There is often a gap between how we feel about our standing with God, and what God has told us in the Gospel. He has declared us to be righteous, he has declared us to be his beloved children, he has declared us to be heirs with Christ. But rarely do we feel that this is the case. One of the great secrets of the Christian life, then, is learning to live upon the truth of who God has declared you to be in Christ, even when you don’t feel that it is true. This means we must preach these Gospel truths to our own souls. Pastors must learn this self-Gospel proclamation for themselves, and we must teach it to our people when their consciences are troubled and tormented.

It would be difficult to improve on Luther’s counsel, commenting on Galatians 5:5, “For through the Spirit, by faith, we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness.”

“This is a great comfort for afflicted and troubled consciences, which feel their sin and are frightened at every arrow of the devil. The feeling of sin, the wrath of God, death, hell, and all other terrors is wonderfully strong in the conflict of the conscience, as I myself know from experience. The poor person who is afflicted must be counseled as follows:

‘You want to have an awareness of your justification; that is, you want to feel God’s favor, as you do your own sin. But that will not happen. Your righteousness ought to surmount all feeling of sin; that is, your righteousness or justification, to which you cling, is not based on your own feeling but on hoping that it will be revealed when the Lord chooses. So you must not judge by the feeling of sin that troubles and terrifies you, but by the promise and doctrine of faith, by which Christ is promised to you as your perfect and everlasting righteousness. Thus the hope of the afflicted, residing in our inner feelings, is stirred up by faith, in the midst of terrors and feelings of sin – the hope that we are righteous. Moreover, what we do not see now, we hope in time will be made perfect and clearly revealed.’”

Martin Luther, Galatians. Crossway Classic Commentaries (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1998), 250

Preaching through Galatians means the Gospel-joy of the Reformation lasts as long as the pastor’s sermon series does! Paul instructs us in Galatians 5:1, “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” But what exactly does it look like to “stand firm” in our freedom? How do we do this when we are assailed by the condemnation of Satan? Martin Luther’s classic comment on Galatians 5:2 shows us the way:

Look, I, Paul say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. (Gal 5:2)

“Let us bear this in mind when the devil accuses and frightens our conscience, attempting to drive us to despair. He is the father of lying and the enemy of Christian freedom; he torments us every moment with false fears, so that when our conscience has lost this Christian freedom, it will feel remorse for sin and condemnation and always remain in anguish and terror. When that great dragon – that old snake, the devil – comes and tells you that not only have you done no good, but you have also transgressed God’s law, say to him, “You are troubling me with the memory of my past sins; you are also reminding me that I have done no good. But this is nothing to me, for if I either trusted in my own good deeds or feared because I have done no such deeds, Christ would in either case be of no value to me at all. I rest only in the freedom Christ has given me. I know he is of value to me, and so I will not make him of no value, which I would be doing if I either presumed to purchase favor and everlasting life for myself by my good deeds or despaired of my salvation because of my sins.”

I spent some time meditating on Psalm 28 before our prayer meeting last week, and was particularly struck by verses 7-9, where David twice identifies the Lord with his strength: “The Lord is my strength and my shield” (:7) and “The Lord is the strength of his people.” (:8) This is one of those Bible phrases that I am familiar with and tend to hurry past all too quickly, so I intentionally stopped to slowly consider the beauty and power of this image of God as our strength.

The significance of the confession might best be considered first by way of contrast. What might we normally consider to be our “strength”? David here is a king, an ancient, near-eastern autocrat with a scepter and a sword. We might expect any other man in such a position to boast in his own strength – his military expertise, his chariots and weapons of warfare, the vast armies he commands, the impenetrable walls of his citadel. Think of Goliath mocking the people of Israel, the Assyrian Rabshakeh taunting Hezekiah, or Nebuchadnezzar puffed up over the grandeur of his kingdom in Babylon. But we find a very different picture here: we find a king on his knees. He is crying out in complete dependence at the beginning of the psalm, “To you, O Lord, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest, if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit.” (28:1) He then moves to cry out for the Lord to establish his justice, and to deal with the enemies who pursue his life (28:3-5). Finally, he rests in the God who has heard his prayer and says, “The Lord is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped . . . The Lord is the strength of his people, he is the saving refuge of his anointed.” (28:7)

And so we find a striking image of a king confessing his own weakness, and finding his strength in the Lord. And the more we think about it, this is a theme that runs straight through Scripture. The people of God are weak, but the Lord is their strength.

Consider the words of Israel’s praise song on the other side of the Red Sea. After they have stood helplessly by while the Lord conquered their Egyptian enemies, this company of trembling, escaped slaves sing out, “The Lord is my strength, and my song, and he has become my salvation; this is my God and I will praise him, my father’s God and I will exalt him.” Exodus 15:2 Later, in Psalm 84:5, we read, “Blessed are those whose strength is in you.” It is when the people of God find their strength in the Lord that they are called blessed.

