Sermon: Perceiving Grace Given

This morning we're flipping open to Galatians as we continue our way through that book and we're looking at Galatians chapter two verses one through 10 this morning. Galatians two verses one through 10.

Let's pray before we open God's word together.

Father, we come before you this morning even as those Greeks came and said, show us Jesus.

We pray that your goodness and according to your greatness, even this morning that you would show us your Son.

You pray that this word that you have declared to be living and active, not be a dead word to us today, but would truly grant life, that it would grant life abundantly and that where there is already life that you would encourage show us Jesus we pray and we pray this by the Spirit. Amen. Galatians chapter two verses one through 10. This is the holy iner, sufficient word of God.

Then after 14 years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas taking Titus along with me. I went up because of a revelation and set before them though privately before those who seem influential, the gospel that I prole proclaim among the Gentiles in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain. But even Titus who was with me was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in

who slipped into spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus so that they might bring us into slavery to them. We did not yield in submission even for a moment so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you and from those who seem to be in influential what they were and makes no difference to me. God shows no partiality. Those I say who seemed influential added nothing to me. On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted

with the the gospel to the uncircumcised just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised, for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised, worked also through me for mind to the Gentiles. And when James and Fus 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 only they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do. So the grass withers and the flower fades. The word of God is forever. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Ulysses s Grant was the commanding general at the end of the American Civil War, the war that secured the freedom of about 4 million uh, African American black slaves in the South. And yet this freedom was not something that was enjoyed upon the close of the war by many of the blacks in the South, it was secured freedom, but it was not enjoyed freedom. In fact, when US Grant was swept into the Oval Office in 18 69, 1 of the most important pieces

of his presidency was combating the newly formed Ku Klux Klan. The Klan was no small adversary in many parts of the south. It became the local law. Black American men had been given the right to vote when the 15th amendment was passed in 1870, and yet they were not allowed to vote in many parts of the south. Intimidation, beatings, even murder was all too common. They had freedom but they did not enjoy that freedom secured

but not enjoyed.

There's some of you in this room this morning that are sitting here and you don't know. You don't know that freedom has been secured, thus you aren't enjoying it. There are others of you that that may know that freedom has been secured in Christ Jesus and yet because you have listened or bought into some of the false things that have been taught in our day, you don't enjoy that freedom. That is Paul's concern in our text.

Freedom has been secured in Christ and yet some bad actors were not allowing it to be enjoyed by these Galatians. Only two points this morning. As we look at this text, I first want us to see the apostolic gospel of grace, the apostolic gospel of grace, that there's only one gospel. Gospel means good news and it is a gospel of grace. Paul was preaching this gospel among the Gentiles, among the Galatians, non-Jews. He was preaching

where no one else had preached Christ before. And so in our text he relays that he had journeyed down to Jerusalem after 14 years. He says most likely meaning 14 years after his conversion. Why? Why is he going down to Jerusalem? Well, he tells us in verse two to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain. There's controversy. There's controversy as a result of Paul's preaching as a result of his ministry. Should Gentiles be required to obey the law

to become Christians? Paul said No. And we saw that last week from our texts and now Paul is telling these Galatians what he found the other apostles teaching in Jerusalem.

He went down to Jerusalem and he went down because he knows that a Christian is never a lone ranger. We never simply concerned with our own work, our own family, our own little part of the vineyard, our backyard. We belong to something much greater than ourselves. We belong to the body of Christ, this one body. And so he goes under Jerusalem and he goes down there to connect with the church there to make sure that he was not running in vain.

What he was preaching was also what they were preaching, the gospel of grace.

And we know that Paul made four visits, at least four visits to Jerusalem. The most famous of those visits was the one in Acts 15 where you see the Jerusalem council gather together and they're at that council. They make a declaration about Gentiles and the fact that they don't need to be circumcised. I think that that's not, not what Paul is speaking about here. I don't think he is referencing that Acts 15 visit to Jerusalem and there's a few reasons for that.

First, this private meeting that he speaks about in our text, it's private as he tells us in verse two, whereas the council was very public. Second, Paul made the case from our text last week that he had no contact with the apostles after his conversion except that very limited contact that he had with Peter and with James. But if this passage is referring to that Jerusalem council that Acts 15 passage then then Paul would be misleading the Galatians to some degree

because Acts 11 before that we have Paul going to Jerusalem and he doesn't mention that trip to Jerusalem. In Acts 11, acts 11, there is a scene where Paul has gone to Jerusalem and the reason he is gone is because there is a great famine that has been prophesied that is going to happen throughout the Mediterranean world and the church is concerned for the poor in the church in Jerusalem. And so they charged the churches throughout the region to

to collect money and to bring that money to Jerusalem to help the poor Christians in the church in Jerusalem. And were told quote, and they did so sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Soul. And in our text, Barnabas is there with Paul as he states in verse nine, and that helps to clarify why the apostles say in verse 10 to Paul and Barnabas that the only thing that they ask of them is to remember the poor.

