Let's go ahead and open our Bibles to Galatians.
If you're new, welcome.
Thank you for coming to worship with us this morning.
Thank you, worship team,
for leading us in worship through song.
We're gonna keep worshiping
because that's what we're here to do.
And we're gonna worship God by honoring his word
and allowing him to speak to us in the book of Galatians.
So if you would find Galatians chapter two,
that's where we'll be.
If you're wondering what all those good smells are,
we have a member potluck and meeting
that I'm so excited about after service.
So that is a reminder to you covenant members
to stick around, make sure you do.
If you forgot your food, oh well, that's okay.
You can still come and eat someone else's food, okay?
So this morning, Galatians two, verses one through 10,
that's where we'll be.
Let me quickly catch you up to speed.
Let me ask you this, how many gospels are there?
It's a trick question.
One, there's one gospel, right?
The apostle Paul has made that very clear
in chapter one, verse six.
When he said, I am so astonished
that you're turning to another gospel.
Not that there is another gospel
because there's only one gospel.
Remember, Paul is under attack
by the false teachers in Galatia.
Paul is being misrepresented, so to speak.
He's not a true apostle according to them,
not like Peter, James, and John,
those that walked with Jesus.
So his gospel can't be trusted.
It's been tainted by man's opinion.
And what did Paul say to us last week
in chapter one, verses 11 and 12?
That's not the case at all.
I'm not preaching man's gospel.
I'm preaching God's gospel.
And he gave us his testimony and his timeline.
But the purpose of that was not just to give his testimony,
although yes, we see the grace of God working through Paul
in affirming the gospel he preached.
But what we do see is that at no point
during the apostle Paul's pre-conversion,
or post-conversion life, did he ever have his gospel
influenced or tainted by man.
From the moment Paul was converted,
we saw he preached the gospel.
Because he wasn't taught the gospel like you and I.
Where did he learn the gospel from?
Man, we had some people pay attention last week.
Good job, all right.
So what we're gonna see today,
we're gonna continue that timeline.
Paul's gonna tell us he went back to Jerusalem,
and he's gonna tell us what happened
in his second visit to Jerusalem.
He could have cowered and compromised, but he didn't.
He didn't, because he knew
if he would have compromised the gospel,
he would have forfeited the great blessings
that come alongside the gospel.
Let's read verses one through 10.
This is God's word to you and us this morning.
Paul writes this.
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 set before them,
though privately, before those who seemed influential,
the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles
in order to make sure I was not running
or had it 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,
and 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 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 we were eager to do,
or the very thing I was eager to do.
This is God's word.
Let's pray.
Father, you are holy and good and merciful and kind.
We sang your praises now, Lord,
we would give our attention to your word
so that you would speak with us.
You would speak to us.
You would minister your word to our hearts this morning.
So give us ears to hear this morning.
Eyes to see that we would embrace
what your word has said,
and you would point us to Jesus.
We would check our hearts for compromising the gospel,
and we would see the great blessings
that we have in Jesus when we rest in the gospel
by faith in him.
I pray that you would get me out of the way.
You would speak to hearts this morning,
and you would be glorified as we continue to worship you.
In Jesus' name.
Amen.
I remember being a young child,
probably around the age of eight or nine,
and my parents had just bought new mattresses.
And so they were replacing my old mattress
with a new mattress,
and the mattress didn't have any mattress pad
or sheets on it.
It was just the bare mattress.
I remember it being in my room,
and I saw the tag on the end of the mattress,
and the tag read,
do not remove under penalty of law.
I'm an eight-year-old child.
That seems to me like a very inquisitive statement.
Seems to me like they wanna test this out.
At least I wanted to test this out.
So what does an eight-year-old inquisitive child do?
Well, they grab a pair of scissors,
and that's what I did,
and I start snipping away the tag.
And what I'm doing is I am just waiting for the moment
that sirens go off,
and the police start knocking on my door
as I cut that tag away.
And I cut it away,
and I just sit there.
Nothing.
Right, nothing.
So I crumble up the tag,
I go on my way,
and a few days later,
my mom brings the tag to me,
and my heart just melts.
Oh no.
Oh no, they found out, right?
They have found out they're gonna go after my mom,
they're gonna go after me,
and my mom calmed my nerves,
and she gave me some assurance,
Joe, don't worry,
the cops aren't coming.
But what you did do is we had a warranty for that mattress,
and because you cut the tag off the mattress,
we don't have that warranty.
Now, I didn't even know what a warranty was,
but now I do, right?
The benefits that come with being able to replace
the mattress if something happens,
I forfeited those because I simply cut the tag
off the mattress,
and I compromised it, right?
Well, that's what Paul is saying
about the gospel this morning.
Two weeks ago,
we likened the gospel to a water molecule.
If you simply add just an element of oxygen
to a water molecule,
it's not water anymore, was it?
What is it?
Hydrogen peroxide.
Yeah, we've got some people that have been paying attention.
And that's not pure.
That's not anything you wanna swallow,
that's deadly.
Well, in the same way,
the gospel is somewhat like a mattress and its warranty.
If you compromise it at all,
the blessings and the benefits that come with the gospel,
you have forfeited.
We can put it like this.
Compromising gospel truth forfeits gospel blessings.
I'll get to those in just a moment.
Now, remember our context.
