Father, as we come to your word this morning, Lord, we would ask that you would, that you would reveal more of yourself to us. We thank you for the opportunity to be together. We pray that you would help us to think well, Lord, not just for the time that we're together, but that you would help us to retain, Lord, the things that we talk about that we would meditate on your word. Lord, we thank you for the book of Galatians, and we thank you for the truths that you give us in it. Lord, we ask now that you would be glorified in our study of it. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. So if you would turn in your Bibles to Galatians chapter 1, Galatians chapter 1 and we are going to begin in the verse that we ended with last time as we got through it. So we're going to begin with verse 10. We're going to read quite a bit here and then we'll come back and go over it. Galatians 1 and verse 10. For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel which was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people. So extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. Fifteen. But when he who had set me apart before I was born and who called me by his grace was pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles. I did not immediately consult with anyone. Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me. But I went away into Arabia and returned again to Damascus. 18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother. And what I am writing to you before God, I do not lie. Then I went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. they only were hearing it said he who sent he who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he wants tried to destroy and they glorified God because of me relations to one then after fourteen years I want to begin to Jerusalem with Barnabas taking Titus along with me went up because of a revelation and set before them though privately before those who seemed to be influential, the gospel that I had proclaimed among the Gentiles, in order to make sure that 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 which 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 who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me in 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 me 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 that I was eager to do. We may get past that and we may not but we will stop there and if you would go back to 110. this is a actually 111 this is a this is a stretch that in some ways is a little bit hard for us to get through there's some ways in which it's repetitive it's autobiographical paul lays down a bunch of history for people here and he does it he's got a specific purpose for doing it he's he's defending who he is and his message but um it it's a big chunk we need to try to get through at least most of it this morning because The message of it is basically this. You guys, I'm Paul. Jesus gave me this job, and he gave me this message. Here's the history of it. I'll remind you so that you know it. That's basically what he's saying. We can glean a little more out of it than that, but that's basically the idea here. Now we're going to spend some time, though, in the first verse that we studied in verse 11, chapter 1 and verse 11. For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. At first, when you look at that, you may think, well, duh, I mean, yeah, we know that already. Here's the thing that was going on. So we're going to start with where Paul was and then we're going to make some application for where we are because this is kind of important. What was happening is is that these people from Jerusalem these Judaizers who were trying to say that no it's not just by grace through faith that you're saved. You can do that, but there's all these other things that you need to do, too. Basically, what you need to do is you need to be Jews. You need to follow the ceremonial law. You need to be circumcised. You need to be proselytes. If you're going to be Gentiles, you need to come into this this way. And that's how you really are going to please God. That's the completion of salvation. And this guy, Paul, who's out there, well, we don't know, you know, he's not from Jerusalem. He didn't come from here. He wasn't sent. He wasn't part of the Twelve. to begin with and we really don't have any concept of what he's saying out there but don't pay any attention to him he's not he's not right. We don't want to listen to him listen to us because after all we're Jews and we come from Jerusalem. That's where we get our authority. Paul makes it really clear. Go ahead and say that you're Jews that come from Jerusalem if that makes you feel better. It doesn't have anything to do with anything. The gospel that I have for you was revealed to me by Jesus Christ himself. Nobody taught it to me. Nobody came to me and instructed me in these things. But God revealed himself directly to me in this matter. If, from our standpoint, that sounds like a bigger deal, right? Than if you just came from Jerusalem. But the thing about it is that This Jerusalem thing. What you have to understand is that. We think sometimes. While these Jewish people. They're just really hung up on the Old Testament. Right. That's the thing they're just really hung up on the Old Testament and following the scripture. That's not true. That's not what the problem here is. If it was true. If they studied the Old Testament enough. Jesus said it would have led them to believe in that I was who I say that I am. but it didn't happen that way. Here's why. Jews didn't study the Torah nearly so much as we would like to