Freedom to Give a Sigh of Relief

I need to hear about some arguments between friends. I’m going to be your judge! If I decide that you were not in the wrong, you will be justified! If not, your friend will be justified!

We’ll be thinking about the doctrine of justification tonight. That’s just a fancy word for declared right. The reason we’re going to talk about it tonight is because we all need to be justified before God if we want to have a relationship with Him.

If we all have to be justified, then that means we are all wrong. We’ve got to agree on this for the rest of what we talk about to make sense. We are all sinners, tells us that.

But so does our life experience… give examples of how we can look at the world and know something is wrong, sin exists

So the important question is how do we get justified? How are we declared right by God, because He’s the one who has to do it, He’s the judge.

We’re going to find the answer in Galatians chapter two tonight!

Verses 1-10

These verses continue Paul’s defense of himself from chapter one.

At the end of chapter one Paul defends himself against the accusations the he was preaching a false Gospel and explains that it wasn’t a story he made up or heard from Jesus’ apostles. He didn’t meet them until years after he’d been preaching the Gospel.

In these verses, he explains that when he did meet them, they all agreed on the Gospel! Neat how that works out!

There are a couple things I want to highlight though.

In vs 4 he says these people who accused him came in to enslave them and in verse five he says...

The people wanted to enslave them to the Old Testament law, and Paul says the Gospel was on the line with this issue. It’s still on the line today with this issue. The issue is legalism. We’ve talked about this, but lets review with some math problems!

Use a white board/chalk board to do “faith in Jesus + X” equations ≠ Salvation

Then in verse six he explains that he and the apostles were in full agreement about this and the rest of the Gospel.

Then he transitions to a different but related story in verse 11.

Read verses 11-21

We are made right by placing our faith for being made right in Jesus and only Jesus.

Peter, you hypocrite!

So here’s what’s going on...

When the very first of the 27 different versions of Power Rangers came out, I was in the third grade. I loved the Power Rangers. I watched it before school. I had a friend who lived down the street from me and she loved the Power Rangers too. One day we were on the bus and I said something to her about it and someone else laughed at me for watching it. Then my friend, who I knew liked Power Rangers, also laughed and said, “I don’t watch that show, it’s dumb!”

Peter was being a hypocritical Christian by saying he believed we’re saved by faith in Jesus but acting like he had to keep all the OT laws.

In the same way, it is hypocrisy for a Christ follower to be a rude, hateful person.

It’s hypocrisy for a Christian to lie to their parents all the time.

It’s hypocrisy for a Christian to not serve other people.

It’s hypocrisy for a Christian to live in sexual immorality.

Listen, we are all going to slip up at times, but I’m talking about living in these things. For these to be a normal part of your life.

1 John 2:6 HCSB

The one who says he remains in Him should walk just as He walked.

If you says you are a Christians, your normal practice should be to follow Jesus. If it isn’t, you need to ask yourself if you are truly a Christian. If you have truly been justified by God through Jesus, because if you have that makes a change in your life.

And that brings us to the question we started with, how are you justified by God?

How are we justified?

Paul answers the question here in vs 15-16, couldn’t be clearer!

In verses 17-18 he sees and objection some people may have coming and he cuts it off.

Basically he knows someone will say, “Well if we have to be sinners to come to Jesus, isn’t Jesus a promoter of sin?”

“Absolutely not!” He says! Jesus is a promoter of grace, because when we admit our sinfulness and that we can’t be good enough to save ourselves, then we can receive Jesus’ grace!

In verse 18 he says, “If I start saying you have to keep the law after you put your faith in Jesus to be justified, then I’m undoing all the Gospel I’ve been preaching!” He’d be going right back to the old belief that you have to be good enough to be saved.

So I have this habit when I’m trying to put stuff together or fix something. When I can’t get it to work right, I get really frustrated, and I take everything apart, and I try to do it again the same way...

I

Like the song says, “I couldn’t earn it and I don’t deserve it.” We are justified through faith, not by earning it or being good enough.

Romans 3:20 HCSB

For no one will be justified in His sight by the works of the law, because the knowledge of sin comes through the law.

You can’t go to church enough. You can’t read your Bible enough. You can’t be kind enough. You can’t give enough money or stuff away. You can’t stay out of trouble enough. None of these things will earn you justification.

You have to put your faith and trust in Jesus; that He did all that was needed for you to have righteousness before God and be forgiven. And then rest. Breath a sigh of relief in your freedom from trying to be good enough by your own power!

Pastor David Platt says it like this...

So trust Him. And realize that God’s pleasure in you is not based on your performance for Him; instead, God’s pleasure in you is based on Christ’s performance for you.

So we don’t have to perform to be justified. Why do Christians live the way they do then? I’ve already talked about how your life has to look different after you are justified by putting faith in Jesus.

We live by faith in Jesus.

Paul says Christ lives in every Christian by placing his Holy Spirit in us. We no longer live for ourselves, but we live for God. We do this by placing our faith in Him every moment of every day. We put our faith in Him to lead us and empower us. We live for Him not to earn his love, but because we love Him.

You have to set your focus on Christ every day. Every hour. You don’t set your focus on what your friends are doing. You don’t set your focus on how you can impress that guy or that girl. Or on getting more cool stuff for yourself. You set it on Jesus, and then He will live through you.

He’ll lead you when you have some friends trying to get you to do something you know isn’t right. He’ll lead you in that difficult moment of deciding if you should date that person or not. He’ll lead you in how to respond when your parents won’t stop fighting. He’ll lead you when you’re just not sure what to do.

So put your faith in Him to be justified. And put your faith in Him every day after that so He will live through you. Not to earn his approval, He has given you that through his grace. Do it because you love and trust Him.