Freedom under Attack

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Transcript:

Turn with me to Galatians chapter 2. Galatians chapter 2. I know this being the first Sunday night that we’ve not had a Wannas, and maybe for other reasons, this is the first. Well, there are some of you that have not been here the last few nights, the last few Sunday nights.

I haven’t been here the last few nights. The last few Sunday nights to be in on our series on Galatians, we’re going through the book. It’s one of my favorites, and I’m not going to go through everything that we’ve talked about in the last couple weeks, but just to bring you up to speed with what we’ve been talking about, the book of Galatians, along with Romans and some others, the book of Galatians was written about the liberty that we have in Christ. And you’ll notice two major themes running throughout this book of freedom and faithfulness.

You see, Paul goes to great lengths in writing to the people of the churches at Galatia in the beginning chapters about the freedom that they have in Christ. And it was necessary to write about that freedom, to defend that freedom against those who would come in and try to entangle us again with the yoke of bondage under the Old Testament law. And as we know from reading this book, we’ll get to this in later chapters, the purpose of the Old Testament law was never to save us. The purpose of the Old Testament law was never to bring us peace with God.

The purpose of the Old Testament law was the fact that in the garden, long before the law was ever handed down, folks, the law was handed down somewhere in the 15th century B. C. We were created and fell about 2,500 years before that.

The book of Genesis covers about 65% of human history, I think, if I counted right. Long before the law was ever given, we had already fallen short of God’s standards. We had already sinned against God.

And the purpose of the law was to put that in some kind of codified form, written out, where we could see how far short we fell of God’s standards. And the law was, as it says in Galatians, a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. Christ was God’s vehicle for redemption, not the law. And yet in this time, there were people coming in that were saying, well, you need Christ and you need grace, but you also need to adhere to the law.

And folks, there is a sense in which we should adhere to God’s moral law. It’s for our good. It honors Him.

But as far as keeping the law for salvation, we’re not capable of that, even if it were possible. We’re not capable. And yet they were teaching, you need to be circumcised.

You need to keep the Passover. You need to do this. You need to do that in addition to Christ. And Paul’s complaint in the book of Galatians, as in so many other places, is that if you mix grace with what we can earn, then it’s not really grace at all anymore, is it?

If we say, well, Jesus paid 50% and we paid the other 50%, well, then we really didn’t, Jesus didn’t pay at all, did he? Because we’re still earning something. We’re still working for something.

Even if Jesus paid 99% of our sin debt, and we only worked for the other 1%, then we have something to boast in, and it’s not grace anymore. It’s some kind of hybrid monster of grace and works, grace and the law. But Paul points out it’s completely grace.

If we could ever earn our salvation through the law, then there was no point in Christ dying on the cross for us. And so he tells the churches at Galatia, and by extension tells us, that we have been set free from the demands of the Old Testament law. Now, there’s another heresy that runs counter to that called antinomianism.

We talked about the first night that says, because we as Christians are not under the Old Testament law, we’re not under any law. We can just do whatever we want. Well, there’s what the Bible calls the law of Christ that we’re under in the New Testament.

Things like, love thy neighbor as thyself. Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength. Just because we’re not under the Old Testament law doesn’t mean we are free to do whatever we want.

It doesn’t mean we as Christians should just have the run of the world, stealing, breaking commandments left and right, raping and pillaging like Vikings. That’s anarchy, and that’s completely counter to the example that we’re given in the Bible. And so there are these two themes running through Galatians, because we get into the later chapters, and that’s where it talks about the fruits of the Spirit and what is expected from Christian believers.

We see these two themes of freedom in Christ and faithfulness to Christ. And they have to work together because neither of them stands alone and neither of them works standing on their own. You see, we can’t really be faithful to Christ if we’re concerned about our goodness and what we can earn. We serve Him out of gratefulness for what He’s done for us.

And it doesn’t work without freedom. The faithfulness doesn’t work without freedom. Well, at the same time, the freedom doesn’t work without faithfulness.

