Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: I looked at my son in disappointment and disbelief.
He had made an 80 on a test.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: And to be honest with you, in my family, that's pretty good.
[00:00:12] Speaker A: We did not have high academic standards for our kids. I know some of you do, but
[00:00:17] Speaker B: we just really focused on the work ethic. You work really, really hard.
That's what we care about. No matter the grade. Now you gotta pass because you gotta get out of this house. But you just work hard.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: But the reason I was in shock
[00:00:34] Speaker B: was not because of the grade.
[00:00:37] Speaker A: It's because right before the test was
[00:00:39] Speaker B: handed out, the teacher surprised the class
[00:00:42] Speaker A: and announced, this is going to be an open book test.
And so he had plenty of time, plenty of opportunity to get his book,
[00:00:52] Speaker B: open it up, make a 100 on the test.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: And he still made an 80, still
[00:00:59] Speaker B: missed a significant number of questions.
And so I asked him, how did this happen, an open book test? How did you still miss all of these questions?
And he said, well, I didn't use the book.
[00:01:17] Speaker A: Okay, why not?
[00:01:19] Speaker B: Well, I just wanted to see how good I could do.
And I said, well, you found out.
You found out how good you could do 80% on an open book test.
I said, that's not noble, that's just really dumb.
I would have used the book, made a 100, and then bragged to my dad about how smart I was and never mentioned that it was an open book test.
Galatians as Paul unpacks the Gospel, he's explaining that Jesus has done it all for us, that this isn't just an open book test.
Jesus has taken the test for us.
Jesus is the only one who can pass the test for us, and we
[00:02:10] Speaker A: must accept his score, which is complete perfection in our place.
And yet the false teachers that we've
[00:02:19] Speaker B: talked about in Galatians are convincing Gentile believers, those who are not Jews by birth, who were born outside of God's
[00:02:31] Speaker A: covenant, promises the law away from the law.
Now that they've come to faith in Christ Jesus isn't enough.
You've also got to become Jewish, you've
[00:02:42] Speaker B: got to be circumcised, you got to
[00:02:44] Speaker A: attend the festivals, you got to go through the traditions, which Paul's going to argue is a step to saying, you
[00:02:49] Speaker B: got to fulfill the whole law, but
[00:02:52] Speaker A: you got to take on the law.
Gentiles who believe the gospel have got to become Jew.
[00:02:59] Speaker B: And Paul says, there's two problems with this.
[00:03:03] Speaker A: First of all, such an understanding is
[00:03:06] Speaker B: a declaration that Jesus is not enough.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: If you have to add anything to what Jesus has done and you believe that, then you don't believe Jesus has done enough.
You don't believe Jesus is sufficient to save you.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: That's the first problem.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: The second problem is that this incites pride in our heart.
We all want to see how good
[00:03:33] Speaker B: we can do on the test on our own.
[00:03:36] Speaker A: We don't want the help.
We by nature think we can do good enough apart from Christ.
And so when you begin to add the law to Jesus, you incite this sort of legalistic pride that is in all of us where we think we can stand before God by our own merit. And Paul says, that is dangerous.
That will send you to hell.
And so he fights hard against such false teaching.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: And he says, if you add anything to Jesus, you are going to fail this test to pass.
It's Jesus plus nothing equals everything to fail.
Jesus plus anything fails.
That's the math of Galatians.
And as we make our way through this passage, Paul is still arguing against what he has seen in Peter. Remember last week, Peter, who's believed in Christ, who's been given this vision, it's okay to eat with Gentiles.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: You're not bound by this dietary law anymore. And so he's hanging out with Gentile believers. And then folks from Jerusalem show up
[00:04:58] Speaker B: and he separates from them.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: And Paul says, you are communicating a false gospel by what you're doing. You are communicating Jesus isn't enough.
You still have to obey the law. And the Gentiles in Christ, they don't have enough. They have to be like us. You are communicating this false gospel.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: And Paul wants to clarify. He kind of slows down in these
[00:05:26] Speaker A: verses and emphasizes over and over what is true, what is real, what makes us right before God is not the law.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: First of all, we see in verse 15, it is Jesus who justifies notice, speaking about himself in Peter, verse 15.
We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners.
Peter, we are separated by our ethnicity. As Jews, the Gentiles were seen as dogs.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: They did not have the things of God.
