Sermon Worksheet & Manuscript

Robert L. Hutcherson, Jr.

Quinn Chapel A.M.E. Church

                                        Sermon Preparation/Delivery

Galatians 2:15-21

“Not by the Law, but by Faith”

The Reverse Karla J. Cooper, Pastor

 June 17, 2007

                                                       Proper 6 (11)

Sermon Worksheet & Manuscript

TEXT

Galatians 2:15-21

We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. But if, in our effort to be justified in Christ, we ourselves have been found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! But if I build up again the very things that I once tore down, then I demonstrate that I am a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is 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. I do not nullify the grace of God; for if justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing.

BODY

Having Jesus in your heart, being right with God, is the most important issue of life. The Bible calls this JUSTIFICATION. The truth is if I am right with God, I can be right with my wife and children. If I am right with God, I can be right with the people on my job and in my church. If I am right with God, I can be right with my finances and my possessions. If I am right with God, I can handle anything life throws at me.

Being right with God comes down to having a right relationship with His Son, Jesus Christ. The book of Galatians is about JUSTIFICATION, JUSTIFICATION BY GRACE ALONE THROUGH FAITH ALONE ON ACCOUNT OF CHRIST ALONE the right way to be right with God. The Apostle Paul had helped establish at least four churches in the region of Galatia. After he left them, false teachers crept in and began to subvert the gospel. They taught that to be right with God, you not only had to trust in Christ but you must also be circumcised and keep the Jewish laws of the Old Testament.

Paul has already explained how he took Titus, an uncircumcised Christian to Jerusalem and counseled with the other apostles and from them he "was not compelled to be circumcised" (verse3). In other words, all the apostles agreed that circumcision was not necessary for salvation. Through Paul we learned that Peter had "come to Antioch" where Paul and Barnabas were teaching. At first he would "eat with the Gentiles," that is he did not follow the Jewish dietary laws of the Old Testament. However, when some "men came from James," some Jewish Christians, Peter hypocritically "withdrew" from the Gentile believers and practiced again the Old Testament dietary laws. Paul was furious at Peter. He says in verse 11, "I withstood him to his face because he was to be blamed." Why was Paul so ticked off? Because Peter’s hypocrisy caused the Gentile Christians to think that in order to be right with God, they needed something other than simple faith in Jesus. Peter caused them to think that they should add keeping the law to their faith in order to be saved. Paul didn’t confront Peter privately. When he saw that Peter was not being "straightforward about the truth of the gospel" he spoke to him "before them all" (verse 14). He stood toe to toe, eyeball to eyeball with Peter and let him have it! While Peter believed the gospel in principle, he had violated it in practice. Paul told Peter and later wrote to the Galatians that we are JUSTIFIED by faith in Jesus, not by keeping the law. We are all sinners, therefore Our Greatest NEED is to be right with God.

There are two basic facts that we need to understand. The first is God is righteous or holy. The second is we are not. If God is righteous and we are not then we are not right with God, there is something wrong between us. The Bible asks, "For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness?" "How then can man be righteous before God? Paul says to Peter in verse15, "We who are Jews by nature" are not "sinners" like the Gentiles. He didn’t mean that Jews don’t sin. He meant they knew and kept the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament and the Gentiles didn’t. In verse 17 he says, "We ourselves are also found sinners." In other words, just because the Jews kept the dietary laws and ate only kosher foods did not mean that they were not sinners. Keeping those laws did not make them right with God.

Romans 3:10 says, "There is none righteous, no, not one." Whether you are a law-keeping, kosher Jew or a pagan bar-hopping Gentile, not one of us is right with God. In fact, Romans 3:23 says, "For ALL have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." "All" means all! Jews, Gentiles, men, women, boys, girls, Baptist, Presbyterians, Catholics, Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists, etc… ALL, everyone who lives or has ever lived is a sinner and is not right with God. This was true when Paul wrote this letter almost 2000 years ago and it is equally true today. It is true about you and me!

We all need to be justified. Glance down at verse 16. Do you see that there is one word that is repeated three times in this one verse? What is it? The word is "justified." I know it sounds like a technical, theological, churchy word and it is. However, it is one of the most important words we could ever know and a word we need to understand. "justified" is a legal term that is borrowed from the court of law. It is the opposite of "condemned." To be condemned is to be declared guilty. To be "justified" is to be declared not guilty. The Bible uses this word to describe what God has done to make things right between him and us. To be "justified" before God means God has not only pardoned or acquitted us, but accepted us as righteous just like He is righteous. We cannot be justified by the Law. Paul says in verse 16 that both he and Peter know or are "knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law." He adds at the end of the verse that "by the works of the law no flesh [nobody] shall be justified." In other words, if you think that God will accept you because you’ve read the Old Testament and try to keep all those laws, you’re wrong. Granted, few people try to live by the Old Testament anymore. However, many people think that God accepts them because they are "good people." "I'm not a part of organized religion, but I pray. I read the Bible. It's the most beautiful book ever written. I should go to heaven; I haven't done anything wrong. My conscience is very clean. My soul is as white as those orchids over there, and I should go straight, straight to heaven." In other words, they think God will accept them because they are basically good people. They say they’ve read the Bible but they haven’t read Galatians 2 if they believe they’ve done nothing wrong. They’re either ignorant of or consciously ignoring the fact that God says over and over in the Bible that they, like everyone else, are sinners and that they can’t be good enough or clean enough to please God. If we try to come to God in our own goodness we are CONDEMNED not "justified."

