Zion Lutheran Church

Biggest Loser
Galatians 2:16

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The text for this morning’s sermon is from the epistle lesson: “We know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ” (Galatians 2:16 ESV). Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.

When you stop and think about it, the church has a lot in common with the television show “Biggest Loser.” In “Biggest Loser” people who are overweight—significantly overweight—come to get help with their problem. They come because they’ve not been able to help themselves change their behaviors, and so they agree to go on television in exchange for having a personal coach encourage them, cajole them, inspire them, scare them, and otherwise push them into changing the way they eat and the amount of exercise they do. The winner of the show is the one who had the most to lose. In other words, if you win the show “Biggest Loser,” you are admitting you were significantly overweight. In church, on the other hand, people who can’t live rightly come to get help with their problem. They come because they’ve not been able to help themselves change their behaviors, and so they submit to having God help them solve their problem through the preaching of his Word and through the sacraments. The best Christian is the one who had the most sins to be forgiven. In other words, if you claim to be a good Christian, you are admitting you had a significant sin problem, and there was nothing you could do about it on your own.

That’s not always the way we think about church. Sometimes we go just the opposite direction. For example, isn’t it awful easy to look at someone else and think, “Gee, I wonder what they did wrong that their kids turned out that way.” In other words, “My kids turned out alright, so I must have raised them right, and that shows how good a Christian parent I am.” With that you set yourself above other people, and with that you set yourself above the forgiveness which Christ won on the cross. Isn’t it awful easy to look at someone else and think, “Man, what have they done wrong that all this stuff is going wrong in their lives.” In other words, “If you live your life right, you won’t have any major difficulties in life, and I’m having fewer difficulties than that person, so I must have lived better than that person.” And with that you have set yourself above other people, and with that you set yourself above the need for the forgiveness which Christ won. You see how easy it is for us to look at those who are sinning and those who are suffering and imagine that somehow we’ve done better? That somehow we are better Christians? In that moment you set yourself against the words of Scripture: “we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ” (Galatians 2:16 ESV).

This passage of Galatians in particularly complicated—even for Paul’s letters. However, it is also rich and full of wonderful preaching for you and me. If you would like to read along, we’re going to go through verse by verse beginning at verse 15.

“We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified” (Galatians 2:15-16 ESV). This verse flows out of words that Paul had spoken to the Apostle Peter when the two got into a tiff in Antioch. Peter had come down to Antioch, and in the spirit of the Gospel, he sat down at table and ate with all the Christians there—Gentiles as well as Jews. Then a certain faction from the Jerusalem church came, and Peter stopped eating with the Gentiles, sending the message that salvation comes through faith in Christ when we keep the Old Testament laws. So Paul takes him to task. He says, “Look, Peter, you and I are Jews. Yet even though we are Jews, who received the whole law in the five books of Moses, you and I understand that we are not forgiven and saved by keeping that law. That is why we believe in Jesus: because we are saved through faith in him. So it’s wrong to give the impression that Christians have to keep all the Old Testament laws.”

“But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not!” (Galatians 2:17 ESV). Here Paul seems to respond to an accusation made against his theology. It’s as if the faction from Jerusalem said, “If you are saved through faith alone without keeping the law of Moses, then you can go on sinning by breaking the law of Moses, and that makes Christ contribute to sin.” It’s sort of like the accusation people make against Lutherans: “If you are saved by grace alone through faith alone for the sake of Jesus Christ alone, then you can just go on sinning.” Is that true? In Paul’s words, “Certainly not!”

“For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor” (Galatians 2:18 ESV). Imagine that your neighbor comes knocking on your door one evening, and he’s holding your mailbox, which is pretty well destroyed, and he says, “I’ll get you a new one and put it up for you.” What do you suppose happened? You suppose that he ran it over. When he offers to put it back up, he’s admitting that he knocked it down in the first place. It’s the same with forgiveness. When you come to church seeking God’s help with your sins, you are admitting that you are a sinner. People who don’t see their sin have no need for Jesus. People who don’t see their sin have no need for forgiveness. If you were a good Christian parent and that’s why your children turned out well, then you don’t need God’s forgiveness for your failings as a parent. If you had a strong enough faith that bad things didn’t happen to you, then you don’t need God to give you faith or protect you. As Paul says in verse 21, “If justification were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose” (Galatians 2:21 ESV). By coming to church for forgiveness, you are admitting that you messed up.

