2. Galatians - Justified! | Matt Chandler

I wanted to give you a second just to meditate on the very real tangible evidence of God's goodness and grace that we have one brothers and sisters we've won and and it's not that we are winning it's that we've won right it's that as as Habakkuk said that the glory of God would cover the earth like the waters cover the Seas like we're getting to watch that we're in a privileged position in world history that we can look back on all these promises of God and I don't want you to miss that this little gathering 280 men and women from around the world is a really beautiful picture of God's power to conquer the mightiest of empires and and that although we be marginalized although we be mocked although we be belittled and although we be killed that this will not stop the movement of the kingdom of God right and and that's what we are weary as we are as unimpressive as we are that's what we are and that's a really beautiful thing so I want to just lay that before you before we dive into our text this morning so so that your heart I hope yes let's be encouraged by justification but I want you to be encouraged in the reality that us being in this room it is very much very much the triumph of Christ over empires and so whatever empires rule our day though one day be no more so ever since I landed in really starting in UK and now over people keep asking me about Donald Trump and and so let me just say this to you I certainly hope that doesn't happen to us or Hillary I don't want either one of those to happen to us and and yet my hope is not has never been in the United States of America my eschatology drives me beyond the safety that nation-states can bring and rests my heart securely in the finished work of Jesus Christ and so with that said I want us to dive into our text today so if you if you wondering how I'm voting Americans don't share that stuff publicly not if they're wise not if they're wise so the Apostle Paul has been arguing to the churches in Galatia about really the centrality and the purity of the gospel and and his argument has been that that you and I and really all of mankind are fallen and in rebellion against God that we are sinners in our nature not just by our action but by the state in which we were born and yet God has made a way to rescue and ransom us from our brokenness from our sinfulness and he's gotten quite a bit of pushback on preaching that Christ is the fulfillment of the law and that Christ is our only justifier and that you're not justified by the law but you're justified by Christ alone and so the pushback on Paul's preaching and the conversion that Paul has seen across the ancient world is is twofold right that the first is that there's no way justification by faith alone that being justified by Christ alone it has any merit because that would undo the law and we know that the law is holy and been given to us by God and so that's argument number one that if you're justified by faith alone by Christ alone then that undoes the law and we know that the law is holy and good so that was argument one and then argument two was that if you preach this if you preach that Christ alone justifies us apart from the law then people will give themselves over to licentiousness they will say Oh God's gonna forgive me no matter what I do because of Jesus well then I'll do whatever I want to do and I'll just trust that God will forgive me right and so these are the two arguments that are being thrown at the church at Galatia right hey listen that can't be true because what about the law we know that the law is good we know that the law is right we know that the law is holy we know that our scriptures have told us that the law will always be here so how can we now say that the law is gone that's argument 1 an argument to is then people will just give themselves over to licentiousness and wickedness and sinfulness and and we know that can't be right either and so these are the two arguments against Paul's gospel and so already in this book Paul has begun to really unravel or untangle or deconstruct those arguments early on he's going to argue that the law one of the primary uses of the law is a diagnostic not a cure that the law was given as a diagnostic not a cure so about six years ago they found a tumor in my right frontal lobe ended up being brain cancer and the way they found that is they stuck me in an MRI machine so they put me in an MRI machine and and however that works right it was loud and and bounce sounds around and they got a picture of that tumor and then they could MRI me over and over and over and over and over again but the MRI had no power to cure me it just had the power to tell me I was sick right and and so the law much like the MRI machine diagnoses our illnesses but cannot save us or heal us from the illness and so Paul's gonna argue the law is good the law is holy the law is righteous as long as it is used as God intended the law to be used and then later we would see Paul argue against licentiousness this way that a heart truly converted to Jesus Christ a heart that has been reborn a heart that has been regenerated by the Holy Spirit of God cannot say I'll do whatever I want but rather responds to God with I'll do whatever you will and that to say since God will forgive me