Galatians 2:16

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Galatians — iconic scene

Service recording Sunday 27th September looking at Galatians.

Watch the service — 27 September 2026

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Chapters

Galatians 2:16

Scripture Readings

I want to read first the Scriptures from Psalm 143. This is God’s Word. Hear then what He has to say.

Hear my prayer, O Lord, give ear to my supplications! Answer me in Your faithfulness, in Your righteousness! And do not enter into judgment with Your servant, for in Your sight no man living is righteous. For the enemy has persecuted my soul; he has crushed my life to the ground; he has made me dwell in dark places, like those who have long been dead. Therefore my spirit is overwhelmed within me; my heart is appalled within me.

I remember the days of old; I meditate on all Your doings; I muse on the work of Your hands. I stretch out my hands to You; my soul longs for You, as a parched land. Answer me quickly, O Lord, my spirit fails; do not hide Your face from me, or I will become like those who go down to the pit. Let me hear Your lovingkindness in the morning; for I trust in You; teach me the way in which I should walk; for to You I lift up my soul.

Deliver me, O Lord, from my enemies; I take refuge in You. Teach me to do Your will, for You are my God; let Your good Spirit lead me on level ground. For the sake of Your name, O Lord, revive me. In Your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble. And in Your lovingkindness, cut off my enemies and destroy all those who afflict my soul, for I am Your servant.

The Lord be pleased to bless the reading, and also the understanding, of His Word today.

Please turn in your Bibles, or flick on your devices, to Galatians, chapter 2, verse 16, which is our text today. If you have neither, cast your eyes to the front, because Thomas has put it up there for us.

Nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, so that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the Law; since by the works of the Law no flesh will be justified.

Opening Prayer

Let’s pray and ask our Lord’s help as we open His Word and meditate on it together for a short time. Now Lord, we thank You for Your Word. We remember that it is not like any other book. We believe that it has been inspired by You, and so is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that we, Your people, will be equipped for all the good things that You give us to do for Your glory and for Your honour.

We pray, our Heavenly Father, that You’d be pleased to pour Your Spirit out upon us, and give us ears that can truly hear, and eyes and hearts of understanding, so that we might go from this place changed, never as we have been before. Continue to work in us to will and to work for Your good pleasure. We pray and ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Something Gone Wrong in the Church

The book of Galatians is written by the Apostle Paul, and on this particular occasion he has written it because something has gone wrong in the church. Well, how surprising is that? There’s always something going wrong in a church, isn’t there? The trouble with churches is there’s people in them, and people are not always right, and so we always have issues that we have to work through in the church.

The particular issue he is addressing is this. He has gone in and preached the gospel, the good news concerning Jesus Christ, and it has been received, thankfully, by the Galatians. But when he left, some other characters came in after him and said, “Now, this Apostle Paul is not what he was making himself out to be. And not only that, he’s been teaching you a false gospel. The gospel he has been preaching is a gospel that is separate from works. The gospel that we want to tell you about now is an improvement on the Apostle Paul’s gospel. Yes, faith in Jesus Christ is important, but we need to add some requirements to it, some law.”

And this, the Apostle Paul says, and we agree with him, is a terrible thing. Because, as he says in the text before us, a man is justified, that is, made just before God, not by the works of the law, or of any law in actual fact, but through faith in Christ Jesus. That’s the issue he’s dealing with.

Well, I said there are always problems in the church, and this church is no exception, because we have people, and people always disagree. Sometimes we need good contentious things, so that we can work through them and determine what is right and what is wrong, and that’s okay. But nevertheless, today we’re still dealing with a similar issue to the one the Apostle Paul is raising here with the Galatian church. The issue is that we often would not want to confess that we are saved by grace through faith alone. We would like to add some requirements to it.

Adding Requirements

There are many people that have got a wrong idea about the Christian faith, and I want to address some of those in our time together now.

There are those who think that if they live good lives in general, then they will be saved, and ultimately they’ll go to heaven when they die. In other words, if they don’t drink, if they don’t smoke, if they don’t abuse their wives, and if wives don’t beat up on their husbands, there’ll be a natural, automatic way to heaven. You’d be amazed how many people just think that.

There are others who are sure that if they keep the Ten Commandments, then they will be saved and go to heaven when they die. They’re thinking, “I didn’t steal anything, didn’t murder anyone, didn’t tell any lies, didn’t commit adultery. If I keep these sorts of things, then I’m going to go to heaven when I die.”

There are others who believe that if they are members of a certain church or denomination, they will be saved and go to heaven. I know many of you here well, and I know that your background is either Roman Catholic, or Presbyterian, or Baptist, or Pentecostal, or Orthodox. Those are the main ones I can think of, and if there’s something else, Methodists. If you’re a Methodist, perhaps, you might say, “Oh, well, I can go to heaven because I’m a Methodist. I belong to a particular denomination or church.”

There are yet others who think that if they have received or performed a religious act, such as what we’ve experienced today, baptism for instance, then they will be saved, and when they die they’ll be able to go to heaven. Either baptised as an infant, such as Killian today, or baptised as an adult by sprinkling, or perhaps by total immersion. They think that if you just keep one of these things, then that’s an automatic ticket, as it were, into heaven.

