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Good morning. It's cold and gray
outside, but it's warm and bright in here as we share the love
of Christ together on this Lord's Day. I'm continuing my series, if
you call it that, in the book of Galatians, if you would turn
there with me. I get the opportunity to preach about once every three
months, so I'm assuming we'll finish this book in about six
years. But Galatians, we are in chapter
two, because I've been preaching on it for about a year now. Galatians
chapter two, beginning in verse one. I'll read through verse
10 this morning. Then after 14 years I went up
again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. I went up because of a revelation
and sat 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. But even Titus,
who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he
was a Greek. 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,
to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment so that the
truth of the gospel might be preserved for you. 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. 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,
for he worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the
circumcised, worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles.
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 that we should go to the
Gentiles and they to the circumcised. Only they asked us to remember
the poor, the very thing I was eager to do." Let's ask the Lord's
blessing upon the preaching of his word this morning. Our great
God and heavenly Father, we do come before you this Lord's Day,
this day that you have set aside for your people to come and to
be nourished by you, from you, through your word being proclaimed
to us. Father, that is what we are here
to do this morning. We ask that you would speak through
me and speak to each of our hearts this morning, that we may have
a better understanding of your word, but that we might feed
upon the beauty and the glory of the gospel of our Lord Jesus
Christ. Father, nourish us spiritually. Convict us where we need convicting.
Encourage us where we need encouraging. Strengthen and bolster our faith
as we come to worship you this morning, we pray. In the name
of our Lord, our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. In the words of the great theologian
John Stott, false teachers were the bane of Paul's life and ministry. All throughout Paul's extensive
travels and his missionary journeys, his footsteps were followed seemingly
everywhere by false teachers who would come in after him and
try to undermine the gospel of God's grace which he preached,
which was the good news that we have been saved by the grace
of God alone through faith alone in the person and work of Jesus
Christ alone. The gospel of Jesus Christ, which
Paul preached, included the good news that we have been set free
from the bondage of the law by the person and work of Jesus
Christ. We've been set free. These false
teachers attacked the gospel, which Paul proclaimed, And in
Galatia, at least, they also strongly attacked his own personal
credibility as a genuine apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, saying
he was not a genuine apostle. Which is why Paul wrote this
book, to address these false teachers. In our text this morning,
we see Paul continuing to provide a very detailed defense, both
of his own apostleship and legitimacy, and the good news of our real
true and tangible freedom that we have in Christ. Paul was writing
specifically here in order to counter false teachers known
as the Judaizers, as they're referred to elsewhere, who had
evidently gained a rather strong foothold in a number of the various
churches in the Roman province of Galatia. This group is called
the Judaizers because they taught that one essentially needed to
become a convert to Judaism before they could be saved by Christ.
They emphasized Jewishness above the free grace that we have in
Christ Jesus. The Judaizer motto or the essence
of their teaching is recorded for us in Acts 15, verse one,
where it says that they taught that unless you are circumcised
according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. This is
what they taught. This was a problem that Paul
needed to correct. In other words, salvation according
to them was not by grace alone, but it was dependent at least
in some part upon our own obedience to the law. Paul's refutation
of these false teachers is still very relevant for us even today
for two primary reasons. First, because virtually this
identical false teaching is very much alive and well even today,
seeing a resurgence, especially in the past 10 to 20 years. This
teaching today is more commonly known as the Messianic Movement
or the Hebrew Roots Movement, and there's a few other names
that it goes by. And it should not surprise us to hear that
some of the teachers in this modern-day version of the Judaizer
Movement actually go so far as to teach that the book of Galatians
should not be in the Bible. It should not be included in
our canon, because in their opinion, this book contains false teaching,
because it contradicts what they teach. And therefore, in their
mind, it could not have been written by a true apostle, and
it certainly could not have been inspired by the Holy Spirit,
because the Holy Spirit would never disagree with them. I'm
sure that the Judaizers back in the first century made some
of the same claims. It's something that we need to
be made aware of. The second way in which Paul's defense here
is practical for us today is because we see Paul very clearly
refuting the idea that once we are saved, that we then need
to obey the law in order to improve upon, to maintain, or to not
lose our salvation. It's a basic confusion of the
law and the gospel that's a very easy pattern of thinking to fall
into, confusing the two things. It comes in various forms, but
one way that it comes to us even today is when we hear other people
say, or we find ourselves thinking, okay, so I believe in the gospel,
now what? Now that I have been saved by
grace through faith in Christ, what do I need to do in order
to not merely be saved, but in order to be a good Christian?
