Untitled Sermon (17)

Introduction

Well last week as we came back to our exposition of Galatians, we encountered a deeper understanding of what Justification is.

We looked at Paul’s understanding of what happens when a person is justified by the Father and how that impacts our walk with Christ.

More importantly than that though, we examined how it is that God moves the person being justified into a new position so that He can look upon us His people and say unto them, “this is my beloved son or daughter, in whom I am well pleased.”

And today Paul is going to be answering some very common questions pertaining to this issue.

Arguments that no doubt were asked of him when he proclaimed this Gospel message.

One of which is found in the very first part of our text for the day.

Please turn with me in your Bible’s to .

Read, Pray

In this modern generation, there are many pre-conceived notions concerning Christianity.

One notion concerning Christianity is that it could be defined as follows:

To become a Christian, take the 10 things that you love to do the most and quit doing them.

Then take the 10 things you hate to do and start doing them.

I kid you not.

This is a concept or understanding of Christianity by many people.

I had a conversation once with a young lady who claimed to be a Christian.

She was professing the name of the Lord Jesus Christ while walking down Bourbon street, clearly intoxicated and a stack of beads around her neck.

Now in order for her to get those beads, more than likely she was required to expose herself.

I asked her what it meant to be a Christian and her response was fairly similar to this.

She said that she had set aside the things that she enjoyed most and then grabbed onto the life of moral goodness that the local priest had shown her.

The problem though was that she was focused upon only action.

She believed that through leaving off the things she truly enjoyed in her heart and picking up these new behaviors, she could be made into a Christian.

So how do you explain this type of misconception?

How is it that the world around us has developed this idea about Christianity?

Now I’m not saying that this view is everywhere.

What I am saying though is that this perception exists.

And I think it exists more in the form of thinking.

Christians don’t do that.

They do this instead.

This perception of Christianity exists because instead of the world knowing of the Gospel of grace.

They know of a rule book Gospel.

And if I can try to define why it is that the world believes this it would be this.

I think that within the Church we have a skewed view and understanding of what it means to live as Christians.

We create a legalistic mindset and then offer that to other people as the Gospel.

Though our intentions may not be this.

This is the perception of the outside world.

Now listen, I’m not talking about the Church at Star City or Kirkwood Baptist Church.

I’m talking about the Church universal.

Without intention of doing so, we offer up to the world a rulebook Christianity.

And if I had to draw a comparison, I think that is precisely what Paul is fighting against here in Galatians.

Yet I don’t mean this at a knock at Christ’ Church.

I mean this to say this, I think we often misunderstand the purpose of the Gospel.

I think that what the world has been sold is a Gospel that is bound by a rulebook.

They’ve been sold this instead of the truth which was that Jesus gave His life so that we may have an abundant life.

A life that is both fulfilling in Him here on earth and everlasting into eternity.

Instead of showing the world the great beauty of the forgiveness of Christ and the abundant life He promised.

We instead show them the list of rules that they can and can’t do.

Paul here in Galatians shows himself and the Gospel to be completely against this mindset.

He had no care for legalistic Christianity.

He not only called it a false Gospel but He called it no Gospel at all.

If I had to make an argument concerning one sin from the New Testament that seems to find it’s way into the Church and stays there it would be this issue.

In the first, second, third, fourth, fifth through to today’s generation, this has been an issue.

A misunderstanding of the Gospel has and will probably always be present until the Lord shall return.

I have said this time after time but I don’t think I’ve said it enough.

A true understanding of the Gospel leaves every portion of the Law to the side.

And inside of that understanding, the Grace we see is profound.

Profound in such a way that we know that we could sin and we would be forgiven.

Yet our desire is not such.

Our desire is to walk with God.

But what’s often proclaimed in the Church today is this idea that says that we must do something.

Follow Jesus, give up this, give up that and you’ll be alright.

Listen, in this text today, we don’t find that idea.

We don’t find an idea that says that you have to give up anything.

Instead what we will find is that through Jesus’ perfect work, we die with Christ in His death and we rise with Him in His resurrection.

