God’s Gospel (Galatians 1:11-2:10)

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Well, good morning church. You can go ahead, grab your Bibles, open up to Galatians one. We’ll be starting in verse 11 this morning. Galatians 1:11. As you turn in there, I find that your travel plans often tell people quite a bit about who you are. So just picture what would be a wonderful scenario, although unlikely to come true, that tomorrow morning, you head into work, your boss hands you a check for $10,000 bonus and gives you two weeks off get away from the cold kind of thing. Where are you going? What are you doing? Some of us, you know, be all inclusive resort. Just want to lie somewhere warm and have people bring me what I want to eat. When I want to eat, it would say a little bit something about probably the level of burnout in your life, or something. Others, though, may go, that’s so boring, like I need to do something. Okay, so we’re going to the Holy Land or Rome, where we can tour historical sites and learn that would say something about you. Or others would go, we’re hiking in, you know, the backwoods of Alaska. We’re climbing Machu Picchu or something, you know. Okay, so that’s a level of exercise and activity that would say something about you. And some of you would go, Great. That’s going in savings. I’m staying home, which is again, crazy with this weather, but otherwise, I’m on board as a home body myself. I mention this because in our passage this morning, we get Paul’s travel plans across 14 years. These travel plans don’t so much tell us about him, although they do a little bit, but they tell us about his gospel, and specifically that his gospel is God’s gospel. If you were here last week, you remember that we talked about the fact that the gospel matters. It is the name of the series as well. Gospel matters. There’s only one we need to get it right. Paul is still continuing that argument in our passage this morning his autobiography, his travel plans are an important part of his defense of his gospel. Why he knows it’s true, why we should accept it as true as well. So in three scenes, we’re going to see where Paul learned his gospel, what makes it so good, and why we should preach and live it. So let’s dive in. Scene one. First of all, Arabian Nights, chapter one, verses 11 to 17, Paul writes, I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it. Rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by His grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was but I went into Arabia. Later, I returned to Damascus. Again. We are following straight on from verse 10. In verse 10, Paul says, I’m not trying to please people. I’m trying to please God. I am a servant of Christ. He’s not trying to please people. We know that because his gospel is not from people, but it’s from God. And that’s important, because if his gospel is human, he learned it from somebody else, it could be wrong. He could have learned the wrong gospel, or he could have heard it wrong. He could have gotten mistaken, got, you know, lost in translation. And so if, if, if that were the case, what we would treat his gospel the way we treat lots of other people. There are all sorts of good books worth reading in this world. You think of people like Calvin or Edwards or Augustine Athanasius, and these are good books, and I want to read them, but I’m not going to agree with everything necessarily in them, and that’s what Paul would be for us as well, if it’s just a human gospel. And even more than that, because he’s being accused of being a people pleaser. So his opponents are saying it’s not just that he got the message wrong, but that he got the motive wrong as well. The whole reason he messed up the message is because he’s trying to keep people happy so that he can win over a larger number of Gentile converts, sell more books and get a bigger church at the end of it. How by eliminating the hard parts, by softening the requirements, what it takes to be a Christian. So they’re accusing him of preaching cheap grace in essence, Grace without repentance, Grace without the changed life that we need to see you. Paul says, No, that’s not it at all, because this is not a human gospel. So He gives us His thesis right there in verse 11, the gospel I preached is not of human origin. And then, like a good you know, English writer gives us two good points, sub points underneath it. Verse 12, I did not receive it from anyone wasn’t taught it, but received it by revelation. So that’s how he’s proven his point. It’s not of human origin. Didn’t learn it from anyone else, but got it by revelation. And then he’s going to prove that that’s true. Just doesn’t reverse order. So he starts by saying, Look, I got it by revelation. So how does he say that? How does he prove that verse 13 and following, he says the Galatians, along with everyone else, really know all about what he used to be, which is complicit in the murder of Christians, because he’s