I'll do whatever I want is actually an evidence that you are not a Christian and that if you can say oh Christ don't forgive me then let me give myself to things that Christ's hate reveals that you are not a Christian you cannot say I think Philip did such a good job of this yesterday out of Luke pointing out Jesus aim why do you call me Lord and not do what I say that to be a follower of Christ means that you are a follower of Christ you cannot say I am a follower of Christ I just choose not to follow Christ that makes you not a follower of Christ right right so in in the middle of this Paul doesn't back off of these arguments he actually leans into the argument and grows more and more emboldened and so that brings us to our text today this is Galatians chapter 2 we're gonna start in verse 15 and read through verse 21 these are the words of our God 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 though through the law I died to the law so that I might live to God that is a huge sentence we'll get to it shortly I have been crucified with Christ it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me I do not nullify the grace of God for if righteousness were through the law then Christ died for no purpose and so if you go back up to verse 15 you see the beginning of Paul's arguments for justification by faith alone in Christ alone he says we ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners yet we know that a person is not justified by the 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 so let me explain Paul's argument Paul is saying he starts with this we ourselves are Jews and not Gentile sinners that's us we're Gentile sinners right and Paul's argument is that if anyone had a moral advantage it was the Jews right if anyone had the law had the promises had the covenants had the profits it was the Jews not the Gentiles and yet moral advantages as far as being justified by God are of no advantage at all and so just because the Jews had just because the Jews had the law had the prophets had the Covenant promises did not give them a advantage to their Gentile pagan sinners that they thought it did that the law could not justify them and so maybe this is a good way to think about it in your church this is definitely how I'll preach it at mine some people rebel against God with drugs and alcohol and sexual promiscuity and licentiousness and some people rebel against God with empty religion in our churches and so some people rebel hard and go worldly but other people sit among us with a checklist of do's and don'ts and have never surrender their lives fully to Christ they are externally religious and moral but they have not been transformed by the Holy Spirit of God see the kid addicted to Sunday school and the kid addicted to heroin both need to be justified both need to be justified and Paul's argument here is that moral right external moral righteousness as far as justification goes is no advantage of at all so moral advantages are no real advantage at all now we're talking about justification not just about life in general right so if you grew up in a home where your parents loved you and they read the Bible to you and they prayed for you and you grew up in church hearing the Word of God and and learning that it's a joy to follow Christ and seen in your parents a love for the Lord that's genuine and imperfect but genuine then that's an advantage in some sense you know you're loved you begin to hear about the mercy of God you begin to have kin lien placed around your heart that by the grace of God the Holy Spirit might ignite one day that that's a far advantage just in regards to normal life then say having a parent who's an alcoholic who's always at the bar who doesn't care anything for you so there is some advantage in having a good home life and being Aurel people but as far as justification before God goes moral advantages are no advantage at all because our righteous deeds are but filthy rags to him right his holiness is so tremendous that our feeble attempts at holiness are filthy so we'll need a justifier and this is Paul's argument that moral advantages are no real advantage at all and then he moves from here to I think one of the more profound sentences in all of the Bible in fact two sentences in all of the Bible in verse 17 with me 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 proved myself to be a transgressor now um here's again here's Paul's argument it's compelling he's now contrasting really the work of Jesus Christ with the work of Moses he does this most fully in 2nd Corinthians chapter 3 where Paul says that Moses as he brought the law then became a minister of the law and therefore a minister of sin wrath death and judgment and so Moses having brought the law to the people of God became a minister of the law and therefore a minister of death sin judgment so if you can get in your mind what happens as the people of God have gathered at the base of Mount Sinai and Moses comes down with the Ten Commandments and begins to read them but do you think that there's a lot of hard gulps that go on a lot of fear that begins to settle on the people of God as he reads them out loud thou shalt have no other God before me now what's right behind a little golden cow they made right so you think not now people feel what