We were set free to go and be faithful. Our freedom enables us to be faithful. And we see these two themes.

Already in chapter 1, Paul has answered questions that even if they didn’t ask out loud, might have been going on in their minds. In the beginning of chapter 1, he talks to them about these other gospels that had come in, namely, chiefly among them being the one of mixing the law and grace, works and faith, mixing these things and saying, it’s another gospel, which isn’t really a gospel anyway. And he pronounces essentially a curse, not like he’s doing witchcraft, but says that those who preach false gospels are cursed of God, calls them anathema, which is one of the strongest words you can use in the Greek to apply to somebody.

He calls them that and answers the question, well, how much can we tweak the gospel and it still be okay? And the answer is, not at all. Then there’s the question at the end of chapter 1, well, who made you the sheriff in town?

They may not have asked it in so many words, but he dealt with it in other letters. He dealt with it in 2 Corinthians as well, I believe, because there were people around that once, you know, they might have liked Paul until they were on the receiving end of his preaching, and then when they didn’t like the conviction of the Holy Spirit, their answer, instead of dealing with their own sin, was, well, who are you to tell me? Because he didn’t come from the, he didn’t have a long ministerial pedigree where he’d come out of the church in Jerusalem, where he’d been approved and anointed and called out by the apostles.

And he relates here, at the end of chapter 1, he relates the way he was called out by Jesus Christ, and what he was taught came from Jesus Christ. And basically, answers the question, if you want to know by what right I preach to you, It’s the fact that Jesus Christ called me and set me apart to be his apostle and answers the question. And as a result of God calling him, he was free to serve God because he didn’t need men’s approval. And I told you last week how that’s true for us as well. Tonight, we get out of the abstract a little bit, where Paul has been really talking about false teachers, hadn’t named anybody by name, but said if somebody comes along, whether it’s me, whether it’s somebody else, even if it’s an angel from heaven and they preach a gospel contrary to what we’ve already preached and you’ve already received, let them be anathema.

He’s talking about things that had actually happened, but to us it sounds very hypothetical. And he’s answering questions about his apostleship. At the beginning of chapter 2, he gets into this is really happening now, that people were trying to come in and steal away the freedom that they had in Christ. They were trying to steal away the freedom that he, Paul, had in Christ. And we see Paul’s response to that in Galatians 2. Galatians 2, verse 1 says, Then 14 years after I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and took Titus with me also.

If you’ll remember from last week, he talks about how when he was called, he didn’t first go to Jerusalem. He went into the Arabian desert, and then after some time he went up to Jerusalem and met with Peter and James, I believe it was. And that was it.

He said the other people in the church wouldn’t have even known him face to face. He says here in chapter 2, verse 1, that again, 14 years after that, he went to Jerusalem again, and he took Barnabas and Titus with him. And I went by revelation and communicated unto them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run or had run in vain.

And what he says, I went up by revelation, and I believe that means he was led by God, to go down to Jerusalem. It says go up to Jerusalem. I think they’re talking in terms of elevation here because he says go up to Jerusalem when he was very likely at Antioch.

And if you look at a map of where Jerusalem is today and was then and where Antioch used to be, he’d be going south or down in our way of saying things. But he says I went up to Jerusalem. The same thing is said in Acts chapter 15, talking about going down to Jerusalem from Antioch.

I mean, going up to Jerusalem from Antioch. He goes by revelation of God that God led him to go to Jerusalem to deal with the situation that was brewing here. And he said he communicated to them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles.

Well, who’s he talking about? We can tell that by context that these 14 years later when he comes to Jerusalem, he’s meeting with the leaders of the church there. He’s meeting with Peter and James and John and some others.

And he says, I communicated unto them the gospel which I preach among the Gentiles. Why? Because they were preaching a different gospel?

because they were preaching a wrong gospel and he needed to straighten them out? No, because they’d heard things about Paul, and he went and shared with them the gospel that he preached so they would know they were on the same page. He said, I went by revelation and communicated unto them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run or had run in vain.

