WWUTT 1741 Christ Gave Himself for Our Sins, Part 2 (Galatians 1:3-5)

Sometimes churches have to deal with some pretty embarrassing sins, and Paul had to confront several churches in their sins.

He wrote about it in his letters, which we read and then learn from as we grow in Christ Jesus when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text studying God's word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ.

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Pastor Gabe Hughes. Thank you, Becky. Let me begin by reading Galatians chapter 1. This is verses 3 through 5.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our

God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever.

Amen. Today is part 2 of the sermon that I did in Galatians 1, 3 through 5.

I played part 1 on Wednesday of last week, and I thought about skipping part 2 and just going to the next section, which

I believe is verses 6 through 10. The reason why I was going to skip it is because what you're about to hear in the second part of this sermon gets pretty emotional.

We were dealing with some sin issues as a church at that time. The biggest thing that was going on, and this is something that I've mentioned to you before, we had an elder in our church who had been caught in adultery.

The day we found out he was an adulterer, he had been serving the Lord's table that morning.

This was the first time, this sermon here in Galatians 1, 3 through 5, this was the first time we had come back to the

Lord's table since that had happened. He had been removed as an elder, and he and his wife were both under church discipline.

She had some things that she was not repentant of either. There were other sins that were going on in our church, but those were the things that were the most prominent.

All week long, I was weeping for my church, knowing we were going to come back to the

Lord's table, and I was concerned that we might be eating and drinking judgment on ourselves, as Paul warns about in 1

Corinthians 11. In this sermon, as I'm confronting sin, and I'm encouraging,

I'm exhorting the people of God to walk in holiness, you'll hear me be filled with emotion, and I begin weeping in the sermon.

And because those things were so personal, I thought about passing over that altogether and just going on to the next section of Galatians 1.

However, I've prayed about that since Wednesday, and I've also considered that what we've been reading here, the last few letters we've been going through, 1 and 2

Corinthians and now Galatians, Paul is confronting churches that are going through some pretty embarrassing things, sins that they need to deal with and repent of and come back to the righteousness of Jesus Christ that is by faith.

And so as we had to deal with some of those things as a church, then I hope that you can benefit from these sermons as well, that it would, as you hear the word of God preached, it would convict your soul.

If there is sin you need to turn from, then repent before God, or maybe this will guard you from falling into temptation that may come your way in the near future.

May we continually submit ourselves unto the Lord, drawing near to God, and the devil will flee from us, a passage from James 4 that I'm going to mention here in the second half of this sermon.

So without further ado, here is part two of Galatians 1, 3 through 5, and I'm going to begin with the statement that I ended on last week on Wednesday, and then we'll continue from there.

It is only through Christ that we're adopted into the family of God, and then we are the children of God.

Not before. Before we who were indeed made in the image of God were sinners, meaning that we've taken that image and desecrated it, and what we deserve for that is destruction.

John 3, 36, he who has the Son has life, but he who does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

As John Stott pointed out when he was exegeting that particular passage, John 3, 36, that word remains on him, speaks loudly to us that this man was in that state already.

Not that he rejected Christ and then he came under the wrath of God, he was under the wrath of God before the gospel was proclaimed to him.

But then rejecting that gospel, how much worse is that judgment going to be for him in the end? Jesus Christ came to save us from our sins, from death, from the wrath of God, so that all who believe in him will not fall into judgment on that day.

But we become inheritors of his kingdom, again, the grace of God, knowing what we deserve is death and destruction for our treason, and yet what does

God make us instead? Once his enemies, he has made us fellow heirs of the kingdom of Christ.

The kingdom that we had turned away from and we had committed treason against,

God by his grace makes us fellow recipients of it. And Jesus says in Revelation 2 and 3, that those who endure to the end will sit with me on my glorious throne.

We get to reign with Christ, we who sinned against God.

By his grace, he has shown us this mercy through his son, that we would be forever with him in glory, though we know that we do not deserve it.

And my friends, and I can speak this to you from experience, this is something that you become all the more knowledgeable of as you grow in sanctification.

You become more aware of exactly how great this grace is, the more you grow in the knowledge of the word of God and who he is, who he has shown himself to be, and what it is that Jesus actually did for us.

A graph that I've seen, and perhaps you've seen this picture before too, you got a picture of a cross, and then going away from the cross there's two lines.

One is going up like this, and one is going down this way. And this is our perspective of ourselves in God.

