Sound Doctrine

Guest (Male): When it comes to being a Christian, it's all about the heart. Here's Pastor Jeff Johnson.

Jeff Johnson: What defiles a man is what comes out of his heart. When you eat with somebody, you sit down with them, eat with them, and let them talk for a while, you find out where they're at Immediately. Either it comes out and you go whoa, or it comes out and you 0 go wow, this brother or this sister is born again, man. They're saved. They've got their liberty in Christ. Their hearts are right. Is your heart right? God wants you to have a right heart. He wants to deliver you from that wicked heart that goes a wandering, that wicked heart that sins and continues to sin, that that heart that isn't God's.

Guest (Male): Welcome to today's broadcast of Sound Doctrine with Pastor Jeff Johnson from Calvary Chapel Downey. Have you been insulted lately? There are a lot of misconceptions out there concerning heaven and how we get there. Today, Pastor Jeff will talk about the most common one, believing that there is some way you can earn your way into heaven by following rules or doing good deeds. Who is insulted by that? Jesus himself. He died a painful death on a cross so that we can go to heaven by simply having faith in him. Let's join Pastor Jeff in Galatians chapter two.

Jeff Johnson: It's all about grace. That's the message this morning out of Galatians chapter two. We left off in verse 17. Galatians 2:17. Peter has just mis represented grace as he heard about these Judaizers that are coming from James and as they were entering into the coffee shop there where he was hanging out. He hurriedly retreated from the Gentile table of bacon and pork chops. And he went to the kosher table of the Jews. Not only just him, but he brought a bunch of other guys with him, Jews, even Barnabas. Oh, and Paul is just sitting there.

Oh, can't believe what has just happened. Peter in the Gentiles presence, them watching this going on in Paul's presence, knowing. But yet Peter experienced the fear of man. And because he experienced the fear of man, fell. And every time we go that way, we will fall. Paul called him immediately on it. He In front of everybody, he just called him out, got in his face. We're justified by faith. And he gave that incredible message there in front of everybody, not by the law, not by what you eat or don't eat. Has nothing to do with that.

Peter, you are wrong in what you have just done. Lay it down. Over in Galatians, you can go a few more pages, but in Galatians 5:1 Paul says, stand fast therefore in the liberty where with Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. Stand fast, Peter. Don't run away. Don't be embarrassed. Nothing to be embarrassed about. It's the law. We know what the law is for. So, from verse 16, and we we got into verse 16 last week, he says in verse 16, he makes this proclamation knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, and we, talking about the Jews, might be justified by faith, by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law.

By the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. He made it very clear. Which way you going to go? Peter, you're wrong. So, this is his Paul's doctrinal section here in the last portion of chapter two of Galatians. We're made righteous and just by faith in Jesus Christ. Period. That's it. Righteousness, justice. We're just as we've never sinned. The Jews concern that were there, their concern was easy grace. They didn't see how this grace teaching was going to hold anybody right. You know, by grace you're saved. Oh, boy. You mean that's it? That's enough.

That's what God called forth. So, verse 17 Paul continues, but if while we seek to be justified by Christ, and notice the we's there, Jews, if we seek the Jews seek to be justified by Christ, we, the Jews, are ourselves also are found sinners. Whoever's without sin, you cast the first stone. Hm? And everybody dropped their stones. You mean you're a sinner and you're Jewish? You're not righteous? They knew it. We are the We Jews are found sinners. Is therefore Christ the minister of sin? And he says perish the thought. God forbid. Jesus said it best in John 14.

Just jot it down. John 14 verse 6. John 14:6 he said, and this is Jesus answering Thomas, we don't know where you're going. We don't know how to get there. Jesus said this. I am the way, Thomas. I am the truth. I am the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. I am it. It's all about me and it's all about grace. It's the only way. It's not about works. It's not about what you do. We're all sinners, aren't we? Saved by grace. Isn't that great? We all are sinners. There's not one good.

No, not one. There's not one perfect. No, not one. We all fall short of the glory of God. But let's not forget Jesus died for us, paid the price. He said it's finished. It's paid in full. So, is Christ the minister of sin? He says no way. The Jew and the Gentile justified by faith. There's still sin, but the Jews thought it's not real enough for us. For us to get it really real, we can We got to do something. There's got to be something you got to do. They couldn't They couldn't get it. They struggled so much.

Why? Because that's how it was always taught to them and that's what they were doing. They're trying to work their way to heaven. They can't do it. And they never could do it, and they knew it. And they were striving constantly until Jesus came. And they said, well, no, no, the Gentiles cannot be saved unless they do something and they need to get circumcised. And the Gentiles are going thanks a lot, you know. You want What is that all about? Well, we got to go by the law of Moses. That's out the window. That's a done deal.

Jesus came to fulfill the law. The laws taken care of. It's done. It's not what goes in a man, Jesus said, that defiles the man. It's what comes out of his heart, who he is. Has your heart been changed? If you take and you're doing something in the garage and you're using a hammer and that hammer comes down and you miss the nail and you hit your thumb, what comes out of your mouth? What you got in there? Do you go I won't even say it. Or do you go, oh God, heal me. Take the pain away.

