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prayer, to ready our hearts to
hear the Word of God. And we just pray that Christ
would hear those prayers that we've just offered up to Him
in that hymn, and that He would meet with us by the power of
His Spirit and the truth of His Word, and that He would have
His way in our hearts, that He would call sinners to themselves,
to Christ. And for us who are there in the
pews, here in this building, who are Christians, that our
faith would be strengthened in Christ. Amen. Amen. Okay, would you turn with me
please to Galatians? Galatians chapter 2 I'll read
for you verses 19 through chapter 3 verse 3 Galatians 2 19 We'll start there. Let me just
say just pastorally speaking I've Been wanting to preach this
sermon to you as one of your pastors here to encourage your
hearts as these truths that will open up today have encouraged
my own heart. The importance of ongoing faith
in the Lord Jesus Christ as believers, our ongoing grasp of the gospel
of grace, how crucial that is for our ongoing sanctification. So I let the cat out of the bag
early here, but that's what's deep, upon my heart is to encourage
brothers and sisters in your continued grasp of the Lord Jesus
Christ for our own progress in holiness. And Paul has that upon
his heart here in this passage. So let me read this passage for
us first, and then we'll continue on in opening it up by God's
grace. So here, Galatians 2, chapter
2, verses 19. I'll read down to 3, 3. 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. O foolish Galatians, who has
bewitched you? It was before your eyes that
Christ Jesus was publicly portrayed as crucified. Let me ask you
only this. Did you receive the Spirit by
works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are
you now being perfected by the flesh? Let me open up with some
imagery here. You know, my wife and her family,
they call kind of headquarters there San Francisco in the Outer
Mission District, Excelsior District, and so forth. Well, close to
where my in-laws live and where Shirley's, one of her sisters,
still is at. There's a high hill there. It's
the highest hill in all of San Francisco, and it's called Mount
Davidson. And at the top of that hill is a concrete cross. And there is a path that is well
traveled that leads from the parking area to that cross on
the very top of Mount Davidson. You encounter various things
on that path. In some areas on that path, it's
dirt. Sometimes it's small rocks. Sometimes
on that path, you're covered by tall, beautiful, fragrant
eucalyptus trees. That is, if you like the fragrance
of eucalyptus. Sometimes on that path, it's barren. And you just
see a panoramic view of the city below you. Many different things
you see. Sometimes even on the path you
see the Pacific Ocean. But no matter where you are on
that path going up to that stone cross, underneath is solid rock. It's bedrock. And it's what makes
the path stable. It's that rock beneath you. This
is similar to the path of holiness in the Christian life. There
are many things on this path that God uses to make us more
holy. For instance, our Bible reading and listening to the
preaching of God's word, God uses as means of grace to propel
us forward in our growth in holiness. Sometimes on this path to holiness,
God uses other means of grace like prayer and fasting to cause
us to be more holy. Sometimes on this path to holiness,
we've come across wonderful Christian books or maybe a spiritual retreat
that you go on. They all help us towards holiness.
Sometimes it's even suffering that God uses to refine us, to
make us more holy and to make us more like Christ. But whatever
we encounter on the path to holiness, underneath that path to holiness,
brothers and sisters, is the solid rock of the gospel of grace. It's the gospel of grace that
gives us that solid rock beneath us. And the gospel of grace calls
us to ongoing faith in Jesus with the power of the Holy Spirit.
And in so doing, we will make progress on this path to holiness. Now, we can see this path to
holiness using that metaphor and thinking about what Paul
has written in many of his epistles. That path to holiness, we can
see covering, as it were, or in various parts of Paul's epistles.
