Men of Conviction, Men of Commitment - Galatians 2:1-10

[OK, this passage from Galatians isn't about fathers, but I think this father's day we can apply the principles to our calling to teach and to model a gospel-centered life to the next generation! SN.]

Men of Conviction, Men of Commitment

Galatians 2:1-10

Introduction: I like the story of the little boy explaining to his friend the meaning of Father’s Day. He said, “It is just like Mother’s Day, only you don’t spend as much on the present!” Well, we had a special Mother’s Day message last month, for Father’s Day I am going to continue in our Galatians series. Galatians 2 is not specifically addressing fathers, but I think we'll see here some principles that apply. Hopefully I can tie it in to our need, in our families and in the church, to be men of conviction, and men of commitment, having the courage to live in the light of the Gospel and under the authority of the Scripture. As God challenged the nation through Moses, parents, and that must start with the fathers as the family-shepherd, are called to share the truth of God’s Word with their children…

And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.  ⁷ You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise…  (Deuteronomy 6:6-7).

In a world that questions absolute truth and prizes being “inclusive and affirming” the exclusivity of the Christian message is being watered down, increasingly conformed to popular thinking, rather than being consistently held forth in its life transforming power. More than ever we need men of faith, men who know God and take Him at His Word, living in the light of the Gospel of Grace. The saying is true that our children are not likely to find a Father in God, until they find something of God in their father. This text will confront us with some questions: Are we living a Gospel-centered life? Is the Bible your final authority? Is it obvious to your family that Jesus is your Lord? “Do as I say, not as I do” won’t cut it with our kids. We can’t expect them to surpass the level of our spirituality. By grace they might, but if we train them up in the way of the Lord, we have reason to hope that they will. Like it or not, we are an example to which they aspire.

       In this letter to the Galatians Paul is confronting false teachers who had been challenging his message and his apostolic authority. We’ll see that these false teachers were trying to drive a wedge between the Jerusalem church and the church in Antioch. Paul doesn’t get defensive, rather, he goes on the attack, showing that he and Peter were of one mind—they preached the same Gospel. We are in a better position than the Galatians, we have the entire Bible, all 66 books. Since we all have the same Bible; we should all agree in what it says right? Well yes, we should, but we don’t, because sin clouds our discernment. So, we need a teachable spirit, seeking to grow in our understanding, willing to test our beliefs against what the Bible really says. Part of that means learning from each other, as well as those who came before us. We have 2000 years of church history! Then and now, what is different? Paul was preaching in the beginning of the church age, and God was using him, and the other apostles, to lay the foundation on which the church would be built. They had to get the Gospel right.

        The false teachers Paul is confronting claimed to be representing the Apostles in Jerusalem. How could it be that Paul was presenting a different message?  Disunity, division in the church? We’ll look at how Paul deals with this question that could have possibly divided the church, and then apply the “then” to “now.” We’ll look at: (1) In 2:1–3 the need to be men of faith, men who take God at His Word. God had spoken to Paul as he had to the twelve, and he wanted to assure the Galatians that the Apostles believed and preached the same message. (2) In 2:4–5 we’ll see that we need to be men who are faithful, holding fast to the truth without compromise. (3) In 2:6–10 we’ll see the need for men who are “fruitful,” living in the light of the Gospel. Our ministries may vary, but our doctrine and practice must be based on God’s revealed truth. Paul’s main point is that he, not the Judaizers, was doing that. Paul said, When, after 14 years, I did confer with the apostles, they added nothing to my gospel, but approved of my work and gave me their blessing (and so there are not two gospels, but one). The Galatians should conclude, then, that the Judaizers that challenged Paul’s message did not really represent the Jerusalem apostles. On the contrary, they are false brothers (2:4) who Paul resisted and who were not endorsed by the Jerusalem apostles. He is urging the Galatians to stand firm in the Gospel Paul preached to them, and that they should reject the grace plus works message of the Judaizers. As we seek to apply this passage, we need to ask, what, if anything has changed from Paul’s situation to ours?  He was an APOSTLE, and ambassador and spokesman of Jesus, and so he spoke as an authorized representative of Christ at a time that the canon was not yet complete. We have the final and complete Word of God written, the Bible, 66 books. God has spoken in human language; He has given us His Word!

