Living By Faith (2)

Living By Faith

Please open your Bibles to Galatians, chapter 1. Our reading begins by Paul reminding us of his conversion to Christ. Then we’ll skip a few verses to see how Paul confronts those who are imposing their idea that salvation requires more than just faith in Jesus Christ alone.

Please follow along beginning at Galatians, chapter 1, verse 13.

13 For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.

14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.

15 But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased

16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being.

17 I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus.

Please skip down to chapter 2, beginning at verse 11.

11 When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned.

12 For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group.

13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

15 “We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles

16 know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ.

So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.

17 “But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not!

18 If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.

19 “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.

20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

The Word of the Lord!

Thanks be to God!

Me

I have “true confessions” to make. My “true confession” is that even though I’m training to become a pastor, I’m not always the best model of patience and grace.

Now, if you knew me well, I would hope that you’d find that statement unbelievable.

Well, knowing me as they do, what my family finds unbelievable is that I’m actually admitting this!

But the reason that I tell you this is that there’s someone in my morning YMCA aerobics class who is driving me crazy!

She always seems to have something to say that’s critical of others, and she’s free with her cutting remarks.

For example, I had to leave the class early one day to go to an appointment. When I came to class the next day, she said,

“You left early yesterday. Shame on you!”

I jumped back in astonishment at this rebuke: “Wow!” I exclaimed.

Sometimes when I come to class, there are other students that I want to talk to when I arrive – there are 70 or 80 people in the class – and I talk too long. So, when class begins, I haven’t always picked out my equipment yet. Later, when the instructor tells us to start using our weights, for example, I have to go over to the bin to get some weights.

Once again, when I pass this person as I return to my place in the gym, she’ll say, “You should have picked up your equipment before class began. Shame on you!”

I’ve never said anything to her about it – and I won’t – but I’m so tempted to demand, “Who in the world are you? How dare you?”

She doesn’t seem to realize – or care – that if I …

peeled the bed off my back in the morning,

successfully navigated to the YMCA on insufficient coffee, and then

performed anything that even mildly mimics exercise,

… I have had my “win” for the day. There are no additional requirements – including those she wants to give me – that I need to fulfill to have success that day.

We

I am sure that none of you are like my classmate. But you all know someone like her! We’ve all experienced needless criticisms and unreasonable expectations, haven’t we?

It may have come from a parent or a teacher who said you didn’t do something well enough. I know a first-grade boy whose teacher told his parents that he would never be successful in life because he didn’t color within the lines of a coloring page. To this day, the idea of taking a class in watercolor painting is daunting for him because the canvas has no lines. That old criticism still haunts him.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t be open to legitimate directions for our safety or benefit. I’m not saying we should be above correction.

We should listen when someone tells us to look up from our phones and look both ways before crossing the street. We should obey when told to keep our hands off hot stoves. Corrections and directions like that are a gift.

But sometimes people are cruel. Unwarranted criticisms or needless expectations about your performance can be hurtful. They can even change the trajectory of one’s entire life – often not for the better. Maybe you can relate to this in some way.

When you’ve done a good job on a project at school, but those who couldn’t have done it tell you how you should have done things differently.

When you’re passed over for a promotion at work, and suddenly there are new reasons given for how you’re not qualified.

When you feel like you can never do enough.

Or simply made to feel like you’re not good enough.

Excursus

I want to interrupt the actual message here for a minute. I just gave some examples of having to do more and more and more … more with no end … before we can think that we’re good enough at something, including life. But we can never do enough or be enough. Many of us live with feelings of inadequacy and condemnation every single day.

If you live with that, I want to give you some assurance of how God sees you. I don’t want to leave you behind when I continue the sermon.

God has a lot to say about sin – which we might be defined as a failure to love. He will call us out for sin. But He never condemns us for being imperfect.

Accusations of inadequacy that you hear from others or that you tell yourself are lies from the pit of Hell, and they smell like smoke!

So how does God see you?

Turn with me in your Bibles to Psalm 139, verse 14. This Psalm is attributed to David, who is praising God.

14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful,

I know that full well.

Say those words with me: I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

Circle, highlight, or underline those words in your Bible.

David continues by saying that God’s works are wonderful … and to be sure, you are one of God’s wonderful works!

Now, please turn with me to Psalm 18. This Psalm is again attributed to David, after God rescued him from King Saul. Let’s read verses 16 to 19:

16 He reached down from on high and took hold of me;

he drew me out of deep waters.

17 He rescued me from my powerful enemy,

from my foes, who were too strong for me.

18 They confronted me in the day of my disaster,

but the Lord was my support.

19 He brought me out into a spacious place;

he rescued me because he delighted in me.

For you and me, the “powerful enemy”, the “foes”, the “day of disaster” might be the defeating words that others tell us or that we tell ourselves.

But what does God say? “He delights in me.”

Circle, highlight, or underline those words in your Bible: “because he delighted in me.”

Just think about that for a minute. The almighty God, creator of the universe, made you in a fearful and wonderful way, and delights in you!

Consider this: No matter what your background is, no matter how your life has been, both good and not so good … the God, Creator of the Universe refused to build His creation without you in it.