For instance, in the book of Romans in chapters 6 through
10, we can find this path to holiness. And the very bedrock
beneath it in Paul's writing is the gospel of grace. There,
Paul emphasizes our need of ongoing faith in Christ and the power
of the Spirit. And we see Paul in his epistles,
how he teaches us that sanctification is a cooperative process. That is, in this process of sanctification,
God is working and the Christian is working on this same path. And God's work, of course, is
the most important. And through the believers' union
with Christ, Paul tells us there in Romans, God works by His grace
to make us more holy. And then on the other hand, he
also talks about that the Christian also has to work hard in the
process of sanctification. Not only is God working in the
process, But brothers and sisters, you and I have to work in the
process too. The believer, for instance, needs to, to use Paul's
terminology, we need to, for instance, put off some of those
old fleshly habits we took on before we were Christians that
still bug us. In a flip side or the inverse of that, not only
do we need to put off those old habits by the power of the Holy
Spirit and the grace of God, but we need to put on new habits,
fashioned according to God's word and by the power of the
Holy Spirit, all covered by God's grace. And as the believer works,
we must keep depending upon the Spirit and upon Christ for the
power to mature. For instance, in Philippians
2, another epistle of Paul's. In verses 12 through 13, we see
Paul talking about this cooperation of God and the believer in the
process of sanctification. Paul writes in that passage in
Philippians, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Who's at work? Who's he addressing? You and
me. But then he goes on and says,
for it is God who works. in you, both to will and to do,
for his good pleasure." Notice Paul says the Christian is working
in sanctification as well. But then Paul also emphasizes
the believer needs to know and depend upon God's gracious working
in us. as that brother and sister works
and seeks to become more holy. And so in our passage today,
going back to Galatians, Paul is going to emphasize this second
element in sanctification. That is, in the process of sanctification,
the believer needs to continue to depend upon Christ and upon
his spirit. And so this morning, I want us
to go to the book of Galatians, as we have. We're going to be
taking a look at this passage, but I'm going to take in a little
bit more of the context to understand what Paul is saying in the passage
that I read to you earlier. And there we'll also see, here
in this passage, the Apostle Paul will be emphasizing the
gospel of grace. That gospel of grace is the very
bedrock on the path to sanctification. I believe Paul wrote the book
of Galatians. In verse 2, Paul tells us he
wrote the book, quote, to the churches, plural, of Galatia. As the gospel spread through
the area of Galatia, Gentiles as well as Jews were saved. And
then Jewish false teachers came into their midst. And these teachers
taught Christians they needed to keep the law, keep the law
in order to be saved and in order to mature. It was kind of a two-edged
sword, this false teaching. Paul heard about this, and he
was very upset with the Galatian Christians for following these
false teachers. They had left the gospel of grace
path to holiness. They were now following a false
gospel. In this book in Galatians, Paul's
tone is very direct. When you look at Paul's epistles,
oftentimes he's very polite. He gives a greeting, of course,
under the inspiration of God. He oftentimes rehearses his calling
as an apostle. And then he greets the brethren
with grace. And then he slowly starts to
introduce main topics of what he's going to cover in the rest
of the epistle. He gives an introduction, but not here in Galatians. If
you look back in chapter 1, notice how direct he is. He has a greeting,
Paul, an apostle, and so forth. Verse 3, he says, grace to you
and peace. from God, our Father, and the
Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, he's got his greeting.
But listen to the intro. He goes right after him. I am
astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you
in the grace of Christ. It's been observed that this
is one of the most intense of all of his epistles. And why
is he being so direct? Brethren, it's because he loves
the Galatian brothers and sisters. Something drastic has happened
in their midst. They have departed from the gospel
of grace, and he is so concerned with them. It's kind of like
us as parents who have kids. Sometimes our tone will pick
up. And we'll really get urgent with our son or daughter or sons
and daughters, won't we? Sometimes we're very nice and
we're very diplomatic with them, but when they do something and
we know they're in danger right now or in the future because
of a bad habit they're forming, we get really urgent with them
and we quickly jump in. We all know that experience,
who've been parents. Paul is doing that. He loves
these dear people, and something drastic and very dangerous has
happened. They've departed from the gospel
of grace. So in this passage, in this whole epistle, his tone
is very direct. And this is because, again, he's
very concerned for them. So Paul is seeking to persuade
them to return to the gospel path for their lives. And he
uses a complex argument to convince them to do this. And Paul argues
from the perspective of powerful experiences. As I try to simplify
his argument, the best I can do is to say that he's arguing
in his very intricate argumentation here in chapters 2 and 3 to persuade
them to get onto the gospel path. He's bringing up experiences,
his experience with the gospel, the Galatians' experience with
the gospel of grace, and Abraham's experience in the Old Testament
with the grace of God and the importance of faith. And so our
passage is right in the middle of his complex argument here,
and we've read the text already. So we will take a look at two
things today. We're just gonna take a look
at the first two experiences that Paul brings up in his argumentation.
