repeating phrase by phrase after me. If you want to learn more about imperfect family worship time you can come to our house at 7:30 and watch. Or if you’re just bored and want to watch me and Britany do our best to reign in the chaos feel free to stop by.

You see my kids are like the Jews by birth in that they have been born into a Christian home. They will grow up with the advantage of hearing the Bible taught, sung, and prayed in their life. But, this will not be enough justify them before God. My kids will each need to believe in Jesus Christ because they cannot be saved by works of the law. Bible knowledge can act as a tutor leading them to the necessary knowledge of their sin and guilt before God and the good news the Jesus died for them. But the knowledge in of itself cannot save. Even if they grow up to be good kids, and I think they will, this is not enough.

We cannot be justified by works of the law, but rather we are justified by faith in Christ. My kids are sinners, advantaged sinners due to their Christian upbringing and Brittany are also in the same boat. We did have Christian parents, but this is not how we are justified before a holy God. Brittany and I put our faith in Christ alone and in him we are justified.

Now to admit that Christ is necessary is to admit that we are not innocent. When we say that we are saved by faith alone we say this admitting our own guilt.

By Faith We Admit Guilt v. 17-19

Galatians 2:17–19 “But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God.” Now, the key to interpreting these verses is to understand we it means “to be found sinners.” What is Paul explaining as he states, “But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, (Now he has already told us that as Jewish Christians who knew the law that they also knew that they could not be justified by works of the law of they too had to place their faith in Christ in order to be justified. He is now drawing out the logical implication of being justified by faith in Christ. If justification is found in Christ, then it implies that the one who has faith in Christ is in fact a sinner. There is a little bit of word play going on.

In verse 15 he explained that the were not Gentile sinners, but no says if we to are found to be sinners. He acknowledging the advantage of Jewish heritage while equating the condition Gentile and Jew as sinners. If Jews need Jesus to be saved we must as why? Why can’t they be justified by works of the law? After all they are Jews by birth not Gentile sinners… ? Are they? They are Jews that is true, but they doesn’t make them innocent. They can’t be justified by works of the law because they are broken law. They are sinners. To receive Christ by faith is to admit you cannot be justified by your own law keeping.

Paul is saying, if we are justified by faith in Christ we are admitting that we are sinners. The question then becomes well if the law can’t save you then why even keep it? If Jesus is for sinners and not good law abiding people doesn’t that make Jesus the servant of sin? And Paul says, “Certainly not!” He continues to explain that if he rebuilds what he tears down that he becomes a transgressor. What has Paul torn down? He has torn down the idea that people can be justified through works of the law. Now, we must remember our context. What is the issue at hand? It is a false gospel of Jesus plus law keeping i.e. circumcision and dietary requirements. Paul is bringing the point home that justification before God, right standing before God, is through faith alone. It is not a matter of accepting Jesus and keeping the law. If he were to rebuild the works of the law all that would do is prove him to be a transgressor of the law. The law cannot be obeyed to perfection by any sinful human being, and we are all sinful human being whether Jew or Gentile. Whether you grew up in Christian home or not, you will not be justified by your good deeds.

He continues to explain that through the law he died to the law so that he might live to God. In order to believe in Jesus and and admit that justification comes through faith alone who must admit that you are guilty. If you are still hanging to your own righteousness and trying to add Jesus to that then you cannot be justified before God. Jesus plus will not save you. As it is often said Jesus plus anything equals nothing.

Imagine you are in the middle of a trial as a defendant. You know you are guilty, but the punishment for your crime is death. So, though you know you did it you don’t want to admit guilt because you don’t want to die. And your lawyer, your advocate, comes to you and says “You need to plead guilty.” And you think to yourself that sounds that the worst plea deal of all time. If I plead guilty I get the death sentence. The lawyer replies, “I’ve seen their case. You cannot win. They have all the evidence it is air tight. They know you did it. You must plead guilty.” But you say, “but the punishment is death!” I don’t want to die.” You lawyer says, “I know. But you just need to trust me.”

You don’t know what the lawyer has up his sleeve but for some reason you trust him. You go before the judge and say, “Your honor, I did it. I am guilty.” The judge says, “In that case, the penalty is death bailiff arrest him.” In that moment your lawyer stands up and says I will pay the penalty. And for some strange reason that judge agrees. He takes your lawyer away he dies in your place.

That is a picture of what happened for sinners like me and your when Jesus died for us. Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” You are a sinner you deserve death. But 1 John 1:9–10 “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” 1 John 2:1–2 “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world. That word propitiation means to appease God’s wrath. The judge is my anecdotal story is God the father the lawyer is Christ. Jesus died for your sin because you are guilty. But in order to receive the free gift of eternal life you must put your trust in him. You have plead guilty knowing that the penalty is death. Through the law you must die to the law so that you might live to God. And requires that by faith you admit you are guilty.

Now, maybe that isn’t something that you have thought about much. That it requires faith to admit your guilt. But I believe that it does. No one that is a sinner admits that they need someone else to justify them. It is hardwired in our falleness to demand that we justify ourselves. Even in Christians it requires the continual exercise of faith to live like you have been justified by faith in another. We deep down want to win our own right standing before God, but we must admit that no one is justified by works of the law.