And that it is now not I who lives but Christ who lives in us.

And that our obedience to Him is so much more than merely following the law.

That’s Paul’s entire response to legalism.

Understand that we as born again believers upon the Lord Jesus Christ have died and it is now Christ who lives in us.

Throughout all of the text’s that we’ve been studying, Paul has made it his entire point to crush this idea of legalistic philosophies.

But the Jews argument comes back and they ask this question.

If we are then justified in Christ and we are found to be sinners, doesn’t that make Christ to be a servant of sin.

Remember that term from last week where the Gentiles were called sinners?

That is in essence what they are saying to Paul concerning Christ.

Let me lay out this argument for you on their behalf.

If after you’ve looked unto the saving work of Christ, and you continue to sin, doesn’t this mean that Christ is now the promoter of sin.

But Paul’s response is of course not.

To reject the law may make us “sinners” in the eyes of the Jews, but in God’s eyes we are doing the right thing!

Let me rephrase that for us today and I think in doing so, it’ll help us understand the argument.

To reject legalistic Christianity may make us “sinners” in the eyes of the legalist today, but in God’s eyes we are doing the right thing!

Abandoning the Law and embracing faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is more righteous than any man who may try to find their own way.

For once we have died to the person of old, we are not now living in ourselves but we live by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now some people have believed this idea to promote a form of lawlessness in the Christian life.

And that is actually an understanding of this passage that many people hold to.

The Judiazers complained that justification by faith, apart from the works of the law will promote a form of antinomianism or lawlessness.

Yet in comparing this idea with Paul’s other letters we can see that this just isn’t so.

Paul didn’t believe in lawlessness but he was often accused of it in .

And in some ways I can understand this accusation.

Paul has spent all this time arguing against the law and in doing so, his hearers have all but heard him say that the Law doesn’t matter.

So in a sense I can understand the accusation.

Think of it in this way.

If the only fix for lawlessness is to institute a law, then to argue against the law would be to create lawlessness.

But Paul isn’t arguing against right living in this passage.

Paul isn’t arguing against obedience to the Law.

His argument is instead that the Christian acts upon the inward principle of the Law and isn’t worried about the external exposure of it.

Paul is arguing for an obedience of the inward law.

One that although it does parallel the moral law.

Actually goes beyond the moral Law’s requirements.

The problem with grabbing hold of this idea at this point in the text though is that Paul’s purpose has nothing to do with this.

Paul is not focused upon the believers rule of life.

He’s not focused on the believers motivation to holiness.

He’s focused on salvation and the purpose of the law inside of salvation.

Paul’s argument here is not that of obedience.

His point here is now upon those who would try to rebuild that which was destroyed.

Paul is saying that sin does not reside in breaking Moses’ Law as the Judiazers taught.

Instead sin lies in trying to build up or rebuild those things which have been torn down.

If we as Christians are to be justified by faith in Christ, we must abandon our reliance upon the Law.

Christ rendered the Law redundant through His fulfillment of it.

And because of this, the believer doesn’t strive to merely keep the law.

For the righteous requirements of the law have already been fulfilled for him through Christ.

The believer cannot remain focused upon it.

Now I know some people might be confused at this point.

You might be thinking well Cory you’ve said for weeks now that the Moral Law was still good and that through obedience we should follow it.

And you would be absolutely right!

I have said that and I still would say it even here.

I would and have prefaced it with this statement:

We don’t follow the moral Law for salvation or right standing before God.

I want to stress this once again, this passage isn’t talking about the Christians moral purity.

It’s talking about a right standing before the Father.

And in the case of the Law giving us a right standing before the Lord, it simply won’t cut it!

We can’t.

It will never be able to that for us.

Instead through Christ we have died to the Law in trying to merit for ourselves a right standing before God.

Our relationship with the Law in this way is the same as a corpses relationship to this life.

Once you’ve passed away, the things of this life no longer matter.

Paul’s illustration in is a great example of this.

Think of it this way.