Paul's experience and the Galatians' own experience with the gospel
of grace, okay? That's where we're going. So
first off, Paul's experience. In chapter two, Paul brings up
his own experience. And from his experience, he argues
for a life of ongoing faith in Jesus Christ. Now here's where
we're going to actually go back and take a little more of the
context to understand what's going on. We started reading
in verse 19 of chapter 2, but I'm going to go back to verse
11 here to pick up some of the context. And in chapter 2, verses
11 through 21, he recounts for the Galatians his experience
at an important meal in Antioch. He's going back in history. Here's
one of the things that he says about that important meal at
Antioch. Verses 11 and 12, if you'd look there, please. Galatians
2. Now when Peter had come to Antioch,
I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed.
For before certain men came from James, he would eat with the
Gentiles. That is, the Gentile Christians.
He would eat with them. But when they, those Jews from James came,
he withdrew, and he separated himself, fearing those who were
of the circumcision. Present at this meal in Antioch
are Paul, Barnabas, Peter, and other Jewish and Gentile believers. It's a mixed company. And they're
all eating together and enjoying wonderful Christian fellowship.
They're enjoying their freedom in Christ and their union with
Christ that has brought them together, Jewish believers and
Gentile believers. It's kind of like what we would
experience if we had it. We kind of have an international
mix here, but there are some churches that are really heavy
in an international mix, people from different countries, but
they're brothers in Christ, people from Africa, people from Europe,
people from other parts of the world, people from right here.
And it's wonderful to know what's joining us together. It's Jesus
Christ. Maybe you've experienced that in an international Christian
setting. Maybe it's at a conference that
you've gone to. Once my family and I went to
a huge conference, a, what is it, the Together for the Gospel
conference, and there were people from all over the world. People
from our own movement were there, but people from other denominations
and from other parts of the world. It was just beautiful, and I
just imagined what it would be like On that day when Christ
returns and he gathers his people and resurrects his people from
all the ages, and we're going to see people, as John wrote,
from every tribe and nation and tongue praising and blessing
God from every nation. That's happening. That's going
to be one day our own experience. And it's beautiful. In a sense,
Paul and Barnabas and Peter And these Jewish believers and these
Gentile believers there at that meal in Antioch are experiencing
the wonder of Christ's unifying power through his work upon the
cross and how the gospel cuts across all, as it were, denominational
lines and ethnicities. And they're experiencing wonderful
things. Jewish believers know they don't need to keep Torah,
dietary regulations to be saved. And when I say Torah, just as
a reminder, those are the first five books of the Bible. And
all of the writings that are in them, particularly the law
aspects, the regulations that the Old Covenant people were
required to keep. These Jewish believers knew at
the time they don't need to keep these Torah dietary regulations. These things were pointers and
types of Christ and Christ has come. Why go backwards? The fulfillment
has come. Christ has set us free from all
of these things. They're free in Christ to eat and enjoy fellowship
with their Gentile brothers and sisters. What's happened to them? They're all freely walking on
the gospel path of grace together. And it's beautiful. And then
a group of Jewish people, Jewish Christians even, from Jerusalem,
from James, though James said, I didn't send them. But they
were from his fellowship. They come, and they show up at
the meal. And they are Judaizers. They start pulling or putting
pressure on all the believers. They say, what are you doing
eating with Gentiles? They say, in order to please
God and to be accepted by God, everyone must obey Torah regulations. So Peter and Barnabas and other
Jewish believers, stop eating with the Gentiles. Right there. Can you imagine how awkward that
is? You're enjoying wonderful fellowship, and then coming through
the door, boy, here comes trouble. And they're scrutinizing the
situation. They're looking at you, and they start to criticize
you. And Peter, strong fisherman that
he is, caves. And Barnabas, the son of encouragement,
caves. And Paul is looking at, what's
going on here? Peter's getting up from the meal
table, from the dinner table, the lunch table, whatever meal
they were sharing. And he starts to walk away from the Gentiles.
And Barnabas kind of gets up and starts to head out as well.
And I can almost imagine the Judaeites are looking at him.
Yeah, go ahead, move a little bit further away from those Gentiles.
And Paul is sitting there, what in the world is happening? And Paul, seeing this situation,
is angry. He's angry. Paul says, Peter
and Barnabas are acting like hypocrites. They believe in justification
by grace alone through faith. He's not questioning their salvation. They believe in these truths
of the gospel of grace. But he knows they want to please
the Judaizers. So they pretend that they need
to keep the law in order to keep pleasing God. Let me return to
that illustration that I gave to you about Mount Davidson.
