Sunday School Lesson for Feb. 5, 2012: Justified by Faith in Christ (Galatians 2:15-21)

Habakkuk 2:4
“… But the righteous will live by his faith.”





Galatians 2:20
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.





Matthew 7:14
But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.







The next four lessons are drawn from Paul’s letter to the Church at Galatia. The Galatian Church had been infiltrated by Judaizers. These were people who were Jewish by birth who had come to faith in Christ, who wrongly clung to the Mosaic law as a means to complete justification. Paul was compelled to defend the true Gospel of Jesus Christ in the strongest terms possible. For you and I, that’s a good thing. Paul’s entreaty to the Galatians brings passion and clarity to the topic of justification by faith…alone. Paul opens the letter by declaring that his calling is of God, not man (Ch.1: v1). He continues by declaring that Jesus rescued us from this evil age (Ch 1: v3). He then flatly chastises the Galatians for having listened to and received ‘another gospel’. He goes on to issue a dire warning: If anyone preaches a message contrary to the message he had delivered to them, they were cursed by God.

Strong stuff. Thankfully. You see, in the clearest terms possible, Paul makes the argument for justification by faith alone, a concept many believers struggle with daily. There is an innate desire within all of us to be liked. Often times, in order to accomplish this, we feel the need to do something or to give something: a gift, a token, a favor, something that will cause those, whose affection we seek to like us, really like us. We can mistakenly approach God in the same way: somehow thinking we have to do something, somehow pay God for His righteousness. This is a mistake, a fatal mistake. Righteousness cannot be acquired by keeping rules or engaging in any number of religious practices. Righteousness can only be had by faith. Faith in what Christ accomplished at the cross. To add anything to what Christ did is to diminish what Christ did. Anything added to the Gospel diminishes it.

That’s good news. What’s left then is simply for the believer to believe. Nothing more. Simple faith in God, the belief that you can trust Him with your very soul: that what Christ accomplished at the cross was enough to catapult you into Glory is what most pleases God. That simple trust acknowledges that His plan for Mankind is perfect and just and holy. With that acknowledgement, we offer the purest kind of worship. We worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. I do not frustrate the Grace of God by trying to be something or do something. I simply am a Christian by faith in what Jesus did for me at Calvary: He bore all my shame and guilt. He nailed it to the cross. He declared that He was finished, that His work was complete, and then He rose from the grave, thus defeating the power of death, hell and the grave. I trust (have faith) that what He did is enough. Thank you Lord. Blessings.





.wb





Philippians 3:3
For we are the circumcision, which worship God in the spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence in the flesh.





2 Corinthians 4:3
But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost:





Matthew 11:28
Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest