Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Amen.
[00:00:07] Well, let's now prepare for the reading and preaching of God's word by asking God's blessing upon it. Let's pray.
[00:00:16] Almighty God, you have revealed yourself, Christ, true truth in your word.
[00:00:29] And so now as we come to the reading of your word and the preaching of your word, I pray for your holy spirit to open the eyes of our understanding that we might not even simply understand, but believe, find hope, and find our rest from our striving in Christ and the good news of the gospel in Christ's righteousness. So bless the preaching and reading of your word. We ask this in Jesus wonderful name. Amen. Amen.
[00:01:07] Well, our sermon text is from the book of Galatians, chapter two.
[00:01:15] I'm going to be focusing on verses 19 through 21, but I'm going to begin reading in Galatians two, verse 15, to hear now the word of God.
[00:01:27] We ourselves are Jews by birth and not gentile sinners. Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
[00:01:54] But if in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not. For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law so that I might live to God.
[00:02:16] I have been crucified with Christ.
[00:02:19] 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.
[00:02:32] I do not nullify the grace of God. For if justification were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
[00:02:39] This is the word of God. Amen. Please be seated.
[00:02:57] Have you ever found yourself weary of striving, of trying to perform?
[00:03:06] Tired of trying to be good enough so that you can finally feel like God's smile? God's love is upon you, as well as that you're acceptable to others? You know, the apostle Paul and Martin Luther are famous for their herculean efforts at trying to be holy, at trying to become right, trying to obey God, trying to become righteous in the eyes of God through their own self effort. And they're famous for realizing they couldn't pull it off, and none of us can. And this is where the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ enters. Into our weary striving.
[00:03:52] So please don't miss this critical truth of the gospel.
[00:03:56] Jesus Christ, through his perfect God pleasing life and sacrifice on the cross, merited, earned for us that which we are unable to attain for ourselves. A perfect rightness, a flawless righteousness, a full, total, complete, unwavering acceptance by God the Father. And Christ's righteousness, his perfect law keeping, his wholeness, his beauty, his acceptability in the eyes of our heavenly Father, is freely given to all who look away from themselves and their own efforts and place their faith, their trust in Christ and Christ alone.
[00:04:51] You see, we're all born with an awareness, an innate awareness that we're just not right.
[00:05:01] Don't you feel it? Your imperfections, your sin?
[00:05:07] We're born with a need, with a drive to be accepted, to be right in the eyes of God and even right in the eyes of others, and even right in our own eyes. And so we work, we strive to be acceptable, and it's a cruel, unattainable burden.
[00:05:29] But when the truth of the gospel, justification by grace alone, through faith alone, that in Christ's righteousness we truly become right, when that begins to sink in, we begin to be liberated from our striving to attain, develop our own self righteousness.
[00:05:56] And so we're now finally able to say, alongside with the apostle Paul, for through the law, I died to the law so that I might live to God.
[00:06:06] I've been crucified with Christ.
[00:06:10] It's 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.
[00:06:25] So let's start here with verse 19, Galatians, chapter two.
[00:06:30] For through the law, I died to the law so that I might live to God.
[00:06:38] Now, Paul's statement here can cause us to scratch our heads. I know it sure did me for a long time. For through the law I died to the law. What does that mean?
[00:06:49] Well, to begin to understand what Paul means here, a good place to start is to think about God's law.
[00:06:58] God's law is basically his declarations of how we are to live if we're going to be in a right standing with him. And you already know the basics of God's law, it's actually written on the heart of every human being. Romans 214 through 15. When the gentiles do what the law requires, they show that the law is written on their hearts.
[00:07:26] We're all born with a basic sense of right and wrong. You should not commit adultery, you shall not lie, you should not steal and so forth.
[00:07:35] But there's a problem with the law.
[00:07:39] God doesn't simply require that we get it right some of the time.
[00:07:45] God doesn't grade on a curve. Rather, he requires that we obey his holy law perfectly, flawlessly every moment of our being, of our life.
[00:08:00] In fact, Jesus himself declared in Romans, Romans, Matthew 548, you must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect.
[00:08:14] Perhaps you remember, I'm not sure how many years ago that was now, but there were cameras and radars at all the intersections on a number of streets.
[00:08:24] I remember one time driving along interstate ten in Phoenix and every half mile there were signs saying photo enforcement zone.
[00:08:38] And I don't know about you, but I wilted under the sheer force of the law keeping check on me and my speed. Every half mile, mile after mile I wanted to say, whoa, is me at that. And then I heard actually, well, apparently they gave you an eleven mile per hour margin of error. But let's pretend for a moment, let's pretend for a moment that in fact those radars and cameras were set to 1 mph over the speed limit.
