Dance Lessons: Living for God
Galatians 2:15-21
Chenoa Baptist Church
Pastor Jefferson M. Williams
03-01-2020
Refresh
Two weeks ago, on Sunday night, I sat on the bed with five tabs open on my laptop and for almost two hours I refreshed those tabs continuously - Twitter, NASCAR, TMZ, ESPN, and a couple of news sites. Why? Because I was waiting on news.
I am not a NASCAR fan and know very little about the drivers but when I watched this wreck, my heart sank. It was devastating. Then I saw this picture and I began to beg God to not let Ryan Newman be dead.
Minute after minute went by and no one had any news. This is often a very bad sign. On Twitter, someone mentioned that they didn’t cover the car, which could be a good sign. All we knew was he had been taking to a local hospital and reporters and fans had gathered outside the ER.
About 30 minutes after the wreck, someone on Twitter posted “RIP Ryan Newman, age 42.” But I knew that there had not been an official announcement yet so I didn’t put too much stock in that Tweet.
Every once in a while, Maxine would ask if I knew anything. I told her that it didn’t look good but no word yet.
There were rumors from pit row that Ryan was conscious and talking when they pulled him out of the car but those rumors couldn’t be confirmed.
So I refreshed and refreshed. I wasn’t the only one. Twitter was full of people looking for information and the hashtag #prayforRyan was trending.
Then NASCAR announced that they would be having a press conference. Someone said that this was eerily like when Dale Earnhardt, Sr. died. Another RIP post on Twitter appeared. But TMZ didn’t have an update so I continued to wait.
Almost two hours after the wreck, an official from NASCAR walked to the podium and made an announcement. I held my breath.
"He is in serious condition, but doctors have indicated his injuries are not life threatening."
Twitter exploded in joy and I woke Maxine up and told her the good news.
Two days later, Ryan left Halifax Medical Center with his daughters holding his hands.
It was a good news story. God had been merciful. The safety systems put in place after Dale Sr. died worked and saved his life. And those two little girls still had a daddy.
Good news makes your day, doesn’t it? Well, I’ve got good news today. Actually, Paul has the good news but he will be sharing with us through these verses this morning.
Peter’s Hypocrisy
Last week, we studied the beginning of Paul’s confrontation of Peter in Antioch.
When Peter was staying at Antioch, his regular custom was to eat with his Gentile brothers and sisters. Peter had understood from his experience in Acts 10 that his revelation wasn’t just about food but also about the Gentiles. Jesus told him not to call anything unclean that He has cleansed:
“I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism but accepts from every nation the one who fears him and does what is right. You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, announcing the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.” (Acts 10:34-36)
Peter was enjoying table fellowship with his Gentile friends until the James gang showed up in Antioch. These were men who came from Jerusalem with the supposed authority of James that taught that the Gentiles in Antioch couldn’t be Christians until they had become Jews - circumcised, following dietary rules, and the Mosaic law.
They were powerful and intimidating. And Peter, when faced the with the choice of being courageous or a coward, took the cowards way out. He pulled back from eating with the Gentiles. They were hurt and confused.
And Paul was furious! He confronted Peter to his face in front of the whole assembly:
“When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?” (Gal 2:14)
I love the way Ralph Keiper paraphrased this verse:
“Peter, I smell ham on your breath. You forgot your Certs. There was a time when you wouldn’t have eaten ham as part of your hope of salvation. Then after you trusted Christ, it didn’t matter if you ate ham. But now when the non-ham eaters have come from Jerusalem you’ve gone back to your Kosher ways. But the smell of ham still lingers on your breath. ?You’re most inconsistent. You’re compelling Gentile believers to observe Jewish law, which can never justify anyone.”
Peter was siding with the Judaizers in his behavior and Paul wasn’t standing for it for a minute.
We ended there last week but Paul continues with his confrontation of Peter and summarizes it for his Galatian readers and us.
Remember, the Christians at Antioch were dancing to a new rhythm - the rhythm of grace in the Gospel. And those who dance are thought crazy by those who cannot hear the music.
Turn with me to Galatians 2:15-21.
Prayer.