Our context, this is Paul's continuation of his defense
that he began in chapter one.
Remember, Paul is proving his point
that despite what the Judaizers in Galatia have claimed
regarding the origin of his gospel
and the validity of his apostleship,
he received his gospel from Jesus.
He's an apostle just like the other apostles.
Chapter one, verses 11 and 12.
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 any man,
nor was I taught it,
but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
Once again, where did Paul get his gospel?
From Jesus Christ.
Not like you and I.
We get the gospel from the pen of Paul,
the pen of the other apostles or prophets
through a preacher exposing God's word,
through a friend telling us the good news, but not Paul.
He was on his way to murder Christians,
and Jesus shows up and makes him a Christian.
We saw that last week.
So what Paul did is he gave a tight testimony, a defense.
Remember, his alibi of everything that happened
from the moment he was converted,
really before he was converted,
to the moment he was converted,
to after his conversion,
proving that at no point in time
did he ever have his gospel influenced
or tainted by man's opinion.
As soon as Paul was converted,
he began preaching the gospel, remember?
He went to Damascus where he was gonna murder Christians
and preached there, and that's what he had been doing.
And so we saw last week, he did make a visit to Jerusalem,
but that was for only 15 days,
and he only saw Peter, and he saw James.
That's not long enough to get a systematic theology class,
is it?
Now we see he goes back.
He goes back, and what he does
is he gets this affirmation of this gospel,
and we see this picture of unity,
but he had the pressure at this visit
to compromise his gospel, but he doesn't,
because he knows that if he does,
the blessings that come with the gospel will be forfeited.
So what we're gonna see is two blessings
that are forfeited when we compromise the gospel,
and the first one, it will be on the screen.
If the gospel is compromised,
the freedom that we have in the gospel,
it's forfeited.
That's in verses one through five.
Let me show you that.
Notice Paul says, then after 14 years,
I went up again to Jerusalem.
He goes again, second visit to Jerusalem
after his conversion.
It's been 14 years, and in ancient Jewish communication,
a year could be part of a year.
So if it's November, that's inclusive of the entire year.
So this really could be 12 to 14 years
after Paul's conversion, the way we think of years.
So it's been about 12 to 14 years
since he's been converted.
What has he been doing this whole time?
Preaching the gospel.
What he's been doing, he goes again to Jerusalem.
This time, unlike last time, he doesn't go alone.
He brings Barnabas, and he brings Titus.
It's very important that we know
Titus is an uncircumcised, bacon-eating, rib-loving Jew,
and Barnabas, I'm sorry, rib-loving Gentile,
I apologize, sorry.
Slow down, Joe.
Barnabas is a Jew.
There's a reason that Paul's doing that.
We're gonna see that,
especially in the last part of our text.
But we do need to catch up to speed.
What's happened to the Apostle Paul since then?
Go to Acts 11, and we're gonna see
how Paul and Barnabas meet up.
Where did this friendship, this partnership come from?
So more than likely, it came from their time
in Antioch together.
Actually, we know that.
More than likely, it was in Antioch
that Paul also met Titus.
Look at verse 19 of Acts 11.
Now those who were scattered because of the persecution
that arose over Stephen traveled as far as
Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch,
speaking the word to no one except Jews.
Remember the persecution in Acts chapter eight.
God uses persecution, actually, not to stop the gospel,
but to spread the gospel, and here we see it.
The gospel goes out.
What the enemy meant for evil, God means for good.
That's a mystery of God's sovereignty.
The gospel goes out and starts to spread beyond Jerusalem.
It goes as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch,
and here we see only Jews were being converted,
but notice what happens next,
but there were some men of Cyprus and Cyrene
who on coming to Antioch spoke to the Hellenists.
That's Greeks.
Also preaching the Lord Jesus,
and the hand of the Lord was with them.
A great number believed.
So what's happening is the gospel is going beyond Jerusalem.
That's the point of the book of Acts,
to see the growth of the church,
the explosion of the gospel beyond just Jerusalem,
to Judea, to the ends of the earth,
and what happens is the church in Jerusalem,
kind of the mother church, gets wind of what's happening,
and they send one of their best missionaries,
someone they've raised up, they've trained.
He's taken the systematic theology classes, right?
He's the guy they've trained.
He's sat under the apostles' leadership,
and they send Barnabas to Antioch,
not to check it out, but to go and support it,
because there's a revival happening,
and that's what happens.
Look in verse 22.
The word of this came to the ears of the church.
They sent Barnabas to Antioch.
When he came and saw the grace of the Lord,
he was glad, he exhorted them all to remain steadfast
and faithful to the Lord,
for he was a good man full of the Holy Spirit and of faith,
and a great many were added to the Lord.
So Barnabas, a Jew, believing the good news of Jesus
by faith alone, goes.
He sees Jesus is doing a work there.
So God is doing a work not just in the Jews in Antioch,
but also the Greeks, and now what's happened to Paul?
Remember where we left off in Paul's timeline,
he's in Tarsus, Cilicia, and he's ministering there.
And remember, his reputation had been growing
so much so that those in Judea had heard of this man
who once murdered Christians
is now preaching the gospel, right?
And we saw at the end of the chapter last week
where we left off that they glorified God because of him.
So his reputation was growing so much
so that Barnabas knew about him.