The Maine* Idea: We need men of conviction who defend without compromise the one true Gospel, and who live under the absolute authority of the Bible.

I. Men of faith, who recognize the apostles’ teaching, as expressed in Scripture, is the final measure of truth (2:1-3).  We affirm the priesthood of believers, but that doesn’t mean we forget 2000 years of church history! Paul’s gospel had to be consistent with the Jerusalem apostles, or the unity of the apostles is broken, and with it the unity of the church. Look at the “then” and think about the “now.”

Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me.  ² 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.  ³ But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. 

       Let’s be sure we understand this: the same Jesus who called the first disciples to follow Him, who walked with them and taught them for three years before His death and resurrection, is the One who, from before the foundation of the world, had a plan for a young pharisee named Saul of Tarsus. As surely as Jesus revealed Himself and His message to the twelve, He revealed Himself to Paul, first on the road to Damascus, and continuing through the years of his ministry, calling him to preach the apostolic message among the gentiles. Jesus never planned to have a Jewish church and a separate gentile church. Ephesians 2:15b-16 says, “…that he might create in himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace,  ¹⁶ and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross…” I don’t think when Paul says “lest I had been running in vain” (v.2) that he is saying he had doubts about his ministry and message and sought the confirmation of the pillars in Jerusalem. That would be contrary to the message of Galatians. What would be “vain” or fruitless, would have been to allow division to divide and disrupt the church. So, putting personal comfort aside, Paul goes with some others to Jerusalem to deal with the potentially divisive heresy that was being propagated by some. It seems this was the Jerusalem Council visit we read about in Acts 15.

      It is clear the desire for personal comfort and the fear of conflict which hinder our confronting one another in love do not spring from faith in Christ. They are not the fruit of the Spirit. They are products of the flesh. They are the kind of thing we experience when we do not look to Christ. But Paul says in Galatians 5:24, "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." By putting our faith in Him and drawing on the power of his Spirit, we cease to be enslaved by the love of comfort and the fear of conflict, and we are free to confront disagreement biblically. Jesus did not want Paul to ignore the problem. For the sake of the ultimate unity and growth of the body, He wants us to confront disagreement, in love, for God’s glory.

       It is also clear by what is happening here, that there are fundamentals of the faith that cannot be compromised. We can discuss and debate within the context of orthodoxy certain points of doctrine and application, agreeing to keep studying and seeking the truth together. Some things, however, are too foundational to be open for debate. Surely we can’t tolerate anything that undercuts the Gospel message itself. As we saw in Mark we need to understand and believe who Jesus is and why He came, and what it means to follow Him. After that, we can talk.

       And so, with the Gospel message challenged and the unity of the church at stake, Paul, along with his co-pastor from Antioch and co-worker on the first missionary journey, Barnabas, along with Titus, a gentile convert who Paul elsewhere calls his “son in the faith,” go to Jerusalem to deal with this matter, to affirm the apostolic faith. For us, the Bible says it, that settles it. The apostles had a unique, foundational position in the history of the church. And there was only one Apostle Paul! But dads, grandpas, do your children see you as a man of faith, someone who believes God? We still need men of integrity who defend without compromise the one true Gospel, and affirm the absolute authority of the Bible.

II. Men who are faithful, holding fast to the truth without compromise (2:4-5). Things got very tense for a while as the circumcision party (again, Paul calls them false brothers!) tried to force the issue of the necessity of circumcision (see Acts 15:5). But Paul would not budge because the gospel was at stake… Faith in Christ alone, plus nothing!

 ⁴ 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-  ⁵ to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you. 

       Why did Paul include this incident in his letter if his main point was to show that he and the apostles were unified? I think he wants the Galatian Christians to understand that this false gospel, which is no gospel at all, is not new. Earlier he had traveled to Jerusalem and Peter, James, and John were in agreement with him that circumcision and the outward stipulations of the Law were not to be added to the gospel, they could not be considered a requirement of salvation, and that anyone who would insist that they were, Paul calls them false-brothers. Why so harsh? The Gospel is grace alone, through faith in Christ alone, plus nothing.