Authorized Version Chapter 7

Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man as long as he liveth? 2 For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband. 3 So then if, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress: but if her husband be dead, she is free from that law; so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man. 4 Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are become dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. 5 For when we were in the flesh, the motionsa of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. 6 But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held; that we should serve in newness of spirit, and not in the oldness of the letter.

We are dead to the fulness of the Law.

We are finished with the law

And we live in the newness of the Spirit of Christ.

Any obligation that we had to perform it’s requirements have been swept away through the Body of Christ.

We have been set free from the Law through the perfect obedience that Christ yielded in His life.

Yet that’s not all.

We have also been delivered from punishment for our law-breaking through the death of Christ because of His righteousness.

This means that the law can no longer make any demands upon us.

It can no longer require of us perfect obedience because it’s been fulfilled in Christ.

Whether it’s in respect to obedience or in respect to punishment, it’s been completely satisfied.

There’s an old analogy that really helps this become alive in our minds.

Since we have died to our old selves, and the new life we live is now Christ living in us.

We should think of it like this.

Imagine for a moment that you are a glove and Christ is the hand.

Any requirements being made upon the glove cannot be made without first requiring them of the hand.

And if all the requirements of the hand have been met, then there is nothing required of the glove.

It gets the joys of having the merit of the hand applied to it.

And because of this the glove now has the ability to be used in many righteous ways.

Ultimately it is the hand doing the work.

It is not the glove that is the prime mover.

It’s the hand.

In the same way Christ is the one who lives in us.

We are united with Christ in his death.

Crucified with Christ.

Now there would be some who would claim that Christ simply died on our behalf.

Christ did not simply die on our behalf

But that’s only half the story.

We as followers of Christ have died with Him.

The believer died with Christ.

All of the carnal desires went upon that cross.

All of our sins were placed upon Him.

Every ounce of our fallen nature and fallen man went upon Him.

And we should think of like this.

Too often we live out this life looking unto ourselves to succeed in something.

Yet it’s not us that succeed’s in anything.

It’s Christ through and in us.

Go back to the fall of man and picture this in this way.

God commanded Adam and Eve telling them that they can eat of the fruit of every tree in the garden but one.

And if they did, on that day they shall surely die.

Listen, Christ dying upon the cross is the culmination and correction for that!

The sin that entered into the world at the moment in the Garden is placed upon Christ.

And His death is the correction for that and we go right there with Him.

The old man has passed away and the new man has been born with the ability to live by the Grace of God.

But this means for us that we live in the faith.

We no longer live in the flesh for that is the man that was crucified with Christ.

Listen to what Luther says on this thought:

A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Galatians Homiletical and Practical

St. Paul could have said nothing of mightier force against the righteousness that is supposed to come through the law, than just what he here saith: I have died to the law, I have nothing at all more to do with it, it concerns me nothing, nor can it justify me.—These words are most full of comfort, and let them come in mind to any one in time of temptations and afflictions, and be in his heart rightly and thoroughly understood. Such a one would without doubt be well able to stand against all danger and dread of death, against all manner of terrors of conscience and of sin, though they fell as vehemently upon him as ever they could.—Happy he who, when his conscience falls into distress and temptation, that is, when sin assails and the law accuses him, then can say: What matters that to me; for I have died to thee. But if thou wilt ever dispute with me concerning sins, go, bury thyself with the flesh and its members, my servants pass then in review, plague and crucify them as thou wilt; but me, the conscience, it is for thee to leave, in peace as queen. For thou hast no concern with me since I have died to thee and live now to Christ.—It is a strange, curious, and unheard of speech, that to live to the law is as much as to die to God, and to die to the law as much as to live to God. These two sentences are completely and entirely athwart the reason, therefore also no sophist as law teacher can understand them. But do thou give diligence that thou learn well to understand them, namely thus, that who now will live to the law, that is, practise himself in its works, and keep the same, in order that he may thereby be justified, such a one is a sinner and abides a sinner, and therefore condemned to everlasting death and damnation. For the law can make him neither righteous nor blessed, but if it begins to accuse him in right earnest, it only kills him. Therefore to live to the law is, in truth, nothing else than to die to God, and to die to the law is nothing else than to live to God; now to live to God, this is to become righteous through grace and faith on Christ, without any works or law.