The top line represents our perspective of God. And after we come to Christ, there at the cross, and we're growing in the knowledge of God, that line's going up.

We're seeing God greater and greater every day. We see his goodness and his glory and his grace and his love for us every day is even better than the day before.

Because I woke up this morning. God did not snatch the life right out of me. And it's another day that I have to proclaim

God and see his glory and his goodness and what he's delivered me from through the blood of Christ.

That bottom line, it's going down. So as you're growing in sanctification, these lines are getting further and further apart.

Why? I thought the illustration was we get closer and closer together. That's a different illustration. I'm going to use that for another time.

But this illustration, as we come to the cross and those lines get further and further apart, the further they go out, the more great you see

God, the more you see your own sin and depravity and how unworthy you are of this grace and this goodness of God.

The more you see his holiness, the more you become aware of your own sin and how deserving you are, how undeserving you are of his grace.

Make sure I get all my consonants in there. We are undeserving of the grace of God, which is what makes it grace.

The moment you think you deserve this, God, I prayed the prayer to let me into your kingdom.

The moment you say something like that, you no longer believe in grace. You believe in merits.

I did this, so I get this. We do nothing.

It is only by the grace of Christ that we are saved. But that's what makes the gospel so amazing, is that we know that we did not do anything to deserve it, and God gave it to us anyway.

We know, in fact, what we deserve is the opposite and worse. And yet God has given us life and treasure in Christ Jesus.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Not spending as much time on peace as with grace, but still a wonderful word as we find in its definition.

Something that's a little bit more than peace or relaxation that we might experience in the body. Whenever we talk about peace, that's kind of what we think about, right?

Like not conflict, peace, a peace sign, no war, no strife today, right?

I don't feel any burden for today. What we might think of if we think of a good

American peace, you think of being able to sit in your backyard on green grass in a lawn chair holding a lemonade, maybe by this point you're even retired.

No cares in the world. Nothing going on. I've got no mortgage on this house. I got no payment I have to make on the car in front of my house.

Everything's good. I'm at peace. Is that the kind of peace you think about?

The kind of peace that we are given in Christ Jesus is much greater than that. For that peace, though it is wonderful and it is a blessing of God, doesn't save anybody when you have that lawn chair peace.

But the peace that we have from God is peace with God. Again, as we've already talked about in our definition of grace and our understanding of the gospel, it's knowing that the wrath of God is not against us anymore.

God is not angry with us for our sin. God loves us as his children because we believe in Jesus.

And we have peace with God. We know that when we die, we will sit forever with our

Lord in glory, reigning on high. And there's nothing in this world that can take that from us.

And no matter what happens, no matter how bad things get, once we die and we go to be with the

Lord, we have treasure forevermore, prompting the Apostle Paul to say the suffering that we are experiencing now does not even compare to the glory that awaits us in Christ Jesus.

And let me be perfectly clear, just because you came to Christ does not mean that you won't struggle, that you won't have sufferings.

If you think that Jesus and believing in Jesus means that all your life problems are going to be taken care of, well, does that mean that Jesus just kind of forgot about the apostles who died horrific deaths for proclaiming the gospel all except for one,

John, and even he died in exile. All the rest of them were murdered for the gospel.

God did not forget them. Whenever you hear Joel Osteen say, your best life now, well, your best life now might be losing your life for the sake of the gospel.

That's still a great life because what happens for us on the other side is glory and peace beyond all comparison.

This is a peace that Paul describes in Philippians chapter 4 as being a peace that surpasses all understanding because we can't proclaim it like we would proclaim the lawn chair peace.

It is a peace that is so great you could study it now and not come to the end of it until you are finally in that place of peace and glory forever with God.

Then you'll understand, ah, here's the goodness of this peace. But for now, as we inhabit these fleshly bodies, it surpasses all understanding.

The peace that we have with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul wishes grace for the

Galatians. He desires this for them. Grace and peace to them. Grace to you. Peace from God our

Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of our

God and Father. That's the next verse in this Galatians 1 .4. Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of our

God and Father. In Titus chapter 2, beginning in verse 11, we read the following.

For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions and to live self -controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great

God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession, who are zealous for good works.

The apostle Peter, when he preached at Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, when the people were cut to the heart by his message, they said, good brothers, what shall we do?

And Peter said, repent and be baptized, every one of you, for the forgiveness of your sins. And then

Acts goes on to say that he preached many other things. And then he says, save yourselves from this wicked and this crooked generation.

