You Got an A+ [Part 1]

Pastor author and Bible teacher Alan Wright to say that you are justified through faith, grace of God in Jesus Christ used to say metaphorically gone in Jesus Christ has said to you. You already done a so go ahead and live like a student Pastor Alan Wright welcome to another message of good views that will help you see your life will deliberate excited for you to hear the teaching today. In the series Galatians is presented at renewal the church in North Carolina able to stay with us throughout the entire program I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month made to Alan Wright ministry. So as you listen to today's message go deeper as we send you today special offer. Contact us Pastor Alan.org at Pastor Alan.org or call 877-544-4860 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program.

Now let's get started with today's teaching here is Alan Wright author and pastor radio personality Steve Brown tells a wonderful story about his daughter she had enrolled and advanced English literature class and came home after the first day or two distraught same daddy I'm not smart enough for this class. I am I need to take a regular English class and she was scared and she was in tears and she said can you can you help can you please tell them to put me in a regular class and he said sure. So the next day he went with his daughter to the school and they met with the head of the English department this very wise teacher Jewish lady a very skilled teacher and Steve Brown said to her, my daughter.

The problem with heresies to conscientious and she's worried about this class and she wants to just take regular English class. Could you please just put her into a regular English class. All the while those of other students that were standing around Anthony Brown's daughter was on the edge of tears seeing that the girl was about to burst into tears. The noble teacher asked all the other students to please step out of the room. She wanted to be alone with them. And then she turned to Pastor Brown and she said could I just speak to your daughter and Steve said yes and what she said then was what nobody could have guessed she would have announced she turned to the daughter she said how about this, you're worried about how you're going to do in this class, how about this happen if I just announced you.

Now I'm a give you an a in this course, no matter what.

I just give you an a before we even get started without the okay and the girls suddenly didn't feel like crying anymore and said, nodding her head. She said do you think if I give you a right now that you build to take this class and the girl said well I think I might go to do that and he said okay very well then you have a see you in class tomorrow and you know what Steve Brown's daughter did.

She went to class, knowing that Shari had an a and she made A's on all her papers and exams throughout telling the teacher just explains the Brown she said. I felt like your daughter could definitely excel in my class, but she was so bent up with all her fear about it that that was her problem.

I just wanted take the fear of not doing well out of the picture and believe that she could excel.

After that, you ready for some good news today to say that you are justified through faith, by the grace of God in Jesus Christ used to say, metaphorically, God in Jesus Christ has said to you, you already got an a so go ahead and live like an a student wearing Galatians chapter 2 verses 15 through 21. Galatians is the Magna Carta of the Christian faith. It is Paul's most Venn argument for the freedom and power of the gospel in our lives and this is our sixth message and what is an unhurried series through the book of Galatians we are taking our time to savor verse by verse, paragraph by paragraph. What Paul's message is here because it is so foundational to our lives. What was seen in the opening chapter in setting this context is that Paul is writing to basically a multisite church in the province of Galatia and he is opening up this chapter with a sense of urgency and even with real anger, essentially saying if anyone preaches a gospel other than the group. True gospel to be anathema.

B considered a curse. In other words, have nothing to do with it.

There something you saying that is extremely toxic it was going on with some false teaching that it entered into the Galatian church. Paul and Bonnie preach the gospel that would great passion and clarity people and eagerly receive the gospel into their hearts, but no sooner had they received the gospel message of salvation through faith by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ alone. Then some false teachers began to influence the Christians in Galatia. They were teaching essentially that yes you need Jesus Christ, your Savior, but you also need to keep certain Jewish laws like the ritual of circumcision which was the sign of illusion and the old covenant and a my thing with this is just a small thing one little matter of ceremonial law and pulses know is not a small thing because if you take a pure gospel of grace and you announce it 99% purity, but then you just add 1% of law mixed into it. If you mix this gospel of grace with law. If you mix it and say yes mainly your saved and you are made righteous. Because what Jesus did for you but some of it does depend on you fulfilling certain ceremonial laws or any anything that you want to put in that blank if you mix that in what you've done is you have not only counteracted the gospel, but you have poisoned the gospel.

Such it. Now what is meant to be life-giving, can actually lead to destruction.

In other words, as soon as someone says that 1% of your salvation is up to you. You just introduced an unlimited potential for fear because the accuser can always attack you on that 1% you hadn't quite done enough is what Paul does and in Galatians chapter 2 verses 15 to 21.

Having built upon what he said about the freedom from ceremonial laws like circumcision and freedom from dietary laws and he described his encounter that he had. We had to confront Peter over this matter and you see that Paul is absolutely adamant about this and now in verses 15 to 21. In that context, he begins to speak about what it means to be justified. This is so important.

It is truly at the heart of all Christian faith of what it means to be justified. It is something that Martin Luther spent 80 pages talking about. It revolutionized his life.

The simple affirmation being justified by grace through faith.

