A Freedom Worth Fighting For, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Some things are worth fighting for. Paul knew it. Martin Luther knew it. The gospel is worth fighting for in our day because again, if we change it, we cut ourselves off from the presence of Christ and we obscure God's saving power. There is no other gospel. Jesus has done it all and it is only by faith in him that you and I are saved and have the power of new life. Welcome to Summit Life with J.D. Greer, pastor of the Summit Church in Raleigh, North Carolina.

I'm your host, Molly Bidevich. Okay, a little history lesson as we start. Did you know that it's been more than 500 years since the Protestant Reformation? That's when Martin Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of his Catholic church and called Christians everywhere to return to the true gospel.

So why is the work of an old German monk still relevant to our lives today? The answer lies in the explanation of the gospel found in the book of Galatians. So turn to chapter one for a sermon called A Freedom Worth Fighting For.

Are you ready? Let's jump into God's word together right now. So here's a question. What was it about the book of Galatians that Martin Luther and many others have found so powerful?

Thought you'd never ask. Let's take a look. Galatians 1 verse 6 is where I will start. I am amazed, Paul said, that you are so quickly turning away from him who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another gospel. There is no other gospel. But there are some who are troubling you and want to distort or pervert the gospel of Christ. But I tell you, even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, a curse should be on him.

Now that's a big old statement, isn't it? Then Paul is going to repeat that statement for emphasis in verse 9. As we have said before, I now say again, if anybody is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you already received, let a curse be on him.

I have only two real points I want to make with you today. The first point is that the apostle Paul wants us in no uncertain terms to reject the perverse gospel. And then number two, he wants us to fight, be willing to fight for the true one. Number one, reject the perverse gospel, he says. There was a group in the early church known as the Judaizers. Well, after these Jews had come to faith in Christ, after they believed that, they still kept some of this old law mentality. Paul calls what these Judaizers are teaching, that is in addition to faith in Christ, you got to be circumcised and keep parts of the law. He calls that not just a corruption, he calls that a different gospel. The real gospel, he says, is that in salvation, God did for us what we were utterly incapable of doing for ourselves.

He did it all by himself and we can only receive it by faith. Now, most of us today are not going to be hung up on circumcision or aspects of the Jewish law, but let me just try to suggest for you a few ways that I see Christians today believing the same perverse gospel. They just substitute different things in for circumcision.

I'll give you a handful of ways. Here's one, we do it whenever we make something else besides faith in Christ necessary for salvation. For example, for some people they think you need to accept Christ as your savior and take communion and go to confession, accept Christ and be baptized.

There is no and in the gospel. There is faith plus nothing else in what Christ has done that saves. Here's a second way, some more progressive Christians assume that it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you were a sincere, loving and good person. But it really is just another way of saying that what you do determines whether or not God accepts you because there's still a standard you have to reach even if it's a really loose one, right? But the gospel is not that God saves all good people. The gospel is that there are only bad people, only bad people who received the rescue of Jesus Christ by faith.

Here's a third way we do it. Sometimes we do it and we try to grow ourselves spiritually through self-effort. You realize you're saved by grace, but you think now becoming Christ-like is on you. In chapter three of Galatians, Paul is going to explain that any growth in the Christian life is not the result of you willing it into your life, but it is the fruit of the spirit in you.

The power of the spirit is released by faith in Christ, not by resolution or self-discipline. Here's the fourth way, I realized this week that I often believe a false gospel when I think that I can produce spiritual change in other people. A lot of times that I'm getting up here ready to preach and I'm thinking what's going to make me successful as a preacher? When you peel back the layers, what I'm most depending on are my speaking abilities, my ability to persuade, my study, and my preparation. Or sometimes when I think about whether how I'm going to be successful as a dad and I think what's going to make my kids turn out the way they should? I think what's the strength of my personality?

It's the fact that I've mastered these parenting techniques or whatever. Paul would say that is foolish. Only the spirit can produce eternal life in your congregation or in your kids. And listen, the spirit is not released into your kids or your congregation because of your personality or abilities.

