Only One Gospel

Introduction

Good morning Citylight! We are in our series through the book of Galatians and as Ricky covered two weeks ago, the very reason that Paul writes this letter to this church is because people in the church are turning to another gospel. People are sneaking in and distorting the gospel and being led astray to a false gospel.

The work that Paul does through the entire letter of Galatians is to emphasize and call the people back to know and believe the true gospel message that he once proclaimed to them. So what is this gospel that Paul preaches? What is this gospel that we talk about every week here?

The word gospel in Greek is “euangelion” which means good news. Now this good news message is one that tells about God’s miraculous work to do something that you never could. The gospel is the message of the existence of one God who created all things. But in humanity’s failure to follow him perfectly, sin has corrupted our hearts and minds and our ability to actually be in a right relationship with God ruined. We have gravely rejected the creator and there is no way for us to bridge the gap. We can’t be good enough. We can’t please him or win him over. We can’t earn his approval because of our sin.

The Bible tells us that we were God’s enemy before Jesus. Our effort to save ourselves and please him are like filthy rags. We are told that we apart from God are not just his enemy but separated from him to spend eternity apart in what is described as weeping and gnashing of teeth, the lake of fire, the second death.

That’s the bad news. But the good news is that God so loved the world so much that he himself would actually make a way to bring us back into a right relationship with him for all of eternity. That is where Jesus, the Son of God, enters the picture. Because of Jesus and Jesus alone, we can be forgiven of our sin against God. When Jesus took that cross he took the punishment of sin for us. When Jesus rose from the dead he sealed the victory and displayed what could be true of us.

And if you understand the sin that you have committed against God, come to him and believe in God’s saving work of Jesus Christ and give your life to follow him, you can be saved.

By trusting and giving our lives to Jesus we are no longer his enemies, we are adopted sons. We are no longer our old selves, but we are a new creation. We are washed clean of our sins. Redeemed from our sin. We are made new in Christ. We are hidden in Christ, loved, God’s workmanship, saints, his blood bought family.

And that is the greatest news that we could receive. Because this eternal hope that we have in Jesus is something that God does out of the kindness of his heart, the mercy he pours out, and the grace that we receive that we could be heirs of the kingdom of heaven because of Jesus, not because of anything we could do.

This gospel, and this gospel alone is what stands alone to actually save our souls and transform our lives.

Main Point

This morning Paul continues on the reminder of the gospel and it’s good news. The big idea from our passage this morning is that The gospel is sufficient, it doesn’t need your supplements.

We’ll see that the gospel is sufficient in 4 different ways, first how it transforms lives, how it’s steadfast against attacks, how it transcends cultures & race, and finally how it unites in mission.

Read with me again to see the proof of the gospels sufficiency.

Galatians 2:1–3 “Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along also. I went up according to a revelation and presented to them the gospel I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to those recognized as leaders. I wanted to be sure I was not running, and had not been running, in vain. But not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek.”

Point 1: It Transforms lives (v. 1-3)

Explain

After Paul just spent some time in the paragraph above sharing how God revealed himself to him and how God changed Paul's whole life and eternity through Jesus, he now transitions. He was giving evidence of own testimony and work of God in his life. Paul has been demonstrating the credibility of who he is, but now he transitions to show that while he is credible to believe, his message is the true gospel.

He tells this story here about how he went to Jerusalem with Barnabas and Titus to talk with others about the gospel message. It’s been 14 years at this point and Paul goes up not because he’s trying to make sure what he is preaching is the proper thing, but to make sure that they’re all preaching the same thing. He’s not flinching at the truth of the gospel message that he is preaching, but he goes to the leaders in Jerusalem to share with them the gospel message of salvation that he’s preaching.

Remember, what’s been happening is there are some who are infiltrating the churches and they’re teaching that Paul’s gospel message of faith in Jesus alone brings salvation is wrong. These other people that Paul calls Judaisers are teaching that you have to become Jewish before you can become Christian. The men need to be circumcised and if they don’t do that, then they aren’t actually saved. They’re claiming it’s Jesus + Jewish tradition.

This whole encounter with Paul and the jewish leaders can be found in Acts 15 and this Jerusalem council that takes place might be one of the most important meetings in all of church history because of what was discussed.

Turn to Acts 15 to see this play out because it’s powerful. Now, in Galatians Paul says he went privately to the leaders, so likely Paul had a meeting with Peter, James, and John before this meeting where they agree with him about the gospel being salvation by faith in Christ alone, but in this meeting we see the whole thing play out to what the issue is.

Acts 15:4–5 “When they arrived at Jerusalem, they were welcomed by the church, the apostles, and the elders, and they reported all that God had done with them. But some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “It is necessary to circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses.””

So here’s the problem clearly coming up.

Acts 15:7–11 “After there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you are aware that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles would hear the gospel message and believe. And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he also did to us. He made no distinction between us and them, cleansing their hearts by faith. Now then, why are you testing God by putting a yoke on the disciples’ necks that neither our ancestors nor we have been able to bear? On the contrary, we believe that we are saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus in the same way they are.””