Jews and Gentiles are in the same boat
“We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.” (Gal 2:15-16)
Imagine the scene with me. Paul is standing at the front of one side of the church and Peter on the other. On Peter’s side, in the back, with their arms crossed, the “James Gang” stands. Barnabas and the other Jewish Christians saw them as they walked in and sat on that side of the church. The Gentiles, feeling the weight of the separation, sit on the side that Paul stands in front of and wait for what Paul will say.
Can you imagine Paul’s heart as he looked at this scene? How bad it must of hurt to see even Barnabas sitting on the other side of the church?
Paul takes a deep breath, looks Peter in the eye, and begins by contrasting them and the Gentiles.
Peter and Paul are “Jews by birth.” To the Jew, they thought that this gave them a tremendous advantage over the Gentiles.
To the church at Rome, Paul writes of the Jews:
Theirs is the adoption to sonship; theirs the divine glory, the covenants, the receiving of the law, the temple worship and the promises. Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised! Amen.
Jews believed that they had a moral advantage over “Gentile sinners.” It wasn’t that they didn’t think they sinned, but the Gentiles didn’t have or obey the Law. They were pagan, godless, wicked, immoral people.
But Paul says that the advantage is a sham - “all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory.” (Romans 3:23)
Peter and Paul, and the other Jews that had become Christians, knew that a person is not justified by the works of the law. How did they know that? Because they had tried to live the law for 1,500 years and not one of them could. The law condemned them. It’s like an MRI machine. It can diagnose but it cannot cure. It showed that they were sinners but couldn’t save them.
What did Paul and the other Jewish Christians learn? That they are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, to the glory of God alone.
Paul makes it personal and says to Peter, “we too” have abandoned the Law as a way to be accepted by God and placed our faith in Jesus because, again, by the works of the Law no one will be justified.
Verses 15 and 16 introduce the concept of “justification” to Paul’s argument. He uses that word in verses 15, 16, 17, and 21.
We looked at that during the Solas sermon series.
Martin Luther said that “justification by faith alone is the a doctrine upon which the church stands or falls.”
Justification is a legal declaration. It’s the opposite of “condemnation” or “guilty.” Justification is the process by which God declares us “not guilty.”
David Platt and Tony Merida define justification this way:
It is the
* gracious act of God
Why would God justify you? Because He loves you.
By which He declares
“Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand.” (Rom 5:1-2)
*a sinner who stands guilty before a Holy God
righteous - He once and far all forgives our sins.
* solely through faith in Christ.
Tim Keller defines it this way:
“Justification means that in Christ, through we are actually sinners, we are not under condemnation. God accepts us despite our sin. We are not acceptable to God because we actually become righteous , be become actually righteous because we are acceptable to God.”
Paul and Peter and Barnabas and all the other Jewish Christians are justified the exact same way as the Gentiles - through faith in Christ Jesus.
Christ lived a perfect life and was the only person to keep the law perfectly. He was the only Person ever who didn’t deserve to go to hell. But He willingly died on the cross, in our place, to pay the penalty of the Law, which is death. On the cross, Jesus made the great exchange - our sins for His righteousness. And by placing your faith in His substitutionary death, He gives you something the Law could never give - His perfect righteousness.
“God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Cor 5:21)
Jews and Gentiles are in the same boat - they both need Jesus. And that’s what the Law does. It points out our sin and shows us our hopelessness.
Paul looked around to see if everyone was tracking with him. He could anticipate the James Gang questions and continued:
Who is the Law Breaker?
“But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker.” (Gal 2:17-18)
I can just imagine one of the James Gang raising his hand and interrupting Paul:
“Really, Paul? You are teaching a Law-free Gospel. You are turning your back on Moses. It is really just by faith alone in Jesus, then it’s going to be a free-for-all. Your converts aren’t going to be any different than the Gentiles who don’t live by the Law. The Law is what keeps us in line. Without it, why not sin? Why not sin ALOT! Who cares? He will forgive it all. Which means that Christ is actually leading people to sin! If God justifies bad people, what’s the point of being good? That’s a dangerous theology you’ve got there Paul.”
Paul’s blood pressure was rising, his face turning red. He explodes, “May it never be! God forbid!”
If the Law was still in force, and you sought salvation in Christ alone, then we would be sinners.
If the Law was no longer in force, and we sought salvation in anything other than Jesus, then that would make us sinners. ?