[00:06:05] Speaker B: They were alienated from God.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: And Paul says, this is who we were. Our status was Jews.
We were separated from the Gentiles by God. Now how are we separated?
[00:06:19] Speaker B: As we're going to see, it was
[00:06:21] Speaker A: the law of God that separated us.
[00:06:24] Speaker B: But notice verse 16.
Even though we were Jews by birth, not Gentile sinners, yet we know that
[00:06:33] Speaker A: a person is not justified by works of the law.
No one can be justified by the works of the law. The law that separated us, it didn't save us.
Works of the Law.
Paul uses the term law, the law,
[00:06:52] Speaker B: 119 times in all of his writings, and he's referring to the Mosaic Law.
And there were hundreds of commands in the Mosaic Law.
They are summarized for us in the Ten Commandments. We might say, this is God's law.
[00:07:10] Speaker A: Separated the Jews, made them God's people.
And he's saying here, it was never by obeying that law that notice a person is justified.
This means to be proven right, proven not guilty, to obtain righteousness before God.
No one could ever do that according to the law.
You know yourself you can't do that. Think about the Ten Commandments. How many of those have you broken today?
You can't be justified by the law.
And Paul is saying, peter, you and I figured this out.
We realized we couldn't do this.
[00:07:51] Speaker B: You see, the law separated Israel, but it could not save. Now, why is that?
[00:07:57] Speaker A: Well, the intent of the law was
[00:07:59] Speaker B: to reveal God's perfect character.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: In looking into the law, you are to see these are the requirements that God has for us. And in seeing his requirements, you are
[00:08:10] Speaker B: to understand he is holy and he is righteous.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: He's calling his people to be holy as he is holy.
And you see that in the Law, you see his holiness. This is the standard he has for his people, perfection to align with his character.
You see, the law is good.
The law is perfect because it's describing God.
[00:08:36] Speaker B: The law is good, but we're bad.
And that's what the law shows.
You see, the standard of the law is perfection.
Galatians, chapter 3, verse 10 says this
[00:08:49] Speaker A: cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in in the book of the Law and do them.
So how are you justified by the Law? You got to be perfect.
Because if you're not perfect and you don't do everything the law says, you're cursed.
You see, God's law is like a pane of glass.
And if you have this perfect pane of glass, and yet you ding it with a rock, you don't, then all of a sudden look at that glass and say, it's okay.
No blemishes.
It's still good. No. You say, you ruined the whole thing.
That scratch ruins the whole thing.
And James will say, if we fail in one part of the law, we are guilty of the whole thing because the law demands perfection, because God is perfect. 80% is not good enough.
[00:09:48] Speaker B: The law condemns us.
When we look into the law, it reveals our sin and it condemns us. And it says, we deserve to die. We deserve to be judged. By God.
That's what the law does.
And so no one can be justified, no one can be proven right by works of the law doing and obeying the law.
But notice as the text continues, but through faith in Jesus Christ.
You see, the law is meant to lead us to Christ.
[00:10:26] Speaker A: The law can't save us, but is designed to lead us to the One who does save us. You see, the law is a mirror. And we look in the mirror and we see God's perfection, but we also see our blemishes.
[00:10:41] Speaker B: But a mirror can't change your blemishes.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: A mirror can't cleanse you of your sin.
The mirror shows God's righteousness and our unrighteousness. But the mirror cannot save you. It does nothing for what you see.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: Someone else has to do that.
So notice we believed Jesus Christ.
Faith in him means to rely on him alone, to trust in him alone, to depend on him alone. We could not depend on ourselves. We could not look to the law and our righteousness.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: So we have to depend on Jesus
[00:11:24] Speaker B: Christ, the Savior, King.
The verse continues.
So we also, as Gentiles, just like the Gentiles, the Jews, us, Peter, Paul, we also have believed in Christ Jesus.
[00:11:41] Speaker A: The law couldn't save us. So just like the Gentiles, we had to believe in Christ Jesus. We had no other choice in order to be justified.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: Now notice how justified.
Notice the phrase there. In order to be justified, he says, you can't prove yourself right, but in
[00:12:01] Speaker A: believing in Jesus,
[00:12:04] Speaker B: we've done so to be justified. It is a passive thing that has happened to us in Christ.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: We don't justify ourselves.
