Galatians 2 - Justified By Faith
Tom Shrader examines Paul's confrontation with the Judaizers in Galatians 2:15-21, emphasizing that justification comes through faith in Christ alone, not through works of the law or human effort. He contrasts biblical Christianity with all other religions, showing that any attempt to add works to salvation undermines the gospel and insults the cross. The teaching emphasizes God's perfect love demonstrated in Christ's sacrifice and the reality that believers are united with Christ, living by His life within them.
“There's two approaches to justification: one is through human efforts, it's called the works of the law here, the other is through faith, and it's through faith in Christ, that Christ died for our sin.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Galatians
Recorded: 2012
Duration: 56 min
Themes: justification, faith, grace, salvation, works, gospel, cross, transformation, struggling with legalism, new believer, doubting salvation, religious background, works-based thinking, family ministry, adult conversion, questioning faith
Scripture: Galatians 2:15-21, Philippians 3:4-12, Job 25:4, Romans 3:10-23, John 10:17-18, Ephesians 1:3-13
Theological Themes: justification by faith, sola fide, gospel truth, sanctification, union with christ, biblical Christianity, soteriology, galatians commentary
Full Transcript
I'd invite Brian Berger to join me. Brian joined our staff two years ago. Brian works in community ministry. Brian, welcome, glad you're here. Thank you. Remind everybody what you do.
I'm a pastor of our communities ministry, which is our small group ministry here, and I'm working with Jake. You guys saw the new pastor, Jake, that was introduced a couple weeks ago. Me and him are partners.
Brian's been on staff a couple years, and in the course of the two years, we've seen God use Brian in a variety of ways. But maybe the most exciting is in the life of somebody close to him. So we're going to see the video in a minute. Kind of set it up for us, would you?
Yeah, so the video is about my father, Bill. Aaron Kass and I had an opportunity to go over to my dad's house last week and film basically what's been going on in his life. It's funny, in the raw footage, I hear Aaron say, "So if we could keep this to five minutes, that would be great." And 55 minutes later, we cut. It was just an awesome time for me to hear him put words to what I'd seen going on in his life for the past four years.
To give you an idea of what that was, we were a Christian family in church, but our God was baseball and athletics. That was kind of at the center of everything. Just to see his life completely change to where we don't talk about baseball much anymore. It's about his relationship with God and what God's doing. It's been awesome.
A Father's Radical Transformation
Your dad has seen God work in some really radical ways. It's been really cool. I know it's unfair, but in 55 minutes, obviously there's a whole bunch of this we had to edit out. Can you pick one moment?
There's one moment I remember where our family was watching the transformation happen and him bringing up things that just weren't normal in our family, like talking about Christ. We went to FCA camp together and we coached together. I remember I got him an FCA Bible, and one year later, they give you a new Bible each year. So I'm flipping through his old one, knowing it is a year old. I could not find a page on this thing that didn't have notes all over it and highlighted.
I asked my dad, "What have you been doing?" And he was like, "I can't get enough of this thing. I wake up every morning, I get excited to be in it." The real cool thing has been to watch him now go back to old relationships, whether it be friendships from grade school or high school or college. Now they're engaged in Bible study. He had two of his buddies that were baptized with him when we did the baptism on the lawn. It's just been awesome to see not only God work in him, but then through him.
It's a great story. So the video doesn't capture all of it, but it gives you a flavor of it. I'm going to show it, and then we'll come back and make a couple of comments. So let's take a look.
Bill's Story
I lost my father at the age of 16. He was pretty much my guide in life. As I got into high school, I was fortunate to have some coaches. I was involved in athletics, and I had some coaches that really took that role of being a father to me. One coach that I had was an assistant football coach who led me to a deeper Christian faith. He had me say the prayer to accept God into my life, which I had never done.
Really, the next 40 years of my life was a great life. Looking back on it now, I think God was very good to me. Five to 10 years ago, my life started changing somewhat, where all of a sudden, things that seemed important to me at one time just lost their importance.
I very clearly remember a night where I heard a voice say the word "relinquish." I woke up, I looked around the room, and I was sure someone said that. It was a man's voice that I could hear, but I didn't know what that meant. I had never used the word relinquish in my life, I don't believe, but for some reason, it was as clear as can be in my mind.
I went to Tom Schrader's Bible study, probably a couple days later, and I sit down and the guy in front of me is wearing a T-shirt. On the back of the T-shirt is a big cross that has the word "relinquish" on it. All of a sudden, a puzzle piece began to go in place, and things have continued to go that way for the last five years.
