“Grace and the Law” – Galatians 2:19-21

I want to read something to you.  This is not the main passage we are going to study this morning but you are welcome to follow along.  But you may want to just sit back and listen and try to visualize what this looks like.  I’m reading from Matthew 27:62-28:6. 


The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. ⁶³ “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ ⁶⁴ So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.”  ⁶⁵ “Take a guard,” Pilate answered. “Go, make the tomb as secure as you know how.” ⁶⁶ So they went and made the tomb secure by putting a seal on the stone and posting the guard.  28 After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.  ² There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. ³ His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. ⁴ The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.  ⁵ The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. ⁶ He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.


He is not here.  He has risen, just like He said.  That is the angel’s way of saying, “This Jesus…He’s kind of a big deal!  Yes, He’s a big deal, not just around here; not just in Israel and not just on this planet Earth, but in all the universe, Jesus is a big deal.”  Can you imagine if those words were never written or this incident had never happened?  Can you imagine if Jesus had come to Earth and lived and taught and been a really good guy but then He died and decayed in the grave?


Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15 that if Christ has not been raised our preaching is useless and so is your faith.  He said if Christ has not been raised then our faith is futile. We are still in our sins.  The dead are lost and we are to be pitied more than all men.  The resurrection of Jesus changed everything.  We are no longer under the Old Testament law.  We are under God’s grace.  We know that we too, all believers, will be resurrected and will be co-heirs with Jesus to all the great things Heaven has to offer.


Not only all that but instead of being pitied more than all men, we can have joy and peace in this life.  Jesus even said in John 10:10 that He came to give us an abundant life; a full life.  Amen?  Do you believe that?  Are you sure?


Then why doesn’t it happen???  Why aren’t you living an abundant, full life?  Why aren’t you living in joy and peace?  Oh, oh, wait.  I hear you.  You’re not living like that because of all the bad things that have happened in your life.  Pretty soon you’ll be living that way but right now, your circumstances make that impossible, right?  Yea, because that’s what Jesus said, right?  He said He came to give you an abundant life when your circumstances allowed it.


The Big Deal of all the universe; the resurrected Savior of the world; the Son of Almighty God will give you joy and peace as soon as your boss gives you a raise, or as soon as you get over this physical problem or when you have enough money or when your husband finally puts the toilet seat down.  Is that what you think?  Or maybe true joy and happiness will come to you when you are finally able to keep the Ten Commandments.  Maybe you need to be a preacher.  That’s what it is.  You just need a job where all you do all day is read the Bible.  That’ll do it.  Then life will be perfect!


In Philippians 4:11, Paul said, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.”  How do you do that?  In a few weeks we are going to look deeper at Paul’s ministry and everything he went through but most of us know that Paul was rarely laying around, watching Oprah on TV and eating bon-bons.  His life was difficult to say the least.  How was able to say he was content?


Fortunately, he tells more about how to do that in the book of Galatians.  We are going quickly through Galatians.  This is the second sermon of the 3-part series.  Last week we looked at what Paul said about grace and the Gospel.  This week he contrasts grace with the Law.  Next week we will see how to live out that grace.


So, obviously the book of Galatians is all about grace.  One might say that this life is all about grace.  It certainly was important to Paul and when he heard that the churches in Galatia that he had started were starting to teach that you had to follow the Old Testament Law as well as believe in the grace of Jesus, then he knew he had to write to them to set them straight again.


Turn to Galatians chapter 2 and let’s read just verses 19-21.  Galatians is between 2 Corinthians and Ephesians.  It’s on page 824 of most of the Bibles in the pews.


Galatians 2:19-21 says, “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. ²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ²¹ I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”


I was officiating a funeral service a while back of an older woman who had died in her sleep.  At the end of the service, as is the custom, the pall bearers picked up the casket and were taking it out the side door to be placed in the hearse but they accidently hit the door on the way out.  When that happened, they heard a faint groan from inside the casket, set it down and quickly opened up to find the woman was still alive.