And that seems to be a reference to this collecting of the money that Paul and Barnabas are carrying down to Jerusalem. It's the first of multiple collections, but maybe most clearly and most importantly, this must not be a reference to his visit to Jerusalem that involved that Jerusalem council when they declared that Gentiles don't have to be circumcised because if they had declared that, why doesn't Paul just say it,

but he doesn't say it in our text.

So he's delivering money to the poor in the church in Acts 11, and that's what he's speaking about here. And while he is there, he and Barnabas and Titus, they meet with apo, the apostles to confirm that they are all preaching the same gospel, the gospel of grace,

the gospel of grace says that salvation has has been secured, it's done, and Paul is facing a problem. You, you have these judaizers, these Jewish, so-called Christians from Jerusalem who he calls false brothers in verse four. They've come and they're trying, as Paul says, to quote, bring us into slavery. It's secured. That can't be changed, but they're stopping it from being enjoyed. They're sleep slipping in. He says, and seeking to drag these gentiles back to the law

as if the law is the answer when freedom has already been secured.

The reconstruction in the south, that gives us another picture of this. After the American Civil War and the passing of the 13th Amendment, all blacks were considered citizens and given citizenship in the United States, their freedom was secured and yet many didn't enjoy it. Many in the south found that they were trapped on the same southern plantations that they had worked on previously as a, as a slave to, to make ends meet.

They became sharecroppers on those southern plantations working the same plantation they had worked before and they were to get a share of the crop that was produced from the plantation. But what inevitably happened in those cases is that they would work and as they work, they had to take out loans to pay for the house that they were dwelling in and the food that they were eating and the clothing that they had, and they only got the share of the crop

and it was a very small share of the crop. And so they would fall into debt to these landowners, these white landowners that used to be their masters

secured freedom but not enjoyed, controlled, just controlled in a different way. These false brothers, they're peddlers of the law, but Jesus has set us free from the law.

They're telling these Galatians that they first must become Jews by being circumcised before they can become Christians seeking to bring us into slavery. Paul says he has no patience for such men. Verse five, we did not yield in submission even for a moment. Why? Because they were denying the apostolic gospel of grace.

But maybe Paul was wrong.

Maybe he was wrong in what he was preaching. How? How could he frown upon circumcision,

wasn't circumcision the this, this great sign that God gave to his covenant people. You'll remember there in Genesis 17 that it's the great sign and seal of the covenant that God entered into with Abraham and it was always in their flesh as a reminder that our God is a God of blessing and were his and he's ours.

The Paul was not dismissing circumcision, he wasn't condemning it. He was not throwing the law out.

If he was then all the apostles were. He makes it clear in verse three, even Titus who was with me was not forced to be circumcised. That is, let me tell you what I found in Jerusalem. The other apostles were teaching the same gospel of grace. What's your proof? Paul Titus.

He's my living proof.

He wasn't circumcised Titus simply trusted in Christ. He was a gentile and uncircumcised and they accepted him.

Paul wasn't opposed to circumcision, he was opposed to requiring it because that's law not grace,

and the apostolic gospel is all of grace.

I know a man who abstains from alcohol is a Christian.

He believes that it's wise for his Christian witness in life. And you may or may not agree with that. That's not the point.

The reason I tell you about this man is that he commented once that though he believes abstaining from alcohol is wise. He said if he was ever sitting at a table with a so-called Christian that believed that someone had to abstain from alcohol to be a Christian, the first thing he would do would be to order a drink and drink it to the bottom in front of that man.

Why? Because that's what Luther called a conditioned gospel. You have to meet some condition to be saved. The the gospel, which is truly good news, is all, all of grace. It's salvation and Christ alone. It is never Jesus plus something. It's simply Jesus grace, nothing more.

My son, he loves to cook and bake. I love to cook and bake. I love recipes. He does not love recipes. He loves to tweak. He loves to try. He loves to test. He loves to wander off recipes and it took me years to convince him, son, more is not always better.

This cake doesn't need chocolate. A lemon cake doesn't become better by adding chocolate. It doesn't need more. Just let a lemon cake be a lemon cake or is not always better. More is not frankly always more.

The apostolic gospel is the gospel of grace. Jesus plus nothing equals everything. Whereas Jesus plus anything equals nothing.

Having said that may warn you that there have been some in recent years that have taken that idea and they've turned it into something that the scripture does not teach. They've taught that the law has no place in the believer's life. No. We'll see that in the coming weeks. We are saved by grace apart from the law, nothing more than Jesus. But then we are led back to the law as a way of life. In Jesus, we're saved by grace. The gospel is Jesus.