There in San Francisco, sometimes they have a thick fog. And sometimes
we get that fog, that marine layer that comes on in. It's
funny that we have a name for that. marine layer, coral. Did
you know that? Some people call it coral, the
fog, the fog bank. Coral comes swooping on in. And
sometimes coral or the fog bank will cover all of Mount Davidson. That fog rolls in from the ocean,
obviously. And if you're on Mount Davidson,
that fog can cover up that path to that stone cross. If you choose
a wrong path or get off the path and start walking through the
brush, sometimes you'll end right up or right back down, speaking
of the hill, back down to where you parked. You go, ooh, I took
a wrong turn. What's happened here at this
meal in Antioch? A fog has rolled in. A spiritual fog has rolled
in with the Judaizers. False teaching has rolled in.
The fog is now obscuring the clear gospel path. Believers
are confused. Believers are going backwards
in their faith. But Paul is not confused on the
gospel path. Paul is not going back. And from
verses 14 through 21, brothers and sisters, Paul recounts to
the Galatians, his audience in our text, what he strongly said
at that meal in Antioch. That passage is one big quotation. It's kind of like one big run-on
sentence. You know, sometimes, again, when we're upset with
our children, They've done something very dangerous, they're disobeying,
they're expressing their sinful hearts, and sometimes not only
will we be really direct with them, out of love, but sometimes
we'll go on and on and on. We kind of lecture them. I know
I do at least with our son. Okay, Dad, I can tell. I get
it. I get it, Dad. Paul is doing that here, and
he just strings on his sentences here. One big quote. In verse
16, Paul clearly reminded Peter and everyone else at the meal
about the gospel of free grace. He says, Knowing that a man is
not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus
Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might
be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law.
For by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified. This is what he said to Peter
and Parnassus and the other Jewish believers at that meal. And then
in verses 19 through 20, Paul boldly declared something else
to Peter and everyone else that was at that meal. He declared
his own personal experience with the Torah, with the law, with
the writings. He said he was dead to the law.
In other words, in Christ, he was crucified to the law. He
knew that Torah keeping would not save him and help him. He
says, verse 21, or 19, let me back up to that. For I through
the law died to the law that I might live to God. I have been
crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but
Christ lives me, in me. And get this, and the life which
I now live in the flesh, I live by faith. I live by faith in
the Son of God. who loved me and gave himself
for me." Paul was saying he no longer looked to Torah, Torah-keeping
for, or human effort. Torah-keeping is not a path to
his justification also, or to his justification. Also, Paul
was not keeping Torah as a path for his sanctification or his
holiness. Instead, for Paul, the whole
of the Christian life now is by faith in the Son of God. Paul's path to both justification
and sanctification was one. It's faith in Jesus Christ and
the gospel of grace. Why did Paul tell the Galatians
this story about this meal that they weren't even at there in
Antioch? It's because he wanted the Galatians
to learn the same lesson he taught Peter and the others there at
that meal in Antioch. Only if they stay on the gospel
path can they have justification and sanctification. That's why
he's gone backwards. He's seeing the same thing unfold
right there in the Galatian churches. Judaizers, maybe the same set
of guys. who are from Jerusalem, who are
from James, showed up there in the Galatian churches and are
causing this confusion, this fog to roll in. So after Paul
finished telling the Galatians his experience, he then goes
on and brings up the Galatians' own experience. But let me pause
here from Paul's own experience. experience there in Antioch at
that meal as well as what he says about he's no longer keeping
the law to be justified or thinking that he could be justified, nor
is he keeping it in order to be sanctified. Let's ask ourselves,
how do you believe, what do you believe about your justification,
brothers and sisters? How are you justified? I trust
you're sitting here in these pews, you won't hesitate. That
you say, I am saved by Christ's grace and through faith alone. Grace alone and faith alone.
I trust everyone can resoundingly, in your own words, in your own
way, say in your heart, I am justified. I stand declared righteousness
before God in heaven, not because of any good that I have done
or any law keeping, any law of merit that I've been able to
perform to some degree of efficiency and success. No. Only to the
cross I cling. Only to Jesus and his blood do
I look. Only because of his righteousness
and my faith in him and that righteousness that he gives me.