think. They studied the guys who wrote on it. So you had Rabbi Hillel and you had Rabbi so and so and you had this school and you had this school and what they did is they would sit around and read these things. Often they were contradictory. One guy would say one thing in interpretation another would say another. they understood how to follow God not so much from their dealing with the scripture that they had but what people had written or said about it traditions that's how they work this out and a lot of times even today that's true in Judaism and it's also true in a movement that that a Christian movement called the Messianic Jews there is a lot of dependence and reliance on things that people have written in order to interpret the scripture and not so much on dealing with it itself now obviously that's a generalization we're not going to say that about every single person in those movements but There's a big thing about how Jewish people down through the years have. Interpreted the scripture and what they've written about it. And those things in a lot of these people's mind both at this time and now are equal to what you find in the scripture. OK. They're equal in their minds to what you find in the scripture. And so when Paul says. Nobody taught me this. It kind of has a double meaning. It's not just that. I didn't go to the apostles in Jerusalem so that they could teach me the gospel. But it is also that this is not a bunch of tradition that men have stacked upon scripture. This is not a religious thing that I have here. This is a direct revelation from God himself. And that's a different thing. Because again, Paul is attempting to defend his apostleship here. And so because he's got to have the authority to tell these people you don't follow what they're telling you to do it's by grace through faith remember God is holy we're not and we need to be rescued that's the thing that we went through last time and so remember anything apart from that Paul is saying no I wasn't taught that it was Jesus showed it to me. Now the second part of that for us is this. We don't want a gospel that comes from men. We don't want a gospel that comes from men. We want direct revelation through the scripture. And the reason we need that is because if we look at other world religions. They're all about. How it is that we can live more righteous lives for the most part. one way or another. The thing is whatever you define goodness as these religions are designed so that if you will discipline yourself in certain ways then you will be able then to be good people. And then if you do that you will then be acceptable to God. That's the idea of most religions whoever they define God to be. Christianity is the opposite of that. Paul's gospel, if we want to call it that, which it's really just the gospel, is, no, I'm not telling you that you do all of these things, get to where you're living a righteous life in this way, and then you will be accepted by God. Salvation is by grace through faith. And the Christian life is that way as well. And where we are now, we really do still want that. And I think of Several examples things that I've kind of lived through Some of them some of this is good and at least parts of it were and maybe some of it not so much I think About when my kids were little Jennifer homeschooled them and some of that was good, but Brenda will know this there there was a kind of a culture around that. You could tell them by looking for a ways off the denim jumpsuit thing was pretty well in at that point in time and you would see families of these people walking down the street and I could tell and I don't see very well from a hundred yards yeah you guys are some of those. That sounds like I'm picking in some ways, maybe, but not altogether. There were good things in that. But what was not was it got really clear that if you want to be part of this group, you look like this and you do these things. And if we go in your house, we're going to see this book and this book and this book. And we're not going to see this book. Right. We're going to go in your house and we're going to look at your video show. and as long as we see these that's good but if we see those oh bad on you okay you see well or even a TV itself and if you did have a TV if it was just sitting in the living room that was a problem if you had it locked up somewhere where people could only have access to it when you decided all of these I'm not saying are bad things some of them have their purpose But the problem with it was, it got to be pretty quick. If you want to be one of these, here's how you do it. And we can, either written or unwritten, we can give you a list of what this looks like. And then you get to be one too. And you get to judge how well you're doing it, what a good little Christian homeschool family you are, based on whether or not these things all look like everybody else's. It's this matter of uniformity that goes on. And I suspect, I think it was true with us to some degree, that we judged how well we were doing in these things based on how well we conformed to these external standards. Some of which made sense. Some of which were good. Some of which, looking back at them, I'm like, man, I don't know. But nonetheless, This is what the Judaizers are doing only in a lot bigger way. By grace through faith doesn't bring a lot of uniformity to things and uniformity is kind of what we want. I mean we want to be rule followers ourselves right. But we also want to be part of a group. This is why places in town like the winner circle make t shirts with badges on them right. So that You must be one way you got the same color