The spirit is released in others through faith in the gospel which leads me to number two. Paul says after you reject it I want you to fight for the true gospel. I want you to fight for the true gospel. Paul has used the strongest language imaginable here. He has said that preachers and teachers or even angels who distort this gospel should be cursed. Now most people don't like any kind of fighting or controversy in the church and honestly I agree. But Paul says some things are worth fighting for.

Some things are matters of life and death. If you pervert the gospel he says you're going to do two things. You notice this verse six. He says you're going to turn away from him who called you by the grace of Christ. In other words you're going to desert Jesus. And the last person that you want to walk out of his presence is Jesus. This is not a matter of this range of what we can believe and let's us all get along. This has to do with whether or not we are connected to Jesus's saving power. Secondly he says you condemn people by pointing them to another gospel that's actually not another gospel at all.

There is no other gospel. You're giving people who are dying of thirst. You're giving them a cup of hydrochloric acid and it might look like water but it's not water. It's not going to bring life.

It's going to bring death. And Paul says those two things the presence of Jesus in your life and the way of salvation. Those are things those are things we're striving for even if it means you have to sometimes offend people and even if it means you have to create division and enemies which brings us back to the reformation. What was so important that Martin Luther was willing to split the church over it. Martin Luther was a German university student who was studying law at the urging of his parents who were paying for his education. His family was not super religious.

They were just normal religious like most Germans at the time. He was a good practicing Catholic. One day Martin Luther as a college student was walking home and he got caught in a terrible lightning storm. He was terrified thought he was going to die and so he called out to Saint Anne who was the patron saint of his family. He said Saint Anne save me.

If you will save me from this lightning storm and I don't die I promise that I will become a monk. Well he survived and so to stay true to his word he dropped out of law school and enrolled in a monastery. But there Luther while he was there in the monastery really started to obsess about what was going to happen to him when he died. And he experienced an emotion that he later called Anfechtung. Anfechtung in German which best translates as extreme anxiety maybe even depression and it came from thinking he was rejected by God. He desperately wanted to know he was right with God and that he wouldn't go to hell. So he started to do everything he could do to try to gain an assurance of salvation. For example he would fast for days on end.

He would sleep on the floor. He would spend hours in confession trying to remember all of his sins because in order to get forgiveness for a sin the church taught you had to confess it. So he would spend five and six hours in the confessional trying to remember his sins. He would beat himself with a whip as a way of trying to show God that he was sorry.

The church taught that all these things are necessary to help ensure that you're right with God. But Luther wondered how could he ever know that he had done enough? How did he know he confessed enough? How did he know he'd repented enough?

How did he know he was sorry enough? He said trying to remember every sin in the confession was like trying to mop up the floor with the faucet running. Well a mentor and confessor there at the monastery whose name was Staupitz who had to sit and listen by the way to Luther's like six hours of confession on end finally said to him Martin, Martin brother you got to let this go. And Luther said but how can I let it go? Isn't my soul the most important thing that I have?

Shouldn't I shouldn't everybody be obsessed about this? And Staupitz said you know what you need Luther here's what you need to do. You need to start teaching the Bible. And Luther said I couldn't do that if I tried to teach the Bible that would kill me.

Well finally Luther agreed to to do that. He took up a volunteer Bible teaching post at the local university and in his study he started to see things of the Bible that at first confused him but then delighted him. For example the first book he taught from was the book of Psalms.

He just taught all the way through it. And he came to Psalm 22 where David cries out my God my God why have you forsaken me? Which was a prophecy about what Jesus would one day pray from the cross. And Luther said my God my God why have you forsaken me? That's infectum. That is the sense that you're rejected by God.

That's what I feel. And then Luther said I started to wonder why does Jesus the Son of God why would he ever feel that way? And then he said it finally started to dawn on me that Jesus had suffered my condemnation and judgment in my place.