Peter’s answer is doubling down on this truth. And Paul in Galatians brings evidence of this. He brings Titus, who is a gentile man. Basically saying, look at this guy! Not jewish, not circumcised, totally transformed, redeemed, made new, loves Jesus, walks and bears fruit of a believer, leading people to Christ, adopted as a son to the family of God.

The gospel needs no human supplement. It’s not Jesus plus our traditions, it’s not Jesus and to be perfect, it’s not Jesus and understand every doctrinal teaching, it’s Jesus and Jesus alone. The gospel message about Jesus Christ does all the work on its own by the power of the Spirit to transform lives!

The gospel is sufficient, it doesn’t need human supplement. Paul goes on to keep making his argument.

Galatians 2:4–5 “This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus in order to enslave us. But we did not give up and submit to these people for even a moment, so that the truth of the gospel would be preserved for you.”

Point 2: It’s steadfast against attacks (v. 4-5)

Explain

Paul reminds us why this whole thing even needed to happen. It’s not just some of those guys at the Jerusalem council that are saying that you need to be jewish in order to be Christian, it’s people who are sneaking into the churches. It’s people who are stepping in and leading people astray in the community who are gathering regularly. Paul goes so far with this to say that they are taking people from the freedom they have and trying to enslave them. In Acts they says these false gospels are putting a yoke on people, it’s putting up heavy burdens on them. It’s creating work for them to carry in order to try and get God’s approval and a weight they can’t bear. That’s eternal slavery. Forever trying to work and live up to the standard, doing the right things just hoping that it’ll be enough. Do you understand the gravity of that? That’s huge!

Here’s the warning in here for us, we can be guilty of it too.

Illustrate

Imagine with me. Someone who you met at church who seems to love Jesus and say all the right things. Their testimony shows God’s grace and their dependence on him and nothing they’ve done. They seem to have a love for God that is drawing. But you start to notice things about them that feel like they don’t check your boxes.

They struggle with a consistent quiet time. Hey come to city group maybe once every six weeks. They seem to not really be serving at all. They come to church once a month. And you start thinking, man this person isn’t doing enough. They don’t actually love Jesus. They’re not really saved.

Apply

Do you see what we’ve done at that moment? We start putting our own works on them to determine their salvation. We start putting up our spiritual score board and if they get enough points we’ll validate if they actually are saved or not. But we forget and start to enslave them rather than know the freedom that they have in Jesus. Yes, commitment to the local church and practicing spiritual disciplines are a very good indicator of direction and growth in the Christian faith, but we often make those score cards of salvation.

Here's what it looks like when we’ve stopped believing that the gospel is enough. We pervert it and destroy it. We divide and judge and lose the very gospel that saved us.

We start outing people because they read a different version of the bible than us or vote differently. They parent differently, take their kids to different schooling, we start to look at how they aren’t enough in our own eyes and begin to distance ourselves from them.

The gospel isn’t just attacked from the outside by false gospels and people making up facts about the bible or believing in different false religions. The gospel can be under attack in our very own doors and that’s where it’s most dangerous. Think of how much division and arguing there is consistently because christians can’t get over the fact that someone else has a different doctrinal position than them that isn’t clear.

We’ve got to stop making our personal convictions everyone else’s commands.

This is why in our membership, the one and only thing that we ask of people to become members is that they would affirm the gospel and give their lives to Jesus. It’s Jesus and Jesus alone.

Centuries have gone by and from the inside and the outside the gospel of Jesus Christ has been preserved to stand the test of time and stand as the truth that we are saved by God’s grace alone! Even at every attempt to destroy it stands here today for us to remember that the gospel is sufficient and doesn’t need us to add anything to it.

Galatians 2:6–8 “Now from those recognized as important (what they once were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism)—they added nothing to me. On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised, just as Peter was for the circumcised, since the one at work in Peter for an apostleship to the circumcised was also at work in me for the Gentiles.”

Point 3: It transcends cultures & race (v.6-8)

Explain

It sounds a little arrogant for Paul to say that the leaders that are recognized as important add nothing to him. But what Paul is communicating is not that he is better and they don’t matter. He’s saying that the gospel is not validated by human. The gospel comes from God himself and he’s the one who decides who it goes to. It’s a message from the creator that isn’t added to by man, but stands on it’s own.

But what he is emphasizing here is showing how the gospel message was given to him and Peter with two different places to run towards. Peter’s work is running after the jewish people with the message of Christ and Paul on the mission to take the gospel to the gentile, non Jews. The leaders in Jerusalem agree with Paul that there is no addition to what people need to do to receive Christ. It’s not follow Jesus and become Jewish. But it’s faith in Christ alone and this message is for everyone.

