Made Right With God Through Faith

My name is Jonah.

I am the student pastor here for our Warner Grove campus, and I'm so thankful to be back with you this morning, two weeks in a row.

If you're tired of listening to me, don't worry.

I will not be preaching next week.

We got Dr.

Richard Bumpers coming in to preach.

I believe he is incredible if you never heard him preach.

He's so good, so wise, and I'm excited to hear what he has to say.

But man, I'm excited as we continue to go through this series in Galatians.

I'm excited to see what God continues to speak as we just simply take scripture and we just go through it verse by verse to just interpret the voice of God, interpret what He has to say for us.

So I'm going to start out this morning asking you if you've ever had a time in your life where you feel like you've had it just all figured out, whether, I mean, any anything, this can be family life, your job, um, being a parent, whatever it is, if you've ever had a time in your life where you just feel like you've had a good idea what's going on, you've had a good plan, you thought you had it all figured out, and then the time rolls around, and then just everything is completely different than you expected.

Your plan falls apart, um, it's flipped upside down, and then you're just kind of in the state of like, what just happened?

Um recently, actually, um today is yes, June 12th.

Today is uh my four-month anniversary of being married.

Um, my wife's name is Reese, she's in social struggle leading um worship there.

Yeah, she's incredible.

Um listen, I I don't even want to say I walked into marriage thinking I had it all figured out, um, but I was at least confident.

I was confident that I had some idea of what it had in store.

I feel like I had some idea what it, you know, what was gonna happen, what it was gonna be like.

I had some plans.

I thought, man, I can put these into place.

Um, it's gonna be great.

Um I went through hours, um, I think it's six hours, eight hours of certified marriage counseling to get a cheaper um marriage certificate.

Um, but also because I believe in uh I believe in marriage counseling.

Um we were counseled by uh Russ, so there was also a lot of wisdom in that.

It was a lot of fun.

Um I enjoyed that.

So we had six to eight hours of marriage counseling.

Um I was pretty confident, and then I'm also friends with uh Craig Calhoun.

And on top of the you know, the the six hours of required counseling, I got a little bit extra from Craig Calhoun.

Um he really made marriage sound simple.

He told me that I need to know how to say two different things.

I'm sorry and yes, dear.

I was like, all right, I think like I think I can um handle that.

And then needless to say, walking into marriage, um, I didn't think I had it all figured out, but each and every day I'm realizing how little I actually know.

It's not even so much of like what I had planned wasn't right or correct, it's more so like I'm just realizing how little I actually know.

Um and some of y'all that have been married for a while will you know be kind enough to remind me that there's a lot more in store.

But man, I I walked into marriage, had this plan.

Um, I have quickly realized the more I say yes, dear, the less I say I'm sorry.

Um and uh Reese isn't here, so I say yes dear all the time.

Um I never have to apologize for anything.

It's always it's always great.

But anyway, marriage is just such a good example of a time in your life where you can walk in with expectations, feeling like you had a plan figured, you know, feeling like you had it all figured out, and then when it actually comes around, you realize how little you actually know.

We have all been here at some point, whether that's a big life change, college was another big one for me, where I just didn't even know how to take care of myself, you know, step out from mama's roof, and it's like a whole new world.

Um, but that we've all had times in our life where we have this huge transition, whether it's college, marriage, having a kid, whether it's just something at your at your job, feeling like you've done a good job at something, and you turn it into your boss, and he's like, this is terrible.

You know, just all these different times in life where we feel like we had it figured out, and then it comes down to the moment and we realize how tremendously we have missed the mark, how little we actually know, how much um we have even messed up.

And the reality is, is that I'm fearful that that this is kind of what's occurring in our culture's idea of Christianity.

We live in a culture that seems so confident that they know what Christianity is all about, that they know what the life life with God is all about, that they know the the exact way to get to heaven, but there's gonna be the sad reality is that there's a lot of people that think they know what's going on, think they have it figured out when it comes to their relationship with the Lord, and there's gonna be a day where they realize they miss the mark tremendously because of the culture we live in.

We live in a culture that that the goal of our life is being good enough to please God just to earn our ticket into heaven.

And there will be one day where people are met with a rude awakening when they step into judgment with a righteous, perfect, holy God, and they understand that life with Christ is so much more than just a ticket to heaven.

We live in a culture that pushes us to believe that church attendance and good deeds, we talked about this a little bit last week, that these things are good enough to make us into right standing with a righteous, just, perfect, holy God.

I uh I love country music.

I I love country music.

There's nothing like a nice sunny day where it's 80 degrees, windows roll down, and you're just jamming to some country music.

I love country music.

Um listen to it growing up, still listen to it a good bit, but I'm telling y'all, y'all get on your kids about the rap music and stuff, and I'm not a fan of rap music at all.

Um I'm with you there, but country music is deceivingly terrible.

Um, there are so many lies in the even just the the casual, harmless country music songs that we listen to.

I was listening to one the other day, um just driving down the road, it's kind of in the background, wasn't even really singing along, and it's it's by Walker Hayes.

Um I think it's either AA is the title or double A.

I don't know.

Um, but one line he says, um, I won't say what he says before this, but one line he says, trying to go to church so I don't go to hell.

These are these these tiny little messages that are in these songs are are causing us to fall into this lie that if we just go to church, if we're good enough, if we're nice enough, if we're just, you know, love people well, love our neighbor well, then then we'll get into heaven.

We'll be good enough not to go to hell.

There's another one.

This one might step on some toes.

Um, man, this song is so easy to sing along to, but it is so far off from the truth.

Blake Shelton has a song called God's Country.

God's Country.

Devil went down to Georgia, but he didn't stick around because this is God's country, you know?

This song is so easy to sing along to, but the reality is that we live in a culture that almost thinks they're entitled to God's grace, entitled to God's favor because we live in America.

The United States of America is not God's country.

The United States of America is not Israel.

It's not the chosen place, the chosen people.

The United States of America is, we are Gentiles, we are not Jewish, we are, in terms of sinners, we're we are the worst of them.

We America is not God's favor country, and just because we live here does not mean that we have earned God's favor.

Luke, uh, oh my gosh, Luke Bryant.

Luke Bryan has a song that he says, I believe most people are good.

The Bible tells us that no one is righteous, no not one.

But his song has the connotation that we're just good.

That most people are good and good enough to get into heaven.

But this is this is where the lies come in.

So many people think they have it figured out because of the culture we live in just cheapens God's grace to church attendance and good deeds.

They had think they have it figured out, but they have missed the mark tremendously.

They believe the lies of the culture rather than the truth found in God's word.

And this is exactly what happened in the churches in Galatia.

We read about last week that they have been deceived by these false teachers that began reminding them and telling them, hey, you you have to follow all these laws, you have to be circumcised in order to be saved.

It is your works.

It is the works of the law that saves you, that makes you right with God.

And Paul is coming in, rebuking them for believing in this distorted gospel, and he's expressing the importance of living our life based on the true gospel.

And in chapter two, all he does is focus on what the true gospel is, and it's this.

Our big idea is you can look at it two ways.

One, we are made right with God through faith in the work of Jesus Christ, or a little bit more easier way to remember it, and we'll get to later, but the Christian life is an exchange life.

We're made right with God through faith in the work of Jesus Christ, and the Christian life is an exchange life.

So this sermon is gonna be it's gonna be very meticulous.

There's a lot of details in here because really it's just the gospel for 26 minutes and 30 seconds.

So you guys stick with me, all right?

You guys stick with me.

There's a lot of details.

Paul goes on a bit of a tangent, but we got to cover it because it's still in God's word.

Um so you guys stick with me.

But I believe I truly believe that the beauty of the gospel is in its details because when we see just how wise and how loving the Father is through the gospel, through the details of the gospel, we we just see it in new ways.

So we're gonna be reading Galatians 2, um, verses 15 through 21.

If you want to open your Bible and just leave it open as we go through this, that would be great.

Um but we're starting with verse 15 through 16.