overflowing with Pharisaical zeal he’s been trained, and really is outclassing his classmates in Judaism, which is an unusual term, not for us today, but it’s not used often in Scripture. The term Judaism actually originates under the Maccabees. If you know anything about your Jewish history, these were the Zealots who threw off an oppressive foreign yoke. So Judaism, this was all about the Jewish identity. So Paul is persecuting the church because they’re a threat to the preservation of Israel and Israel’s Jewish identity. He’s zealous for this the same way the Maccabees were, and we’ve got a lot of respect for the Maccabees. In fact, we have a lot of respect for people who are zealous. Often in Scripture, you look at guys like Phineas or Elijah fighting with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. But here we get a good reminder that zeal by itself, is not enough. It is not enough to sincerely believe what you believe and be really committed to those beliefs, because you could be like Paul here, zealously wrong zeal. Proverbs tells us zeal without knowledge is not good. Of course, he’s zealously defending what he learned from his fathers, which is another important reminder for us, hard to say, but I need to which is that at a certain point you may need to leave your tradition or upbringing. If you grew up here, hopefully not, but if you grew up elsewhere or something, you may have been taught stuff that wasn’t true. Because, again, that’s the question. Not, What did my parents teach me? Not what do I like? What do I feel zealous about? The only question that really matters is what is true. What is true. But Paul’s point here sharing this story is you look at him, you look at what he was doing earlier on. There is no earthly reason that he would become a Christian. There is nothing in his trajectory that would make sense of where he landed. This would be like an Islamic terrorist turning church planter in Afghanistan, an exact analogy. How did this happen? I mean, you read the shift from verse 13 to verse 15 is you almost can’t reconcile the two statements, but it just draws out the sheer wonder of grace. Like, why does God save this man who is intent on destroying his church? And there’s no answer, except for grace, except for the undeserved love of God. I mean, verse 15 is one of the great, but God moments in all of Scripture. I was trying to kill the church, but God, but God called me, saved me, not because I deserved it, but because of his grace. And that is, of course, the foundation of Paul’s Gospel like this explains why Paul is as zealous as he is now for this truth. Couldn’t possibly have earned it, because look what I was doing. God demonstrates His own love for us in this While we were still sinners. Christ died for us, called us, saved us. But God doesn’t just save us from condemnation. We get our get out of hell free card. God saves us to as well. So God saves us from condemnation, but to the abundant life to which he calls us. Go back to we just finished Exodus. So Exodus is on my mind still. He doesn’t just, you know, deliver Israel out of Egypt, he delivers Israel into the promised land. And so it is with us. So he saves Paul out of this, but calls him then to a purpose, so that I might preach him among the Gentiles there in verse 16. And so he receives a call similar to. Prophets of old Jeremiah, chapter one would look like this, but Isaiah 49 which Kyle already read for us. What does Isaiah say about his call before I was born, the Lord called me for my mother’s womb. He has spoken my name. You can see Paul’s almost picking up that language as he talks about his own call. Let me ask you this, are you any different if you’re in Christ? And the answer is yes, by the way, you are because you’re not a prophet or an apostle. Okay, those are different people, for sure, Isaiah and Paul, because they’re called prophets and apostles, the people who wrote the Bible. The Bible’s done. It’s been written now. It’s got a back cover at this point, so we’re good there. But other than that, we’re actually not that different. He calls us also. We have been saved to serve and called, like Paul, to speak, to proclaim the gospel of salvation by grace alone, to share the Good News of the Gospel as we speak, though, let’s take a lesson from Paul here. One of the things we get to share is not just his story, but our story as well, the story of how God saved us. Don’t miss the power of your story. In fact, if you’re in Journey groups, we’re about to work on this for a couple weeks, just how to put our story together so that we can show how amazing God’s grace is in our own lives, because we are, in many ways, our best argument for the gospel. Because nobody can argue with your story. Paul’s going, Look, I used to try to kill people who are Christians, and now I’m preaching the Christian message. Who’s going to argue with that? It’s his story. Can’t argue with that. We got the same power as well. Now, like