Untitled Sermon (8)

Central

Week 2

Here we are in week two of our series Central, where we are going chapter by chapter through the book of Galatians together as a youth ministry. Last week, we covered chapter one, and I challenged you to read the entire chapter on your own through this week. Who here read chapter one on their own this week? Great! We encourage you all to read each chapter each week as we go through this series together.

As we begin today, let's review a few things from last week.

How many of you remember who wrote the book of Galatians? Yes, Paul the apostle.

Who did he write it to? Yes, the Galatian church.

Last week, what matter did we discuss in chapter one? Yes, the authenticity of the gospel and how some were influenced by and following a false gospel.

Today we will talk about how we ought to live our lives centered on the gospel.

I want to tell you about a guy who is an author, a journalist, and a self-proclaimed guinea pig. His name is A.J. Jacobs. He’s not a Christian, but he’s a guy who likes to read studies and test them out on himself, making himself the guinea pig. He has a Jewish background but doesn’t practice Judaism. He knows that people live their lives according to the Bible, so he set himself on a quest to read the Bible from cover to cover, take notes, and practice everything he read for 365 days. He wrote a book about his life experiment and called it “The Year of Living Biblically.”

The first thing he did was grow out his facial hair. Then, as he read the Old Testament, he found a few passages that stood out, like which states, “You shall keep my statutes. You shall not let your cattle breed with a different kind. You shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor shall you wear a garment of cloth made of two kinds of material."

So he got rid of all his T-shirts that were 50 percent cotton and 50 percent polyester, and exchanged them for an outfit that you would see an ancient Jewish man wear. And he lived a regular life, walking around New York like this.

As you can see, he really went out of his way to follow the Scriptures he read in the Bible. At the end of his experiment, he realized that it's literally impossible to live a life perfectly according to the Bible. However, he did learn a few things by going through this.

Many nonbelievers, and even some Christians, don’t really understand how to live their lives according to the Bible. Scripture is to be interpreted for clear understanding.

When God laid out the Law for the children of Israel, He did so for them to understand what perfection and righteousness looked like. As they worked hard to follow the Law, they always failed and realized that they couldn't abide by the Law in their own strength. Man is born in sin and has a sin nature and cannot fulfill righteousness on his own. This is why Jesus came to be the Savior of mankind. Jesus came to be our righteousness and fulfill the Law and be our substitute.

Jesus comes to save us from our sinful habits, and He changes us from our sinful state. You may have heard others say, “I’m not going to go to church until I get my life right.” They need to realize that they will never be successful at getting their life right on their own. They are in need of Jesus to save them from themselves. Just like A.J. Jacobs, it's literally impossible to get your life right without Jesus.

Now let's turn to Galatians chapter 2 to see today's theme. Today, we will read part of the chapter, and you are encouraged to read the entire chapter at home this week. Please turn to chapter 2 verse 15.

(ESV)

We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

Now, we’re going to stop here and discuss a theme that Paul is explaining to the Galatians. He uses a word we want to look at here: the word "justified."

Has anyone heard this term before? Justified, justification, or justice?

Unfortunately, many people don’t understand what it means to be justified, but the word "justice" is a term we use quite often in this day and age.

[Author Note: Show the slide with a balancing scale.]

Does anyone know what this is?

This is an old-school scale known as a balance scale. It's used for weighing objects to find out their proper weight. Before the days of spring scales, like the ones you stand on and a dial tells you the weight, or recent digital scales that give a digital weight on a screen, you had to have a preset weight placed on one side of the scale, and you would put the object you wanted to measure out on the other side. When the weight on the scale began to balance in mid-air without touching the ground, you knew you had a balanced, justified weight.

Now, when you hear of "justice" in this day and age, what do you think of?

[Author Note: Take some answers, but stop when a student answers a judge in a courtroom.]

In the legal system, if someone breaks the law, they are brought to a courtroom with a judge. If there is evidence against that person, the judge assesses the case, and if they are guilty, the judge declares a punishment.

In the judicial system, everyone wants justice. For example, if there was a drunk driver who crashed into a minivan carrying a family with a two-year-old and the two-year-old died, the family would want justice carried out. They would want the punishment to fit the crime. Let’s say that the drunk driver was found guilty of the crime and was sentenced to three days in jail for his crime. Would the family be satisfied by the system? No, they would cry out for justice to be served.

In God’s eyes, on one side of the scale, we have righteousness. If we were to try to measure up with God’s righteousness by following all the rules and doing as much good as we could in our lifetime, do you think the balance scale would measure out? No, it wouldn’t. Nothing we can do will ever match the righteousness of God.

This is why Paul says in verse 16 ...

"Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ."

