Participants: Mark Howard & Jim Howard
Series Code: GBOTB
Program Code: GBOTB000003B
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00:05 Welcome back to Books of the Book and we are studying
00:08 the book of Galatians and we have been talking today 00:10 about justification. 00:11 It is the powerful and beautiful core concept and 00:17 it is the gospel. 00:18 Justification is a key part of the gospel. 00:20 You have the role of justification and sanctification 00:23 which all comes through faith in Christ of which 00:24 we will be talking more about. 00:26 We are talking about how justification is needed because 00:32 of the condemnation that the law brings. 00:34 Justification is for the purpose of bringing our hearts 00:38 into harmony with that law and with the will of God. 00:41 Which is expressed in that law. 00:43 We have been talking about the need of justification 00:47 and I want to look at the gospel of Luke. 00:49 We are going to Luke 5 and find a passage here in the 00:53 words of Jesus that really draw out this issue, 00:56 the importance of sensing 00:59 the need of the justification of Christ. 01:03 You will find in Luke chapter 5:30 with me. 01:07 Matthew, Mark, Luke chapter 5:30 and it says in there, 01:10 "And the scribes and the Pharisees complained against 01:14 "His disciples saying, why do You eat and drink with 01:17 "tax collectors and sinners?" 01:18 We will comment on that in just a moment. 01:20 "Jesus answered and said to them, those who are well have 01:24 "no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 01:29 "I have not come to call the righteous, 01:32 "but sinners to repentance. " 01:34 The point that Jesus is making here is that the ministry, 01:38 His ministry was not to those who didn't need help 01:42 but to those who did. 01:43 Not only to those who didn't need help per se, 01:46 because everybody needed His help. 01:48 His ministry was to those who sensed they were sick, 01:52 who sensed their need. 01:54 I want to appeal to the viewers about the beauty of 01:57 God justifying the ungodly. 01:59 It is not uncommon for people to think, well I am so 02:04 wretched, I'm so sinful that I couldn't ask God, I couldn't 02:09 expect God to accept me, He would never accept me. 02:12 That's exactly, exactly who Jesus came to serve. 02:15 That's why we see Him and it is the reason they are so 02:18 upset because He was with tax collectors and sinners. 02:20 In their mind He was hanging out with the type of people 02:23 that were the worst of the worst and you would never be 02:26 found in the a company of these lowlife people. 02:28 But those were the very people that Jesus was always with. 02:31 They sense their need of Him. 02:34 That's right, that's right and you know when you think 02:37 about that, there are two ditches that we can fall into. 02:40 The one is thinking that we are not worthy of that 02:45 justification, that somehow we are not able to bring 02:49 ourselves into the presence of God because we cannot 02:53 imagine Him seeing all our flaws and not recognizing we 02:57 must be brought into the presence of God in order to have 03:00 those flaws removed in order for Him to 03:02 cover us with His blood. 03:04 Having said that, there is another subtle deception of 03:09 our heart that sometimes happens when it 03:11 comes to justifying ourselves. 03:13 That is that we recognize we are guilty, we admit that 03:17 we are guilty and we are proud we are guilty. 03:21 It makes us feel humble sometimes and if we are not 03:24 careful we cannot look at this in the right light. 03:27 One of my favorite passages is where David says when 03:32 he is writing after his own sin, a very serious sin. 03:37 About his repentance when he says, 03:40 "I acknowledge my trans- gressions" there in Psalm 51. 03:43 Well the point that I would like to make is David did not 03:46 just acknowledge his transgressions, he acknowledged 03:49 his transgressions to be transgressions. 03:52 In other words, it's one thing to know what 03:55 you are doing is wrong because God says it's wrong. 03:58 It is another thing to believe and understand in your 04:02 heart why it is wrong, to believe in your heart that it 04:05 is wrong, if you only believe it is wrong because 04:08 God says it's wrong and you try to fix it, 04:12 you are not going to understand why and you won't put 04:16 your whole heart into it. 04:17 In other words if you only think that 04:19 God thinks it's wrong. 