Jesus plus nothing equals everything and Jesus plus anything equals nothing. The gospel is simply, we just accept Jesus as Christ and Savior. That's it. And we accept him by faith. Nothing more because every promise is found in Jesus. Every grace is found in Jesus. All that we need is in Jesus. Nothing more.

Now maybe you think the apostolic gospel of grace is secure because we don't hear people going around and saying, you gotta be circumcised. True. But there's a tendency to add other things.

Same false principle, just different. Add-on options. You need to walk an aisle to profess faith. You need to come to come forward. You need to pray a certain prayer. You have to have a certain experience. You need to be able to count the day or the hour or the time of your conversion. You have to be baptized. No, all you have to do is receive Christ. That's it. Christ, by faith, that's the apostolic gospel of grace. Nothing more added. That's it. Freedom's been secured.

All you have to is receive Christ by faith. That's it. It's that simple.

Astounding, isn't it astounding?

It's the greatest conundrum in the history of the universe. The greatest question, how do sinful people, men and women, how do they ever stand in the presence of a holy God?

Our sin debt is so incredibly great. The offense that we've given them is so great. Our debt is, is so massive.

How do we address that? And we have to address it

because we incurred that debt

like trying to pay it is like a tax time. Me deciding I'm gonna throw in another $10 extra with my taxes to help erase that national debt of $38 trillion.

But you know what? Maybe I'll throw an extra hundred or a thousand or 10,000 or a hundred thousand even if I throw in a million, what does it matter? It's $38 trillion.

How do you pay so great a debt greatest of conundrums in the history of the universe?

I think Shirley Angels must have looked upon our estate and looked down at us and said, yep, no hope for them.

Who would've imagined that God would send God to pay our debt?

That God, the the Father would sin God the Son, and that God the son, would willingly become flesh so that he might dwell as man

so that he might live a perfectly righteous life so that he might then die a death that was not his to die

to pay our debt

so that we can stand before the throne without any condemnation. But even more than that, because he lived perfectly, he can give us his righteousness so that we not only have no debt, but now we stand before his throne. Holy and blameless,

astounding the apostolic gospel of grace. It's secure, it's accomplished. He set on that cross. It's finished, it's secure, but we often rob one another of the enjoyment of it.

Luther commented, human reason can think only in terms of the law. It mumbles this. I have done this. I have not done, but faith looks to Jesus Christ, the son of God given unto death for the sins of the whole world. Here's Titus.

I put him before the apostles and they accepted him just like I accept him. Why? Because they know that salvation is by grace alone and Titus believes in Christ. Grace is his. I accept him. They accepted him. But you wanna know what's even more important? God accepts him because it's by grace.

Grace alone. This is the gospel that Paul preached and John preached and Peter preached. It's the apostolic gospel of grace

are second final point.

Notice that there is joy at seeing this apostolic gospel of grace, advance joy at seeing in advance

the apostles in Jerusalem, James and Peter and John, that they rejoiced in Paul's ministry among the Gentiles and Paul rejoiced in their ministry among the Jews. Why? Because the gospel of grace was advancing and this is the hope of the world. Now, some are confused because you see these comments by Paul. He makes them three times twice in verse six. And then once in verse nine, verse six, he says, those who seem to be influential talking about the other apostles.

And then in verse nine he says, those who seem to be pillars, you say, well, Paul's dismissing the other apostles. No, he's not dismissing them.

He's rather being dismissive of needing their approval because he's false. Brothers. So-called brothers from Jerusalem were coming and saying, Paul does not have the approval of the other apostles. They have to say that Paul is an apostle. And Paul's saying, no, Christ called me to be an apostle. Christ sent me to the Gentiles. Paul's authority did not come from the church, but from the one king and head of the church.

And that's Christ. The church doesn't make ministers of the gospel. Christ does. James and Peter and John, they're true pillars. They're important men. They're beloved apostles, but they were not the authority Christ was and is. And the Roman church could learn something from this passage. Very clear. Paul says, verse seven, on the contrary to strong contrast, not that, but this, when they saw that I had been entrusted

with the gospel by Christ, and it's a long sentence, but the conclusion is late in verse nine, this is a conclusion. They gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. There was no competition in their ministry. None at all. It, it's the same gospel grace. And they were rejoicing and seeing it advance.

No competition. Love, especially that Paul, he's not jealous for their reaching what he wasn't called to reach. When one would think, man, if Paul should be jealous, he should be jealous for himself. If anybody would have success among the Jews, surely it would be Paul.

He could have out argued possibly anybody in his day from the Old Testament scriptures. He knew them through and through. He surely could have had more fruit among the Jews than Peter and John who are mere fishermen.