Paul, we don’t share our story to draw attention to ourselves, which is a mistake some people make. Of course, no, but we share our story to draw attention to God’s grace and for the sake of our hearers. So what is your but God story, and maybe yours looks like Paul’s, where you got kind of a before and after sort of testimony. I was going this way, and I would still be going that way, but God saved me. Others of you, and I hope many of the children who grew up in this church have a different story. And you never had that. You were raised in the Gospel. You’ve always been going this way, and that’s an equally powerful story. And by the way, those of us who have more colorful testimonies, like myself, we are jealous of you. Okay, it is great to just be raised in grace, but you still have the but God story. I could have been doing this. I could have gone where I saw others go, but God share your story. So God revealed his gospel to him. God revealed his gospel in him, even in his life. This is Jesus meeting Paul on the road to Damascus, so he’s proved that second point, right? I received it by revelation. But what about number one? What about the whole I didn’t learn it from anybody. I didn’t consult with anyone. What happens next? You see it there in verse 16, my immediate response, first thing I did, straight away, no delay. I didn’t consult with anyone in particular. I didn’t consult with Jerusalem. I didn’t go to Jerusalem seminary to sit under Dr Peter and learn the gospel from him. The point he’s making here is I knew it was revelation, so I didn’t need confirmation. I’d already met Jesus. He was my teacher. Now it is true, of course, that it’s not like Paul didn’t speak to Christians in this time. In fact, if you read his conversion in Acts chapter nine, you know that he hangs out with a guy named Ananias, pretty much right away. No doubt he got facts from Ananias. He’s there. He’s blind. He’s thinking through things for a couple days. All that he’s going, Hey, I just met the resurrected Jesus. Y’all know anything about that? And Ananias doesn’t go, yeah, he appeared to a bunch of people, actually. So we got some friends who saw him also. Okay, so we got the some facts from Ananias, but he didn’t get the message. He didn’t get the gospel from Ananias. He already knew that, and so he went to Arabia straight away. Arabia at this time is Damascus, and everything southwest of there. We know that’s where he goes. He talks about this in Second Corinthians, 11 verses, 32 and 33 you can see it on the screen. He’s in Damascus, so he’s in Arabia, and he’s being persecuted by King Aretas. Why? Because he was preaching the gospel. He’s already doing ministry. So he’s already a troublemaker in the king’s eyes. So he’s being persecuted at this point, immediately, straight away, first thing he does is start proclaiming the gospel of grace. What Paul. Paul’s doing here. He’s giving his alibi like a good detective mystery. He’s going couldn’t have been me. Couldn’t have been me, because I can account for my whereabouts this whole time I was in Arabia. So where have we got so far? Paul is saved by grace, very unexpectedly. Did not deserve it. The gospel was revealed to him and in him by Jesus Christ, and once he receives it by revelation, he doesn’t consult with anyone, not for a while anyway, because then we get to Scene two, Peter Paul and Mary. How many of you know Peter Paul and Mary? Is this like a joke for anyone like eight of you, that’s good. I’m younger than you, too. How do I know this? Older siblings or something? The chances of knowing Peter Paul and Mary, and what the word Mary knows are very slim. So that’s my kind of humor, right there. I apologize to all of you, Peter, Paul and Mary, let’s go verses 18 to 24 then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him 15 days. I saw none of the other apostles, only James the Lord’s brother. I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie. Then I went to Syria and Cilicia. It was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only heard the report the man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy. And they praised God because of me, really important that it begins with the word then, then he’s saying, there are no gaps in my story. If you’re a parent, especially if a teenager, you know what gaps in stories are. I got home from soccer practice at five, and then, you know, I had the study group at seven, and your parents going, right? That was the period I was asking about between five and seven. What was happening then? Paul doesn’t have any gaps in his story. He’s telling us exactly what happened. In fact, you can read it in Acts nine. So he is converted. He goes to Damascus, as we saw. Here’s Acts chapter nine, verses 19 and 20 Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. At once, he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. He continues talking about his time in Damascus through verse 25 then here’s