By pulling away from his Gentile brothers and sisters, Peter was going back to the Law, something that they both had forsaken as a means of salvation when they put their faith in Christ.
If I wanted to go back under the Law, I would be condemned by the law.
The word “destroyed” means to tear down a building. Peter was rebuilding the wall that Jesus tore down between the Jews and the Gentiles. This was the actually sin!
Another way to look at this verse is that, if as Christians, we still sin after we are saved, it’s our fault not Jesus’s fault.
The James Gang wanted the Gentiles to become Jews. They wanted them to follow the Mosaic Law, something that they had not been able to keep for 1,500 years. But they tried and in their trying they believed they were accepted by God.
Chuck Swindoll writes:
“To us, our best efforts my seem like a sturdy enough staircase to ascend to God. But like rotten wood they cannot hold us. We can’t eve take the first step toward heaven without it snapping into splinters beneath us.
Jesus is our only secure staircase. He alone has fulfilled the obligations of the Law on our behalf and has made us right with God.”
You can’t hop high enough for God’s holiness. You can’t ever be good enough to be accepted on your own.
Peter and Paul had figured that out, with the aid of the Holy Spirit, and had left their life under the Law to dance to the rhythm of the Gospel of grace.
In fact, Paul makes this explicit in the next verse:
Living for God
“For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.” (Gal 2:19)
When the Bible talks of “the Law” it means the commandments of God. The Law is like a mirror - it shows us the character of God and the sinfulness of man.
Paul says the Law is good, holy, and righteous. But the Law can only don one thing - point out how far we fall short. It condemns us. It shows us what is wrong but cannot cure us of it.
Paul wrote similar words to the church in Rome:
“What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death.” (Romans 7:7-11)
I remember a pastor telling a story about checking into a hotel in Florida and walking out onto the balcony. On the balcony, there was a sign that read, “No fishing off the balcony.” He was on the 9th floor.
He said that it never occurred to him to try to fish off the balcony until he saw the sign. The rest of the week, he was obsessed with thinking about trying to fish off the balcony. Could he cast that far? What could he catch? What would happen if he was caught?
Paul says that he died to the Law. He died to Law as a way to be pleasing to God. The Law condemned him and put him to death. But then he says he is alive and living for God. How does this work?
Coffee Cup Verse
He continues with one of the best known verses in all the Bible:
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal 2:20)
We memorize this verse, put it on coffee cups, and sing it. But do we really understand it?
When we become a Christian, we are united to Christ. We are literally “in Christ.” When Christ was crucified literally, we were there figuratively. When He died, we died with Him.
Now, we don’t live as our own. Christ lives in us. He transforms us. He gives us a new heart, a new perspective, new desires.
That’s the answer to the James Gang accusation that a Law Free Gospel would lead to sinful chaos.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Cor 5:17)
The life that Paul now lives he lives by faith. Faith in what? Faith in faith? Faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me.
Jesus lived a perfect life. He obey the Law completely. His obedience was credited to our account. Jesus died a substitutionary death in our place, for our sins. He absorbed the wrath of God against sin and took the punishment that we deserved - death and instead gave us His righteousness. Jesus rose again to prove that the new creation is a reality.
Why did He do this? Because he loved us. It was out of extravagant love and sheer grace.
He willingly gave Himself as a ransom for me and you to rescue us from hopelessness and hell.
Theologian F.F. Bruce writes:
“Those that place their faith in Christ are united with Him by faith - united so closely that His experience now becomes theirs: they share His death to the old order and His resurrection to new life…As Christ’s death was a death by crucifixion, the believer is said not only to have died with Him but have been crucified Him. This is in the present tense which emphasizes that participation in the crucified Christ has become the believer’s settled way of life.”
Remember, Paul is saying this in front of the entire assembly as he was confronting Peter.
Paul is saying that Jesus is now living His life through him and Peter and everyone else who had put their faith in Christ for their salvation.
And he ends this speech by turning to the James Gang and addressing them directly:
Christ didn’t die in vain
“I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” (Gal 2:21)
Paul’s voice rose to a crescendo. If you teach that following the Law can make you acceptable to God, you are saying that Jesus died for nothing!
