Stay On Mission – 17th September 2018

2. Only Jesus!
“For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. 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. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” Galatians 2:19-21

I think that the reason that grace is such a motivation for joining Jesus in His mission is that when we grasp that Jesus has done EVERYTHING that is required for us to become children of God, children who can call God Abba, Father, then we are so grateful to Him that we want others to discover this amazing truth.

When, on the other hand, we allow ourselves to think that our salvation is built in part upon our own goodness and observance of the law, we then begin to think that we must work to ‘earn’ God’s love and forgiveness. This then becomes an endless battle against guilt and failure on the one hand or a slipping into an acceptance that ‘I am not a very good Christian’ on the other. The outcome of both of these is that we are not passionate about sharing what we have discovered with others.

To a group of Christians who were being persuaded to rely upon their goodness as opposed to God’s grace, Paul writes:

“I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

A little later in this letter Paul becomes very sharp and pointed about this but here, in chapter 2, he makes the point clearly and more gently but it is still made with deep conviction. His message is unmistakably clear and, to put it into my words, I would say his message is:

‘If we could earn our own salvation by keeping the law then the death of Jesus on our behalf is a waste of time”.

It was this, movement away from ‘Jesus did it all’ to ‘I must do this’ that was at the heart of what Paul was addressing to this church. However, his words are not only applicable to the church in Galatia, they are relevant to us all.

This week, I ask you to imagine that these words from Paul were not addressed to a group called ‘The Galatians’ (people from Galatia). Rather, this was a personal letter to you, from a friend. Your friend is pointing out that the joy you once had as a result of the grace you had received seems to have evaporated and been replaced by a sense of needing to ‘get it right’ and the joy that is now absent has been replaced by a feeling of guilt and failure.
If you were to receive this letter, would it be valid and, if so, what woud you do?