shirt and you got a badge like mine That means we're on the same team. Okay, that whole thing is An innate desire that humans seem to have some way Now there are things that mark us out as a group. I don't mean to say that there are not But they're predominantly not external things or if they are they come from internal things what I mean is that when we get to the latter parts of our this book and we start talking about what the spirit produces in people's lives. Those are the things that need to set us apart. So it's not so much that I'm saying that we may end up looking in some ways pretty similar we may come to some similar convictions but the convictions are not the things that make us acceptable to God and part of the group. Those external things don't make that work because I think about that particular situation. Most anybody who just kind of wanted to be a little bit more radical than the general population could have come along and done those external things. But most of that's not fair. A lot of those folks didn't even understand why they were doing what they were doing. in some situations and I see that in other contexts I see that in people who seem to want to have a lot of external things and what they have and how they dress and how they do those things and this then makes us we're just a little more radical than everybody else we're we're part of the We're part of the group. We're Christians. Everybody can tell when they look at us from a long ways away, you know, all those things. God will lead all of us in different ways about how some of those things look. But what I am focusing on is that we have inherited the gospel that is not of men. And if we add things to it to make ourselves Part of the group to make ourselves look like that. We are Participating in it and that's how we judge that we've missed the boat. We've missed it by a long way In fact where the boat has left the dock and we're off the pilled appeared drowning and we may not know it Another some of the rest of this is going to go quicker, but these first couple of verses here are important Another thing that's important is that we should talk about is that there is a difference in between the way that a little bit of a difference at least a difference in one sense in terms of the way that Paul received the gospel and the way that you and I received the gospel. The difference is that the scripture tells us that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. That most of us have come into faith by hearing the Word preached and those things. We are taught. That's what we're doing here this morning. So some people have taken Paul's account here and said, well, this was good enough for Paul. It's good enough for me. I don't need to be taught anything. I don't need to come to classes or study or do those things because God will just give me this revelation. This was, in some sense, part of Paul's being an apostle. And so God revealed himself to him in a very specific way. I want to be quick, though, to add that While there is truth in that part of it, there is also another truth. And the other truth is that God still works the same way, not in terms of revealing himself in exactly the same way that he did to Paul, but in terms of our ability to hear the gospel and to recognize that it's true and for faith to be birthed in us that is the kind of that that is a sense of the kind of experience that Paul had because We know this already. We've had it happen in our own lives and we had it happen with people that we care about. We read the text. We teach. We go over what it means. We do those things and yet it means nothing to whoever it is that we're talking to. There's no spark there. There's no faith. There's nothing there. And so, while it's not quite the same thing as what Paul experienced here, None of you, I don't believe, had a physical Jesus come and knock you off your horse. At the same time, an experience with God is real like that, and it's not just academic. So we have at least a piece of what happened to Paul here. Sir. Yeah I will tell you about myself just briefly in that situation this is an area that I have to be very very careful with. Because I can cross that line. I don't do the hero worship thing so much but what I do is is that. Everybody knows I don't see that well but it's not as good as it was twenty years ago but I have a good memory. And when somebody says something or when I'm paying attention. I can remember what they say. And I listen to things a lot. And it's the same with reading. When I read them, I can remember. And the problem is, is that pretty soon I turn into somebody who didn't do the work themselves, somebody who didn't seek God in the scripture to themselves, but I can turn into somebody who copies somebody who did that. And we have to be really careful. In fact, I will tell you that I, in studies anymore, I don't I don't immediately go to commentaries and I don't immediately go to people who have preached sermons on these things because I'm afraid that I will do that. I do it, but I form my own opinions and what I think that it's about and what I think I want to teach. And then towards the end of the week when I get ready to do it, Then I will go look and see what somebody else said because I don't I do recognize the importance Of the church as a whole making sure that I don't get way off base someplace But I I want to have to deal with it myself Uh, you can be spoon-fed things that you didn't earn and what I found is is when you do that What happens is is that? They don't become a part of your life. They become a part of your intellect. You could spout it off. Maybe you even talk about it But you're talking about things that you don't know anything about not really experientially and that fits with these first two verses really well because Paul is saying I Didn't memorize this nobody taught it to me the Lord himself gave it to me Now the rest of this was going to go a little bit quicker, I think But that sets it up When he gets done saying that in thirteen he starts this autobiography. He talks about his life in Judaism and he talks about how he persecuted the church and he talks about how he had advanced in Judaism far beyond those of his own age. He was so extremely zealous for the traditions of his father's you'll see that phrase in verse fourteen the traditions of his father's note that phrase That's where I got a lot of when I told you that this is not so much based on what these people studied in the scripture with the traditions of the fathers phrases like that are the kinds of phrases that are used in order to talk about rabbinical tradition. Jewish tradition. Well let's deal with thirteen and fourteen. The reason that Paul is saying this is again probably twofold. He's given testimony to the grace of God in his life obviously. But the other thing is that he's reminding these Galatians that these Judaizers who want to tell you how much it is that they know about the Jewish faith and how it connects with your Christianity and how we all need to be uniform and look the same way. He's saying if anybody knows anything about that stuff. I do. Paul I Paul no more about it. You can put six of them out there together and they don't know squat about it compared to what I know. Paul is Paul is reminding these people that don't act as though that I'm some fly by night teacher out here who doesn't understand where all this came from because I studied under Gamaliel I know Jewish tradition. And so when I tell you by grace through faith I'm not saying that because I made it up. And I'm not saying that because I don't understand all of these traditions. I'm saying it because that's what was revealed to me. So Paul is telling them that. He's also then saying, look, when you see me, I believe this stuff so much. In other words, I was more zealous than all these Judaizers. I was willing to put my religion on the line and persecute this sect that called themselves Christians because it was contrary to what it was that we were teaching and here's the other thing. In doing this Paul is saying why is it that I would have as a zealous Jew persecute Christianity if all that we were talking about is the same thing. If it's all the same thing we just add a little Jesus on top of all of these Jewish laws and then we'll be fine. If it was the same thing why would I go around persecuting people for that. Paul is telling them that's because it wasn't the same thing. It's not the same thing at all. It's all different. So when he then comes and says I persecuted them. What he's doing is he's not proud of it. But what he's saying is my zeal was far beyond anybody who's coming who has come to talk to you about these Jewish things that they're telling you you need to do. I know about those. And, you know, we can kind of do the same thing sometimes. As we go through life, there are things that we kind of get into and then find ourselves needing to get out of. that then when we see other believers who are. Going down those same paths with people who are teaching them some of the same things. We can say. I've been there I got the T-shirt let me tell you where that is you know don't don't go there don't do that let me tell you what my experience was and I know a lot about it because I thought it was the way to go you know and there are so many things like that in Christianity so much so so many It does start with denominationalism, but it even crosses that. I think about folks who come up with ideas about how you dress. We talked about how you educate your kids. I think about, well, this is how courtship happens. This is how, some of those things, there may be some good in them. I always got cracked up at the homeschool movement. I'm gonna diverge for just a minute because because this is where it gets to. These girls that were being raised into this thing, their jobs were to bring up the next generation. I mean, they were being trained to be wives, keepers at home. That's good. No problem with that. But I'd heard many of these families say it got so bad. Well, you don't really need to take math because after all, you're not going to you're not going to actually go into the work world and do anything right. You don't need to take math. You don't need to go into algebra because you're not going to do it. And I thought about that and I thought, Okay, so what you're doing is she doesn't need to take it, but you're hoping that she's going to be the same thing you are and raise kids of her own and homeschool them. If she doesn't know how to do math, how's she going to teach them how to do math? And nobody saw it. And so this thing went on for a long period of time until what happened is you got to the place where it wasn't pretty in some cases. Uniformity, following rules in order to please God can get you in trouble. so 15 but when he who set me apart before I was born and he called me by his grace was pleased to reveal a son to me in order that I might preach among the Gentiles I did not immediately consult with anyone it's the same terminology but we need to cover something in this little bit just quickly and it is this the language here whether people like it or not It doesn't matter. It says what it says. God was pleased to reveal his son to Paul. Paul was called by his