So much so, that even though you’re not perfect, and even though you wrestle with sin every moment, God loves you so much that He sent His Son, Jesus, to redeem you.

What an awesome God!

Well, before I went off on my tangent, I was trying to illustrate that other people, or we ourselves, will often add additional requirements to something we’re doing that oversteps their bounds.

God

Paul encountered the same situation in Galatia. The Gentile Christians there were taught that they – and we – are justified by faith in Jesus Christ. That’s it. That’s all it takes. Just believe and trust that Jesus Christ, through His resurrection from the Cross, has forgiven you of all your sins. Period.

But another group of people were mingling among the Galatians and insisting that, “Oh no! There’s more to it than that!”

These people, sometimes known as “Judaizers”, imposed Jewish customs on non-Jewish believers. They maintained that because Christianity came out of the Hebrew religion, non-Jewish believers in Christ still had to observe the Jewish Law to be saved. In other words, they said it wasn’t enough to just have faith in Jesus. A believer also had to keep the Sabbath, observe dietary restrictions, and that males be circumcised. (That’s why our text refers to Judaizers as “the circumcision group” (2:12)).

When Paul discovered that the Judaizer’s so-called “gospel” was being preached in Galatia, he was infuriated! He was incensed! From beginning to end, the book of Galatians bristles with passion and anger, because the Gentile Christians of Galatia, who should have known better, were in danger of committing spiritual suicide!

And leading them along in this wayward direction was someone who certainly should have known better: Cephas (KAY-fas). We know him better as Peter.

You remember Peter, of course. He’s the Disciple, Simon, that Jesus renamed, saying, “And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.” This suggests that Jesus was giving Peter some leadership responsibilities in His Church. However, we also know Peter’s faith to be as fickle as our own.

For example, three times Jesus asked Peter if he loved Him. Jesus asked the first two times using the Greek word “agapao”, which means “sacrificial love.” Peter responded, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love you” – each time using the Greek word “phileo”, meaning “brotherly love”. Phileo is a good word, but something less than Jesus was asking.

Peter was also the one who denied knowing Jesus three times when he was confronted by a servant girl during Jesus’ trial. These denials were so blatant that all four Gospel writers recorded it.

Well, Peter’s being fickle again in our reading today. Worrying about what other people thought, Peter began to avoid eating with Gentiles and started sympathizing with Judaizers. Many other Jews, including Barnabas, joined in Peter’s hypocrisy.

Paul wasn’t having it. He confronted Peter to his face “because” as Paul insisted, “he stood condemned.” Peter absolutely knew that all we need to be justified in the eyes of God is to have faith in Jesus Christ. Yet, like many of us, Peter was afraid of what other people would think. So, he chose to blend in with the popular majority and echo the Judaizers.

Look again, please, at Galatians chapter 2, verse 16.

Circle / highlight / underline this verse in your Bible.

Paul is making a strong point. Paul wants to make perfectly clear the things that Peter and the Judaizers were muddying up:

We are justified by faith in Christ

A person is not justified by works of the law.

The term “works of the law” refers to the 613 laws that Jewish people observed.

It also refers to anything and everything else that you might think you have to do to be right with God besides simply having faith in His Son.

This is repeated three times in this verse! Anytime something is repeated in Scripture, it’s something important. When it’s repeated three times, it should grab your complete attention.

I cannot overemphasize how monumentally earthshattering this verse is. This verse clears out all the clutter. It blows away all confusion. Verse 16 is a clear, Biblical affirmation that we are saved entirely by faith in Jesus Christ alone. This is a cornerstone of the Protestant Reformation.

In fact, it was a verse like this one that sparked the Reformation. Martin Luther was lecturing on the book of Romans in 1515 when he encountered Romans 1:17. This verse says, “The righteous will live by faith.” He had been wrestling with the question of how we are justified before God, and this was the “eureka moment” answer for Luther!

Luther continued his lectures on the Letter to the Galatians – our present text – in 1516 to 1517. One author quipped that “These studies proved to be for Luther the Damascus Road.” In other words, Luther’s discoveries in the books of Romans and Galatians changed his life as dramatically as Jesus changed Paul’s life on the Damascus Road.

You

Are you struggling with the idea that God loves you and forgives you? Were you raised with rules about dress, secular music, avoiding television, not cutting your hair and other behaviors that have kept you from trusting God?

Or are you condemning yourself because you think you’ve done so many bad things that God couldn’t possibly forgive you now?

Did I tell you that Paul has something to say about that?

We

One thing he might do is to suggest that you turn your Bibles to Galatians chapter 2, verse 20.

This is another verse to circle / highlight / underline.

Please read it aloud with me:

20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

The first-person word “I” makes it your personal declaration, and it’s entirely true. This is a great verse to memorize.

There’s nothing you can do that’s so bad that you’re unforgivable. And there’s nothing you can do to earn salvation on your own. Salvation doesn’t take Jesus plus something extra.

Jesus did it all through His death on the Cross and His resurrection three days later. And His forgiveness, love, and grace for you are complete.

He did it all for you. That’s God’s grace.

May you live by faith in the Son of God, who loved you and gave Himself for you.

Amen.