John Stott writing of man trying to justify himself states, "It has been the religion of the ordinary man both before and since. It is the religion of the man-in-the-street today. Indeed, it is the fundamental principle of every religious and moral system in the world except New Testament Christianity. It is popular because it is flattering. It tells a man that if he will only pull his socks up a bit higher and try a bit harder, he will succeed in winning his own salvation. But it is a fearful delusion. It is the biggest lie of the biggest liar the world has ever known, the devil, whom Jesus called ‘the father of lies.’ Nobody has ever been justified by the works of the law, for the simple reason that nobody has ever perfectly kept the law." A dad who was reading a Bible story to his 5-year-old son about Moses and the Ten Commandments asked, "Now son, how many commandments did God give Moses?" The little boy quickly replied, "Too many!" He’s right. The 10 great commandments are too many and too hard for any of us to keep. We‘re not justified by keeping the law because we simply can’t keep it.

We can only be justified by Faith. Look again at the first word in verse 16, "knowing." This is something Paul and Peter knew. This is something we need to know. We need to know that "a man [any man] is not justified by the works of the law [or being a good person] but BY FAITH in Jesus Christ." We can’t live perfectly before God but Jesus could. He was God’s virgin-born Son. He kept the law that we could not keep. He was not only good; He was perfect. He lived a perfect life and then He died a sacrificial death. He took all our failures, all our faults, all our guilt and all our sin upon Himself on the cross.

The Bible says in Romans 5:8, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Paul says of himself and Peter, "even we have believed in Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ." This was not something for other people or just for Gentiles. Paul and Peter and the other Jews had "believed" on Jesus. They put their trust in Him, not religion to make them right with God. What was true of Paul, Peter, the Jews and the Gentiles of that time is true of you and me today. If we are to be right with God, if we are to be declared not guilty or "justified," then we must come to God in faith.

A 16-year-old girl from the Chicago suburbs who had been driving at night with friends, and she had backed into a light pole. The pole had broken off and then falling forward, crashing down onto the car. A 12-year-old friend in the car had been severely injured; in fact, she was brain dead when she arrived at the hospital. A young pastor walked with the 12-year-old's family as they went through the wrenching process of realizing the truth and allowing the life support to be removed. The following morning, he visited the hospital room of the 16-year-old driver. Physically, she was recovering well, but emotionally, she was distraught knowing that her actions had killed her friend. "I'm going to be like a daughter to her parents," she told him. "I'm going to go over to their house every day and baby-sit for them. I'll wash dishes for them every night. I'll go over there every week and mow their lawn." He gradually helped her realize the truth that no matter what she did, she could never replace their daughter. She could never do enough to make up for her actions. All she could do was ask for forgiveness and hope that the parents would find it in their hearts to forgive her. The parents who lost their daughter, amazingly, did forgive this girl. She was set free from trying to pay back a debt she could never repay no matter what she did. We owe a debt we cannot pay. No matter how many good things we do, we can never make up for our sin. Only when we come to God in faith, asking forgiveness for our sins and trusting in the sacrifice Jesus made for us on the cross can we ever be right with God.

Note the word "But" at the beginning of verse17. When you argue with someone, you “but” in. You say "But what about…" Paul is anticipating the argument of the Jews concerning the law. This is a difficult verse so allow me to paraphrase it, "If God justifies bad people, what is the point of being good? Can’t we just do as we like and live as we please?" Said a different way, "If we are justified or made right with God apart from keeping the law or being good people then we can just sin all we want to. Paul says emphatically "Certainly not!" or "God forbid", absolutely not! Think of the law as being a set of train tracks that led God’s people where they were supposed to go. The engine is God’s grace by His Spirit. The couplings are faith. What the Jews had done was dismantle God’s train tracks (the law). They took the rails, spikes and cross-ties and used them to try to build a ladder that reached to heaven. It didn’t work. The law was never meant to save anyone. "Therefore the law was our tutor to bring us to Christ that we might be justified by faith." In other words when you try to keep the Ten Commandments and realize you can’t keep them you turn to Jesus in faith.

Paul makes a strange statement in verse 19. He says, "For I through the law died to the law…" When the apostle says that he "through the law died to the law," he means that in trying to keep the law he realized that the law was hopeless. Try as he might, he just couldn’t do it. He could keep some of the law but never all the law. For everything he did right he did three things wrong. He wrote of his own struggle in Romans 7:19, "For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice." Sound familiar? He gathered up all his religious accomplishments, his theological degrees, his ministerial awards, all his good deeds and considered them a pile of manure. He "died" to them. It as if he is saying, "For a long time I wore a mask, I held on to my accomplishments and tried to impress God by what I had achieved and how good I was. Down deep I knew I was a sinner. Finally, I took off the mask and was honest with myself and God. It was only at that moment, when I died to myself that I really began to live to God."