A New Morning Routine
I was never a morning person. It was always a challenge, just like most people. You'd hit the snooze and go back to sleep, but for some reason, I got up at three in the morning and I began to open the Bible and reading, and that has completely changed my life. I'm telling you, there were times I could read for five hours at a time.
So my routine for the last three years, I'd say probably 98% of the days, I'll get up at three o'clock in the morning, read, and I go on about a five-mile walk. It takes me about an hour and 15 minutes, and I feel like God is speaking to me the whole time. At the end of my walk every day, it's like life has become clearer and clearer.
Of course, as the day goes on, we get into normal daily routine of life and the challenges of life, and it seems to go downhill. But I'm rejuvenated every morning, and I can't wait to get up every morning to get back into hearing God speak to me.
Athletics No Longer the Identity
This helped change me—my athletics. I thought this was my identity as a player, as a coach. One of the big things that happened after I retired was my wife said, "You know what, I never see lineups anymore. I never see practice organizations written down around the house anymore." It was obvious that athletics was my whole life, and I wasn't taking time to really understand what the true significance in my life was. That was only a platform that God had given me, and maybe I really didn't utilize—
Bill's Testimony and the Work of God
At that point, my son Brian called me up and said, would you be interested in getting baptized? I said I would, and my wife, Christy, when I told her, she said, well, I'd like to do that. My son Brian was the one that was baptizing me, which made it extra special, and my other son, Brett, was right there.
You can see so clearly now that we all have different journeys. God says I'll use whatever journey I put you through, whatever choice you make, I can use it. Our point in showing that is to remind you that God's working all around you.
One of the things that happens sometimes is you can get so locked into your life that you fail to understand God's working. By way of encouragement, the same God and Spirit that worked in Bill's life is available and working in your life as well. We want to show you these testimonies not so that you can be awestruck by a person and go, "Wow, there's something special about them." It's that God has something special, and He's doing things all around us, and He'll do that same thing in your life. Hopefully that's a source of great encouragement to you.
Our Passage: Galatians 2:15-21
Open your Bibles, if you would, to the book of Galatians. The passage we're looking at today is Galatians chapter two, verse 15 through 21. If you need a Bible, raise your hand. The guys will bring it to you. If you get a Bible from us, it's page 631.
This morning at 6:47, I took all of the notes I had and threw them away and started over. Only because I'm trying to get my arms around this. Tim and I talked about this because the last three weeks, this week and the next two are very much the same theme. I don't want to run away from that and go, "Gosh, I need to come up with something new." Paul did not seem compelled to come up with something new. Obviously he has a point in this repetition.
What I want to do today is look at these verses and make sure we understand the context. But I want to spend the bulk of the time on verses 16 and probably verse 20. What I'd love to do is take a little extra time as I read through and make some comments along the way, knowing that I'm not necessarily going to get back to every one of these verses. But let's make sure that we keep this in the context.
The Context: Paul's Letter to the Galatians
Paul is writing this letter to who he describes in verse two as the churches plural in Galatia. That's a region in Asia. He's writing to churches, primarily churches, that he visited and planted, and he's now moved on. He has gotten word that coming in behind him is a group of guys called the Judaizers.
What they are is this: they are Jews who are saying to these Gentiles—remember now what's happened? Up to this point, the gospel has been Jews preaching to Jews. As the message goes out to the Gentiles, an issue arises, and the issue is this: Do Gentiles, as they become Christians, need to first become Jews? Do they need to hear the ceremonial law and the laws of Judaism?
Paul's answer is definitely not. The Judaizers are coming back, and what they do is they attack Paul's authenticity as an apostle, and then the message. They're coming back and they're saying, "Listen, here's what Paul's preaching, and Paul's message is salvation by grace through faith. That's not the gospel. It's part of the gospel to some extent, but that's not the gospel."
The Gospel at Stake
Paul, understanding that this is a huge issue, recognizes that the gospel itself is at stake. We can talk all the time amongst ourselves about where do you draw lines? What are the issues you go to the mat for? There's some of those issues that are totally preference. There's some that are even biblical issues, but we don't feel necessarily that they rise to the point that we need to get into this huge battle.
But when it comes to the gospel, that's the very heart of the Christian faith. We have no choice but to hit those issues when the gospel's attacked. When the gospel is screamed out, we have no option but to respond and go, "Listen, this is the gospel. This is the center of the Christian faith."
Paul's Validation in Jerusalem
Paul tells us in chapter two that after 14 years, he went back to Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus, and he submitted to Peter and James and John the gospel that he preached. The gospel that he preached is the gospel of salvation by grace through faith.