they feel condemned they feel judged space has been created between them and God all right as he says thou shalt not covet thou shalt not steal thou shalt not have another man's wife thou shalt honor the Lord that as he walks through the ten commandments what's happening right people began to be aware of their guilt before God sin begins to take root in the hearts of people and they become aware that they are far from him so if in according to Paul's argument if we come to Christ and seek to be justified and Christ instead of justifying us and and bringing us to the Lord instead has another list of commands for us to obey then he rebuilds what he has toward out and he would be a minister of sin but he's not a minister of sin because when we come to Christ he does not come with more behavioral modification when we come to Christ he doesn't say I'll justify you if you'll do these things he says you're justified freely and forever by my blood I have paid your bill once and for all in its entirety this is a stunning statement from the Apostle Paul that says when we come to Christ he does not give us a list of things to do but he calls us brother and the father calls a son it's a stunning text in the Bible see the the law creates space between us and God does it not the law creates space when we read in the scriptures that thou shalt Sanna - alt not without a strong understanding of the justifying work of Christ and the cross we will run from him and not to him but to those who understand the gospel of Jesus Christ to stumble and fall means to get up and run back to our Father not from him but to him so if oftentimes said at the village that I'll I'll I'll see whether or not you really understand the gospel by what you do when you stumble now when everything goes great but when you stumble and fall I want to watch how you handle tripping up in your sin because if in your tripping you get up and run to the Father then I'll see this man this woman understands the gospel of Jesus Christ if you stumble fall and disappear for two or three weeks then I'll see that no you you really don't understand the gospel you think you've got to go clean yourself up before you come back to God that's an anti gospel not the gospel because you don't come to Jesus and have Jesus reluctantly go okay I love you if I've got a list here I'm gonna forgive you if I'm gonna justify you if here's a list of 14 things if you'll do these 14 things right this is what we see in John 3:17 John 3:16 gets all the press but it's John 3:17 that's so profoundly beautiful right that I have come into the world not to condemn the world but rather to save the world from condemnation the Christ has come not to condemn or rather to save from condemnation so Christ comes not with the lecture Christ comes not not with a list of do's and dont's Christ comes with the force of the Holy Spirit to make new and to cover with his blood all of our sins past present and future fully freely and forever forgiven and justified by the blood of Jesus Christ and then he from there and and I said earlier while we read that I think this sentence is a an important one so look at verse 19 let me take us to the water I apologize my voice hasn't traveled well and I think some of you're like well I would hate to hear you at full strength then verse 19 for through the law I died to the law so that I might live to God now again I want to kind of break this into two parts what would he just said here's that for through the law I died to the law so he's saying there's a greater law than the law right so that's confusing right it says there's a greater law than the law how's that work well we know how this works just in in basic principle so in the Chandler household I have three children have a thirteen-year-old I have a ten-year-old and I have a six-year-old okay so a lot of fun in our house right now there's just fun ages and and so we haven't had any teenage drama yet everybody warns you you know Oh thirteen good luck but it's been it's been a real blessing so one of the things we did early on in our families we just kind of set some core principles out before our children this is how it is how we're gonna live our lives as the Chandler's and two of those principles have often come in sharp contrast with one another right so one of the principles is have fun so I want to tell my kids our family we're gonna have fun we're gonna laugh a lot we're gonna play a lot we're gonna have a good time in this house in fact if you don't I'll spank you right you're gonna laugh and have a good time or I'm gonna whip you right that that I mean we're serious about fun but yet another one of our principles is be safe all right so have fun but be safe and over the last 13 years those two principles have come in sharp contrast to one another over and over and over again my 13 year old whatever part of the brain is supposed to tell you you can die doing this does not communicate that to her in fact instead it encourages her to go for it and so the part of the brain that says should say don't jump off the roof and said says to her you should jump off the roof and so she's broken a collarbone she's broken her left arm she is she is just a fearless young woman and and so for us oftentimes we got okay I know that was fun but it's not safe so being safe actually trumps having fun so in in the Word of God the love of God in Christ Trump's Trump's the law Christ Himself is the fulfillment of the law so when were justified by Christ Christ Himself doesn't do away with the law but he fulfills the law and then imputes to us that righteousness and then here's the here's the part that I find so compelling about this text he says that Christ did that listen to this so that I might live to God so for keeping in mind all that we've just read Paul just said that what it means to live to God is not a matter of moral obedience but rather faith in Christ so when you hear people talk about living to God I'm going to live my life for God they almost always have attached to that a list of kind of moral standards and yet Paul's argument is you want to know what it looks like to live a life for God it's faith in Christ's justifying work that's a life that pleases God faith in Christ trusting the Christ has paid our bill believing that he has justified us fully freely and forever that's what it means to live for God that's what it looks like you ever wondered about what does it look like for a man a woman to be consumed by Jesus Christ it's faith in the finished work of Christ now you can extrapolate that to a thousand other little behaviors but we don't start with the behavior to get back to justification we start with justification that leads to our behaviors correct you can't go backwards to go backwards is to get trapped in the swamp right you try to go let me let me be good enough to please God let me list out these things that I'm gonna do better I'm gonna wake up early I'm gonna pray longer I'm gonna memorize more I'm gonna Evangel I want to see my whole city NOLA I mean you start there and you're gonna you're gonna grow weary and exhausted you're gonna melt under the weight of things you have not been meant to carry but if we can start here it pleases God a life lived to God is a life it says Jesus made the way Jesus created the path Jesus has justified me freely and forever Jesus has made a way Jesus loves me Jesus has drawn me to the Father condensed the space between me and God to now non-existence to land in that space is then to be empowered by the Holy Spirit with gladness towards service ministry a deeper richer prayer life a ferocity around memorization and the things that we want to start with to try to get here then he begins to tell us what this looks like in life so look at verse 20 this is what I would call in America the coffee cup verse it's a verse that most Christians know but few have really thought deeply about you know they just put it on a coffee cup set their coffee out of this really profound truth here's what Paul says this looks like when justification hits the ground of how we actually live our lives I have been crucified with Christ it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me I do not nullify the grace of God for if righteousness were through the law then Christ died for no purpose so this this text explains how it all works how does justification on the ground work well it works like this but my understanding of my life and your understanding of your life as Christians should look like this that that I've been crucified I am dead with Christ and the life I now live I live in faith in in the one who did die in my place and and I'm living in his power and in His grace in this moment and so the if I could maybe like give real-life illustration a couple of years ago I was doing an acts 29 event in Houston Texas oh we were training pastors in Houston Texas I grew up just a little bit south of where I was preaching and so I got in my car and I I drove down between sessions I drove down and and wanted to take some pictures of some of the houses I grew up in and then bring them back and kind of show my kids here's where Daddy grew up and so I got in the car and I drove down to where I grew up as a kid and and as I pulled into town this town just south of Houston Texas as I pulled into town there was a field where I had been involved in some really wicked kind of sinful things and and I felt like a little a little tinge in my heart a little kind of hurt enter my heart as I remembered kind of the days of rebellion against the Lord I didn't become a Christian until right before my 18th birthday and then as I drove further into town and showed up at the first house I had all these memories of things that occurred in that house that were wicked and depraved and displeasing to the Lord and then as I was driving out of town I passed the house of a young woman who had dated in high school who have nothing in my mind and heart but regret about and just believe that wherever she is on earth right now her thoughts of me are that of despising and and I don't know if you've been there but the weight of my former scent actually began to make me feel physically nauseous and I'm driving back up to to preach to pastors the grace of God and in my ear in my spiritual ear there's nothing but condemnation for myself right but really they're gonna listen to you I remember what happened in the field really you think you you you can stand there and say these things what do you think Holly's gonna think about the things you're about to say you think she'd be unimpressed with you as a preacher you think