He said, I went to them and I explained to them the gospel that I had preached, that I have been preaching, that I would continue to preach, unless, he said, and I did it privately with them so that they would know, lest all my ministry had been in vain. He said, lest they accuse me of preaching a false gospel, lest they misunderstand. Paul went in to the apostles and the leaders of the church at Jerusalem and made it abundantly clear what he’d been preaching.

He says the gospel that he had preached unto the Gentiles. There was question at this point because Paul was not insisting on strict adherence to the Jewish Old Testament law that he was allowing them to just run wild. And some people would say, well, he’s not preaching things of God.

Well, he goes in and explains to them exactly what he was preaching so that they would know. And as we say in my family, and so their children someday would know the things that he had been preaching, the gospel that he had preached. So they would understand that regardless of what they had heard, the truth was being proclaimed to the Gentiles.

But neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. This man Titus was not compelled by the Jerusalem church. They did not force him to go and be circumcised, to follow the Old Testament law.

And that because of false brethren. Before we get there, before we start on verse 4, there’s discussion among Bible scholars whether this is the same trip to Jerusalem that is discussed in Acts chapter 15. If you’re familiar with Acts chapter 15, and I’d encourage you to go read it later if you’re not familiar with it.

If you’re not familiar with Acts chapter 15, there was a question at the church at Antioch, whether or not they had to be circumcised and follow the Old Testament law. And so after they debated about it for a while, the church decided to send Paul and Barnabas, and I believe it says some others, let me double check on that, and certain other of them, Acts chapter 15, verse 2, sent Paul and Barnabas and certain others down to Jerusalem to inquire of the church there what they thought, what the answer would be. And so they traveled down and they met with the church leaders, and it’s referred to now today as the Council of Jerusalem.

My initial response is that this probably, the things seem to fit, and this is probably talking about the same meeting that they had. Now, I still have some questions about the timeline and how that would have worked out, but it seems to me that this fits. But whether or not they, Paul, made a third trip to Jerusalem at some point, it really doesn’t change what’s going on.

I know this was such a contentious issue in the first century churches that they might have needed to go to Jerusalem several times and just say, Yes, it’s still, you know, how many times do you have to tell your kids no? Or have you had to tell your kids no before they finally got it? You know, I could see the church at Jerusalem having to say several times, no, you don’t have to before they finally got it.

Whether Galatians chapter 2 and Acts 15 talk about the same meeting or not, they talk about the same subject. That this was going on, men were coming in and saying, in order to be Christians, in order to be saved, yes, you need Jesus, but you can’t be one of God’s covenant people without circumcision, without keeping the law. And it’s very telling to me that when he takes Titus, someone who was a Greek and they knew was a Greek, they did not compel him to undergo circumcision.

And he says in verse 4, And that because of false brethren, unawares brought in, who came in privily to spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage. A lot of good old English words that we don’t use anymore or don’t use in the same way anymore in that verse. Some brethren, he says.

Actually, he calls them false brethren. Some people who appeared to be Christians sounded on the outside like Christians, but who were not Christians in here, who had not trusted Christ, who had not been born again. He says some false brethren, unawares, were brought in.

They were not, the church didn’t realize that these were not true brethren. And these men came in amongst them, they slipped in, and they came in privily or secretly to spy out our liberty. They were there keeping tabs on Paul and Barnabas and Titus to hear what they had to say so that they could use it against them at a later date.

That’s a recipe for disaster in a church. To privily spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage. They wanted to hear Paul and Barnabas and Titus’ arguments so that they would know how to answer them in hopes of convincing them and their followers that, yeah, you need to be circumcised.

You need to follow the Old Testament law. He says in verse 5, To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour. These people, we listened to them for not even an hour.

We didn’t give them a second of attention as to what they taught, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. There was no need for them to listen to their arguments. There was no need for them to debate the issue.

Sometimes we can debate issues together. We can disagree. We can discuss the scriptures.