verses 26 and 27 when he came to Jerusalem. So it’s immediate Damascus, Jerusalem. When he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples. They were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. So what happens here? He tries to meet with the apostles, but they’re scared of him, so Barnabas introduces him, and at this point, then he tells us, here in our passage, he meets Peter, and that’s it. None of the other apostles, the brother of Jesus, James as well. That would be another one. And James is a little bit like Paul, not one of the 12 Apostles, but somebody else who met the resurrected Christ and was certainly commissioned by Jesus to speak so, an apostle of a sort. So he meets Peters, Peter and James again. He’s not going to seminary here, though he’s just networking like, I want to meet these people, since we’re all in ministry together, he couldn’t have learned the gospel from them at this point, because he’s already been preaching it for three years now. No doubt, in a two week stretch, they talked about more than just the weather, but he’s not sitting at Peter’s feet asking him questions. Help me out here. I don’t think I’ve got all the understanding that I need. And then just after a few weeks, he heads to Tarsus, which is in Cilicia. We know he’s there for eight years. Begins in Acts nine, verse 30, and then he’s in Antioch, in Syria, famously, for a year that becomes his missionary base, and that takes us all the way up to Acts 11, verse 26 but the point is, he spent so little time in Jerusalem that he was personally unknown to the Jerusalem church. So they’d heard his story. He’s famous in that sense, but they couldn’t pick him out of a crowd. They hadn’t met him. They weren’t friends, not even on Facebook. At this point. There’s a subtle, beautiful reminder in the middle of all this, by the way, because we get a lot of geography in this section, but the most important location we have is in Christ, verse 22 I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ like that’s the geography that matters most. Wherever you are, are you in Christ? But don’t miss the power of story again. They heard this guy. They don’t know. They heard that this former persecutor is now a famous preacher. And how did they respond? Verse 24 they praised God because of me. Paul saying. They praised God because they saw his grace and how it changed me. I don’t know about you, that’s what I want written on my tombstone. Let that me be but be my epitaph. They pray. Is God because of me. I mean, that is exactly what we mean when we say here that we are made to magnify Christ. People should look at our lives and make much of Jesus like we should be like a telescope lens. As they look through us, they get just the faintest idea of God’s grandeur and glory. God saves and calls us to make his glory known. Fact, that’s the rest of the passage that Kyle read for us. So Isaiah is called. But then what happens as a result? Chapter 49 verse three, you are my servant in whom I will display my splendor that was fulfilled in Isaiah. Certainly even now we see God’s glory when we read Isaiah’s words. Certainly Israel, the servant that Isaiah foretold God displayed his splendor in him, in Jesus. Now he’s displaying his splendor in Paul, and God willing, in all of us too. So Paul received his gospel by revelation. Didn’t consult with anyone. Met Pete years later, but just to get acquainted. Then third scene, they actually have some conversation here. So scene three, circumcision, decision. Chapter two, verses one to 10. Let me read it for us. Then, after 14 years, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. I went in response to a revelation and meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain, yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was Greek. This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ, Jesus, and to make us slaves. We did not give in to them for a moment. So that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you, as for those who were held in high esteem, whatever they were makes no difference to me. God does not show favoritism. They added nothing to my message. On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised just as Peter had been to the circumcised, for God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. James Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship. When they recognized the grace given to me, they agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along. So finally, 14 years after his conversion. If you’ve been adding up our time so far, you know that we’re at 12 years we have a gap in the story here. No, this is just how they count years. It’s inclusive instead. So that 14 years that we’ve heard so far, he goes to Jerusalem to meet with the apostles. Why at this point does he go? Well, he tells us he goes in response to a revelation. So it’s another moment in his life dictated by revelation. He goes in response to a revelation, not