It changed his life. It brought about a reformation it changed the whole world. If you really get a hold of what it means to be truly fully justified in God's sight. It will change everything in your life. Galatians chapter 2 verses 15 through 21. We ourselves Paul Reiser 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 have 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. 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 for through the law I died to the wall 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 loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if justification were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. Sometimes when you study passage of Scripture in a section. Maybe there's a place in Scripture where it seems that this all fits together, these two paragraphs. Perhaps one of the first things you might want to do a study that is good to see under certain words or images that keep leaping out so doesn't take but just a cursory reading of Esther realized that the word that is repeated over and over in this text is justified this word that appears in verse 16 is used three times and a repetitious way. And yet, speaking to the totality and end of the importance of this idea, being justified, we know that a person is not justified.

That is, in general, that any person that's Alan Wright will have more teaching moment from today's important series an option for 99 days in a row. Someone tells you, I love you I'll never forsake you.

When you feel cherished.

But what would happen if I'm hundred vaccine person sad that Shayna got enough for me. My Shabbat on the Colletti anymore. When that one day contaminate the meaning of the other 99 days when 1% of conditional love poison. The other 99% will just 1% of lies enough to spoil grace bit of luck in introducing unlimited capacity for fear that if I don't measure up. When might be rejected.

When the Judaizers infiltrated the Galatian church. They pass Apollo is outraged and read a letter that describes the essence of the gospel of grace and why it must not be mixed with any form of Alan Reitz 12 message idea series trumpets the power of the gospel in order to set you free empower you with pure grace. It's called Galatians and asked the gospel discover the purity and power at the grace of God. When you make your gift to Alan Wright ministry said I will send you Pastor Alan's message as an attractive CD album with your digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Call us at 877-544-4860 877-544-4861 come to our website pastor Alan.work. Today's teaching now continues once again is so we also probably referring to Paul and he just been talk about an account with Peter about the apostle Peter as well.

We may be talking about all of us is Jews saying we now this is personal have believed in Christ Jesus. In order to be justified by faith in Christ and then thoroughly, not by works of the law because works along by works of Walton. No one will be justified now makes it universal. Generally, he speaks personally. He speaks universally saying this is at the heart of it all to be justified, maybe the most important thing you could ever understand about what it is to be a Christian and almost everything else is saying Galatian is going to come back and relate to this so well I would. I would relish the opportunity to spend long hours on each one of these verses. I think the task force today is to talk specifically about justification and what it means. It is something that you might think well I understand that I've heard of that before, but it is so at the heart of the Christian gospel into spending a week just thinking and reading and meditating and seeing that it's better than I ever realize we call the series and that's the gospel because that's the way we end every message here. Someone asked me what how would you define the gospel of our we given a short definition I'd say good gospel is the powerful message of good news, declaring all that God is done for us in Christ Jesus. It's powerful. The gospel is not as Paul describes it is not a collection of beliefs or doctrines that you give mental assent to instead he describes this gospel is something that is powerful. Even if the power of God and the salvation the gospel has a vibrancy in the gospel there is the capacity for changing our lives. The gospel is a message of good news powerful. It is, it is always an announcement of good news because it's not an announcement about your failure or what you are to do it is an announcement about God's faithfulness and what God has done in the gospel is an announcement about the whole work of Christ, not just some aspect of it, not just that you get to go to heaven one day all of the benefits of everything that Christ has done for us. This is the gospel that Paul is is is speaking about now in the in these verses 15 through 21.

Paul seems to be in addition to confronting the Judaizers that were espousing circumcision are the people that work with the hypocrisy of Peter about the dietary laws he now seems also be addressing this idea that if you preach a gospel such grace that people are justified by grace through faith alone, then you're just giving people license to sin.

This is part of what Paul is addressing when he says, is Christ then a servant of sin was essentially saying there is that if you if you want to make the claim against me Paul speaking, if you want to make the claim against me that broke by proclaiming the gospel of grace that were making it worse for people because they could be less obedient than what you're saying is that Christ and what he did on the cross is asked to become a servant of sin is enabled more people to sin, and that surely not what you're saying she away his logic is rolling out here.

If you're going to say you should tone down grace because people see it as a license to sin, and will live less godly life than what you're saying that you need to tone down the fullness the finished nature and the glory of the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ balsamic or do that to nullify the grace of God because some people are complaining that this is giving some others a sense of license to sin. This is what he's laying out for us today. So the contention of this it will see is it just like Misty Brown's daughter. What would he sing with the gospel is that in that instance.

You said you can get in a automatically and that's what liberated her to be in a student and that's what were saying about the gospel but to focus in on the idea of justification. It is so important is mentioned over and over in just these couple verses John Stott says it would be hard to find a more forceful statement on the doctrine of justification than this is insistent upon by the two leading apostles.

We know confirm from their own experience in the Texas as we have believed and endorsed by the sacred Scripture of the Old Testament. I love what Martin Luther said Martin Luther who who just was riveted by verses 15 through 21 and he said that the law is divine and holy, let the law have his glory but yet let no law, albeit never so divine and holy.