All that I felt because of my sin Jesus felt in my place. Then Martin Luther started to teach the book of Romans that was next. But he said I couldn't get out of chapter one. I tried to teach the Romans but I couldn't get out of chapter one because there was a phrase in chapter one I couldn't get past. And it was the phrase the righteousness of God.

In fact I love his account of this so much I have it up on a thing in my office. Here's what he says, I hated that phrase righteousness of God. Which I've been taught to understand is the righteousness with which God punishes the unrighteous sinner.

In other words it's the standard you got to live up to and if you don't live up to it then God's going to punish you for not living up to it. Thus I raged against God with a fierce and troubled conscience. Nevertheless I beat relentlessly on Paul with that verse. I love that image for Bible study.

I just beat on Paul. Most earnestly desiring to know what Paul wanted. At last by the mercy of God meditating day and night I gave heed to the context of the words. Namely in it the righteousness of God is revealed in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed as it is written he through faith becomes righteous shall live. There I begin to understand look at this that the righteousness of God is righteousness with which the merciful God justifies us by faith. It is he called it gift righteousness. Righteousness not that God tells us to live up to but righteousness that God gives us because of what Christ accomplished for us. Therefore it's not about me confessing my sin enough.

It's not about me feeling sorry enough or being good enough or beating myself enough. Jesus had done enough and it was finished in him. He had lived the life that I was supposed to live.

He did everything in my place. Luther said it started had his baptism because Jesus, Luther pointed out he said he said Jesus when he was baptized by John the Baptist it's a really odd scene because John calls it a baptism of repentance. And Luther said my question was if what was Jesus repenting of?

He'd never sinned. Why would Jesus be baptized in repentance if he'd never sinned? Jesus's answer in Matthew chapter 3 he did it to fulfill all righteousness. Luther said wasn't Jesus already fully righteous?

Why would he fulfill all righteousness if he was fully righteous already? And Luther said then it dawned on me that he was fulfilling my righteousness. He was repenting in my place. Jesus did everything in my place. He repented in my place. I could never feel sorry enough for my sin so Jesus felt sorry for me.

He lived the life I was supposed to live. Die to death I was condemned to die so that when I trust in him by faith his record becomes mine. And there Luther developed this phrase sola fide in Latin faith alone. Christ did it all. Simply putting faith in what Christ has done is what saves us.

Here he said here he said I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. Well meanwhile back over in Rome Pope Leo the Pope at the time wanted to finish a construction project he had begun on Saint Peter's Basilica. You can still see it in Rome today. But Pope Leo would run out of money and he needed to raise some money so he didn't do a multiply campaign. He started to sell indulgences. Now indulgences were basically merit tokens that you could buy from the church that would earn you extra credit for heaven. So the Pope sent out all these preachers throughout the Holy Roman Empire to preach these fiery sermons about hell and the rapture and get everybody scared so that they would buy indulgences to shore up their chances of getting into heaven.

Well while Luther is studying Romans and hearing these sermons it all starts to really take him off. And he said for example he said if the Pope has all this credit to give out and he really loves us why not just give it? Secondly he said and more importantly isn't the righteousness of Jesus Christ sufficient? And why would we have to go to purgatory to pay for our sin? Weren't Christ's sufferings for us complete? Didn't Jesus say it's finished?

Doesn't scripture say he put away sin once for all by the sacrifice of himself? And so he listed out these and a bunch of other grievances in a document that we now refer to the 95 theses and he nailed them to the door of the church in Wittenberg. Incidentally by the way he wrote them in Latin because he intended for them only to be read by the religious elite but they really struck a chord with the German people because all the German people resented the Pope putting this tax and this obligation on them.

It caught in Germany and it took off. Well the Catholic emperor Charles V learned about all this and so he wanted to put Luther to death as a heretic. The problem was that Luther had grown so popular among the Germans that King Charles couldn't do that without provoking a riot, at least without giving Luther a trial first. So he invited Luther to come recant his beliefs at something called the Diet of Worms. Well Luther gets the summons that he's got to meet King Charles and all these bishops at Worms and his statement he said well why do I need to go all the way to Worms to recant what I could just recant here in Wittenberg? If you really want me to recant to take back what I said then here you go. Previously I said that the Pope was a representative of Jesus now I say he is an apostle of the devil. That's my recantation.