We find the same truth in the New Testament. The church at Corinth loves to boast in human strength and human wisdom. But the apostle Paul tells them that this attitude is completely contrary to the Gospel. While the world celebrates the strong and the wise, God’s has deliberately chosen the weakest of people to comprise his church: “For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God.” 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 God’s people are weak so that his strength may be displayed, and so that none may boast in his presence.

But perhaps this truth is most powerfully pressed home in Paul’s second letter to the arrogant church at Corinth. After alluding to a glorious experience of Heaven he received, Paul describes a “thorn in the flesh” that was assigned to him. Whatever this mysterious burden may have been, we know that it marked Paul out as a man of weakness. Three times the great man of God cried out for the Lord to remove the thorn from him. This is a reasonable request; what weak man does not want his strength to be restored to its fullness? But this is the reply he received: “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” And so Paul teaches us, “Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:9-10

It should not surprise us, then, when God’s people do not look very strong, or feel very strong. It should not surprise us when we regularly feel that we have completely exhausted our own resources, and are left feeling weak and helpless. Could it not be that God then has us exactly where he wants us to be, that we might see that “the Lord is the strength of his people”? Could it not be that it is precisely then that the Lord demonstrates to us and to the watching world that his grace is sufficient for us, for his power is made perfect in our weakness?

I think this is an important truth of which we should remind our hurting people, whose health is breaking, whose family members are rejecting the Gospel, whose jobs are constantly in jeopardy. I think this is an important reminder before a prayer meeting, when a weak people come before a strong Father and cast their burdens upon him. And I think that it is an important reminder for this pastor, who so often feels perplexity and discouragement in the work of Gospel ministry. I do not often feel very strong, and Scripture tells me there is a reason for that.

I’m not.

But the Lord is the strength of his people.

Finally, be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of his might. Ephesians 6:10

I really appreciated this post last week from Nashville pastor Ray Ortlund, who asked the question, “What if Nashville went in for therapy – and found out the counselor was Jesus?” I copied the whole post below. Thank you, Pastor Ortlund. This is solid Gospel comfort for a weary, performance-driven society:

Nashville: I’m tired. Really tired. Especially tired of failing and then covering it up with a smile.

HT: Isaiah the prophet

For God’s children, the result of receiving grace is freedom, a life of joyful liberty springing from the assurance that God’s condemnation toward us has forever been put away by Christ. Paul tells us that our status has changed from slaves, who live in constant fear that God will cast us out of his presence because of our failure to keep the law, to beloved sons, who remain in the house forever by virtue of our identity in Christ.

The problem with all this – the Gospel, adoption, freedom – is that we don’t believe its true. It seems too good to be true, at least for us. So rather than resting in grace and the sufficiency of Christ, we feel on much safer ground trying to earn God’s favor by feverishly striving to keep the law. We “want to be under the law,” and “want to be its slaves once more.” (Gal 4:21a, 4:9) The result is that on the days when we feel good about our law-keeping, we swell with pride, sure that God loves us more, but  on the days when we fail, we are plunged into despair, because we’re sure it’s all over for us. So the sons of God, who have been set free by Christ, have willingly returned to a life of slavery under the law. (Gal 4:8-10)

Paul tells us that this problem is nothing unusual, and that we must make daily work of fighting for our freedom: “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.” (Gal 5:1) Here’s Luther:

“This freedom is not given us by the law or because of our righteousness, but freely for Christ’s sake. Paul says this throughout the whole letter. Christ also, in John 8:36, “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” Only he comes between us and the evils that trouble and afflict us; he has overcome them and has taken them away, so that they cannot oppress or condemn us anymore. Instead of sin and death, he gives us righteousness and everlasting life; and in this way he changes the slavery and terrors of the law into freedom of conscience and the consolation of the Gospel (Matthew 9:2).

Reason cannot grasp how wonderful this is. When we consider it spiritually, we see that it is inestimable to have God merciful and favorable forever. It is impossible for people who seek to win heaven, life, and salvation by their own actions and merits to know what freedom and deliverance from sin is. But our freedom is founded on Christ himself, seated at God’s right hand and interceding for us. Therefore, the forgiveness of sins, righteousness, life, and freedom that we have through him are sure, certain, and perpetual. If we cling to Christ with steadfast faith and stand firm in the freedom he has given us, we shall obtain those inestimable gifts; but if we are careless and negligent, we shall lose them in some way. It is not without cause that Paul tells us to watch and stand firm, for he knew that the devil seeks nothing more than to despoil us of this freedom that cost Christ so much and to burden us again by his ministers with slavery.”

Martin Luther, Galatians. The Crossway Classic Commentaries (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1998), 243.

What freedom? Not the freedom given us by the emperor, but that with which Christ has made us free – freedom from God’s everlasting wrath. And where is this done? In the conscience. Our freedom stays there and goes no further, for Christ has made us free, not civilly, not physically, but divinely; that is to say, we are made free in such a way that our conscience is free and quiet, not fearing God’s future wrath. This is true and inestimable freedom, and if we compare its majesty with the other sorts, those others are like one drop of water compared with the whole sea. Who can describe our state when we are assured in our heart that God neither is nor will be angry with us, but will forever be a merciful and loving Father to us for Christ’s sake.

