How’s That Working for You? part 1 (by Dr. Bill Senyard on 01/20/13)

Due to technical difficulties we don’t have the audio from this sermon, but the text is included below.

Sanctity of Life Sunday (Jan 20, 2012)

Gal 2:15-3:15

 

Gal 2:15 “We who are Jews by birth and not `Gentile sinners’ 16 know that a man is not dikaio’d (justified) by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be dikaio’d (justified) by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be dikaio’d (justified). 17 “If, while we seek to be dikaio’d (justified) in Christ, it becomes evident that we ourselves are sinners, does that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! …21 I do not set aside the grace of God, for if dikaio (righteousness) could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” … 3:3 Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal [of dikaio] by human effort?… Gal 3:6 Consider Abraham: “He believed God, and it was credited to him as dikaio (righteousness).” …8 The Scripture foresaw that God would dikaio (justify) the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you… 11 Clearly no one is dikaio’d (justified) before God by the law, because, “The dikaio (righteous) will live by faith.” 21 Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then dikaio (righteousness) would certainly have come by the law… 24 So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be dikaio’d (justified) by faith. (NIV)

 

Today, I want to accomplish two things.  First I want to kick off the third of four series in Paul’s remarkable letter to the Galatians—and to us.  I am calling the series, “So, How’s That Working for You?”  I want to be a bit humorous—though the topic is very serious.  Galatians is Paul’s rebuttal to those religious moralists who came into the region and were telling the young Christians in Galatia what they need to do so that God would bless them, so that they would feel God’s favor—what they needed to do so that their spiritual life would just take off.  We suffer from the same temptations—to define what we need to do in order that our spiritual life would just take off.

 

That leads me to the second goal this morning.  For Paul, at the heart of the dialogue

is the Greek concept dikaio.  In the section between 2.15 and 3.15 Paul directly or indirectly uses the root dikaio 12xs.[1]  One of the problems for us is that we have difficulty in English translating dikaio consistently; i.e., just, justified, right, righteous.    Unfortunately, each of these has certain English connotations– that may or may not be included in the Greek.  “To be justified” really does carry a different English connotation than “to be righteous.”

 

The Hebrew equivalent to dikaio is even further removed from its English counterparts.  Tsaddiq is a very relational word.  The ‘righteous’ person is one who is selfless, community minded, willing to give up time, money effort on behalf of others.  To do right for others though it costs them.

 

For Paul and the Bible, whatever this is, dikaio is at the heart of our Christian life.  We receive it by faith at the beginning of our new birth (2:15).  And this is not based on anything inherently good (or righteous) in us at all!   It is not given to us on the basis of anything that we do (2:16)!  It is ‘given to us’ or ‘done to us’ by God (3:8).  It is clearly linked to our faith, at the beginning and ongoing (3:11).  It is linked to Christ’s perfect life and perfect death—not ours.  One of the most difficult aspects of dikaio is that we are because of Jesus, fully dikaio and yet still long to feel more dikaio.

 

So briefly, this morning, I will discuss the two biblical aspects of dikaio/tsaddiq (see the diagram)—then the necessary fruit of such dikaio in us– and then look at the concept related to the issue of right to life/right to choice.  Dikaio/tsaddiq has both an individual/personal and relational component.

 

Personal/Individual

Dikaio/Tsaddiq describe a sense of personal rightness, a being right, being whole.  A while back, I came across an advertisement for a new health spa.  I was struck by their description of the perceived needs of their clientele.  “Regain vitality and health.  Let our certified staff change your life forever.”  They are hitting some of the hotspots.  Wellness, vitality, needing a life change.  Some of you probably are fishing for a pen now to catch the name and address.  The benefits sound good, don’t they?  You walk around all messed up, all wrinkled and un-coifed—just not right.  And they magically will make you feel right—and everyone will see you and say—“Wow that person sure looks right to me!”