That question seems like a legitimate question that one would ask,
right? What should you do after you come to believe and have
faith in the gospel. I'll tell you, after you hear
the gospel and then believe in it, Christians need to hear the
gospel and continue to believe in it to maintain our salvation. That's it. We never stop needing
to hear the gospel. We never stop needing to hear
the gospel. We have to preach the gospel
to ourselves day by day. The gospel empowers us and leads
us into obedience to the Lord. Our obedience to the Lord does
not lead us into the gospel. And we can't flip-flop those
two things, or we are essentially destroying the gospel. One of
the ways in which the Judaizers were attempting to undermine
Paul was to claim that Paul's gospel and the Apostle Peter's
gospel were different from one another in some way. They're
going into churches planted by Paul, saying things like, we
have two different men claiming to be divinely appointed apostles,
and they preach two different gospels. On the one hand, we
have Paul, who teaches that Christians are no longer under the law of
Moses, but on the other hand, we've been to Peter's church
in Jerusalem, and he teaches that Christians ought to keep
the law of Moses. So which apostle are we supposed
to believe? And from there, they would likely go on to state that
Paul is a bit of a loner. He wasn't one of the original
12. He does his own thing. He never met Christ in person,
while Peter is a pillar of the church in Jerusalem, of all places,
and was with Jesus during his earthly ministry, and has the
full support of all the other apostles, especially James, the
brother of Christ, and John. So who do you believe is telling
us the truth? Paul, or all the other apostles together, and
along with the whole church in Jerusalem? So this is kind of
the argument that they were giving in these churches in Galatia,
trying to undermine Paul so that they could undermine the gospel
of salvation by grace alone. I'm sure you can see why it was
that such arguments could sound somewhat persuasive to the very
early Christian converts. Just as I'm sure that you can
see why it was that such attacks against his own integrity, Paul
had to write this letter to Galatians. It was also this attempt to pit
the apostolic authority of Peter against Paul that we see being
addressed in our passage this morning. In chapter one, Paul asserted
that his gospel was taught to him, not by man, but by a direct
revelation given to him from God himself. Now, in chapter
2, Paul argues that the gospel which he was taught by God, that
he preaches to the Gentiles, is the very same gospel that
is proclaimed by Peter, James, and John in the church in Jerusalem. He is arguing here that there
is not division in the ranks of the apostles, but rather that
they are all in one accord. Paul is writing out his personal
testimony here in Galatians not to bring glory to or even to
draw attention to himself in any way, but rather in order
to defeat and dismantle the arguments being used by these false teachers
in order to lead people away from the truth. He already mentioned
his first visit to Jerusalem in chapter 1, which lasted only
15 days, to prove that he had not learned the gospel from any
man in Jerusalem or otherwise. Now he mentions another trip,
a second trip, which he had taken to Jerusalem, which took place,
according to our text, 14 years later. in order to prove that his gospel
was identical to the gospel that was preached by his fellow apostles
in Jerusalem. And not only that, but to demonstrate
that not only does his gospel not contradict Peter's gospel,
but Peter's gospel contradicts the Judaizers themselves. So
consider the circumstances of Paul's second visit to Jerusalem.
He writes, and after 14 years, I went up again to Jerusalem
with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. I went up because of
a revelation, and I set before them the gospel that I proclaim
among the Gentiles in order to make sure I was not running or
had not run in vain." His second visit to Jerusalem was 14 years
after his previous visit. The point that Paul's making
here is that before he took this second visit that he had already
been preaching actively this gospel that he proclaims for
over 14 years, for a very long time. He wasn't a novice in the
faith. He wasn't a brand new pastor
fresh out of seminary who has a few rough edges that he needs
to take off. He'd been preaching and teaching
this for 14 years after being taught what the gospel is directly
from God. Paul includes two aspects of
this visit which are crucial to understanding the main point
of his argument here. First, he mentions that he brought
with him two companions, Barnabas as well as Titus. Barnabas was
a Jew, and Titus was an uncircumcised Gentile. And the fact that Titus
is an uncircumcised Gentile is important because the Judaizers
were strongly opposing that someone could be a legitimate Christian
without first becoming circumcised according to the law of Moses,
and they were saying that all the apostles in Jerusalem agreed
with them on this point. Second, we see that Paul set
before them the gospel which he'd been preaching for the last
14 years, basically saying, here's what I've been preaching the
last 14 years, what do you guys think about it? Now it's important
that we recognize that the reason why Paul went to Jerusalem on
his visit, it was not to find out whether or not his version
of the gospel was accurate. The reason he went was because
of a revelation. It says right here, because of
a revelation. He was told to go by God. What
exactly this revelation was has not been revealed to us. But
while he was there, he gathered together a small number of men
who seemed to be influential. No doubt, this included Peter,
James, and John, and perhaps a few other men from the church,
in order to meet with them and make sure I was not running or
had not run in vain. What does that mean? What does
Paul mean when he says that? Was Paul having doubts about
the authenticity of the gospel that he had been preaching? And
he wanted to ask the apostles if they agreed with him. If Paul
had any doubts whatsoever about his understanding of the gospel,
he could have just asked Jesus in person during one of his many
revelations, don't you think? I don't think that that's why
he came there. Also, if Paul had doubts about the truth of
the gospel that he proclaimed, he wouldn't have waited 14 years
to come ask for the advice of the apostles in Jerusalem. He didn't go there seeking their
approval. What Paul says that he met with
these men to make sure I was not running or had not run in
vain, what he means is that he met with them to ensure that
the Judaizers would not be able to continue to seek to undermine
Paul's church planting efforts all around the Mediterranean.
