Grace Abounds
A Sermon Series Through the Book of Galatians
“The Importance of Preserving the Gospel”
Part One
Galatians 2:1-10
Introduction
A husband and wife didn’t really love each other. The man was very demanding, so much so that he prepared a list of rules and regulations for his wife to follow. He insisted that she read them over every day and obey them to the letter. Among other things, his “do’s and don’ts” indicated such details as what time she had to get up in the morning, when his breakfast should be served, and how the housework should be done.
After several long years, the husband died. As time passed, the woman fell in love with another man, one who dearly loved her. Soon they were married. This husband did everything he could to make his new wife happy, continually showering her with tokens of his appreciation.
One day as he was cleaning house, she found tucked away in a drawer the list of commands her first husband had drawn up for her. As she looked it over, it dawned on her that even though her present husband hadn’t given her any kind of list, she was doing everything her first husband’s list required anyway. She realized she was so devoted to this man that her deepest desire was to please him out of love, not obligation.
When the Gospel is Preserved There is Unity (vv. 1-2)
Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. 2 I went up because of a revelation and set before them (though privately before those who seemed influential) the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain.
He went up to Jerusalem to visit with Peter and James (Gal. 1:18-19) to get to know them as fellow apostles but had to escape because people wanted to kill him. “Paul and Barnabas had completed their first missionary tour (Acts 13:1-14:28) and returned to Antioch to report the miracles of Gentile conversion by grace through faith. Jewish legalists in Judea were upset when they heard the report and went to Antioch to teach that Gentiles had to become a Jew before becoming a Christian.”[1]
So here when it says, “I went up again to Jerusalem . . .” it was to resolve this issue. It was in response to a revelation – He had received the gospel directly from Jesus. His calling was a direct revelation from God – so he is not going to Jerusalem, to this meeting, to see if he had it right this whole time. And if he wanted confirmation that he was saying the right thing – why wait 14 years?
Acts 15:1-2 “But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 And after Paul and Barnabas had no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question.”
What Paul ends up showing is that there are not three versions of the gospel (the other 12 apostles, (specifically Peter and James), the Jewish false teaching of the law plus Jesus, and Paul’s gospel that he made up – Paul is explaining that he received the gospel through revelation from Jesus directly, and it is the same gospel that the original apostles have already been preaching. He received it independently, but it is identical.
The reason Paul was so concerned about this issue, and why he urgently wrote this letter, was to, “make sure I was not running or had not run in vain. . .” He is not concerned about if his gospel is right or wrong – Paul is concerned about the fruitfulness of his ministry. He is fighting to get the Galatians churches to hold on to sound doctrine. Their was a chance that cultural prejudices would entice them to let other teachers continue to make dangerous claims against the gospel.
If this false group were allowed to continue it would split the church. On one side would be Paul and the gospel – faith in Christ’s work on the cross and it is by grace that we are saved. On the other side would be these teachers saying that if you want to become a Christian you have to become a Jew first (Jesus plus the law).
The gospel unifies all Christians – Look at this quote, “An American Christian has far more in common with a gospel-believer who lives a nomadic existence on the Mongolian plains than they do with a non-believer who lives on their street, drives a similar car, and whose children go to the same school as theirs.”[2]
Christian unity takes no account of cultural distinctives. What gets added to the gospel? baptism, be a member of the church, particular doctrine like predestination. Speaking in tongues, or avoiding behaviors like not drinking alcohol, wearing your hair a particular way, playing cards – if you break these rules then you can’t possibly be a Christian.
The Preservation of the Gospel Requires Effort (vv. 3-5)
3 But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. 4 Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery— 5 to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.
Paul says that there are some who have secretly slipped into the church for the purpose of sabotaging and undermining the liberty that true Christians have in Christ. These planted spies want to bring these new believers into the bondage of legalism.
Romans 8:2-3 “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.1 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.” The countless regulations for cleanliness in the law of Moses were designed “to show us how impossible it was to make ourselves perfectly acceptable before a holy God.[3]
To resist their argument Paul presents Titus – he was a Christian and he was not circumcised. He did not follow the law, yet received Christ who did all the work for him, and now Titus is in right standing with God (yet without keeping the law). “Gentiles could become full members of the people of God without becoming Jewish in custom or culture.”[4]
Christians preserve the truth of the Gospel
by not allowing customs or culture to get added to it.
“The price of spiritual freedom is constant vigilance. It is not enough to share the gospel or even preach it. The gospel has to be defended.”[5]
There is a difference between the freedom that comes with the gospel and the bondage that goes with moralistic religion. Those who are on the moralistic religion side press a very specific set of rules and regulations for daily dress and behavior.[6] How is that some church people can be so negative and even cruel while still claiming to love Jesus and His teachings?