 

A man went shopping with his wife.  He sat through dress after dress after dress never knowing exactly what his wife was looking for— particularly when she asked him, “Well how does it look.”.  He paid attention to other more seasoned husbands until he finally got it together.  The next dress was put on… She asked, “How does it look?”.  He began— “Fantastic, the dress makes you look taller and slimmer, it enhances your tiny waist and the color really shows off your eyes.”  And from the changing room, three other voices, “We don’t know what the dress looks like, but we’ll take one too!”

 

You know, these things seem so universal that advertisers make a bundle packaging looks, sayings, and feelings. But in Bible-speak the ads for the health club could say, “Come and be justified!”  Nobody, apart from churched people, and not even many of us would actively get up some morning, look around, and say, “Hey, you know what I need today is justification!”  Or, “I could sure use some righteousness today.”  But this is exactly the very thing you and I need… and as much as we can stand.

 

To be dikaiod means that through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, we have been made right.  We have been given great glory that we did not deserve or earn.  We have been given all the celestial blessings that Jesus deserves.  They are ours.  Through no effort of our own, we are full-card-carrying children of God, forever—we can’t mess it up.  We have been made right.  I don’t always believe it functionally, but by faith, I can remember, re-experience my new right today, tomorrow, etc.  Lance Armstrong needs personal dikaio.

 

 

Relational

We use the phrase after an argument or a misunderstanding, “Are we good?”  Someone had said something, or done something and things went bad.  Party 1 did not feel comfortable with Party 2, maybe angry, maybe afraid, maybe ashamed?  The relationship is broken and in disrepair.  Biblically it is not right.  On the Cross, Jesus singlehandedly “righted” my relationship with God.  I am now right with God—He is right with me.  Boom.  Because I am dikaio’d, God can only look upon me with perfect favor—all the time.  He loves me.  Hey, He even likes me.  It is done.

 

Now we can see what the legal term “justified” is all about.  It has a legal connotation in English.  Here’s the idea.  In order to repair my relationship with him God legally paid for all of my relationship-destructive choices and actions.  Because of Jesus’ death on the cross, there is nothing that would cause God (I am speaking humanly here) to avoid me, withdraw his favor, or to turn away.  He freely has drawn near to me—nothing in the way.  The cross also provides a mechanism for me to get rid of my shame and guilt, so that I can freely and boldly draw near to God.  So to be justified does indeed mean that I am legally right with God.  But better, because of the justification accomplished by Jesus on the cross, I am relationally right with God.

 

 

The necessary fruit of my being filled with the dikaio of Jesus is that I will be concerned with the right of others

So Biblically, the necessary fruit of being made right, and being in a living relationship with God is that I will necessarily feel differently toward other people.  Dikaio and Tsaddiq refer to how you treat others.  A good example of a righteous person would be Boaz in the story of Ruth.  In the first scene, we see Boaz caring for the poor.  It was Jewish law that the harvesters weren’t to harvest everything, but to leave corners so that the impoverished could harvest grain.  But Boaz goes even further and instructs the harvesters to purposely leave even more grain unharvested.  He is a righteous man.  He is very willing to give up his assets, his wealth for the sake of the poor.  He does the same thing with Ruth.  He gives up his name, inheritance for his own family etc—for the sake of a tragic woman.

 

Throughout the Bible God’s people were commanded to care for the helpless, the poor, the widows, the exposed.  This is the fruit of righteousness.  The mind of Christ is the essence of righteousness.  In Phil 2, we are told that Jesus gave up his rights for the sake of the helpless—you and me.  This is the very nature of God.  God’s holiness, we are told in Isaiah, is fleshed out in His righteousness toward ‘other.’  Isa 5:16 says, “the holy God will show himself holy by his righteousness.”  Meaning, that God’s holiness is on display when He does stuff for others.  The very bent of our God is toward others.  Our flesh—even our redeemed flesh heart is naturally self-serving.  But the Spirit in our new heart is naturally other-serving.

