I want to ask you to open your Bibles to Galatians 3. You'll notice that our Old Testament reading in Isaiah is the promise that Jesus would be attractive. He would be drawing in, and in Him, God the Father would draw in peoples from all different nations and tribes and ethnicities and so forth. That that's part of the plan of the Gospel. world rescue operation. And so we come then to Galatians, and I'm going to read Galatians 3, verses 23 through 29, but keep Galatians 3 in its context. It's not a stand-alone set of verses. They're very important. But they're here. They're actually, I think these are the verses that are the heart of Galatians, where Paul is headed in the first three chapters. And then he's going to work out its applications and implications in chapters four, five and six. I think Galatians three, especially twenty six to twenty nine are the heart of Galatians. OK. But keep the context in mind, and I'm going to help you when we get into the lesson in just a minute to do that. So out of reverence for God's word as it is read, please join me by standing and hear the word of the Lord. Now before faith came, we were held captive under the law, imprisoned until the coming faith would be revealed. So then the law was our guardian until Christ came in order that we might be justified by faith But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian. For in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God through faith, for as many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male or female, for you are all one in Christ. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. Let's pray. Oh Lord Jesus, who draws us together in union with you and cloaks us in your righteous reputation, make this evening's lesson encouraging and inspiring for your honor's sake. Amen. He may be seated. So you'll notice that Paul is concerned about justification. He even mentioned it there in verse 24. And so I would say that actually Galatians is very concerned, not just with the doctrine of justification, but actually what justification looks like. And I'll explain it more as we go on. So our evening series is drawing on John Calvin and his important statement in the Institutes, which you have in your worship guide there in the notes in the back. Calvin wrote, Christ given to us by the kindness of God is apprehended and possessed by faith by means of which we obtain in particular a duplex gratia, a double grace, a twofold benefit. First, being reconciled by the righteousness of Christ, God becomes, instead of a judge, an indulgent father. And secondly, being sanctified by His Spirit, we aspire to integrity and purity of life." End of quotation. So last time you met, because we weren't here, we were on vacation. So the last time you met, Pastor West described the numerous ways justification gets mangled. As he said, I commissioned him to preach heresy. Anyways, he just talked about the various ways that justification gets mangled. Tonight, we're going to examine what justification looks like. We're not going to look at all of it. We're not going to examine every aspect. We're going to actually be very, very specific. for a reason, so I'm probably going to go someplace you did not anticipate, but I think it's important, it's very contemporary, and so you can see how justification is a 21st century need for us to regrasp it and then to be able to live with it. So we're going to contrast one narrow area of the works of the flesh. Listen again. We're going to contrast one narrow area of the works of the flesh with justification. So I hope you remember that. So to begin, let me give you two thoughts. Number one, I want to talk to you about Plato and his Republic. Some of you may remember if you've ever read Plato's Republic. He recounts a fictitious story about the ring of Gigi's is how you're supposed to pronounce it, but I can't pronounce it that way because I tongue-tied my tongue. So Gaiji's, we'll call it the ring of Gaiji's, okay? What was the ring of Gaiji's? Well, in the story, this person finds the ring and he puts it on, he becomes invisible. Sounds almost like Bilbo and Frodo from the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. He puts on the ring, you become invisible. Then Plato goes on to describe the horrors that a good man would do if he found such a ring, because that person would be unaccountable for his actions. He would do horrendous things. So you keep that in mind, but then along a similar train of thought, was a Russian dissident named Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who had been imprisoned during World War II because of something he wrote in a personal letter, and the Soviet communist hierarchy didn't like it, and so they arrested him in the middle of the war and threw him in a gulag, and he spent years in a prison camp, in various prison camps. And he wrote a book later that was called The Gulag Archipelago, And he says this, and I think this is very telling. Here's a man who had some experience in this. Quote, if only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being, and who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart? The line between good and evil runs through the heart of every human being. I think that's very perceptive. Okay, so keep those two in mind, the ring of Gyges and Alexander Solzhenitsyn in mind. Try to keep those there as we get heavily into this sermon. There's no points in your outline because there's really just one point, and I think you'll pick it up as we go along. So the scriptural category called the flesh, Here, especially when you get to Galatians, you get to chapter 5, verses 19 to 21, but the scriptural category titled the flesh, of