Look at what he does.
So Barnabas, this is verse 25,
goes to Tarsus to look for Saul.
When he found him, he brought him to Antioch.
And then we see that Paul and Barnabas
are ministering in Antioch for a year.
So that's where we're at.
That's what's happened.
Paul goes, I'm sorry, Barnabas goes to Tarsus,
finds Paul, compels him to come back,
work with him in Antioch because of the revival.
That's a revival when the Lord is bringing people to faith
because of that work, and he goes,
he works with the church in Antioch for a year.
Let's keep going.
Now in these days, we're still in Acts 11,
prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch,
and one of them named Agabus stood up
and foretold by the Spirit that there would be
a great famine over all the world.
This took place in the days of Claudius.
So this is probably 46, 47 A.D.
So the disciples determined, every one of them,
according to his ability to send relief
to the brothers living in Judea.
That's the area of Jerusalem.
And they did so, notice how they send it to the elders,
so to the church in Jerusalem
by the hand of Barnabas and Saul.
So here we see, because of famine, persecution,
overpopulation, the churches in Jerusalem
are experiencing severe poverty,
and they're taking up a collection,
an offering from the Gentile churches,
which is referenced throughout the New Testament.
And here we see the first time it's mentioned,
they're gonna get Barnabas and Saul,
a minister of the good news to the Gentiles and a Jew.
And here we see also Titus comes,
because it's probably in Antioch that Paul met Titus,
and they're gonna go back
and they're gonna give this offering.
But while they're there, something else is gonna happen.
There's gonna be a private meeting that Paul references,
go back to Galatians, in verse two.
Paul says, I went up because of a revelation
and set before them, though privately,
before those who seemed influential,
the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles
in order to make sure I was not running
or had not run in vain.
So Paul sets up a private meeting,
and notice Paul's not forced to go here.
He's not called into the principal's office.
The apostles aren't like, Paul, it's been 14 years,
we really gotta check this gospel out.
No, he's compelled to go by a revelation,
we've seen that word before.
An apocalypse, a revealing.
Either it's a revelation from Jesus himself,
he doesn't tell us, and Jesus basically tells Paul,
you gotta go and lay this gospel out
for the sake of the church,
for the sake of the gospel, you've gotta go.
Or maybe he's referring to the revelation that Agabus had,
that there's a famine in the land,
and the church is suffering.
Either way, it doesn't really matter.
The point is, Paul wasn't compelled to go
by the apostles in Jerusalem,
but he was compelled to go by a revelation,
from Jesus, really.
And he goes, and he lays before these apostles
who are being held in such high esteem
by the church in Galatia, the gospel.
And notice he says, I went to make sure
that I wasn't running in vain.
Now what Paul is not saying is that he thought
his gospel could be wrong.
He's not going to proofread his gospel,
or have his gospel proofread.
He's been preaching this gospel for 12 to 14 years, right?
That's not what he's saying.
He knows that if he goes and lays the gospel
before these Jewish apostles,
and they're preaching a different gospel than his gospel,
the church is in grave jeopardy.
His ministry to the Gentiles would be greatly hindered
from this point forward.
Think about it, Christianity would be nothing more
than a sect of Judaism,
so this very private meeting, this is why I don't think
this is referring to the Jerusalem Council of Acts 15,
that was very public, this is private,
was very important, even for us.
If Paul had not had this meeting,
we probably would not be here today.
That's how important it is.
So he lays before them the gospel, not only that,
he brings Titus, the Gentile, Barnabas, the Jew,
and Titus is in front of these guys,
and he's preaching the gospel.
He's in front of these guys, and I'm sure Paul looks at
these apostles, Peter, James, and John,
that's who they are, we know later in verse nine
that's who they are, and he says, what about Titus?
Can he be a covenant member of the family just like you,
Peter, just like you, James, just like you, John,
or does he have to be circumcised?
Well, has he believed in Jesus by faith alone?
Yes, he has.
Welcome in, Titus, welcome in.
How do I know that?
Verse three, but even Titus, who was with me,
was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek.
What's Paul saying?
They affirmed.
Galatians, these apostles affirmed that Titus
didn't need circumcision, that the only thing
that makes you a Christian is the finished work of Christ
appropriated to us by faith alone.
Now, why was circumcision such a big deal?
This is the first time in Galatians
that circumcision's even mentioned.
Now, we've had to kinda sneak ahead, you know,
to gain some context for this book,
so we've talked about it in the past sermons,
but why is circumcision such a big deal?
If you'll put that slide about circumcision on the screen,
I think this might help.
Number one, circumcision in the Old Testament
was a visible marker of belonging
to the covenant people of God.
This is important that we know this.
God gave a promise in the garden to Adam and Eve
that through the offspring of Eve,
there would come one that would crush
the head of the serpent.
Now, how are offspring made?
I mean, we're not gonna get into the birds
and the beast talk, right?
There is intercourse that must happen.
That marker was always indicating
because that's on a male reproductive organ.
Parents, you can go have that talk with your kids.
I ain't giving you that talk today.
That promise would be fulfilled.
It was a reminder of that promise,
and then when it got to Abraham,
it was a marker, external marker,
that one was a member of the covenant family of God, okay?
Even those proselytes, those that were not Jews,
but were Gentiles and would be welcomed
into the covenant family in the Old Testament,
they were made to be circumcised if they were a male.