That's my only standing before God, and that's why he's calling
me justified. I hope all of us can declare
that, and I trust you all do. I do myself. But let me ask you
this. From justification, let's think
about sanctification. How do you believe you are sanctified? And this is where I'm really
burdened in my heart as one of your pastors, because I think
here sometimes the fog rolls in and we revert to a law-based
idea of progressing in our sanctification. We think in ways like this, only
if I read the Bible a little bit more, only if I could have
shared Christ a little bit better and didn't make that theological
mistake, maybe Christ would have been more pleased with me. Only
if I loved my wife as Christ loved the church better this
day. I sat down on the couch after work and she needed some
help to fix dinner and I said, no, I'm not gonna do that. And
I ignored her, guilty. then Christ would love me a little
bit more. What's going on when we have those thoughts? We are
not looking to this gospel path of grace, but we're thinking,
God will only love me and continue to sanctify me. He'll only continue
to accept me if I perform in a certain way. We've left the
path, just like the Galatians did, of the gospel of grace.
We're leaning back upon our merit. That's slavery. We can never
fully obey Torah or some moral principle or set of moral principles
to make us more acceptable by God. We continue to be acceptable
before God the Father because of the merits of Jesus and Jesus
alone. Do we need to keep the Ten Commandments?
Absolutely. I'm a reformed guy. I believe
in the third use of the law. It's an expression of our gratitude
towards God. It guides us in how we ought
to express our love. There's a function for the law,
the moral law. Absolutely. But never is it a
basis of merit to continue to be loved by God. Absolutely not. So I've gone ahead in my notes
and I'm lost. But let me go back here. You know my point. I'm
going to pick that up again because we'll see it all over this next
section as well. Point two, the Galatians' own
experience. We've looked at Paul's experience
at Antioch and his own experience with Torah. And now let's look
at the experience that Paul points out of the Galatians' own experience
of the gospel of grace in chapter three. Paul is talking directly
to the Galatians. He wants them to pay attention
to their own experience, and he points out their own experience
in verses 1 through 3. Please take a look at that passage
again. What is he pointing out? Well,
Let me go back one step though, before I answer that. What the
Judaizers did in Antioch is what the Jewish false teachers are
doing in the Galatian churches. The false teachers are convincing
Christians that they need to keep Torah regulations. And Paul
chides the Galatians for following these false Jewish teachers.
He says in verse one, oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched
you? Verse two. He asks them, did
you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing
of faith? From their own experience, the
Galatians know the answer. They started the Christian life
by faith in Christ. And that's their justification,
by grace. And then in verse three, Paul
asks them other questions. Are you so foolish? Having begun
in the spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Paul is saying they started the
Christian life rightly. How did they start? They started
well by responding to the gospel of Christ by faith. And they
received the Spirit, which was like proof that they were saved. But Paul says, along the way,
they changed. They started to depend again
on their human efforts. They started to keep Torah again.
They thought only by keeping Torah would God keep accepting
them. They were fooled into thinking
that law-keeping would justify and sanctify them. Because the
Galatians were trusting again in human efforts to justify them,
they were foolish. And then pay attention to this.
I want to emphasize what Paul is saying here about sanctification
and holiness. The Galatians were also foolish
to trust human effort to perfect their sanctification and holiness. The Jewish false teachers and
their teaching were like a fog. It's rolled in. It's obscured
the pathway of the gospel of grace. And according to the commentator
Longnecker, Paul was dealing there in Galatians with two main
problems in the Galatian churches. The first problem was legalism,
and we're all familiar with that. That is, the false teachers taught
that to be justified, one needs to keep the law. So, There was legalism. That's
the first thing. The false teachers were teaching
that. But the second problem was something called nomism.
And that is, these false teachers taught that to grow in sanctification. One needs to keep the Torah.
If they kept the Torah, they believed, then God would keep
loving them. And Longnecker writes, what Paul
wants his converts to see is that the Christian life is one
that starts, is maintained, and comes to culmination only through
dependence on the activity of God's spirit. And I would add,
it only culminates, it only continues, it only continues. That is our
sanctification and our progress in our sanctification. if we
continue to depend upon Jesus Christ and His grace by faith. Paul is calling the Galatians
back to the path of grace. It's a gospel path. It is the
path of ongoing faith in Jesus Christ with the power of the
Holy Spirit. That's the firm, solid rock beneath the path to
holiness. And sometimes, brothers and sisters,
we're like the Galatian believers. They're believers, but they've
lost their way. We know that we are justified
by grace through faith. However, we feel in order to
stay justified, we need to do a good job being sanctified. We feel we want God to keep loving
us and accepting us, so we had better try a little bit harder
to be more like Jesus Christ in and of ourselves. We're in
it alone. And so we, like I mentioned earlier, read more of the Bible
or engage in longer prayers, serve more, fast more, sacrifice
more. We think that by doing more,
we will become more holy. And if we are more holy, then
God is going to keep loving us and accepting us. But then our
consciences are not at peace. Who can ever give enough to such
a God? Who's holy and perfect? And I'm
flawed, even as a Christian. We think that, do we think that
reading enough of the Bible can give us that peace? Do we think
that praying enough? Do we think that giving enough? We've forgotten and we've lost
our way. We're about to lose our way. And what happens in
our hearts, there's less peace, there's less joy, There's oftentimes
less a sense of liberty and the freedom that Christ has so labored
to give to us, that Paul is so keen in recovering for the lives
of the Christians here in Galatians. You know, here in the book of
Galatians, it's been called by some the manifesto on Christian
liberty. Paul has this beautiful passage,
this verse here in Galatians 5, one that I often think about. He says this to the Galatians,
for freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore. Do not submit again to a yoke
of slavery. These Christians have submitted
there in Galatia to a yoke of slavery again because of these
Judaizers. And Paul is seeking to free them
and get them back on the path. And so what happens to us? Similarly,
we get enslaved by a mentality of doing good works or performing
in such a way. Let me read the words of another
Christian here, a professor at a Christian College, his name
is Mark Baker. He writes in his book, Building
Communities of Grace and Freedom. These wonderful words and very
insightful. As humans, we seem to have a
natural tendency to attempt to reach God or enter into a higher
state through our own efforts. We seek through our actions to
earn something from God or to appease God's wrath. In day-to-day
life, people's worth and standing are measured by their merits.
This is true in almost every aspect of life, economic, social,
educational, etc. The law of merit, not the law
of grace, reigns. Therefore, people naturally operate
according to the law of merit in relation to God and the Church,
and the Church as well. Do you hear what Professor Baker
is saying here? That we too, who celebrate the
liberty that Christ gives to us by grace through faith, we
too, because we're surrounded in a society that operates on
the law of merit, that we can take that into our churches and
into our Christian lives if we're not careful. And then we find
that our relationship with God is really when we analyze where
we are on the path of holiness. It's a law of merit and no longer
a law of grace. And we've deviated from the path.
And we're shackled. We're shackled. And we feel no
peace or freedom. Now, let me say parenthetically
here, am I saying that in the workplace and in school, I'm
a teacher, that we drop all grades and academic standards because
we want to implement a law of grace and not emphasize a law
of merit? You guys have to work hard at
your studies. No, of course not. Am I advocating that in our society
we drop a law of merit in order to get promoted up the ranks
of whatever public organization or private organization, and
you just promote people because of some other standard? No. But
I'm saying, because we're surrounded with that law of merit in every
aspect of our society, be careful that we don't put that law of
merit in our churches and in our relationship with God, that
only if we perform to this standard, will God accept us? We've gone
backwards, and we've departed from the law of grace if we do.
Be careful. Be discerning what's going on in our hearts, okay? And so, how do we clear, as it
were, this fog away? How did Paul seek to do that?
How can we do it in our lives? How do we return to the gospel
path of grace that we want to enjoy that sense of liberty and
that acceptance before God in our sanctification? Well, we
need again to believe the gospel and apply it to our lives. We
need to believe that because we are in Christ and unified
with Him, the Father fully loves and accepts us. Full stop, period. Because we're in Christ and unified
with Him, even if we blow it, And don't perfectly keep the
Ten Commandments. Because we're in Christ and unified to Him,
we're accepted by God. Amen? We need to obey Jesus'
commands out of gratitude for His grace. We need to have faith
in Jesus to perfect us. We need to remember the spiritual
disciplines themselves do not make us more holy. Rather, they
strengthen our faith to grab onto Jesus. That's the function
of the means of grace. I'll be covering that in one
of my Sunday school lessons. I'm doing a Sunday school lesson,
a mini-series on sanctification. and developing a deeper relationship
with God, a Christian spirituality, sanctification and spirituality.