That ought to teach me that I'm justified, and shall live through it. What Martin Luther was saying there's law is divine. The law is from God, the law is good. The law is holy with the loan never had with the ability to announce to you that your justified in the loan never had the ability to impart life to you. So Martin Luther continued the great reformer said here I must take counsel of the gospel. I must hearken to the gospel which teaches me not what I ought to do for that's the proper office of the law.

Law teaches you what you ought to do is say, but says the gospel.

What Jesus Christ the son of God has done for me to it that he suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death. The gospel wills me to receive this and to believe it.

And this is the truth of the gospel. It is also the principal article of all Christian doctrine where in the knowledge of all godliness consents we saying is understanding justification is the root of all godliness in your life, most necessary, he continues most necessary. It is therefore that we should know this article well cheated on to others and this is the part I love and beat it into their heads continually so that's our purpose in preaching delays. It is baited into your head. Continually the gospel of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and there is a sense and we just got a get pallet into the we gotta preach the gospel to ourselves every day because the whole world and thereby Alcatel is just the opposite. What is this justification by the definition of Wayne Gruden whose credible systematic theologian put it very simply justification is an instantaneous legal act of God in which he thinks of our sins is forgiven, and Christ's righteousness as belonging to us, and declares us to be righteous in his sight. Justification Gruden says is an instantaneous legal act of God, which he one thinks of our sins is forgiven, and Christ's righteousness as belonging to us, and to declares us to be righteous in his sight don't understand what it means to be justified. It is rooted in a legal judicial declaration of not guilty. It means just as if I never sin not guilty. Every right understanding of life and the gospel and justification begins with understanding that the problem the human dilemma is a problem of sin the world today is an end that this the spirit of the age has is cried out against any form of religious hatred or bigotry, and so what we see in many of our conflicts ideologically in the world, has been partly a result of whenever people have seen that there's been hatred or bigotry or hypocrisy in any form of religion, whether be Christian or some other form. They instinctively want to not have anything to do with that and this is the problem is that when we as Christians talk about sin. If we talk about sand from a self-righteous perspective, it's hypocritical and if we talk about sin, with the emphasis being on the sin rather than the grace of God to cure the sin, then people miss the gospel is what happened is essentially where in a culture where even within the church in an effort to distance ourselves from that image of being religious hypocrites and bigots that all we do is be self-righteous and talk about sin.

We don't. We can we can get will talk about sin at all, but sin doesn't take wife and five of sin is the problem. This is very clearly what the Bible describes is it when Adam and Eve sin. We were all born in Adam and Eve and so we were all born in sin and all have fallen short of the glory of God. What this means is that, therefore, no matter how good a life you live because you were born in sin will never live a perfect life as it's a bit hard for us in a world the grades on a curve to understand how it could be that God doesn't look on this is a curve, it did the demand on our life if we get a live under the law is you have to keep all the wall. If you miss any point of the law. If you have any unrighteousness or any sin in any point in your life you've missed all this is why when Jesus came he spoke of an even higher righteousness is almost as if to say what if you think that you All the law, then up to even a higher law, you think that your not commit adultery. I say no you can even last right today's teaching you a plus part of our series Galatians, that's the gospel and Alan is back in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and our final word today flexing your life.

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Pastor Alan got away an option for 99 days in a row. Someone tells you, I love you I'll never forsake you. When you feel cherished. But what would happen if I'm hundred today that same person.

Sad that Shayna got enough for me to measure about think I love you anymore. When that one day contaminate the meaning of the other 99 days when 1% of conditional love poison. The other 99% will just 1% of lies enough to spoil grace bit of luck in introducing unlimited capacity for fear that if I don't measure up.

When might be rejected.

When the Judaizers infiltrated the Galatian church.

They pass Apollo is outraged and read a letter that describes the essence of the gospel of grace and why it must not be mixed with any form of Alan writes 12 message idea series trumpets the power of the gospel in order to set you free empower you with pure grace.

It's called Galatians and asked the gospel discover the purity and power at the grace of God.

When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries today will send you Pastor Alan's message as an attractive CD album with your digital download as our way of saying thanks for your partnership.

Call us at 877-544-4860 877-544-4861 come to our website. Pastor Alan.like hearing that we just heard here in these last few moments of teaching. Sounds like it's that's really bad news in and to the degree you got understand the bad news before you can appreciate the good news is, both while real freedom is what Paul is talking about in Galatians and the this this were learning about in this message about really what justification is and there is no justification by the works of the law ducts that no one else has put so much whether Paul was making her so the bad new side of it is that if you tried to justify yourself, you'll never build to do it but there is no possible way that you could ever justify yourself so the good news of the gospel is better than what most people realize, and this will Paul try to get across to the Galatians is that whatever good that you do in your life. Whatever confidence you have and whatever faith you have a cause you to move forward. God wants that to come not because you're striving to earn an A+, but instead because these are said you forgot an A+ and therefore go and live with that type of confidence. Today's good news message is a listener supported production Alan Wright Ministries