Now, but the Bible also teaches
that that was just a mere external marker.
Do you think that circumcision made one a real member
of the covenant family of God?
No.
What always made someone a member
of the covenant family of God?
Faith in the promises of God
made someone a member of the covenant family of God.
They were looking forward to what we look back upon, right?
That's what made them a covenant member
of the family of God, or we would say spiritual Israel.
Because circumcision was always a matter of the heart.
The Bible says it in the New Testament
and the Old Testament,
because circumcision is the cutting away of skin,
but spiritually it is the cutting away of sin in our heart,
pointing us to Jesus,
who was the one that was cut off from the Father.
That's Colossians 2.
He is the fulfillment of circumcision.
So circumcision doesn't make you a Christian, okay?
Now, why was it so exalted and elevated?
Well, we need to understand something
that Hellenistic influence was very intense
during this day and age.
In other words, Greek influence upon the world was massive.
There was a lot of pressure from the Jews
to adopt Greek practices.
What's this circumcision thing anyways?
So to kind of stand their ground, right?
These are the people of God.
This was their identity badge.
This was their pride.
This was their marker to set them apart from everyone else.
So it was exalted to this high place
that it should have probably never been exalted to,
which there's nothing wrong to want to kind of stand firm
in who you are and your identity.
However, they made it an issue of salvation.
That brings me to number four.
It's not bad, but it's not salvific.
It's not bad.
Titus wasn't circumcised, but you know who was?
Timothy was circumcised.
Somebody's gonna say, wait, doesn't that,
I knew it, Paul's a hypocrite, can't trust his word.
Titus wasn't circumcised, Timothy was.
Why?
Well, number one, Timothy was not a Gentile.
Timothy was part Jew.
It's in Acts 16, you can go read it.
Number two, the reason why Paul circumcised Timothy
was for contextual missional reasons.
It was not for salvific reasons.
It was not an issue of gospel doctrine.
If you read the text, he's taking Timothy into the synagogues.
He's being loving towards these Jews
who he is going to present the gospel to.
He's gonna preach the gospel
that you are saved by the work of Jesus alone,
not by the cutting of your flesh or what you wear
or what you observe in terms of rituals and days.
No, only Jesus.
So it was a contextual issue.
If Paul had of circumcised Titus,
it would have been a compromise
because that was a gospel issue.
So Paul stood firm and said, I'm not doing it.
I do think it's important that we understand the difference
between contextualizing the gospel
and compromising the gospel.
It's a good thing to contextualize the gospel.
What do I mean?
To make it understandable, to make it relatable.
But we don't change it.
We don't change it.
I mean, you're English Bible.
You have a Bible because of contextualization.
Had faithful men like William Tyndale
not taken God's word and preserved it for us
by getting it into our language,
we wouldn't be here today.
That's contextualization.
But he didn't change the manuscripts
to leave out certain aspects of the gospel
to make it more palatable.
That would have been what?
Compromise.
So I don't wanna go too far down a rabbit trail
because I could go all different places.
But I will tell you, we live in a culture
where we really need to know the difference
between contextualizing the gospel and compromising the gospel.
So just pastorally, a major hot button issue
that has been an issue for the past several years,
like sexual identity, gender, homosexuality.
Like, listen, hear me.
Contextualizing the gospel is loving people
that are same sex attracted.
You love them.
You serve them.
We welcome them.
We wrap our arms around them.
We get the gospel to them.
We want them to come.
But what we can't do is celebrate.
That would be, we can't affirm.
Why?
Because that's compromising.
There's a difference.
And we gotta know the difference.
That's just one area.
That's just one.
There's many.
And I don't wanna go too far on a rabbit trail.
I wanna get us back to the text.
But I do think that's important
because Paul's a model for us
of when to not to compromise and when to contextualize.
Let's keep going.
Notice verse four, he says,
yeah, because a false brother secretly brought in
and slipped in to spy out our freedom, underline that,
that we have in Christ,
so that we might,
or 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 would be preserved for you
and I would argue for us.
So what's happening here?
Probably, now it's debatable if this happened
during Paul's Jerusalem visit
or maybe when he was in Antioch.
No one's really sure.
But he encountered the Judaizers, false brothers,
the wheat and the tear always grow together,
and they had slipped in, they had snuck in,
and what they were doing was spying out.
I don't know exactly what this looked like.
They spied out the freedom,
notice that, that Paul, Titus, and Barnabas
are enjoying in the gospel.
So maybe they're watching Paul, Titus, and Barnabas
eat dinner.
They're sitting at another table, they're peeking over.
Is Titus, is he really gonna eat that rib?
Is he really gonna eat that pork?
Maybe it was something like that.
Maybe it was taking Paul off to the side,
saying, Paul, look at us.
Like, you're just going to ignore our,
like, you're a Jew, you're just gonna ignore this?
Like, isn't this of some importance?
So it was a constant pressure from these brothers
to have Paul compromise the gospel
and circumcise Titus, but notice he says,
I didn't do it, because if I would have done it,
guess what, I would have, what he's implying is,
I would have put the chains back on,
and we would now be under the law again.
That's what it says.
That's what exactly, to spy on our freedom
that we have in Jesus, so they might bring us into slavery.