course, is not referring to the physical body, but it encompasses a wide range of immoralities, inequities, and injustices, which will include, actually, characteristics that have come to be attributed with a very contemporary term, racism. Okay? So don't hang me yet. Just give me a chance to give you some rope to hang me better. Okay? So just give me a moment. All right? But there are aspects and characteristics in the works of the flesh, as Paul lays them out, that actually are attributed, go along with racism. That's what they're referring to in some sense. And so here's how the apostle addresses it. And you can look at chapter 5, verses 19 through 21. But Paul writes, now the works of the flesh are evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry. Maybe we should put idolatry over here. Idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkens, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. Now, if we keep the storyline and the emphasis of Galatians in mind, we will see how many of the different aspects of what is now called racism are actually being mentioned in this litany that Scripture titles the works of the flesh. So here's the storyline. You know it well, I'm sure. The issue that provoked Paul's ire and roused him to write this letter was that certain people who claimed that Jesus was Lord also demanded of everybody else that they either assimilate ethnically, they become Jews, that they assimilate ethnically, or they maintain a racial apartness. specific language on purpose. They maintain a racial apartness. Okay? And so these Jewish disciples of the Messiah mandated then that the Gentile followers of Jesus had to believe in Jesus plus become Jewish. That's very ethnic language. and thinking, it's more than just that, but that's at least part of what they were driving at. And if they would not, if the Gentiles would not assimilate, then they were to be placed outside of our fellowship, apartness, racial apartness. One of the results is that this assimilation or apartness approach shattered communion in the church. No longer were the Jewish disciples eating. Think back and we're going to look at just briefly. I'm just going to mention or refer to something in chapter 2, 11 through 14. But you know, the story where Peter all of a sudden is persuaded to stop eating with the Gentiles. And so were all the other Jewish believers in Galatia to stop eating. They stopped eating. Now, that means at least they stopped eating fellowship meals together. But if they stopped eating fellowship meals together, guess what else? They must have stopped eating together. What else do we eat together? Communion. If I can't stand you when it comes to a fellowship meal, I sure can't stand you around the communion table. Do you get the point? It shattered communion. No longer were the Jewish disciples eating and having communion with the Gentile disciples. In fact, they were being pulled apart. And the fault lines, the fault lines were groupish, ethnic, clannish fault lines. And that's the point of chapter 2, 11 through 14. I confronted Peter when he did this. What he was doing was wrong, Paul says. He should not have been doing this, and because he did this, the other Jewish believers followed his path. As someone has recently mentioned, Gregory Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt in a great book that you ought to get and read called The Coddling of the American Mind, where they go through and dissect and diagnose what's happening in academia right now, where we have this shattering of peoples and all of that. Anyways, it's a great book, but as they put it, the bottom line is, that the human mind is prepared for tribalism. The human mind is prepared for tribalism. You hear that, you read the first part of Galatians, you come to the works of the flesh, and you go, there it is. It's right there. So Paul then, in chapter 2, verse 14, declares, that this segregating conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel. The remainder of the letter then was written actually to counteract this fault by exposing how harmful it is. That's the works of the flesh that he catalogs there. And also then by exhibiting the beauty, the potent beauty of justification in Christ Jesus and how justification works out and works into our relationships and our churches turning ethnic superiority on its head along with other practices, along with other practices. And that's why Paul will go on to say what we just read in chapter 3. There was no Jew or Greek. There was no slave or free, no male or female. We're all one in Christ and for Christ and we're all Abraham's offspring. We're heirs according to the promise together. Or as Paul will go on to talk about the opposite of the works of the flesh when he talks about the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit. Listen to this. is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, and self-control. Therefore, my friends, the works of the flesh encompass a wide spectrum of sins and sinful tendencies, many of which promote assimilation or apartness. Paul mentioned enmity, strife. I realize I should have added idolatry into this because it fits right in. But idolatry, enmity, strife, fits of anger, dissensions, divisions. And then he says, and things like these. That's kind of like the strainer in the bottom of your kitchen sink that catches everything, right? And things like these, all the rest of this stuff. My friends, by keeping racism in that range of actions listed under the flesh, it does several things for us. For starters, when we are tempted to point out other people's prejudices, we can humbly recognize that our own faults are marching lockstep with the other