He Gave Himself For Me

Sovereign Grace Family Church

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November 14, 2019

00:00: Well, good morning.
00:02: Open your Bible to Galatians 2.
00:28: We're going to read verses 15 down to 21.
00:31: The focus of today is going to be on verses 20 and 21.
00:34: But to give context, we're going to read beginning at verse 15.
00:45: Galatians 2.15, We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners.
00:50: Yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.
00:56: So also we have believed in Jesus Christ in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law.
01:04: Because by the works of the law, no one will be justified.
01:09: 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.
01:16: For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor.
01:20: For through the law, I died to the law so that I might live to God.
01:24: I've been crucified with Christ.
01:27: It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
01:32: And the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
01:40: I do not nullify the grace of God.
01:43: For if justification were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
01:50: Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
01:55: We come to you this morning in Jesus' name, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.
02:02: And we know, Lord, that in the name of Jesus Christ, every knee should bow in heaven, on earth and under the earth, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.
02:15: Father, as we examine this text today, one of the most compelling, one of the most beautiful, one of the most striking and heart-wrenching passages in scripture, I pray that you would keep me from error.
02:34: I pray that you would open the hearts of these men to the truth.
02:39: And I pray, Lord, that they would understand the depth of sin and the necessity of Christ.
02:48: For, Lord, we know that Jesus Christ did not die in vain.
02:53: And it's in his name we pray, amen.
02:59: I look out and see a lot of you who I don't remember seeing, necessarily, last week.
03:05: So I know work blessings take you away from me.
03:08: And sometimes you miss class.
03:12: So sometimes it is hard preaching verse-by-verse because you miss so much, whether you're working or what, or whether you're maybe new here.
03:21: And so I almost feel compelled every time I come to give an overview of what we have talked about because I don't want anyone to be left behind.
03:30: So I'm gonna very briefly bring you up to speed as to where we are.
03:35: I'm a verse-by-verse expositor.
03:37: That means my main job is to preach the word of God one line at a time, literally one verse at a time.
03:46: If you come on Sunday mornings to my church, some of you do.
03:49: We've been in Genesis for two months, no, longer.
03:56: And I've only got through the first five verses.
03:59: Yeah, well, yeah, it's still in the first paragraph because there's so much.
04:04: It's my job to explain it.
04:06: It's my job to teach it.
04:08: And it's the same way with this.
04:10: This is our 19th sermon in Galatians, and we're just now to the end of chapter two.
04:16: Yeah, yeah, so it's been a little while.
04:20: But let me remind you very briefly as to what we've learned so far.
04:23: Number one, Paul is writing Galatians because he is upset that the church has departed from the gospel that he gave them.
04:32: We see this in chapter one, verses one to 10, specifically verses six to nine, where Paul says, I am astounded that you have so quickly departed from the faith that was once delivered to you.
04:43: He's upset that they have departed from the gospel and gone after another gospel.
04:47: And he says, but there's not another gospel.
04:49: There's only one gospel.
04:50: And if anyone comes to you preaching a gospel different than the gospel I gave to you, let him be accursed.
04:56: Even if an angel from heaven preaches a gospel to you different than the one that I have given you, let him be, the word is anathema in the Greek, and it means to be damned.
05:09: Let him be damned.
05:12: Interesting side note.
05:14: If you are familiar at all with the history of Mormonism, the leader of Mormonism, Joseph Smith, believes that he received his revelation from an angel.
05:26: So too does the leader of Islam.
05:28: Muhammad believes that the angel Jabril gave him the Quran in a cave.
05:37: Therefore, both of those religions were started by someone who believes they were given their information by an angel.
05:45: What does Paul say? Even if an angel teaches you something different than the gospel I've given to you, let him be damned.
05:53: Let him be accursed.
05:55: But Paul is not writing this in a vacuum.
05:57: He's writing it in a situation where there's a reason for it.
06:01: The reason for it is there are men who have infiltrated the churches that he started, and they are preaching a false gospel.
06:08: These men are what we call Judaizers.
06:11: They taught a very simple but false message, and it was this.
06:16: Unless you keep the ceremonial precepts of the laws of Moses, you cannot be saved.
06:23: Therefore, faith in Jesus is not enough.
06:29: You must add to faith either circumcision, which was the entrance into the Jewish community, the dietary laws, which was the way that the Jewish community was known for how they ate differently, and the keeping of the Sabbath, which was how they worked differently.
06:48: And unless you kept the circumcision law, unless you kept the dietary restriction, and unless you kept the Sabbath law, you cannot be saved.
06:57: This was the teachings of the Judaizers.
07:02: And Paul said, no, we are not saved by keeping the law.
07:06: We are saved by faith in Jesus Christ.
07:11: And that is the argument that Paul is making in the whole book.
07:15: That's the thesis of Galatians, that you are not saved by keeping the law.
07:20: You are saved by faith alone in Christ alone.
07:26: He defends his authority in chapter one, verses 11 to 24.
07:29: He confirms his message is in accord with the other apostles in chapter two, verses one to 10.