The James Gang was teaching Jesus + Keeping rules = salvation. They didn’t even realize that by preaching that, they were saying that Jesus blood was spilled for no reason!
Applications
1. Justification
You may be thinking to yourself - self, this is all very interesting but what does an argument that Paul and Peter had 2,000 years ago have anything to do with me, right now, this week?
Let me try to put in language that we would understand.
Instead of “we who are Jewish by birth” substitute “we who grew up in church.” Your daddy was a deacon and your momma played the organ. You were in church the day you were born and haven’t missed a day since. You did quiz bowl, AWANA, youth group mission trips, wore a purity ring and had a true loves wait t-shirt, and saw DC TALK six times. You read your Bible, don’t cuss, don’t smoke, and don’t drink (at least not in public). You are good!
You are not like the Gentile sinners - you know, that kid who didn’t grow up in church. His daddy was a drunk and his mom ran off with the mailman. At 12, he was already smoking weed, got a girl pregnant at 15, juvie at 17. Never went to church. Doesn’t own a Bible. Cusses, smokes, drinks in public. He is a bad person.
You get that, right? He’s bad and you’re good, or at least better than him. You might not say it out loud but you know it in your heart.
Justification by faith alone deals with that - it’s called spiritual pride. Guess what? You need Jesus just as bad as he does and all your “good works” are nothing but filthy rags.
There will be a lot of people in hell with Sunday school pins.
I have a friend who was getting close to his wedding and began to have cold feet. He and his fiancé came over to the house and we talked for several hours. He told us, in front of her, that he didn’t know if he could marry her because she wasn’t a virgin. He had been good. He had saved himself, although he did later admit that it was less about Jesus and more about the fact he could never really talk a girl into bed.
She was in tears. She tried to explain that her sins were taken by Jesus on the cross. They were gone. Those actions were before Jesus.
After about an hour, something extraordinary happened. He began to cry. He finally said, “I’ve always thought I was better than you and Jeff because I was “good” and you were “bad.” But I’m beginning to think that my pride is way worse than anything you guys have done in your past.” Only the Holy Spirit can break through like that. They’ve been happily married for 15 years.
Justification will crush you hard heart, your selfish spirit, your pouting pride and send you to your knees before the only one that is Holy.
Justification not only deals with our pride but it also deals with our despair. Those of us who were “bad” know the sadness that comes when you see your sin clearly for the first time. You feel the weight and the terror of knowing that you have sinned against a holy God.
But Jesus loved me and gave Himself for me! Me! I’m a new creation. My sins are gone, forgiven!
My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, o my soul
Amen!!
The story is told of William Herschel. As a young boy, he loved military music and when he was old enough he joined the German military band. He was totally unprepared for the terrors of war and deserted his unit, ultimately escaping to England.
He excelled in music and science and became well known. But he always had a secret. He always knew one day it would catch up with him.
When George who was German, became king, William knew that it was over. George knew of William’s desertion and it was now a matter of time. He was summoned before the royal court and he arrived with trembling with fear.
He waited for a considerable time until an attendant approached him with a document for him to read. William knew the punishment for desertion was death so he opened the letter and started to read what was his death sentence.
Instead he read this words out loud:
“I George pardon you for your past offenses against our native land.”
Not only that, William was to be knighted that day. He went from condemned criminal to honored dignitary in an instant.
That’s a beautiful picture of justification! When we put our faith in Christ alone for our salvation, went went from being condemned sinners to forgiven adopted children in an instant!
You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly…But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! (Romans 5:8-10)
2. Union with Christ?
The Judaizers question wasn’t really out of bounds. If the Law is no longer in effect, then what keeps people from going crazy? Just sin all they want to and God will forgive them?
This showed that they didn’t understand what happens at salvation. If we are “in Christ” then we no longer live.
Our old life is done. We are new creations. And now Christ lives in us and through us.
As we transition to communion, I’m going to put that verse back up and I want to ask you the question - do you know that He loved you and gave himself up for you? Can you put your name in the verse?
Mercy Fund
As a youth pastor, I encouraged students to pray for Justin Bieber. I knew he had a Christian background but he was headed down a very destructive path and I was afraid he would end up dead.
I watched this video and I was so overjoyed. This is Good News!