And Paul says this to the Galatians, you and I are Jews by birth, not sinners, kind of like not sinners, like the Gentiles, yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ, not by obeying the law.

And we have believed in Christ Jesus so that we might be made right with God because of our faith in Christ, not because we have obeyed the law.

For no one will ever be made right with God by obeying the law.

This is one verse, and Paul says three times in three different ways that we are not made right with God by obeying the law.

In our terms, we are not made right with God by our good works, our good deeds, anything of our own.

It is only because of our faith in Christ.

In simple terms, Paul is explaining that man, as human people, we can do nothing to earn God's favor and be declared not guilty in his presence.

The only way that we can be made right with God, as Paul says in this verse straight up, is by faith in Jesus Christ.

The reasoning is this.

We have to understand why.

Why can't we do something to be made right with God?

Why can't we stand before God in our own works and our own good deeds?

Why can't we just go to church and be made right with God?

The reasoning is this: in order to be justified before God or made right or stand in God's presence, not guilty, is perfection.

The only way that we can be justified before God is if we are perfect, sinless, holy.

There can be no blemish in us.

We can't just be good enough to stand before God.

We have to be perfect.

If we want to stand before God in our own works, we have to be perfect, not just good.

The law demands this perfect obedience, and I would be willing to bet that no one in here, no one in their right mind would willingly say, I am perfect.

I have obeyed the law and obey God 100% without any flaw, without any sin.

Um, and if you do believe that, um, first John 1 8 says, if we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

And Romans 3 23 says, For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

No one can ever be made right with God by their own works under the law, because no one is perfect.

No one is sinless, no one is righteous, no not one, is what Paul tells us in Romans 3.

God demands perfect righteousness and we are imperfect sinners.

So if God demands perfect righteousness and we are imperfect sinners, then this creates a very big problem that the rest of our eternity depends on.

If God is righteous and he demands, requires perfection, and we are not perfect, then there is a problem.

There is a gap, a chasm that has to be mended.

There has to be a way for us to enter back into God's presence because our sinfulness has separated us away from him.

If this is the case, that we are separated from God because of our sin, then in order for us to be saved, there must be something or someone, hint-hint, Jesus, that can mend the gap between the perfection that God requires and the imperfection that we have to offer him.

And this is where the good news of the gospel enters the equation.

This is what makes the gospel so beautiful because it's it's necessary.

It shows us how necessary the gospel is that Jesus would step into this place, into our place, live a sinless life, willingly give himself up, and rise from the dead three days later so that we would have a way back into the presence of the Father.

The good news of the gospel is is so beautiful because we need it.

We have to have it in order to be saved.

We can only be saved through faith in the work of Jesus.

We are made right with God through Jesus and Jesus alone because Jesus is the one that did what we could not do.

Jesus is the one that did what was required of us and willingly gave himself as a sacrifice.

He fulfilled the righteous requirement that is held against us.

And this is the gospel.

This is the truth that Paul is trying to remind the Galatians.

Listen, it's not about what you have to offer, it's not about what you can do, it's about placing your faith in the work that Christ has already done.

The only way we can ever stand justified before God is through faith in the work of Jesus on our behalf.

So this is the gospel.

This is Paul blatantly saying, listen, the only way you can be saved is by faith through Jesus.

And I want us to put a pen in that, remember this, because Paul's going to come back and explain it a little bit more later.

But in 17 and 18, the next couple verses, he goes off on a bit of a tangent just to answer some of the doubts, the questions that the people had about the gospel.

In 17 and 18, Paul says, But suppose we seek to be made right with God through faith in Christ, and then we are found guilty because we have abandoned the law and ultimately just living under God's grace.

Would that mean Christ has led us into sin?

Absolutely not.

Rather, I'm a sinner if I rebuild the old system of law I've already toured.

Now, so some people reject this idea of salvation through faith in Jesus because they feel like it's too easy.

See, we love to be able to take credit for something that we have done, right?

We want to earn whatever we're given.

We don't like just being given free stuff.

We we want to feel like we have earned it.

That is the sinful tendency.