We have been justified by someone else who is God.
This is something that has been done to us.
And here we see this being justified in is God's declaration that we are now not guilty and righteous in Christ. That's what it means to be justified. This is the doctrine of justification. That God looks at you and declares you are not guilty.
He declares it to you. You can't make yourself not guilty, he says. He declares you are righteous.
It is a statement, a pronouncement from God upon you.
You can't do that for yourself. God has to say that about you and to you. And how does he do it? By faith in Christ. Turning from yourself and turning to Christ and relying on Christ.
And again he emphasizes, and not by works of the law. And then again, because works of the law, no one will be justified in these verses, these two verses, he wants to scream at us.
You can't be justified by works of the law.
You can't be justified by works of the law.
Don't even think that way.
[00:13:31] Speaker B: But by faith in Jesus Christ.
Here we find the glorious doctrine of justification by faith alone, in Christ alone.
You can't understand Christianity without understanding this.
You can't be a Christian without believing this.
So what is it?
What is justification by faith alone, in Christ alone?
It is this reality that though I am guilty and unrighteous, the law says that.
Your conscience says that to you.
[00:14:13] Speaker A: You are guilty.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: And you can't be righteous in and of yourself.
You deserve God's judgment and God, the
[00:14:20] Speaker A: judge, even though you're guilty, even though you're unrighteous, he declares, he pronounces
[00:14:29] Speaker B: that you're not guilty and that you are righteous. Now think about that.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: The judge, holy righteous judge, looks at you and says, okay, even though you are guilty, you're not guilty.
Even though the reality of your life is that you are unrighteous. I'm saying you're righteous. Now there's a problem with that immediately, right?
Any other judge that acts that way,
[00:14:54] Speaker B: we say they're not a good judge.
[00:14:57] Speaker A: You can't just be letting criminals go.
You can't just be saying people are not guilty who really are guilty.
You can't just pretend that they're righteous even though they're unrighteous.
But justification is that God would look at you and say, not guilty, righteous.
[00:15:18] Speaker B: So how does it happen?
Well, it's not by your works, good or bad, because your good or bad works declare that you're unrighteous, that you're guilty.
It's through faith, not works.
And why does he do it?
Notice Paul's emphasizing here. Through faith in Jesus Christ.
In Christ Jesus.
We believe in Jesus.
What do we believe about Jesus?
[00:15:48] Speaker A: That he is righteous, that he is perfect, and that he has obeyed the law.
That he has done what we couldn't do in a perfect life.
And he died in our place, a sufficient death. And so we believe in him, his death. Though we are guilty, we believe his death paid for our sins. So now we are forgiven. Not guilty in his death.
Even though we are unrighteous, we believe in him, his perfect life that fulfilled every part of the law. In our place, we look to him who is perfect, who is righteous in what God does. The moment, the moment we believe, the moment we trust in Christ, the moment we give up on ourselves and we look to Jesus, life and death in our place. He says, jesus, record is now yours and you are not guilty and you are righteous. That's who we are in Christ.
That's what happens the moment you believe.
It is a pronouncement, and it is a irrevocable pronouncement on your life.
It doesn't begin a participation with God to become righteous. It is a pronouncement. You are now righteous, right now in Christ.
Even though we sit here guilty and unrighteous in Christ, God is saying to you today, if you're looking to Christ, you are righteous. You're not guilty.
That is a statement about you today, the moment you believe.
[00:17:24] Speaker B: So here's the thing.
If you're trying to get to heaven
[00:17:29] Speaker A: any other way, you won't.
[00:17:31] Speaker B: You won't make it.
[00:17:33] Speaker A: You can't.
[00:17:35] Speaker B: God won't allow.
[00:17:36] Speaker A: He won't allow any other way to
[00:17:38] Speaker B: heaven except through Jesus. That's why he sent him.
So if you're here today and you
[00:17:42] Speaker A: think I'm just going to stand before God and it's all going to work out apart from Christ, it won't.
[00:17:49] Speaker B: You see, we convince ourselves if you're not some sort of terrorist or pedophile, you go to heaven.
It's justification by death.
[00:17:59] Speaker A: Anybody in our culture that dies, we want to think good thoughts about them. We want to think they made it to heaven.
Favorite race car driver.