Now notice, this is not slavery to sin.
This is slavery to the law.
If you're not, so before we came to this,
we came to know Jesus.
We're not just enslaved to sin.
Yes, we were, but we were also enslaved to the law.
Remember the vision in Zechariah of the scroll
that went out over the whole land?
What was that a picture of?
The curse of the law that hangs over every human, right?
Over every human.
We have God's moral code of conduct written on our hearts.
Paul would say in Romans two,
no one has an excuse to say there is no God.
Yes, there is, and you know it,
because you have a conscience, and it's right there.
The problem is that can only condemn you, right?
So the law is much like an MRI.
So if I'm getting massive migraine headaches,
days, you know, day after day after day,
I'm gonna go to the doctor,
and the doctor's gonna say, we need to scan you,
and he's gonna say, we need to get an MRI
to see what's going on.
But what the doctor's not going to do
is after he gets those results
and he sees there's something going on,
he's not gonna look at any of us
and say, I'll tell you the cure.
Let's get right back under there
and let's do another MRI.
What diagnosed you cannot cure you.
The law diagnoses the problem.
The cure is the gospel.
Jesus here has made the law,
that Jesus came, He kept the law perfectly,
He died for all of our failures to keep the law,
He rose proving that, right,
and He's making us into His image
if we've trusted Him by faith,
and He's given us freedom in that,
and that's not freedom from the law,
that's actually freedom to obey the law
because the law is good.
It's from God.
It's how we should walk.
It's how we should live.
So now it's not a curse that hangs over us.
We're free to walk in it.
the gospel at all, if he would have caved,
guess what he would have done?
He would have put the chains back on him.
So listen, no one's gonna go out of here today
and be tempted to circumcise it.
I get it, we've talked about that every week.
But we are tempted to make something else
a requirement to be a Christian.
You know why?
Because I do it.
Think about it.
We say things like this and I hear it.
And it's dangerous.
Be careful, you can't be a Christian and be a Democrat.
Last I checked, your political affiliation
had nothing to do with whether or not you were a Christian.
Last I checked, it's solely based on
what Jesus has done for you.
Now, I'm not saying that the Bible
shouldn't influence how we vote
because it absolutely should.
The culture does not dictate how we vote, right?
We understand that, right?
The Bible does, but that's not a prerequisite
to be a Christian, you guys do get that right.
Or how dare you?
You can't be a Christian and you can't send your kid
to a public school.
Really?
Or you can't be a Christian and drink
or you can't be a Christian and fill in the blank.
You can't be a Christian.
What you've done is you've taken these qualifiers
and you've elevated them to the status of the gospel.
And you know what you've done?
You've cut the tag off.
You've compromised the gospel
because you've put a weight on yourself.
You've put chains on yourself.
So I don't know what it is.
Maybe it is, maybe it is works.
Maybe it is serving.
Maybe it is reading your Bible
that we've talked about a lot,
but maybe it's something like that.
You don't think you can be a Christian and do this
or be like this.
Let's pause and let's park there for a second.
What makes you a Christian is Jesus and Jesus alone.
That's it.
If we get that wrong, we get it all wrong.
We get it all wrong.
And when you do that, you don't have freedom.
Second blessing we compromise.
We compromise the unity the gospel creates.
We're gonna see that in the last portion of the text.
Notice what Paul then says in verse six.
He says, and from those who seem to be influential,
but what they were makes no difference to me.
God shows no partiality.
Those I say who seemed influential added nothing to me.
Now Paul's not being snarky towards the apostles.
Paul respects the apostles.
Paul's already acknowledged their apostleship.
He would say in 1 Corinthians 15,
I am the least and the last of the apostles.
What Paul is doing is taking a jab at the church in Galatia
and the Judaizers who have elevated these apostles
and said, you gotta listen to them.
You can't listen to Paul.
God shows no partiality.
And he's going to say in just a moment,
they're just stewards through whom the Lord has worked.
Quick note, I know like we get podcasts,
we got YouTube, we got access to so much
and we got our favorite teachers.
You're thinking of them now.
You got your favorite podcast host.
Listen, if they're preaching the gospel,
great, listen to them.
I have said this before,
just remember they're not your pastor.
You got pastors here that know you and love you.
Remember that.
And they do not have an exclusive claim to truth.
And if you think they do and they've said that,
I would suggest you don't listen to them.
Because at the foot of the cross,
all of us are broken sinners.
We need to remember that and Paul's teaching that.
Paul's even gonna say, if it wasn't for Jesus,
I'd be nothing.
This is what made Paul who he was.
Just remember that because we can get carried away
with our favorite people and this is what they said
and what it does is start to cause division.
Just be careful.
Be careful and then he keeps going.
So he says, look, they added nothing to me.
So what did they do?
Number one, they affirmed his gospel.
These Jerusalem apostles said,
yeah, Paul, this is the gospel.
The Jerusalem apostles preach the same law-free gospel
and do not agree that anything should be added
to the work of Christ for one standing before God.
Jesus and Jesus alone, they added nothing.
Number two, they acknowledged his apostleship.
Verse eight, I'm sorry, 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, notice he says,
the one who worked through Peter
for his apostolic ministry worked through me.
He's magnifying God.
What is he saying?
They recognized that I was an apostle.
Now, I do think if you like, think about Paul.
