Fences and Wells

Set Up of Galatians

Thanks for having me with you this morning. My name is Greg Brower and I am the Classis Leader for Great Lakes City Classis. Which is a weird job. Before serving in this role, I was the pastor of Zion Reformed Church in Grandville for 17 years. Back then, my kids knew what I did. But now they aren’t so sure. They ask and I tell them I mostly go to a lot of meetings. My wife says I am a pastor to pastors, which is kind of true. From what I can tell, I am kind of like a bishop, but without any actual power or authority.

I have a good friend who describes himself as a sheep dog. It is his job to bark and make some noise to get the sheep turned back toward Jesus. I think that is part of my job, too. It is so easy as a pastor or a church to get focused on denominational issues or societal culture wars or politics and lose our focus on Jesus. So, my hope today is get our eyes focused on Jesus and our hope in the gospel.

To do that today, I want to focus our attention on a letter from the apostle Paul to the church in Galatia. As we read this letter, we need to remember we are reading someone else’s mail. The letter was not written to us, but it can benefit us. It was not written to our specific situation, but the truths it contains can illuminate our time, too. But if it is to do that, we need to know a little about what was going on that led Paul to write this letter.

So this is the situation as near as we can tell. Paul began his missionary journeys going to Jewish Synagogues and preaching the good news about Jesus. Some Jews believed in most cities, but others freaked out and tried to stone, imprison, or get rid of Paul in some way and then he would go share the gospel with gentiles. Paul didn’t make these gentiles get circumcise dor start following all the Jewish laws in order to follow Jesus. This rocked the boat int he church.

So, a big council gets called in Jerusalem to decide what to do with all these Gentile converts to Christianity. You can read about this in Acts 15, but after much debate the church decides gentiles don’t need to follow all the Jewish laws, but do tell them to not eat meat sacrificed to idols and to avoid sexual immorality. And off Paul goes to continue his missionary journeys.

But, some people don’t like this decision and they go around following Paul on his missionary journeys undoing his work and telling people they need to become Jewish to be saved. You have to stop eating bacon and get circumcised to follow Jesus. Believe in jesus and become Jewish and then you can be saved. is their basic message. They have now followed Paul to Galatia and Paul writes this letter to get his churches back on track.

We pick up his letter in Galatians 2:11 as he tells a story about a confrontation he had with Peter, or Cephas, the great pillar of the church.

Text

Galatians 2:11–21 NIV

When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? “We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. “But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker. “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”

Paul and Peter

I love this story about Peter. He comes up to Antioch to visit Paul and has no problem eating with gentiles, but when the Judaizers come, Peter caves to peer pressure. He knows they don’t like the decision of the Jerusalem counsel. He is still leading the church in Jerusalem. He doesn’t want any problems and he so he goes along to get along.

We’ve all had moments like this. Moments when the pressure to fit in and avoid conflict won out over our desire to follow Jesus. That time we stayed quiet when a family member said something racist or homophobic. The time we cut back on our giving in order to pay for that trip with friends from church. That time we joined in the gossip because it felt so good to be included in the inner circe. Peter compromises his values to avoid some conflict.

Paul will have nothing of it. Peter’s behavior is a very threat tot the gospel. By his actions, he is telling these gentiles they are not truly Christians yet. To be accepted there is more they have to do, more beyond just believing in Jesus. In essence, these false teachers are saying to be saved you need Jesus and you need to follow the rules. Salvation is no longer by the grace of Jesus, but by our ability to be good. It is about grace and works! This is an anti-gospel. It stands against the good news we have found in Jesus. Paul can not stand for this so he gets up and and confronts Peter in front over everyone.

This confrontation between Peter and Paul vividly illustrates two of three ways of thinking abut our faith and what it means to become a Christian.

The Temptation of Fences

I want to suggest to you that the Judaizers and Peter by following their example show one way people have twisted the gospel of grace into an entirely different sort of religion. I like to call this a bounded set sort of religion. In this kind of faith, the primary question we ask of people is whether they are in or out. Do they meet the criteria of being a Christian or not.

Outside of the world of faith, in the world of kids sports, bounded sets are like kids travel teams. You have to try out and spend a lot of money and if you are good enough you get to be on the team. You are either on the team or you are not. That’s a bounded set.

The desire to create a boundary is not all bad. Shepherds do this whenever they put up a fence to keep their sheep safe. If a sheep stays inside the fence, they will be protected from falling off a cliff, drowning in a lake, or getting eaten by a wolf. When they leave the sheepfold, when they step outside the fence, they experience all sorts of dangers.

In church, this fence building comes form a good place. We want to keep people from wandering into weird teaching. We want to help them avoid making terrible moral choices hat could wreck their life and the lives of people around them. And so we make rules. The rules set the boundaries of who is a good Christian and who is not a Christian. It makes life feel safer and more under our control.

This is what the Judaizers are saying to Peter, you need to follow Jesus and obey the Torah. You need Jesus and no bacon. Jesus and circumcision and peopler without Jesus and those other things are not safe for us to be around. they are not real Christians. Peter buys the lie and separates from the gentile believers. People like you and me.