We want to pretend that they made it to heaven. That makes us feel better. That's not how we get to to heaven. It is through Christ and Christ alone.
You're not good enough and you've done too much bad. You've broken the law. You must look to Christ alone. Christ alone justifies. But next we see the law kills.
[00:18:31] Speaker B: Notice verse 17.
But if in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners. So Paul goes back to talking to Peter and he says, if when we
[00:18:48] Speaker A: left the law and gave up on
[00:18:50] Speaker B: our ability to please God according to
[00:18:52] Speaker A: the law, and we turn to Christ and we look to Christ to save us.
If when we did that, we turned from the law and we became sinners, then is Christ. Did Christ make us sinners?
Because here's the logic.
If you're saying the Gentiles who believed in Jesus haven't done enough, that they've got to add the law, then what about us Jews who have turned from the law?
We're in the same spot together, both of us clinging to Christ, but both of us guilty, we haven't done enough.
So did Christ make us sinners notice? Is Christ a servant initiator of sin?
Certainly not. Did Christ who led us away from the law lead us to Condemnation in our sin.
What difference did it make if we turn to Christ? If we still have to obey the law? We're in our sin, just like the Gentiles. And is this what Jesus did for us?
[00:19:58] Speaker B: No, absolutely not. And here's the logic. Verse 18, Notice for if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor.
You see, Paul is unpacking this logic that you're saying.
We can't be okay, so the Law condemns me. I can't be perfect. The Law is righteous. The Law is good. I can't get to God that way.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: It is like trying to to climb to God on a ladder where I've
[00:20:30] Speaker B: already broken all the rungs.
[00:20:32] Speaker A: I can't make it to God that way, so I have to turn to Christ.
But now the judaizers are saying, well, Christ isn't enough. You've got to add the Law.
And so Paul says, oh, you want me to go back to the law?
Well, guess what happens when I go back to the law.
It condemns me again.
I can't be good enough.
I can't be good enough. That's what the Law keeps saying to me. The law over and over notice. Proves that I have disobeyed the Law.
The Law demands perfection.
I can't turn to Christ and then turn to the Law and be perfect. It's just going to condemn me. Your logic leads me in a circle, right back to condemnation.
[00:21:20] Speaker B: The Law condemns. I need Christ.
[00:21:22] Speaker A: He's not enough. Oh, the Law. The Law condemns. And here I am trapped. It is as though I am in a house of mirrors and every wall is saying, guilty, guilty, condemned, condemned. As you try to obey the law, as you try to add the Law to Christ, all the law is going to continue to say is guilty and condemned everywhere.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: So he says, verse 19.
Through the law, I died.
The Law condemned me. It killed me.
I realized I could not obey the law.
I try. Think about Paul's resume that we've talked
[00:22:05] Speaker A: about over and over.
[00:22:09] Speaker B: He was elite when it came to obeying the law. But it wasn't enough.
He says I wasn't perfect. So it sentenced me to death.
So how in the world could I live?
Well, I had to die to my ability to please God according to the law. I had to give up on that.
That wasn't going to happen. I died to it.
Notice.
So how do I live now? The end of verse 19 and verse 20 should be read together so that
[00:22:41] Speaker A: I might live to God.
[00:22:43] Speaker B: I have been crucified With Christ.
That was his only hope. That's our only hope.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: The law killed me. I died to thinking I could please God and earn heaven according to the law.
So if I was going to live to God, I've been crucified with Christ. That was my only hope, to be accepted by God, to have life with God, to have life in God. I had to die to my ability to please God, and I had to turn to Christ and in Christ. Notice these glorious words. I have been crucified with Christ.
The sinner that the law condemned is dead at the cross.
The man who tried to please God according to his righteousness gave up and is dead at the cross, is crucified.
Paul is saying, everything that was in me that I thought was good enough is gone. I gave up on that. I killed it. I mortified it. I destroyed it at the cross with Christ.
[00:23:47] Speaker B: I have been crucified with Christ. He's speaking of what it means to believe in Christ, so identified with Christ that you can look at the cross and say, there I died under the wrath of God.
I turned to Christ's death and I claimed it as mine. And so the justice of my sin has happened at the cross.
But we see in these verses that
[00:24:13] Speaker A: legalism working to get to Christ.