Listen, the purpose of our freedom from the bondage of the Law is not so that we live to ourselves.

It is so that we may live to God and Christ in the right way.

Our faith in Christ will bind us to His cross in death to our old man.

And our faith in His resurrection binds upon us the very reality that today as we live this life.

We are a new creation.

Listen, I know we’ve been talking about this for some time now.

But understand me on the reason why.

As fallen humanity trying to understand the incomprehensible, we struggle with this.

I don’t care who you are.

If you’ve been born through the blood of the Christ, you have spent many hours weeping and wailing over your shortcomings.

You have went to bed at night with tears pouring out into your pillow trying to decry the sins of the day.

Longing to understand how you can fall so short of the glory of God, even after your conversion.

You have looked into the mirror after one of those days longing to be forgiven and often feeling like you are beyond hope.

It’s a natural part of this struggle in living the Christian life.

But with right doctrine beat into our heads as Luther said, we begin to understand these struggles.

And once we begin to understand these struggles, we begin to look in the right direction.

We no longer look unto ourselves.

We no longer try to rebuild that which Christ has destroyed.

We understand that everything that you or I shall ever need is found within the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The life we now live, we live by faith in the Son of God.

On those days where we feel as though we couldn’t even begin to stand up and walk right according to the Lord.

It’s okay!

Not that it’s okay to continue in sin.

But that it’s okay that you can’t do it.

Your righteousness doesn’t come through the Law.

For if it came through the Law then Christ died in vain.

His death was meaningless.

But it’s not!

His death guaranteed the promise of eternity to everyone who would call upon His name.

His resurrection showed us that as we enter into the grave we have no need to fear what lies beyond this life.

On those days where you fail time after time I want you to remember this.

Jesus knew.

He knew that you were going to be messy.

He knew that you were going to screw up day after day.

That’s the whole point of the cross!

He knows that you’re going to make mistakes.

He knows that your heart is going to be drawn into the wickedness of this world.

The whole point inside of this redemption is that in spite of you, Christ would redeem you!

It’s a promise of His pursuit of you in spite of you.

And it’s an illustration of how far He will go for you.

Listen to me.

The cross is but it’s also the picture we have of just how far God is willing to go because he loves you.

This is what it’s all about.

Christ is the righteous judge of all the world.

And it is because of Him that we know that we have a right standing before God the Father.

And you beloved, if you know Him,

Yet in our hearts do we truly believe this?

We will never be good enough to save ourselves.

If I had to guess, I would venture to say that our normal thoughts tell us that God is disappointed in us.

That God is simply tolerating us for the moment and if we could only do better....

But listen, the entire point of this passage on justification is to disprove this thought.

God is looking upon His people and seeing Christ.

He’s not seeing you!

Listen, if you think that you can do something today to change this then you still don’t understand Justification.

Listen to this for a second.

Authorized Version Chapter 1

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ: 4 According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: 5 Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, 6 To the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made us accepted in the beloved. 7 In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace; 8

Before the foundation of the world God looked upon every portion of who you are and brought you into His family.

Before you commit the sins of tomorrow, God knew what they were.

And even in spite of this, He adopted us through Christ and made us accepted in Christ.

Yet what we think is this:

Cory you have no idea how wicked I’ve been.

You have no idea of the things I struggle with.

You have no idea how bad I fail at this day in and day out.

You’re right!

I don’t know.

But He does!

He knew all of this and still chose to redeem you!

God is not looking at you and seeing how great or how bad you are.

He is looking at you and seeing everything that Jesus has done.

He’s looking at you and seeing Christ.

This is the whole point of justification by faith.

That new and right standing before God isn’t given on our own account.

It’s given because of Christ.

So quit looking at yourself in light of your sin and start looking at yourself in light of Christ!