[00:09:16] Now if you were to try and maintain exactly the speed within a mile per hour margin, just the slightest change in grade of the road and you could get a ticket. Just your mind wanders, you're keeping track of traffic around you and so forth and you speed up and you got a ticket.
[00:09:41] Many years before that during one of the gas crises in the remember that the long lines in gas stations trying to get gas, but in order to conserve fuel in California for a while, they set the speed limit on the freeways at 55 and the California Highway Patrol was on the freeways doing 55 and they were given orders that if you just barely exceeded 55, you got a ticket.
[00:10:17] Lawkeeping, when the standard is perfection, it drives us crazy because we can't do it. But here's what I want to get at with God.
[00:10:32] It's even far, far, far more difficult. You must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect. God doesn't allow a margin of 1 mph. He doesn't allow a margin of half a mile per hour. He allows a zero margin. He demands total, utter, complete, flawless perfection.
[00:10:56] And you can't do that.
[00:10:59] And I can't do that. So with that in mind, let's return to Paul's statement in verse 19 for through the law I died to the law.
[00:11:11] Think about Paul for a moment. When he was a pharisee, he tried with an astounding amount of discipline and strength and effort to keep God's law perfectly. He did so well that he was considered a pharisee of Pharisees.
[00:11:27] He tried to keep God's law without fault.
[00:11:31] He really and truly strove to be good enough in order to gain God's approval.
[00:11:39] He worked hard to keep God's law such that he merited God's smile upon him in his life. But you see, the demand for absolute perfection drove Paul, with all of his unbelievable discipline, drove Paul to finally realize. It's utterly impossible to keep God's law flawlessly, perfectly.
[00:12:06] And as a result, the apostle Paul died to keeping the law. To those self efforts. Paul died to trying to do the impossible. He died to keeping the law, because it cannot be done by us.
[00:12:23] You see, Paul began to realize that he could not become right with God through his own efforts.
[00:12:31] Let me say that again. Paul realized.
[00:12:34] You cannot become right with God through your own efforts.
[00:12:40] And this is really, really critical to grasp. No one can become right with God through their own efforts. We can never become good enough for God to say, congratulations. You've made it. You have attained it. You're good enough. Now. My approval is upon you.
[00:13:00] And so Paul finally realized he couldn't become right with God. Even through his amazing lawkeeping. He finally realized that in and of himself, he could never become good enough. He could never become adequate enough to truly live to God.
[00:13:20] And he realized.
[00:13:23] He realized he needed to look away from himself.
[00:13:28] He realized he needed to look away from his own self effort. In order to find his adequacy, his righteousness, in the only one who truly is right in the eyes of God, Jesus Christ, the righteous one.
[00:13:48] That's what Paul means when he said, for through the law, I died to the law. Paul stopped striving. In fact, what the law did was drive Paul away from himself, to Christ.
[00:14:05] You see, that's the glory of the gospel.
[00:14:09] So, with all this in mind, let's now move on to verse 20, where Paul writes, I've been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. You see, all that phariseeical self effort, law keeping? Paul has died to it. He's been crucified with Christ.
[00:14:32] It's no longer Saul, the Pharisee, the law keeper, but it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. It's beautiful.
[00:14:43] So Paul says, I've been crucified with Christ. Paul's previous life of trying to become right with God through his own self efforts. It died with Christ on the cross. Through his union with Christ and having died to trying to become acceptable in the eyes of God through his own self efforts, Paul now began to find his righteousness, his wholeness, his worth, his value, his everything in Christ, Christ, who truly is pleasing to God in every way.
[00:15:21] He died to self, and he now lives to Christ.
[00:15:27] So Paul could declare, it's Christ who lives in me.
[00:15:33] So what we have here is a profound truth that really is critical to grasp. It's a profound truth, however, which so often eludes us. So I want you to listen carefully. Paul, who formerly relied upon his own striving, now found his rightness, his wholeness, his acceptability, his everything in Jesus Christ, the one who truly is pleasing to God in absolutely every single way.
[00:16:10] So in light of this, we need to ask ourselves a very important question. Where am I seeking to find my rightness, my wholeness, my adequacy, my everything? Where is it? Where am I striving to please others, to please God?
[00:16:33] Is it through your own efforts, things you do, things you don't do, things you seek to attain? Or are you seeking to find your righteousness in Christ, who is righteous?
[00:16:50] Paul, with all this in mind, then, concludes in verse 21, because you might think that he's undoing the law and so forth, he writes, I do not nullify the grace of God. For if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
[00:17:11] In other words, if we can overcome, if we can even compensate for our falling short of the glory of God, and if through our own self efforts, we can overcome our sin, we can overcome our inadequacies, our shortcomings, our unworthiness, then Christ died for no purpose.
[00:17:30] See, if you can attain through your self effort, why the cross?
[00:17:35] It wasn't necessary.