person's proclivities. We come to perceive that the category, the works of the flesh, is like a laundry basket filled with our soiled linen. We can be quick to point out, well, that person's a bigot, but then if we look in the works of the flesh, we go, oh my goodness, but I'm dealing with lust and pornography, or I'm dealing with thievery, or I'm dealing with idolatry. Oh, I'm walking in lockstep with them. I'm no better than them. Now, how many people in America need to hear that? Keeping that in the works of the flesh does good things for us. Further, by keeping racism inside the works of the flesh, it is no longer now whittled down. I like carving and whittling, so you know this is my own statement. It's no longer whittled down to the 20th and 21st century class struggles as it's being promoted now, but it is shown to be something that every Christian, every Christian throughout the ages must address in themselves. It reminds us that we are in this together, and we all need God's help with this issue together. Since, chapter 3, verse 26 through 29, since in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith. For as many of you as have been baptized into Christ and put on Christ, There's neither Jew nor Greek, there's neither slave nor free, there's no male or female, for you are all one in Christ, and you are Christ's, and you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise, together in Christ. Also, keeping racism in the works of the flesh, it moves us away from depending on fashionable secular remedies or modern-day pluralistic resolutions, because it reminds us we've been here before. This is not an American problem. This is a human problem. Does that make sense? We've been here before, and as a church, we've been here before. That's one of the reasons Paul wrote Galatians, and why Paul wrote Romans. If you listen to Romans, realize that's what he's after is that problem where Jews thought they were the super saints and Gentiles were the sub-saints. That's right down ethnic lines. And where does Paul go? He goes to justification, he goes to grace, and he goes and shows how this all looks that becomes very remedial. to those things like tribalism and ethnic superiority and so forth. This is why he wrote Ephesians. We've been here before, and if we've been here before, then we're not here alone. Over the last two millennia, there have been several moments in church history where this sin has been rightly handled, and there are times when we have mishandled it. And we can learn from those who have gone before us. We're not here for the first time. But to recognize that requires that we have a stance of humility. I love the way that Christopher Hutchinson, a PCA pastor, put it in his book called Rediscovering Humility. This is how he puts it. Listen. Quote, regarding the past, believers look with horror upon the sins of slavery and of Jim Crow and rightly condemn both institutions. But do they really think that many believers today would have avoided the cultural pressures that captured so much of the church at the time? Would most of today's white Christians really have been among that small persecuted minority in the antebellum American South who actively opposed slavery? When today's believers evaluate the sins of past generations, humility and empathy are always in good order, even as they speak the truth and hold to the standards of God's Word. Christians might also consider what future generations will say about today's church, when believers look back at our cultural accommodations, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." End of quotation. We've been here before. This is not new. We've handled it well before. We've mishandled it before. Scripture actually does address it. Oh, and we can then approach the subject and approach even our own ancestry with humility. That's how we come at this. Not clenched fists and snarling teeth. We come at it with humility. Additionally, my friends, when we come to grasp how the works of the flesh are actually in us, the line of good and evil runs through the human heart, that every one of us, if we found the ring of Gyges, would probably become reprehensible. So when we come to grasp how the works of the flesh are in us, no matter our ancestry, no matter our ethnicity, no matter our political party, no matter our neighborhood, no matter our net worth, no matter our educational attainments, then it helps us to have our heads on straight. This is a great title for a book. Oh wait, it is a book. Helps us to have our heads on straight. It gives us the ability to set aside our defensiveness, and we're no longer startled that we and others have trouble trusting and working with people who are not like us. but it also gives us a healthier insight, for example, into Tutsis rampaging and ravaging and murdering hundreds of thousands of Hutus, fellow Africans, fellow Rwandans, and fellow Christians. It helps us to grasp and fathom why Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese struggle with deep dislike for one another. We become sensitive to the ways that Kiowas, Comanches, Apaches and Tonkawas and other First Nation peoples see themselves as different from the other folks and maybe even better than them. And they do do that. I've heard them. We are enabled then to come to grips with the way that each of us, no matter our descent, no matter our ethnicity, no matter our Melatonin content or whatever, are part of the problem in the United States of America, and more importantly, are part of the problem inside God's church. Bigotry in America and American churches is not, don't let them steal this from you, is not diachronic. Diachromatic, sorry. Diachromatic, two