Galatians Part 4: Justification By Faith

Last night at I don't know what time the wind hit, but it kept me awake for several hours. Waking up this morning to leaves everywhere, branches everywhere, and then coming to church feeling a little bit empty this morning because I know for a fact that a lot of us are starting to enter into that fall season. I was like, “Ah, summer's over; it finally feels real now. Summer is officially over.” But it is good to be here; it is good to see all of you.

As we continue with Galatians, I want to lay before us a specific purpose because everything that Paul is talking about this morning is in Galatians 2:20. This passage is one of the most quoted, memorized, and famous verses, and I want to ensure that we hit it right. These verses hit differently for a reason; they didn't just randomly get selected. I want to make sure that we understand this passage, which is all about identity—specifically, identity in Christ. You hear that phrase thrown around a lot in Christianity, and everything we discuss this morning is aimed at making that concept as clear as possible: what it is, what it isn't, and why it's so important for us as Christians. That's the heart of what Paul is saying, and we have to understand why he's saying what he's saying in this chunk of verses.

If we remember earlier in Chapter 2, what happens right before this section? Paul references confronting Peter, who was acting hypocritically and leading others astray. After addressing that situation, Paul launches directly into this. I want us to know that Galatians 2:20 and this section of verses are a direct response to Peter's behavior, specifically what he saw happening in those moments.

Here’s what happened: Peter had this vision in Acts 10 and 11, where as a Jew and faithful follower of Jesus, he had a dream. In this dream, God brought down a sheet from heaven filled with animals that Jewish followers were not allowed to eat. These animals were unclean according to the law of Moses. In the dream, Peter recoiled at the idea of eating them, and God responded, “What I have made is not unclean.”

After waking up from the dream, Peter was confronted with the fact that he was invited to preach the gospel to some Gentiles. Up until that point, Jewish followers of Jesus were primarily preaching to Jews. But with Peter's vision, he realized that this wasn’t just about food; it was also about people. He was invited to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, watched the Holy Spirit fall on them, and had his mind blown as his paradigms about who the people of God were were broken apart. He now understood that Christ died for the Gentiles as well—this wasn’t just an exclusive Jewish club.

In the book of Galatians, Peter starts to hang out with the Gentiles and eats meals with them. However, when certain Jewish people show up, Peter withdraws from the Gentiles, acting hypocritically and judgmentally. This is a common social situation: “Wait, I thought that guy was my friend, and now he's acting differently.” This is mixed in with religion and law.

Paul's response to this is to call it out. He says, “I rebuked him to his face.” This is important because in Matthew 18, we see how biblical confrontation should happen: you go to the person face to face. Paul didn’t go behind Peter’s back; he addressed it directly. He wants them to know he did this properly and that he and Peter have already cleared things up.

Now, let's think about this situation with Peter as we discuss the next section. Peter had seen a vision from the Lord, granting him the freedom to share the gospel with the Gentiles and to eat all foods. But he only acted this way in certain situations, reacting out of fear and insecurity when certain people entered the room. My question is, what does this say about Peter’s confidence in his identity? There’s a war within him that determines his behavior, not the other way around. This is incredibly important: his identity determined his behavior, not the other way around.

In 2 Corinthians 9, Paul writes, “To the Jews, I became a Jew in order to win the Jews; to those under the law, I became as one under the law—though not myself being under the law—that I might win those under the law; to those outside the law, I became as one outside of the law—not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ—that I might win those outside the law; to the weak, I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it for the sake of the Gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.”

I want us to see the distinction here. Some may say Paul was being hypocritical for calling out Peter but then admitting he acted similarly in 2 Corinthians. Do you see the difference? Peter was reacting out of fear and insecurity, while Paul, in utter freedom, says, “I will act this way with these people to avoid offending them, and I will act this way with those people to make them feel welcome.” Paul sacrifices his freedom to be a witness to the freedom of Christ; it’s a completely opposite heart posture. Again, our identity determines our behavior; our behavior does not determine our identity, ever. Paul was free, but Peter was not.

Verse 15: “We ourselves are Jews by birth.” This is in response to what he just said about Peter’s hypocrisy. Paul highlights the significance of that statement. For generations, Jews believed they were the chosen people of God due to their physical lineage to Abraham. “You don’t; we are the chosen people of God.”