04:21 So God things it's wrong and I know God thinks is wrong 04:24 so I won't do it, but in your own heart if it wasn't 04:27 because of what God said He would say that it really 04:30 isn't that big a deal to me 04:31 but I guess it's a big deal to Him. 04:32 That's right for an example like as a parent if I tell 04:37 my daughter don't ride out where the cars are, so she 04:41 takes her bike and instead of riding right where the cars 04:45 are she rides right next to where the 04:47 cars are and where they park. 04:49 She's thinking I don't know why they don't want me out 04:51 there but I can be here because she does not fully 04:54 understand the danger I'm trying to tell her about. 04:56 So because she doesn't understand that 04:57 she pushes the envelope. 04:59 A lot of times people push the envelope in terms of 05:02 the will of God because they don't really acknowledge 05:05 their transgressions as transgressions, 05:07 they don't really accept God's will and I think about 05:11 justification through faith in Christ. 05:13 We are talking about the cross of Christ 05:16 that justifies us. 05:18 It is our substitute, Jesus has taken our penalty for us. 05:22 At the same time we are acknowledging that, that penalty 05:27 He is taking for our sins, we are also accepting His will. 05:32 The act of acknowledging our sin crucified the Son of God, 05:37 at the same time if we truly are acknowledging that 05:40 we are going to accept His will as expressed in His law. 05:44 We are going to accept that to be a new way of life 05:48 otherwise we are not really acknowledging 05:50 that sin was sin. 05:52 That's right, that's right it reminds me of the parable 05:54 of the Pharisee and the tax collector. 05:58 It's in Luke 18 and again you have it in 06:01 the context of justification. 06:03 Luke 18:9 that "Jesus spoke this parable to some who 06:10 "trusted in themselves that they were righteous 06:13 "and despised others. " 06:15 The idea is when God says something is right or wrong and 06:20 I feel at liberty to do something different, in essence 06:25 I'm trusting in myself that I am righteous. 06:28 This is a hard concept to get through as Christians 06:32 Because as Christians we are taught 06:33 a lot of cliche religion. 06:36 We know we are not supposed to say we are righteous. 06:39 Christians, no, no I'm a sinner we say, but it is possible 06:42 for the mouth to confess the poverty of soul that 06:45 the heart does not recognize. - right, right! 06:48 Here is the case with this Pharisee who he trusted in 06:51 himself, the root word of righteousness is right. 06:54 He might not have felt he was perfect, but he thought he 06:57 had some good ideas, good enough to at least put him 07:01 above this tax collector. 07:02 And that is what we find in the parable. 07:04 as they go up to pray. 07:05 The Pharisee prays and he says, thank you God that I am not 07:08 as bad as other people, but the tax collector it says in 07:12 verse 13, "standing afar off, would not so much as raise 07:15 "his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 07:18 "God be merciful to me a sinner!" 07:20 I think of that, why does a person beat their breasts? 07:25 But he really feels a soul anguish over his unworthiness. 07:30 And Jesus responds to these two and says in verse 14, and 07:34 "I tell you, this man" the one who beat his breast, the 07:38 tax collector, "went down to his house justified rather 07:42 "than the other; for everyone who exalts himself 07:45 "will be humbled, and he who humbles 07:46 "himself will be exalted. " 07:48 - Amen, Amen, it sounds a lot like another story in 07:51 the Old Testament, Cain and Abel. 07:54 I always think about that story because Cain and Abel 07:58 were the sons of Adam and Eve and they both were taught 08:01 to worship God. 08:03 They both did worship God, God had already given them the 08:06 instruction on sacrifice, animal sacrifices that would 08:09 point forward to the death of Christ. 08:11 So they were already in the process of erecting an altar, 08:15 worshiping and we have the story in Genesis 4 were they 08:19 both worshiped God, they both set up an altar but Cain 08:24 instead of offering a lamb as God had prescribed, 08:28 he decided to offer the fruit of the ground. 08:31 He was a farmer and thought that was as good as the other 08:34 after all he was worshiping God. 08:36 He was for the most part, as it were we might say today 08:40 a good person, but it said that God did not accept or have 08:44 respect unto his offering, only on to Abel's offering. 