Live video and notes for my message at Central Church of Christ in Stockton, CA for October 31, 2021.

It was Reformation Sunday and as Providence would have it–I am currently preaching through Galatians. So I simply preached the next passage, Galatians 3:10-14.

The live video link is below. Sermon outline is below that.

Soli Deo Gloria!

  • Reformation Day
    • The story of Martin Luther and Reformation Day
      1. Recovered the Gospel of Christ and gave it back to the church
    • The simple truth Martin Luther uncovered: The righteous will live by faith.(Gal. 3:11)
      1. Luther translation: Those who are righteous by faith, shall live.
    • A line from Luther’s viral Facebook post: The true treasure of the church is the most holy gospel of the glory and grace of God.
      1. The salvation offered by God in the Gospel is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, according to the Bible alone, and for the glory of God alone.
  • Galatians 3:10-13
    • Few better texts for proclaiming the Gospel of Christ on this Reformation Day than Gal 3:10-13
    • The primary concern of the Christian faith is: How can I be right with God?
      1. Question the Gospel of Christ answers
      2. In these vv, Paul describes right relationship with God in two ways
        • Justified before God (v11)
          1. What does justified mean? (Declared righteous)
          2. Justified is the opposite of condemnation (Rom. 8:1)
          3. It means God accepts you, you are in His favor, God is smiling on you.
        • Life — one who is in a right relationship with God will live (vv11, 12)
          1. Not just our biological life, the life of this age; but our spiritual life— eternal life
    • These verses teach that there are only two possible ways to be declared righteous before God, and gain eternal life.
      1. The Law — You must actually be righteous, and earn eternal life by your own efforts
      2. The Gospel — You are declared righteous by faith in Christ, and are granted eternal life based on His work alone
    • The Law (vv10-11, 12)
      • The Law of God = every commandment God gives humanity
        1. In the Bible, whenever you see a commandment, an instruction, imperative—that is Law
      • To be declared righteous by God and gain eternal life by the Law, you must have perfect, perpetual obedience to every commandment of God, in all of its details, in word and thought and deed
        1. For whoever keeps the entire law, and yet stumbles at one point, is guilty of breaking it all, James 2:10.
        2. Must do everything written in the book of the Law (v10); the one who does these things will live by them (v12)
          1. The Law is kind of like an electrical cord. If one small part gets cut or damaged, the whole cord no longer works.
            1. If you fail to keep any of God’s Law, you’re done trying to gain eternal life by actually being righteous.
      • Theoretically—in principle—you could be declared righteous before God and be rewarded eternal life, if you perfectly obeyed the Law
        1. But no one ever has—except who? Jesus Christ
          1. And the problem is not with the Law 
            1. The Law of the Lord is perfect, Ps 19:7; it is holy, just, and good, Rom. 7:12
          2. But we are not perfect, holy, just, or good—the problem is with us. We are sinners. We are sinners by nature, Eph. 2:3. It comes as naturally to us as breathing. And that’s what the Gospel of Christ addresses.
    • The Gospel (vv11-12)
      • No one is justified by the Law—because nobody but Christ has kept it, or can keep it—but Christ kept it on our behalf
      • Jesus is our representative
        • It’s like a group project where one person does all the work, but the whole group gets the credit; Jesus is that one person who did all the work; He got an A, we share in His A, we are on the Dean’s List with Him
          • The Gospel is that He lived for us—so that we could be covered in His righteousness; He died for us—to satisfy the curse of the Law; He rose for us—so that we might also be raised to eternal life; and now He is in heaven, at God’s right hand, interceding for us—He is praying for you right now that you will not lose your faith
      • And all of that is ours by faith alone. That’s important. 
  • If they didn’t make sure you understood that Christ’s death has atoned for all of your sins—past, present, and future; if they didn’t explain that yes—you’ve been saved from sin, but not from sinning, so you are covered in Christ’s perfect righteousness—your life is hidden in Christ with God, Col. 3:3; If they never told you that your salvation is eternally secure, because Christ is in eternity praying for you, that your faith will hold, Heb. 7:25—if they didn’t teach you all that, I’m not saying you’re not saved; believing in Christ alone to save you is enough; but you were not taught the whole Gospel. You were not given the whole Christ:
    1. Martin Luther: The faith that takes a hold of Christ takes a hold of Christ the Son of God and dresses up in Him. This is the very faith that justifies.
  • This is what it means when it says: The righteous will live by faith—or as Luther put it, those who by faith are righteous, will live
    1. Not that people who are already somehow righteous accomplish much because they have strong faith; but that those who are by nature unrighteous and sinful take hold of Christ and His benefits by faith—and are declared righteous by God for His sake, and are granted eternal life in Him.
      1. This is exactly what Paul taught in Rom. 4:5: But to the one who does not work—the one who has not and cannot fulfill the Law, the one who will not be granted eternal life on the basis of their own righteousness, and that’s all of us—but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited for righteousness.
        1. Luther: One is not righteous who does much, but the one who, without work, believes much in Christ.
  • The Two Ways Compared, Law & Gospel
    1. Luther continues: The law says, ‘Do this,’ and it is never done. Grace says, ‘Believe in this,’ and everything is already done.
  • Faith (v13)
    1. It’s because of the amount of faith that you have, or the quality of it, or how much knowledge of the Bible you have added to your faith, or how many good works you have added to your faith, that you stand justified before God.
      • Puritans: A weak faith can lay hold on a strong Christ
      • Spurgeon illustration: The ship from England to America, with a strong man and a helpless little infant on board. Both the strong man and the weak child will arrive safely at their destination because the boat is worthy—not because they are.