07:35: And he confronts Peter for Peter's betrayal of the Gentiles in chapter two, verses 11 to 14.
07:44: Yes, the same Peter who walked with Jesus.
07:47: Go ahead, brother, you want to say something? They don't like the faith in God and stuff? Yeah.
08:00: Unless they don't have Jesus, they're out of gas, huh? Absolutely.
08:03: Absolutely.
08:04: And I say that not on my own authority or my own interpretation.
08:07: I say that because that's what Paul says in Romans chapter nine.
08:10: Paul tells us in Romans chapter nine, I wish myself that I could be accursed if it meant the salvation of my brethren according to the flesh, that is the Jews.
08:20: So if they are saved by virtue of being Jewish, Paul wouldn't have had to say that.
08:24: But he said, I wish I could be accursed and they could be saved.
08:28: I'd give myself if it meant their salvation.
08:32: And you see, the problem is their understanding of God is flawed.
08:37: They understand God as the Old Testament God, which is the true God.
08:41: The problem is they reject God's son, Jesus Christ.
08:45: And if you reject the son, you reject the father.
08:47: Jesus said that.
08:49: He who has seen me has seen the father.
08:51: And it says in John chapter one, Jesus came unto his own, that's the Jewish people, and his own received him not.
08:58: But to as many as received him, he gave them the power to become children of God.
09:03: That's how you become a child of God, through faith in Jesus Christ.
09:06: Now, I know you agree.
09:06: I'm just saying, that's it.
09:08: A person who tries to win their salvation by works of the law will fail inevitably because we are all condemned by the law.
09:16: The law is no savior.
09:19: The law is only able to damn.
09:24: In fact, that's Galatians.
09:25: In fact, I wrote in my notes right here.
09:28: It says in my notes, the Galatians, in a nutshell, is this.
09:35: The law is no savior.
09:39: The Jewish people hold to the law as if it can save.
09:41: The Bible says the law cannot save, it can only condemn.
09:44: The law cannot save you, it can only damn you.
09:48: Jesus saves.
09:49: The law damns.
09:52: All right.
09:56: Well, that's what this whole book says, is that the law cannot save.
09:59: In fact, if you look at the last verse we just read, he says, if justification were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.
10:07: And we're gonna explain that more in a minute, but that's essentially what he's saying.
10:10: If you could be saved through the law, why would Jesus need to come? If you could be saved by keeping the law, what purpose would Jesus die for nothing? Because you could have done it yourself.
10:21: Yeah, if you could do it yourself, why send Jesus? If you could save yourself, why provide a savior? You just need to pick yourself up by your own bootstraps.
10:32: What do I always say? I ain't got no boots.
10:35: No boots.
10:36: I ain't got no straps.
10:38: I told you guys this story.
10:39: The guy told me one time, he said, pastor, you gotta learn to pick yourself up by your own bootstraps.
10:43: Talking about salvation.
10:45: I said, dude, when it comes to salvation, I ain't got no boots.
10:48: I ain't got nothing.
10:50: I can't save myself.
10:51: All I can do is further my own condemnation.
10:55: The Bible says all my righteousnesses are as filthy rags, so I can't make my own self righteous.
11:00: And I can't cause the forgiveness of any sin by doing anything good.
11:04: See, that's the problem again with Islam.
11:06: Islam says your good will outweigh your bad, and that's how you're saved.
11:09: The first thing is, your good will never outweigh your bad.
11:14: Because if I took all the thoughts in your mind and your heart, and I displayed them on a screen, and I showed them to all your family and friends, you tell me your good's gonna outweigh your bad? That's not even a question.
11:27: But on the other hand, even if somehow, even if the weight of scales was so that your good did outweigh your bad, by some miracle, your good will never account for your bad.
11:42: You take a murderer, you put him in front of a judge, and the murderer says, yes, judge, but I spent 39 years not murdering.
11:51: That's gotta count for something.
11:54: And the judge's gonna say, no, that one murderer has voided 39 years of no murder.
12:01: That one murderer means you're guilty.
12:05: The idea that even if your good outweighs your bad, that it somehow pays for your bad.
12:11: That ain't how it works.
12:12: You can't stand before the judge and say, yeah, judge, I know I'm a rapist, but I'm also a Boy Scout leader.
12:20: I also help old ladies across the street.
12:24: I also give to the United Way.
12:28: You keep listing things.
12:29: You know what he's gonna say at the end? Yeah, you're still a rapist.
12:34: It don't work that way.
12:37: Law condemns.
12:39: Cannot say.
12:41: Can we buy our way in there? I'm gonna throw my pen at you.
12:45: No, you can't.
12:46: And that was the problem.
12:48: Weren't you here when we watched the video on Luther? They were trying to sell indulgences.
12:53: That you could buy God's grace.
12:56: And what Luther, he went and he took to his pulpit.
12:57: He says, you cannot buy the grace of God.
13:00: That's why it's called a gift.
13:02: You cannot earn it.
13:04: You cannot buy it.
13:06: You can't even deserve it.