Like if I'm picking teams and I get to choose
who's gonna go to the Jews and who goes to the Gentiles
and I got Peter and I got Paul.
Wouldn't you pick Paul to go to the Jews?
Wouldn't Paul go to the Jews?
He's a Hebrew of Hebrews.
He's a Pharisee, zealous for the law.
If anybody can go minister to the Jews
and the Jews only, shouldn't it be Paul?
And you got Peter over here that walked with Jesus.
He's from Galilee.
Galilee is Galilee of the Gentiles.
That's what it was known as in the days of Peter and Jesus.
He ministered to many Gentiles.
He's got experience with the Gentiles.
Shouldn't Peter be the one that sent to the Gentiles?
Listen, the way God does things
is not the way you and I would ever do things.
And also say this to yourself.
I'm sorry, also never say this.
Never say, I will never go there, God.
He'll blow your mind.
He'll send you there.
Never say it.
And that's what he did.
Now, what we see here is not two gospels, right?
We don't see a Jewish gospel and a Gentile gospel.
What is Paul saying?
There's one gospel, Jews, Gentiles,
same gospel, one gospel.
And it's not like Paul only ministered to Gentiles
and Peter only ministered to Jews, is it?
Right, what was Paul's mission strategy?
Every single time, we've gone over this.
Let's go find a synagogue.
Let me preach the gospel.
I'm gonna get beat up.
I'm gonna get punched in the face a few times.
I might get arrested.
Some of them are gonna believe.
I'm gonna shake the dust off.
I'm gonna go over here to these Gentiles.
We're gonna start a church.
Sound good?
Let's go.
That was his plan.
That was Paul's plan.
Everywhere, right?
He didn't have a binder with a 50-page document
that said, I've got a great church planning strategy.
That was his plan.
And what was, did Peter ever minister to Gentiles?
Well, sure he did.
He wrote two epistles to churches in Asia Minor
that scattered this.
Do you not think there were Gentiles in those churches?
So let's not assume that they only ministered
to Jews and Gentiles.
What God is teaching is through Peter and through Paul.
There's unity now in the gospel.
Paul primarily ministering to Gentile territories.
Peter, in this situation, in this context,
with his ministry in Jerusalem, primarily to the Jews,
but there is what?
One gospel.
They agreed in unity because of the gospel.
Verse nine says it.
When James, Cephas, and John, Cephas is Peter,
James the brother of Jesus, Peter, John the apostle,
the same John that wrote first, second, third John,
the gospel of John, Revelation, that John,
they look at Paul and they said, yes, you're an apostle.
What do they do?
I'm gonna give you the right hand to fellowship, Paul.
Now why is Paul saying this?
Because the churches in Galatia were teaching
that he's preaching a different gospel than those apostles.
If any liberal theologian looks at you and says,
you can't trust Paul, he doesn't preach that gospel
of love and acceptance like Jesus and his disciples.
Would you take them to this text?
I've said it, I'll say it again.
The gospel that Paul preached
is the gospel that Jesus preached.
Who gave Paul the gospel?
Jesus.
Who gave the apostles the gospel?
Jesus.
He said, I'm unified in the gospel.
They agreed, they extended the right hand of fellowship.
You couldn't be more different
when it came to Gentiles and Jews, could you?
You got the poor, loving, non-circumcised Gentiles
represented by Titus and you got the Jews,
the covenant people of God, the circumcised, the clean,
and they are now one in the gospel.
Unity is a big deal.
Not just unity for unity's sake,
that's the world and that unity never lasts, does it?
Unity for the sake of the gospel.
Imagine if Paul would have circumcised Titus.
Would the apostles have extended
the right hand of fellowship?
No.
They would have looked at Paul and said,
that's not the gospel we've been preaching here
for the last 14 years.
No.
What Paul would have said was,
there can be no diversity in the church.
Everyone has to be a Jew.
But praise God, there is diversity.
And what unifies us is the gospel, not our differences.
Think about that.
Think about how the world operates.
The world wants to be unified,
but what do they unify around?
They unify around their differences.
Their skin color, their skin color,
bank accounts, social status, right?
Keep going.
They unify around that.
The beauty of the church is this.
We all come from different places, different likes.
I mean, I'm a Georgia fan playing cornhole yesterday
with a guy that likes Michigan.
You can't get any more different than that, right?
My great friends in this church don't even care
about sports.
What makes us unified?
It ain't sports.
It's what?
The gospel.
So stop dividing over things that aren't important, right?
Can we be a church that rallies around the gospel,
not our petty preferences and differences?
I've been a pastor for eight years
and here by God's grace for four years.
And I will say this, the number one reason,
the number one reason that anybody leaves a church,
not just this church, a church,
is a non-important reason.
It is a petty reason of preference.
You leave the church
because they didn't sing the right worship song.
You leave the church because the carpet color wasn't right.
The lights are too dark.
You leave the church because you get keyboards up there,
not an organ.
Are you serious?
You leave the church because that pastor
doesn't have the same eschatological views as I have.
Are you kidding me?
If you're gonna leave a church, leave it over the gospel.
If the church isn't preaching the gospel, leave.
If they are, stay.
Because to be honest, there's not many that are, sadly.
And that's not my job to criticize.
I pray they would, but at least rally around the gospel.
So check your heart, right?