And then lastly, there are those who are sure that if they were fortunate enough to be born into a Christian family, or in a Christian country, or to have a Christian heritage, they’ll be saved and go to heaven when they die. We call that the West versus the rest, because most Western countries have a Christian heritage.

By Faith in Jesus Christ

The Apostle Paul teaches something completely different. He teaches that if a person is to be justified before God, that means to be right before God, and to be acceptable and pleasing to God, they must just believe and trust in Jesus as their Saviour. Faith in Jesus Christ, he says in our text, is the only way to get to heaven, to be saved, and to go on to live the life that He has promised to all those who are believers.

Not by living good lives, although it’s nice if you do live a good life. Not by keeping the Ten Commandments; it’s advisable to do so, because God has given them to us so that we might live good lives and be peaceable. Not by belonging to a particular church or sect. Not by being baptised, either as a child or as an adult. Not by being baptised by sprinkling, pouring, or immersion. Not by taking the communion, the Mass, or the Lord’s Supper, whatever you want to call it. Not by being born into a Christian family, and not by living in a certain country. To be saved is to be justified before God by faith in Jesus Christ.

What Is Saving Faith?

So when we say faith, it’s important that we explain what it is, because lots of people have faith. Some people had faith, up until a week or so ago, in the New Zealand Warriors. Now, that struck a chord, didn’t it? This was our year, and those of us that believed, believed it was our year. They had faith. We had faith.

Some people have faith in politics. We’ve got an election coming up. A lot of New Zealanders have got to the point now where we’ve sort of said, “Well, we don’t really know who’s in power, but is it going to make any difference?” But there are still some that believe politics is going to change the world. They have faith in that.

Some people have faith not in Christianity, but in other religions. There are people that follow a god called Allah who are willing to strap explosives around themselves and blow themselves up for the sake of their god. That is faith. The trouble is, it’s not saving faith. The only saving faith is faith that is in Jesus Christ.

Let me tell you why. Let me tell you why. Faith in Jesus Christ works in regards to our salvation because our faith is in the person of Jesus Christ, an historical, living man who happened to be God. He was the Son of Man, the Bible says; He was the Son of God; and He was God. And that’s why to put your faith and your hope in Him is the only sure way that we can be right before God.

For Jesus alone fulfilled the law of God. Jesus alone was the perfect sacrifice on the cross. That’s why we Christians are always singing about the cross, and about the blood of Jesus, and about His sacrifice. And that’s why we meet on a regular basis to partake of the wine and of the bread, because it reminds us of the gospel, the good news, that Jesus Christ not only preached with His lips, but preached with His life. A victorious resurrection from the dead was His lot, because He was God, that men might be delivered from the penalty of sin, the power of sin, and ultimately the presence of sin.

The Witness of Scripture

Ephesians 2:8-9, also written by the Apostle Paul, says this:

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, lest anyone should boast.

In Titus 3:5, again, the Apostle Paul teaches, “He saved us,” meaning Jesus saved us, “not because of deeds done by us in righteousness.” Not by keeping any law, or by belonging to any group, or by performing some sort of religious act. I’m not saying these things are unimportant, but I am saying they’re not going to save you. They’re not going to make you right before God. Only faith in Jesus Christ can make you right before God. Only faith. He saved us, he says, not because of deeds done by us in righteousness, but by virtue of His own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

And so our salvation, as he says again in Romans 9, doesn’t depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy.

If that is the case, what should we do about it? Well, the Gospel of John teaches us this: “But to all who received Him, who believed in His name, He gave the power to become children of God.”

As a Dying Man to Dying Men

Brothers and sisters, today can I speak to you as a dying man to dying men and women? If you are to be right before God for all of eternity, then it must be God who saves you by His grace, and the only way to attain that grace is for you to have faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

Behold, Jesus says, “I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me.” And again, the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

If you are here today and you think that just because you’re a good person, and many of you are good people, I’m sure; and just because you haven’t broken some commandment; and just because you’ve been the subject of, or performed, some religious act or sacrament; if that is what you’re depending on, then I would just encourage you today to think again.

Because as the psalmist says in Psalm 143, which we read, there is none righteous. There is no man living that is righteous. And if you are to be acceptable to God through the keeping of the law, then you must be 100% right before God, be obedient to God, and keep all of His law. And there’s no one here, man or woman, boy or girl, that can ever do that.

I’ve left you with no hope. I’ve left you with no hope but one thing: faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Make Him your Saviour today. Go home and think about the words that I’ve spoken. Make Him yours today, I pray, so that you might be justified before God. Don’t think that you can outwork it. Don’t think that you can outdo it. You can’t. And if you can’t, I’ve left you only one option if you want to be justified before God. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and don’t rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.

Closing Prayer

Let me pray for you. Father, again we thank You for the day that You’ve given us, and the blessing of being able to open up Your Word. We thank You, Lord, that even though we could not work our way to heaven, You made a way for us in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that is good news.

Because other than through Him, and other than believing and trusting in Him alone for our salvation and what He’s done for us, there is no way that we can be right with You. And we want to be right with You, God. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.