What if We Believed the Gospel?
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
Can you remember a moment when you received incredible good news?
For me one of those occasions was just over 17 years ago when my wife revealed to me that she was expecting our first child.
The reality and the responsibility of becoming a father was exhilarating.
Yet, the good news that Stephanie told me wasn’t just a truth or reality that existed in only a mental or intellectual state.
When I was told we were going to be parents—that I was going to be a father—that good news became a life-changing reality in my life.
I wonder tonight if the good news message of the gospel of Jesus Christ has become a life-changing reality in your own life.
I wanted to share with Breccia today something of what God is teaching us at Woodside in Plymouth right now from Paul’s letter to the Galatians.
In this letter Paul shares a good news truth — the gospel.
Paul lays out a doctrine to them that should change their lives.
It’s the doctrine that makes all the difference in the world.
Martin Luther said that this doctrine is the “article by which the church stands or falls”
The doctrine is found clearly articulated in Galatians 2:16
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.
Big Idea: A person is justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law.
What does Paul then mean that a person is justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law?
Being justified is to be positively declared righteous with and before God.
Justification is the legal verdict of God that we are holy, pure, and acceptable.
Not guilty, condemned, and offending
That verdict — being justified — is given to us by God as we believe in Jesus Christ — by faith.
When a person sees themselves as guilty, offending, and due the wrath of God and yet turns to God and places their trust and faith in Jesus alone, they are justified.
Paul declares that we are justified by faith, in Christ and not by works of the law
Not by our religious performance, or obedience, or our own self-effort.
We are justified not by earning ourselves, but by trusting the work of another.
This doctrine is good news — the best news — and yet if it is real for us it must change our lives.
So I want to ask:
If this is true then we have to ask, what does it mean for my life?
Key Question: How do I lay claim to this truth into my life?
3 ways we embrace this good news:
We must believe (Gal 2:15-16)
We must believe (Gal 2:15-16)
The first way to lay claim to the truth that being made right with God (justification) comes through faith, not works is to actually exercise faith.
We must believe!
Paul says [VERSE 15-16]
We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 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.
We know that even a person like him — an ethnic Jew who has the Law, who has observed the festivals and sacrifices and ceremonies of Judaism — is not justified by works of the law but faith in Jesus.
So even though we know that truth, we still have to believe that truth.
“Even we ourselves have believed in Christ Jesus.”
Notice here Paul tells us the content of what we must believe: in Jesus Christ.
We are not told to believe everyone goes to heaven.
We are not told to believe whatever you’d like.
We are told to believe directly in a person and what he has done.
Our faith, our belief, is in Jesus Christ - whom the Bible tells us - is truly and fully God.
He was sent from heaven and became a fully human man.
He lived his life obediently, perfectly, without any sin.
He gave himself up as a substitute to die for our sins and transgressions.
He took our guilt and shame and died, bearing our penalty on a cross.
He was raised to life again on the third day, being victorious over Satan, sin, and Death.
He did all this to reconcile us to himself, to make peace, and to adopt us into his family.
The promise then that God has made is that anyone who believes in Jesus — who trusts who he is, and what he has done — will be made right with God.
You will be justified!
To be declared right with God is a matter of faith.
And this is the good news doctrine here - it’s a matter of trusting God’s promises, not of doing works of the law in order to earn from God.
How does this work?
Believing is very different than behaving.
Imagine with me a friend of yours tells you that they have a remarkable gift of the best Italian super car waiting for you at the end of the year.
Believing them would be to trust that they are going to give you that car and do what they have promised.
So, you don’t go out and try and buy your own super car.
You don’t start making payments to your friend as installments on their gift (that would be an insult).
You believe they are credible, trustworthy, and good - and you trust their word.
That’s what Paul is saying here about being justified by faith.
We trust that God keeps his word, he keeps his promises.
We don’t try and earn what God has said he gives by our behavior.
We don’t try and live seeking to earn justification from God because we’ve followed the rules, or have observed the rituals, or obeyed so-called “sacraments”
We believe that JESUS purchased for us this right standing with God, and we trust him and his word.
There is a warning is here to keep us from going to down the road of trying to earn our own way:
“by works of the law no human being will be justified”
No one will be justified by what they do, even their obedience to God’s law - it is impossible.
So to lay claim to this truth that we are justified/made-right with God by faith in Jesus we must believe.
A second way we lay claim to the truth that we are justified by faith in Christ and not works of the law is that:
We must die (Gal 2:17-20a)
We must die (Gal 2:17-20a)
What do I mean here?
I want to be a rule-follower.
I want to be a good person and think that my obedience and rule-following, even my religious practice, will amount to something one day.
But the Holy Spirit tells us to be careful about that.
Paul could hear the accusation being leveled against him by some saying - if you think you are made right with God just by some invisible, intangible, unobservable “faith” then you’re crazy.
He’s thinking about how these new Christians have been enjoying fellowship with one another with the barrier of ethnic distinction brought down.