I don't want us to be the church
that divides into the homeschool cliques
and the old sect and the young bucks.
I don't want that.
We want every group here to look like heaven.
Someone told me early on,
don't segregate the church based on age.
There's nothing wrong with having friends your age,
but there's also nothing wrong with gaining some wisdom
from a well-seasoned man.
Nothing wrong with that either.
Because when you get to heaven
and everybody gonna be a homeschool mom,
and everybody gonna look like you or think like you
or dress like you or talk like you,
you're gonna have a people from every tribe,
every nation, every tongue gathered around the table.
What unites you is gonna be the lamb
you're sitting there feasting with.
How dare we divide over petty preferences?
That is what the world does.
The church is to be different.
So what you do, when you take your preference,
whatever it is, you know your preference,
and you say, that's a gospel issue.
You know what you've just done?
You have compromised the gospel.
You've cut off the tag, bro.
That ain't the gospel.
And what you're doing is say,
I'll walk away from the unity
that's offered to me in the gospel.
Don't do that.
Please don't do that.
I'm begging you, let's be a church
that rallies around the,
because it's so easy.
Satan wants to take pride in our hearts.
He wants us to say, I'm right.
Look at what I've got.
I've got it all figured out.
You don't.
Let me go find the people
that will believe that I do.
Right?
And we elevate that.
And it's just gonna cause division.
Let's be unified around the gospel.
So if you're taking notes,
if you elevate your preferences
to the level of the gospel,
you compromise the gospel,
and you make that the gospel.
You know what you do?
You forfeit unity.
Number 10.
I'm sorry, number 10.
Verse 10.
Only they asked us,
remember the poor.
Notice Paul says,
I was eager to do that anyways.
Which is why I believe that this is a,
this is a reference back to Acts 11.
This is the event of Acts 11, right?
What happened at the end of Acts 11?
Paul and Barnabas were sent
because of that prophecy about Agabus
to go and take this relief fund
to the poor churches in Jerusalem.
So note this,
because of war, famine,
persecution, the people of God
have always been persecuted.
Overpopulation.
Jerusalem and Judea were very poor.
The people there were impoverished.
So what Paul is doing by giving to the poor
is yes, being compassionate.
I don't wanna downplay that, right?
I don't wanna downplay, of course.
And I'll talk about that in a moment.
But primarily what Paul is doing
is actually not just saying
we're gonna be unified as Jews and Gentiles.
He's actually showing unity.
It's one thing to say I'm unified.
It's another thing to actually show it, right?
It's one thing to say I'll learn from older people.
It's another thing to actually go to their house
and let them feed you a meal
and sit down and listen to them.
You with me?
It's one thing to say it.
It's another thing to do it.
And Paul's actually doing it.
And I know that's what he's doing from Romans chapter 15.
Paul says this to the churches in Rome,
or the church in Rome.
He talks about this offering,
which by the way, would be kind of a big deal for Paul,
right, this offering that he would constantly be collecting
from the Gentile churches
to give back to the church in Jerusalem.
He says this in verse 26,
For Macedonia and Achaia, those are Gentile churches,
they're pleased to make some contribution for the poor
among the saints at Jerusalem.
They were pleased to do it.
Indeed, they owe it to them,
for if the Gentiles have come to share
in their spiritual blessings,
they also ought to be of service to them
in material blessings.
So it's a theological issue with Paul.
Like God's covenant people were the Jews,
but the Gentiles are now grafted in by faith in Jesus alone.
What makes one a covenant people of God
isn't your Jewishness.
It's the promise of God fulfilled
in the perfect work of Jesus.
And he's telling these Gentiles,
hey, that blessing is yours.
Because of the Jews, you need to show them unity in that
by giving to them in a time of need, right?
That's what Paul is doing here.
So it's an expression of unity, right?
And unity is a big deal.
As I said, the gospel creates this.
Ephesians two is a great place to go
to show the unity that the gospel creates.
But we need to understand,
like when Jesus went to the cross,
it wasn't just that Jesus went to the cross
merely for you to have this private relationship with him.
Yes, that's available to you.
But do you know that you're now brought into a family?
There's a horizontal aspect to the gospel
that we wanna see everyone experience.
And it happens through the church, right?
So Jesus was broken.
His body was torn in two
so that his people could be what?
One.
Jesus stood in the place of a bunch of diverse sinners
so that we would stand together in the gospel.
So the cross is a unity issue too, and Paul knew that,
which is why we wanna be a church
that's about unifying in the gospel.
So it's not just about us here, right?
That's why we have partnerships
with other churches in the gospel.
That's why we go to Ecuador.
That's why I encourage you as a Christian,
don't just look to us and say,
how can I partner in the gospel?
We'll help you, but use your resources.
Use your time, find places.
We'll put you in the right direction.
But that's on you too
to be partnering with places in the gospel.
Now be careful, make sure it's a place
that really loves the gospel, right?
That's very important, Paul would say,
because there's only one gospel.
That's why we go to Ecuador, right?
To display this unity we have in the gospel.
And I don't wanna diminish what also is happening.
They're giving to the poor saints.
They're giving to those in need.
We should be a people,
looking out for the needs of other people in our church,
right?
We should have eyes that are aware of the needs of others,
but we should also be people that are compassionate
towards those that might not be in our church,
that are less fortunate than us, shouldn't we?