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20 ESV). It’s one thing for God to point out your sins. You know you’re sinners. If you’re married, you know you’re a sinner. If you’re an adult, you remember what you put your parents through; you know you’re a sinner. If you come and listen to God’s word here or read the Scriptures, you know you’re a sinner. But here’s the good news: Jesus Christ loved you so much that he gave himself for you. He didn’t just shell out a few bucks to rescue you. He didn’t just give up a few years of his life to redeem you. He gave himself for you. He gave everything he had. He gave up his life to rescue and redeem you because he loves you. I think you could even say that Jesus acted like the biggest loser ever in order to redeem you and me, who are awful big losers. He died on the cross as if he were a sinner. He removed the curse from you by becoming a curse for us, so that we can have the blessing of salvation that was promised to Abraham, so that you and I can become children of God, although we are disobedient little children. Jesus did all this for you. And so, even though when you look at your life, you see sin if you really take your behavior seriously, you can live by faith, by the faith that says, “Your savior died on a cross, and so God no longer see you as guilty but as innocent.” You don’t have to look at your works anymore—you should stop looking at your works if you want to know how good a Christian you are, because when you look at your works you are relying on your works, and it says in Galatians 3:10, “For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.’” And this applies not only to the books of Moses, but to all the laws that God gives us. Yes, we are to keep the laws that God gave us, but keeping the laws does not save us, because cursed is everyone who does not keep them. If you think, “Wow, Jesus saved me, so if I keep the ten commandments from here on out, I’m saved,” that’s sort of like saying, “Gee, I lost 150 pounds, so I’ve been thin my whole life.” No you haven’t. You had to have had that 150 pounds to lose if you lost 150 pounds. In the same way, a good Christian is one who had plenty of sins for God to forgive in Christ. The good news is that God became man. The one who has all the riches of heaven pours them out on you and me. He emptied himself on the cross so that his blood cleanses you from all your sins. The best Christian is the one who had the most sins to lose. Are you proud of that? Think about this, “God loves me more than you because I was the worst sinners, so I must be special.” That’s not how it works.

Jesus brought that point home in this morning’s Gospel lesson. Jesus goes to the home of a Pharisee named Simon. Pharisees believed they could keep the law of God and by keeping it, God’s grace would continue toward them. Jesus arrives, and as soon as he arrives, a woman comes and begin to cry on his feet, and she takes her long hair and wipes Jesus’ dusty feet. Then she brings out a jar of perfume and pours it on his feet. Simon says to himself, “If Jesus were a prophet, he’d know she is a sinner.” Jesus responds, “Simon, I have something to say to you. There was a mortgage company, and there were two guys with mortgages—one owed $420,000 on a house worth $180,000, and the other owed about $30,000. That mortgage company forgave both debts. So, which one likes the mortgage company more, Simon?” “I guess the one who was forgiven more.” “That’s right, Simon. You think you don’t have many sins to be forgiven. That’s why you don’t treat me with love and respect. This woman—you’re right, she’s a sinner, probably worse than you. But because she has been forgiven much, she loves much. Simon, when you begin to put yourself above her and think you’re somehow better, when you begin to think that she’s the biggest loser, then you’re putting yourself above God’s love, which forgives sinners. You’re right, she is the biggest lost, but that makes her the best Christian.

And there, my dear friends, you have the great irony of the Christian faith. The best Christian has the least to brag about, because the best Christian was the biggest loser. The best Christian is the one who lost the most sin in Christ’s forgiveness, and let’s face it, having the most sin to have forgiven is hardly a distinction worth taking pride in. By sitting here today, you are confessing that you are the biggest loser. More than that, my dear friends, by sitting here today and believing in Jesus Christ, you are also confessing that God no longer looks at your sins, because Christ gave his life on the cross. You although you are the biggest loser, you are forgiven. The blessing that God promised through Abraham, the blessing of being a child of God, comes to you—not by how you live, but through faith in Christ, who loved you and gave himself up for you. So yes, each one of you is the biggest loser. But because Christ died as the biggest loser, each one of us wins this contest. Through faith in Christ, we are winners, God’s children, with a sure and certain place in heaven Amen.

The peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, keep your heart and mind through Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.