13:09: Ephesians 2, 8, 9.
13:10: That's right.
13:11: The moment you think you deserve God's grace, you are no longer talking about grace.
13:17: Because if you think you deserve it, then somehow you missed the point of it.
13:22: Grace, the definition by the simplest of terms, is grace is unmerited favor.
13:32: Unmerited means undeserved.
13:34: It means not by your works.
13:41: Not by your anything, yeah.
13:43: You didn't do anything to deserve it.
13:47: Yeah, that's right.
13:47: The only thing you did for your salvation was provide the sin that made it necessary.
13:52: And you've been good at that.
13:54: So have I.
13:55: I am really good at making myself needing a Savior.
13:59: To this very day, I need a Savior.
14:01: From the moment I woke up this morning, I have needed a Savior.
14:05: You've been in my sleep.
14:06: Yeah.
14:09: Thinking about some crazy things this night.
14:11: So what, so last week I gave an illustration.
14:14: Yes, sir, go ahead.
14:15: You were talking about you can't buy the weight.
14:20: Yep, yep.
14:22: Acts 8, 14 through 23, he talks about how Simon said, offered not to buy the Holy Spirit with money.
14:39: Yeah, yeah, that's Simon.
14:44: And what's interesting, that later historically, there would, a term would come into use called simony.
14:56: Simony, not sodomy.
14:59: That's different.
15:00: No, I'm serious.
15:01: Some of y'all giggled.
15:02: No, it's not that.
15:05: Simony is the act of trying to purchase position in the church with money.
15:12: Because that's what Simon was actually asking.
15:14: He was saying, if I give you money, would you give me the power of the Spirit so I can do what you do? And that would later become, because during the, especially within the Middle Ages, to be part of the clergy was actually to be in a higher part of society.
15:28: And so men who had lots of money would purchase positions for their sons so they could have a position in the church.
15:37: And that was called simony.
15:38: The purchasing of positions.
15:41: And it's ungodly and it's wrong, but that's where that term comes from, is from that situation with Simon the magician.
15:48: Yes, sir.
15:49: It's kind of a little bit off topic, but just saying what he was talking about in Acts.
15:52: Was that, was Acts part of the book, the canon, whenever the Nine of Gaptes grew up? Mm-hmm.
15:59: I mean, like that pretty much tells you right there that you can't, I mean, you're selling indulgences.
16:04: You know what I'm saying? It's further back as deep.
16:06: Remember this though, that when the 95 theses were written.
16:11: Right, only the higher reps had the Word of God.
16:13: Yeah, the Word of God was not available to the common person.
16:16: You live in a very unique point of history.
16:20: You live at a point in history where if you want a Bible, all you gotta do is go to County Fair.
16:26: You go to Callahan Fair, the very first thing when you walk in, there's a group of Gideons that are standing there with a whole truckload of Bibles, handing one to everybody who walks in.
16:38: You live in a time period where you can purchase a Bible of any translation you want, probably multiple Bibles.
16:50: 500 years ago, that was not so.
16:55: 500 years ago, it was illegal to have the Bible in it.
16:59: Well, about 700 years ago, it was illegal to have the Bible in English.
17:04: John Wycliffe was the first to translate the Bible into English and he was condemned for it.
17:09: William Tyndale, about 100 years later, translated the Bible into English.
17:13: He was condemned for it.
17:15: It wasn't until about 100 years after that, that the idea that the Bible would be translated into English and it would be accepted was normal.
17:26: And then even then for normal people to have the money to purchase a Bible, it was an expensive commodity.
17:32: It wasn't something you just, you couldn't just be given one, you had to purchase it.
17:37: It was a luxury, absolutely.
17:38: Yes, sir.
17:39: There's a dude sitting down there in Lake Charles, Georgia, named Rodney Robinson Ford.
17:44: And when you buy a car or a used car, he puts the Bible in a good box.
17:49: Does he really? I remember Rodney Robinson, I remember growing up hearing his commercials.
17:54: Yeah, not really, but he was on anything.
17:56: Oh, okay.
17:57: But not Rodney Robinson.
17:58: Yeah.
17:59: Anyway, if you buy a car, he don't even ask you, he just puts one in a good box.
18:03: Yeah.
18:03: It's a pocket Bible, but you know.
18:04: Oh sure, but he's trying to be, promote the gospel.
18:07: That's good.
18:08: You know, you go to hotel rooms and the Gideons put the Bible in the hotel room and that's what they're, they're trying to promote the gospel.
18:15: That's good.
18:15: Yes, sir.
18:16: When you say these men were condemned, in what form were they condemned? John Wycliffe was condemned at the Council of Constance after his death.
18:25: He had died of a stroke while preaching.
18:30: They dug up his bones, burned his bones.
18:32: Are you crazy? That's crazy.
18:34: He said, are you crazy? I'm not crazy, I didn't do it.
18:39: But no, that was the, his, one of the men who succeeded him was named John Huss.
18:45: He was burned at the stake.
18:48: Martin Luther was condemned, but never killed.
