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.