But God called Paul to labor primarily among Gentiles. And he happily labored among Gentiles because that's whom God had called him too. But even maybe more importantly, he rejoiced at seeing the events of the gospel, the grace of the gospel where God had not called him

that has placed you where he wants you.

That's always the case

until he moves us somewhere else or does something else. He has you right where he would have you. Maybe that's at home changing diapers and watching washing dishes and wiping snotty noses. Think, man, I have so much more to offer the kingdom than this,

that he has you where he would have you ministering to those he would have you to minister to.

If you and I have just one soul in our little part of the vineyard that we're responsible to reach with the gospel of grace, that's more than enough weight for all of eternity. And if Wolf wants to call you to put more on your plate and other fields of labor than than he'll call you to it.

Paul was happy for their labor among the Gentiles.

You have this mindset, it's, it's easier. Rejoice at what God is doing through others and the advance of the apostolic gospel of grace. Paul had this mindset. The other apostles had this mindset. Verse nine, they perceive the grace that was given to me. They could see God's work through Paul in the lives of the Gentiles. And, and Paul doesn't boast, he doesn't say of of my success, of of what I am doing. Rather, he says, God's grace working through me.

When you have that mindset about your ministry, it lends to rejoicing at God's work of grace through others. It, it's not me.

It's him working as grace through me. And oh, look, he's, he's working as grace through that person over there and through that church there and through that campus ministry there

causes rejoicing.

James and Peter and John and Paul and Barnabas were told in verse nine, they, they gave one another the right hand of fellowship. Tonight we'll do that. Uh, Ben Faulkner will be installed tonight as an assistant pastor at University Reform Church. There's a long tradition in Presbyterian installation services that at the end of that service after he has been installed, that all of the elders in the room, they all give one another the right hand of fellowship.

And it's a way of saying by a handshake we're, we're one, we're committed to the same thing. We we want to see the same gospel of grace advance. There's no rivalry here, no competition here.

And you have such a mindset you can delight and rejoice how the Lord is working through others for the good of the kingdom.

Are you free of envy? Be free of jealousy.

Be content with where the Lord has placed you laboring for His glory.

One of the best examples to me of this is Samuel Miller. He was the second professor at Princeton Theological Seminary. The first was Archibald Alexander and the two of them will train an entire generation of Presbyterian pastors and have a great impact. They were both quite accomplishment and yet they were very distinct from one another. And yet when you read about them, all the accounts about them, people just mention them together, always together.

Archibald Alexander Samuel Miller and the testimony of all the students and later faculty that would serve with them. All of them would say they always labored as one. There was no competition between them. They celebrated one another and celebrated the work of the Lord was doing through each of them. And I believe that most of that is owed to Samuel Miller.

Like many Christians this day, he wrote personal resolutions as he began teaching at Princeton. Resolutions were commitments after you came to saving faith in Christ after you were saved. That this now is how I'm going to live my Christian life. And so he wrote some resolutions as he began his time at Princeton Theological Seminary as a professor in his third and his fourth resolutions I think are striking. His third was this, that I would endeavor

by the grace of God. So to conduct myself toward my colleague in the seminary Archibald Alexander as never to give the least reasonable ground of offense. It shall be my aim by divine help ever to treat him with the most scrupulous respect and delicacy and never to wound his feelings. If I know how to avoid it, that's wonderful, but it's the fourth that I think is even more important and makes all the difference. He not only sought not to give offense,

but listen to the fourth. I desire to set a double guard on myself in regard to this point, resolve therefore, that by the grace of God, while I will carefully avoid giving offense to my colleague, I will in no case take offense at his treatment of me.

I have come hither resolving that whatever may be the sacrifice of my personal feelings, whatever may be the consequence, I will not take offense unless I'm called upon to relinquish truth or duty. I not only will never the Lord helping me indulge a jealous, envious, or suspicious temper toward him, but I will in no case allow myself to be wounded by any slight or appearance of disrespect.

I will give up all my own claims rather than let the cause of Christ suffer by animosity or contest.

What am I that I should prefer? My own honor or exaltation to the cause of my blessed master?

And you've received all of grace

When that scripture mind and your heart, then you want All to be to his glory,

Rivalry and Conceit and jealousy and just not About me, About him,

No competition, no self seeking.

Samuel Miller had been set free, gospel secured, and he wanted others to enjoy that same freedom.

It's a gift to enjoy, a gift to tell others of a grace.

What a grace and what a savior. Let's pray as we come to the table.

Father, we are thankful that salvation is all of grace

and we're thankful that is all in that one Lord and that one mediator between you and men in that one name. Jesus, thank you for so great a salvation.

We be people that live in all of grace to all of your glory. In Christ's name, amen.