    2. What saves us, what justifies us before God and rescues us from the curse of the Law and gives us eternal life, is not the quality or quantity of our faith—it’s who our faith is in, and what He has done
      • Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, v13.
        1. Law of God has teeth—penalty for disobedience—condemns all who do not obey. (Rom 6:23). And that’s everyone (Rom. 3:23).
        2. saving faith rests in Christ’s finished work for us
          • You not only believe that it’s true that Christ suffered the curse of the Law; you believe it’s true in your case—that He did it for you, and now, in Christ, there is no condemnation for you.
  • Application
    • There are only two ways to be righteous before God and have eternal life:
      1. You can actually be righteous according to the Law, and earn heaven on your own merits;
        • But our text today says no one can do that, and no one will ever be able to do it.
      2. Or, you can be declared righteous by God through faith in Christ and in His finished work—and God will give you the eternal life Jesus has earned for you.
    • And you can’t mix them together. They are like oil and water. They’re two completely different things.
      1. That’s why v12 says that the Law is not based on faith—relying on your own efforts for any of your salvation is the opposite of faith; indeed it is in defiance of faith
        • So it’s like when you tell your kids: In or out. It’s either by Law, by your own efforts; or by the Gospel, through faith.
    • Our problem in the church is not usually that people are self-consciously trying to earn salvation by their own efforts. Satan is a lot sneakier than that.
      1. That wasn’t even the problem in Galatia. The false teachers who’d upset the church there weren’t saying: Obey the Law instead of having faith in Christ, and you will be saved. No, they said: You have faith in Christ. Good. Now to keep your salvation, to stay in God’s grace, to have God keep smiling on you, you must also be circumcised and do this, and do that, etc.
      2. So Paul’s point is: No, you can either keep the Law fully and perfectly and be saved on your own merits—which you can’t do; or, you can trust in Christ alone to save you completely. But you can’t mix the two.
      3. What we often communicate—and maybe it’s not on purpose—is that yes, you are initially saved by grace alone through faith alone; but then your work at obeying God is how you keep your salvation.
        • This is how we subtly communicate that: whenever we, or someone else in the church, is struggling with sin, or they’re having a weak point or a cold spot in their faith—What are you looking to? What are you pointing them to?
          1. Are you pointing them and yourself first to Christ, the author and finisher of our faith, who is at the right hand of the Father praying for us? Or are you pointing them to the Law—to the commands and instructions and good advice of the Bible, so that you’re directing their focus away from Christ, and on themselves and their performance?
  • Luther talked about that: Faith in its true function does not have any other point of reference but Jesus Christ the Son of God, given over to death for sins … Faith does not say: ‘What have I already accomplished? How did I sin? What is it I deserve?’ Instead, faith says, ‘What is it that Christ has already done? What does He deserve? Here the truth of the Gospel responds: ‘He has redeemed you from sin, the devil, and eternal death.’
    • What Luther said there—that’s what the Bible means when it says the righteous will live by faith.
      1. As long as we are primarily relating to God through the Law—by thinking about what we have done, or not done, or ought to be doing, or should be doing more of—then we will always be striving to be perfect, or at least messing up less.If you’re a parent, do you want your child to relate to you on those terms?  
      2. I hope not, because that means there’s always guilt and shame and fear in the mix of your motivations. But God’s perfect love in Christ is meant to drive that out of you—so you can serve Him without fear.
      3. Relating to God primarily by the Law—what can I do, what do I need to be doing—you’re always going to have that guilt or shame, that feeling of not measuring up. It might be a little nagging feeling that you get sometimes. Or it may—if you have a tender conscience—really lead to crippling anxiety.
  • So here is the truth I want you to understand: The Law without the Gospel; or trying to blend the Law and the Gospel; it will not produce righteousness.It cannot. The Bible tells us that over and over again. 
    • Preaching obedience—even to yourself—will not produce obedience;
    • Preaching Love your neighbor; does not produce love;
    • Preaching holiness will not produce holiness;
    • Preaching joy will not produce joy;
    • Preaching contentment—even to yourself—will not produce contentment;
    • Telling yourself not to be anxious will not relieve your anxiety.
      • If they could—it would’ve worked by now.
  • But if you preach the Gospel of Christ
    • When you preach that He has set us free to obey God’s Law without the fear of condemnation;
    • When you preach that He is our wisdom from God, our holiness, and our righteousness—like it says in 1 Cor. 1:30—so we can serve God without fear of rejection;
    • When you preach that He has given us His own Holy Spirit to dwell in us;
    • When you preach that eternal joy and contentment are found in Him;
    • When you preach that He came to give us rest from our burdens of sin and guilt and shame and anxiety—not to pile more on—
      • When you preach the whole Gospel of the whole Christ, and all of His benefits, then you will begin to see all those things.
      • When you preach that—to yourself and others—front and center, you keep the Gospel written on your eyelids, you keep your eyes focused in faith on Christ and His finished work—then you start seeing more obedience, more holiness, more wisdom, less anxiety, more joy, more love, more contentment.
  • It’s funny that it works that way—but the Bible says it does. We’ll see that the deeper we go into Galatians.
    1. But today remember—the righteous will live through faith. When you have faith in Christ and his finished work alone to completely save you, God declares you righteous and seals you, by His Holy Spirit, for eternal life. 
    2. Man’s chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. And we can only glorify Him and enjoy Him through faith.