Paul emphasizes that “we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.” He continues, “So we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Jesus and not by works of the law, because by works of the law, no one will be justified.”

He points out that they, being Jews by birth, realized that this lineage did not mean anything when it came to salvation in Jesus. Their understanding was that being the people of God had nothing to do with the works of the law; it had everything to do with their faith in Jesus, period.

For a Jewish person, it was normal to presume upon God’s grace because they were descendants of Abraham and followed the law. This mindset still had influence over Peter. He had experienced Jesus’ grace in deep personal ways and had been set free, but this mindset still held him.

How many times do we, having experienced God’s grace, hold onto ways of thinking that are so ingrained in us that we’re still held captive by them? This same way of thinking suggests, “I am a better Christian because I go to church more.” What do we mean by that? If I don’t read my Bible for a month, I assume God’s heart posture towards me is different than if I read it every day.

This reveals something in us, just like it revealed something in Peter’s heart. Even though we believe we are saved and in right standing with God because of Christ alone, a part of us still clings to the lie that it can’t be that simple. We still need to do certain things to earn God’s love.

What this reveals is a tendency to put ourselves in the seat of God. By not believing God's words, we say, “No, it can’t be true. There must be something I need to do.” There’s something inside of us that denies the truth of God’s promises, repeating them over and over, yet in our hearts, we think we must do all these things for God to like us.

This mindset mirrors Peter’s. Peter had walked with Jesus, experienced his love and grace face to face, witnessed His death, resurrection, and ascension, and received the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. He had received a vision to preach to the Gentiles and saw the Holy Spirit fall on them. Yet, we wonder how he could still struggle with this.

How many people would say the same thing about us? Our flesh clings to the lies of the serpent: “You can’t trust Him; you must fix this.” Suddenly, everyone in the room realizes, “I’m a little bit more like Peter than I thought.”

In my men’s group, we discussed the shadow of shame. Let’s define shame briefly. Guilt is, “I did something wrong,” while shame is, “I am what I did.” Outside of the saving grace of Jesus, that’s true; I am by nature a child of wrath (Ephesians 2). But if I’ve been saved by Jesus, that’s no longer my identity.

Galatians 2:20 hits differently: my identity is with Him. My identity is what He says it is. It is no longer what my behavior says, what my surroundings say, or what my economics say. None of that matters anymore; only what God says about me matters.

I can now, because I am guilty, take it to Him. And what do I get when I take my guilt to Jesus and exchange it for innocence? That's grace. In the innocence that I receive from Him in exchange for my guilt, my identity is transformed. I am no longer defined by my past. This is the idea that when we talk about running back to the cross, our hearts are pulled to sit in the chair of God, saying, "You can't trust Him; you can't trust His work; you can't trust His word; you’ve got to fix this." That is the battle—the temptation of Peter is the way we try to answer the question: What is my identity? Are we followers of the law, or are we saved by grace? You can't have an identity in two things at once. Our hearts and our behavior reveal where we're finding our identity every day.

The push, again, I said this last week, to read our Bibles more is not to be better; it’s to know, to bask, to soak in the promises of God—the words of God and the works of God—that all say one thing. Knowing, believing that the word of God is living and active and has the power to change us. What we are trying to change is not our behavior. That’s superficial; that’s like chopping off a dandelion with a lawnmower. What happens? It’ll be back tomorrow, or maybe tonight—they grow fast. But we are attempting and believing in the power of the Holy Spirit that through His word we can actually zap the roots of the lies that are rooted so deeply in our hearts.

What is our identity? What do we believe about ourselves? Some practical application: One of the ways this shows up most often is in my interaction with other people. We make assumptions about people—about the way they interact with us, their facial expressions, their body posture—all of those things communicate something to us. There’s what they’re communicating, consciously or unconsciously, and there’s what we’re receiving.

Remember that game you played as a kid called “telephone”? You would whisper something in somebody’s ear, and there was a whole long circle, and it came back to you. The goal was for the thing to be whispered all the way around the circle and get back to you the same way. It never happened, right? That’s how it works. What happens is I have a person communicating consciously and unconsciously in all these different ways, including their words, and then I have the way that I receive what they’re communicating.