But folks, there ought to be some things that are set in stone that we don’t have to be in doubt about anymore. And when we know very clearly from the teaching of God’s word that it is by grace and only by grace, without any mixture of works or effort on our part, that ought to be settled. And when somebody comes in teaching otherwise, as he says in chapter 1, we ought to shut them down.

I don’t have to listen and question and debate that anymore. I think I’m fairly open-minded and like to debate and discuss things. That’s not a question that’s open for discussion with me, and certainly was not for the Apostle Paul.

That the truth of the gospel might continue with you, he writes to the churches at Galatia. We didn’t listen to them and give heed to them because we didn’t want you to do the same either. We wanted the truth of the gospel to continue with you.

But of these who seem to be somewhat, these men who seem to be something, and we would say something similar to that today, well, isn’t he something? They seem to be something. Whatever they were, I like Paul’s sarcasm here.

These men who seem to be something, whatever they were, they were something, I don’t know what they were, but whatever they were, it makes no matter to me, God accepts no man’s person. It didn’t matter whether they were big, reputable, famous men, well-respected men. it didn’t matter.

He said, God is no respecter of any man’s person. What that means is who we are, all the good things we’ve done, really means nothing to God. It doesn’t make us special. It doesn’t make us acceptable.

The only way we’re acceptable to God is through Jesus Christ. I don’t get to go to the gates of heaven and say, well, I’m Jared Byrns. That’s exactly what I don’t want to say. I want to say, I trusted Christ. Because if it was just, oh, I’m Jared Byrns, oh, they’d be out there so fast. He said, it didn’t matter to me what these men were, how high they and others thought of themselves.

God’s no respecter of persons. For they seemed to be somewhat in conference added nothing to me. They had nothing to tell the Apostle Paul.

He had nothing to learn from these men who were teaching a false gospel. But contrarywise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of circumcision was to Peter, let’s stop there. He’s not saying there’s a different gospel for the Jews and for the Gentiles.

There seems to have developed that idea in some churches today that the Jews have a different method of salvation than the Gentiles. One of the most famous pastors in our country is a man in San Antonio named John Hagee, who preaches on TV and on the radio all the time that the Jews can be saved by adherence to the Old Testament law. That’s rubbish.

And he wins awards from pro-Israeli groups for doing it. Folks, I love Israel. I love the Jewish people.

But the most loving thing we can do is to tell them the truth and not tell them, oh, there’s another way. you can get to heaven and it not be through Jesus Christ. Folks, that’s as wrong today as it was 2,000 years ago. He’s not saying there’s a gospel for the circumcised and a gospel for the uncircumcised.

What he’s saying here is that the gospel was committed to him for the uncircumcised people. He was an apostle to the Gentiles, just as Peter was given the gospel for the circumcised, that Peter was appointed to preach unto the Jews. He’s not talking about two different gospels.

He’s talking about one gospel with two different audiences and two different men that were sent to those audiences. I just wanted to clarify that. When they saw that the gospel of uncircumcision was committed unto me as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter, for he that wrought effectually in Peter the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles.

He says, for the same one who gave Peter apostleship, who appointed Peter to preach the gospel, he said the same worked mightily in me toward the Gentiles. He’s reminding them again that his call and his apostleship comes from God. And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, that we should go unto the heathen and they unto the circumcision.

When they heard everything that was preached by Paul, they heard his message, they heard of his ministry, they heard of his successes and his challenges, they realized that they were on the same team. and they were preaching the same gospel just to different people. And so it says that they gave them the right hand of fellowship, that they should go into the heathen, and they enter the circumcision.

It was not a division here, well, fine, do what you want. You go your way, we go ours. It would be like if we sent a missionary out from this church.

I know he wasn’t from this church, but a few weeks ago, we brought Brother Brad here and listened about his ministry, and he shared with it, and then we wished him well. We said we’d pray for him, and we sent him on his way. That wasn’t a division to say, fine, do what you want, you do your thing, we’ll do ours.