Because their religion places so much emphasis on external cultural separation from the world, rather than on internal motive, outlook, and perspective. “I am a good person, let me show you (by how I cut my hair, or the clothes I wear, or where I go and don’t go, who I will be around and will not be around, etc”.)
It is not freedom from moral imperatives (truth telling, parent honoring, not committing adultery, etc.) but you are free from a system or culture of trying to earn God’s love, earning your salvation.
Both ways teach that they need to follow the ten commandments but the motive behind why one should is different – “you need to honor your parents, because when you do you will go to heaven for being a good person” (verses) “You should to honor your parents because Christ has saved you, and loved you and from a thankful heart I now serve others.” This is right behavior, based on a wrong belief.
When the Gospel is Preserved Christians Are Free To Serve God Differently (vv. 6-9a)
6 And from those who seemed to be influential (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—those, I say, who seemed influential added nothing to me. 7 On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised 8 (for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles), 9 and when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me,
(v. 6) When the leaders gathered together and Paul presented the gospel that he had been sharing to the uncircumcised non-Jewish world, these leaders, “added nothing to me.” There was no need to add anything to Paul’s message – it was the same gospel – faith in Christ alone and nothing else was needed for salvation (no performances, rituals, or actions were needed).
“Paul was not being proud or boastful but was simply stating a truth. He knew that all he was and had was entirely by God’s grace (Gal. 2:9). He acknowledged himself as the foremost of sinners (1 Tim. 1:15) and ‘the least of the apostles, who was not fit to be called an apostle, because he had persecuted the church of God’ (1 Cor. 15:9). But under God’s grace he was equal to all other believers, and in his calling he was equal to all the other apostles.”[7]
In what is called the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 the early church leaders worked through this issue, and all the church leaders had gathered together and Peter said, (vv. 10-11) “Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test aby placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11 But we believe that we will be saved through ethe grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”
Then Paul and Barnabas gave an account, “And all the assembly fell silent, and they listened to Barnabas and Paul as they related what signs and wonders God had done through them among the Gentiles.” And then James spoke . . .”13 After they finished speaking, James replied, “Brothers, listen to me. 14 Simeon has related how God first visited the Gentiles, to take from them a people for his name . . . 19 Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, . . .”
All of the apostles and church leadership agreed that salvation was by grace through faith in Jesus. Then the council selected Paul and Barnabas to deliver their findings to the very areas where these false teachers were trying to corrupt the gospel. v, 22 “Then it seemed good to the apostles and the elders, with the whole church, to choose men from among them and send them to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas.”
(v. 7) “I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised.” The gospel does not change, but the means and method of presenting it does. How Peter presents the gospel to the Jewish people, would be different than how Paul would present it to the Gentile (non-Jewish) people. Some people will have a gift, a calling, to present the gospel to different people groups (while culturally different, they are universally in need of Jesus.)
How do we present the never changing message of the gospel to a world that is constantly changing? If you swing too far to the left, in order to reach the lost and to appeal to as many people as possible you abandon things that are offensive like sin, the cross, blood and you lose the gospel.
If you swing too far to the right and never change (or change far too slowly) the church becomes archaic and no one understands what you are saying. Like the church services in the times of the Reformation were conducted in Latin. No one spoke Latin, so no one knew what was going on in the service. The pastor uses sermon illustrations about rotary phone.
Conclusion
Watching a trapeze show is breathtaking. We wonder at the dexterity and timing. We gasp at near-misses. In most cases, there is a net underneath. When they fall, they jump up and bounce back to the trapeze. In Christ, we live on the trapeze.
The whole world should be able to watch and say, “Look how they live, how they love one another. Look how well the husbands treat their wives. And aren’t they the best workers in the factories and offices, the best neighbors, the best students?” That is to live on the trapeze, being a show to the world.
What happens when we slip? The net is surely there. The blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ, has provided forgiveness for ALL our trespasses. Both the net and the ability to stay on the trapeze are works of God’s grace. Of course, we cannot be continually sleeping on the net., If that is the case, I doubt whether that person is a trapezist.[10]
_______________________
[1] John MacArthur, The MacArthur New Testament Commentary, Galatians (Chicago, Illinois; Moody Publishing, 1987) 35.
[2] Keller, 44.
[3] Tim Keller, Galatians For You (USA; The Good Book Company, 2013) 41.
[4] Keller, 41.
[5] Philip Graham Ryken, Reformed Expository Commentary, Galatians (Phillipsburg New Jersey; P&R Publishing Company, 2005) 40.
[6] Keller, 42.
[7] Macarthur, 40.
[8] Max Anders, Holman New Testament Commentary, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, & Colossians (Nashville, Tennessee; B& H Publishing Group, 1999) 22.
[9] Todd Wilson, Preaching the Word, Galatians, Gospel Rooted Living (Wheaton, Illinois; Crossway Publishing, 2013) 65.
[10] https://www.sermonillustrations.com/a-z/g/grace.htm