That is actually what he said. He was spicy, let me tell you. So they bring Luther in to to Worms and they spread out before him his 95 theses and all of his other books in front of him and they demand that he recant. Luther, the story goes, witnesses say he got really quiet and he asked for a day that he could think about it. Which is kind of confusing because you're like I thought he was, you have to realize he thought he was going to die. He thought he would not recant and they would burn him at the stake the next day. So he just said I need some time to think about this and he goes back to his cell and he prays one of the most touching prayers that I've ever read in my life where basically he just says God I'm scared and I don't want to die but I know this is right but I'm not sure that I'm going to have the strength to do this. The next day Luther walks back into the courtroom.

It was even more packed than the day before. The king and all the princes and all the nobles were there and Luther they spread out the books before him and said Luther we demand that you recant these things. Luther says he says well first there are many things in these books that the church agrees with so I can't recant of those. At which point one of the bishops interrupted him and said Luther the question is do you insist that the church is in error for selling indulgences and are you continuing to hold to this ridiculous idea that the church and membership in the church and all these things are not necessary for salvation and that it's faith alone that's necessary for salvation. Are you really saying Luther that all these other church leaders are wrong and all these people throughout history have been wrong and that you Luther you alone are right.

Witnesses said that Luther got really really quiet for a minute and then finally he kind of looked up and looked the bishops in the eye and he said and I quote since you want a simple reply I will give you one without horns or teeth. Unless I am convinced by scripture and plain reason for I do not accept the conclusions of councils or popes because they contradict each other my conscience is held captive by the word of God. I cannot and I will not recant anything for to go against conscience is neither right nor safe. Here I stand I can do no other. God help me.

Amen. The courtroom at this point witnesses say just descended into chaos and Luther slipped out the back. Seriously King Charles had promised Luther safe conduct to Vermes and back as part of the deal to get in there so he had to let Luther walk out free but as soon as Luther left King Charles published what they call the edict of Vermes in which he declared that once Luther got back to Wittenberg anybody anywhere could kill him without punishment. So on the way home some local militia kidnapped Luther and Luther thought he was going to die but these turned out to be friends and they took him and hid him in a castle in Wortberg where for several years he lived in secret translated the Bible into common German and just wrote a bunch of books that we still have today.

You can visit the very cell where they kept him there at Wortberg. In fact there's a famous story about this cell where Luther says they believe he said he threw an inkwell at the devil and if you take a tour of it if you have a savvy tour guide they'll smudge some soot on the wall and they'll say here is the very spot where the inkwell exploded against the wall but what Luther actually said in German this is fascinating to me what Luther literally said was in this cell I thought the devil would ink and what he meant was not that he threw an inkwell at Satan but that he fought Satan by writing out the first ever translation of the New Testament into common German so that the people could read it because the word of God itself would do all the work. The problem was only the popes and only the priests had access to the word of God and he said everybody should have access to it. Not even Luther was expecting the impact this simple discovery would make. He later said I didn't mean to cause the reformation and I'm not the one who engineered it and I'm not the one who propelled it forward.

I simply translated the Bible and prayed and then sat back and drank a good pint of German beer while the word itself did all the work. Luther was a very colorful and deeply flawed individual but that's what he said. The reformation which was built on the idea that salvation came through faith alone in Christ began to spread like wildfire all throughout Europe as more and more preachers begin to translate the Bible into the common language. What followed were some of the bloodiest years in history.

Scholars say more Protestants died for their faith in the years following the reformation than all the Christian martyrs in early Rome. Yet they did it gladly. One historian at the time describes that he said no human being was able to take out of their hearts what they experienced. The fire of God itself burned within them. They would rather die 10 deaths than forsake the divine truth because they knew this was about eternity.