That was sending him out to go and reach people in Nicaragua, not Nicaragua, Honduras, as we try to reach people in Fayetteville, working together, same gospel, two different fields. That’s what’s going on here. It wasn’t a parting and a division.

It was welcome to the team. Now go to your field and do it. Only they would that we should remember the poor, the same which I also was forward to do.

He says the only injunction they gave them at that point was to remember the poor. And Paul says, and by the way, we were already anxious to do that anyway, to take care of the poor as we went preaching the gospel. Now, I questioned and looked at this.

If it’s the same as Acts chapter 15, well, at one point he talks to them privately. In Acts chapter 15, there’s a public discussion about it. In Acts chapter 15, he tells they send a letter back to the church, stay away from meat strangled and offered to idols, stay away from fornication.

Here they just tell Paul and Barnabas to care for the poor as they go about preaching the gospel. It still could be the same thing because when they talk about taking care of the poor, they’re speaking to Paul and Barnabas. The other commands when they say, you don’t have to be circumcised and follow the Old Testament law, these are the only things that we have need of to tell you, that was written to the church at Antioch.

And it’d be very easy if there was another church that was struggling and they needed counsel from us, what do you think we ought to do? and we couldn’t tell them what to do, but we could offer them our advice. You know, we could very easily send a letter to the church telling them what to do and another message privately for the ones who, not a contradictory message.

Here’s some additional instructions to you, brother, in your ministry. That’s very feasible to say that that could have happened. Again, it doesn’t matter whether it was the same instance or not, but we know that this was, whether it was one event or two, we know that this was something they dealt with on numerous occasions in numerous churches, whether or not they had to follow the Old Testament law.

What we see here in this passage, and we’re almost through, what we see in this passage is that what Paul had been talking about already, this seemingly hypothetical attack on their liberty, on their freedom in Christ, their freedom from the Old Testament law, was real. It wasn’t just some abstract theological debate. It was something that was really going on. There were people that came in and accused Paul and accused the church at Antioch and said, you’ve got to teach people to follow the Old Testament law.

We talked about this just a little bit in Sunday school this morning. Somebody was, may have been more than one person, was disturbed in a particular passage why they kept talking about circumcision. And I said, when I first really got into studying my Bible as a teenager, I was disturbed when they kept talking about circumcision in the New Testament because I thought, this is not appropriate.

I was a very prudish teenager. I said, this is not appropriate. Why is this in the Bible?

And then I realized that that was one of their signs, They’re outward signs of being part of God’s Old Testament covenant, being part of His chosen people. In many ways, in my estimation, it’s similar to baptism today, that it’s an outward sign of entering into that relationship with Jesus Christ. And there are verses that talk about circumcision doesn’t save you. Well, baptism doesn’t save you either.

But just as in their day there were people saying you’ve got to be circumcised, follow the Old Testament law, do this, do that. There are people in our day that say you need to be baptized, You need to cross these T’s and dot these I’s and you need to do this and do that. And they’re adding to the gospel.

And folks, some of those teachings are very subtle and they’re very seductive and it’s easy for people to get sucked into those things. It’s dangerous teaching to begin to add anything to the gospel. This is not just hypothetical stuff.

This kind of thing is still going on today. And their freedom was under attack. And Paul responds to that by saying, we’re not even going to listen to this.

We’re going to shut it down. Four thoughts I want to leave you with before we go, just in the next few minutes. Folks, our freedom exists to enable us to serve Christ, not to do exactly what we want.

Not to do exactly what we want. We see throughout Galatians and throughout his other letters, Paul clings desperately to the freedom that Christ had given him. Does not waver on that.

Takes a firm stand on that. But we don’t see Paul going out and using it as an excuse to live like the world. On the contrary, he writes to the church at Rome and probably some others and tells them that this is not an excuse or justification to go out and live as we want.

Our freedom in Christ enables us to serve Him freely, not to be our own masters. And we see in the beginning of chapter 2 that they’re out doing ministry, and they have to deal with this because men come and attack their freedom. But folks, they weren’t using their freedom as an excuse to go out and run amok.

They were using their freedom to go preach the gospel to the Gentiles, and there were some people that didn’t like it because it interfered with the kingdoms they were trying to build for themselves. And we need to realize, we need to recognize that our freedom in Christ exists to enable us to serve him freely, not to do exactly what we want. Second of all, folks, legalism is a subtle religion that will come in and try to quietly take the place of grace in our lives.

Legalism, very often, that’s what this was here. A lot of times, our church might even be called by some legalists, because we insist, I believe, on strict adherence to what the Bible teaches. Or at least that’s our goal. We try for that.

We teach the Bible. We go by what the Bible says. Folks, that’s not legalism.

Legalism is when we set up our laws, our traditions, our interpretation, and make that the law that everybody has to follow to be in good stead with God. Strict adherence to the Bible is not legalism. It’s faithfulness.

Legalism, on the other hand, is a very subtle religion. It’s a very attractive religion because it allows us to set ourselves up on a pedestal as judge, jury, and executioner, lawgiver, you name it, and look down at everybody else who does not meet up to our standards. That’s exactly what these people were doing.

Yes, they were using the Old Testament law handed down by God, but they had added other things to that, as we know with the Pharisees, and they were misusing the law. And legalism didn’t normally come in and doesn’t normally today come in with trumpets and banners leading the way, but comes in subtly and quietly. I know where people today have been preaching circumcision, Passover, following the Old Testament law, doing all these things in churches today, and they’ve caused great havoc in churches.

We dealt with this at the first church I pastored. There was a woman there trying to lead a charge for this. It was all very subtle and very quiet.

Whisper campaigns and people bending each other’s ears. Before you know it, you’ve got a full-blown folks. They didn’t come through the door saying, I think we’ve got a new revelation from God today, and this is what we need to do.

It came in very quietly, very subtly. We have to be on guard, not just as a church. You need to be on guard in your own life.

I have to be on guard in my own life against that kind of thinking, because I can very easily say, oh, we’ll look at him and what he’s doing. And folks, it’s something I’ve set up, it’s a standard I’ve set up, and not something that’s from God’s run. And the problem with legalism is that it and grace cannot coexist. It cannot coexist. And legalism will try to usurp the place that grace rightfully has and begin to make us feel like we’re more righteous than we are when really the only thing we have going for us is the righteousness of Christ. Third of all, we should give no hearing to teachers who deny the grace of Christ. Give no hearing.

As I said, I like to discuss. I like to debate. Sometimes I like to argue back and forth, not as much as I used to.

But I like to discuss new ideas, and I like to foist my ideas on other people. But folks, when it comes to somebody that teaches something other than grace, there’s no need to listen or discuss. There are times that I’ll listen to other people and what they teach if they teach something a little bit different than I do, if they see the Bible just a little bit different way.

And I’ll listen to them, and I’ll re-research it for myself, and make sure I really am believing what God’s Word says and not just my interpretation. But when it comes to grace, folks, don’t entertain. Don’t entertain the question.

Because as I said, it’s subtle and it’s attractive and it’s dangerous. And this is one of the most clear questions that the New Testament answers. Is it grace plus anything?

Can anything? No, it’s just grace. It’s not something we earn.

It’s not something we deserve. It’s not something we purchased in the first place and it’s not ours to maintain. It’s not ours to hold and keep.

It’s his to keep us. Folks, whether it’s grace in obtaining it, whether it’s grace in keeping it, if they preach something other than grace, we don’t need to fool with them. And finally tonight, human standards should not prevent us from sharing God’s grace with others.

In verses 7 through 9, he talks about the charge that he was given then to go out and preach the gospel to the heathen. Well, he didn’t necessarily need their permission. He’d already been preaching the gospel to the heathen.

He’d already been preaching the gospel to the Gentile. And he went out and continued to do so. There was sti