Galatians 2:15-21 - The Law Fulfilled in Christ

Thank you for coming to worship with us at Redemption Hill.

I see some new faces.

My name's Joe.

I have the privilege of being one of the pastors here

and preaching to you from the book of Galatians.

I'd love to meet you after the service

if this is your first time.

Myself and some of our other pastors will be down front

to meet you, to answer questions and connect with you.

If you have your Bibles, let's go ahead and open to Galatians.

We're in chapter two.

This morning we'll be in verses 15 through 21,

so we're gonna close out chapter two.

What I would call is the thesis statement

of the book of Galatians.

Many have said this is the most important paragraph

in the book of Galatians.

If this is your first time in church,

you picked a really good Sunday to come

because we're gonna answer a really important question.

How can sinful people stand before a holy God?

How can we be made right with God?

Paul's gonna explain that today,

and what he is gonna tell us is the law can't do that,

and he's gonna tell us why the law cannot do that.

Let's read our text beginning in verse 15.

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.

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.

I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

In 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.

I do not nullify the grace of God,

for if righteousness were through the law,

then Christ died for no purpose.

This is God's word.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we come to you in prayer again,

asking for your Holy Spirit to open our eyes

and our hearts to receive your word,

asking that through your word,

you would nourish our souls

and you would equip your people for the work of ministry,

asking that you would get me out of the way

so that your word would be clear.

So God, I pray that you would do that.

You would point us to where our righteousness is found,

and that's found in Jesus, not in our own selves.

And I pray that you would press upon our hearts this morning

the grace and mercy that you've shown us in your Son.

Your word would go forth and you would be honored

in Christ's name we pray, amen.

Well, allow me this morning to use an illustration

from Jesus, although he used this illustration

in Matthew 18 to discuss forgiveness.

I'm gonna use the illustration to discuss

being right with God, justified with God.

Imagine a man that owes a massive debt,

call it billions and billions of dollars.

I mean, if you think about that number,

this man could never pay that debt back.

He would have to work a lifetime and then another lifetime

and another lifetime to even put a dent in that debt.

And imagine that that man does.

He owes this debt to someone else

and he works and labors for years.

And every time he attempts to pay back that debt,

all he realizes is that debt's just growing larger.

And then one day the person to whom he owed the debt

sends him a letter, an official letter with his signature.

Signature, the debt's been taken care of.

I paid the debt for you.

How would you feel if you were the one

that received the letter?

A burden lifted, gratitude and thanksgiving.

I'm sure you would run to that man

who paid the debt for you and thank him.

But imagine that's not what happens.

Imagine that instead of responding with thanksgiving

and gratitude, instead of embracing his freedom,

this man just returns to his old ways.

He just goes back working thinking that he's got to pay back

a debt that has already been paid.

That's what it's like if we rely on what Paul calls works

of the law to make us right with God.

That would have made the payment meaningless

if the man continued to try to pay back a debt

that didn't exist.

And what Paul is telling us is found in verse 21,

if righteousness were through the law,

then Christ died for no purpose.

If the debt's already been paid in full,

by Jesus, no payments required from us,

if we use our works, our obedience or the works of the law

to try to earn our righteousness,

then wouldn't that make the cross meaningless?

We can put it like this.

The work of Christ is meaningless

if the law could make us righteous.

If the law could make us righteous.

Now, remember what's happened so far in Galatians.

Paul has defended his apostleship and his gospel,

which are under attack in Galatia.

And in chapter one, he proved he never got his gospel

from man, he was independent of the other apostles

that walked with Jesus, those Jerusalem apostles.

From the moment he was converted,

and he preached the same gospel,

he was preaching a different gospel,

but he was independent of them.

He didn't have his gospel tainted or manipulated by man.

And in fact, in chapter two, he goes on to tell us

that that gospel that's under attack in Galatia

was also affirmed by the other apostles,

by Peter and James and John,

they're preaching the same gospel,

they extended to Paul the right hand of fellowship.

And then last week in chapter two, verses 11 through 14,

we see that that gospel that Paul is preaching,

the gospel is actually authoritative over every human,

even the other apostles, even over Peter.

Remember, it was in Antioch,

that blend of multicultural Christianity,

that first truly multi-ethnic church

where Peter came and he was eating with the Gentiles,

he was laying down his Jewishness

because he didn't want to make that a barrier

to receive the gospel.

And he knew in the gospel he was free,

he could eat the pork and the shrimp and the crawfish

and the whatever they ate during that day, right?

He didn't have to adhere to a strict diet

when he was around the Gentiles.

And he sat with them and ate with them

and was one with them until the men from James came.

And then what did he do?

He shrunk back and cowered and compromised

and though not explicitly preaching a different gospel

with his life,

he was implicitly preaching a different gospel.