because he wanted validation. That’s the key. He’s not going there to say, Am I preaching the right thing? No, he’s going most likely in response to the prophecy of Agabus, which we get in Acts chapter 11. Let me read a chunk of Acts chapter 11. This will actually take us all the way from where we were to where we are. Now. Here’s acts 11, beginning in verse 25 then Barnabas went to Tarsus, there’s Cilicia, to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch in Syria. So for a whole year, Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch, which is really important, by the way. They’re called Christians there because they’re not Jews and they’re not Gentiles. There’s something else entirely. We need a new word for what’s happening to the people of God at this moment, so that’s why they’re called Christians. During this time, some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch, one of them named Agabus stood up and through the Spirit, predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world. This happened during the reign of Claudius. The disciples, as each one was able, decided to provide help for the brothers and sisters living in Judea. So this is almost certainly the revelation that prompts Paul to go to Jerusalem. While he’s there, he presents his gospel to those who are esteemed as leaders. He’s got a little bit of distance there. He’s not saying I esteem them as leaders. We know that everybody else thinks they’re really important. Paul’s not as impressed with them. Again, not because he’s unimpressed with them as people, but just because he knows he’s has a higher authority. Again, his teacher was Jesus. So if somebody is disagreeing with it, that’s kind of on them, not on him. That’s why he’s got this little. Resistance there. But why? Why does he go? Why does he present the gospel? And especially, why does He say, I went for fear that I might have been running my race in vain? Is he worried that he got the gospel wrong? Well, no way, not based on everything else we’ve seen in this passage. Of course, not he knows he would be running in vain if they challenged the gospel, because in effect, what would happen is the church would split. You think of how it would hinder his ministry. It would be almost impossible for him to go on doing what he’s been doing. If every time he went somewhere, Jerusalem sent a group of people after him to say, Hey, that’s not right. You actually need to be Jews in order to be Christians. So you get this massive suspense. Then, like, what’s going to happen here? Are they going to challenge the gospel or not? And no, they don’t contest it. Then he gives us this little added bit of information. Not even Titus, who’s a Gentile, was compelled to be circumcised. This may feel like a small issue. It’s a huge issue because it’s related to the question that’s being asked in Galatians, how does a person become right with God? Is it faith plus works of the law, sacrifices? Circumcision, dietary restrictions, Paul thinks not Hebrews. Tells us as much also. Here’s Hebrews nine, nine and 10, the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper. They’re only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings, external regulations applying until, until the time of the new order. So this is the old order. Once the New Age breaks in, these things don’t matter anymore. And remember, we already got this last week in the introduction to the letter, Paul says God sent Jesus Christ to rescue us from the present evil age. So Jesus brings that New Order, brings the new age. So certainly these things shouldn’t matter anymore, and Jerusalem agrees. Titus is proof that even Jerusalem, even Peter and James and John agree with this. So there’s no compulsion. A Gentile doesn’t need to be a Jew in order to be a Christian. That word compulsion, by the way, is key. It didn’t compel him to be circumcised. Nothing inherently wrong with circumcision or even keeping kosher dietary laws. In fact, it might be wise for mission to do that probably made a lot of sense for the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem to keep kosher so that they could have influence in the lives of the Jews who weren’t Christians. Yet, we know this is true too, because Paul, who makes a big stink about circumcision here later, circumcises Timothy, but that’s a different story. No one’s compelling him. First of all, Timothy is also a Jew. His mother is Jewish, and they’re about to go do ministry to Jews. So he says, This is gonna be easier if we go with it this way. But the point is, there’s no compulsion in that moment. Now, the matter arose because I’m false believers, infiltrated their ranks like traitors, a resistant Resistance Movement. I mean, they’re spies, literally spies. Here. Did you catch that? Paul doesn’t even consider them Christians. That’s why he calls them false brothers and sisters. These are false believers. They’re not even Christian because they preach and