And then when you're in Christ, a legalism that tries to add stuff to Christ to make God happy.
[00:24:27] Speaker B: Spiritual suicide.
The law will kill you over and over.
If you're trying to earn God's favor to be saved or to keep yourself saved, you're going to die, you're going to wear out because you're going to
[00:24:41] Speaker A: keep seeing, I'm not enough.
[00:24:44] Speaker B: I can't do enough.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: God is perfect. God is holy. How in the world could I make a holy, righteous God more pleased with me?
How could I earn my way into his kingdom? It doesn't happen.
[00:24:58] Speaker B: It's spiritual suicide.
And so some of you are here today because you made a decision.
I need God in my life.
And on the most basic level, that's why you came to church today.
Maybe you've matured as an adult. You have kids now.
I want my kids to grow up in church.
My life's not the way that I
[00:25:26] Speaker A: want it to be.
[00:25:27] Speaker B: So I need to add some church stuff. I need to figure out what Christians do.
[00:25:34] Speaker A: I was raised in church.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: That's kind of what I. That's how I think a good person lives. They go to church, they take their family to church.
And that's maybe why you're here today.
And we are so happy that you are here today.
And I want to say this as clear as I can to you.
Those things won't get you to heaven.
And if in all of the good things you miss Jesus, you won't go to heaven.
That's not what's going to make you right with God.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: And at the end of the day,
[00:26:11] Speaker B: that's not what's going to get your life together. Because you're going to give up on that because it's going to be too hard.
You're going to get tired of doing the good things, the church things. You're going to wear out.
But I have good news for you.
It's not that hard.
You believe in Christ.
[00:26:27] Speaker A: That's where you start.
[00:26:28] Speaker B: You trust in Christ.
[00:26:29] Speaker A: You rely on Christ.
You can't earn a resume that God's
[00:26:34] Speaker B: going to accept in and of yourself.
[00:26:36] Speaker A: You look to Jesus and his righteousness. He's the one that lived a perfect life for you.
And maybe you're a Christian here today and you live your life week to
[00:26:47] Speaker B: week by thinking, okay, Sunday is like
[00:26:51] Speaker A: a reset for me.
I come to church on Sunday and
[00:26:55] Speaker B: it resets, and it kind of resets
[00:26:58] Speaker A: all the bad that I did during the week. I didn't live the way that I want to, okay, so let me go to church on Sunday and start over.
That's not necessarily bad.
But then you think when you leave
[00:27:13] Speaker B: here, okay, now I'm going to do better this week.
[00:27:18] Speaker A: And if I do better this week, God's going to be really happy with
[00:27:21] Speaker B: me and he might bless me.
[00:27:22] Speaker A: And all of these things that are really difficult in my life, they're going to go away.
And you're trying to earn God's favor that way. Week after week after week. Even as someone who says, I believe in Christ alone, that that's the way you live. That's how all of this works out for you.
[00:27:41] Speaker B: As your pastor, let me say to you, that will kill you.
That will make you miserable.
And for some of you, you will give up on this God thing eventually, because it doesn't work that way.
And it's not what God demands of you.
No, he demands today that you would stop running, that you would stop trying to cover your sin up, trying to do better, trying to make him happy by what you do.
And you would just accept the charges, like Paul does here. I died. The law said I'm condemned.
I accept the charges.
Stop running.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: You're a wanted man.
You're a wanted woman.
The law is chasing you down and you're trying to run away. From it to do better.
[00:28:37] Speaker B: It's going to catch you and it's
[00:28:40] Speaker A: going to kill you.
[00:28:42] Speaker B: Go ahead and stop and turn to Christ and be killed and die at the cross and say, that's my payment. That's the payment of my sin.
Under the wrath of God, under the judgment of God that was unleashed upon the perfect Son of God. I died there.
The law can't kill me now.
I've already died in Christ. Accept that.
[00:29:08] Speaker A: Or you're going to keep living your life in this house of mirrors and you're going to run from corner to corner to corner. Guilty. Condemned. Condemned. Condemned. I'll try harder. I'll try harder. No.
Look to Christ. Stop and look to Christ. He is enough.
[00:29:24] Speaker B: Jesus justifies the law kills. So what must we do? Notice, we must live in grace.
We must live in the grace of his righteousness first. So you ask as a believer, okay? I'm trusting in Christ alone. That's the only way that I can be saved from my sins.