18:51: Martin Luther was protected by his, his, his city, his, he, where he lived.
18:56: He, he had the magistrates behind him, so he had protection and he, he translated the Bible into German because he was a German man.
19:04: And then John, William Tyndale, sometimes referred to as God's outlaw, William Tyndale translated the Bible into English and he was burned at the stake.
19:15: His last words that we are aware of when he was on, was being burned, he said, he prayed, God opened the King of England's eyes.
19:23: And it was less than a hundred years later that we had the translation, the King James Bible was translated.
19:34: Yeah, at that time there was no real distinction.
19:36: I mean, the church and the government were distinguished, but they were, they were, there was no separation between church and state like we have in the United States.
19:46: Separation of church and state is not necessarily a bad thing.
19:48: Separation of church and state is good because you don't want the government telling the church how to operate.
19:53: And you don't, hold on just a second.
19:54: You don't necessarily want the, the church telling the government how to operate necessarily, depending on, because which church, right? Which church is going to have the authority.
20:03: So, so in the United States, we have a distinguishing separation between the church and the state, but in, in, in the time in history back then, the church and the state were often united.
20:13: And so the church would condemn someone, the state would execute them.
20:17: If you were under the condemnation of the church, the state would carry out the execution.
20:21: You were asking- I was going to say King Henry VIII, he's the one that separated that from England, right? Yeah, well, that's a different scenario.
20:27: That's essentially, that's how the Church of England was formed.
20:29: That's the Anglican church.
20:31: Is that so? Was it before what we just mentioned? No, it would have been after the time of Luther.
20:36: I don't remember the actual year though.
20:38: I'd have to, I don't remember if that was before or after the King James Bible.
20:41: I'd have to look that up.
20:42: I just can't think of it off the top of my head.
20:45: Yeah.
20:45: But no, King Henry wanted to have a divorce.
20:48: The church wouldn't grant it.
20:49: And he said, I'm the king, I can do what I want.
20:51: And so he essentially established, it was a lot more of the story, but he essentially established the Anglican church as a result of saying that he believed the king had more authority than the Pope or should have the authority over the church.
21:05: And so he rejected the authority of the Pope.
21:08: And so did the Protestants.
21:10: So there was a time in England where it was, whether or not you were Anglican, meant to be Protestant or not, would go back and forth.
21:18: Because some wanted to connect back to Rome, like Mary wanted to connect back to Rome.
21:25: And so she executed the Protestants, leaders.
21:28: And many people, you've heard Bloody Mary.
21:29: Many of them died as a result of her wanting to reconform to Rome.
21:37: So we've kind of gone off topic.
21:39: Sorry.
21:40: No, it is what it is.
21:43: I love to talk about history, but quickly though, I wanna dive back into Galatians here, because this is what I came to talk about today.
21:51: Last week, we talked about two mountains.
21:54: We said there's a mountain called Law, and then there's the Mountain of Grace.
22:00: The difference is people try to climb the Mountain of Law, and you can't do it.
22:07: You will never reach the top of Mount Law, because even if you try, you've already broken the law.
22:16: You don't even really get past the foothills.
22:19: Grace is different.
22:20: The Bible says in Ephesians 2, God saved us by grace, and He seated us in heavenly places with Christ, meaning He actually did the work of putting us there.
22:32: He didn't say climb this mountain.
22:35: He placed us on the mountain, and that's the difference between grace and law.
22:40: Law says do, do, do, and you'll never do enough.
22:44: Grace says done, and that's it.
22:48: And it's not done by you.
22:50: It's done by Christ.
22:52: There's two types of religion in the world, the only two that exist, do and done.
22:57: And I don't care whether you're a Mormon, Jehovah Witness, a Muslim, a Buddhist.
23:03: I don't care what it is.
23:04: It will always be do, do, do, do, do.
23:08: The only other one is Christ, done.
23:13: That's it.
23:15: And that's the point of this whole section, verses 15 and 21.
23:19: You are not saved by what you do.
23:24: You are only saved by what Christ has done.
23:28: Therefore, we get to verse 20, and as I said last week, this is one of the most beautiful, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful verses in the Bible.
23:39: Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ.
23:48: It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
23:53: And the life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
23:59: I want you to notice right away a couple of things.
24:01: We start our Bible study with observation.
24:03: We look at the text and we observe.
24:06: Just simply what's there.
24:08: Not interpreting, just looking.
24:12: The first thing you'll notice if you have an ESV is that he says I four times.
24:20: If you have a King James, I think there's an additional I in there.
24:25: He says, I have been crucified with Christ.
24:28: It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
24:31: And the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God.
24:36: You say, well, what's the significance of the I? Well, the point is Paul is at this point making his salvation and the understanding of salvation a personal matter.
24:52: Salvation is not corporate.
24:56: Salvation is individual.
24:59: Let me explain that a little further.
25:03: When you die, you die alone.
25:07: Even if you die in a group, you die alone in this sense.
25:13: You die and it's you who die.
25:19: When you get saved, it's you who get saved.
25:22: Not you in the group.