He took with him Barnabas and Titus, and Titus was an uncircumcised Greek. Paul gives us the information in chapter two, verse three that at the end of the time, what happened actually is that they decided—the pillars of the church decided—that to circumcise Titus would be to, in fact, somehow cave into the Judaizers. It would give them some sort of support to their message. They said, "No, the gospel is salvation by grace through faith and nothing is added to it."
The Confrontation in Antioch
We saw last week that the scene shifted from Jerusalem to Antioch. At Antioch, what had happened is Peter had come to Antioch, and when Peter got among the Gentiles, he ate with them, he celebrated with them, he went to church with them. Then the Judaizers came in and said, "Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute," and Peter caved.
Paul confronts him—chapter two, verse 11—he opposed him to his face. Why? Verse 14, the truth of the gospel is at stake. He opposed him in the presence of all, because this had taken place in front of everyone. This is where we left off: "If you, being a Jew, live like a Gentile, not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like a Jew?"
He's saying, "Listen, you came with this great sense of freedom. You came understanding the gospel."
Paul Confronts Peter's Hypocrisy
When the Judaizers came and the opposition arose, Peter caved in, ran away, and presented a breach in terms of fellowship. To me, the one that you scratch your head about is in verse 13—Barnabas. This is Barnabas who had been with Paul on all of these occasions. He had seen the miracles, works, signs, and wonders that had happened in Paul's ministry. He'd been a huge supporter of Paul from the very beginning, and yet Barnabas, because of the fear of man, pulled away just like Peter. So Paul confronts him.
My assumption is you understand that when the churches at Galatia would get this letter, they would sit down and read it. We're spending thirteen or fourteen weeks on it, and consequently we're making breaks and taking times where we stop and begin that they wouldn't necessarily stop and begin. These sections sometimes divide easily, but this is a section that continues, so I want to continue that thought and come back to what, to me, is the big idea of this passage.
The Heart of Paul's Argument
As I read through it and make some observations along the way, it begins with the first word of verse 15. He says "we," and he uses that plural personal pronoun four times in verses 15, 16, and 17. "We are Jews"—so he means he, Peter, and all of those who by birth were Jews. He said, "We who by nature are Jews by nature, not sinners from among the Gentiles." So he said we're not Gentile sinners—we're just Jewish sinners.
Verse 16 becomes huge. This is one of those verses that if you make a list—every once in a while I'll make a suggestion—you've got to have in the front of your Bible, on your phone, or in an iPad, just a list of verses that you come back to again and again. This would be one of them. This is a really important verse.
"Nevertheless, knowing that a man is not justified"—so it's the first time he's used that word in this book, and it becomes a key word, a central idea. What do I have to do to be declared righteous before God? "A man is not justified by works of the law, but is justified through faith in Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus so that we may be justified by faith in Christ, not by works of law, since by the works of law, no flesh will be justified."
So there's the big idea: to be in right standing before God requires faith in Christ, not in any human effort.
Christ Cannot Be a Minister of Sin
Verse 17 is kind of an odd verse. "But if while seeking to be justified in Christ"—so here I am saying Jesus is Lord—"we ourselves also are found sinners." So he said if that doesn't save me, if I'm not justified in that, then we have a really big problem: "Christ is a minister of sin." In his paraphrase, Eugene Peterson says Christ is an accessory of sin.
Here's what Jesus said: to be saved or delivered or justified, I need to believe in Him. "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, you will be saved." "For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son, whosoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life." If salvation is works or has a works component to it, then even Jesus now is a minister of sin. He said obviously, "May that never be."
Paul's Personal Testimony
Now he shifts the personal pronoun from plural to singular. He said, "For if I rebuild what I once destroyed"—so if I go back into this form of Judaism—"I proved myself to be a transgressor." If I go back and understand salvation by grace through faith, and I come back and now start to add to it works—and we'll talk in a minute about what that can have all shapes and sizes and looks—if I go back and add to it, I'm a transgressor.
"For through the law, I died to the law"—so I'm not responsible to the law. Why? "So that I might live to God." All the law produces in me, if I go back up to verse 16 the last part, is condemnation of the flesh, not justification of it.
"I have been crucified with Christ"—so I was with the law, not now. Now I'm crucified with Christ—"so it's not only I who live, but Christ who lives in me." It's not me living for God; it's Christ living in me. "And the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who"—and this is huge, the last part of verse 20, His motivation for all that God does—"loved me, and He demonstrated His love." His love is demonstrative in this way: He gave Himself for me.
"I don't nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died needlessly."