He wanted to make sure that the teachers in Jerusalem were proclaiming
the true gospel, and that the Judaizers, who kept claiming
that they were from the church in Jerusalem, would not be formally
supported by the Jerusalem church anymore. These men were teaching
all over the place, claiming they came from Jerusalem, and
they were becoming a bigger and bigger problem. So Paul brought
the issue up with the apostles in Jerusalem. He goes on and tells us about
the outcome of that meeting, and there are several things
to note here. First of all, he mentions in verse 3 that even
Titus was not forced to be circumcised. He makes a big deal of that point.
Even Titus! He was a Gentile believer. who
was not circumcised, but he was a man whom Paul was discipling,
whom Paul was training to be a minister, who later pastored
six or seven different churches on Crete when Paul left him there
to set up those churches that they had planted together. Titus
had been traveling with Paul in order to help him in the work
of evangelism and church planting. And if the leaders of Jerusalem
did not require Titus to be circumcised, they would not require any Gentile
believer to be circumcised. This act validated the gospel
which both Paul and all of the other apostles in Jerusalem believed,
that both Jews as well as Gentiles are made acceptable before God
on the same terms, through faith alone in Christ alone. If both
Jews and Gentiles are made fully acceptable by God, by the gospel,
then both groups must also be accepted by the church without
any discrimination whatsoever, which means that what the Judaizers
were teaching was certainly false. The Christian who had been circumcised
and the Christian who has not been circumcised are no different
in the eyes of God. Both are saved by grace, by the
merits of our Lord and Savior. Paul had won a great victory
in garnishing the support of the apostles in Jerusalem, but
the battle was not won without a fight. For while he was in
Jerusalem, there were some who had put great pressure on him
to have Titus become circumcised. They wanted Titus to be circumcised.
They made an issue of it. The ESV calls these men false
brothers, or more literally from the Greek, it's pseudo-brothers.
who had secretly slipped into these meetings in order to spy
out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus so that they
might bring us into slavery. Those are harsh terms there. Paul goes on and states that
they had not yielded to these false brothers even for one moment
in order to preserve the freedom given to us in the gospel. Paul
saw the issue clearly for what it was. It was not merely a matter
of circumcision versus uncircumcision, but it was a fundamental issue
of Christian freedom from the law versus being submitted under
the law in bondage yet again. And it's important for us to
understand that when a Jew or a convert to Judaism is circumcised,
what that fundamental act is representing. What is it that
that is saying when they undergo that particular rite? They are
essentially saying, if I do not keep the entire law of God, may
I be cut off from God's people, just as this piece of flesh is
being cut off from me. It's an oath of self-malediction
and an oath before the Lord to keep the entire law of Moses,
upon pain of being cut off from God's people. That's what circumcision
is. Paul recognizes this. The Judaizers
also recognize this, and that's why it's becoming an issue here.
It's not merely about outward circumcision, but about whether
or not a Christian was engrafted into national Israel and thereby
required to obey the whole law of God given to Israel at Mount
Sinai in order to keep God's favor with them. Brothers and
sisters, the truth is that we are kept safely in God's favor
through perfect obedience to the law. but it's Christ's perfect
obedience to the law and not our own upon which we depend.