I can't do enough to earn God's favor to get to heaven.
[00:29:46] Speaker A: I can't do anything in Christ to make him happier with me.
So then how do I live?
I still have to live life, right?
I still have to live life where I have to do some things.
I still have to live life where I still sin, right?
[00:30:02] Speaker B: How do I live this way?
Notice it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Now we're going to talk about in the next few chapters the way in which the Spirit of God lives within us. When we believe in Christ, we are given the Spirit of God and the old man dies and there is a new man that is that comes to live within us according to the Gospel by the power of the Spirit. And we will obey by the Spirit, not to be accepted, but because we are accepted. I don't think that's what he's talking about here, though.
[00:30:34] Speaker A: I think what he means here is if the man working to earn God's favor is dead, the guilty man is dead, who now lives for me, before
[00:30:46] Speaker B: God, it used to be me.
[00:30:49] Speaker A: I'm trying to please God. That man's dead. So now who lives before God in my place?
[00:30:55] Speaker B: Christ.
It is Christ who lives.
[00:30:59] Speaker A: You could translate this. It is Christ in my place who lives before God.
And you have to live in this grace where you see your life wrapped up in Christ every single day, day.
And you have to remind yourself when you want to try harder. I can't improve on what Christ has done. It is Christ who is before God on my behalf. He is my advocate. I can't improve on that. And you look to Christ. You look to his righteousness, not your own.
And when you sin, what do you do? You look to Christ and his righteousness. This is how you live, in grace.
I sin. Jesus never did. His life is in my place.
I can't improve on his righteous life. His life is in my place. And you are constantly looking to that reality. You're constantly living in that security by faith.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: So we live in grace.
The grace of his righteousness and the grace of his cross. Notice. And the life I now live in the flesh. Again, Paul's not denying we live in this body. And this body is racked with sinful
[00:32:07] Speaker A: patterns that we still have to deal with. So how do I live in this flesh?
Notice. Work harder.
Do better.
Confess your sin and then go and don't sin. And try really hard not to do that again.
[00:32:27] Speaker B: No, I live by faith in the Son of God.
That's how you live.
That's how you live now as a
[00:32:37] Speaker A: sinner, you are constantly looking to the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. The word love means a commitment to
[00:32:46] Speaker B: our good no matter what it costs. But what did it cost Christ? Notice gave himself for me. He died in my place.
[00:32:55] Speaker A: He was my substitute. The so how do I live in this life as a sinner? I look to the unshakable reality of the cross constantly by faith. I continue to put all of my confidence in the cross. When I sin, my confidence has got to be in the cross. It's still true. Nothing changed this reality of the cross.
[00:33:17] Speaker B: And here's the mind blowing thing about the cross.
Jesus made that decision before there was anything lovable about you.
Right?
While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God made the decision while you were a sinner to crush his Son in your place.
So here's the glory of that.
Now that I'm in the sun.
Now that I'm in the and he looks at me as he looks well,
[00:33:58] Speaker A: he's not going to stop loving me now.
[00:34:02] Speaker B: He knew I was going to be high maintenance.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: God knew what he was getting into when he saved you.
He's not shocked by your sin.
And in no way does he think that all of a sudden you're going to fix your sin.
[00:34:22] Speaker B: No. He says, look back to the Son, look back to the cross. And this is the thing we keep saying around here. We have to live by faith, not feelings.
We have to look to Christ by
[00:34:34] Speaker A: faith and keep looking to Christ.
[00:34:36] Speaker B: By faith.
[00:34:36] Speaker A: Why?
[00:34:37] Speaker B: My feelings about how God feels about
[00:34:39] Speaker A: me do not determine his love for me.
Because that changes every day, right? How does God feel about me? Well, today I'm at church, I feel
[00:34:50] Speaker B: pretty good about how God feels about me.
[00:34:53] Speaker A: But then tomorrow, when those sins creep
[00:34:55] Speaker B: back in, you're not going to feel good about how God feels about you. What do you do? You look to the cross, where he said, this is how I feel about you.
I sent my son to die for you.
[00:35:08] Speaker A: It's an irrevocable reality in the cross, and we anchor our life to it. And this is why Paul says, I do not nullify the grace of God. I don't turn back to works.