Paul's Credentials Under the Law
If you look at verses 15, 16, 17, 18, and 19, he's giving us this battle, this picture. What he's saying is: listen, I understood the law. As it relates to Judaism, I am supreme in that effort.
Keep your finger right there and turn to the right two books, to the book of Philippians. Just to remind you—I think we looked at this two or three weeks ago—where Paul talks about his pedigree as it relates to salvation by faith versus salvation by flesh, and by that he means through human effort, through what I do.
He says in Philippians chapter 3 verse 4, "If anyone else has mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more." Now he talks about his heritage: "I was circumcised on the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, as to the law a Pharisee, as to zeal a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness which is in the law found blameless."
So if we work our way back up from the end to the top, he's saying: as it relates to the law, I'm blameless, and in terms of righteousness that could be found in the law, I've followed it all.
The church, the Christian movement as it began to gain ground. I didn't just condemn it, I persecuted it with the understanding of what God taught in that Old Testament. I just didn't study it. I was a Pharisee and supreme among them.
But Paul says, "Here's Paul said that's all my human effort. But whatever things were gained to me, all those things I now count as loss for the sake of Christ." And He said here's the supreme value in verse 8: knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. It's not understanding about Him. It's knowing Him in a personal way, having a personal relationship with Him.
Verse 10 says, "that I might know Him and not just Him, but with it comes the power of the resurrection, the fellowship of His sufferings." And He goes on to say, "I haven't already obtained all this" in verse 12. "I'm not perfect. But I regard myself not as having laid hold of it. But one thing I do is I forget what lies behind, I reach forward to what lies ahead, and I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
So He's saying here was all that—well, all of those things are but filthy rags. All of those things, if you will, the King James says they're dung as compared to the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. And so He's taking and speaking specifically now to the Jewish heritage and the Jewish faith, and He said for us to go back into that is a denial of the gospel.
The Question of Justification
In the book of Job, Job begins to deal with his friends and he has a friend named Bildad. And Bildad asks a question that's recorded in Job chapter 25 verse 4. He said, "How then can a man be just with God? How can a holy God accept a sinful man?" Differently, how can a sinful man appease a holy God?
Throughout history, there's been essentially two answers to the question. And the two answers have been this: either through man's effort or through grace by faith. Those are the only two options. Those are the only two possibilities.
Two Buckets of Religion
So when we talk about religion, we talk about two big buckets. In one bucket is biblical Christianity. In the other bucket is everything else. In the other bucket is anything that would fall in the category of religion. And all of those other religions other than biblical Christianity have a component with them of human effort.
So what I want to do is take the whole Jewish thing we've been looking at and set that aside for a while and try to get into our grill here. So we don't have probably maybe a handful of you who have a Jewish tradition, maybe some but not many. But you have a bunch of you have a Catholic background. How many of you have come from a Catholic background? A bunch of you. Methodist? Yeah, they don't usually hang long here. Yeah, I know. Lutherans, Episcopalians, Mormon background.
But we just take all of them and just bundle them together. And though they're nuanced, you see that conflict. On this side you have salvation by grace through faith. On this you have everything else.
And what He's saying to you and me is your Catholicism isn't saving you. Your Mormonism isn't saving you. Your Methodism isn't saving you. Episcopalian's not saving. Whatever those things are, they aren't saving you. They're not redeeming you. And I would go so far—this is me now—I go so far as to say they're likely in the way.
The Easter and Christmas Problem
A couple of years ago I was either at Easter or Christmas, I don't remember which, but I was in kind of a funky mood. And in the whole process of all of that, during the message what happened was I was asking people—and the staff said we shouldn't do this again, so we won't do it again, but I want to make the point. They're not here now anyway, I'll make that point. I said I don't understand why you come in Easter and Christmas. I don't understand why you would come and join us on Easter and Christmas.
And here's my fear. It's not that you aren't welcome, but my fear is rather than help you, it gets in the way because you walk away and say, "Gee, I go on Easter and Christmas."
So Paul saying about his Judaism—you know, we can say it about our Catholicism, we can say about any of these—none of those things get me right with God. And strict adherence to them could actually get in the way because it feeds the flesh. It feeds the idea that I'm doing something.
The False Security of Religious Works
So you have biblical Christianity and then everything else. Now everything else may have Jesus in it. So if you sit down and—I mean, I just, let's talk about, I mean I know Catholics because Catholic grade school, high school, college. I understand Catholicism. I'll just stay there. I don't even need to get into any others.