grace. Paul had been set apart to do this job that he was going to do before he was born. That may raise questions in some of your mind. I don't intend to deal with them at this point. But I just want you to recognize that God He's a big God. He's sovereign over everything. He had planned to do this thing with Paul and it was going to happen. And the scripture uses language like this all through it. It says something very similar in Genesis about Joseph. This is why you were brought forth. is to be sure that everybody didn't die. God sets these things up ahead of time. We don't have to understand it completely and I don't think we're capable but we do have to acknowledge that it's true that he does these things. Well what he's saying is God called me. Men didn't call me. God called me and I didn't immediately consult with anybody. Verse 17 I didn't go up to Jerusalem who those were apostles before me. But I went to Arabia and then I went to Damascus. And then after three years I went to Jerusalem. Paul spends three years in the desert. Not that, don't get the wrong idea. There were towns around this place. Immediately after he was saved in the account in Acts, we won't go there now, but he did go to some synagogues. It wasn't as if he was completely living in a cave somewhere and didn't have any contact with anybody. But he was being taught by the Lord about who the Lord was and about the gospel during this time. And he spends three years doing it. And it is more important for him to spend this time with the Lord than it is for him to go to Jerusalem to learn of the apostles at this point. And we'll take a lesson out of that for ourselves, which is that if our spirituality consists of going to church and being around people as good as those things are and as scriptural and as helpful as means of grace. If they become our Christianity then we may have a problem because our Christianity in terms of dealing with the Lord in prayer and in worship and in the word most of that is going to happen by yourself. OK. Now not all of it. OK. That's another thing that happens. We are designed to be in community. We're designed to be part of the body of Christ. We're designed to love one another and to do all those one another in things in the scriptures. We do those things but those things don't happen apart from personal relationship with Christ. Jesus himself left people a lot and he would go up and even if it cost him sleep he would go up on a mountain and be by himself with the Lord. These things are necessary for us and you can't do one without the other. All right. 18. He went to Jerusalem to visit Cephas. That's Peter and he remained with him 15 days. He saw James up there and that was it. He's still making this point that you know you. It wasn't as if I went up there and this message came from them and that was the Judaizers claim. I were getting this from the Jerusalem church these things you have to do. I'll say no. I didn't get it from there. And God didn't want to give it to me from there. Verse 20, I think, is one of the saddest parts of this book. When he says, in what I'm writing to you before God, I don't lie. How sad it is when people get shifted away from the truth. to the degree that they are willing to accuse the Apostle Paul of being a liar in terms of where his message came from. And I think that it's dangerous for us, too. It comes from, most of the time, where that comes from is, why does he get to be so special? I want to be special. My teacher, the one that's teaching me is special. Paul's not the only one. I need to be too. And the only way I'm going to be is that if I take him and decide, yeah, he's really not all that great. Maybe some of the things he said are wrong. Did you see the way he talked to that lady? We wouldn't follow a man like that. See that's how it starts. And it's dangerous. And so. Paul having to defend himself and say. You Galatians remember me Paul the one that started your church. I'm not a liar. That. Hit me pretty hard. OK. He goes to Syria and Cilicia. But he's not known to the churches of Judea. What they knew about him only was that this guy who used to persecute us is now preaching the gospel. He's now preaching that faith that he wanted to destroy and in twenty four they glorified God because of him. So he's kind of bringing this back around and saying that. Just because I didn't. I didn't. Learn these things from the apostles of Jerusalem doesn't mean that my gospel is different from theirs. OK. It's not different from theirs. We're saying the same thing. It is in a different context. And so the words are going to be somewhat different. Because of the people that we're dealing with. But. These people were rejoicing because what God was doing. Through me. Relations to one. After 14 years, he goes to Jerusalem with Barnabas and he takes Titus with him. He goes because of a revelation and then now he goes before the apostles, the leaders in the church. He goes privately before them who seemed influential because he wanted to know if the gospel he proclaimed among the Gentiles He wanted to make sure that he hasn't missed something. So some of this passage that we're going to read now, it can look as though that Paul is being really, really cocky. And he's saying, I don't need to talk to those bozos in Jerusalem. I mean, those guys are, I'm like a super apostle after everything I've done. These guys, they don't know anything. That's not what he's saying. Some of this doesn't translate really well to English for us. Because some of these things that he's saying, that whole thing, those who seem to be influential, those who seem to be pillars, those kinds