she could ever trust anything that came out of your mouth I and these were the thoughts that were rolling through my mind until Galatians 2:20 by the grace of God and by the power of the Holy Spirit popped into my mind well because Galatians 2:20 tells me this that Matt Chandler well he's dead like I'm Matt Chandler is dead like that Matt Chandler in that field in that home with that girl that Matt Chandler died with Jesus Christ on the cross and the life I'm now living I live by faith in the Son of God who loves me and gave himself up for me and therefore I'm not gonna nullify the grace of God I'm gonna nullify the grace of God by trying to form a righteousness of my own now what does it look like in ministry to try to have a righteousness of our own so I think anytime you project a reality that's inconsistent with who you are and where you are you're trying to nullify the grace of God so here here's what I mean by that if you've come in weary and exhausted and you're pretending not to be that you're nullifying the grace of God because one of the graces of God to you in Christ is this community of brothers and sisters who might encourage you if you only had the courage to be honest and trust in the mercy of Christ to inflate numbers is to try to nullify the grace of God is his justifying work in your soul not sufficient why do you feel like you have to be a success by the world standards do you do you think God judges success like we judge success do you think he looks at the size of your church and the size of my church and thinks one of us is more faithful than the other well he certainly doesn't do that he would weigh us both by the same standard are we obedient are we trusting him and where we have imperfectly executed that obedience he lavishes us with grace now what's interesting to note about the text is if you continue on into Galatians chapter 3 one of the things you see here is is that we're prone to forget it and and this is good news because they were prone to forget it in fact the whole history of the people of God are a people that are prone to forget right it's I'm studying right now in the book of Exodus getting ready to preach through the book of Exodus this fall at the village church in Dallas and and it's hard for me to get my mind around the Israelites in all that they saw God do in Egypt as as God just in in the most effective way imaginable executed the Egyptian gods right each one of the plagues are actually tied to one of the Egyptian gods and so they love the god Raj and and so he blocks out the Sun the god of the Sun and he makes it as dark so dark that you could feel it the Bible says so dark that a man could not see another man you saw they worship the god of the Nile and so God takes all the water and turns it in into blood you see the Passover you've got locusts you've got livestock you got God flexing his miraculous mind in ways that would blow our mind and yet we're not too far out of that before they go what are we gonna do we're in the desert okay I know we're gonna do let's worship a cow now God had already killed all the livestock right I mean God had already flexed his mind I am the God over your Egyptian gods and yet who did they run back to their little G Egyptian gods that's more a calf and a golden image and let's worship it's who were prone to forget as the people of God we haven't have a great old hymn where we sing it you ever thought how strange that it is that we sing that prone to wander lord I feel it prone to leave the god I love it's a weird verse to sing the gathering of the saints except that it's so true and so the galatians are guilty of the same thing that the people of god have always been guilty of and will always be guilty of praise God for His grace forgetfulness and so look in verse three or chapter 3 starting in verse one o foolish Galatians who has bewitched you it was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified when he talks about publicly portrayed he's saying from every angle you saw that Jesus died for your sins from from every angle possible you saw that he died for your sins and then he begs them to remember verse two let me ask you only this did you receive the spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith and so here's a quick exercise that I find always to be helpful if you can take a moment here and remember where you were when Christ saved you a friend had been bringing me to church I was unchurched and he began to bring me to church and I thought everything about his church was silly I thought it was goofy and the songs they sang were silly and I thought what was being preached was silly and foolish I had no idea what the death of a Jew 2,000 years ago had anything to do with my life and yet I kept wanting to come back and so I would get in his car and he would drive me home and I would just tell him all the reasons that what I just heard was dumb you know I can't believe you believe that it's just so foolish you really given your life to this you go and then he would say do you want to come back next week and I was like yes can you pick me up yeah so so here's and and yet right now 20 years into following Christ I know what that was that's called the effectual call of God the God was calling me to himself and I was too dumb to even see it like a moth to the flame you know I didn't know what was happening but now I have language so back then I had no language to understand or explain and yet God loved me he saved me delighted in me he didn't delight in Matt Chandler at 41 delighted in Matt Chandler at 18 right confused in a very real way in bondage to some brokenness that was related to the family I grew up in violent angry cocky arrogant foolish foul-mouthed Matt Chandler God in His grace saved and loved before I even knew what all was sin and what wasn't when I became a Christian I thought it was sin to say cuss words to sleep with women and to do drugs and alcohol that was it if I get his do those three things I'd be perfect I had no idea that Jesus was as ruthless as he was and wanted all of it every little thought and every little nuance of my heart and every little and yet I can just say this boldly because of the Word of God that God loved me in that moment just as much as he loves me now with better language with greater understanding and in many ways far more obedient to his word see I I want to say as often as I can that God doesn't love some future version of you he's not crazy about some future version of you it's you right now that he died for you that he bled out for you so where were you when he saved you if he can think back on that time where you were what you believed what was going on how you were struggling what you were struggling with and how in that moment of regeneration things change so quickly an immature yes stumbling forward maybe and and yet the pronounced grace and mercy of God on you not because you were awesome but because he is awesome so so that's why asks the question of what was really going on when you were saved now look now in verse 3 are you so foolish by the way he's pretty aggressive in this being very Texan in Galatians 3 you foolish are you so foolish are you so dumb why are you such a are you so foolish having begun by the spirit are you now being perfected by the flesh so pastors pastors wives let me chat with you for a second having begun with the spirit are you now being justified by your own efforts right by your own might and out working I think the sure way to have your ministry crash on the rocks of despair is to feel like you've got to carry the weight of conversion that you've got to carry the way of how many people are becoming Christians that you have to carry the weight of other people's path of maturation and Ana brothers we're obedient we preach the Word of God we pray for our people we love them well but it's the Spirit of God that transforms hearts the most freeing thing in the universe for a minister and his wife is to embrace the helplessness of their humanity it's the most freeing thing a minister and his wife can ever do is to embrace the helplessness of their humanity you are not all present you are not all-knowing you are not everywhere at once and you can save no one in that great that's awesome now to the degree at which you believe that you can do those things you enslave yourself to a life of exhaustion and weariness to the degree at which you don't believe those things and you feel like you can be all I can be all knowing I can be everywhere at once and that that you believe that that people becoming Christians is the type of code that you can break that if you just preached the right way or you just had the right really kind of system in place then all of Europe would believe upon the name of Christ you enslave yourself to those things see we pray we preach we hope we love we serve we show hospitality and it's the Holy Spirit of God that opens hearts and when you know you you're helpless you pray more remember when we talked early on about being more prayerful and be more well that well that happens when you understand you're helpless if you don't think you're helpless then you certainly won't pray much you'd be busy getting stuff done except you're not really getting much done it might have the appearance of getting something done but but ultimately is it's not really eternal and then from there look at what he says did you suffer so many things if indeed it was in vain I love that the Bible never shied away from and and then even in the sermons that you've heard so far this week that the Bible and the men of God who have stood in front of you so far this week nobody shai's back from the reality that it's very clear that the Bible says that that we're going to suffer we should just never be surprised by that but but Paul saying here there's a type of suffering that's not in vain and there's a type of suffering that is in vain and the type of suffering that is in vain is the type of suffering we're dismissing or nullifying the grace of God we try to build our own righteousness that there's a type of suffering there that that's in vain but then the type of suffering that occurs in believing the righteousness of Christ pushes us closer to God helps us rest more in God and ultimately produces fruit that's beyond our ability to accomplish in and of ourselves and then verse 5 does he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith I have I've never really been able to get over watching the Holy Spirit of God transform lives at the village church it's just a stunning thing for me to watch a man come in or a woman come in really