08:49 So here we have a perfect picture of this idea that as 08:54 long as I do most things okay, that is really okay. 08:57 It is the same thing that the young lawyer tried to 09:02 justify himself said, he said hey as long as I consider 09:05 these people my neighbor do I really have to consider 09:08 everybody my neighbor? 09:10 So the idea of justifying ourselves is we weave into 09:15 our own element the worship of God or into obedience 09:20 to God, being clearly obedience might seem as a sign of 09:25 weakness almost rather than following God faithfully. 09:32 - Well obedience is treated by some to be something 09:38 that is contrary to faith. 09:40 In other words if you obey strictly you must not believe 09:44 or something of that nature. 09:46 What we see is the belief prompts this trust that what 09:52 God says is right. 09:53 Justification comes to the man like the tax collector 09:57 who can accept that what God says is right and yield his 10:00 own desires, or his own concepts of what is right. 10:04 We find that where we looked at Romans 4:5 where 10:09 it talked about God justifying the ungodly. 10:12 Again in Romans 4:5, "but to him who does not work but 10:16 "the believes on Him who justifies the ungodly, his faith 10:19 "is accounted for righteousness. " 10:23 It is talking about Abraham two verses earlier Romans 4:3 10:28 says, "Abraham believed God and it was accounted 10:33 "to him for righteousness. " 10:34 Abraham accepted God's assessment of his own condition 10:39 and God's assessment of the remedy. 10:42 He didn't try to ultimately manufacture that. 10:46 He ultimately came to the point where he accepted what 10:49 God said and he acted on it, and he obeyed it. 10:53 Because of his attitude of obedience to God, 10:57 his allegiance to God, the Bible says his faith 11:01 was counted as righteousness. 11:04 I like that word attitude that you used. 11:06 It really describes well the issue when it comes to 11:11 justification because there are many people who wonder 11:17 if I am a sinner and Jesus died for me to cover my sins, 11:23 then why do I have to worry about obeying? 11:25 What makes the difference? 11:27 How is one person justified who is a sinner and 11:29 another person is not? 11:31 Well the issue has everything to do with attitude. 11:33 The example of Abraham was perfect because if you look in 11:36 Romans 4:20 it says something very interesting. 11:42 "He did not waver at the promise of God through unbelief. " 11:46 Now the idea there of not wavering at the promise of God 11:50 is a little bit funny because we know he made mistakes. 11:53 You can read them in the book of Genesis where he made 11:57 mistakes, so why did he say I did not waver. 12:00 Or why could he say he did not waver? 12:02 Well the reason is because Abraham never really looked 12:04 back, Abraham never gave up. 12:07 Abraham never turned back on God. 12:09 Abraham always was seeking to move forward and even 12:13 though he was making mistakes, those mistakes could be 12:16 covered because he was pressing and on in the work of God. 12:19 He was pressing on in his efforts to follow God. 12:22 That is right so whole issue we are talking about 12:25 justification, what is key is the realization 12:28 of the need for it. 12:30 As Paul was pointing out that a man is not justified 12:32 by works of the law but by faith in Christ. 12:35 The reality is this, a person who trusts in the works of the 12:38 law, does not see their need. 12:40 They feel the ability to meet their requirements of God 12:44 in their own strength and this is why verse 15 it says, 12:47 "we who are Jews by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles. " 12:51 The challenge was because Jews where religious felt that 12:54 they were above the Gentiles and they had some 12:56 righteousness in themselves, the way that too often Christians 12:59 today are tempted to feel that they have something 13:01 they really don't have. 13:03 Paul was trying to make a point, you are as much in need 13:05 of justification as the most common ungodly sinner. 13:09 But if we sense our need and we sense our guilt then 13:13 Jesus is willing and ready to justify us. 13:15 Absolutely right, it all comes down to realizing 13:18 our need of Christ. 13:19 Also Paul said in 1 Timothy 1:15, "Christ Jesus came 13:22 "into this world to save sinners of who I am chief. " 13:25 If you feel like the chief of sinners Jesus came for you. 13:28 Accept Him today. |
Revised 2023-04-24