       In verse 5 Paul says that he did not submit to these false-brothers for this reason: "That [or, “In order that”] the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you." If Paul had given in to the demand of the false brothers and accepted their “add-ons” to the gospel, the pure gospel message would have been undercut. There would be no gospel, no good news, if Paul gave in to the demand for circumcision. The good news to the world is that right standing before God was totally paid for by the death of Christ at Calvary and can be enjoyed only through faith in him. Any requirement that causes us to rely on our work and not Christ's work is not the gospel that the apostles preached.

       So, here in verses 3–5 Paul shows the Galatians who the Judaizers in their midst really are (the false brothers from Jerusalem), and what is at stake in their demands (the truth of the gospel). The teachers among them may come from Jerusalem, but they do not represent the Jerusalem apostles. They are false brothers, and their demands that you be circumcised and keep the feasts are a different gospel which is no gospel at all (1:7). Back to Father’s Day. Dads, you need to get the Gospel right. And that impacts our living. Gospel-centered lives. The church, and our families, need men of conviction who defend without compromise the one true Gospel, and affirm the absolute authority of the Bible.

III. Men who are fruitful, living in the light of the Gospel (ok, I may be pushing the alliteration too far once again!). What I mean is that, though our gifts and calling vary, our doctrine and practice must be based on God’s revealed Truth (2:6-10). Paul describes the affirmation of unity among the founding apostles of the Christian Church, and the safeguarding of the gospel from one of its earliest threats. For the Apostle Paul, the first missionary to the Gentiles, the most essential thing in the mission was to get the gospel right. Acting Christian won’t save us, or our children. We’re saved only through knowing and trusting Jesus.

⁶ And from those who seemed to be influential (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)- those, I say, who seemed influential added nothing to me.  ⁷ 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  ⁸ (for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles),  ⁹ 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…

       Finally, in verses 6–10 Paul describes his encounter with the apostles in Jerusalem. Verse 6 makes the crucial statement that Paul has been maintaining all along: "They added nothing to me." Recall 1:12, "I did not receive the gospel from man, nor was I taught it, but it came through a revelation of Jesus Christ." Years after his conversion, Paul did finally lay his gospel before the Jerusalem apostles; but they did not feel a need to add anything to it. Grace alone, by faith alone, in Christ alone. Plus nothing. Together they understood the idea later reflected by the hymn writer: “Jesus paid it all, all to Him I owe…”

       Even more important is the positive statement of verses 7–10. 2:7 begins, “On the contrary…” Not only did they not add anything, they positively affirmed the message Paul preached.  Verse 9 says that "James and Cephas and John . . . gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised." These guys wrote most of our New Testament! One church, one Gospel. The Judaizers were false teachers. The apostolic witness, the foundation of the church was not split. It was one. There was a strong, united base for two great missions, one to the Jews and one to the Gentiles. That was a great day for missions, a great day for us Gentiles. Paul stood his ground "that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for [us]."

       Then, finally, Paul adds verse 10. There is one other thing they agreed on: “Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.” Paul agreed with the apostles that compassion for the poor was pleasing to God and a crucial part of the apostolic ministry (see Barnabas in Acts 4-5; 11). For the church, we should reflect the heart of Christ. This is an outworking of the gospel, an example of a “good work” that results from being saved by grace through faith (Eph 2:8-10). And it is something our kids see in us, something that testifies to the reality of our faith. Dads, is your faith visible to your kids? They are watching!

What is God saying to me in this passage? Father’s Day can be a time to be thankful for our Dads, And, to remember that we all answer to God our Father. We need to be men of conviction who defend without compromise the one true Gospel, and affirm the absolute authority of the Bible (God’s inspired Word).

What would God have me to do in response to this passage? Since God in His sovereignty has preserved the message of the Gospel, since He has saved us by His grace, shouldn’t we be compelled to seize the opportunities He gives us to share that message? Jesus is still building his church – and He is using a diversity of gifts to accomplish that.  His Word is Truth. As we stand, without compromise on His revealed truth, as we examine carefully the Scripture, searching, studying, seeking to hear and understand the truth, we can be assured that “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion.” We began this Father’s Day looking at Deuteronomy 6, and the responsibility of parents to teach and model spiritual truth to their children. Perfection? No, not one. But consistency, in your gates and on your door, when you lie down and rise up. We are a body composed of various members, each different, uniquely contributing to the work of the whole, but our message is one: Christ crucified, risen, and coming again! And that changes everything! Let’s be faithful in passing on that message to our kids. AMEN.