 

The Christian life is less measured according to how you are doing, how well you are obeying law, or feeling good about yourself.  These are good things—but impotent really.  The Christian life is measured by the presence of the necessary fruit of Christ’s rightness in your heart which is that you care for others over yourself, more and more.  Do you feel miraculously different toward your neighbors, toward your family, your community, in particular the hard to love folk?  It would be obvious to others.  Jesus put it, “They will know you are Christians by your love (for them).”  Or is your Christianity all about you—your sense of spirituality, your healing, your well-being or entertainment?  This year one of our emphases as a community is this—“Its not all about you!”  That is a powerless unsatisfying Christianity—more reflective of modern American consumerism than the sacrificial love of Christ.

 

So now let me apply this to the right to choice/right to life discussion among Christians.

A spirit filled mother who is an adopted child of God, who, by faith, is overflowing with Christ’s righteousness would naturally be miraculously motivated to die for the child in her womb.

 

Look, I wonder if we have let the debate stray from our place of strength.  While I support legislation to protect the life of the unborn child, it is not our strongest strategy Biblically.  It is not.  Look, a pregnant mother who has accessed dikaio from God, will feel dikaio toward her child.  They will, as Christ would, be deeply empowered and motivated to die in their child’s place.  They would be miraculously motivated to deeply sacrifice all so that the child would not only live, but thrive.  You can’t legislate that.

 

By the way, imagine with me that pregnant mom, who is being advised to abort her child in the midst of overwhelming emotional, financial, health, family, or societal reasons. If she is filled to the fullness with the righteousness of Christ, none of those real issues would matter to her more than her desire to protect the child no matter what it costs her.  I want to be very sensitive to circumstances.  There can be deeply severe situations that would argue for other paths.  I get that.   All I am saying is that Christ’s righteousness bears fruit of sacrifice.  Look, this would be the case, even if the child were tragically conceived by rape or incest.  Horrible.  But Christ’s righteousness in the mother would focus on the well-being of the child—over her own.  The common line from the right to choice crowd is this “But it’s my biody, I have a right to choose!”  No doubt there is some real truth there.  But if she were at that moment by faith filled with the dikaio of Jesus, she would be powerfully motivated to give up all her rights for the sake of the baby.  Right?

 

Imagine with me if the father was filled with such a Spirit as well.  He would be willing to sacrifice his own life for the sake of the mother and the child.  Imagine if the community or church that surrounded them were filled with such an external Christ-righteousness.  The community would be willing to sacrifice their comfort and finances and time for the well-being of the father, the mother and the child.  This is the love that Jesus taught that would mark his followers.  It is obvious, in-sync with God, out-of-sync with a fallen world.

 

You can’t legislate that [pause].  In fact, I think that strategically this proclamation of good news, happens more one-on-one.  We speak this gospel to individuals, boys and girls, men and women so much that when such things occur, they know first to run to God to be filled with His Spirit, to get in sync with His heart for her child.  We don’t tell the mother that God will withdraw His favor if she has the abortion.  Not possible.  There are other consequences of course—not to mention the death of the baby.  But our approach is to encourage her to run to Jesus and be filled with His sense of personal dikaio, relational dikaio and the necessary miraculous fruit of bring filled with dikaio by faith would be surprising stunning love for others over love for herself.  This is our place of strength.  This is the gospel.

 

What would be some opposites of dikaio—things that might come from us when we fail to run to God by faith and access His dikaio?  (selfishness)  Much of the Freedom of Choice (not all) but much is pure selfishness.

 

I am not saying this out of judgment.  I totally understand selfishness, and clinging to my rights.  My heart does it all the time.  I need the dikaio of Christ right now too.  Our choice then is that we can merely rely on legislation—or we can teach people to run to Jesus to get a new heart with new motivation to love and sacrifice for others.  This is far better.  So let’s do lean into legislating protection for the helpless among us.  That is important and must be done.  But, it is ultimately powerless against selfishness.  The gospel is not powerless.  That’s all I’m saying.