Justified by Faith pt. 2

Introduction

Well if you have your Bibles, you can take them and open them to Galatians chapter 2. Last week, we began to look into the heart of Paul’s message “justification by faith in Christ”. This doctrine, as I mentioned last week, and as Thomas Watson points out, is a pillar doctrine in Christianity. It leads to our salvation, gives us boldness to win lost souls in the mission, gives us comfort in times of doubt, sets our focus on why we gather as a church, and is the reason why one day, we will be able to stand with confidence before the God of Heaven. Last week, we focused on the phrase in verses 15-16, “because by the works of the law no human being will be justified”, and in that we saw the reality that all are lost, and all are guilty, thus setting the motivation for our evangelistic efforts, because everyone must be justified by faith in Christ, in order to be saved, otherwise that stand before God guilty, condemned by the evidence of their sin. This week we shift our focus to the phrase, “This was so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, so if you will, stand with me as we read Galatians 2:15-16, and then we will peel the curtain back a little bit more on this doctrine.

Body

(1) The Reality of Judgement

a. What does Paul mean by “justification”. It paints for us the picture of a courtroom. The word “justify” is a legal term. In court, someone will either be deemed guilty or justified (that is either they committed a crime or they didn’t).

2 Corinthians 5:10 “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may be repaid for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”

Hebrews 9:27 “And just as it is appointed for people to die once—and after this, judgment—”

Revelation 20:12–15 “I also saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged according to their works by what was written in the books. Then the sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them; each one was judged according to their works. Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.”

Application:

Everyone will stand before the Lord, let us win as many as possible before our time of death.

Let’s live our lives, so that we may stand unashamed (Philippians 1:20 “My eager expectation and hope is that I will not be ashamed about anything, but that now as always, with all courage, Christ will be highly honored in my body, whether by life or by death.” )

(2) The Person and Work of Christ

Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

John 1:1 “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.”

John 1:14 “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Romans 5:8 “But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Galatians 1:3–4 “Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.”

Connection:

This leads to salvation. Faith in the person and work of Christ means you no longer believe in yourself to save yourself, but you place all of your trust and belief in the only way we can be saved, through Jesus Christ. (Romans 10:9–11 “If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. One believes with the heart, resulting in righteousness, and one confesses with the mouth, resulting in salvation. For the Scripture says, Everyone who believes on him will not be put to shame,” )

It is our comfort in times of doubt. If our assurance was based on justification by works, brothers and sisters, we could never be sure our salvation, but because justification is by faith in Christ, then our assurance rests on the finished work of Christ. Many Christians struggle because they try to find comfort and assurance by doing for themselves what only Christ can do for them. We read, we pray, we sing, we show up, we give, and we do all these religious practices, because “that’s what Christians do”, but brothers and sisters, this is the wrong mentality and will lead us to have doubts more than anything else.

It is the reason, why one day we will be able to stand with confidence before the God of Heaven. Why? Because in being justified, we are given the righteousness of Jesus Christ. It will be as if we never committed a single sin. As if we never did wrong, but also the flip side of that is true as well. Itll be as if we never did anything wrong, and we did everything RIGHT!

Conclusion