He was preaching, yeah, it's Jesus,

but it's also Jewishness.

It's also what you eat.

And so what happened?

The church was divided.

It was split into Jews and Gentiles and Paul did what?

He goes to Peter and he confronts him to his face.

And he says in verse 14,

if you, Peter, though a Jew, live like a Gentile

and not like a Jew,

how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?

Peter, if you know the freedom of the gospel

and you're living in the freedom of the gospel,

you're not putting the barriers of the law

and the Gentiles to be received by Jesus,

to be made right

because it's only faith in Christ that makes one right.

You know that, but you're imposing the law back on them.

You're being a hypocrite.

And so what we have in verses 15 through 21

are the rest of Paul's confrontational words

with Peter that day in Antioch.

That's what's happening here.

Paul's continuing to tell the Galatians and us

what he told Peter when he confronted him to his face.

And what we're gonna see happens in this verse

is Paul's transitioning from defending his gospel

to explaining his gospel

because we have a lot of things in Galatians

packed really tightly in these verses.

And what we're gonna see as the book continues to progress

are these things being unpacked in further detail.

And his point in these verses

is to prove to Peter, Peter, the law doesn't make us right.

Doesn't make us righteous.

So this morning I want you to see from our text

two reasons why the law cannot make us right with God.

Two reasons.

Okay, number one, we're gonna see it

in the first half of this text, verses 15 through 18.

The law is powerless to make us righteous.

We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners.

So he's continuing to tell the church in Galatia

what he told Peter that day in Antioch.

So the we here is Peter and Paul.

They're both Jews by birth, they're not Gentiles.

That phrase Gentile sinners

was not a derogatory statement by Paul.

That's probably something that the Judaizers

would have said regarding the Gentiles.

They're not Jews like us.

They're outside of the covenant people of God.

They're sinners, they're not Gentiles.

They're sinners, we're not, we're Jews.

And Paul says, look Peter, you know we're Jews by birth.

We're not Gentiles.

But notice what he says next.

Yet we know, even Jews, we know that a person

is not justified by works of the law.

Underline that.

Get a sense for what Paul is saying.

Yes, there are privileges to being a Jew, Peter.

I know that, I'll give you that.

We could even say they might be advantages, so to speak.

Go to Romans chapter nine.

Paul lists them in Romans nine.

You might say the advantages of Jewishness in chapter nine

and he says this beginning in verse four.

They are Israelites, Jews.

Here's the advantages of being a Jew.

To them belong the adoption, the glory, the covenants,

the giving of the law, the worship,

the promises, to them belong the patriarchs

and from their race according to the flesh

is the Christ, the Messiah,

who is God over all blessed forever, amen.

So the Jews did have privileges that the Gentiles did not.

They had access to the law.

The Gentiles weren't given the law.

Moses and the Israelites were given the law.

It was to a Jew, the very first Jew we could say, Abraham,

that God gave a covenant to

and he gave the sign of the covenant circumcision.

It was to Abraham that God promised through him

all nations would be blessed

or would be a king that would come.

And it's through Abraham's line, the Jews,

that God did fulfill that promise

through the Messiah, through Jesus.

Paul says, I get it.

They don't have access to those privileges like we do.

Now, remember, that's not,

that's not to say that God didn't have a plan

from eternity past to graft Gentiles

into his covenant people.

We see in the Old Testament that plan being unfolded

and hinted at.

We see Jesus encountering Gentiles.

We talked about it last week, Peter's vision.

Remember Peter's vision of the food that God says,

look, what I have called cling,

you don't call common anymore.

What Peter is saying is, I'm sorry,

what Paul is saying to Peter

is there, yes, there are advantages to being a Jew,

but, but we know that by works of the law,

those advantages don't make us righteous.

They don't justify us.

I'm gonna think about that for a moment.

I grew up in a Christian home.

This is a rhetorical question.

You don't have to raise your hand.

Did you grow up in a Christian home?

I would be willing to bet about 60%,

maybe 70 said yes, 30 said no.

Growing up in a Christian home does not guarantee

that you would have been saved.

And if you have kids, it doesn't guarantee

that your kids will be saved.

No one, no one becomes a Christian through osmosis.

It's not how it works.

It's not how it works, just because you're close

in access to the things of God doesn't actually mean

that you will be a Christian.

Now, it's a good thing to grow up in a Christian home.

I mean, I grew up in a Christian home.

We listened to DC Talk growing up.

Audio adrenaline, come on,

you guys know what I'm talking about.

Yeah, you're nodding your head.

Some of you are like, what is that?

You might not wanna go listen to DC Talk,

nodding your head, I'm just kidding.

We have, I had access to God's word.

I was in the church every Sunday.

I heard the preaching of the gospel

and God did use that to bring me to faith in Jesus.

But there are many of you that didn't

and you've placed your faith in Jesus.

So, parent in the room, do we want our kids

to be around the people of God, the things of God,

the word of God, the gospel?

Yes, yes, but realize this.

At best, it's like kindling around wood

and we don't have the match to light the kindling.

We pray that God will somehow strike a fire

and use that and bring them to faith,

but those privileges do not make us right with God.

No one, no one is a believer by osmosis.

That's Paul's point here right there in verse 15.

And then three times, notice three times in verse 16,

he says, just look at it again

so you know I'm not making this up.

A person is not justified by works of the law,

but through faith in Jesus Christ.

So we also have believed in Christ

in order to be justified by faith

and not by works of the law

because by works of the law, no one will be justified.

Three times, Peter says, no one is justified

by works of the law.

So two questions.

What does it mean to be justified

and what are works of the law?

Now, if redemption heals your home,

you've heard this before.

We talk about justification a lot.

To be justified is a legal term.

In the court of law, it means to be

by the judge declared right.

Not just innocent, not just to hear the verdict,

not guilty, but there's something more to this

because the judge is the holy God of creation

who's righteous and perfect and just in all his ways,

and we are not.

So therein lies a problem.

How can he declare us righteous when we're not righteous?

So to be declared righteous is to be justified.

And what we see, Christianity,

unlike any other belief system in this world,

teaches that that righteousness

is actually an alien righteousness.

The judge actually takes his righteousness

and imputes it to the guilty.

And then that's what justifies someone.

We'll talk about that as we progress.

So to be justified means to legally,

by a judge, be declared righteous.

So what are works of the law?

Certainly included in works of the law

are the issues on the table in Galatians,

circumcision, dietary restrictions,

but those are ceremonial aspects of the law.

By works of the law, Paul also means our obedience

to God's revealed will, actions.

You know, Jesus said we can summarize the law

vertically and horizontally.

What does God's law teach us?

Number one, to love God with all our heart, soul,

strength, and mind.

And number two, love our neighbor as our self.

We can summarize the law with those two commands.

All of God's law is gonna fit somewhere.

So we would say works of the law isn't just circumcision

and it isn't just dietary restrictions

because let's be honest, those aren't a problem for us.

It's obedience to God.

Okay, and I told the first service this

and I think it's important we understand this.

Here's what we know about God's law.

It's been written down for us in his word, yes,

but it's also a part of his general revelation

to all of creation.

It's actually written on every human being's heart.

I know that because there was a wicked act

that took place this week, a school shooting,

a wicked heinous act that just shows

the brokenness of our world.

And there were people that were not Christians

that turned on their TV or scrolled through social media

and their heart broke.

Why did their heart break?

Because on their heart is written a law

that says we can't live without God.

And it's written in a law that all humans are made

in the Imago day and no one has a right

to take another human's life.

They knew that.

We know that.

Now, murder isn't the only command of God, we know that.

So we can summarize the works of the law

as being God's revealed, whether specially through scripture

or generally written on our hearts,

his commands and will for all humanity.

And Paul is saying that our actions and our obedience

does not make us justified before God

because it can't account for our problem of being sinful.

It can't.

Just in case you didn't know this,

we believe firmly that the problem with humanity is sin.

And it's not sin out there, that's part of it,

but it starts where?

Here.

All of us are born in sin.

So the fundamental question that,

actually let me say it,

the most important question that you can ask

is not is there a God?

By you asking that question

proves you already know there's a God.

By you even have breath in your body,

by you even being here is proof there is a God.

It's not what is the purpose of life.

The most fundamental question,

the most important question that we can ask

is how can we as sinners be made right

with a holy God that created us?

Be made right, be restored to a right relationship.

That's what I'm talking about when I say be made right.

Stand before him righteous.

In our sin though he is holy and without sin.

That's what Paul's addressing.

Is it by what we do?

Paul says no.

It's not.

In fact Paul tells Peter, you know this Peter,

even as a Jew, one with the law,

one with those privileges, you know this.

Go to Psalm 143.

He's quoting here at the very end of this verse

from Psalm 143, the words of David.

David says this,

Hear my prayer, O Lord,

give ear to my pleas for mercy

and your faithfulness answer me.

In your righteousness,

he doesn't say in my righteousness,

he says in your righteousness

and are not into judgment with your servant.

Why?

Because no one living and included in that no one is David

is righteous before you.

Paul would say in Romans three no one is righteous.

No one is good, no not one.

That's the bad news.

We're gonna get to the good news.

David declares no one is righteous.

So Paul is saying you know this.

Even as a Jew Peter, you know that we are all unrighteous

even with these privileges because of our sin

to stand before a holy God

and it's not our adherence to the law.

It's not our diet, it's not our circumcision.

That's not gonna make us righteous.

Now Paul knows the accusations

that have been leveled against his gospel.

So what I think Paul does next

and Paul does this a lot when he writes his letters.

He goes ahead and answers objections

before someone can object.

So what we have I believe in what follows

is a string of objections

that Paul is answering and defending.

He's giving clarity.

So by removing the law as a means of righteousness

and living in the freedom of the gospel,

it seems that people have accused Paul and Peter

who preached the same gospel

of living just like Gentile sinners,

not needing the law, thus nullifying the holy God,

lessening its importance,

and thus making Christ a minister or agent of sin.

If you don't need the law and the law is good

and you're saying it's only Christ who justifies,

then wouldn't Christ by removing the law

be an agent of sin?

And that's what Paul says in verse 17.

And he says no, certainly not.

For if I rebuild what I tore down, this is verse 18,

I prove myself to be a transgressor.

Paul says actually, no, no, no, no.

I would be transgressing, I would be sinning

if I actually reached back to the law for righteousness.

I would be denying the righteousness of Christ

and the sufficiency of the gospel.

I will be tearing down his work

and I would be saying that he's not enough,

something else is needed.

I would be sinning if I did that.

I would be, Paul would be using the law the wrong way.

We all do it.

We all use the law the wrong way.

It's kind of like using a cell phone to hammer in a nail.

Hopefully you've never done that.

I wouldn't suggest you do.

You're gonna be severely frustrated because,

especially if you use the front part of your cell phone.

The law wasn't intended to be used like that.

I asked the last service this question.

If God were to ask you why should I be pleased with you,

how would you respond?

Most of us right now would start listing what we've done.

What we've done, I'm a giving person.

I invited my neighbor to church this week.

I mean, I fed the homeless.

Don't you see what I've done with my kids?

Don't you see where I'm serving in church?

That's what we would do.

You know what we're doing when we do that?

Justifying ourselves by the law.

Can't do that.

The answer, by the way, to that question,

if God were to ask why should I be pleased with you,

and you begin that answer with because I, you don't get it.

The answer is because Jesus.

Because Jesus.

So look back at verse 16.

So if three times he says,

it's not works of the law that's gonna make you righteous,

it's gonna justify you.

Three times he also says what does?

Through faith in Christ Jesus.

Three times.

We would add the word alone there.

Martin Luther said the doctrine of justification

by faith alone is the central core doctrine

to the Christian, the church is either gonna be built up

or torn down according to what we believe

about this doctrine.

This doctrine is what makes you a Christian.

Just to be clear, what do you believe justifies you?

You or Jesus?

Faith in Jesus or your efforts or your actions

or your giving or your sacrifice or your, fill in the blank.

Let me read to you from the Heidelberg Catechism.

Question 60.

It says how are thou righteous before God?

I think the answer here is an expansive,

comprehensive answer, a very relative for how we think

answer to what it means to be justified by faith alone.

It says this, only by a true faith in Jesus Christ

so that though my conscience accuse me

that I have grossly transgressed all the commandments of God

and kept none of them and am still inclined to all evil,

not withstanding God without any merit of mine

but only of mere grace grants and imputes to me

the perfect satisfaction, righteousness,

and holiness of Christ even so as if I'd never had

nor committed any sin.

Yea, as if I had fully accomplished all that obedience

which Christ has accomplished for me

inasmuch as I embrace such benefit with a believing heart.

Consider that for a moment.

The law is powerless to justify us

but Jesus is not powerless to justify us.

So what happens when we are justified

is what's called the great exchange.

Double, the theological word or term is double imputation.

I mean, think about this, God the offended party,

the sinless one, the innocent one does what?

He is treated as the guilty one though he's not guilty.

And at the cross what God does is imputes to his son,

himself, he imputes or credits to himself our sin,

our record of sin.

Jesus gets the financial transaction of the debts

that we've accumulated and they were stuck to Jesus

even though he knew no sin.

And then the mystery of it all is though we're the sinners,

we're the ones guilty of sin,

he takes the record of Jesus, the obedience of Jesus,

and he credits it to our account.

He imputes his righteousness to us,

his perfect righteousness and I say it a lot.

It's not like there's a righteous meter for a Christian.

It's not like there's a righteous meter for a Christian.

You can't be any more righteous than Jesus.

So when God the Father looks at us,

he sees the righteousness of Jesus

because that's been imputed to us

because our sins were imputed or credited to him.

That's double imputation or the great exchange.

That's how God can satisfy his own judgment

and be merciful at the same time.

And if you don't grasp that,

you're gonna battle this tendency to think that it is you

that pays the price to satisfy God's wrath

and make yourself right.

And you're never gonna be able to rest

in the freedom of the gospel.

So number one, the reason why the law

can't make us righteous is because it's powerless to do so.

And there's a second reason.

The law's purpose is to point us to Jesus.

What is the law for anyways?

Why did God give us these commands?

If Paul, you're telling me they don't matter

when it comes to justification, you can hear the accusation.

We've all had to wrestle with that question.

Somebody's probably asked you that.

So Paul's getting out ahead of it.

You can hear the whispers.

And I don't know if he's addressing a direct accusation.

A lot of people think he is.

Because we've heard people say,

if the gospel is all of God's grace,

forgiveness happens simply by faith.

Doesn't that undermine the basis for holy living?

That's probably the charge brought against Paul and Peter.

So what does Paul say?

Well, for through the law, I died to the law

so that I might live to God.

Through the law, underline that, I died to the law

so that I might live to God.

What is he saying?

Yeah, I read the law.

I realized how much I failed.

I realized how much I failed.

I acknowledged my failures.

I know Jesus didn't fail.

I turned to him, I know he died for my failures.

And now I live to God.

He's saying, the law actually shows me the freedom I have

from the bondage of the law in Jesus.

Paul does not think the law is bad.

Is the law bad?

No, the law is good.

It leads to life.

It's a direct reflection of God himself.

How can that be bad?

The law is good.

It's meant for human flourishing.

It's meant for God's glory.

It's meant for our good.

But Paul is saying, I can't use my obedience to the law

as a means to justify myself

because it can't deal with my sin.

That is what he's saying.

So I looked at the law and actually did what it said.

I died to it.

I died to it.

But Romans seven, your homework is to read Romans six,

seven and eight this week.

It's a good corresponding text to Paul's argument

in these few verses.

Romans seven.

I used an example of an MRI a few weeks ago,

so I can't do that.

But I can use the example of Tony's car diagnostic tool.

Right, Tony?

Is it called a car diagnostic tool?

Yeah, we'll call it that.

So if my check engine light comes on,

I got a good friend, his name's Tony.

You guys do too.

Don't go call Tony this week

because your check engine light's on though.

Tony, check engine light's on.

Something's not right.

I'll bring my diagnostic tool.

I'll plug it up.

You know, you put your foot on the gas,

rev it up a little bit.

We'll get some codes.

I'll tell you what's wrong.

It's an O2 sensor, Joe.

You know what Tony doesn't do?

He doesn't say, here, here's how you fix it.

Let me stick the diagnostic tool back in

and that's gonna fix it.

No, that doesn't make any sense.

It disdiagnosed the problem.

It doesn't give me the remedy.

It tells me what the remedy is.

It doesn't, it's not the remedy.

That's how the law works.

Look at Romans seven, verse seven.

Paul says this about the law.

He says, what then shall we say?

That the law is sin, that the law is bad

because it doesn't save us.

It just shows us we need to be saved?

No.

If it had not been for the law,

would not have known sin.

For I would have not have known what it is to covet.

If the law had not said, you shall not covet,

but sin seizing an opportunity through the commandment

producing me all kinds of covetousness.

It's like this.

Let me give you another illustration.

You're driving down a country road.

You're going 55.

Cop pulls you over.

You're speeding.

Well, I'm going 55.

Well, there's a speed limit sign.

I know it's two miles down the road.

You just hadn't got to it yet.

That speed limit sign says 35.

You're speeding.

You're 55.

Just because you didn't see the sign isn't an excuse.

You with me?

The sign's up.

You know you're speeding.

If the sign's not there, you're still speeding.

It's how the law works.

You don't have the law.

You're still sinning.

What does the law do?

It puts over my heart.

It diagnoses it.

You're a sinner.

For Paul was coveting.

It was more than that, too.

It doesn't fix it, though.

It points us to our need for someone

to come and keep the law for us.

It points us to our need for someone to die

for our failure to keep the law.

And that's what Paul's saying.

I died to the law.

What does it mean to die to the law?

It means to look to Jesus.

That's what it means.

It doesn't mean ignore the law.

It means that can't be used to make you right with God.

Jesus can.

Jesus can.

And then what Paul does next,

what Paul does next is Paul gives us a synopsis

in one verse of what it looks like to follow Jesus.

It's our coffee cup verse.

You've heard it.

Verse 20.

I have been crucified with Christ.

It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

In the life I now live in the flesh,

I live by faith in the Son of God.

Now, what Paul is doing, see how this works together.

Paul is telling us how now he's died to the law

and how he lives to God.

So underline, I have been crucified with Christ.

Underline, Christ lives in me.

Underline, I live by faith in the Son of God

who loved me and gave himself for me.

And gave himself for me.

So how does this work?

How does it work?

The Christian life is not merely about justification,

which by the way is permanent.

We believe that from the moment you trust in Jesus,

you are righteous.

On your best day, on your worst day,

the Father sees you as if you live the very life

Jesus lived, why?

Because he died to death, you deserve to die.

He paid it in full.

And that doesn't change, it's instant

and it's permanent forever.

We believe that.

That doesn't mean it always feels like it's permanent.

As we sang that song about this life

that's long and difficult, there's afflictions and trials,

but the victory has been won.

But there's also another doctrine

we call the union with Christ, we need to remember here.

Because Christianity isn't just about being made right,

that's good.

It's about being one with Jesus.

And that's what this verse is about.

Martin Luther said this,

by faith you are so cemented to Christ

that he and you are as one person

which cannot be separated,

but remains attached to him forever.

I know some of you are new to Christianity

and the reason why Christians hold marriage

to such high esteem

is because marriage is a picture of our union with Christ.

And you won't really grasp marriage

till you grasp that, so this is,

aside from justification, the second most,

if not the most, I guess it's hard,

I shouldn't be ranking them, should I?

They're both important.

Doctrine when it comes to understanding Christianity

and how we live a life following Jesus.

Number one, we were crucified with Christ.

Wait, I thought Jesus was the one that was crucified, yes.

There was a historical event

that took place 2,000 plus years ago.

Jesus, from Nazareth, stepped out of Jerusalem,

headed towards Golgotha, carrying a Roman cross.

He went on a hill.

He was hung there and murdered by Roman soldiers.

That did take place.

But here's the mystery.

Not only was Jesus there hanging on the cross that day,

but if you've trusted in Jesus, who else was there that day?

You were there that day.

The text, Paul doesn't say my sins were there.

Does he mean his sins were there?

Certainly, but he also means he was there.

He was crucified with Christ.

You were crucified with Christ,

meaning who you were before Jesus died that day.

Now there's something we call indwelling sin

that still haunts us,

and it rears its ugly head every now and then.

We see it in us, but that's not who you are anymore.

Your identity died, and so did all of your sins.

They were dealt with that day.

That's why Paul in Romans 8.1 can say,

there's therefore now no condemnation

for those who are in Christ,

because your sins were nailed to the cross.

Not your past sins, not those sins

that the anger mind are small.

Yes, those sins, and yes, your past sins.

Sorry, let me clarify.

Not just your past sins, not just your small sins,

but your big sins, your future sins, your future sins,

your present sins, all your sins

were nailed to Jesus that day,

but so were you, and so was I.

We died with Jesus that day.

Our old self died.

We're not that person anymore.

The gospel does something radical.

The second thing, the second reality

of our union with Christ.

Not only have we been crucified with Christ,

in Christ we have been raised, and he now lives in us.

So Paul died that day.

His murderous past, his self-righteous past

died that day, so did yours.

Fill in the blank with your sin, it died that day,

but something else happened.

Three days later, what did Jesus do?

The stone was rolled away.

Breath went back into his lungs.

Oxygen started flowing through his body.

The neurons started firing.

Life, back into the Son of God, and what does he do?

He steps out of a tomb, and he lives.

He doesn't die anymore.

He lives.

What happens to us when we believe the gospel

is not just that our sins have been dealt with,

we're now in Christ, cemented to him,

so that when he rose, guess who else rose that day?

I rose, you rose, we rose with him,

so that now we walk in newness of life.

Romans six, verses three through five gives us this picture

of baptism being union with Christ.

That's what we believe baptism expresses,

a spiritual reality that took place

when we believe the gospel.

We died with Christ, so we go under the water,

and when he rises, guess what?

We rose too.

We're not us anymore, we're new.

We're new, we're a new creation in Christ.

We have new affections, new desires, new longings.

We actually wanna obey the law,

not because it makes us right,

we know Jesus makes us right,

because it's for our good, and it glorifies God.

So we're new, and he lives in us.

He lives in us.

This is so different than every other belief system.

Don't you see that?

God comes all the way down, we don't work up to God.

God comes all the way down to us,

and he does all the work for us, and it gets even better.

To conform us into the image of Jesus by his spirit,

he lives in us.

So every day, we were, yes, in a sense,

killed with Jesus because of our sins,

but now that he lives in us,

what are we doing because of Jesus in us?

We're killing our sin.

That's how it works, not perfectly.

Progressively, it's not a sprint, it's a marathon.

We know that.

And the third reality,

we live by constant faith in him.

Paul starts a new sentence to explain this new life

and the life I now live in the flesh.

He doesn't mean sinful flesh,

he means the life I now live as a person, as a human.

I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me.

Yes, Jesus went to the cross

to display his love for the Father.

Jesus went to the cross to radiate the glory of God

and all of his attributes shining through

in one instant through the cross.

Jesus went to the cross to satisfy God's wrath,

and we love to preach about those things,

and we love to know those things.

But Jesus also went to the cross

because he loved you.

Don't forget that.

Jesus went to the cross because he loved you.

So yes, he had the Father's will in mind.

Yes, he wanted to satisfy God's wrath.

Yes, it was obedience to his Father's will,

but it was also out of love for you and me.

And it's not because there was anything lovable in us,

it's because he loved us.

So maybe you're in this room this morning,

you're doubting, does God love me?

How do you combat doubts of God's love for you?

You go to this verse.

You go to the cross.

He loves you and gave himself for you.

And he says, now I live.

My life is not by dependence upon myself anymore.

That's what Paul's former life was.

What is it?

It's dependence upon Jesus,

constant faith in the Son of God.

So here's the deal.

Most of us tend to think faith is like the runway

that gets the plane off the ground.

And then once the plane's off the ground,

we don't need that runway again into the planelands.

So we just need it to get us into heaven.

That's what we need it for.

Just get me off the ground.

I believe I'm good.

No, faith is constant.

It is continual.

It is an everyday reality for a Christian.

It's not just the runway,

it's the entire plane of the Christian life.

And the mystery of it all is that even your faith

is a gift, Ephesians 2, eight, nine.

And it is not the strength of your faith

that gets you through this life.

It is the object of your faith

that gets you through this life.

But a life as a Christian is a life marked

by continual faith in the Son of God.

That's how we embrace this union we have in Christ.

Let me read to you a quote.

I know I've read it at some point.

Just act like I haven't.

Act like this is the first time you've heard it

if you've been around for a while.

It's from Sinclair Ferguson.

He wrote a book called The Whole Christ.

It's a really good book.

He writes this, New Testament Christians

did not think of themselves as Christians.

And I know that's shocking to some of you

because we, I've said the word Christian

multiple times in this sermon already.

It's not that that's a bad word to use about us.

A Christian was actually a derogatory term

used to those followers in Antioch in the Book of Acts.

That's the first time we see the word Christian.

They're Christ followers.

It was supposed to be slanderous.

He goes on to say, it's not that we're just Christians.

It's that we are in Christ.

The expression in one form or another

occurs well over 100 times in Paul's 13 letters.

I think Christian, I think it's one time in the Bible,

maybe two, once.

If you know the answer, tell me, I have to service.

100 times in Christ, in the Lord, in the Son, in God,

in one form or another, 100 times.

Then draw the obvious conclusion, he says.

If this is not the overwhelmingly dominant way

in which we think about ourselves,

we are not thinking with the renewed mind of the Gospel.

The law drives us to Jesus, yes, to justify us.

But also to remind us we are now in him.

Let me ask you several questions.

Number one, is your life marked by an understanding

of your union with Christ?

Okay, now think about this.

Do you realize that all of the blessings

that are yours in the Gospel are yours

because you are in Christ?

And if you take Jesus out, they're not yours.

Justification, adoption, eternal life,

forgiveness of sins, reconciliation,

newness of life, a new family,

seated, the right hand of God the Father

far above all things.

I could go on and on and on.

You know why they're yours?

Because you are in Christ.

And if you take Jesus out of the equation,

you've lost them, they're not yours.

You don't get those.

Are you finding your identity in your union with Christ?

Your primary identity is not your occupation.

Your primary identity is not your occupation.

It's not who you are in your household.

It's not your gifts, and none of those are bad.

Your occupation's good, your gifts are good.

Who you are, a mom, dad, son, daughter, that's good,

but primarily, who are you?

God accepts you because you are in Christ.

Your primary identity is being in Christ.

Is your life marked by ongoing trust in Jesus?

Well, how do I know that, Joe?

Is faith an ongoing process in your life?

Do you humbly confess your sins?

I would say daily.

Run to Jesus to find mercy.

When the enemy accuses you and you know you're guilty,

do you feel condemned?

Now, convicted and condemned are two different things.

Should we feel convicted?

Yes, and conviction drives us to Jesus.

But if you're a Christian, there is no condemnation.

It's not like Jesus made the payment

and your condemnation pays a little more.

I gotta feel a little more guilty to satisfy.

No, Jesus paid it.

So you reminding yourselves of what Jesus has already done.

And same thing, those won't stick because at the cross,

those were nailed to Jesus.

It's just a few ways we can start to think

with the renewed mind of the gospel

that we are now in Christ.

You know why else this verse is extremely important?

Not only because it does it tell us of our union in Christ

and really what following after Jesus is all about.

Do you know what else it shows us?

How God views us.

This is God's perspective of you.

You died.

When Christ died, your old self died.

Who are you now?

You've been raised.

My son is in you.

You're living constantly depending upon him.

He loved you and gave himself up for you.