I just blew it big time and it hurts. What comes out of your heart? Come on. Let's Let's be honest. Let's be upfront. What defiles a man is what comes out of his heart. When you eat with somebody and you sit down with them, eat with them, and let them talk for a while, you find out where they're at immediately. Either it comes out and you go whoa, or it comes out and you go wow, this brother or this sister is born again, man. They're saved. They're They're They've got their liberty in Christ. They're Their hearts are right.

Is your heart right? God wants you to have a right heart. He wants to deliver you from that wicked heart that goes a wandering, that wicked heart that sins and continues to sin, that that heart that isn't God's. You see, always God speaks about the heart and how he wants our hearts. In other words, he wants our lives. Our life beating organ. He wants to take it cuz it's like a stone wall. It's like a rock. He wants to take the rock out and he does this operation as soon as you receive Christ. He He doesn't even use a scalpel.

He takes your heart of stone and gives you a heart of flesh that loves. You notice that right at the first when you start walking with him and receive his son. That's just the way it is. Look at verse 18. For if I build again the things which I destroyed, follow Paul on this. If I put it back together again and which things I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. If it's grace plus law in my life doing things, then we're saying that Jesus's crucifixion was not good enough. There is more Actually, when you really look into this, more sin in trying to work or obey the law for salvation than living the Christian life through faith.

And that's what Paul's saying here. I I mean I'm just giving myself over to him and he saved me alone. His crucifixion was effective and is affected today in our lives if we will believe what God did when he gave his son on that cross. Whosoever believes shall be saved. So, it's not about law, it's not about rules, it's not about regulations. It's about grace. Billy Graham, when he has his great crusades, they always sing the song, come just as you are, just as you are. You need to do nothing. You just come. That's what the Lord's waiting for.

Some of you have yet to come just as you are. And he makes a new creation. It's a grace state. It's all about grace. It's a bit about that that state that those who have experienced grace are in. It's such a liberty. It 's not what I do, but it's what he's done. And it always goes back to that, doesn't it? He did it all. That's why he said it's finished. It's paid for. Remember, as soon as he died, what happened in the temple? You remember the temple was full of priests and they were doing their thing on that holy day as Jesus died.

And what happened with the temple veil? It tore from the top to the bottom. And God was saying to everyone because only the priests could go in there once a year. That's it. Nobody else could go in into the presence of God. But God says enough. And he tore it. It's thick. All right? The The veil. He tore it from the top to the bottom and the priests saw it happen. It's recorded. And God's just saying open house. Come as you are into my presence with praise and thanksgiving. Enter my courts with songs and singing.

I love it. Don't try to set up barriers and mess up this amazing grace. Hey, listen. When you come to Jesus, I want you to know that you need to read three chapters a day. Okay? And after that, I want you to start praying three times a day very religiously. You need to do this and listen to the radio every day. Wow. Okay. But don't go back. These things are good and we need to do them. But we don't have to do these things to be saved. Here's the neat thing. We get to do these things after we're saved by grace.

James says it this way. I'll show you my faith by my works. See, I already believed in in Christ and I have received grace. And now I all I do these things. It's not I do these things because I want to be saved or I want to go to heaven, so I got to be good. I got to do everything just right. No, we're I think we need to remind ourselves every day, at least once, that you're a sinner saved by grace. Amazing as it is. There's nothing you can do to earn it, to merit it.

We get to talk with God and we get to be led by the Holy Spirit. Such a privilege. And it's not to try to impress or win him over. Forget it. He's your father. He knows all about you. He knows when you're putting on the scam. And you're going to try to snow God. Give me a break. He's a little smarter than you are. He knows everything about us. Can't snow him and you can't win him. These are added blessings that we get to do. We get to start our day in prayer. Unreal. And I've heard, and I think it's true because I found myself, you start the day with prayer, guess what?

You're going to end the day with prayer. Isn't that great? Just walking with the Lord, casting our cares upon him. Added blessings. But we didn't sew up the veil again and say well, I got to get the veil up back up. You know, that's got to be there. I mean, you know, we got to have the kind of behind the veil and and the ark and let's get it back. No, no way. We don't need to go back to rules and regulations and rituals. We have been delivered totally from all those things. Peter, Paul said, don't do that.

Why did you do that? What You just misrepresented grace in front of all these Gentiles. What are you trying to do? You know, you're messing everybody up. There's There was confusion in that room that day. Mass confusion. Gentiles were confused. Peter's over here chomping on pork chops. And he sees the Jews come in, he runs over to the Jews table. What's that all about? It's wrong. Peter, you need to reverence what you believe, man, and know and know to be true. You need to be true to what God has given you. And he wasn't. He kind of flip-flopped for a moment and sew tried to sew the veil up real quick.