And the Jewish people had a hard time with Paul's message because he was preaching freedom from the laws that they had grown up following, freedom from all these religious traditions, all these hoops that they had to jump through.

He's saying that that's not what it's about anymore.

Jesus has fulfilled all that, and when we are saved by faith in Christ, we get to live in freedom under the law of grace.

This made it seem like the gospel was really just a trap to them that led to sin because it doesn't require obedience of the law.

So Paul quickly shuts down this claim that Christ would lead us into sin.

Rather, he explains that we would actually be in sin if we say, hey, I believe in the work of Christ.

I place my faith in the work of Christ, but I'm gonna keep on doing all the things that I think is necessary to be made right with God.

I'm gonna I I put my faith in Jesus, but I'm also gonna do some work of my own and just ensure that I really get to stand right before God.

If we say we have placed our faith in Christ and then try to please God through our through our own works, what we have to offer, then we are saying that Christ isn't enough, that Christ isn't enough for our salvation, that Christ isn't enough for us to stand justified before God.

So the Jews were people were saying, listen, Paul, this message of grace, it means that we don't have to follow the law, and if we don't follow the law, then that means we're in sin and we can't do that.

So that was the argument they had, but we, as Christians in America, we're on the other side of the spectrum if if if I'm being honest.

We're no longer worried about, oh, well, if I'm not doing this and that, then I'm gonna be in sin, and I don't want to be in sin.

We're on the spectrum of, oh, God's grace.

It doesn't matter anything that I do, sweet.

I'll take some of that and then I'll just live however I want.

If I don't have to do all these works of the law, if I don't have to follow all these traditions, then I'll I'll live however I want and I'll you know place my faith in Jesus and get some grace and stuff like that, and then I'll just keep doing my thing.

So if you're quick to use God's grace as an excuse just to live life however you please, live a life full of sin, then I want to remind you that being made right with God through through faith in Jesus, it shouldn't lead to a life of sin.

God's grace, it should create just such a strong gratitude, such a strong love that we can't stand the fact of doing anything that would displease our Father.

Great God's grace should lead us to such a strong obedience that we can't stand the fact of doing something that displeases our Father, that offends God.

God's grace, it should lead us to just a gratitude for the forgiveness of our sins.

This gratitude, it leads to a joyful obedience to God for the rest of our lives.

This attitude of He has given me everything, so I give Him everything I have to offer.

I give Him my life in exchange for everything He has given me in Christ.

Ultimately, what Paul is trying to say in these two verses is he goes on to a tangent, is that the grace found in the gospel, it should never lead us to sin.

It should only lead us to obedience to God.

The grace found in the gospel is never an excuse or a temptation to sin.

It should lead us to more obedience in the gospel.

So after answering some of the doubts that he knew the people in the audience probably had that that was just running around in the culture, he he goes on to explain more how we are made right with God through faith in the work of Jesus.

How does this all work?

How does it actually happen?

How does salvation actually happen through the faith of the work of someone else?

So he says, he starts in verse 19, he says, For when I tried to keep the law, it condemned me.

In other words, Paul is saying, when I try to keep the law and earn my salvation through my own works, it condemned me.

It made me more worthy of God's wrath rather than more worthy of his acceptance.

Why?

Because Paul understood that the more we try to keep the law, the more good works we try to do to please the Father, the more sin we enter into.

He would constantly sin and fall short, trying to keep this law, so he would prove himself to be guilty of God's punishment more than he proved himself deserving of life.

So then he goes on, when I try to keep the law, it condemned me.

So I died to the law.

I stopped trying to meet all of its requirements so that I might live for God, so that the possibility, the opportunity for me to live to God rather than me condemned to God would arise.

I'm sure many of us have been here before where we're kind of in that state where you know we go to church on Sunday and we hear a message, we're like, I'm, you know what, I'm gonna try to be better, I'm gonna try to be a better father, I'm gonna try to be a better mother, I'm gonna try to love my coworkers better, love my neighbors better, I'm gonna try to be more generous, and then as life goes on, the more we try to be good, the more we try to be righteous in and of ourselves, the more we fall short.