[00:17:37] That's what Paul is getting at.
[00:17:39] In fact, let's flesh this out a little bit more. Remember that Paul writes, I have been crucified with Christ, that old striving, self effort Pharisee. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And so I want to give you a few examples of how we can fail to grasp that Christ's righteousness, his wholeness, is what we're to rest upon, not our own self efforts, but how we can fall back into that so easily, even as christians.
[00:18:14] I'm going to read you the publisher's descriptions of three christian books, bestselling christian books. And I want you to pay attention and see in those descriptions of those books that they're really about self effort, self rather than Christ. Here's the first book. Its description.
[00:18:38] It's full of fascinating illustrations and inspiring stories. The author encourages you to dig down deep and revive your dream.
[00:18:49] The Author reminds us that nothing is impossible with God and that one characteristic that successful people share in common is a determination to succeed.
[00:19:00] Do you see the self effort? It's all about striving. It's a far, far cry from what Paul said. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And then a second book description of a second christian book this popular author shows you how to live a happy, healthy, and full life. Her insightful articles and accompanying action steps about health, personal growth, spirituality, career, finances, marriage, family, and more unlocks the secrets of lasting joy, true confidence, and balanced living.
[00:19:40] Do you see the law keeping the self efforts in that again? All of that self help, self effort stuff is a far, far cry from what Paul said. It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And then a third book, a self esteem drought is plaguing America today.
[00:20:09] In look great, feel great, Joyce Meyer provides a twelve key plan there we go for overcoming the poor eating and exercise habits that keep us from doing all God has called us to do.
[00:20:23] Joyce guides us to a healthier way of living, reminding us that turning every issue over to God, who gives us the strength to make lasting changes.
[00:20:33] In other words, part of what's going on here is if you can attain looking great, then you can live for God, and a lot of your problems are going to go away.
[00:20:47] You see?
[00:21:11] Good old American pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. Just follow these steps to overcome your problems, to be a better you. It is just another form of legalistic lawkeeping that heaps a burden upon us. It's just another form of endless striving. And that's why we go from one plan, one book to another, to another to another. Look, if it worked, you'd only need one book, right?
[00:21:41] And you'd attain you'd be happy, healthy, full of joy, loving God, living together.
[00:21:48] It doesn't work.
[00:21:51] It's just like Saul the Pharisee trying to keep the law.
[00:21:58] So can you begin to see the vast gulf that separates these modern takes on what is essentially lawkeeping from the freeing gospel in which Christ is our righteousness?
[00:22:15] For through the law, self effort, self help. I died to the law. I've been crucified with Christ. It's 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.
[00:22:31] Paul's looking away from himself, and he's keeping his gaze focused on Christ. It's Christ, not steps and plans and self effort and law keeping and all of that stuff.
[00:22:46] Let's take this a little bit further here into the gospel, the good news of the gospel, in finding our righteousness not in ourselves, but in Christ. And to do this, I want to go back to Genesis, chapter three.
[00:23:05] All of our problems go back to Genesis three, right? Do you remember what happened after Adam and Eve decided they wanted to be in charge, when they decided they wanted to do things their own way, when essentially they wanted to develop their own righteousness, right? They wanted to be like God.
[00:23:23] We read there in Genesis three. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew they were naked.
[00:23:29] They were exposed as sinners.
[00:23:33] They experienced shame in their wrongness, I guess you could say. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God. No sooner had Adam and Eve rebelled against God than they were filled with a deep, deep sense that something is very, very wrong with me.
[00:24:03] And they even tried to cover their shame through self effort. That is, taking fig leaves, right? Sewing together fig leaves. Timothy Keller describes it this way. They no longer had what theologians call original righteousness, their original beauty, their original worth, their original acceptability. Instead, they began to realize that they were unacceptable at some very, very profound level.
[00:24:33] Everybody the Bible says is born into the world knowing they're not right again. Can you feel that I'm not right? You're not right. We feel that the fall, our sin, right?
[00:24:52] He goes on.
[00:24:54] Let me pick up again. Everybody the Bible says is born into the world knowing they're not right, that they're not acceptable, that they're not valuable, that they're not lovable, and that they better find a way to make themselves so. And so we strive. We work.
[00:25:11] Can you feel it?
[00:25:13] So you see the result of our loss of this original righteousness, the result of our loss of our original beauty, our original worth, our original acceptability. The result of it is that we begin to strive, we begin to work to attain it ourselves in one way or another, actually, in multiple ways, is what we try to do.
[00:25:41] And, boy, that list goes on and on of the ways we strive.