practice a false gospel. And we saw last week, you preach a different gospel. The big deal. You should be damned. He said, Then, so this shows us again, the limits of unity. We’re very pro unity in the church, but there is a limit to it. Listen to the way Timothy Keller puts it. He says, fellowship with Christ is a sufficient basis for fellowship with one another. We must never exclude someone whom God has included in his people. But equally, fellowship with Christ is the only basis for fellowship with one another. Churches must not maintain unity at the expense of the gospel. So there are these two dangers on either side on the one hand, you, by the way, probably struggle with one of these more than the other. So good to kind of catch which side you’re on. Two dangers. The one is to be too exclusive. You’re dividing over everything those that God has brought into the people of God, you’re kicking out because they’re not your people, and you’re pretty sure God got this wrong, but the other one is to be too inclusive. Everybody’s welcome. Doesn’t matter if they deny the truth of the gospel, so they’re spying on Paul says, the freedom that the Galatians have. In Christ so that they can enslave them again. Getting to use our Exodus analogy, these are people who are, you know, going to the promised land to try to woo back Israel into Egypt. Why would you go? Doesn’t make any sense. Freedom is a major theme in Galatians. We’re going to come back to it bunch of times, chapters four and five especially. And it’s the freedom from requirements of the law, freedom from the burden of self salvation. It is the freedom of grace, understanding grace, understanding God’s gospel, the gospel God gave to Paul, leads to true freedom, if I can draw on Keller again, he talks about the cultural and emotional freedom that comes with the gospel. So cultural freedom, because we’re all of us raised in a culture, of course, a tradition, and that tradition may have certain boundaries, requirements, moralism, fundamentalism, things like that. You have to keep the rules to keep yourself in good standing. We get freedom from that. Now, in some ways, remember, this is easier. Of course, these cultural markers, because you don’t have to worry about keeping the true law, the law of Christ. You know, again, which is harder love your neighbor with the same unswerving devotion you have to loving yourself, or something like, don’t drink, smoke, gamble or go with women who do. Now, that was a lot easier, isn’t it, but at the same time, there is this, this freedom. And so what happens if you don’t have that cultural freedom? It can lead to a kind of cultural accommodation. Again, you have to keep these boundary markers. You’ve seen this, if you know anything about the history of missions, by the way, for a long time, you go to places where Westerners brought the Gospel, and there’d be one native in a white shirt and a tie, because, you know, you can’t preach the gospel without a white shirt and a tie, even if you’re in the bush in Sub Saharan Africa, like that’s what we’re talking about here. This is wrong idea. Okay, so that freedom from cultural borders. But then there’s also this emotional freedom that comes with the gospel, which we talked a lot about last week, freedom from the burdens of guilt and shame and even from the cycles of pride that come when you’re doing well. Again, we don’t obey to be saved. We obey because we have been saved by grace. So just as Paul resisted these false brothers here, so must we resist false gospels for the sake of the Gospel itself, and for the sake of those with whom, whom we would reach with the gospel. So just take a moment little self examination. Is there anything that you’re adding to the gospel that’s keeping others out? Maybe it’s politics that’d be a common one. You know, good Christians vote for this party. I don’t know which party, but one of them, I’m sure. Or maybe it is gray issues, moral issues, gray issues, like alcohol, something like that. Or maybe it’s doctrinal matters, where we can divide, because it’s not the gospel that it’s at stake. It’s something else. Just examine your own self. Are you adding anything to the gospel? Paul then picks up the story again. In verse six, we get this little aside about Titus and the false brothers. But once again, he’s not caught up in celebrity. He’s just saying whatever they are doesn’t really matter to me. The Bible is the only sure foundation we can respect teachers and traditions by all means. I’m a big fan of Calvin and Edwards and Athanasius and Augustine, like I mentioned, already big fan, but the Bible’s the yardstick. That’s the point. You judge them by the Bible. But what happens so these people that he respects his teachers? The end of verse six, it’s key. It says they added nothing to his gospel phrase. Carefully, it doesn’t say they change and they didn’t tweak anything. Specifically, they didn’t add anything. No other requirements. Will it be