She went on to be okay and lived another couple of years but, as happens to all of us, she finally really did die and we again had her funeral.  At the end of the service, again, as is the custom, the pall bearers went to grab the casket but as they did, the husband of the deceased said to the pall bearers, “Hey!  Watch that door!”


A truly dead person doesn’t have much in common anymore with a person who is truly alive, do they?  A dead person is not affected by heat or cold.  A dead person doesn’t care what you say to them or what you do to them.  You can’t cheat them or make fun of them.  They don’t care.  They’re dead.


Have you ever heard somebody at a funeral say of the deceased, “They look so peaceful”?  Do you ever wish you could have that kind of peace?  People sometimes take their own lives because they think they have to do that to find peace.  All through the Old Testament peace with God was only found through keeping the Law and when you messed up and sinned you had to offer a perfect, living sacrifice of some kind of animal.


In Deuteronomy 27 it says, "Cursed is anyone who does not uphold the words of this law by carrying them out."  The Mosaic Law said that a blood sacrifice was required for sin.  Even in Romans 6:23 it says that what we deserve for our sins is death.  Here in Galatians Paul is saying that because the Law says something has to die, he died to the Law and now he lives for God because Jesus was the perfect, living sacrifice for all of us.


When somebody is dead, they can’t be affected by something.  Paul is saying that the Law cannot affect him anymore.  He doesn’t live under the Law.  He goes on to say in verse 20 that he has been crucified with Christ and it is no longer Paul that lives but Christ living in him.  What does it mean and what does it look like when Christ lives in us?


*Hold up empty glass*  How do I get all the air out of this glass?  Can I use a vacuum and suck out all the air?  Can I turn it upside down and let the air fall out?  Maybe I should blow into it real hard and blow the air out. 


*Fill glass with water*  Now all the air is gone.  D.L Moody said, "I believe firmly that the moment our hearts are emptied of pride and selfishness and ambition and everything that is contrary to God's law, the Holy Spirit will fill every corner of our hearts.” 


Do you want peace and joy in this life?  Do you want to live an abundant life?  Well then I have some bad news and some good news.  The bad news is that you can’t do it.  It’s impossible.  You can no more have peace and joy in this life than you can breathe underwater.  You aren’t built for it.

The good news is that when you allow the Holy Spirit to live in you, then you can have joy and peace.  When you empty your heart of anything that is contrary to God or His Word and allow the crucified Christ to be Lord and you completely lose anything that resembles pride or your accomplishments then you get peace and joy even in the difficult times.


That’s what Paul understood and why he could honestly say he was content whatever was happening to him.  It’s not because he gave up living.  He goes on to say in verse 20, “The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”  He lives by faith.


Martin Luther said, “God our Father has made all things depend on faith so that whoever has faith will have everything, and whoever does not have faith will have nothing.”  That sounds pretty good, doesn’t it?  I want to have everything.  Don’t you?  So, what does that look like?  We saw what it looks like to be crucified with Christ from the first part of verse 20.  We know that we have to empty our hearts of anything that is contrary to God or His Word.


How do we live by faith so that in the end we wind up with everything as Luther said?  The beautiful, little book of James tells us the secret to doing that right off the bat in James 1, verse 2.  He says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, ³ because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. ⁴ Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”


What’s the secret to having faith that leads to having everything (as Luther said) or not lacking anything (as James said)?  Facing trials of many kinds.  That’s the secret.  Oh, I know what you’re thinking.  No, no!  That’s not the secret.  The secret is how to avoid trials of many kinds.  How do we do that?  That’s what we all want to know.


The problem is, we don’t.  We can’t avoid them.  Jesus even said in Matthew 5 that the rain falls on the just and the unjust.  The secret, the key to having joy and peace, the way to live an abundant life is not in avoiding the difficulties of life but by letting the Holy Spirit live in us and guide us, trusting by faith that He loves us and is in control.