colors. It's not diachromatic, it's not white and black. Rather, it is the bleak outworking of fallen humankind. All of us have this problem. Does that make sense? Okay. Furthermore, as we return racism back to the works of the flesh, We then place our prejudices and we locate our congregations and our denominations back into this rocking, rearing rodeo called sanctification. So this is kind of a transition sermon moving from justification to sanctification. Moves it back into the rocky, rearing rodeo called sanctification. In this biblical framework of sanctification, we find that, quote, the work of God's free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole person after the image of God and are enabled more and more to die unto sin and to live unto righteousness, is true of us individually, but it's true of us collectively, as a denomination, as a congregation. It's true of us as well. We're growing in the grace and the knowledge of Jesus Christ more and more. and that God is still applying this to us. And so since these racial biases are part of the works of the flesh, which God is amending through His Spirit's actions in us, we become freed from the faddish, state-of-the-art resolutions that are divorced from any recognition of total depravity. It's one of the things that really makes my skin crawl, that all of the language and the rhetoric that's used very often is divorced from the recognition of total depravity. but also it frees us from the expectation that we can bring heaven on earth in our time by our machinations. That also is a problem with a lot of the rhetoric. We become liberated to be freshly charitable and patient. knowing that, ultimately, the satisfying conclusion to the works of the flesh will finally come, ultimately, at Christ's return, when in the fullness of time, the Father will unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth, Ephesians 1, verse 10. Well, Mike, what's this got to do with justification? I'm glad you asked. That means then, especially as you think in Galatians, that means that justification looks like the remedy. Did you hear that? Justification looks like the remedy. With clear heads and unencumbered by 20th and 21st century categories, we're now able to see that the works of the flesh are universal, and then together we all run to Christ, who in His incarnation, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension, has launched our new way of being human. that in the one man, Jesus Christ, the grace of God and the free gift of grace by that one man abounds to many, no matter our ancestry, ethnicity, or descent. Paul put it this way in Romans 5, 15, but the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man, Jesus Christ, abounded for many. so that now we can begin putting aside the old way of being human with its bigotry and arrogance and ethnocentricity and violence, and we're able to take on a whole new way of being human, declared righteous before God by the righteousness of Jesus, despite what we deserve. Friends, we were saved not by a gospel of race, but a gospel of grace. We were all the wrong race. Does that make sense? We were the wrong race. And God transcends our wrong raceness to save us. We were saved by the gospel of grace, not the gospel of race. And so declared righteous before God by the righteousness of Jesus, despite what we deserve, we can then begin to embrace others who are declared righteous, even and especially those who are different from us. Others who are declared righteous, other believers, no matter what their background is, who are different from us, we can embrace fellow declared righteous people. Becomes the remedy. Justification looks like the remedy. We can risk. We can risk acknowledging the works of the flesh in us, and we can see the way forward through the One who has been lifted up and is drawing all people to Himself, John 12, 32. No longer bound to the disorienting and distressing defensiveness and derision of our era, we can now We can see how we have been part of the disease, but how Christ is our remedy, and lo and behold, amazing grace, Christ makes us part of the remedy. So once again, you begin to see that biblically, justification looks like the remedy to the works of the flesh, including things like racism. And you begin to see then how it looks like the remedy, really, for many of our other works of the flesh that cause division, tribalism of every kind. For example, denominational snobbery and other things. That's how justification works. It's the remedy. Now that we've been placed on God's good side, as I put it this morning, as we've now been placed on God's good side because of Jesus, let us rejoice in and love those different from us whom God in his good grace have also placed on his good side in Jesus. Let's pray. Well, Lord, our God, we are so grateful that you see what ails us as humans. And you don't shy away from telling us about it. And you help us to see it. And then you point out that the remedy, that the answer is in your son, Jesus Christ, where we become those who are, despite what we deserve, we are those who have become by your grace on your good side. Help us, Lord, to extend to extend that graciousness to one another, to others who are different from us. Help us to be leading the way that shows a picture of what justification looks like, how it's the remedy to so much that ails us. Save us from our 20th and 21st century proclivities to secular humanist answers to this problem. Help us to be that kind of people that are light shining to the world that people of every different tribe, tongue, nation, and ethnicity will come running to Jesus. It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.