faith plus something, or only faith? And even James says, Nope, no need to add anything. Paul says, we maintain that a person is saved by grace apart from works of the law. And James says, you know, Faith without works is dead, right? They go together. By the way, we’ll do that when we do James, sometimes I’m not doing it now, but even that James, James of faith without works is dead, says, You’re right. It’s just faith. We are justified by faith alone, they agree completely. They give Paul and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, which will be very important in that time, they just recognize their different callings and that those different callings will lead to different choices, which makes sense for all of us, because we are tasked with preaching a timeless message and. Timely ways, ways appropriate to the context in which we preach it, and that will look different in different contexts. So that you might refuse to circumcise Titus and Titus in one context and then choose to circumcise Timothy in a different context. This is helpful for us also, not only the ministry we do in this context, but sometimes even just as individuals, recognizing that we have different callings, we have different gifts, we have different passions, which means it’s not going to look the same how we do things like That’s good. We need the whole body doing what God has called them to do. What’s more important, evangelicalism or discipleship? Yes, okay, it’s all spectrum. Anyway. Some of us are stronger here. Some of us are stronger here. That’s okay. Lina, we got to do all of it, all of us. But it’s okay if we’re stronger there. What? What’s most important to the Christian life, the head, the heart or the hands. Some of us are head people, and it’s good, because we need to know with certainty the things that we’ve been taught and people are going to help us. The other heart people are good. The hands. You know what the problem comes in when we start judging each other for not being who we are? You know, it’s all about the hand. How can you call yourself a Christian and you’re not even volunteering at the local organization that I’m volunteering at to serve the poor, because I got that more of a head. I’m called to do something else. That’s fine. But speaking of serving the poor, that shows up here also, they ask Paul, this is one thing they do. Say, would you remember the poor? And Paul says, Absolutely, that’s the whole reason I’m in Jerusalem. Guys. Remember, we heard you guys were me struggling, so we came. How can we help? We’re going to keep doing that, although it’s not incidental, because he’s talking about salvation by grace alone. And then he points to an example of grace being made visible. Grace changes us so that we live differently. Paul actually walks through the same process when he talks to the Ephesian elders in Acts chapter 20, his main argument to them is, stay in God’s grace. Remember the gospel. And then he wraps it up with a passage Kyle talked to us about last week, when he was doing the little giving she the little giving spiel. It’s more blessed to give than to receive. You’re going, what does that have to do with the gospel? Everything it has everything to do with the gospel, because Grace changes us completely. So Grace will be made visible in your life when you’re freed from the idolatry of money, which means you’re then free to go, hey, it’s way more fun to give this away than to hoard it for myself. I got the inheritance of Christ. I’ve got the riches of glory and grace coming my way in heaven. You can have my money. I don’t care about that at all. So where are we? Paul received the gospel by revelation. Didn’t consult with anyone. When he finally did confer with the other apostles, they affirmed his gospel, pull all those threads together, kind of give us the central thrust of the passage as it relates to us today. Our big idea it’s this, preach God’s gospel only because it’s better than the rest. Preach God’s gospel only because it’s better than the rest. There are two key takeaways that are there in the big idea. We need to know God’s gospel and what makes it so good. And then we need to preach God’s gospel like we do what we do for the sake of our hearers, as he says in verse five. So how are we going to do that? I think there are two, two places to beware in particular. First, we gotta beware of false teachers. Gotta beware of false teachers. No, not against teachers. I’m big fan of teachers. Actually, I think it’s the most important gift in the church. I’m just joking, not against teachers. Paul’s not against teachers. Paul is a teacher. Paul trains teachers. Paul says things to people like Timothy, the things you’ve heard me say in the presence of many witnesses and trust to reliable people who will be faithful to teach others. The Church of God needs teachers. Paul again, Ephesians four says Christ Himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and the teachers, so the