of things, they're actually in some ways, if you look at the language, they're actually complementary. They're not. Well, they seem like they're pretty good guys, but they're really not kind of thing. That's not what he's saying And we know that we know that because we recognize those sayings and other writings, but we know it because of this if If he had not been wanting to to go check in with these brothers up there and to deal with this issue. We have all of these Gentiles coming to faith. We need to know what that means in terms of the church and their relationship with those in Judea. We need to have that down. Then if he hadn't done that then we would say yeah he's just kind of rogue but he's not. It takes him a while but he goes and he fellowships with them and he asked them Verse three, even Titus, who was with me, wasn't forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. Yet because a false brethren secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy out our freedom that's in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery, we didn't yield to them, we didn't submit, not even for a moment, that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you. What are they saying? Paul is saying, I went to Jerusalem to check in with the brothers there, the leaders of the church and the apostles. I took this Greek kid with me. But it was not incumbent upon him to even be circumcised, which was in the Jewish way of looking at things, the very first thing that you would do if you were going to please God. And these Judaizers, that was the first thing that they would say. If you're a Gentile believer, and you're going to trust Christ. You must be circumcised. That was one of their very first tenants. And so Paul is arguing here. I took Titus with me and he didn't think it was necessary and neither did anyone else. Now we did have some guys who were slipping in looking at us and trying to cause trouble and saying that we didn't we don't follow. We don't have any respect for the law of Moses and that we don't care about God. There were guys who made an accusation against us. But Titus didn't need to be circumcised. It didn't have anything to do with whether or not he had faith or not. And that brings us then right back around to some of the things that we've talked about before. Faith in Christ. The grace that he bestows on us. Doesn't start with outward manifestations of things. And I keep telling you that because we have been really strong on. If you are a Christian your life should be different. If you are a Christian you should live a certain way. You can't just say you're a Christian and then do whatever you want to do. We have been really strong on that because culturally in Christian culture I mean there's been this whole thing that says pray the prayer walk the aisle get wet and then you're fine. And we have battled that and we have battled that and we should have. But the thing is, is that as men, we can get off center. And so if you battle that to one direction all of the time, where you then can get to in folks' mind, is well, if that's true, and I'm doing some of these things and bearing some of these fruits in my life, then that means that I'm a Christian. And that's how I get to be one. And that's how I get to stay one. We're studying Galatians because we want to remind ourselves that while it is true that the Spirit of God invading someone's life changes that life, it is always still by grace through faith. God is holy, and we're not, and we need to be rescued. And that those changes in our lives come from that place. They don't come from those external things. We have to push ourselves both of those directions all of the time. Okay? Because we all just want to be uniform. We all just want to know what is it that we got to do, what do we got to look like, what do we got to get rid of, what do we got to get hold of that makes us what we need to be. Okay. six to six. Those who seem to be influential what they were makes no difference to me. God shows no partiality. What he's saying there that is a little bit of sarcasm. And what he's saying there is that I went to talk to him their brothers I appreciate what it is that they have to say. But you Galatians need to understand that Jesus gave me the gospel personally. I'm checking in like I need to check in to have fellowship with these other brothers to make sure that nothing's wrong to make sure that we're not crossways but nonetheless he gave it to me. But when they seem to be those that seem to be influential they didn't add anything to me verse seven 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 who worked through Peter Also work through me. That's the idea When Peter and John those pillars of the church Perceived that grace saw what I was doing. They gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and I That we should go to the Gentiles and they should go to the circumcised What does that mean? Paul is saying he's really clear. He's saying okay. Look I Jesus revealed this gospel to me. I got it from him. I didn't get it from anybody else But if you Galatians because of these teachings of the Judaizers are so worried about the fact that I'm disconnected from what's going on at Jerusalem Let me tell you we've talked and we're cool That's what he's saying He's saying, OK, I'll get you both ways. The first thing is I didn't go up and look. I didn't. This wasn't revealed to me by anybody but God himself. But if you're worried about it, those people who you guys claim to come from, guess what? They agree with what I'm doing. So he's catching them every which way and. Verse 10 says they only asked us