You can know you are not exercising faith by admitting your guild when you compare yourselves to other people in order to feel better about yourselves. At least I’m not as bad as that person. We blame shift when we are caught in sin. Well, if he or she hadn’t have said that to me I wouldn’t have responded that way, you just don’t understand how hard my life is that’s why I am like this… We convince ourselves that happiness if more about circumstances than our relationship with God. All of these weak tactics do the same thing. They make it so we don’t have to admit that we are guilty. That we don’t have to admit that our greatest problem isn’t outside of us, but inside of us. But in-fact it is us. Our only hope isn’t inside of us, but rather is outside of us. It is Christ alone through faith alone because of his grace alone. Your natural inclination is not to admit you are guilty. That is why it requires faith to admit our guilt before God.

Will you today admit that you are guilty? It is a necessary step in knowing and being justified by faith in Christ, but it is not the only step. We must admit our guilt by faith and die to the law, but we do so because by faith we believe we will live.

By Faith We Live v. 20-21

Galatians 2:20–21 “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.”

By faith we admit our guilt and accept the death penalty. And in a mysterious way we are crucified with Christ. Crucifixion was a legal death penalty for guilty criminals. This is a profound mystery in that through our faith in Christ we are not only justified before God, but are also united to Jesus. Through faith in him we become one with him by His Spirit who dwells within us. We die to our old way of life and also we are raised up to live like Jesus lived.

Just listen to these three passages of Scripture that describe the conversion of Christians. 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” Ephesians 4:22–23 “to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds,” Colossians 3:5–10 “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.” When we place our faith in Jesus our old self dies and a new self is resurrected.

I am not teaching cheap grace and neither is Paul. The accusation hurled against the truth that we are justified by faith in Christ alone is that if that is true there is no reason to obey. Why should I do right if it doesn’t matter? If I am accepted by God no matter what I do, then shouldn’t I just do what I want? Not if you have truly placed your faith in Christ. True faith in Jesus accepts the death penalty to the old sinful self. And lives by faith as a resurrected new self . Paul explains that he was crucified with Christ, his old self. But now a new self lives who is Christ in him. The life he nows lives in the flesh, not some over spiritual non-tangible existence. But the life you live in the present in flesh at home, work, church, etc. As a Christian you live by faith.

Now I want to explain this on two levels the macro and the micro. The macro of the big picture of your new life in Christ and the micro of smaller picture of day to day decisions you make as a Christian. These require you to live by faith and continually exercise that faith. Faith requires some risk, it requires some unknown, some sort of lack of logic. No one puts on a seat beat, saves for retirement, or puts a net around your kids trampoline as a huge act of faith. Those things just make sense. Faith is required when an action goes against or natural inclination.

On macro level it requires faith to accept Jesus as Lord. The natural inclination is to save yourself and never admit guilt. Admitting guilt in our world might lighten the sentence of your punishment. Perhaps you would get less time in jail in you just came clean. But admitting guilt before a judge will never gain you the exact opposite of what you deserve. But that is what happens when you confess your sins to God. You deserve immediate death but you get eternal life. That’s the macro level of being a Christian. Faith is required to enter into the Christian life.

However, the exercise of faith does not stop there. It is an act of faith every time you deny sin and follow Christ. When the world offers you sensual pleasure through drugs, alcohol, sexual immorality, ignoring your problems through television of social media, over eating, etc. The truth is that all of those things promise pleasure and in a small way will give you immediate pleasure. It will feel good to partake in those things. It takes faith to say I am willing going to forgo immediate pleasure because I believe that in Christ there is greater pleasure. You have to make that decision in the moment of temptation by faith.

The same is true for all of the things listed in Galatians 5:19–21 “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” These things and things like them require faith to say no. It requires faith to crucify the flesh because our natural self wants some of them. Maybe you aren’t tempted to do all of these things but all sinners are tempted to do some of them. In the everyday walk of life you as a Christian are called by God to exercise faith and instead of verse 19-21 you are to live out verses Galatians 5:22–25 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.”

The life I now live in the flesh I know live by faith in the Son of God. Now, while faith requires some unknown or at the very least the resistance to what comes most natural. You’re not asked as a Christian to put your faith in something small or frail. You not asked to practice blind faith. Blind faith is foolishness because it is completely untested. We are not called to place our faith in anything unsure. We called to place our faith in the Son of God who loves you and gave his life for you.

How can you know it is ok to trust Jesus? Because in dying for you and raising from the dead has proven that he is trust worthy. I can guarantee you that if you deny you old self and the flesh you will live a happier life. So long as you also put on the new self and live as Christ would have you live. The good life is found in trusting God by living in his ways.

Faith is actionable. To have faith isn’t just a mindset and it isn’t just a feeling. In fact, the moments where you feel least faithful are the moments where you practice the most faith. Discomfort, pain, and suffering are often the precursors to the practice of faith. It is in those moments when you will have to choose whether feel it or not to be faithful to God’s word. You need to say to yourself, “God I know I need to have faith right now. I admit that I don’t. I admit that I want things that are contrary to your commands, I admit that I am worried, I admit that I don’t want to go to church. But your words says my old self no longer lives help me now to crucify my flesh and live by faith in your Son who loved and gave himself up for me and do the right thing. O, Lord help my unbelief.”

Conclusion

By faith we know we are justified before God because we are in Christ. Our good deeds will never be good enough. By faith we can admit we are guilty sinners who deserve the death penalty. And by faith our old self can be crucified with Christ and our new self can raise up with him. Because are people can live faith alone in Christ alone. Let’s pray.