The only thing that can balance the scale is faith in Jesus. Jesus is the balance of righteousness, because He is the only person who ever lived a truly righteous life.

Now that we understand justification a bit more, let's continue in this passage to see what Paul is talking about in context. Let's pick it up in verse 17 .

But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but 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 righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

To summarize what Paul is saying, you can’t achieve the righteousness of God just by trying to be perfect. A.J. Jacobs tried to live perfectly according to the Bible, using his own strength for 365 days, and he failed. He failed because he doesn’t have God in his life to lead him and be his strength to live a godly life.

What Paul says in verse 20 is:

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but 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.

So, who balances the scale with righteousness on one side? Jesus does.

Who lived a sinless, perfect life? Jesus did.

Who is the definition of God’s righteousness? Jesus is.

Paul says it is Christ who lives through him. Jesus paid the price he deserved, and Jesus gave him the righteousness of God in order to balance out the scale to be justified in God’s eyes.

Paul said he was astonished in chapter 1, that some members of the Galatian church were turning away to another gospel. How could they be led to believe there was a different way to balance the scale of justification other than faith in Christ? Salvation in Jesus is not trying to be good by works; salvation in Jesus is by faith.

There are four points we can learn from this passage in .

1. We are all sinners in need of the GOSPEL.

Paul wrote this letter to the people at the Galatian church, who were Jews by birth and needed salvation. Gentiles are non-Jews who didn’t have the Law or God to lead them. When Jesus came to save sinners, His gospel message included those who were far off, and it included Gentile sinners who needed to be saved from their sin.

2. Jesus lives inside those who believe the GOSPEL.

In the Old Testament, the Temple was a place that was sacred and holy, and it was the dwelling place of God. Many still have a mindset that God literally lives in a church building. This is not the case.

Look at this church building; it’s just made of wood, brick, steel, drywall, tubes, and a bunch of electric wiring. It's currently used as a place of worship, but God is not limited to living here. In the new covenant, we see that God, through his Son Jesus, lives in the lives of believers.

In , Paul says:

(ESV)

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

If you’ve responded to the gospel and you’ve given your life to Jesus, then He lives inside of you. Jesus lives inside all of those who are born again.

If Jesus lives inside of you, then you must center your life on the gospel. Practically, that means that there are certain things you shouldn’t want to participate in if Jesus is with you.

If you have a few friends who are inviting you to meet up to smoke weed together, would you want Jesus to come join you? Would you want Him to follow you to a party with excessive drinking and sit on the couch with you? If you’re a Christin, take this into consideration: you bring Jesus everywhere you go.

3. Responding to the GOSPEL means literally giving yourself away.

In verse 20, Paul says, “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me."

Paul describes his willingness to surrender everything to God. His whole life belongs to God, and he has made it clear that he is living a Christ-centered life. When people come to the saving knowledge of Jesus, they give up their dreams, ambitions, aspirations, and lives to live for and serve Jesus.

So, here's are some hard questions we all need to ask ourselves:

Is Jesus living inside of you? And are you literally giving yourself away to Him? Think about that for a moment because we need to evaluate ourselves in light of Scripture.

The daily decisions we make ... are they gospel-centered decisions? Do they show that you’ve given yourself away to Jesus? Can you identify with and say that "Christ lives inside of me”?

4. The GOSPEL is not about following a list of rules; it’s living a new life by faith.

A.J. Jacobs did not have Jesus inside of him. He was not living a life of faith; he was just trying to follow a list of rules. Paul is trying to communicate the true gospel message to the Galatian church, that being a Christian is not about following a set of rules; it's about life transformation.

What does it mean to live by faith? Your actions follow what you believe.

If the door busted open and someone yelled, “There's a bomb planted under each chair in this room, and they will blow up in 30 seconds,” you would respond two ways to their claim based on your belief. You would either jump up out of your seat and run through the door and run as fast as you could, or you would just sit there … like you are now because you don’t believe it. Your actions follow what you believe.

Faith is what you believe; your actions prove that faith.

By a show of hands, how many girls in here would love to be married one day? When a woman marries a man, she becomes one with him. Many things about her change; her status goes from single to married, she lives in the same house with her husband, and her last name changes—just to name a few. When her last name changes, so does her driver's license, so does her passport … her identification is now rooted in the man that she married.

When someone comes to Jesus, they identify as a Christian and become one with Christ. Many things change about them and their lives are no longer centered in themselves, but centered in Christ.

This is how we believe by faith when we respond to the gospel; we believe that we have been changed from what we used to be to who we are rooted in.

Let's close in prayer and ask God to reveal His truth in our hearts regarding the gospel message, and ask Him for help to live gospel-centered lives. Then we will break into small groups to have a time of further discussion