Ethnic Jews who became Christians are now eating and having fellowship with “Unclean” non-Jews, Gentiles.
The carbonara now has ham in it, and it’s all clean.
But some are asking,
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!
“if the clean - Jews, associate with the unclean - Gentiles, then isn’t Christ promoting the unclean???”
Paul’s answer is strong and clear - ABSOLUTELY NOT! BY NO MEANS.
He argues
For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor.
If I tore down the wall of obedience to the law as the means of justification, but then go back and try and rebuild that wall for others (meaning they have to follow the law) - I am the lawbreaker!
I am the sinner.
Instead, he says, what we do is die - or better, I realize I’m dead.
For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God.
The law showed me that I am a sinner.
I am never fully able and competent to obey the law at each point.
I am may try hard, but I still fall short.
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
But we think, well if I keep trying, one day I’ll get it.
The problem is that we’ll never — here in this life — get it.
Our nature is far more corrupt and weak then we even know.
So trying to earn right standing with God by works of the law is futile.
Instead, we must die to the law as a means to salvation.
Obedience to the law can never earn (or merit) you justification.
So you must die to the law and cease trying to use the law as a means to gain God’s approval.
When we live using the law to gain God’s approval, or our justification, what happens is that we become self-righteous, arrogant, legalistic people.
We judge others based on how we perceive them to be following the law.
If they are following the law, like we are, then they are acceptable.
If they are not following the law like we are, they are contemptible people and we should not associate with them lest we fall into their sin as well.
We think: Those who behave, and really try are justified.
And those who don’t - are really in trouble!
Instead, we must consider ourselves dead - we find our identity in Christ.
The beginning of verse 20 reminds us, we have died with Christ
Christian Standard Bible Chapter 2
I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live
I am dead, dead to the law, dead to sin, dead to my former way of life!
When we see ourselves as dead then we can say, there’s nothing I can do to earn or merit God’s favor.
Someone else must do it for me!
When we know that we are dead then we know we can’t even try - really?
Have you ever seen a corpse make a coffee?
NO!
Self-effort, self-justification by obedience to the law is futile.
We’ve died with Christ
And that points us to a glorious future:
The third way we take hold of the truth then:
We must live (Gal 2:20b-21)
We must live (Gal 2:20b-21)
Paul says
20 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.
The Holy Spirit makes us alive together with Christ — and we have a new heart, and a new life.
Christ lives IN ME.
It’s him living, working, acting, in and through us since we are united to him by faith.
The life I live now isn’t passive…
Going forward I don’t just sit back and let the world go on.
I don’t just lay in an state of motionless paralysis.
No - you have life to live… and here’s how.
Not laboring, not under a yoke of slavery to a law you can never fulfill.
You live free!
You live by faith - trusting the Son of God, Jesus.
You trust his promises because of two things:
He loves you
Jesus is not displeased, grumpy, angry, agitated about you.
In some of the cathedrals and places around Rome where there are depictions of Jesus I see a frustrated/angry Jesus.
He’s mad at you!
No - he loves you.
He gave himself for you.
His death on the cross was a gift for you.
You can’t earn being made right with God - Jesus did it by his death for you!
He took the wrath of God for you!
He endured the suffering of the cross for you!
He died for your sake!
Martin Luther called this “alien righteousness” in that it is a righteousness or justification that is external to us - it comes from someone else.
He said:
“To obtain this [righteousness], we don’t do any work at all, nor do we offer anything to God. Rather, we only receive and allow Another to work in our behalf, none other than God Himself.”[1]
We do not labor - we live free in Christ.
If we do labor - we make the grace of God null and void.
Verse 21
21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
The gift of grace that God gives us frees us to live for him.
If being made right with God was a matter of earning by obedience to the law, we would not live free.
We would be weighed down with fear.
Are you afraid that if you don’t do everything right God will be wrathful with you?
Are you anxious that if you don’t perform perfectly God will kick you out?
Are you worried that if you don’t have your own righteousness God will not love you?
Friend - those are the chains of slavery to the law
They are the chains of death that Satan would bind you under.
The good news is that Jesus does love you.
Jesus did give himself for you
And so by faith you are free to live knowing God has already loved and accepted you in Christ.
Conclusion
Conclusion
I wonder tonight if this good news has really changed your life?
Are you still attempting to please God by what you do?
Are you still living under the chains of slavery by earning through obeying?
Are you weighed down with fear, and burdens trying to earn God’s love?
Big Idea: A person is justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law.
So believe that Good News!
Take hold of God’s grace by faith and let the good news of the gospel change your life.
—
[1] Camacho , Haroldo S.; Luther , Martin; Horton, Michael. Martin Luther's Commentary On Saint Paul's Epistle To The Galatians: Lecture Notes Transcribed by Students and Presented in Today's English (p. xxv). 1517 Publishing. Kindle Edition.]
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