Why You Struggle to Measure Up

Why would Jesus go to the trouble of being born in a manger, growing up as a child, suffering loss and pain throughout his life, and ultimately losing his life for us? Why would he go to all that trouble if we could have just obeyed the law and made it work ourselves?

Galatians 2, 19-21- "But through the law, I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God. For if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing."

These are some of the most important verses in the Bible because it sets a whole different category of a way to live for a believer. Up until this point in the Jewish religion, there had been hundreds and added to it thousands of laws that to be a strong Jew, to be a religious zealot, you had to obey all these laws. You had to obey all these rules, and there were so many of them, and that is what many people spent most of their lives thinking about and trying to do because they believed that God was real and they loved God.

The way to please God was this set-apart-holy-life that the Old Testament had laid out in clarity with small laws about how to take care of their dishes and big laws about not sleeping with your neighbor's wife. All of that equaled a little bit of panic because you never really knew if you'd kept enough laws.

I think there were some that would be described as Pharisees or Sadducees, that when Jesus came, he described them as whitewashed tombs, meaning that they really believed that they were doing everything right on the outside, but they were more concerned about keeping all the laws than they were loving God and loving people. This is convicting because human nature goes this way every time.

We think we can keep the law and we can accomplish it and therefore become an awesome person in everybody else's sight and in God's sight. But scripture says-"Many of you will do things in my name, but you never knew me. You'll prophesy in my name, you'll heal in my name, all of these things in my name, but you never knew me."

Jesus is talking about an altogether different way than what has existed in the past up until now. There was a law, and honestly, it talks about the law being a gift. Romans 3 talks about how through the law comes knowledge of sin. And the idea that the law was a gift was that we could never accomplish it all. There were so many little laws. Nobody could. In fact all have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God. All of us have missed the mark.

We have not obeyed all of the laws that would cause us to be perfect before God. Maybe you know that, maybe you don't. Maybe you thought you could. And I'm so sorry because that is an exhausting way to live.

Christ died for our sin because we could never measure up. It took God himself in the form of Jesus Christ coming to earth to live a perfect and sinless life. It took that. That was the only way.

There was nobody who was sinless except for Jesus Christ. And so he did it. Then he paid for our sin so that our lack of righteousness could be made right, that our lack of holiness could be made holy because he put his righteousness on us.

This whole new concept requires a lot of language from the New Testament writers because they're trying to reframe everything for all these Jewish believers who have only known learning and trying to obey the law all their life.

But that is so many of us. Our experience of God has been trying to measure up and make him happy and make sure that he's okay with us. Paul is going to say-

When Jesus came, it changed everything.

So let me give you a whole new way to look at your life. Instead of being a slave to the law, it says in verse 19- "Through the law, I died to the law so that I might live for God." Meaning I put to death that way of life.

I laid down trying to measure up. I am not going to do it anymore. It's not possible. And in doing that, I actually found my life.

I actually found the way I was meant to live, that I was meant to live for God, not to check all these boxes and to measure up to the law, but I was meant to live in relationship with and for God and because of that exchange of his righteousness so that I could be right of his holiness so that I could be pure and blameless and holy, because of that exchange, now I am all in.

I want to live for God. I want to enjoy that freedom that He has paid for for me. I want to live into the fullness of pleasing him because he did so much for me. So I have been crucified with Christ. I went down and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

The exchange was mysterious and it was bigger than just forgiveness of sins. It says that now he lives in us and with us.

He sent the spirit to live with us, to help us, to be our helper, to be our counselor. Now it is Him who lives in us, living out the obedience that we could not do in our own flesh, living out the kindness and peace and joy that we could not live out in ourselves.

And ultimately that spirit is reflecting Christ. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God. I literally put my being inside of his approval and his plan for me. So the exchange of relationship now is that God is going to live and help me live for him. So the unique thing, I remember being in seminary and we walked through all the things that happened at the moment of salvation, and it's big theological words like sanctification, justification, all these words, they mean something different. And each one of those things all happened at the same time. The moment that you took your life and placed it and surrendered it to Jesus, gave him your life, this exchange and all of these powerful things happened at that exact moment.

You were justified. You are sanctified. You're now in a whole new frame with God.

You are now a child of God and all of these things happen the moment that you are secure in Christ and that you trust him. It's unbelievable. Now working that out, we have a lot more of the scripture happen and is written because working it out is a constant battle. Paul talks about killing his flesh and living by the spirit and that whole work of figuring that out, it takes a while.

It doesn't just happen overnight, but it's possible overnight. All of a sudden, you're giving the power to do it overnight. You're given the spirit and the ability to do it. And he goes on to say in verse 21, "I do not set aside the grace of God for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing." He's saying, do you think you're going to do enough to eventually please God?

Or do you understand that he would've never died for you? The cross would've been meaningless if we could do it ourselves. We couldn't do it ourselves. The gift of the law is that it points out that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It says in Romans that the knowledge of our sin is made clear to us through the law because we know we can't measure up to all that.

He had to do it. And why would he have done it if we could have measured up, if we could have done it ourselves? Why would he go to the trouble of being born in a manger and growing up as a child and suffering loss and pain throughout his life and ultimately losing his life for us? Why would he go to all that trouble if we could have just obeyed the law and made it work ourselves? Guys, you can't. It's the most freeing thing in the world.

You'll never measure up. I know that sounds depressing, but it is actually the best news you have ever heard because you get to quit trying. You get to exchange your life for Christ's life. That was the miracle and the mystery of what happened on the cross is that there was an exchange. He died for us. He didn't die for himself.

He was sinless and blameless, a perfect lamb. So he didn't have to die for himself. He exchanged and took on our sin and died in our place and that paid for our sins. And it's the best news that you'll ever hear. And so that exchange is meant to be life-giving and freeing. It's meant to say that we died to the law. We die to trying to measure up. We die to trying to make this life work. We've died to trying to make God proud.

We die to that life and we pick up a new life where we stand before God in confidence, not because of our works, but because of the finished and final work of Jesus Christ on the cross. So freeing, a whole different way to live. You get to confess your sin whenever you struggle because you don't have to measure up.