Perhaps you’ve heard about the two bowling teams that chartered a double-decker bus to go to Indianapolis for a tournament.  One team was in the bottom of the bus, and the other team was in the top of the bus.  The team down below was really whooping it up when one of them realized that he didn't hear anything from up on top.  Walking up the stairs, he saw all the guys from the second team clutching the seats in front of them with white knuckles, scared to death.  Surprise, he asked, “What in the world is going on?  We’re down here having a great time.”  One of the guys from the second team replied, “Yeah, but you guys have got a driver.”

Even though they were tremendously deluded, it would obviously take a great deal of faith to ride around in a bus without a driver.  Unfortunately, there are many people in our world today just like that.  They’re riding through life without a driver, putting their faith in all the wrong things – money, work, success, family, material possessions – you name it.  And sadly they are headed for a huge crash.

In essence, that was the message behind St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians.  Like the people on the bus, they too were tremendously deluded – deluded into thinking that they could somehow save themselves by their works.  In other words, they were putting their faith and confidence in the worst of all possible resources – themselves.  And the saddest part of it, is that one of the chief leaders in the church was unwittingly supporting it.  St. Paul tells us that Peter was suddenly refusing to eat with the Gentiles, because he was afraid of what the Jewish Christians might think.  And by doing so, he was giving the impression that unless you kept all the Jewish rituals and regulations you could not be saved. 

We refer to that kind of false thinking as ‘legalism.’  And simply put, legalism is trying to use the Law to justify yourself; that is, trying to save yourself by your works.  We might call it, the “Jesus And’ religion, saying that you have to believe in Christ AND do certain things in order to be saved.  For example, when you think that because you give a bigger offering than someone else that makes you a better person in God’s sight.  Or when you say that only those who practice their Christian faith the way that you do are truly right.  Or when you feel that you can somehow make up for some sin you’ve committed by being nice to someone, then that’s legalism – putting faith in ourselves and our works, instead of putting faith in Jesus Christ alone.

Well, that’s what Peter was doing by refusing to eat with the Gentiles, and that’s why St. Paul opposed him to his face, because as our text says:  “HE WAS CLEARLY IN THE WRONG.”  In fact, the Greek text actually says:  “He stood condemned.”  In other words, his own actions condemned him.  But my friends, the same is true for you and me.  When we judge others or try to cover up our wrongs with a show of piety our sinful actions also condemn us before God!  And as Paul told the Galatians in our text, such hypocrisy can lead other people astray, because we are not acting in line with the truth of the Gospel.

As a matter of fact, the phrase ‘not acting in line’ is the Greek word, orqopodousin from which we get our term ‘orthopedic.’  It literally means: ‘walking straight.’  And Paul’s point is that when we hypocritically try to make ourselves pleasing to God by our works, we wind up walking crookedly, straying off the path and heading straight for hell.  That’s because no amount of good deeds can make up for the wickedness our sinful human natured.  And in fact, even our best deeds are like filthy rags in God’s sight.  For as Paul put it in our text:  “WE KNOW THAT A MAN IS NOT JUSTIFIED BY OBSERVING THE LAW, BUT BY FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST. . . BECAUSE BY OBSERVING THE LAW NO ONE WILL BE JUSTIFIED.”

For that reason, dear friends, you and I need an orthopedic surgeon, someone who can repair our crooked ways, mend our sinful flaws and make us straight and upright in God’s eyes.  And that Someone is Jesus Christ our Savior.  He’s the One who came to do for us what we could not do for ourselves.  By His active obedience to God the Father, He kept every jot and tittle of the Law perfectly in our stead and now freely gives us that righteousness of His to cover up and blot out every sinful stain.  And by His passive obedience He suffered and died on the cross in our place to take away the punishment of hell and remove our guilt and shame once and for all.

That’s what St. Paul was getting at in our text, when he said that, “THROUGH THE LAW I DIED TO THE LAW SO THAT I MIGHT LIVE FOR GOD.”  He’s saying that Christ’s obedience to the Law by living, dying and rising again for us, is what has freed us from the curse of the Law.  The accusations and condemnation of the Law, which come from our sin, have now been executed and put to death forever, because of Jesus Christ our Savior.  And all of that is ours as a gift, not by works, but simply by faith in Jesus.

Martin Luther used to describe faith as being like glue, because it glues the heart to God’s promises.  And even that faith is not something that we do.  It’s a gift to us from God, given to us in our Baptism, where the Old Adam was drown with all his lusts and evil desires and a New Man was raised up to live with God forever.  Or as St. Paul put it in our text:  “I HAVE BEEN CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST AND I NO LONGER LIVE, BUT CHRIST LIVES IN ME.  THE LIFE I LIVE IN THE BODY, I LIVE BY FAITH IN THE SON OF GOD, WHO LOVED ME AND GAVE HIMSELF FOR ME.”  

In other words, the only way to truly live is by faith in Jesus Christ – not trusting in our own works to make us pleasing to God, not trying to cover up our sinful deeds by a show of piety, but daily confessing our sins to God, repenting of them and freely receiving His sweet forgiveness for Jesus’ sake.  For to do otherwise is to commit the greatest sin of all – insulting the grace of God.  And as Paul warns us in our text, we do not want to set aside the grace of God, because then Jesus would have died for nothing and our salvation would be in vain.

It’s rather interesting that in Greek the verb ‘set aside’ was used to refer to the grain inspector, who would reject any contaminated grain, because it was unfit for food.  Well, instead of doing that with the grace of God, that’s what we need to do with our own self-righteousness.  We need to daily reject and renounce the lies of Satan, which tell us that we can save ourselves by our own good works, for such contamination will only take us further away from God.  And instead we need to daily embrace God’s grace by reading and studying His Word, renewing our Baptism in confession and repentance, and partaking of the Holy Supper for the strengthening of our faith.

Most of us are familiar with the fate of the city of Pompeii on the Bay of Naples in Italy.  It was destroyed in 79 a.d. by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius.  During recent years the ruins of that city have been excavated.  There are numerous evidences that many tried to flee from the catastrophe.  But one man did not.  At the city gate was found the skeleton of a Roman guard.  There he had remained, both hands clutched about his weapon, while the very ground on which he stood trembled and the fiery ashes were gradually burying him.  After these many centuries, he was found faithfully at his post of duty.

What a wonderful illustration that gives us of Jesus’ faithfulness to you and me.  He too remained faithfully at His post, which was the cross of Calvary, where He died in our place so that we might escape the fires of God’s wrath and judgment.  He never wavered in His love for us and it is faithful commitment to you and me that enables us to remain faithfully committed to Him.  May that encourage us, then, to live our lives by faith in the Son of God, by being regularly in the Word and Sacraments and sharing His love with others.  For Jesus’ sake.  Amen.

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