They're going to say to you, "Jesus died for my sin." All right, I'm down with that. But when you push them, you're going to find one of two things: either A) same language, different dictionary—have different terms, or B) Jesus died for my sin and I need to do something.
So when my father died, there were a whole bunch of people who spent money on masses for his benefit and to somehow either save his soul or move his soul from purgatory into heaven. And I, you know, I mean here you go: when he died, he's either in heaven or hell. That's the end of it. You can burn candles and say masses till you're green. It isn't moving him. The die is cast.
And what's deeper in this whole conversation—and I've had a thousand of them—is when you get into that, you're demonstrating that you don't believe salvation is by grace through faith. There's still something to do. The whole idea of a purgatory, the whole idea is that there's something left to do.
Listen, it's either biblical Christianity or everything else. They're all the same. They're human effort. You do something, you don't do this. It's Lent. We'll give up candy for 40 days. I would always give up asparagus—anything great. Yeah, I would give up anything green except chocolate mint ice cream, but I would give up anything great. And I'm not trying to belittle that, I'm not trying to be frivolous, but I'm saying...
This is really serious. This is the biggest issue you'll ever deal with: How am I as a sinful person justified before a holy God? Because indeed that's my dilemma. The Bible says we come into this world separated from God because of our sin. The wages of sin is death. That death means not just physical death, but death has with it the idea of separation—that my sin has separated me from God. This is the condition Paul tells us in Romans chapter 3 verse 23 and Romans chapter 6 verse 23 that all of us are in. There is no exception to this.
The Universal Problem of Sin
Let's turn to Romans chapter 3. Paul issues what is a blanket indictment against all of mankind. Here's what Paul says in Romans chapter 3 verse 10: "There is none righteous, not even one. There's none who understands. There's none who seeks for God. All have turned aside, together they become useless. There is none who does good, no not one."
There's something in us that when we read that we go, "Wait a minute, that's not true. What about Nana? Nana was so good. Nana could bake..." But what the Bible says is even the good things that Nana did, she did them with a wrong heart.
I always use Thanksgiving dinner as an illustration. Ladies will spend six, seven, eight hours preparing Thanksgiving dinner, and you'll always say it's for everybody. Then you'll bemoan the fact that it's over in 10 or 15 minutes. Now, I would suggest you didn't do it for everybody—you did it for yourself. If that's the case, you wouldn't care if it took them five, 10, 20 minutes, or an hour. The Bible shows us our heart is just wicked.
The Futility of Human Works
This is a gigantic point: when I do anything to try to please God, all I do is present my sinful wickedness to Him. Anything that I do to try to comply with the law, any effort, is not from a pure motive.
That's why when Paul goes on in verse 19, still in Romans 3: "Now we know that whatever the law says, it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth will be closed, and all the world may become accountable. Because by the works of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight." The works of the law—in this case, it's the law of Judaism, but it's the law of man, it's the flesh.
For all of us have sinned and are separated from God. But in verse 21: "But apart from the law, the righteousness of God is manifested."
The Central Question
So we come back to this very basic question: What must I do to be saved? How does a holy God accept a sinful man? How does a sinful man do anything that's good before a holy God?
The wage of sin is death. Here's the bad news: our sin and its effect is that we are dead in our sins and trespasses, separated from God, helpless, nothing we can do. But not hopeless, because Christ died so that we might have eternal life.
Justification by Faith
Let's go back to Galatians chapter 2, verse 16: "Know that a man is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Christ Jesus, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law."
The word "justified" is really an important term, central to the understanding of the gospel. It's a legal term used in a court of law. It means to be innocent or acquitted, cleared of all charges, declared righteous. It's the opposite of condemned or guilty. What Paul is saying here is we are acquitted and innocent, forgiven, pardoned—not based on anything that we do, but based completely on what Christ did.
The Importance of This Doctrine
The emphasis can't be too great on this. J.I. Packer writes: "The doctrine of justification by faith is like Atlas—it bears a world on its shoulders, the entire evangelical knowledge of saving grace. When Protestants let the thought of justification drop out of their minds, the true knowledge of salvation drops with it, and cannot be restored until the truth of justification is in its proper place."
Luther claims: "If the doctrine of justification is lost, the whole of Christianity is lost."
Two Approaches to Justification
There it is in verse 16—his whole point is really simple. There are two approaches to justification, two approaches by which man claims to be able to be just before God. One is through human efforts—it's called "the works of the law" here. The other is through faith, and it's through faith in Christ, that Christ died for our sin.