Paul said in verse 20 that he lives by faith in the Son of God who loved him and gave Himself for him.  Because Jesus gave Himself to be crucified, we, too, are crucified to this world.  We are dead to this world.  We don’t have to be affected by the world and its problems and its temptations.  Yes, we are alive but when it is Christ who lives in us, we have faith that even when things are more than we can handle, that God is in control and He loves us.


By the way, don’t fall for that lie from Satan that God will never give you more than you can handle.  Satan loves it when that is repeated because it means that if you are going through something difficult, you should just try harder.  All that does is lead to frustration and guilt and failure.  God often gives us more than we can handle so that we will live by faith and know that He can handle it.  All we have to do is let Him.


That’s hard for us to do, though.  We want to do something so that we can be proud of what we did.  We want to be able to say, “Look at what I did.  I made it through those hard times.”  Well, how’s that working out for you so far?  Oh, sure, you can handle the small stuff…some of the time but what happens when the doctor gives you bad news?


What happens when you have way more bills than you do money or your spouse leaves or your child dies?  That’s way, way, way more than you can handle and that kind of stuff is going to happen to you, if it hasn’t already.  It’s really easy for us to sit in church and since we had that really bad hang nail the other day we have learned that God is in control and He loves us.


But what happens when the bottom drops out and the worst happens and you can’t handle it?  I know I’m talking to some of you right now and I hate to do this.  I hate to drop the Job bomb on you but it’s the perfect illustration.  You know the story.  God has caused Job to lose everything he has.  Yes, you heard me right.  I said God caused it.  I’m not afraid to say that.  I have biblical basis for it but anyway, Job is a big, ol’ mess.  Finally, at the end of the book, Job has nothing, is nothing, brings nothing to the table and has finally had the last of his pride wrung out of him and look at what he says in Job 42.


“I know that you can do all things.”  He said, “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.”  That is living by faith.  God didn’t even explain why He did what He did to Job.  He didn’t have to.  But it took Job going through what James calls “trials of many kinds” before Job got there.  Thankfully, most of us don’t have to go through all that old Job had to go through but we will all go through some kind of trials and when we do, we have a choice.


We can choose to let Christ live in us and through us and empty our hearts of anything that is contrary to God or His Word and let the Spirit of God guide us and show us what to do and what not to do…or not, then see how it works out for you.

Psalm 105:4 says, “Look to the LORD and His strength; seek His face always.”  His strength, seek His face.  That is grace.  We don’t deserve it but He wants to show us grace.  Grace is not getting what you deserve.  What we deserve is Hell for our sins according to Romans 6:23. 

Paul ends here by saying, “²¹ I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”  We have seen that through Christ living in us, we can have peace and joy in whatever situation we find ourselves in this life and that’s good.  Peace and joy in this life are important and wonderful but this life is just a wisp of smoke.  Eternity is forever and just like peace and joy can only be found through God’s grace, not by anything we do, being right with God can only happen through God’s grace as well and not through anything we can do.  Paul said if there was something that man could do to earn salvation or do enough good works to be right with God then Jesus died in vain.  He wasted His time and effort and blood, if that is the case.

Thank you, Lord, for your grace.  Grace is sort of like a parachute.  If you are flying in a plane and you only wear the parachute because you want to have peace and joy and to be comfortable while on the plane then pretty soon, you are going to think that this big old parachute is not really worth it.  But that’s not the main purpose of a parachute, is it?  The main purpose of a parachute is to save your life when it comes time to get out of the plane.

You need God’s grace, His undeserved help to make it through this life but you really need His grace to make into the next life that lasts forever and ever.  The good news about the Good News (the Gospel) is that all you have to do is believe.  That belief includes emptying yourself of all your pride and all the things that keep you from being like Jesus but there is no other way.  Be saved by faith.  Live by faith, knowing that God loves you and He is in control.

That brings peace and joy in this life and life in Heaven with Jesus in the next life.  If you don’t have that then I would love to talk with you right now as the music plays.  Step out right now and ask Jesus for forgiveness of your sins and repent of those sins, turning away from that life, never to live it again.