We’ve already learned that we cannot impress God by being good, doing good, keeping the law or being religious. All of us fall short of that mark. That leaves us with two options. First, we can GIVE UP. Sadly, many people do that. Many people live this way.  They figure if God’s standards are so high, what’s the point? If we can’t please God no matter what we do then why try? We might as well do whatever we want, eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die. Option number two is that we can HOPE IN CHRIST. Let me explain.

Paul "died to the law" but he also died with Jesus. He says in verse 20, "I have been crucified with Christ." What do you mean, Brother Robert? Paul was not physically "crucified." He had not physically "died." Jesus’ crucifixion had taken place long before Paul became a Christian. Let me explain. What he means is by faith he accepted Jesus’ death on the cross for his sins. When he stopped trusting in himself and started trusting in Jesus, he died to his old life.

Notice the second statement in verse 20, "It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me." Paul had "died" to his old life and now was living a new life. When a person comes to Christ in faith, everything changes. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new."

What a wonderful, mysterious statement! I am no longer who I was before I met Jesus. The old me is D-E-A-D DEAD! The new me is completely different. I didn’t just turn over a new leaf or exercise the will power to change. No, the difference is "Christ lives in me." Jesus is alive today seated at the right hand of the Father but He is also alive in me. To be "in Christ" means that Jesus is living out His agenda, His priorities, and His love through my life. The old me died and Jesus took over!

As a song says:

“Well, I can’t stop talkin’ ‘bout everything He’s done -

It’s the best thing to happen since the world begun -

“Didn’t come cheap, but I got it for free –

It’s the hope of glory, Christ in me!”

We must Live in Faith. Living by faith means trusting Jesus moment by moment, being in constant communication. Because "Christ lives in me" you are never alone. Through the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, He is always with you. He will never leave you nor forsake you. When you sin, He convicts you. When you’re discouraged, He comforts you. When you’re confused, He teaches you. When you’re in need, He provides for you. When you’re weak, He strengthens you. When you’re proud, He humbles you. When you’re in doubt, He assures you. He is EVERYTHING!

How? Why is this true? Because, as Paul says, "the Son of God… loved me and gave Himself for me." If He only loved you but couldn’t help you, you’d be hopeless. If He could help you but didn’t love you, you’d still be hopeless. But because He both loves you and was willing to give Himself for you, you can live your life in complete and absolute confidence in Him. The Jewish Christians had trusted in Christ but wanted to go back to their legalistic keeping of the law not realizing that Christ had already kept the law for them. Today many people trust in Christ for salvation, but rather than enjoy their wonderful relationship with Christ, they turn to religion. They try to keep man-made rules, rituals and regulations. These things rob them of their joy and bring grief to Jesus.

Paul seems to be telling us that the gospel overwhelms, eclipses, renders nil all previous
values and commitments. If we only live according to the law, then what was the point? If Christ lives in us, in all of us, then how can we dismiss another? How do we understand that whoever walks through the door is loved by God, has Christ within them, and is therefore fully acceptable? We see Paul talking with the other apostles about acceptance. We see that those who lived and walked with Christ have embraced and approved both Paul (who was a murderer and enemy of the first order) and Titus, who was a Greek, without requiring the Greek to change, and with full acceptance that the Christ in Paul has redeemed him and changed him and made him part of the Family. If we truly ARE a “Whosoever Church”…if we can see those who come in the door as family members, we will be able to surround them regardless of the faults or baggage they bring.

If I couldn’t impress God with my good works before I was saved, I will never impress Him with good works after I am saved. I don’t need to impress Him. I just need His grace. Nothing you can do will make Him love you more and nothing you can do will make Him love you less. We were saved in the past by His grace, we stand today in His grace and our hope for the future is in His grace.

“My Hope is built on nothing less

Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness

I dare not trust the sweetest frame

But wholly lean on Jesus’ Name

On Christ the solid rock I stand

All other ground is sinking sand”

Let us pray…

Order of Worship

Sunday June 17th 2007

11:00 A.M.

Opening Hymn…………………………….” Down at the Cross”,  Hymn 243

Doxology……………………………………………………All

Call to Worship…………………………………Bro. Robert Hutcherson

Hymn………………………………..”Take My Life and Let it Be”, Hymn 292

Prayer……………………………………………Bro. Robert Hutcherson

Prayer Response………………………………….”Give Us This Day”

Scripture Reading………………………………Bro. Robert Hutcherson

Decalogue……………………………………….Bro. Robert Hutcherson

Gloria Patri…………………………………………….Congregation

Sermon…………………………………………..Bro. Robert Hutcherson

Invitation to Christian Discipleship…”My Hope Is Built On Nothing Less”, Hymn 364

Altar Call/Offertory………………………………………..All

Offertory Response……………………………”All Things Come Of Thee”

Affirmation of Faith…………………………………..Congregation

Benediction………………………………………Bro. Robert Hutcherson