Paul and the True Gospel

Galatians 1:11-2:21

What is Galatians all about? We’ll its about grace. It is about what God has done in saving his people. And we call this good news or gospel because it means that the salvation rests on Jesus’s shoulders and not ours. I can’t carry that, you can’t carry that, but he can and does.

Now i’m calling this short series through Galatians, Gospel-Rooted living. Why that title. Well Paul calls us to freedom in this book based on Christ’s gracious saving work in our lives. That means there is grace and freedom for you when you mess up and sin, believer. That’s a lot of what we looked at last week. The burden of guilt is on Jesus. He paid for it.

That has an effect on us doesn’t it? The grace of Christ, lifting the burden of sin off our shoulders frees us, and does result in changed lives. Notice right here we could very easily shift the message in the wrong direction and say “live better or else,” but that would be the wrong message of the gospel. The gospel results in changed lives because it recognizes that Christ took our sin on himself.

We’re looking at 2 chapters today. I realize that is probably a change of pace for you. This will certainly be a fly over. But I want you to see that Paul begins here in 1:11 by describing the way the gospel changed his life.

Believer, this is true of all who are in Christ, our very lives are witness to his grace.

READ

Remember the false teaching that had slipped into the church in Galatia was that you had to do certain things in order to complete your salvation. You had to act right, you had to had to work for your salvation. What Paul is explaining here is the way the grace of Christ has worked for all those who are in Christ.

And notice he ties this to his gospel. He says that this gospel that they heard was not one that Paul made up. It didn’t come from him, it came from our gracious Christ.

Paul was a persecutor of the church. He sat over the martyrdom of Stephen. He was the most zealous of the religious leaders in Judaism at the time. He was better than everyone at working. But his works were not what saved him, and a message that he came up with was not what saved him. Notice these words in verses 15 and 16.

The Father set him apart and revealed his Son to him.

Believer, understand this. It’s the same message once again, isn’t it? Paul beheld the glory of the Son of God and was saved by his grace. And his life was changed.

He didn’t change his life and then make his way to Jesus. He saw Jesus.

Believer this is the same as your story isn’t it? One day you finally saw Jesus. I don’t mean you physically saw him. But your eyes were opened and you understood that Jesus is the only way.

I want you to be encouraged by this, Jesus is working out the display of his grace in all of us, but none of it has come through you making sure you’re a better person, or deserve the grace shown to you in Christ. It comes through beholding his glory and being changed from one degree of glory to the next by him. So what are we to do? Keep looking at Jesus.

READ 2:1-10

Now just a brief explanation of what’s happening here in this section. Paul is not a rough apostle. You ever met anyone who is a rough believer? Out there doing their own thing, apart from the church, weird theology, often comes across critical of what other believers are doing? You might expect that Paul would have a chip on his shoulders.

Knew his Old Testament in and out, saw a face to face revelation with Jesus. No what is the mark of the grace of Christ in Paul? Humility and submission to the witness of the church. He goes up to meet with the other guys, he wants to make sure that everyone is running in the same direction.

There’s nothing more frustrating that being on a team of people with everyone going after their own agendas is there? I remember playing team sports in school. There was always some guy who thought they were better than everyone else. Had to be the guy with the ball, getting the outs, scoring the downs. The church can’t work that way, and Paul wanted to make sure everyone was playing the same game.

So he goes to meet with Peter, James, and John and they hear the gospel from him, and the work that he wants to do, they extend to him the right hand of fellowship. That is, they shake his hand and call him brother.

Notice what it that God has entrusted him with. Going to the uncircumcised with the gospel of grace. I realize that sounds weird in 2024, but here’s whats important. The Jews were marked by circumcision the gentiles were not.

One of the main things the false teachers were preaching among the Galatians is that if they truly wanted to be saved, in Christ, they needed to be circumcised because the Law of Moses demanded it.

Now Paul here is explaining to them a conversation that happened years before this current controversy. And that was, he would take the gospel of grace to the gentiles. But he names them here as the uncircumcised because that was a key marker of Paul’s message.

Not be circumcised, not perform a work so that Christ will except you, but rather, Jesus did all the work, place all your trust in him and you will be saved.

Paul’s whole ministry had been about preaching this message of grace in the surrounding nations. Now this event was significant because Paul is letting the church here know that this is the same message Peter, James, and John were preaching among the Jewish people. Not “thank goodness you’ve done this initial work, now come to Christ so he can finish what you started.” But grace and peace to you, Jesus has accomplished all of it.

This is what is so sweet about Christian fellowship. I love meeting with you and hearing about how good and gracious Jesus has been to you. How do I know when I’m talking with a brother or sister in Jesus? They’re talking about how good he is, how much they don’t deserve his mercy, how great of a savior he is that he could accomplish even their salvation.

READ 2:11-21

Well notice the change here. Peter is not living in line with the gospel he preached. There’s two types of things that happen in the Christian life, one we struggle with sin and beat ourselves up because we’ve convinced ourselves we should be better at this point.

The other is like Peter here, we seek to show that we’re better than we really are. This is magnifying ourselves instead glorifying Christ. And Paul calls Peter out on this. He saw that Peter was going back to separating himself from the gentiles because some of his fellow Jews were around, and it resulted in others doing the same.

Verse 14 probably sounds harsh with our modern ears, but Paul isn’t talking racial stuff, he’s talking about conformity to the law or conformity to the gospel. Peter doesn’t want to be looked at badly by the people around him, so he starts basing his life on what he can do, not on what Christ has done.

He had an effect on those around him, they started doing the same thing. Perhaps you don’t realize the effect you have on believers around you. Does your life magnify to them how hard you’ve worked to become the Christian that you are, or does it glorify Christ?

Perhaps this is the false trap we fall into, we think making sure people don’t know we’re in need of grace is better than displaying humility and grace to people. One of those says “My works justify me,” the other says, “I rely on the grace of Christ.”

See this is Paul’s whole point, and will be the theme of next week so don’t worry we aren’t missing it. We are saved by grace alone, not by works. Works don’t save, Christ saves and we believe in him.

Paul takes this back to gospel-rooted living. He says “I have been crucified with Christ.” The old you is dead. “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.”

There is a real truth to this believer, if you are in Christ, you died in him and were raised to new life in him. And this new life is solely his life in you. Your life is all of grace.

That doesn’t mean we don’t sin anymore. We haven’t been perfected yet, that comes in the end. But it does mean that even when we sin, we go to Christ our merciful gracious savior. We don’t turn to ourselves or our abilities, because that person died.

That would be a nullification, a snuffing out, of Christ’s grace. If we could work to do it ourselves, Christ died for no purpose.

We are in Christ. Not burdened to to display ourselves, but free to show his grace.

(Parents?)