Some things are worth fighting for. Paul knew it. Martin Luther knew it. The gospel is worth fighting for in our day because again if we change it we cut ourselves off from the presence of Christ and we obscure God's saving power. There is no other gospel.

Jesus has done it all and it is only by faith in him that you and I are saved and have the power of new life. Paul is going to spend the last half of chapter one in Galatians explaining why he is so zealous about the gospel. And basically what he says is the gospel is the only place that you can experience Jesus. He's going to use himself as case in point. He's going to say only a real resurrected Christ with real power could have changed me. And if you tamper with the message you're going to lose the presence of God and cut yourself off from his power.

I've heard it described like this before. If you were dying of starvation and a rich person had compassion on you and said I'm going to give you access to my bank account and so here's my ATM card. You can go anytime you want. Take out any amount of money you want.

All my millions and millions and millions of dollars are yours. And you say well what is the what's the the pin number? And they said the pin number is 1973 the year that I was born.

And you uh you say oh that's going to be hard for me to remember. I was born in 1978 so that's the pin number I prefer to remember. The rich person would say well you can try to enter 1978 if you want but you're never going to have access to my money that way.

If you want my money you got to enter 1973. What Paul is saying is if you want access to the riches of Jesus Christ this is not a plan that you can edit. This is a plan that God gave and said this is the way that you get it.

It is by acknowledging that you have no power to save yourself and that you have no power to live the Christian life. That Jesus has done it all through his death and his resurrection and simply by believing that and resting the weight of your soul upon it will you experience the forgiveness and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. You see I'm glad Luther believed this.

I'm glad Paul believed this. I believe this and I want you to believe it and I want you to be willing to fight for it. Have you experienced this gospel? Are you fighting for this gospel? The end of the day this is what it's about. Are you experiencing the power that flows from this gospel alone?

It's a freedom worth fighting for. If you happen to join us late you can hear the full message online at jdgrier.com. Today's message is part of our new teaching series in Galatians called freedom in the in-between.

J.D. as your teachings through the bible show us it's important to have daily time in the word of God but what's the best approach to reading the bible and how does it grow our relationship with God? All right well you know when when you're when you're a young believer um the first thing you think is well then it should affect my behavior but what you've got to begin to see is that the bible is God's word that he it is living and active and he is using it to speak into your life so the promises you are unearthing are promises to you all the promises of God are yes in Christ Jesus.

The warnings some of them are going to apply to you at different times in your life more than others. My dad tells me he for years I always thought my dad was like the superhero Christian that never missed a day of quiet time and when I was um you know older he said no no he said uh I said I really struggled at the beginning he said but what changed is he said I realized that in the morning when I would get up and read the bible that God was more anxious to meet with me than I was to meet with him and he said when I got that understanding he said it changed because I began to want to hear from God through his word. You know what we want to do is is is provide you with resources here at Summit Life that will help facilitate that relationship. If Summit Life is about increasing your bible knowledge there's a lot of places that you can do that a lot of books but if we could help you know God better to serve him more faithfully and to love him and to know his love for you better that's that's our heart here at Summit Life and I think this resource is one of the best tools we've offered to help you do that so you can reserve a copy today just go to jdgrier.com we would love to do this and it would be our honor to be able to say that we helped you a little bit not just know more about God but actually know God better. We're so grateful for your support and this custom bible is our way of making our appreciation tangible. You can pick up where we are in the series or start at the beginning or give it away to someone who you think may need some encouragement in reading their bible.

The reading plan is focused on one book of the bible at a time. This Summit Life bible comes with our thanks when you donate today to support this ministry so that more people can dive into the message of the gospel with us on a daily basis. Give and request it when you call 866-335-5220. One more time that's 866-335-5220 or you can request this resource when you donate online at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vinovich inviting you to join us again next time when Pastor JD talks about a freedom that could only come from God. That's Thursday on Summit Life with JD Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by JD Greer Ministries.