to remember the poor, the thing that I was very eager to do. Now, there's going to be a disagreement. We will start talking about the disagreement here, and we will then deal with it perhaps further next time. The disagreement's like this. Peter's in Antioch with Paul, visiting the church there. Peter is treating the Gentiles like the Gentiles ought to be treated. He's eating with them, eating the same food they're eating. He's being served by Gentiles, eating out of Gentile dishes. We can extrapolate that he's not doing all of the ceremonial washings, all those kinds of things. He's not commanding that they should be following the traditions of the elders. He's not advocating that all of these Gentiles need to be circumcised. He's not doing any of those things. But, There are more representatives from the Church of Jerusalem that show up. And when they show up, their opinion about what's going on here is not good. Because for hundreds and hundreds of years, Jews don't have anything to do with Gentiles. Peter gets carried away with that. And so the Jews, these Jewish people, start separating themselves from the Gentiles. Yeah we're Jews and you guys are not they wouldn't go so far as to say you guys aren't Christians what they would do is they would just say you guys pretty good but not like us right I mean you're pretty good you're doing okay but you're not quite like us and so we need to have our own thing over here Paul sees this and being Paul jumps right into the middle of it. This is a lesson for me that hopefully maybe you'll get to. He doesn't do it because he sees something that's wrong and wants to cause a bunch of trouble. We can sometimes do that. Paul's reason for doing this is if I let Peter who is the chief apostle and a leader in the church in Jerusalem act like this it's going to ruin the gospel for all of the other Gentiles that I have preached it to and those I'm going to preach it to. How is it going to ruin it? If they do this by grace through faith, is it not going to be true anymore? And I can't let Peter do this. And so he comes and he asked Peter a question. And he basically says, if you are trying, if you live like a Gentile and that's OK, Why is it that you think that the Gentiles then, when all these other guys show up, need to act like Jews? Even when things are not good, there are times when we need to be patient and loving about things. And there are times when we have to confront what's going on. We just have to. And this was one of those times. Paul is doing a couple of things here and we'll end with this and you can read this part. We probably mostly have gotten through with it. I have to protect the gospel. This was the gospel that Jesus gave me by grace through faith. Nothing added. I can't let Peter and those with him violate that. Also. The thing is that. Peter himself being really powerful you would think we better think twice before we cross him. All men are fallible, even apostles. Everyone can make a mistake. Now 2 Peter, which was written later than this by a lot, Peter gives Paul con commendation talking about even giving us the knowledge that Paul's letters at the end of second Peter are really scripture he even says that. So we don't see how in this narrative and I think this is graciousness on Paul's part. He doesn't say how it finally worked out and see that's the part of the story that I always want to tell we can look at Paul and say well would you really have to tell this. He really had to tell this because of the nature that he the thing that he was writing a letter about what he didn't do is he didn't say. Yeah and Peter argued with me and I stuffed him and then when he continued to argue I took him off in another room and we dealt with it and finally he started crying and he had to repent and when we got done with that then he came back out and I told him he had to apologize to all of these people. He doesn't give any more detail about the conflict than is necessary to make his point. and that's important. Paul didn't tell this story so that he would make himself look better. He told this story to say that it doesn't matter because what did he say at the beginning of the letter? If either me, who points at himself, or an angel from heaven, or anybody else, comes here and preaches a different gospel other than the one that I gave you to start with, let him be accursed. And he's just sticking right with that through this. He's just sticking right with that. So, the end of the story, when Peter asks him the questions, you can't force the Gentiles to live like Jews. By grace through faith. God's holy, you're not. You need to be rescued. God's going to work it out in your life in such a way so that you love him. And the external things are not part of the gospel, so don't make them a part of the gospel. And he defends it in terms of his history in Judaism, his persecution of the church. He defends it in terms of how he has been then made an apostle and God called him. And even in this matter of this conflict with Peter, Paul is rock solid on the gospel is the gospel. Don't change it. All right, let's pray. Father, thank you today for your grace. I hope that we will be able to think about these things because I recognize in my own life it's so very easy for me to look at external things and determine that because of participation in those external things that I can be right with you. Lord, we thank you that you do give us disciplines and things that we need to participate in. But Lord, I pray that those things will always be rooted in our relationship with you through the gospel. It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen.