Galatians 2:20 • United for Life
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
On Thursday of this past week at age 95, Rabbi Herschel Schachter died in the Bronx, New York. Not much fanfare because the event that bought him fame was 68 years ago almost to this very day. Some of you in the room remember the day. George S. Patton's Third Army had just liberated the concentration camp Buchenwald in Germany. And Rabbi Schachter was the first Jewish chaplain to enter the concentration camp just an hour after American troops had opened the gates. But despite the gates being opened and even the barracks being opened, the prisoners would not leave. After all, their supposed liberators were just other men in uniform. And men in uniform had been the ones to torture and oppress and abuse and kill them. And so, Rabbi Schachter entered those barracks that now for us are in the newsroom, newsreels, but were the reality to him. Bunks floor to ceiling with literally hundreds of starving men stacked like firewood. And to make them leave, recognizing they would not leave for the men in uniform, he said words in their own language. Shalom alakhem yeren, ear, zent, fry, peace to you Jews, you are free. And it was those words from one of their own that convinced first a trickle, then a stream, and finally a river of prisoners to begin to unite themselves to the rabbi and go to the other barracks and say over and over again, "You are free. You are free. You are free." And they finally believed it. The Apostle Paul is doing something very similar in this verse of Scripture. After all, there are Jews and Gentiles that have gathered together under the banner of Jesus Christ. But the Jews in particular, having lived so long under the shackles of the law, believing that it was their performance, their goodness, the uniform they put on before the world that would make them right before God, that now though free, they are returning to the shackles, believing that they will be made right by what they do. And as the Jews are being held in the constraints of the law, so there are new Christians coming to the church beginning to believe the same thing. We have to do the right things for God to love and care for us. Maybe it seems remote. Maybe it seems like it wouldn't apply to us, but it still happens. Some of you know what it means. We come on Easter morning. What a great day. But, you know, we put on our Easter best. We put on our uniforms.
And some of us appear to have it so together, and some of us have been here for so many decades, and we don't recognize what that does to others and sometimes to us. As people coming in begin to say, "Well, I'm not sure I have the right uniform. I'm not sure I'm as mature as those people I'll ever catch up. I'm not sure I have the understanding that I'll ever measure up." And after all, as Charlie said, there is this hole in my heart. I will never really deserve to be here with what has gone on in my life. And for those people who would think, "I will never measure up or catch up or overcome this thing in my life," the Apostle Paul writes these words to say, "You are free." And the reason he says, "You are free" is that you are united to Christ, not on the basis of what you do, but on the basis of faith in what he has done. Now, the way that's expressed is by words that are rather stark and difficult for us to hear because the Apostle first begins to say, "The way that you are set free is by being united to Christ in his death." I mean, these are awful words that begin Galatians 2.20, "I have been crucified with Christ." What does that mean? Well, you have only to back into the preceding verse to get the understanding. There in verse 19 of Galatians 2, Paul says, "For through the law, I died to the law so that I might live to God." Now, as a Jew,
you must understand what that's saying. God said to the Jewish people, "I'm holy, you'll be holy. And the way that you're going to be holy is you keep this law that I have given you. The standards will set a path for you that will be a path to life with me." Sounds easy. You want to life with God? Stay on this path of God's holy standards.
Just one little problem. Nobody can stay on the path. Nobody can stay on the path. So that Paul, even a good Jew, says in verse 15 of Galatians 2, "These words, we ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law,
but through faith in Jesus Christ. So we also believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law, no one will be justified." Now, for you as 21st century Christians, this is not new. Being good enough, obeying the law, obeying the standards is not what makes you right before God.
But what sounds so familiar to you would be shocking to a first century Jew. All his life he's been told to keep the traditions of the fathers, obey the law, offer the sacrifices, do what is necessary. And now comes the Apostle Paul and says, "All your striving for approval, all your wrestling to be good enough, all the way in which you keep up appearances for the sake of others is not what counts. All of your doing, all of your being is not what's going to make you right before God, but rather faith in what someone else has done in your behalf." Now, as familiar as that sounds, even we still struggle to receive it. For if I say to you, even as believers, listen, all you're doing, all your striving, all your behaviors, all your performance, all of that is not what's going to make God accept, love, and approve you. Because what you begin to say is, "Now, wait a second. If all of my doing and all of my striving and all of my working at this, if that doesn't count, well, you know, I'm as good as dad. I mean, what's the good of that?" And of course, that's just the point. I mean, if we wanted to make fun of it a little bit, we might refer to one of those, you know, campy movies where somebody, you know, wakes up one day and speaks to his spouse and the spouse doesn't hear him. I'm not talking about anybody here, but imagine, you know, you speak to your spouse and your spouse doesn't hear you, and so you kind of wave your hands and jump up and down, and there's no recognition of anything you're doing. You know, at some point you might begin to think, "You know what? I must be dead." But of course, the apostle is not talking about a campy movie. He is bringing up a horrible image. He says, "I am crucified with Christ. There are nails in my hands,
nails in my feet, thorns on my brow. There are soldiers that gamble for my clothes at my feet. My mother is there and she weeps for me. There is blood that pools at my feet. It is not the blood of another. It is my blood. I am crucified with Christ. It is a horrible image, but as horrible as is the image, it is actually the antidote. First for spiritual pride and then for spiritual despair. For after all, if we are so crucified, so having been identified with the death of Christ that our doing, our acting, our performing doesn't count anymore, what that means ultimately is that our achievements don't distinguish us from one another. And that's important because the way many of us approach God, approach even the church is… Now listen, we all say to one another, "I know I'm not perfect. I mean I'm not right before God because I'm… I know I'm not perfect. I'm just better than you."
But if you're dead, your achievements don't matter. I mean there are no meritorious rewards for dead people. Dead people don't get good report cards. Dead people don't get sports trophies. Dead people do not get recognition for their merit because they're dead. Their achievements are no longer on the table. And the apostle is saying to you and to me, "If your faith is what somebody else has done, what Jesus has done for you, then you have no basis for pride." And we enter the church not saying to one another, "Listen, the reason I can be here and the reason I can distinguish myself from the world is because I dress different, or my worship is better, or my theology is better, or my actions are better." Dead people don't get credit for any of those things. We're kind of level with one another, and we're level with people who don't understand as much and haven't caught up and don't measure up and haven't got it all put together yet.
Being crucified with Christ united to His death puts the death to spiritual pride. It also puts death to spiritual despair. Because if my achievements do not distinguish me, what that also means is that my failures do not destroy me. Dead people don't get bad report cards.
Dead people don't get traffic tickets. Dead people are dead. And that means that all that brings us shame and guilt and remorse is dead. According to the words of the apostle, "Nailed to the cross, it is crucified in my being what was true of me is now nailed to the cross with Jesus Christ, and it is dead." So that we can't be a body of people who gather in these numbers without recognizing among us there are those people who think back over family and career and personal performance. And what comes to mind is the pain of guilt and shame. And I say, "My family was never what I thought it was going to be. I was never the father I thought I was going to be. I have struggled with addictions. I have struggled with integrity. What people look at as the way in which I have gotten ahead, I know in my heart of hearts would be before God justly causing my condemnation. And we cannot but look back over the course of our lives and say,
"There is no reason I should be here.
Accept this what is true of me when taken to Christ is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more."
I'm not just talking about other people. I mean, I think of my own life. I mean, one of the joys, some of you will recognize, one of the joys of this morning, you know, here I am Grace Presbyterian Church, this wondrous church. And some people from downstate Illinois, one of the first churches I pastored came to be with us today. I didn't know they were coming, but here they are. And I can remember a particular Thanksgiving when I was pastoring that church and our first child came along. So on that first Thanksgiving with this new child, we went from downstate Illinois down Highway 55 to Memphis, Tennessee where my parents were. And on the way back from that Thanksgiving weekend, there was a freak early snowstorm. Now, as we were driving north on Highway 55 up through that snowstorm, we were driving in our vintage Ford Pinto. And you remember those? Yeah? You know, you hit them in the back, they explode. Remember those? Yeah? And, you know, the highway's starting to fill up with snow. And my wife at some point says, "Brian, could we pull off the road and stay somewhere overnight?" And now, listen, this first church, how do I say this to you? It was not the size of Grace Church Peoria. It was little. And the salary was little. And I quickly did the math. You know, if we stayed in a hotel, it would literally take us months to get back to level. So when Kathy said, "Brian, can we stay?" What did Brian do? Yeah, I kept driving. You know, the snow kept piling up. "Brian, I kept driving."
I kept driving until the highway department closed the roads because the snow had piloted. And we had to pull off in a hotel and stay overnight. And I must tell you, do you know, every time we go to my parents' home in Memphis, even today, we have to pass that hotel.
I hang my head, you know, because I think to my, you know, I think to my son, "Who was that guy?
Who, to save a few dollars, would put everything dear to him at risk, his family, his new child. Who was that guy? What a blessing to my heart to know what the Scriptures say. "My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought, my sin, not in part, but the whole is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, oh my soul." It is the promise of the gospel that because we united to Christ, we're united to his death, and all that would bring us shame, all that would bring us guilt is nailed to the cross, and we bear it no more because we are united to the death of Christ. Isn't it great to be dead? But of course, that's not the end of the story. I mean, that's just the first part of Galatians 2.20, right? I am crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but somebody lives, who is it? Christ lives. Where does he live?
In me, I'm not just united to the death of Christ, I am united to the life of Christ. Now listen, we are talking about things that are spiritual. I haven't got a math or a science for this, but what the Bible is saying is that by faith, we are united to the one who rose from the dead so that his life is now ours in dwelling us. His very presence by his Holy Spirit is giving us life, a heartbeat for Christ. Now, just so you feel the significance of that, I want to ask you a question. If you're dead and Jesus is alive in you, who are you? Now, you see, it's Easter Sunday, so nobody wants to say they're Jesus, okay? I get it, all right? So, I'll make the question a little easier. If you're dead and Jesus is alive in you, whose identity do you have? Jesus Christ.
No, no, it's just me, this weak, flawed, no listen, I know that, but that's dead. And Jesus is alive in your place. And that reality changes everything. It changes the way you start to read the Bible. It's more than saying, "I have the love of Jesus deep, deep down in my heart." It's actually saying that his identity has become yours. So, the Apostle Paul can say, you know this, Philippians 1, 21, "For me to live is what? For me to live is Christ." Colossians 3, 4, "Christ is your life." That means everything that's true of him, his life, his righteousness, his holiness has now come in your place, in your stead. And to feel that, we have to actually begin to say, what would it mean if what's true of Christ is now being applied to my account? So that if you can let your mind go for just a moment, just kind of let it fly. If we were not here but on a mountaintop, and I were to say to you, "Look at the birds of the air.
They don't sow or gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father takes care of them.
Aren't you better than they? And the wisdom of that sermon on the mount is mine." There's a woman coming down the road in a funeral procession. She's a widow,
and the one in the casket is her only son. And as the procession gets close to me, I reach out and I touch the casket. I'm not supposed to, a Jewish holy man is not supposed to touch things of the dead. But I touch the casket and I raise the boy to life and I give him back to his mother and the compassion of that act is mine. Satan comes to me and tempts me with the power and the pleasures of this world. Forty days and nights in the desert, I resist him with the truth of the Word of God and the righteousness of that act is mine and it is yours because those who put their faith in Jesus Christ have their sin nailed to the cross but the living presence of the risen Lord within them. So what is true of him is true of them. It's actually what the Apostle Paul says in 1st Corinthians 1, "Christ has become for us wisdom from God, our holiness, our righteousness, our redemption. All that is true of him has become ours and we access this, we hold it, we receive it by faith not in my work but in his work in my behalf." And we have ways to make sense of this. I mean we can understand how the credit of another would be applied to us. I mean, some of you in the room, you are old enough to remember that when you went and you got gas at the gas station, you did not pay at the pump. What did you have to do? Right? You had to go in the station house, take out your wallet and pay. No, you don't do that anymore, right? I mean, you just step out of the car and you pay right at the pump. Actually, I've discovered I don't have to go to the gas station at all anymore. I can send my daughter. Now, at today's prices, she cannot pay. So, what does she take? She takes my credit card. She takes my identity. She takes my riches such as they are, you know. Because we are dead and Christ is alive in us, all that is true of him, his riches of righteousness and wisdom and love are put to our account. We are dead, but his identity is ours and that changes absolutely everything. It means that we are first profoundly loved. We are free from a sense of rejection as though the wrath of God were still against us. Listen, we can't be here without recognizing in honesty and candor before a holy God that he has a just rage against us. And yet that same God would send his Son so that that beloved Son, the Prince of Heaven, would give himself for our sin upon a cross, take the sin upon himself. And for that reason, now with his identity, God looks to us and says, "You're mine." I mean, think about that. We sometimes tease one another. People who are just coming to the faith who begin to say, "You know, wouldn't it be great if God were like Jesus?" And we say, "By the way, he is like Jesus."
But sometimes people say, "Wouldn't it be great if God were to love me like he loves Jesus?" And the truth of the gospel is, he does. You are free from rejection and self-shame and self-guilt and self-condemnation because you have the identity of Jesus Christ by faith in his work on your behalf. That's not the end. Listen, the last words here say, "I not only live, now I live in the flesh by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me, he died upon the cross for my sin." But that's not all that's said. He is alive. And where does he live? In me.
That means that the same resurrection power that brought Jesus from the grave now exists in me. There has been, listen, I don't have a math for it, but there is a spiritual reality that has occurred which we claim by faith, which is this, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead now is in me. And so when I'm struggling with addictions, when I'm struggling with trying to overcome the things that paralyze or simply take away my sense even of being human at times because of what I struggle with and Satan will come and say, "You can't help it. You can't fix it. It's the way you've always been. It's actually God's fault he made you that way." We respond with the truth of Scripture and we say, "That is a lie. Do not tell me that I am powerless. The risen Jesus Christ by his Spirit is in me." What that fundamentally means is that tomorrow does not have to be like yesterday. You are free. You are free. You are free. And when you believe that, it gives you hope and it gives you power and the willingness to move forward again in the confidence of the gospel. God has set you free. And when you know it, when you know it, shame is put away and the willingness and the power to live for Jesus Christ is yours.
Much of my family is here today but not my wife. She's doing our music program back at Covenant Church in St. Louis because she's still employed there for another few weeks.
But she taught high school for a number of years and one of the profound moments for her was when a learning specialist came to a class one day to test the young people who were struggling. And there was one young man in particular who the learning specialist discovered in the testing had this strange disconnect between what went into his brain and what he could reproduce on paper through his hand. Now if you're just asking the test questions verbally, he could respond verbally. But if you ask him to write it down, he could not do it.
How well do you think he'd done in school? Miserable. But he did not know why until this day.
At the end of the school day, the specialist invited this young man to the faculty meeting afterwards and asked him a question. "Johnny, before today, what did you think about yourself?"
And he said it in high school terms. He said, "I thought I was stupid."
And then she said, "And now, Johnny, what do you know about yourself?" He said, "Now I know I'm not stupid."
Wasn't that a great gift she gave to him? She said, "Now there's still some work to do,
but now you know you can." She told him his true identity and his real power. "What did God do for you this day?" For those who are struggling with the sense that God hates me and there's no basis for his love, he actually says to you, "By faith in Jesus Christ, you are free from condemnation. You are as loved as God, the Father loves Jesus, the Son.
And those who think, "I will never be different. I will never be changed." And here you are free from powerlessness. God has said to you, "You are made new. The power of the risen Lord is in you, and you can really be free." This is the gospel to which we ask you to respond in faith. God has united you to the death of Christ your sin is put away. God has united you to the life of Christ. He gives you his love and he gives you his power. Receive him and believe in this God who has set you free.