25:24: Even if other people get saved, it's you.
25:27: You say, why does this matter? Because if you're in a group of people who get saved and everybody else gets saved and you don't, you ain't saved.
25:38: You don't get saved because of the group.
25:42: Just like if you were in a group of people who died and you didn't.
25:46: You see what I mean by when I say it's individual? If you're in a group of people who died and you didn't, you didn't die, you survived.
25:53: If you're in a group of people who get saved and you didn't, you didn't get saved.
25:59: Salvation is personal.
26:00: I try to tell my children this a lot.
26:03: I have five kids.
26:05: My son is not yet a Christian, my oldest son.
26:10: My daughter is.
26:12: But I try to help my son understand.
26:15: Son, you will never enter the gates of heaven because your daddy is a pastor.
26:20: You will never enter the gates of heaven because your daddy believes in Jesus.
26:24: You will never enter the kingdom of heaven because your daddy and your mama prayed for you.
26:31: You will only enter the kingdom of heaven if you repent of your sins and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for yourself.
26:39: I cannot believe for you.
26:41: I cannot change your heart.
26:44: You are not saved because you're a fasci.
26:47: It's my name, if you don't know.
26:48: You're not saved because you're in this family.
26:52: You're not saved because you're a member of the church.
26:55: You're saved because God, by His mercy and grace, opened up your heart, broke you under the weight of your own sin, and you came to Christ individually.
27:07: So why does that matter? Because I think a lot of people think they're saved by proxy.
27:12: They're saved by community.
27:15: Every time I go out and I witness and I'm talking to people, people say, I grew up in the church.
27:20: I don't care.
27:23: You grew up in the church, what does that matter? I mean, it's a blessing.
27:27: Your parents cared enough about you to take you to church.
27:30: It's a blessing that your parents cared enough to take you to Sunday school.
27:33: You learned the Bible and you grew up in church.
27:36: That's you are, you don't understand the blessing you have if that's you.
27:41: And if your parents didn't do that for you, you know, that's a difficult thing because you didn't have that all growing up.
27:48: Doesn't mean, no, you can't be saved.
27:50: Doesn't have anything to do with where you are now, but the point is, if you did have that, what a blessing that you had that.
27:58: But it don't save you.
28:02: Paul says, I have been crucified with Christ.
28:08: What does that mean? Paul is identifying himself with the crucifixion of Jesus because it is in the crucifixion of Jesus that we find our salvation as believers.
28:24: The Bible says this, Jesus Christ went to the cross and He bore the wrath that I deserved.
28:35: So, here's what should have happened.
28:39: Keith Foskey should have been drugged before a Roman tribunal.
28:45: Keith Foskey should have been beaten with a scourge, which was a whip that had pieces of metal sewn and stuck to it so that those pieces of metal would flog the skin and tear away the flesh.
29:04: Keith Foskey should have had a crown of thorns wrapped around his head and beat into his skull so that the blood would drip down into his eyes and down into his throat.
29:17: Keith Foskey should have been clubbed.
29:19: Keith Foskey should have been forced to carry a Roman cross down a dirty, rocky Roman road, barefoot and naked.
29:32: Keith Foskey should have been laid on a wooden cross and had his hands impaled with spikes.
29:39: Keith Foskey should have been hung between heaven and earth to die by asphyxiation, which means to die by the lungs closing off under the weight of your own body, pulling the lungs closed.
29:55: Every time you breathe out, the lungs wouldn't be able to re-expand.
29:58: And it's a horrible, grotesque, very long way to die.
30:05: It's the very definition of cruel and unusual punishment.
30:10: And that's what I deserve.
30:13: If I look at my life and my sin, I could say I deserve nothing better than that.
30:19: And that's what Christ took.
30:26: Before, let me finish, please.
30:27: That's what Christ took.
30:30: And when He did it, it's as if I was receiving it because He was receiving it for me.
30:46: That's why Paul can say, I have been crucified with Christ.
30:53: Because Christ took what Paul deserved.
30:58: Now you may ask your question.
31:01: Oh, man.
31:02: That ain't something to like, you know how God breathed life into us? Well, if you're talking about being born again, we're gonna talk about that in a minute.
31:14: But is that what you're referring to? Yeah, like in Genesis where he says he breathed out man.
31:19: Yeah.
31:20: And they crucified and taken the air out.
31:24: Yeah, that's a little bit of a stretch though because the breath leaving the body is death.
31:31: You know, the last breath you take, that kind of thing.
31:34: But careful how we conflate different things.
31:38: It's not necessarily wrong.
31:40: It's just, I think we're just trying to make too much of an analogy there.
31:45: Death is the breath leaving the body for sure.
31:48: We breathe and we live.
31:49: If we don't breathe, we die.
31:51: So yeah, I think there's a connection there.
31:53: But ultimately, Jesus dying by asphyxiation was just the way you died on a cross.
31:57: The lungs would collapse under the weight of the body and you would run out of air.
32:03: Sort of like getting crushed by your own chest.
32:07: Yes, sir.
32:11: Learning that grace is always something that I don't qualify to be.
32:24: That's right.
32:26: So that the free gift of God is the fact that I'm in a state like that.
32:34: The fact that God went ahead of me, even before the foundation of the earth, and knew that I was never gonna be good enough to be up on that cross.
32:44: But in his love for who we are as his children, just to be able to slow down and embrace the fact that as bad as you might walk today, I wanna say, if we were unqualified, I'd get up on that cross for you.
33:02: In the end, whenever that kind of state of martyrdom would come upon me, would I truly be surrendered to lay my life down for the Lord? And that's what I was talking about yesterday.
33:15: I'm not saying that I wanna, I'm trying not to go ahead of God and say, oh, I'm that man that would go out some country where people are persecuted and all that.
33:28: But really, God is maturing my heart to be in a position to be that man, to where no matter what ever happens to me, it don't even matter, because I know that when I die, when death comes upon me, that I'm saved because of the perfect sacrifice, the blood of the land that's washed over my ability to be anything good, you know what I mean? So, I'm just trying to hear what you're saying.
33:57: That's that, what Mark was talking yesterday about the grave, the statements.
34:01: I wanna know more about that.
34:03: I wanna know the inner workings of that, you know, and just to reflect on it, because he, and that's, I mean, I have a lot of relationships with him, you know? And Paul recognizes that, you know, it isn't him who lives today, but it's the sacrifice of who Jesus is and the fact that he recognizes that he died with him and that he lives in that sacrifice, and by faith, you know, he walks through the spirit, you know, so I just gotta figure it out, man.
34:33: Not figure it out, but be patient like God revealed me, so I'm just, I'm expounding on where my heart's moving.
34:39: Well, it sounds like God's moving on your heart in a very positive and good way.
34:46: I wanna just have you think about one thing when you mentioned about being willing to die for Christ.
34:53: That is a, that's a tremendous place to come to, and that's where we should all want to come to.
35:02: But the focus here is what Christ has done for us, not what we do for him.
35:08: And I'm not saying what you're saying is bad, I'm just saying, in this sense, Paul's saying, I've been crucified with Christ, and as you said, it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
35:22: And the life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.
35:28: And the point that Paul is making in this passage is what Christ has done for him, not what he has done for Christ.
35:40: And so the focus of this whole text is Paul, and I think it's almost like a, exclamation point on the end of what he's already said, because he's already gone through that, we're not saved by works, we're not saved by the law, we're saved by Christ, we're saved by faith, by faith alone, and he said all these things.
36:01: And now he says, I've been crucified with Christ.
36:03: Christ, when he died, he was dying for me.
36:07: Therefore, my life is totally different now, because I see the Savior, and the life I live in the flesh, I live by faith in him.
36:19: Because he loved me, and he gave himself for me.
36:25: Paul is expressing and exaggerating the reality that Christ died for him.
36:35: You know, people often say Christ died for sinners.
36:40: That's true.
36:43: But can you say Christ died for me? That's what Paul is saying.
36:52: Paul is saying Christ came and Christ died for me.
37:00: In fact, Martin Luther said the phrase for me is the heart of the gospel.
37:10: Because I can say to you, I don't have anything good that I have done.
37:17: So when I go to heaven, and God says, why should I let you into heaven? The only thing I can say is Christ died for me.
37:28: Christ gave himself for me.
37:33: Did he give himself for other people? Yes, but in this moment, that's not Paul's point.
37:40: In this moment, that's not Paul's focus.
37:43: In this moment, in this text, Paul is not talking about the we, he's talking about the me.
37:49: And you say, that's selfish.
37:50: No, it's not selfish.
37:51: He's showing us the personal nature of the cross.
37:57: He's showing us the personal reality.
38:01: I have been crucified with Christ.
38:03: I should have been there.
38:07: I should have been the one who died, but Christ died for me.
38:11: He loved me, and he gave himself for me.
38:14: It's all about what Christ has done for me.
38:18: That's what this is about.
38:20: Do you realize, as you just stated, do you realize what Christ has done for you? Do you realize that what he has done cannot in any way be matched by what you do, be repaid by what you do? It cannot be in any way owed to you by what you do.
38:53: It can only be received as a gift.
38:57: It cannot be earned.
38:59: It cannot be purchased.
39:03: It was done by him for you, not because you deserved it.
39:16: That's, this is the key.
39:20: Now, there is the reality, and I want to kind of go back to a little bit of what you said.
39:25: There is the reality that because of this, we have a changed life.
39:31: He says, I've been crucified with Christ.
39:34: First of all, that means Christ died in my place, but also what it means is when I realized that and I came to Christ by faith, I died too.
39:44: My old life died.
39:46: Here you go, bro, come right this way.
39:48: My old life died.
39:50: Now, I am not going to stand here for a minute and tell you that I don't still struggle with the flesh, but I will tell you this, when Christ saved me, my life changed.
40:03: My pursuit in life changed.
40:06: My desires changed.
40:08: My professor used to say he got a new wanna, because I used to wanna so many things, and now I want to follow Christ.