Illustrate

This isn’t new from God either. He’s been moving to have people from all over the world to be part of his people from the beginning. In creation the instruction to Adam and Eve was to fill the earth with image bearers. Once sin entered the world and the people were scattered God used Abraham to not just have his family line have the opportunity, but so that the Jewish people would be a blessing to all the other nations.

Genesis 12:1–3 “The Lord said to Abram: Go from your land, your relatives, and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, I will bless you, I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, I will curse anyone who treats you with contempt, and all the peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

The gospel transcends all boundaries and barieres that humans put up. We’ve seen the gospel go across the entire world as the apostles took the message across the globe. But even to this very day we hear of people across the globe be saved and united together because of Jesus.

It’s so powerful to see how God takes the beauty of the saving work of Jesus and Jesus alone isn’t bound to someone being like or taking on another nation’s culture or requirements to earn their salvation. But God’s kingdom is one that brings people from different cultures, backgrounds, race to the same kingdom to sit at the same table and sing to Jesus.

Revelation 7:9–10 “After this I looked, and there was a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: Salvation belongs to our God, who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb!”

The power of the gospel message is that it is not bound to our cultures. It’s cross cultural and unites all of creation with the same problem of sin but even greater the same salvation that is found in Jesus and Jesus alone. The people in the underground church have the same holy spirit by the same salvation that you and I have. The people who have been saved in the Philippines have received the same salvation that we have here in the US. The people who worship and have some different secondary doctrinal beliefs in our very own town and state that are often the ones we’re most divided against have the same hope that you and I have in Jesus who has redeemed us and saved us not because of what we wear, vote, say, songs we sing, liturgy we practice, but only because Jesus and Jesus alone is the one who saves!

The gospel is sufficient, it doesn’t need your supplement. It transcends culture and race.

Galatians 2:9–10 “When James, Cephas, and John—those recognized as pillars—acknowledged the grace that had been given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to me and Barnabas, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. They asked only that we would remember the poor, which I had made every effort to do.”

Point 4: It unites in mission

Explain

I love how in verse 9 we see that the leaders in Jerusalem give the right hand of fellowship to Paul. It’s not that Paul needed it, but it shows how amazing God is at uniting his people. Peter had a different calling on his life. He was to pursue the jewish people and Paul was to pursue the gentiles. Here we see the beauty that they aren’t forcing each other to do what they want to do, but they’re seeing how God has actually blessed them to do work in different parts of the world among different people with passion and gifting to be able to do so.

This is what the gospel does. This is how we see it actually at work among the body.

Apply

Are we celebrating what other believers that are different than us are doing and how they’re reaching others or are we critiquing and criticizing them for not doing it our way? Are we found rejoicing at the stories and reality that people are being reaching with the good news that Jesus saves and baptisms are happening and people who were separated from God are now welcomed into his family or are we bitter because other parts of their ministry aren’t aligned with what we think?

Their unity in the gospel doesn’t just move them on the same mission toward different people, but it moves them with compassion for the least of these. The plea that Peter and others have with Paul is that they would remember the poor, which is agreed upon. It moves them to actually consider those who have nothing, can offer nothing, and many would not want to be associated with.

Gospel

But the reminder to care for the poor is a reminder to us all. Because what is true of the poor financially is actually a reminder of what is true of all spiritually. We brought nothing to the table to receive the grace that God gave to us. The gospel message came to us when we could add nothing to it and that’s what makes it so beautiful. God so graciously could have gave us the stiff hand, looked at us as one whom he should not be associated with, but he was rich in mercy and while we did nothing to earn our salvation, nothing to prove our worth, nothing to bring to the table, God was still so loving that he would give everything so that we could be saved and be brought into a relationship with him.

That’s what makes the gospel message so sweet for us today. That is because the gospel is self sufficient, when you feel like you’re letting God down because you aren’t reading your bible every day, his gospel is still enough for you. When you feel like you can’t measure up because of your lack of knowledge and you feel like you don’t measure up at city group - God’s sufficient salvation still counts you as righteous. When you feel like a failure because you’ve gotten caught up in that sin struggle again, Jesus is still enough to continue to call you made new and wiped clean.

The gospel’s sufficiency is enough and more than enough to continue to speak to us each day. It lifts us up when we place our own supplements to it to remind us that we received it with nothing to offer. It calls us out when we heap up heavy burdens on others to see them set free by the grace of Jesus.

Imagine if we as the church built each other up with the gospel more than tore each other down. Rather than condemn for lack of discipline, we praised God and encouraged each other with God’s mercy rather than our poor habits. What if we celebrated God’s kindness to forgive rather than heap up the burden of telling one another we failed God once more in our sin. Imagine if we rejoiced at the work he’s doing at the church down the street rather than judging their worship, strategy, or doctrine.

The gospel is sufficient to transform lives, stand against attack, break cultural barriers, and bring us to great unity as we ask God to continue to carry the message of the gospel in and through us as we too have been entrusted with it.

The gospel is sufficient, and we don’t need to supplement it. Praise be to God!