And we'll get to that module where we're going to look at
the proper functioning of the means of grace. They themselves
will not sanctify us. They strengthen faith, and we
get sanctified as our faith is strong. If faith is like an empty
hand, if I could use that analogy, As that grip is strengthened,
our faith, we latch hold of even more because of our Bible reading,
because of our prayers, because of our fellowship, because of
our attendance upon the ordinances of God, because of our disciplines
of meditating upon the Word of God. Our faith is strengthened
and we're latching onto the same source, Jesus Christ and His
grace, and we'll experience more sanctification, more victory
over sin. more putting off of our old fleshly
habits, and more putting on of things. It's Christ. It's Christ.
It's Christ who's going to give us power to make progress. And
we need to grab hold of him. That's the functioning of the
spiritual disciplines. More on that if you attend this
Sunday school. And we also need to clear away
the fog by relying upon the spirit of the living God. Read Romans
8. We need to rely upon the spirit
of the new covenant who has come and been sent out to us by the
father and by Jesus himself to give us power to destroy old
sinful habits. We need again to depend upon
the spirit to build new holy habits. That's how we make progress
and it's all of grace. And in this way, in these ways,
that fog is cleared and we can see again the gospel path. of sanctification again, and
then the joy and the peace will return. Well, in conclusion,
brothers and sisters, this passage in Galatian teaches us that it's
easy to stray from the gospel path of grace and of sanctification. May Paul's words in Galatians
2.20 ring in our hearts. May these words cause us to keep
abiding in Jesus. May these words cause us to keep
depending upon the Spirit for sanctification. He writes, I
have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but
Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live
in the flesh, I live by ongoing faith, by faith in the Son of
God who loved me and gave himself for me. Amen? Let's pray. Blessed Father, we thank you
for Paul and the experiences that he had there in Antioch
and in his own life. We thank you for the experiences
that the Galatian brothers and sisters experienced as well,
for It sets the context for this beautiful book. Father, we need
this book, and we pray that Your Spirit would apply it to us.
Help us, O Lord, to find those areas in our life, in our thinking,
in our habits, where we have imperceptibly let a flog roll
in in our sanctification. And we are reverting back to
a law of merit basis for acceptance before You. Forgive us for thinking. those thoughts and going down
those paths at times. Help us, O God, to obey Your
law out of a sense of gratitude and of a desire to express love
to You. Help us to ever latch hold of
Christ and His grace and to enjoy that freedom that we have in
Him. For Your glory, we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. Thank you, Pastor Chris. Our
closing hymn today is, again, in our Blue Trinity hymnal, hymn
number 432. 432, Jesus, What a Friend for
Sinners. Jesus, what a friend for sinners,
Jesus, lover of my soul. Prayers may fail me, woes assail
me, being my Savior makes me whole. Hallelujah. ♪ Alleluia, what a friend ♪ ♪ Saving,
helping, keeping, loving ♪ ♪ He is with me to the end ♪ ♪ Jesus,
what a strength, what a friend ♪ Let me hide myself in Him. ♪ Tempted, tried, and sometimes
failed ♪ ♪ Be my strength, my victory raise ♪ ♪ Alleluia, mother,
savior ♪ ♪ Alleluia, mother, savior ♪ Saving, helping, keeping,
loving, He is with me till the end. Jesus won the helping sorrow,
while the billows only roll. Even when my heart is breaking,
He will guide me. Jesus, Lord, our God and Lord. ♪ While the tempest still is calm
♪ ♪ Storms abound in night or day ♪ ♪ Be my pilot, here's my
cry ♪ ♪ Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah ♪ Alleluia, what a friend! Saving, helping, keeping, loving,
He is with me to the end. Jesus, I do now receive Him,
more than all in Him I find. He hath granted me forgiveness,
I am His, and He is mine. Our benediction is found at the
end of our scripture reading this morning, actually. 1 Thessalonians
5, starting in verse 23. Now may the God of peace himself
sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul
and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus
Christ. He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it. The grace
of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. Amen. Amen. All right, you
are dismissed. Thank you. Thank you very much.
The Gospel of Grace
Series Standalone Sermons
| Sermon ID | 1020241736282860 |
| Duration | 49:52 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Galatians 2:19-3:3 |
| Language | English |
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