And it didn't go over very well. Remember, Peter's in Paul's territory. That means that he's in Gentile territory. It would be like someone coming into Calvary Chapel in Downey and and they're saying, hey, to be really spiritual, guys, you need to get into more lighting of candles, lighting of incense. And And Until you do these things, you're never going to enter into the fullness of God. The door is right there. You better go through it and you're out of here cuz that's not going to go here. That's not going to happen here. Listen to these scriptures.

Write them down. 2 Timothy 3:5. 2 Timothy 3:5. Having a form of godliness, but deny the power thereof. And then Paul says, from such turn away. Don't go with the religious guys, the ritual guys, the rules and regulation guys. Turn away from them. Romans 16 verse 17. Now, he says, I beg of you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which you have learned and avoid them. Pay no attention to them. Stay away from them. And then in Galatians, and we just kind of looked at that and touched on that as we were going through it.

Galatians 1 verse 8 and 9. He says it once. He says both though we are an angel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you than which we have preached unto you, let him be a cursed or damned. And he says, again I say unto you. And he says it twice to emphasize it. Let them be damned. These are what the Bible says spots in our love feast. See, we're experiencing liberty in Christ and these spots come in like a cancer. And they seek to shake us up and to take away our liberty. Turn away.

Mark them, avoid them, remove them. Peter blew it. We We really don't get any response when here's Peter being rebuked in front of everybody in that coffee shop by Paul. And he did it with authority. Okay? Paul's just comes right down on it. And we don't hear his response. I thought that's interesting. What did he How did he respond? Well, just read his epistles. Both first and second Peter. Amazing grace is throughout every one of his epistles. In fact, there's the the one portion there that every chapter has grace in it, every chapter. Did he get it?

Yay, got it. I think that was his total deliverance from the law of regulations and rules when Paul, loving him so much, rebuked him in front of everybody. Galatians 6:1 If you see a brother or sister in a sin, tripping up, blowing it, confront them. We I mentioned that. And in meekness you do it, not as Mr. Spiritual, in meekness. And I'm sure Paul was meek, but he was stern. Okay? Because everything he believed in was being threatened right in front of his eyes. Was he a little upset? Yes. Even Barnabas? Barney? You went over to the other table?

Come on. I thought you'd know better. You're the elder. Huh? What? And he blew it. Misrepresenting grace. Verse 19 going back to the text, he says, for I through the law am dead to the law that I might live unto God. The law, Paul is saying, killed me. What? It killed me. Jot this scripture down. Romans chapter seven in verse nine where Paul says, Romans 7:9, for I was alive without the law once. But when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. Well, yeah. The law was only made to condemn us, that we can't do it.

And I gave you that example of the rich young ruler who said, oh, I did this law and I did this law and I did this law. I'm up I'm a good Jew. I did it all. Jesus said, well, there I got one thing I want you to do. I want you to sell all of your stuff and and come and follow me. Oh, I can't do that one. So, there was no commitment. There was no allegiance. There was no I will follow you, Lord. You see, he's waiting. Are you going to follow me? Jesus is saying, if you love me, obey my what?

Commandments. What was his commandments? Love the Lord with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul, with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. Bingo. You'd done them all. Isn't that great? It's not hard. So, the law wiped me out. It slaughtered me. It tried me. The law's there to try us, to find us guilty, and then condemn us and slay us. That's all the Ten Commandments were about. They were set up just for that. Do you remember Paul got dealt with by the Lord and he was on his back.

I mean, Paul was going to kill Christians. I'm going to take their heads from them. He was like ISIS. I'm going to do it in the name of my God. That's who he was. We need to love the unlovely, don't we? And what they're doing, the unlovely things that they're doing. Oh, I will never love an Arab or a Muslim. Come on. Where's Jesus in that? Did Jesus love them? Does he love them today? Does he care about them today? Did he die for that for them yesterday? Years ago? Yes. Then what's the problem? We need to love them.

The only way they're going to hear God's love is through us. Where else? We're living epistles of the grace of God. They need to hear about grace. It's awesome. It'll free them cuz they're under law. And there's such a bondage to them. There's such a defeat with them.

Guest (Male): It's so important for us to really remember what our calling is because there are so many lost souls among us. This is Sound Doctrine with Pastor Jeff. And you just heard a study in Galatians chapter two. We pray you've been blessed by what you've heard today. Galatians is filled with challenging insights for Christian living. And if you'd like to hear this study again, simply go to sounddoctrineradio.org. sounddoctrineradio.org or listen through the Sound Doctrine podcast app. You can also hear Sound Doctrine on oneplace.com and wherever you enjoy podcasts, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. We'd appreciate your support of this radio ministry.

It helps us do what we do each day. And you can donate to this radio outreach at sounddoctrineradio.org. sounddoctrineradio.org We hope you'll join us for our next study in Galatians here on Sound Doctrine with Pastor Jeff presented each day by Calvary Chapel Downey. Have a blessed day in the Lord.