body of Christ may be built up. God, in his infinite wisdom, gave us His Word, and then said, you’re going to need some people to help you out with this. And so he raises up teachers. Nothing against teachers, but the key is, again, we need people to teach us the word. It’s that last bit that’s most important. We need people to teach us the word. The word is the foundation, which does put a burden on you, even as hearers, to dig into scripture in. Community so that you can test all teaching by the sure foundation the Bible is the yardstick so you can recognize the counterfeit. So we’re being called here to exactly what Paul displays in this passage, which is a proper respect for teaching authority and a proper respect that recognizes it is derivative authority. All my authority as a teacher derives from this book. The instant I go off track of this book, I have no more authority, and you all should call me on it, beware of false teachers. But then second, beware of false gospels. Beware of false gospels and be willing to oppose false teaching, because you love the truth. You love the truth. You know it’s better, and you want other people to know the best news. We are surrounded by false gospels because we do have a lot of people pleasers teaching scripture, you’re going to have people who either add to or remove from the gospel core. Give you just a couple of examples. One of those prominent ones today here in the west is the therapeutic gospel. God just wants you to be happy. It’s not wrong. I hope you know God wants you to be happy. The only thing is, God wants you to be way happier than you want yourself to be. He’s got much better in store for you than what you would settle for. So it’s not wrong. It just removes holiness as an essential ingredient to happiness. So it removes then the problem of sin as well. Because the problem of sin isn’t that You’re offending a holy God and are justly deserving of wrath. The problem with sin, if we call it that, it’s kind of an offensive word, can we call it brokenness instead? Would that be fine? Okay, the problem with brokenness is just that it keeps you from being fully you look, that’s worse news. That’s not better. You know what makes that worse news? Because it means your happiness is on you, and if you’re not happy, it’s your fault, and good luck trying to fix it, by the way. Because what are you going to do? You got to get yourself happy. You got to self actualize, even though you do have some brokenness, and also you live in a broken world. What if circumstances are beyond your control? You’re a refugee in Ukraine right now. Why aren’t you happy? Self actualize? That’s terrible news. We have a better gospel than a therapeutic gospel. What about the moralistic gospel? Think they’ve ever heard one of those in a Baptist church before? Yeah, okay, we should probably worry about this one moralistic gospel, which teaches, of course, that God helps those who help themselves. As the Bible says, absolutely nowhere. That’s Benjamin Franklin. That’s not the Bible. Guys. Grace is great, but get to work. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps. That’s what we do. Rugged individuals that we are, keep our rules, our regulations. These are just boundary markers so that you know that you’re in and know that you’re better than other people, which is what we really want. Again, that’s worse news, not better, because it means it’s up to you again. You have to measure up. You have to earn this. And what happens when you don’t and you won’t, by the way, I could go on, of course, get the prosperity gospel, which is just a variant of the therapeutic gospel. God wants you to not just be happy, but to be rich and healthy. Also, you got the social gospel, which is a form of moralism. Actually, it’s just social justice moralism, instead of, you know, Bible thump and moralism, you got the liberal gospel, which says, in order to make sure that our gospel is palatable to a modern world, we’re going to strip out all the supernatural. Doesn’t really hurt Christianity much. If you take out, you know Jesus and His resurrection, does it? You got the self help gospel. You could just go on and on and on. They’re not better, they’re worse. So know the truth, love the truth, and then preach the truth. Preach God’s gospel only because it’s better than the rest. Let’s pray. Lord, we stand before you as those who in our flesh are zealously committed to going in the wrong direction, and every one of us in this room would still be going in that direction, but you stepped in. You changed the direction of our lives. You called us out of darkness into. Lift your glorious light into freedom and joy and love that comes from knowing you, knowing your truth, not having to measure up. Lord, we pray that we would rest in that very good news. Delight in it, be zealous to maintain it and oh so committed to proclaiming it. For the sake of those around us, we ask this for your name’s sake, Lord, amen.