Martin Luther writes: "The true meaning of Christianity is this: that a man first acknowledges through the law that he is a sinner, for whom it is impossible to perform any good works. If you want to be saved, your salvation doesn't come by works, but God sent His only Son into the world that we might live through Him. He was crucified and died for you and bore your sins in His body once and for all."
What Faith Means
What does it mean to have faith in Christ? It means to believe Jesus is who He said He was, that you're who He says you are. This is the solution to the problem that's plagued man from the beginning of creation, and it hasn't changed since the beginning of time.
I was doing my preparation this morning and Tim walked through and said he found a note in the chapel. It was laying there this morning. It's a journal entry, and the date on it is November 23rd, 2009. My hope is we've cleaned this room since 2009, so my suspicion is somebody had it in their Bible and it fell out. I want to read it to you and then approach this from a couple of different angles.
So you could try it through athletics. You could try it through money. You can try it through achieving that perfect relationship—if I get that girl, I'll be happy, or that guy, I'll be happy, or that scholarship. This is a cry for help: "I hope it fills what's missing in our life," but there's no definition of what's missing. It's got the evidence of an empty life. It's sad. I want to run away. I'm sick and overwhelmed.
So let's deal with this, because maybe you're here this morning, and this would represent your heart. Maybe you need Jesus. It may be that what's wrong is that sin has separated you from God, and what you're feeling at that moment is that isolation from Him.
The Need for Reconciliation
We talk about Christmas, we talk about God and sinner reconciled. The book of Romans is telling us, while I was an enemy of God, while I was a sinner, while I was at war with God. We got that, right? That term reconcile—let's make sure we understand it.
If I say to you, "Bob and I have been reconciled," you don't know anything else. That's the only sentence you know about me or him. But based on that, there had to be some preexisting hostilities. If we say, "We are now reconciled," then there are these preexisting hostilities. That's the evidence of my sin.
So it may be here today, and you've gone maybe from church to church to church, and religion to religion. Or maybe you've been here for a long time, and you've worked in student ministries and children's ministries. You're working and working and working and working and working, but you don't—you're just pooped.
Well, what does Jesus say? "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened. I'll give you rest." It's pooped, not from work—it's pooped from working out my salvation. So that may be what you need. If that's you, or you're going, "I'm not exactly sure what He said," when the service is over, you're in the conference center, you're in the chapel. You need to come and meet with the people. Men and women will be in the front of the church.
When Believers Face Emptiness
Here's what I'm afraid some of us miss: This could be written easily by a follower of Christ. Just because I know Jesus doesn't mean my life is smooth and easy.
I know Bill Berger a little bit, and he alluded to a study. He comes to one of the studies I do on Thursday morning, and I'm telling you, when you hear the stories of what God's doing in his life, it's amazing. But some of you have had those experiences, haven't you? Maybe it's when God first saved you, and everything was so alive.
I remember a friend of mine came down, and he was thinking about moving here. He and I went to grade school and high school together, and we were over at Southern and Alma School, going into Mimi's for breakfast. We got out of the car and he said, "Look at that sunrise." And I said, "Eh, it's like that every day."
Now, I remember driving down—I drove at night and came into Flagstaff at night and woke up the next morning. I was right there down by the south end of town. I woke up and I saw the San Francisco Peaks and I was stunned. The sunsets that we have—but pretty soon, you go, "Eh, got any sunglasses?"
You came to Christ and it was as alive to you as it was to Bill Berger, and God was doing these things. But maybe over time, you just kind of drifted away. Maybe it's the disciplines, maybe it's all the routine. There was that sense where He was so close, you could feel Him. Now He feels so far away, you even wonder if He cares.
So this could be you: not sure what to do, feeling sad and empty, want to run away. You ever feel like that? Just want to run. I don't even know where. I'm overwhelmed. I want to quit.
The Hound of Heaven
There's the deal: He's the hound of heaven. He won't let you run. You can run from Him, I guess, but you can't hide. The same Jesus you needed for salvation is the same Jesus you need to get through today. It's the same Jesus you need for your next breath. And that's what He's saying.
You go down to verse 20: "I've been crucified with Christ." I'm identified with Christ. I used to be united with the law and now I'm united with Christ. In fact, it's not even I who
live, but it's Christ who lives in me. It's Him who does all of this work in me. It's the fruit of the Spirit. We'll see that later in this book. It's the things that the Spirit produces in me. He's the vine. I'm the branches. He's the one who produces this.
I've said it a thousand times. Anything you see in my life that's bad, that's me. Everything you see as good is Christ working in me. That's what he did. It's not I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I live, I live in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son of God. That's what gets me through today.
The Perfect Love of God
And here's the thing that maybe you even hear more. Him who loved me. How do I know? He gave His life for me. Love is a magnificent thing that all of us crave. And we all have it at different levels. I've talked to people who have never experienced love and never felt love. Some people feel very loved.
We're going to look for love. We're going to look for it in all places and all different things. And typically, in the course of it, we're going to look at it in human relationships. And even in human relationships, no matter how much we genuinely love someone and how committed we are to them, we're still going to disappoint them or hurt them even if we declare that love. But something will happen. Something will reveal that or the other person will do something and that generates a feeling.
But here's the deal. This to me is the mind-blowing reality is that God loves you perfectly. And He'll never leave you and He'll never forsake you and He'll never let you down. He knows exactly what you need and He'll give it to you. He may not give it to you in your timetable. He may not even give you the specific thing you need but you'll say, "I want this thing because it'll result in this." And He'll say, "No, I'll give you this over here and that'll give you that and it's better."
He's never going to say to you, "If I knew that about you, I would have never declared my love for you." That while we were separated from God in this helpless state, at just the right time, Christ died so we would have everlasting life.
Christ's Voluntary Sacrifice
He gave Him, last part of verse 20, He gave Himself up for us. Jesus says this in John 10:17-18, "I lay down my life that I may take it up again and no one has taken it away from me. I lay it down on my own initiative. I have authority to lay it down. I have authority to take it up again." Voluntarily, Jesus went to the cross and under no compulsion, by the way, did God have to save you but out of His love, He did.
Turn, keep your finger, I don't even know if you need your finger there anymore. We're going to go to the right, book of Ephesians. In a small group and we meet three or four sessions through the year for a period of five or six weeks at a time and we're studying the book of Ephesians and we just started the study this week and we were looking at the very beginning of this.
So verse three, He's blessed us with spiritual, every spiritual blessing. Verse four, He chose us in Him. Now we just look at the term "in Christ." I think it was there three or four times in Galatians 2:16. It's here eight times in verses three through 13 here. He chose us in Him before the foundations of the world. He predestined us to adoption.
The Purpose of Predestination
And we had this discussion and you know where this is going to go. We had this discussion on the doctrines of grace and predestination and election and all the things that go with it and obviously I feel really strongly about those truths and it was not a new discussion. It's a discussion like every one I've ever had for guys who were objecting to it and they would say, "But I don't know if that's true" and they'd say "if that's true, what about this" and they'd never deal with the context of is it true and what God says and the Bible teaches it and how do you get around this?
But what struck me and maybe it's just where I am in my own life, maybe it's in the study of the book of Galatians is I don't think God gave us these truths so that we would get together and then all of a sudden see this and start to just break down and have fights and disputes over these truths with all of our friends. I had one year, one of the teams that have spring training here, that particular year, the entire pitching staff would come to our house on Sunday night for a Bible study and it got into the doctrines of grace and I think it was in May, about the middle of May, the pitching staff of this team decided they couldn't talk about it anymore because it had become so divisive on the pitching staff.
Now, I believe these are true. God chose you before the foundations of the earth. I'd be a fool to say it's not true because that's what it says and I believe He adopted you and you're predestined but here's the point to me. I think He tells you that so we understand how deeply He really does love you.
Understanding God's Deep Love
I think He tells you that listen, this was the condition you were in. You were helpless and hopeless and you had no way out but by my grace and my mercy, motivated by my love, I can stand up here and tell you that if you know Christ is your Lord and Savior, I'll tell you this, He loves you with a very special, deep love and that love will never change. That love will never get more for you or less based on your performance. Isn't that an amazing truth? There's a great freedom in that and that shouldn't make you say, "Oh boy, I can sin." It should make you want to love Him more. Isn't that it?
Like that, you remember back that first time, there you are together, you're dating, hanging out and then one of you, because one of you's got to say it first but it's a scary thing to say because you put it out there and they go, "What? Huh, really, hmm, I don't like you very much." But so many of you are going to say, "I love you" and the minute you hear that, there's something about it because kind of even if you don't love the other person, it's like, "Well, I love you too" because love kind of generates love.
He says, "I love you and I'll prove it to you. I'll send Jesus to die."
Your Greatest Need is Justification
The life I live, Christ lives in me. He said you're a new creature. All that stuff, all those things, all that past sin and failure, all those things that you're embarrassed by, all those things that maybe you're going, "There's no way God could ever forgive this."
If it's not the saddest, it's one of the saddest moments I've ever had teaching. I was talking about forgiveness and a guy came up afterwards and he's just bawling. He's a drug guy and he had left some drugs. He had the old shag, some of the drugs got in the carpet and his kid had taken them, his little baby. I don't know, the baby was like two. So the baby had all problems.
Here's what he said when we were all done. He said, "There's no way God could ever forgive me for what happened." I'm here to tell you, listen, that's what God does is forgive. All you have to do is come to Him. He's waiting to say you're forgiven. He's a God who loves you.
Some of you say, "Oh, I've never done anything like that," but you're just as lost. It doesn't take any more grace to save Jeffrey Dahmer than it does to save you. Those are those whole games we play. You're a new creature - there's the good news.
The Love That Sustains You
I read and I get it, but you may be a follower of Christ and this may be you - that there's something still missing and you feel empty. I can tell you the love that saved you is the love that will sustain you. It's not just Jesus to get to heaven. It's Jesus to get through the day. It's not just Jesus to get in the bed, and that's great. But it's the Jesus that sustains me when I look at someone and say, "I don't know if I can do it. I don't even know if I want to do this."
Sometimes your heart is so broken and so heavy and so achy, and human relationships will do that to you. Spouse will blow out on you. Child will rebel against you. A friend will deny you. The job goes away. Life is filled with those disappointments, but the one place I'll never be disappointed is in Jesus.
That's what He says: "Don't be afraid. I'll never leave you or forsake you." A lot of people will, and even the ones that stay, it's an imperfect love.
Four Essential Points About Justification
Let me give you four points really quickly here because it's the perfect summary of what we've talked about.
Number one: your greatest need is justification or acceptance by God. The greatest need you have is to somehow, as a sinful person, be accepted by a holy God.
Number two: justification isn't by works through the law, but it's by faith in Christ. You need redemption and the only place you're going to find it is in Christ, not through your effort. Martin Luther wrote, "I must hearken to the gospel which teaches me not what I ought to do, but what Jesus Christ the Son of God has done for me - that He suffered and died and delivered me from sin and death."
The third thing is: to not trust in Christ is to become filled with self-trust and insult both the grace of God and the cross. When you say, "I need to do this to be saved," what you're saying is, "Jesus, You didn't accomplish what You said on the cross." When you say, "This is what I need to do. I need to adhere to this law. I need to obey in this way. I need to respond" - no, I'm saved by grace through faith.
It Is Finished
When Jesus said, "It is finished," this is so important. This gets to the very essence of what Christ did on the cross. When Jesus said, "It is finished," what He meant was all that needs to be done for the salvation of His people through all time has been accomplished on the cross.
If you say that there's something you need to do, then what you're saying is that on the cross Jesus saved nobody - He only made salvation possible. That's a big difference. Christ didn't die to make salvation possible. Christ died to save His people from their sin.
The last point is: to trust in Christ is to become united with Him. In fact, because we're in Christ, we're more than justified. We've actually died and we've risen with Him, and the life we live is Him living in us.
The A to Z of Christianity
I hope that's a message of encouragement and reminder for sure. It's just the gospel. But you know what? That's all we really have to preach. As we said last week, Tim Keller said the gospel isn't just the ABCs of Christianity, it's the A to Z of Christianity.
Paul's context is within the Judaizers. Yours may be with some faith in the past or just your inclination. Human nature will always say, "I will be justified before God by what I do." Biblical Christianity will always say what you do is nothing but sin, and God will never accept that. He could only accept you when you have what we saw in verse 16: faith in Christ.
Faith Is More Than Mental Assent
Faith is more than mental assent. Again, if I was talking to somebody from a Catholic Church, they would say, "I believe Jesus Christ died for my sin, but I need to..." No, no, no. It's not to believe Jesus died for your sin mentally - a mental assent. It's to believe in a way that I'm trusting Him and Him alone.
It's not going to happen this way, but it would be like this: if I were to die and stand before God and He would say, "Why should I let you, Tom, into heaven?" I'd say - well, I'm paraphrasing now - "You're kind of stuck, because You really shouldn't let me in because I really haven't done anything to deserve this. But here's what You said: You said if I believe in Jesus and His death, that I'm in, because that's how I'm justified."
I am so united with Christ that when God looks at me, He sees Jesus. He doesn't even see my sin because they're washed away by what Christ accomplished on the cross. Like I said, this has been the story from the beginning of history of man.
Next week we look at a great example - Old Testament example. Look at the life of Abraham.
Father, we thank You for the gospel, the good news that Jesus accomplished what we couldn't for ourselves. In the cross we found everything we need pertaining to salvation. God, I pray now that we would live lives that would bring honor and glory to You. We pray that in Christ's name.