40:19: That's what Paul means.
40:20: He says, I've been crucified with Christ.
40:24: It is not I who live.
40:28: Christ now lives in me.
40:30: Now, what's interesting about that, from a theological perspective, we always say the Spirit of God is the one who comes to live within us, but there is a sense in which there's unity between you and Christ if you're a believer, and you are in Christ, and Christ is in you.
40:45: In fact, I want to show you a passage, because I had a lot more to say, and time is quickly running out, but go with me to Colossians, just two books over to the right.
40:56: Three books, actually.
40:59: Go to Colossians 3.
41:00: I want to show you this, because there's so many things that reference this same topic.
41:14: Maybe we'll have to revisit it again next week, because there's Romans 6 and Romans 7 both deal with this same thing.
41:21: But Colossians 2 and 3, but we're going to look at chapter 2, verse 11 to 14.
41:34: Chapter 2, verse 11.
41:35: In Him you also were circumcised.
41:37: Did you see it? Chapter 2, verse 11.
41:39: All right, listen to this.
41:41: In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands.
41:46: By putting off the body of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through faith in the powerful working of God who raised Him from the dead.
41:57: And you, who were dead in your trespasses in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands.
42:10: Thus this He set aside, nailing it to the cross.
42:15: All right, so here's the picture.
42:17: You were dead in your sins.
42:19: You deserved punishment.
42:21: You deserved to be under the wrath of God.
42:29: No worries.
42:31: That's where you were.
42:36: Paul says, but then God changed your heart and you received a circumcision of the heart.
42:50: Now you know what circumcision is physically.
42:52: The cutting of the skin from the penis.
42:56: That is not what this is referring to, obviously.
43:01: This is referring to the fact that when you were saved, circumcision of the heart is another word for regeneration.
43:09: And regeneration, if you're not familiar with that, is another word for being born again.
43:15: You were dead in your trespasses and sins.
43:17: You didn't want what God had for you.
43:19: You didn't have any desire for what God had for you.
43:21: In fact, I imagine this, because I know I was like this.
43:24: I imagine there was a time in your life where if somebody would have read the Bible to you, you would have probably said, I have no concern for that at all.
43:30: You might even have spit in their face or knocked the Bible over and walked away because you didn't have any concern for the things of God.
43:36: You would have told them to stick it where the sun don't shine.
43:39: Right? But then, by the grace of God, your heart was changed.
43:50: If it's been changed.
43:51: Maybe you're still there.
43:52: Maybe I'm preaching and you'd rather spit in my face today.
43:55: But, if God has so changed your heart that you went from a hater of God to a lover of God, that moment was when you went from death and sin to life in Christ.
44:09: You went from being a dead sinner to a living Christian, follower of Jesus Christ.
44:16: And that happened not because you willed it, but because God willed it.
44:22: Because God was so gracious to give you life when you didn't deserve it.
44:27: And, we have a picture of that.
44:30: It's right here in Colossians 2.
44:32: The picture is baptism.
44:35: Now, clarify, baptism doesn't save you.
44:39: But, it pictures what happened.
44:43: Because what happened was, you died to your old life.
44:48: That's the going under the water.
44:50: You were raised a new life.
44:53: That's coming out.
44:55: Just like it says in 2 Corinthians 5.17.
45:01: All things are made new.
45:02: What does it say? Old things pass away, behold, the new comes, right? That's right.
45:11: That's what we have.
45:13: We have an old man and a new man.
45:15: How many of you weren't here last week? I want to tell the story.
45:19: If you were here last week, you already heard the story, but it's a good story.
45:22: St.
45:22: Augustine in the 4th century was a horrible, reprobate of a man.
45:26: He was a carouser, a womanizer, a drinker.
45:29: He did all kinds of bad things.
45:30: His mother, Monica, prayed for him.
45:32: Prayed for him, prayed for him.
45:33: And he got saved.
45:35: Well, after he got saved, he was going through the market.
45:40: And as he was going through the market, there was a woman who saw him.
45:44: And it was one of his old girlfriends.
45:46: One of those old women that he used to spend time with back when he was a carouser.
45:50: And she said, Augustine! Augustine! It is I! And he said, yes, ma'am.
45:56: But it is no longer I.
45:57: My life in Christ is different than my life before Christ.
46:04: I'm not perfect.
46:06: But He has changed my life.
46:09: That's the point.
46:11: That's the point.
46:12: He says, I've been crucified with Christ, therefore, it's not I who live.
46:15: But Christ who lives in me.
46:17: The life I now live, I live by faith in the Son of God.
46:19: Not by the law, even though the law does have the power of showing me God's moral character.
46:24: The law has value in the life of the believer.
46:26: The law can help me see the things I ought not not do.
46:29: That's true.
46:30: But I don't look at the law as a Savior anymore.
46:33: I don't look at what I do as my righteousness anymore.
46:37: Let me tell you something.
46:38: As a pastor, I talk to a lot of people when they get older and they're looking to death.