Martin Luther, Galatians. The Crossway Classic Commentaries (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 1998), 241.

Sill thinking about grace, I’ve found the ministry of Steve Brown helpful over the past couple of weeks. I had heard his name mentioned by a church member who catches him on the radio often, and then ran across him again on The Gospel Coalition resources page. I was intrigued by the title of a course of his available for download, “Grace in the Church,” and thought it would be beneficial for pastoral ministry in general, and preaching through Galatians in particular. It just so happened that my wife was away for a week visiting her grandfather on the east coast, providing me with ample opportunity to listen to sermons around the house. By the end of the week, I had completed the whole course and had gained much.

Brown’s emphasis is on the “radical grace” of God to sinners, and the freedom that believers are called to enjoy as sons and daughters of God. Some of the statements he makes about the extent of our freedom sound somewhat edgy at first listen, and have brought a great deal of criticism his way, even accusations of antinomianism. But while I regularly found myself challenged by his words, and still may differ from him here and there, I do not think he is an antinomian. And I know that his message of grace is just what the doctor ordered for this uptight, legalistic soul. Brown was a PCA pastor for over 25 years, and now teaches at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando. He is perhaps most widely recognized for his radio ministry, “Key Life,” and for the numerous books he has authored. He has the ideal voice for preaching, and is lots of fun to listen to.

I picked out one sermon of Brown’s to recommend that speaks to the theme of grace. It is creatively delivered, weaving in the truths of Psalm 130 with the story of John Wesley’s conversion. I enjoyed it, and think you will too.

We have been thinking about God’s grace a great deal lately as we work through Galatians on Sunday mornings, and especially as we approach Reformation Day. Earlier this year I read John Bunyan’s Saved by Grace, an extended meditation on Ephesians 2:5, “By grace you have been saved.” If you ever need a heart-warming reminder that our salvation is completely by the grace of our Triune God, you could not do much better than this treatise by Bunyan! Here in one of my very favorite quotes, Bunyan exalts the grace of God by contemplating the countless daily sins that must be pardoned by grace.

But see yet more grace. I will speak here of heart-wanderings, and of daily miscarriages – I mean, of these common infirmities that are incident of the best saints, and that attend them in their best performances; not that I intend, for I cannot, to mention them particularly, that would be a task impossible; but such there are, worldly thoughts, unclean thoughts, too low thoughts of God, of Christ, of the Spirit, words, ways, and ordinances of God, by which a Christain transgresses many times; may I not say, sometimes many hundred times a day; yea for aught I know, there are some saints, and them not long-lived either, that must receive, before they enter into life, millions of pardon from God for these; and every pardon is an act of grace, through the redemption that is in Christ’s blood.

(Works of John Bunyan, Vol I, 353)

Jesus, thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress;
‘Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head.

Bold shall I stand in thy great day;
For who aught to my charge shall lay?
Fully absolved through these I am
From sin and fear, from guilt and shame.

When from the dust of death I rise
To claim my mansion in the skies,
Ev’n then this shall be all my plea,
Jesus hath lived, hath died, for me.

Jesus be endless praise to thee,
Whose boundless mercy hath for me -
For me a full atonement made,
An everlasting ransom paid.

O let the dead now hear thy voice;
Now bid thy banished ones rejoice;
Their beauty this, their glorious dress,
Jesus, thy blood and righteousness.

Count Nikolaus Ludwig Von Zinzendorf, 1739 (Trans. John Wesley, 1740)

Quoted in Wayne Grudem, Systematic Theology: An Introduction to Bible Doctrine. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 735.

We are continuing to work through our confession of faith on Sunday evenings here, and just in time for Reformation Sunday, we have arrived at Article 5: “Justification.” Providential! I was reading from Boyce’s Theology in preparation, and was struck by his introduction and definition of justification:

“No doctrine of Scripture is more important than that of justification. It involves the whole method of salvation of sinners. It is vitally connected with all other fundamental doctrines. A correct conception of it cannot exist when other truths are ignored, or only partially received. The opinions held upon this point control in great part the theological views in general of all Christian individuals and parties. The importance of a correct knowledge of what God has taught on this subject cannot therefore be exaggerated.

“The discussion of this doctrine will be best presented by a definition of the word Justification, accompanied by a proof of the several elements involved in that definition.

“Justification is a judicial act of God, by which, on account of the meritorious work of Christ, imputed to a sinner and received by him through that faith which vitally unites him to his substitute and Saviour, God declares that sinner to be free from the demands of the law, and entitled to the rewards due to the obedience of that substitute.”

(James P. Boyce, Abstract of Systematic Theology. 1887, republished 2006 by Founders Press, 394-395)