March 15, 2015
Living in the Grace of God
Crucified with Christ
Galatians 2:11-21
(Advance Slide #1)
Introduction
Why did Jesus die?
(Advance Slide #2)
- Was it so that we had to carry on the tradition of the law...certainly not!
ILLUS -
(Advance Slide #3)
Let's say you are caught speeding down this highway in front of the church.
- You were doing 100 mph, obviously slightly out of the acceptable speeding window.
- You go to court and just as the judge is about to throw the book at you.
- But, someone steps forward and says, "I will pay the fine. I will take the punishment."
- And you get off, without paying the fine, without any punishment at all.
- What just happened?
- You have been justified...made right in the eyes of the law.
- It doesn't change the fact that you were speeding, but the court sees you as innocent.
That is what Christ did for us.
(Advance Slide #4)
As Christians we have received God's marvelous grace, but we have also been set free.
- Living in God's grace means that we live free.
- But how do we do that?
- For Paul, live in God's grace means living in light of what God did for him...He died!
- Jesus was crucified, so was Paul!
Because Jesus died, Paul now can truly live!
(Advance Slide #5)
Text
19 For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20 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. 21 I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. Gal. 1:19-21
Prior to the text this morning Paul shares with the Galatians about how he was accepted by the Apostles - vs. 1-10
- He then explains a conflict that he had with Peter.
- Peter was being a hypocrite and even Barnabas was guilty.
- Paul challenges Peter wit these words:
- "If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?
(Advance Slide #6)
Justified by Faith - vs. 15-16
Job asked the question, “how can a man be in the right before God?” (9:2)
Habakkuk wrote, “the righteous shall live by his faith.” (2:4)
(Advance Slide #7)
What is justification?
- Justification is the act of God whereby He declares the believing sinner righteous in Jesus Christ.
- It is an act and not a process...no Christian is more justified than another.
- Furthermore, justification is an act of God; it is not the result of man’s character or works.
- It is not by doing the “works of the Law” that the sinner gets a right standing before God, but by Jesus Christ.
- Because of Jesus, God declares the sinner as righteous and just.
(Advance Slide #8)
Freedom From the Law - vs. 17-18
Peter had compared the Law to a burdensome yoke.
- For some reason he was choosing to put himself under that yoke!
(Advance Slide #9)
- Paul makes this argument:
- You and I did not find salvation through the Law...we found it through faith in Christ.
- But now, after being saved, you go back into the Law!
- This means that Christ alone did not save you...you would not have needed the Law.
- So, Christ actually made you a sinner!
- He doesn’t stop there:
- You have preached the Gospel of God’s grace to Jews and Gentiles, and have told them they are saved by faith and not by keeping the Law.
- By going back into legalism, you are building up what you tore down!
- This means that you sinned by tearing it down to begin with!
To go back to Moses is to deny everything that God did through Christ!
(Advance Slide #10)
The Very Gospel Itself - vs. 19-20
If a man is justified by the works of the Law, then why did Jesus Christ die?
(Advance Slide #11)
- His death, burial, and resurrection are the key truths of the Gospel.
- We are saved by Christ’s death and grace, furthermore we live by faith in Him.
We identify with Him, which means that we die with Him!
- This means that we are dead to the Law.
- To go back to Moses is to return to the graveyard!
(Advance Slide #12)
The Grace of God - vs. 21
The Judaizers wanted to mix Law and grace, but Paul tells us that this is impossible.
- To go back to the Law means to “set aside” the grace of God.
(Advance Slide #13)
- Peter had experienced God’s grace in his own salvation, and he had proclaimed God’s grace in his own ministry.
- Peter was denying the grace of God...not living in it!
- Peter’s actions had said, “There is a difference! The grace of God is not sufficient; we also need the Law.”
- But grace says, “There is no difference! All are sinners, and all can be saved through faith in Christ!”
“If righteousness came by the Law, then Christ is dead in vain” (Gal. 2:21).
- Law says DO!
- Grace says DONE!
- “It is finished!” was Christ’s victory cry!
Lesson
(Advance Slide #14)
Losing one identity and reconstructing another, that Paul is explaining.
- This text is about learning whose we are.
- This is his passionate appeal to the Galatians about their Christian identity...about our identity!
The text I chose for this morning is the basis for Paul’s argument.
- One must lose everything, including the memory of who one was before; and
- One must accept, and learn to live by, a new identity, with a new foundation.
Who belongs to Jesus and how is that expressed?
- Paul in this text gives one of his famous answers.
- Those who belong to Jesus are in Jesus, so that what is true of Him is true of them.
- A king represented his people….what is true to him is true to them.
(Advance Slide #15)
Who are we?
- We are the Jesus’s people, with His life now at work in us.
- Since the central thing about Him is His loving faithfulness, the central thing about us, is our own loving faithfulness.
- This is the glad response of faith to the God who has sent his son to die for us.
- This is the very heart of Christian identity.
(Advance Slide #16)
- This speaks of our family identity...the status of covenant membership.
- Something that God gives to all His family, to all who accepts the gospel.
- Out beyond that, it speaks gloriously of God’s saving justice embracing and healing the whole unjust world.
- And rescuing in the present those men, women and children who trust his love revealed in Jesus.
- This is the people who are ‘declared righteous’, or ‘justified’.
The point of it all, here in Galatians, is quite simple.
- Paul was demonstrating to Peter that even Jewish Christians have lost their old identity.
- Once they were defined by the law, and have come into a new identity, defined only by Jesus’ grace
Conclusion
Verse 21 is a closing, a warning, and a transition.
- Don’t set aside the grace of God.
Today, let us examine ourselves.
(Advance Slide #17)
- Are we truly people of grace?
- I know we know the language, we can sing the song amazing grace from memory, but are we a people of grace?
- Does it spill out of our being like rivers of living water?
- Or are we still holding on tight to our standards of ‘righteousness’ by works that we expect ourselves and others to adhere to?
- Have you been set free by the law, or by grace?
(Advance Slide #18)
We should want to be a person of Grace.
- Let us all sing this chorus together:
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound
That saved a wretch like me
I once was lost, but now am found
Was blind but now I see