46:44: And let me tell you what I hate to hear.
46:50: I hate to hear someone who tells me, you know, pastor, I feel pretty good.
46:58: I've done my best.
47:02: When I say, you know, you're getting older.
47:05: Are you ready for when the Lord calls you? You know, are you ready to die? Essentially, I'm saying it in a nice way, but essentially when you, you know, I'll ask any of you, are you ready to die today? Are you ready to die today? And if your answer is sure, I think I've done my best, then you are still a legalist.
47:23: You still somehow believe it's going to be what you do that saves you.
47:30: If a person tells me, yes, I'm ready because I've done my best, they're still relying on what they have done.
47:39: You've got to abandon that.
47:42: You have to abandon your righteousness as the foundation for your salvation.
47:50: That's Paul's point.
47:52: The life I now live, I live by faith, not by the law.
47:56: I live by faith, not by hopes that I have done good enough, by faith, not by the idea that I have somehow kept enough law to make me satisfactory to God.
48:07: I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me.
48:10: And by the way, that word loved is in what's called the Aorist tense, but in the Greek, it's a type of a past tense, meaning when He died for me, He did it because He loved me.
48:20: Now, He still loves me, praise the Lord, but this is talking about the moment He showed His love to me.
48:27: He showed His love when He died.
48:31: So it says, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me.
48:42: And in verse 21, He says this, and I do not nullify the grace of God.
48:48: Why would He say that? Because there were people who were saying, well, if you believe that you can just live by faith, then you're nullifying the law and the law is what gives us grace.
48:59: And Paul is saying, no, it's not.
49:01: The law doesn't give you grace.
49:04: The law gives you condemnation.
49:06: I'm not nullifying the grace of God because if righteousness came through the law, Christ died for no purpose.
49:18: Now, I explained that earlier, but let me remind you what it means.
49:22: Paul says, if righteousness comes through the law, then you didn't need Jesus.
49:30: You could have just been righteous, but you can't and you haven't.
49:36: Therefore, there's only one way of salvation and it's through Christ.
49:39: I feel like I say this every week, but I think you need to be reminded every week.
49:44: It's like Luther said.
49:45: Luther said, I preach the gospel every week because every week my people forget.
49:50: Every week, every day, we have to be reminded that it's not what we do that saves us.
49:57: Does that mean what we do doesn't matter? No, because again, I didn't get to it today, but in Romans 6, Paul asked that desperate question, which is if we are saved by grace, should we continue to sin so that grace would abound? He said, by no means, because if you died to sin, don't go back and live in it.
50:15: If you've died with Christ and you are now living by faith, you don't go back and live in sin.
50:22: Because why would you do such a thing? People say, well, living in sin is fun.
50:32: Let me say this.
50:41: Sin can be fun for a season, but it will never satisfy the heart and it will always lead to destruction.
50:53: Sin will never truly satisfy.
51:01: The idea that, I remember the old girl told me one time, she was living with a guy and I was trying to convince her to repent.
51:08: And she said, God wants me to be happy.
51:11: And he sent this man into my life.
51:13: Don't you think he wants this man in my life? Because it makes me happy.
51:19: I said, honey, God don't care about your happiness.
51:23: God cares about your holiness.
51:25: Amen.
51:27: And if you can be happy in unholiness, there's something wrong with your heart.
51:37: If you can be happy living in sin, then maybe you don't know Christ.
51:45: Maybe something needs to still change.
51:51: Paul says, the life I live, I live by faith in the Son of God.
51:59: Do you live today by faith in the Son of God? Is that how you live? Last thing.
52:12: When Paul says Christ died for no purpose, if the righteousness came through the law, Christ died for no purpose.
52:20: Here's the real question you need to ask yourself.
52:26: Either you are trusting in Christ or you're trusting in something you have done.
52:35: So the question that we all have to ask ourselves today is have we truly, truly trusted in Christ or are we still hoping to make it on our own? My hope for everybody here, my hope for you, is that you would be trusting in Christ and not in yourself.
52:59: To trust in yourself is the height of foolishness.
53:03: And to trust in Christ means you will never, ever find yourself in a place where you will be without a Savior.
53:17: So it really is no, there's no question.
53:21: Trust in him who alone can save or trust in yourself who cannot do anything but fail.
53:30: It's a simple answer.
53:32: Let's pray.
53:34: Father, I thank you for your word.
53:37: I thank you that your word tells us, Lord, that when your son who is life appears, then we will appear with him in glory because we have died with him and our life is hidden with him in you.
53:49: Lord, may it be that we understand what it means truly to place our faith in Christ and not ourselves.
53:58: Help us to understand truly what it means to not be trusting in law, but be trusting in Christ.
54:09: I pray for the men under the sound of my voice, Lord, that you would save those who need to be saved, that you would draw ever closer those who need to be drawn.
54:17: Lord, that you would comfort the afflicted.
54:20: Lord, that you would remind them that there is no salvation outside of Christ and in him there is no condemnation.
54:27: I pray it all in his name.
54:29: Amen.
54:30: Amen.