When most people think of these fence building churches, they think of conservative churches. I think about churches with strict dress codes. Of Bob Jones University that required dating students to always keep as much distance as a Bible between them. I always wondered if there was a standard Bible or if students all started buying tiny travel Bibles. or you have to support the right political party and give to Right to Life.

Traditionally, many baptist churches would say Christians don’t drink, smoke, swear or sleep around. Mind you, I agree. None of those things are great for us. Those are good morals to live out. But think about how that might play out. Suppose someone follows all those rules, but has a terrible temper and yells at people all the time. Or someone else may follow all those rules, but they gossip or they are greedy, constantly wanting more. Or maybe they follow all those rules, but Jesus is just an add on to their life, they really come to church because they have a great business opportunity for you and they need more people to join their business and church is a great place to meet people. All of those people would be in the circle, counted as good Christians even though in major ways they are not following Jesus. But because they are in the circle no one worries about their spiritual growth.

Meanwhile, this other person struggles with a alcohol addiction, but they pray every day and are reading scripture and confessing their sins to a fellow believer for accountability, and they have a deep seated humility because of their struggle and so they are patient, kind, merciful and all sorts of other good things to people. But, they don’t count as a Christian because they still drink sometimes.

Does that make sense?

This doesn’t just happen in conservative churches. It also happens in progressive churches. Their list of rules changes. In a progressive church you may need to vote for the other party, support undocumented immigrants, be an advocate for racial justice, and so on. But these are just a different set of rules for people to follow.

Question: Where have you put up fences making it hard for people to come to Jesus?

A Wrong Turn

Some people, seeing the anti-gospel nature of bounded set religion, decide the solution is to get rid of the fences. If the fences, if the rules get in the way of the gospel of grace, then the solution must be to get rid of the fence. They make a fuzzy set so no one is quite sure who is in or out.

Sheep without a fence may juts wander off a cliff or get lost in the wilderness. Or, going back to our travel soccer team. What if the team lets anyone play. Regardless of skill. Regardless of whether they follow the rules or not. Suddenly, one person is playing rugby and tackling people on the field, another grabs the ball and tries to start a game of football, another grabs a baseball bat to hit the ball. It would be chaos. To play the game, you have to agree on what game you are playing and the basic rules of the game. Otherwise there is just chaos and all sorts of emotional and spiritual damage.

The Danger of Wells

So, how do we avoid the false gospel of boundary making and fence building to grab hold of the gospel of grace. I want o suggest the way forward is by seeing the Christian faith as a centered set focused on Jesus.

To think it through, let’s go back to our shepherd who wants to keep his sheep from wandering out of his field. What if instead of building a fence, he dug a well. Now, the sheep have a reason to stay in the field. Even if they wander a little, they will soon come back to the well.

or, think about that pickup game of soccer. If everyone knows the game is soccer and wants to play soccer, anyone can play. Some may be great players. Others may be learning. But everyone is welcome to play in a pick up game. But, if someone tries to pic up the ball and run with it, they get stopped and corrected. As long as they want to play soccer, even if they forget the rules and mess up a lot, they are welcome to play.

This is the same gospel Jesus shows to the woman caught in adultery. “Your sins are forgiven, go and sin no more,” he says. The same gospel Matthew the tax collector experiences as Jesus invites him to come and follow and then hangs out with all his sinful tax collector friends.

The is the gospel we see in the story of the prodigal son. You may remember this famous story Jesus told of a son who wished his father were dead and took his inheritance early and then lost everything when a famine hit the land. He comes back to his father prepared to apologize and beg to become a servant. But, before the son can even get all the way home, the father comes running to him and welcomes home his wayward son. The son did nothing to earn his status, it was freely given. This is the gospel of Jesus. This is the gospel of Paul. Believe and be saved. Nothing more and nothing less.

Question: Where might you need to offer grace to yourself or others?

And then Obey

Now, don’t hear me say what I am not saying. And don’t hear Paul say what he is not saying. I am not saying our behavior doesn’t matter. Our behavior often reveals the attitude of our hearts.

People who operate from a centered set mindest don’t ignore behavior and they don’t use behavior to decide who is in our out. Behavior helps us see if we re moving toward Jesus or away. Are we become more like Jesus or less? He is the standard, the example we try to imitate, the image we aspire to achieve.

When Paul talks about this image, he talks about the ways of the flesh and the ways of the Spirit. The ways of the flesh are the ways people act when we are turned away from Jesus and the ways of the Spirit demonstrate a life moving closer to Jesus.

Listen to Paul at the end of Galatians:

Galatians 5:1 NIV

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

Galatians 5:13–26 NIV

You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

Notice, for Paul obedience follows salvation. Because we are free of our slavery to sin, free of the powers of flesh, we should now walk in step with the spirit. We do not need to walk in step to be saved, we walk in step because we are saved.

But the spirit leads us to become more like Jesus. More kind, patient, loving, peaceful and so on.

Question: How might you take another step toward Jesus this week?

Amen.