No, I keep looking to his righteousness, looking to the cross. Why? That is the unmerited favor of God. I deserve judgment. Jesus has faced judgment for me. Now I have the favor of God despite what I deserve. And I can't turn from that. I can't turn from Christ because I would notice. Nullify, cancel, void, decline the grace of God. It is as though God says, here is this glorious gift. You can't earn it. It is free. And you say, hold on, let me try to work for it.
No, you nullify the whole purpose and the gift.
You can't do it. It's meant to be free. Don't decline it. Don't void it out.
Notice, he says, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. If I could earn my favor with God, his favor with me through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
If God wanted you to believe in Jesus and then get to work trying to fix your sin and earn a righteousness that you add to Christ, he wouldn't have sent Christ in the first place. He would have just said, get to work.
[00:36:28] Speaker B: No, but he sent Christ to die for your sin.
Paul says, as though Jesus is running into a house on fire to rescue us.
And along the way he notices us just walking out of the house on our own.
And he turns to us and says, I'm going to go die in this house to prove how much I love you.
And we would say, there's no reason to do that.
[00:37:02] Speaker A: We just walked out of the house on our own.
[00:37:05] Speaker B: What are you doing, Jesus?
There's no purpose in you going in there.
[00:37:09] Speaker A: If we could save ourselves, Jesus would not have to die for us.
You can't save yourself.
[00:37:17] Speaker B: No. You are suffocating, dying.
And Jesus comes in and he carries you out.
[00:37:24] Speaker A: So now when he places you in
[00:37:26] Speaker B: the gospel on the solid ground, don't say, no, no, let me try. Let me see how good I can do it. Jesus, don't do that.
Just thank him. Delight in his grace for you parents. We know how that is. When we give our kids gifts, we plan to give our kids amazing gifts. And we want to surprise them because we delight in their delight of the gift. Right?
And if your child, on Christmas or their birthday, when you give them this gift, unexpected gift, some new Jordans, $400 Jordans. Here you go.
And your son looks at you and says in panic, opens the gift,
[00:38:15] Speaker A: these are the shoes always wanted.
Oh, my goodness. Did I do enough this year to deserve these?
Did I do enough to deserve this? Oh, my goodness. Why would you give me this glorious gift?
And you would say, absolutely, you didn't
[00:38:31] Speaker B: do enough to deserve it.
[00:38:36] Speaker A: I want you to delight in that gift and my grace and my mercy to you.
I want you to enjoy it. And that's what God wants with us. He wants us to delight in the gift. And he delights in our delight of the gift. He wants us to praise him. He wants us to thank Him. He wants us to be in wonder. He wants us to not run harder for him, but run to grace.
[00:39:04] Speaker B: And like a kid who comes back to their parent and says, I can't believe you did this.
[00:39:10] Speaker A: You are amazing.
[00:39:11] Speaker B: Thank you so much. We do that over and over and over again. And the more we look at the gift and the more we treasure the gift and the more we prize the gift, the gift overwhelms us of God's grace that he would do this to us. And you know what we do? We begin to serve and we begin to tell others about the gift that you wouldn't believe. The gift that my father gave me.
[00:39:33] Speaker A: And that's how we live our life, in awe and wonder and joy.
[00:39:38] Speaker B: And we have the opportunity today to come and delight in the gift at the Lord's table.
And I want to be clear with you today that the Lord's table, it is not earning us God's favor or acceptance.
It is delighting in God's favor and acceptance for us in Christ.
And the Lord's table is to be celebrated by those who believe in Christ alone, those who have been baptized and those who are accountable to a local church.
If you're here today, and that's not you, we want you to see and hear what's going on here as we talk about the gospel and. And we want you to believe in the gospel.
This isn't a time where if you're not a member of our church. You just kind of check out.
No, lean in, hear what's being said.
[00:40:30] Speaker A: This is about Christ and Christ alone, who died for us.
[00:40:35] Speaker B: And the Lord's table is for those who are trusting. Maybe you're here today and you have unrepentant sin and you're asking, should I come to the Lord's table today? I want want to answer that for you.
You should come to the Lord's table if you are going to repent of that sin.
If you have no inclination to turn from that sin, the table's not for you.
But if you are, confess, repent, and look to the Gospel again and be reminded that God accepts you as he accepts Christ. The men.
