Sermon Tone Analysis

FREED BY GRACE

Last week, we talked about being freed by grace.

The truth that we reiterated over and over and over again was that

God’s pleasure in you is not based on your performance for Him.

We saw that freeing truth over and over again in Galatians 1.

And yet that glorious truth leaves us somewhat frustrated, because we want to please God.

So, how do we please God since His pleasure is based on Christ performance not our?

Galatians 2 will teach us how through three pictures.

FIRST PICTURE

So, the first picture we see in Galatians 2:1—10.

A PICTURE OF LEGALISM

Galatians 2:1—10 is a picture of legalism.

Legalism is right behavior with wrong belief.

In Acts 15 they were having a discussion about church membership.

Do you need to follow Jewish rules, customs, in particular circumcision, in order to be saved?

Standing before them in Galatians 2:3 was Titus a testimony against the Judaizers.

He was the nail in the coffin of legalism.

Legalism is, either, working according to our own power or according to our own rules and, ultimately, legalism is working to earn the favor of God thinking, that by doing certain things, that we are earning or meriting favor before God.

A PICTURE OF LEGALISM

Now, the reason I describe that as “right behavior with wrong belief” is because the Judaizers were saying, “We need to follow Jewish laws or customs; you need to be circumcised” It was the accounting not the act of circumcision that wrong.

The act became wrong when it was attached to merit.

A PICTURE OF LEGALISM

We all are recovering legalists in a sense, because we are all born with a nature that says, “We can make our way to God, because certainly, when I do something, that counts for some kind of favor or merit before God.” That’s legalism;

Right behaviors with wrong belief.

The first picture, legalism: Right behavior with wrong belief.

SECOND PICTURE

Second picture, Galatians 2:11.

This is one of the most tense, dramatic episodes in the New Testament described here.

Listen to it.

SECOND PICTURE

Here we see Paul confrontating Peter face to face.

The confrontation centered on Peter’s behavior.

Here we see our second picture.

Hypocrisy: Right belief with wrong behavior.

Hypocrisy, which is right belief with wrong behavior.

Hypocrisy: Right belief with wrong behavior.

Antioch was a church made up of predominantly Gentiles, non-Jews.

Peter, it said in Galatians 2, had gone to Antioch, and he had sat down at the table with these Gentile Christians, and he was eating with them; he was fellowshipping with them, and things were going great; they were hanging out together.

Hypocrisy: Right belief with wrong behavior.

However, when “certain men came from James” “he separated himself, fearing the circumcision party”.

Peter knew it was right to eat with Gentiles even though his behavior indicated something different.

Hypocrisy: Right belief with wrong behavior.

Acts 10 gives us a little bit of a picture of how Peter came around on this picture.

This was monumental in the first century.

This was the entrance of Gentiles into the church.

This is a mega-event in the New Testament church, and we see how important it is, and even how controversial it is based on what happens right after this.

Look at Acts 11:1.

How do you think they responded?

Do you think they were happy?

Listen to what they did.

He recounts the whole story, and you get down to verse 17, and he says,

Then, right after this is the picture we have…the first picture we have of the church in Antioch, which was made up of mainly Gentile believers, and even says down in verse 26,

Hypocrisy: Right belief with wrong behavior.

Peter initial conduct was in complete step with the Gospel, yet he compromised his conduct when he step outside of the Gospel.

Hypocrisy: Right belief with wrong behavior.

So, Paul finds out about this, and he goes to Peter, and he confronts him to his face.

The key phrase is in verse 14.

“When I saw that they…” Listen to this phrase, “…were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel.”

That’s the hypocrisy.

Right belief with wrong behavior.

Hypocrisy: Right belief with wrong behavior.

Peter believed the gospel; he knew the gospel.

Peter preached the gospel, but his life was not reflecting the gospel.

Right belief, wrong behavior.

So, Paul confronted him on it.

Hypocrisy: Right belief with wrong behavior.

What does this have to do with us?

Are there areas where we claim to have right belief, but our behavior does not reflect that belief?

Absolutely.

It’s hypocrisy, and that’s what the Word does.

It exposes that to us.

Hypocrisy: Right belief with wrong behavior.

Saying, your life is not in line with the truth of the gospel is not legalistic.

Paul’s not being legalistic.

That’s Christianity, to help each other, to spur one another on so that our lives reflect the gospel.

Hypocrisy: Right belief with wrong behavior.

You see, in these two areas, two extremes, or errors, we need to avoid.

We need to avoid doing things in order to earn favor or merit favor before God.

“The more I do, the better off I am.”

Legalism: Right behavior, doing good things, with wrong belief.

Hypocrisy: Right belief with wrong behavior.

At the same time, we have got to avoid hypocrisy, saying, “I believe in a gospel of grace, and I believe God loves me no matter what I do.”

The Gospel of Grace does say that God loves you no matter while also saying the way you lives matters.

Hypocrisy: Right belief with wrong behavior.

What we’ve got to do as a community of faith is help guard each other from both of these, and we need a word to help us do that.

A picture of faith

Now, how do we do that?

How do we avoid right behavior with wrong belief and right belief with wrong behavior?

How do we bring them together, and that’s the third picture I want you to see.

A picture of faith

I want you to see a picture of faith in Galatians 2: Right belief and right behavior.

How do you bring those two together?

The answer is faith.

Did you see the key word?

Everything revolves around faith, Paul says.

Not faith plus something else, but faith and faith alone.

Galatians 2 teaches us that through faith in Christ, we are accepted before God.

I want to show you two results, in Galatians 2.

Through faith in Christ, we are accepted before God.

Through faith in Christ…faith alone; not faith plus anything…faith alone, we’re accepted before God.