chained up in bondage to wickedness and depravity and watch over a period of time the Holy Spirit of God really do a work in their life that frees them from that bondage that that that thing the Holy Spirit of God does that's beyond just don't do that anymore right because what I've got is hey don't do that anymore but the Holy Spirit of God says here's some new affections so you don't want to so Paul saying hey does this transfer his soul level transformation does that occur because of the law or does that occur because of the Spirit now who do you want in your corner you you want the Lord you want the Spirit so brothers I want the Spirit I don't want that don't do that anymore start doing this I want to be able to say by the power of the Holy Spirit seek freedom and pursue obedience is imperfectly as you will the Holy Spirit of God will lift you up will heal will make hole make ride will fix and then he ties it back to our father Abraham and and so this is what you see in verse 6 just as abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness now now I always loved Abraham as the illustration because Abraham was counted righteous 430 years before the law was given so 430 years before there was any way to measure whether or not there was a distance between you and God or not Abraham's counted righteous so if we should have any confidence in Christ being our justifier we can look all the way back to Abraham who who broke plenty of laws right I mean this this brother is is not I would not model your marriage after Abraham I just would not go this is biblical marriage right here and yet he's justified but by what certainly not by how he engages with his wife certainly would not how he handles his children certainly not because he's not a liar because the man's a liar certainly so so what does Abraham get justified by because if you had a list of things you would expect from a godly man it Abraham's fallen way short in fact I can tell you this I'm not quite sure Abraham would be allowed to be a deacon in our church I think he would fail the interview process have you ever been unfaithful to your wife yeah I have in fact this one time I even lied and said she was my sister and tried to give him give her to another man yeah you're not gonna be able to work here you're gonna have to go down to the road one of the liberal churches you're out even afraid you can't any and yet the Bible's clear that he's been justified fully freely forever father Abraham that God would even be known by Abraham's name right I am the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob the God who led you out of Egypt right that that Abraham gets in there somehow to even be a part of how God communicates himself to me well I'm the God of Abraham a guy that cheats on his wife is miserable to his kids and try to have another one killed that Abraham yeah that Abraham so profound it's my grace my mercy my justifying work in Jesus Christ that Abraham was counted righteous by faith alone in grace alone in Christ alone the task that has been given to you and I seems overwhelming I'm not naive to where many of you are in the world and and and and what that might be like and yet there is no panic in the Godhead the God is not wondering what to do about Europe or the Middle East or this current crisis is not hold up in the Trinity and tried to whiteboard out how we're gonna get out of this mess you are God's great plan for Europe and if you're looking around the room and going we're in a lot of trouble well you shouldn't don't you think our our brother Paul our brother Peter right before they were killed with the Colosseum looming in the background as so many of our brothers and sisters had been slaughtered and imprisoned and belittled and mocked there according to book of Hebrews their stuff plundered thrown in prison you think there was any idea we would be here like this and by faith absolutely but surely it seemed like such a distant distant memory and yet here we are 280 of us 27 languages all here because of Jesus like what do all we have in common like I don't know how to say good morning to half of you and and yet here we are what we have in common is that Christ found us Christ saved us Christ called us to himself and Christ by a miracle of God's grace has chosen to use us to herald the greatest news in the universe to all who will hear what a privilege what a joy be encouraged this morning let's pray father we thank you the regardless of our nationality our background who we know where we're from we're justified by you and you alone I pray even now as we begin to move into a period of extended prayer with one another that you would encourage our hearts I pray for those who are weary overwhelmed barely hanging in there the Holy Spirit you would rejuvenate and fill and encourage and remind and they would feel even in this moment just the warmth of your presence in the deepest parts of their soul thank you for the word of God we thank you for the blood of Christ we praise you for your mercy and your beautiful name we pray amen thank you Hugo

Channel: Acts 29

Views: 13,553

Rating: 4.7517242 out of 5

Keywords: church planting, Acts 29, church, gospel, mission, Europe

Id: XXxUkuX1loQ

Length: 44min 16sec (2656 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 04 2016