[00:25:45] And that's what Paul was trying to accomplish through his lawkeeping to regain what Adam and Eve lost. In the garden, to become acceptable, to become whole, to become complete. He did it through law keeping, to merit, to earn God's smile upon him. God's saying, great work, saul of Tarsus. That's what he was trying to attempt. And this is what we so often attempt to do through our modern self help strategies. And dare I say, we can even attempt to do this through our religious disciplines.
[00:26:19] When I was in college, it wasn't taught at our church. I attended a Bible church, but that's another story. But amongst us christian college students, there was this thing that if you didn't get up, and some of you are going to remember this, if you didn't get up an hour extra early every morning and read your bible and pray, then your day was going to go bad, and God's frown, his displeasure was going to be upon you.
[00:26:56] That was a burden.
[00:26:59] When I graduated from college and started my first job, my first job, we had to be to work at 730 in the morning. And at that point in my life, 730 in the morning.
[00:27:11] It was all I could do to make it to work at 730 in the morning and to get up an hour extra early every morning so God's smile would be upon me and my day would go great.
[00:27:23] It literally reduced me to tears some evenings when I'd come home from work and really had to face that I hadn't read my bible in the morning, and so guiltily I would read it then once I got home from work.
[00:27:36] It was a terrible burden to live under. Look, I'm not saying don't engage in spiritual disciplines.
[00:27:47] Read your bibles. Love your bibles. It's the word of God.
[00:27:52] It contains God's law, his moral law, which guides us into God's blessings in Christ.
[00:28:04] God's word is beautiful.
[00:28:07] It's life. It's light for our lives.
[00:28:10] But you don't read God's law to earn God's smile on you.
[00:28:15] You read it because it's beautiful. It's wonderful. It's our duty.
[00:28:19] It's God's word. Do you see what I'm saying? How I'm trying to distinguish here?
[00:28:25] And please understand, we don't merely seek to develop our own righteousness through our own efforts in order to become acceptable and pleasing in the sight of God. We do that to make matters even worse. We do the same thing, self effort, striving, and so forth, to become acceptable in the eyes of our fellow man.
[00:28:47] And so the question which confronts us again is, in what ways do I strive to attain my own righteousness to overcome my inadequacies.
[00:28:59] Some might focus on their appearance in an attempt to somehow feel whole and complete and to be admired, or at least just to be accepted by others. And some might seek to build self esteem or be viewed as spiritual at church or attain great things at work or academically, or whatever it might be. We strive and we strive and we strive, seeking to overcome that sense of inadequacy through our own self efforts. But just like Paul discovered, it will always elude you.
[00:29:35] It will always slip through your grasp. And so what we learn from our passage is that we need to die to self.
[00:29:44] Maybe I could say it this way. Stop it.
[00:29:48] Right. We need to die to our self efforts at trying to develop, trying to attain our own self righteousness. We never can. We never will.
[00:30:00] For through the law, self effort, striving. I died through striving and self effort, Paul writes.
[00:30:11] And so let's conclude with this vital lesson. What then, is the good news of the gospel if you can't attain it? I mean, what is the good news of the gospel which frees us from the futility of trying to please God through our own performance? Furthermore, what's the good news of the gospel which frees us to begin to obey God's commands without the burden of having to perform to earnest smile?
[00:30:40] What is the good news of the gospel that frees us to begin to obey God's commands without the self condemning guilt of our imperfect obedience? That's kind of romans seven flowing into romans eight is what I'm getting at. As Timothy Keller observes, the gospel is that God develops a righteousness and gives it to you, and then you owe him. I've been crucified with Christ. It's 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. Do you see the difference in the gaze?
[00:31:18] Our natural tendency is to gaze at ourselves, kind of like we always have a know. Striving my performance. And the gospel says, look to Christ.
[00:31:29] Fix your gaze on Christ. That's the good news of the gospel. So the good news of the gospel is that we are justified. We're made right by faith alone in Christ alone. For it is Christ who has done it all for us. And so we now find our rightness, our righteousness, our wholeness, our adequacy, our everything in Christ.
[00:31:54] Hallelujah. Amen. Let's pray.
[00:32:03] O heavenly Father, who would have ever thought of God developing your son, developing a righteousness for us?
[00:32:17] Lord, we confess our approach is to seek to earn, to merit, to develop our own righteousness through self effort.
[00:32:32] Help us to stop focusing on our efforts as a means to earn your favor, your smile, even to earn salvation.
[00:32:47] Write the gospel the good news of the gospel in large letters upon our hearts and our minds and our living.
[00:32:57] Help us to keep our gaze focused on Christ so that it's no longer self centered, self focused, striving I who live, but it's now Christ who lives in me, Christ who loved me and gave himself for me.
[00:33:16] So I pray, Lord God, that through the truth of your word, through the gospel, we would find our rest in Christ and stop our striving and thereby be freed to obey your law and to live for your glory. I pray these things in Jesus wonderful, beautiful name. Amen and amen.