It's Christ's perfect obedience to the law upon which we depend. There is nothing that can separate
us from the love of God because we depend wholly upon the finished
work of Jesus Christ. And anyone who teaches something
contrary to this is confusing law and gospel and essentially
destroying the gospel altogether. Now, Paul could have asked Titus
on that trip to go ahead and receive the outward act of circumcision
in order to not offend these false brothers or any other weaker
brothers that may have been in that church. Yet, also telling
Titus that he's not obliged to obey the whole law because we're
saved by Christ's obedience to the whole law. In fact, at a
later point in Paul's ministry, this is exactly what Paul did
with Timothy. Timothy was uncircumcised, but
he asked him to become circumcised so that he would not offend weaker
brothers and would open up more doors of ministry for Timothy
to go into. But here, Paul refuses to budge
because he realizes that the principle needed to first be
firmly established, that we are saved by grace apart from the
works of the law, because our salvation is dependent upon Christ's
obedience to the law, not ours. Paul refused to have Titus circumcised,
not because he was being obstinate, not because he didn't care whether
or not he offended a weaker brother, Rather, on this trip, as we read
at the end of verse five, he was there in order to preserve
the gospel of freedom from the law for you, it says, and you
being the many Gentile Christians that were living in Galatia at
this time who were becoming more and more confused as they kept
listening to these false teachers that Paul is addressing here.
Paul was perfectly willing to go out of his way not to offend
a weaker brother. as we see when he later asked
Timothy to be circumcised. But here, offending the weaker
brother was worth it to Paul in order to preserve the clear
teaching of the gospel. It kind of raises that question,
when is it okay for us to offend a weaker brother, and when should
we go out of our way not to offend a weaker brother? It's not always
a black and white question, and it's not always easy to answer.
Sometimes people in churches legitimately wrestle with that.
Sometimes Christians don't wrestle with it enough, to be honest,
especially when you see how Christians treat one another on social media
these days. There's no idea of offending a weaker brother present,
it seems. When is it okay to offend a weaker
brother and when is it not? I believe if we're to follow
the Apostle Paul's example here, we should be willing to offend
a weaker brother when an essential element of the gospel is at stake. Not any time that a weaker brother
may disagree with us about anything. And even then, we should let
the gospel itself be offensive to them rather than us. Right? Let me give you a tangible example.
It's a hypothetical one. I tried to pick an issue that
I hope people in this church don't have peccadillas on, but
we'll see. For example, if my family were
to attend a church where all of the ladies in the church wore
head coverings, Even though I believe this is not a requirement, it's
certainly not sinful to do it, but it's not a requirement to
do it, I would encourage my wife to wear a head covering so that
we wouldn't offend anyone in the church. I would not want to offend a
weaker brother. But if we were attending a church, And I know
of a couple of Reformed churches that actually teach this. They
teach that if my wife refused to wear a head covering, that
she's at risk of losing her salvation. If they were teaching that, I
would say, take that head covering off and let's preach the gospel
to them and let the gospel offend them all it will. The gospel would be doing the
offense. and I would stand up and not budge, just as Paul did,
not having Titus get circumcised, when an essential element of
the gospel of grace is at stake. Do you see the difference there? Paul, as well as the other apostles
in Jerusalem, they were not trying to offend a weaker brother, but
they refused to compromise on the gospel, which itself is offensive
to the Judaizers. So, the Jerusalem apostles, Peter,
James, and John at this time, they did not go so far as to
say that circumcision was a requirement, but what of their understanding
of the gospel itself, which Paul had laid before them, as he said
he did? Well, at the end of verse 6, Paul writes that they added
nothing to me. He's making it clear to the churches
in Galatia, who had been influenced by these false teachers, I went
and talked with Peter, James, and John. They didn't teach me
anything that I had not already learned from my direct revelations
from God. The gospel that I proclaim to
you is not lacking anything. The gospel that's being taught
in the church in Jerusalem is the very same gospel that I proclaim
to you, through which God saved you, and through which these
churches were planted. And he's reiterating to them
that his ministry to them was not lacking in any way. Later
on in verse 9, he states that they offered to him their right
hand of fellowship in the gospel, essentially saying, we fully
support you in your gospel ministry to the Gentiles. Some of you
may be thinking that all of these details about a particular meeting
between Paul and Barnabas-Titus, Peter, James, John, that took
place some 2,000 years ago, the question about whether or not
Titus was circumcised might all seem a little bit distant to
us. Or you may be thinking, okay,
great, but those aren't issues that we have to deal with here
in the year 2022. But I believe if you're thinking
this, you're mistaken. Sure, there may not be people
in our church, I hope, saying that all Christians have to undergo
circumcision in order to be saved. But there certainly are professing
believers in churches all across the globe who say things like,
Well, I follow the gospel according to Jesus, not the gospel according
to Paul. there's actually a large movement
of people saying that all the Pauline epistles should be jettisoned
and we should only trust the words of Christ. There are debates
even going on today about differences between Paul's gospel and Peter's
gospel. Academic debates today going
on about these things. As if the gospel messages of
Peter, Paul, and John differed. Certainly the different writings
in the New Testament differ from one another. We all recognize
that. We have four different gospel accounts, not just one,
and each of the four emphasize different things for different
reasons, but they are yet in perfect harmony with one another.
We have different epistles written by Paul, Peter, John, James,
and the author of Hebrews. Again, we see differences in
style, differences in emphasis, differences in topics, because
they're written to different people in different contexts.
Yet there is only one gospel, and they are uniform in their
truth of the gospel of grace. That one gospel which Paul, Peter,
James, and John all agreed on when they met together in Jerusalem
is the same gospel which we have preserved for us today in God's
word, and we must never stray away from it. And we must be
wary of people who try to add anything to it. We also see that it's vitally
important that the truth of the gospel needs to be maintained,
even if it means we may have to offend a weaker brother to
do that. We should never make it our aim
to do that, even when they are the ones in the wrong. This is
why Paul, when living with the Gentiles, conducted himself as
a Gentile. When he was living amongst the Jews, he conducted
himself like a Jew. He didn't want to offend anybody.
He went out of his way not to, when he was able to. He was free
in Christ from having to follow the customs of both groups. Yet,
he lived his life striving to not needlessly offend anyone
so they would be more likely to hear his message. Yet, Here we see him making a stand.
And he was not simply saying, okay, enough is enough. We don't
want to offend you, but this just goes too far. Rather, he
takes a stand in order to preserve the truth of the gospel for the
sake of the Christians in Galatia and to preserve it for us today.
The truth that the gospel gives us true spiritual freedom in
Christ apart from the works of the law. To again introduce works
of the law and make our acceptance before God dependent in any way
upon our obedience to rules and regulations is to bring freed
men again into bondage. Do you think churches today do
this? Lots of churches do this today.
And it's very easy for this kind of legalistic teaching to creep
into a church. And we need to be aware of that.
We need to be on the lookout for that. We need to guard our
hearts against that. Let me return to a question I
asked earlier. We all know a person is saved
by faith alone and the gospel of Christ alone, but what then
should we do after we have heard the gospel and believed? We must
continue to hear the gospel and to believe in the faithfulness
of Christ. It is Christ's faithfulness to
the law of God that saves us. And it is Christ's faithfulness
toward those of us who have been united to him through faith which
keeps us saved. It's his faithfulness through
the Spirit to continue to feed and nourish us from his word
that helps our faith to grow and strengthens us. Our faith
is not a one-time act. We don't say the sinner's prayer
and we now have fire insurance and we can live however we please.
No one is saying that. But it's Christ's faithfulness
to the law, to his work in our hearts, that is our spiritual
strength, not our faithfulness in obedience. Will we obey? If we have faith, of course we
will. But our faith feeds upon Christ in the gospel, and we
must continually feed upon these things, always praying, Lord,
I believe. Help me in my unbelief. Am I saying that we do not have
to obey the law at all? No. We do not have to obey the law
in order to be saved, at least not to remain justified before
God. But if we have faith in Christ, we certainly will desire
to obey the law of God. Our Lord himself said, if you
love me, keep my commandments. Not under threat of losing our
salvation, but because we love him, because we're grateful for
the salvation we've already been given and fully possess. The truth is, you cannot truly
believe the gospel without being overwhelmed with gratitude for
what Christ has done for us. And that gratitude, which is
a result of your faith, will necessarily lead you into doing
good works. We're saved by faith alone, but
the faith that saves never comes alone. It's our faith which leads
us to good works, not good works, in order to believe. And we do
not do them in order to receive anything from God that we have
not already received in full, by the perfect obedience of Jesus
Christ, our God and Savior. Let's bow in prayer. Heavenly
Father, we thank you again for your word. We thank you for the
gospel of pure grace, knowing that we have been saved entirely
because of what Christ did and what you have done in our hearts.
Not because of anything that we have done, Father, but rather
in spite of everything that we have done. Help us, Father, always
to cling to the pure gospel of grace that Paul proclaimed, that
Peter proclaimed, which you teach in your holy word. Help us to
this end, we pray in Christ's name, amen.
Only One Gospel
| Sermon ID | 124222335266873 |
| Duration | 34:05 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Galatians 2:1-10 |
| Language | English |
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