It's all of that.
So we should be generous and sacrificial
with our pocketbooks.
We should look for ways to serve.
We should, hey, I've got people I can put you in contact
with in our church that will help you,
that will get you plugged in there, if that's you.
But giving to people less fortunate
isn't just about philanthropy.
Do you know why we do that?
It's about the gospel.
Unity is a gospel issue,
but so is giving to those that are poor,
because the gospel tells us all of us actually are poor.
Apart from Jesus, we are bankrupt and broken.
We've got nothing to offer him.
We're orphans, and what does God do?
God that is rich beyond all imagination, right?
We cannot comprehend the riches of God's throne ring.
You can try.
I think I've told you this.
Think about that destination you love to go to,
that dream vacation, and multiply it by infinity,
which is a number we can't comprehend,
and you don't even come close to what God enjoyed.
And then what did he do?
He gave up his riches.
Paul would say he who was rich became what?
Poor.
Yeah, he lived a life of poverty.
I mean, Jesus didn't have a home, y'all.
I mean, we idolize our homes.
Jesus had no home.
Bro was born on hay, right?
He laid, his first night was not in a warm hospital room,
in a bed, it was on hay,
with animal poop surrounding him.
That's reality, right?
That's what the Bible teaches.
To show us what God was doing.
It wasn't just this physical poverty.
It was coming down all the way to us,
being the lowest of lows,
going to the worst possible place, a Roman cross.
God gave up all of the riches to become the most poor,
most pitiful creature,
because Jesus traded places with you and with me.
He became our sin so that we get his righteousness,
and that in Jesus, who was rich but became poor,
if we've looked in by faith, what are we?
We are now rich.
Right, what defines our wealth isn't the car we drive,
it's not the number of zeros in our bank account,
it's not the home we live in,
it is Jesus.
Because Ephesians 2 says, we've been raised with him,
seated with him far above all places,
and actually in him we are rich.
So we give because it displays the gospel.
You with me?
But that's not what this is all about, right?
That's a sub point here.
What is this about?
Paul didn't compromise, because if he did,
he would have forfeited that blessing of unity,
and if he did, he would have forfeited
the blessing of freedom.
So listen, if you're here this morning,
and maybe you're riddled with anxiety,
some of you probably are, and worry,
let me remind you,
Jesus is enough.
You want freedom?
Preach the gospel to your heart.
Jesus is enough.
You want the worry to go away?
You are in his hands if you've looked to him by faith.
Nothing can take you away from him.
Rest in the truth of the gospel and be free.
You want unity?
You want to find acceptance and belonging?
The world's gonna offer you false unity.
You realize that, right?
As soon as you're different from them,
the world's gonna, it's gonna run the other way on you.
The gospel doesn't offer you that.
The gospel says come to me just as you are.
With your differences, with your baggage,
Jesus takes you, he forgives you,
he heals you, he redeems you,
and he welcomes you into a family
that's centered around the rock solid truth of the gospel.
Let me end with this, if the band would come up.
A quote from Martin Luther.
If we're not to compromise, what are we to do?
We're to contend.
Right, the warning here is if you compromise,
you forfeit the blessings of the gospel.
So what do we do?
We need to daily contend for the gospel.
What does that mean?
Never assume the gospel, number one.
Never assume you know it, your kids know it,
your neighbor knows it, why?
Because we are hardwired to naturally be bent
towards works righteousness and forget
that salvation is a free gift from God
through the person and work of Jesus.
You never assume it.
You never stop talking about it.
Because if you stop talking about it, guess what?
You'll forget it.
And you contend for it.
Martin Luther contended for the gospel
during the Protestant Reformation,
and he says in one paragraph,
what it took me 50 minutes to say.
Listen to his words.
The issue before us is grave and vital.
It involves the death of the Son of God,
who by the will and command of the Father became flesh,
was crucified and died for the sins of the world.
If faith yields on this point, if it's anything else,
if it's your works, if it's your political agenda,
if it's the way you homeschool,
if it's how many times you read your Bible a day,
if it's how good you think you are, fill in the blank.
If it yields on this point,
the death of the Son of God would be in vain.
Then it's only a fable.
It's made up that Christ is the Savior of the world.
God's a liar.
He's not lived up to his promises.
Therefore, our stubbornness, our unwillingness
to compromise on this issue is pious, it is holy.
For by it we are striving to preserve the freedom
we have in Christ Jesus and to keep the truth of the gospel.
If we lose this, we lose Christ,
all the promises, faith, righteousness, and eternal life.
If you compromise gospel truth,
you will forfeit gospel blessings.
Don't compromise.
Let's pray.
Heavenly Father, thank you for the gospel.
May we be unwavering, steadfast,
in our unwillingness to compromise for the gospel.
Help us rest in the freedom we have.
If we're not finding freedom in the gospel,
it's because we have turned to something else.
Forgive us.
May we rest in the finished work of Christ.
If we're not finding unity in the gospel,
it's probably because we've made a preference the gospel.
Forgive us.
May we find unity in the gospel
and be a church that is united around the gospel.
Thank you, Jesus, for the gospel.
We love you.
May we be a people dedicated to pursue with passion
other people for the sake of the gospel.
Be resolved to not compromise.
We love you in Jesus' name, amen.