It's this constant cycle of, oh, I'm gonna be better, and then we sin because that's who that's what our nature is, sinful nature, and we fall back in the cycle of just being discouraged and feeling guilt and shame because of our sin, because we're not good enough to please the Father.

So Paul was in this circumstance.

He was tired of just this constant cycle of having a desire to be good, falling short, and then just living in guilt.

So what did he do?

He says, I died to the law, meaning that he stopped trying to earn his salvation by his own works, and by dying to the law, this now freed him, give him the opportunity and the possibility to live for God.

So now how does he how does he do that?

How does he live for God?

How does he have the possibility to have a relationship with God?

He says in verse 20, gosh, this verse is so good, my old self has been crucified with Christ.

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

So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Man, verse 20 explains so beautifully how our faith in the work of Jesus, rather than our faith in ourselves and what we have to offer, how our faith in the work of Jesus is what saves us.

When we place our faith in Christ, our old self that is sinful, that is unrighteous, that constantly falls short, when we place our faith in Christ, that old self is crucified with Christ.

Which means our sin, our iniquity, our transgression, the guilt we feel, the shame we feel, is nailed to the cross and is paid for by the blood of Jesus.

Our old self is crucified with Christ.

And when this happens, when we place our faith in Jesus, an exchange takes place.

We give Christ our sin, our guilt, and our shame, and he gives us his righteousness in return.

As a result of that, that exchange that takes place, we give Christ our mess, our sin, our transgressions, our iniquity, our disobedience, our shame, the guilt we feel.

We give him that, and he gives us his righteousness, and that is what allows us to stand right before God.

As a result, it is no longer us who live, but Christ who lives in us.

Paul explains it this way in 2 Corinthians 5 21.

He says, For our sake he made him, talking about Jesus, to be sin, who knew no sin, so that in him, in Jesus, we might become the righteousness of God.

This is the exchange that takes place.

When Jesus was crucified, he took our sin.

He took the sins of the world upon himself, and he paid for them once and for all on the cross.

And when we place our faith in Christ, what is given to us is his righteousness.

So, like Paul says, we become the righteousness of God.

When we stand before God, he no longer sees us or our old self, our sin, our shame.

He sees the righteousness of his son, Jesus.

That's the exchange that takes place when we place our faith in Jesus.

It's only the righteousness of Christ that we have received God's grace when we place our faith in the work of Jesus.

This is the only way, the only way we will ever be made right with God.

This is where our big idea comes back in.

The Christian life, it's an exchange life.

It's nothing that we have done ourselves, it's nothing of our own works.

It is the works of Christ that has been given to us by grace through faith in what He has done.

This is why faith in the work of Jesus saves us, because we get his righteousness.

We receive the righteousness of Christ in exchange for our sinfulness.

We take on, we become the righteousness of God through faith.

Jesus Christ.

This is the work that God and Jesus has done for us.

So usually when I talk about how we're saved by grace through faith in Jesus, just Paul says it over and over and over again.

I usually get two questions.

One, what is faith?

What is it?

And then what how how do I know how do I know if I've actually placed my faith in Jesus?

So Roy, could you bring me, could you bring that chair up here for me?

So I get two questions.

What is faith, and how do I know that I've actually placed my faith in Jesus?

Another way to say it is how do I know if I'm saved or not?

If if righteousness and salvation is by grace through faith, something that I can't see, I can't touch, I can't smell, nothing, I can't, it's not in front of me, then how do I know?

How do I know what it is, and how do I know if I've actually placed my faith in Jesus?

So ever since college I was taught this, and this is what I go back to.

I go back to this example of a chair.

So for the question, what is faith?

If I tell you I have faith in this chair, what what am I what am I saying?

What am I implying?

Yeah, I believe that it's gonna hold me up.

If I say I have faith in this chair, I'm not just telling you that I have faith that this chair is real, that it's sitting here, that it's blue, that I can touch it.

I'm not just telling you that I believe that the chair is real.

When I say I have faith in the chair, I'm telling you I believe that this chair can do what it was meant and designed to do, that it can hold me up.