In Philippians chapter 2, verse 14, the apostle Paul says, do everything without grumbling or disputing so that you may be blameless and pure children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation in which we shine as lights in the world.

And here, Galatians 1, 4, Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of our

God and Father. That means, my friends, if you have been forgiven of your sins and you've been delivered from the present evil age, you are not walking in sin.

And every time I talk about this,

I just had this happen to me yesterday, as a matter of fact, as I was sharing this with somebody else. Every time

I talk about this, I have somebody that wants to say to me, yeah, but we're still going to sin.

Why do you try to qualify that? Because you want to believe that you can still sin and you've got permission to.

Yeah, we're supposed to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. I think Jesus said that in Matthew chapter 5, but realistically, there's other verses that say we're still going to sin.

Look, stop, stop sinning.

Stop trying to justify what God has said that he's going to judge. Colossians chapter 3, put to death what's earthly in you, put it to death and you can't in your flesh do it.

I know that and I've never said otherwise. That's why we have the spirit of God.

In first Corinthians chapter 10, Paul said,

God is not ever going to allow you to be tempted beyond your ability to resist it.

We have the Holy Spirit of God that enables us, gives us the strength, the power to resist sin and do the righteous thing.

So my brothers and sisters, if you have the spirit of God, do the righteous thing.

Stop entertaining that passion in your flesh and think I can do this and get away with it because God is just going to save me from it.

Brothers and sisters, what if he doesn't? What if your love for that sin actually leads you to the person that's described in Romans one that God gives over to the passions and the depravity of their flesh to be judged.

Don't flirt with such a danger. Turn from sin and walk in holiness.

If we know that Christ has saved us from our sins in the present evil age and has delivered us into his kingdom of righteousness, then pursue the righteousness.

Paul said to the Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 6, 9, do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?

Do not be deceived. Don't be deceived. Don't deceive yourselves into thinking

I can just do this and it will be fine. These are sins for which

Christ has died. So don't walk in them. Do not be deceived.

Neither the sexually immoral, and again, any sex outside of marriage, is sexual immorality.

The sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves.

If you pad your time card, you're a thief. You take from someone else what does not belong to you.

That makes you a thief. Nor the greedy, coveting things that are not yours, thinking that you need worldly possessions and value in order to find satisfaction in this life.

Nor drunkards, polluting your mind and making yourself a slave, physically making yourself a slave to another substance that controls you.

Not just alcohol, but any kind of drug. Any kind of drug that would alter your thinking or get you to feel a certain way, that you become a slave to and cannot control that substance, but rather it controls you and leads to debauchery and leads to mindlessness and senseless behavior.

Nor revilers, those who hate other people, nor swindlers, those who cheat other people out of something that they want, lying and manipulating people to get what they want to have.

These people will not inherit the kingdom of God. But then understand the grace of 1

Corinthians 6 .11. As Paul is speaking to a body of believers, he says to them, and such were some of you, but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the

Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. Good news.

But where my heart tightens when I read that is with Paul saying in 1

Corinthians 6 .11, such were some of you, meaning that there are still some in this body who've not repented of those things yet.

And as I bring this to you today, I pray that the Spirit rests hard on your hearts.

And I don't mean hardening your hearts. I mean rests on you in such a way that you are uncomfortable right now, knowing that I have not asked forgiveness for this sin.

And if I were to be judged in it right now, would I hear from the Father? Well done, good and faithful servant.

How great is your reward? Be convicted.

Do not sin. Desire the righteousness of Christ, however much it hurts.

Friends, I've been in this place before, okay? I've been on my knees weeping to God as I felt in my flesh a desire to do the sinful thing

I did not want to do. And I'm begging God, please take the temptation from me.

And it's in that moment when I'm on my knees and I'm weeping for holiness, my attention is fully on the goodness and righteousness of God and I'm not even thinking about that thing that my flesh wants me to do.

This is why James said in James chapter 4, cling to God and the devil will flee from you.

He says, be wretched and mourn and weep. Let your gladness be turned to mourning and your laughter to sorrow, that we may weep over our sin before God and desire repentance.

And by his grace, we will have it. Christ gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of our

God and Father. And it's because all of this is to God's will.

Not our will be done, but God's will be done. We have what is said in verse 5, to whom be the glory forever and ever, amen.

All glory be to Christ our King and to God the Father, who by his will has given us salvation in his

Son. Romans 11 verse 33, oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God.

How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways. For who has known the mind of the

Lord or who has been his counselor or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid.

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever, amen.