What happens is that I make assumptions about what they're communicating and their intentions behind what I think they’re communicating. I then make a judgment on that, and how often am I wrong about those things? How often does it communicate what I believe about myself and about them? I almost always interpret those things negatively, and the way I interpret my assumptions says something about what I believe about myself. I hardly ever assume that those interactions are because they believe the best about me, and I believe the best about them.

This is evident in our marriages, our parenting, and our work relationships. It’s everywhere. This is why texting is such an awful form of communication. Did you know, parents, that your teenagers assume that a period at the end of a text is an aggressive statement, not simply punctuation? That's true! I was talking to my daughter about this. My wife and I were discussing it with her, and she said, “Why are you coming at me so hard?” I said, “I just put a period there; there was no exclamation.” She assumed something about what I said—that I was aggressive and angry.

I'm just telling you something. This is what we do, and it reveals our hearts. It reveals our hearts of fear and insecurity, and it then determines our behavior towards those people and places walls in relationships where no real communication has taken place—only our assumptions. How often do we do this? Those are identity situations.

In Galatians 2:17, Paul writes: "But if in our endeavor to be justified in Christ we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor." We will come back to that one. "For through the law, I died to the law so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for nothing."

You see, he's saying you can't be identified here and here. In verse 18, he writes: "For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor." Let’s put this into Peter’s situation to make it very clear, because it’s a little mysterious. When Peter lived like a Gentile, he tore down the ceremonial law by the grace of Jesus. When he lived like a Jew, he tore down salvation by grace. If I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor.

What did I tear down? The holiness of God. I tore it down with my sin. Can I then rebuild it? No. By trying to do so, I prove myself to be a transgressor. And this is what we do every day. When we, in our hearts, refuse to believe the promises of God, refuse to believe what God says about us, we say, “No, I’ve got to fix this.” We are seeking to be justified by works of the law. You may not have the ceremonial Jewish law in your brain, but what we do is create a law of our own. Every single one of us in this room has that law in their minds—these are the things that I must do in order for God to be pleased with me, in order for me to have favor with God. If I don’t do those things, He’s angry with me. He’s upset with me. He sees me a certain way. And if I do these things, then He’s happy.

You've created a law, and you are the ratifier of that law. You are the god of that law, and you’ve placed yourself where only He belongs. The Creator gets to determine the identity, not the creation.

Let me just say another thing about Paul’s freedom. As we look through the New Testament, as we read through the book of Acts, we see Paul living out his freedom to live like a Gentile, and we see him suffering for it. In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul says: "Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods; once I was stoned." What is Paul saying? What we see happening there is him being punished by the Jews for not keeping the law and encouraging others to break the law. That’s how firmly he believed in this.

He said, "I was stoned; I was beaten; I was whipped. I will not compromise this truth. Nothing we do adds to what Jesus has done for us, and nothing we do takes away from what Jesus has done for us—period." This is why he went publicly to Peter, because it was that important.

In verse 19, Paul states: "For through the law, I died to the law." Listen, hear what he's saying: "Through the law, through trying to keep the law, I died to it." But in verse 20, he continues: "I have been crucified with Christ." Through Christ, I died to Christ, not the law. "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me." I have given Him my guilt; He has given me a new identity—His identity. It’s no longer I who live; He lives in me.

We see the connection with Jesus’s own words. Think about what Jesus said in John 15: "I am the true vine; my Father is the vine dresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit, He prunes, so that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the words that I have spoken to you. Abide in me and I in you." The works that He’s talking about there are because of the connection we have with Him, because of our identity with Him. Identity determines behavior, not the other way around.

Paul is connected to Jesus; he’s no longer connected to the law. So he can move through the world being led by the Spirit. But hear me: in no way is Paul compromising holiness and our pursuit of it. As we are more abiding with Christ, as we are more deeply connected with Him, His life, His Spirit flows in and through us into the lives of others, and we see holiness start to happen.

In Romans 6, Paul says it this way: "We know that our old self was crucified with Him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin." What he’s saying is the body of sin is brought to nothing so that we can be set free from sin. We are now free, and we, through the power of the Holy Spirit, can live holy lives and are called to increasingly live holy lives. But how well we do that is not our identity. We answer the call of what He is saying about us more and more, and that changes our behavior as we become more like Him.