I have faith beyond just its existence.

I have faith that it can do what it is designed to do.

I have faith that it can do what people tell me it can do.

In the same way, faith in Christ is very similar.

When we say I have faith in Jesus, we're not just saying I have faith that he is real.

If you don't believe Jesus is real, I look up Wikipedia.

I don't know.

Like he was a real guy.

He actually lived, he actually walked.

Go to Israel.

It's a lot of money, but it'll prove that Jesus was a real person to you because there is history that backs up his existence.

It's not having faith in Jesus isn't just faith that he was real, but it's faith that he is who he says he is.

When you say you have faith in Jesus, you're saying I have faith in what he has done for me, and I have faith that it is enough for me.

When you say you have faith in Jesus, it's saying I have faith that the work of Christ, when I throw myself upon that, when I believe, when I trust in that, I believe that the work of Christ is enough to satisfy the wrath of God.

It is enough to forgive me of my sins.

I believe that he paid for my sins.

I believe that his blood was spilt for my sins, and I believe even in his resurrection that it gives me the opportunity to have eternal life with the Father.

When you say you have faith in Christ, it's believing in what he's done that it's true.

It's not just believing that he was a real person.

So then the next question is how do I know if I place my faith in Jesus?

I I can't touch this, I can't feel it, I can't see it.

How do I know if I've actually done this?

So then again, if I told you I have faith in this chair, what would you tell me to do?

Sit in it, right?

So if I say I have faith in this chair, if I really have faith, I'll come and I'll sit down.

It holds me up.

I'm confident in it, and I'm confident enough to sit down in it.

I'm confident enough to step out on this faith that this chair can do what it's designed to do.

In the same way, how do I know if I have faith in Christ?

Examine your life.

Has your life changed?

If you say you have faith in Christ, then you should step out and live out that faith.

James says, I will show you my faith by my works.

Not that his works earned him anything, but his faith is proven by his works, by his obedience to God, by the way his life has changed once he knows that Jesus has paid everything for him.

If you're asking yourself this question, wondering if you've truly placed your faith in Jesus, and I would say this, that the Christian life is an exchange life.

It's given to us.

However, an exchange life or the Christian life should be a changed life.

I read a commentary that said this: Since it is an exchange life, if I see no change in my life, there is cause to question whether I've truly been crucified with Christ.

An exchange life, a life that has been freely given to us, the righteousness of God, when it comes over us, it should result in a change in our life.

There should be changes in our life that we can see and we can touch, we can feel, we can tell others about this proves and shows that we have truly placed our faith in Christ, that we have truly been crucified with Christ.

You see, in verse 20, when Paul talks about this, when he talks about this exchange that's made, that we take on the righteousness of God, that we give him our sin and we are crucified with him, he he talks as it, not as if, but explaining that his identity changes.

When we place our faith in Jesus and we are given his righteousness, our identity, who we are, it changes.

We are crucified with Christ and we become a new creation.

Therefore, being a new creation, there should be change that occurs in our life.

This change that occurs is us putting off our old self and putting on the new life that God has called us to in Jesus.

It's us living out this faith, living as if we have placed our faith and received the gift of eternal life through Christ.

It's living for the one who loved us and gave himself for us.

So looking at it through this lens, we can we can reread this verse, Galatians 2.20.

One, seeing how it explains how our faith in Jesus saves us, but we can also read it and see what the changed Christian life looks like.

Paul says, My old self has been crucified with Christ.

Therefore, because my life is exchanged, because I've been given new life in Christ, therefore it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.

Since I live, so I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

This is what Charles Spurgeon says about Galatians 2.20.

Um, if you need a commentary, you want someone who's wise that will teach you scripture.

Charles Spurgeon is incredible.

Um he says this about Galatians 2.20.

I do not know a better epitome or example of Christian experience than this, talking about Galatians 2.20.

This is the daily walk of a true child of God.

If he liveth after any other sort, then he liveth not a Christian's life at all.

Christ living in us, ourselves living upon Christ, and our union to Christ being visibly maintained by an act of simple faith in him.

This is the true Christian's life.