This should, like this is a verse that we should,

we should not only memorize, but we should meditate on.

This tells us how God thinks about us.

Thirdly, let me finish here.

Verse 21, the law also points us to our righteousness

that's only found in Christ.

I don't nullify the grace of God.

Now why would Paul say in verse 21, I don't?

Nullify the grace of God.

Well, of course you don't, Paul.

You're the one that always preaches grace.

You preach grace alone.

I think Paul's addressing another accusation.

Remember the law is God's grace to his people

because not everyone got the law.

The Gentiles didn't.

Not everyone got the covenant.

Not everyone got the promises of God.

Who did?

The Jews.

The Deuteronomy six and seven.

God didn't do that because they were anything special.

That's grace.

So the other argument is,

are you just nullifying the grace of the law

by removing it to be justified?

And Paul says, absolutely not.

I don't nullify the grace of God

because if righteousness were through the law,

then guess what?

Christ died for no purpose.

If you can use the law as a means of righteousness,

that's what nullifies grace

and that makes the cross meaningless.

If you think the law justifies you,

Jesus is just another man

that was hung on a cross some 2,000 years ago.

If you think that your works make you righteous,

there's still a debt that has to be paid

and Jesus didn't pay it.

There's still a tomb that's not empty.

He's in there.

That's what you're saying.

Jesus is just another guilty criminal.

God's wrath isn't satisfied.

Justice hasn't been served.

There's still a debt that is owed, but that's not true.

The cross is evidence that the payment has been made

by Christ in Christ alone.

So how are we made righteous?

By faith in Christ alone.

Martin Luther would go on to say,

now that faith isn't alone.

It manifests in how we live our life,

but what is faith?

If you'll put that slide up on the screen,

the reformers battled this question.

What is faith?

What does it mean to have faith in Jesus?

And they scoured the scriptures

and they said there's really three aspects to saving faith.

Number one, I put the Latin up there for you,

you Latin nerds, not you.

You Latin nerds, not me, you Latin nerds.

Put the English beside it.

Knowing, knowing.

Know the facts, know the facts of the gospel,

know who Jesus is, but is that enough?

When we say we believe in Jesus,

we don't just mean we know who Jesus is.

It goes further than that.

We comprehend what Jesus did, we understand.

That's the next aspect.

And they're interwoven together, by the way.

We know what he did.

But even that's not enough

because there are plenty of people in scripture that knew.

Even the demons comprehended what he did.

There's one more aspect, trust.

Trust.

I know you've heard the illustration or seen it.

I don't have a chair up here

because I'm not really a visible illustration preacher.

That's not me.

My visible illustrations are slides

because I was a teacher back in the day.

But if I put a chair up here,

I could look at the chair and say,

well, I know that's a chair.

Is that displaying any faith in that chair?

No.

I could look at the chair and say,

well, I know it's a chair and I know it holds people.

Is that displaying any faith in the chair?

What would be faith in the chair

if I actually did what?

Sat in the chair.

This is faith.

Throw yourselves on Jesus

and he'll hold you.

Three Rs this morning.

If you're not a Christian, number one, run to Jesus.

Run to Jesus for righteousness.

There is a problem and that's where sinners and God is not.

But there is a remedy.

Jesus, he's the only one that can make you righteous.

Throw yourselves on him.

Number two, rest.

Rest.

Christian, rest in the righteousness of Jesus by faith.

Rest in the righteousness of Jesus by faith.

The band will come up.

The band will come up and repent.

Repent.

Repent for not resting in the righteousness of Jesus by faith.

And I love you, I'll say this to you.

I still battle it.

When we don't rest in the gospel,

what are we saying to God?

Our payment wasn't enough.

We make the cross meaningless.

We're just like the guy gave you

at the beginning of the sermon.

Debt's been paid and surely not.

There's surely something I gotta do.

When we can't rest in the finished work of Christ,

that's what we're doing.

So if we think that God's more pleased by

some emotional experience I have,

how much I'm giving or serving,

and again, it's not bad to give and it's not bad to serve,

but that's not what makes you righteous.

We make the cross meaningless and we've all done it.

We've all this week, some way shaped, fashion, or style,

we've all done it and we need to repent of it.

So let's do that.

Father, we repent for trying to merit our righteousness

by works of the law, by what we've done or haven't done.

That makes the cross meaningless.

Forgive us.

This morning, if there's anyone that doesn't know Jesus,

I pray that you would stir in their heart

through your Holy Spirit,

something that would cause them to run to Him

for righteousness.

And those of us that are would be

reminded of the truths of the gospel.

Rest in it and may that rest in the gospel

fuel us to live out a life of our union with Christ.

The cross is not meaningless

because Jesus makes us righteous.

We love you in Jesus' name, amen.