We are crucified with Christ.

It's no longer us who live, but Christ who lives in us.

The life we now live, we live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

The believer doesn't live for himself for his own passion, he lives for God and God alone.

Everything the believer has to live for is found in the one who loved him and gave himself for him.

If we say we place our faith in Jesus Christ, we've been saved by his grace, we've been given this new life, we've exchanged our sinfulness for his righteousness, then surely, surely, someone should be able to look at our lives and say, He no longer lives for himself, or she no longer lives for himself.

They live for Christ in Christ alone.

So Paul ends chapter 2 with a verse that just, this verse alone, it ends this debate of salvation by faith or salvation by works.

If we can do something in of ourselves to please God, it ends this debate once and for all.

This is the best mic drop in the history of mic drops.

And Paul says this in verse 21.

I do not treat the grace of God as meaningless.

For if keeping the law can make us right with God, then there was no need for Christ to die.

The ESV says that Christ died for no purpose.

If there was a way for us to stand before God, justified, made right in our own works.

Christ died for no purpose if we believe that.

Believe me when I say this, if there was another way, man, if there was another way for sinners to be saved, to be reconciled to the God of creation, then God never would have sent Jesus to this earth.

If there was another way for us to step into God's presence, justified, right, righteous, perfect, holy, then he never would have sent Jesus in the first place.

We wouldn't have Christmas, we wouldn't have Easter, there would be no need for that.

If we had the possibility to stand before God in a righteous way.

If we could earn our righteousness by our works, then that would be the way it is.

And if you fall short, if you sin, then it would just, I'm sorry.

That's this is the way, and you you blew it, you mess up, so you have there's there's no other way.

But because we don't have this ability to be made right with God in our own works, he had to send Jesus.

If we treat the grace of God as an option or treat it as meaningless, as Paul says in verse 21, then we are saying that the death of Jesus is not good enough.

It's not good enough.

It wasn't even required.

The death of Jesus isn't good enough.

I need to add something to that.

Christ died for you.

Listen to this.

This is where the beauty of the gospel is found.

Christ died for you because that was the only way for you to ever have the chance to stand righteous, made right, justified in his presence.

Christ came to this earth, he lived the life that you were supposed to live, and God has created us to live, but we fell short.

He lived the life, the perfect life that we couldn't live, gave himself willingly, was beaten, spit on, crucified, he bled, he died for us, and then rose from the dead three days later on Easter to show his power, his might over sin and death.

He did all that for us because God knew, Jesus knew, the Father knew when he sent his son that that was the only way we could ever be saved.

Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, the life.

He is the only way.

The beauty of the gospel is shown when the Father gives up his most prized possession in his son Jesus.

He willingly gives him, sends his only son down to this earth to be crucified by his own creation because the father knew that was the only chance we ever stood to stand back in his presence in a righteous state.

This is where the love of God is shown that he would send his son to die for us.

It's his most prized possessions.

Romans 8 says that if if God is willing to give his son, what there is nothing else he is not willing to give us.

Meaning that Jesus, Jesus is the best gift he could ever give us because it cost him the most.

It cost the Father everything to send Jesus, but it was only because he knew that was the only way we could be saved.

The only way is by faith in the Son of God who loved us and gave himself for us.

So then the question becomes: after Paul just drops 21 on us, do you believe that?

Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the only way you ever have a chance to stand justified, made right before God?

Do you believe that the only way that you can ever experience the eternal life that God gives us is by grace through faith in Jesus?

Have you fallen into the lie that you can be good enough to be accepted by a holy, just, perfect, righteous, wrathful God?

Man, have you cheapened the death of Christ to the equivalent of church attendance and good deeds?

Maybe you're like Paul.

Maybe you're tired of constantly just being condemned by the law, constantly condemned by this attitude, I'm gonna be better, and then you fall short and you go back into the cycle.

Maybe you're just feeling so tired, so tired of your guilt and shame that your sin brings.

If that's you, I want I just want to give you this opportunity to step out of that, step out of condemnation from the law and step into the grace that is offered through Christ.

I want to present the opportunity to step into life that is found by grace through faith in Jesus.

The law, this this idea that we can be good enough to please God.

This idea that our obedience is what earns us God's favor.

The law it condemns sinner, but grace redeems the sinner.

The law says do, grace says it is done.

The law says continue to be holy, grace says it is finished.

The law says pay what you owe, grace says, I freely forgive you of all.

The law says the wages of sin is death, grace says the free gift of God is eternal life.

The law reveals sin.

Grace atones for sin.

The law demands obedience, grace bestows and gives power to obey.

The law puts us under bondage and shame and guilt, but grace sets us free in liberty as sons and daughters of God.

This is what is offered, presented to us when God sends his son, Jesus, this is what is offered to us when we hear the gospel, when we repent and place our faith in Jesus, not just believing that he was real, that he was a real person, but believing in what he's done, that he is good, and it is finished.

If you've never placed your faith in Jesus, you've never experienced God's grace, you're realizing that you've had it all wrong, that you thought your attendance here on a Sunday morning was enough, if you've understood that you've got it all wrong and you've never placed your faith in Christ, I want to give you the opportunity to repent and do that.

We we have to be sure that we can say along with Paul, my old self, my old self has been crucified with Christ.

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

So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

We have to be sure that we can confidently say this alongside of Paul.

That we have placed our faith in Christ.

We have given him our sin, our guilt, and our shame, and we have received by grace the righteousness that he offers us.

So as we close with more worship, um my challenge to you is just to simply examine.

Examine your faith.

Examine everything that we've talked about before.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 13, examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine.

How do I know if I place my faith in Christ?

Examine yourselves.

Don't get it wrong.

You can't get this wrong.

You can't afford to get this wrong.

Examine yourselves to see if your faith is genuine.

Test yourselves.

Surely you know that Jesus Christ is among you, and if not, you have failed the test of genuine faith.

This is not something that we can afford to miss.

So examine, have you placed your faith in the work of Jesus?

Pastors believing that he is real.

Have you placed your faith?

This carries this connotation of placing our faith onto the work of Jesus.

Have you placed your faith in Jesus and experienced the exchange life of following Christ?

Secondly, examine this.

If you place your faith in Jesus, in what ways has your exchange life in Christ changed?

When people see your life, do they see a life that has been crucified with Christ and is now lived for God?

Do they see this Galatians 2, 20 life?

Think of areas of your life that might need to change, that might need to be transformed more into the image of Jesus, ways where your old self is still living, still taking over, still just dwelling in sin.

It could be your work life, your family life, your personal life, it could be your spiritual life.

What areas of your life need to change to be crucified with Christ and live for God?

So as we continue to worship, man, examine the genuineness of your faith in Jesus and then praise God for the good news that we have in Christ, that He did what was required, and He sent His only Son to die for us and to be the sacrifice, the atonement, the propitiation for our sins.

God is good.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you for just the word, the truth that we have in the gospel.

Thank you for Jesus.

Thank you that you didn't just leave us out to dry, Father.

Thank you that you didn't just require holiness of us, and then in our sin we fall short, and you just leave it at that.

Rather, you went to the extent to send your only, your one and only Son down to this earth to do what we couldn't do, to give his life willingly for us, and then to be raised in victory over sin and death.

Father, the gospel is the only way.

Open our eyes to see that.

Open our eyes to see more of the beauty of the gospel.

The gospel is something we can preach to ourselves every single day.

It's something that we can read about in Scripture every single day, and it gets more and more beautiful.

The gospel never gets old, so open our eyes to the beauty that it holds.

Father, if anyone doesn't have faith in Jesus, give them the faith.

Open their eyes to their need for a Savior.

And then open their eyes for how Christ has fulfilled that need in Himself, in His life, His death, and His resurrection.

Father, be with us as we continue to worship.

Just give us a heart to examine ourselves, to find areas where we need to be transformed into the image of Jesus.

And more importantly, examine if we have faith in the first place.

Father, we love you.

We thank you for the good news of Jesus.

We thank you for your church.

And we just pray all these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.