The Fight for the Root of Faith

Man, I think I covered it all, and you're at

Galatians two eleven. Now, great, Before I read our sermon text,

let me just give you a heads up. We're gonna

be talking about a fight. It's a fight that has

been one of the most important and fundamental issues in

the Christian faith. I've called it the fight for the

root of faith. It's a fight for the Biblical Gospel

that has been engaged. It has been engaged since the

very beginning. It's been We see an account of it

happening in the church in Antioch. We see a long

discussion of it in the Letter to the Romans. This

whole letter to the Church of the Galatians is about

this fight. By the way, if you are somewhat new

here and you're like, are we going through Galatians, No,

I just parachuted into Galatians. Right. We've been in the

Book of Isaiah all spring. This summer, we're doing a

variety of different texts, and then in the fall we're

going to get back into Isaiah starting in chapter thirty seven.

All summer long, it's going to be a variety of

scripture texts, and boom, we're here in the middle of Galatians.

So yeah, probably do some orienting work here. But this book,

this letter, is about this fight. And in chapter two

Paul writes in this way that's dense and compact uses

a lot of theological shorthand, which can make it a

little difficult to understand it first, but it also suggests

something that's very true that what Paul is talking about

here he sees very clearly, like he can use nearly

abbreviated language because he knows exactly what fight he's picking,

and he knows exactly what's at stake, And what is

at stake is the foundation, the fundamental root of the

biblical Gospel. It's the root of the gospel for that church.

It's the fight that happens in this church, in those

Christians and in these Christians, and that goes on in

the heart of every one of us. And the fight

is over whether or not I am going to fundamentally

trust in myself or fundamentally trust in Christ. Am I

gonna trust in my performance and my person for right

standing before God and right living for God? Or Am

I going to trust in Christ's person and christ performance

for right standing before God and right living for God?

Those are the battle lines. What Paul is saying in

this passage is we have to make sure that faith

in Christ wins that fight in our churches and in

our hearts. Let's read it Galatians two eleven through twenty one.

Like I said, we're jumping right in the middle, starting

with the word. But but when Cephis, that's the apostle Peter,

by the way, that's Peter's other names Cephis. But when

Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face

because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James,

he was eating with the Gentiles. But when he they came,

he drew back and he separated himself fearing the circumcision party.

And the rest of the Jews acted hypocrite along with him,

so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.

But when I saw that their conduct was not in

step with the truth of the Gospel, I said Decephus

before them all, if you, though a Jew, live like

a gentile and not like a Jew, how can you

enforce the gentiles to live like Jews. We ourselves are

Jews by birth and not gentile sinners. Yet we know

that a person is not justified by works of the law,

but through faith in Jesus Christ. So we also have

believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by

faith in Christ, and not by works of the law.

Because by works of the law no one will be justified.

But if in our endeavor to be justified in Christ,

we too were found to be sinners. Is Christ then

a servant of sin? Certainly not. For if I rebuild

what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor.

For through the law I died to the law so

that I might live to God. I have been crucified

with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ,

who lives in me, and the life I now live

in the flesh. I live by faith in the Son

of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

I do not nullify the grace of God. For if

righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

There's a fight, and it's for the root of your faith.

Let's get at this in three parts. We'll start with

this first part, which is the nature of this fight.

Now that'll be our longest part this morning. The nature

of this fight. And then the second and third parts

are two different comparisons between these two different ways, the

way of trusting Works and the way of trusting Christ,

and two different comparisons that happened there. So the nature

of this fight, and then two different comparisons. That'll be

our three main parts this morning. So let's talk about

the nature of this fight. What we see in Galatians

two is basically a showdown in the fellowship Paul at

Antioch Church. You see it in verse eleven. Paul says,

when Cephis or when Peter came to Antioch, I opposed

him to his face right fights on. He's fighting Apostle

Paul in one corner, possil Peter in the other. And

he says Decephus was verse fourteen, say I said Decephus

before them. All Right, it's public. This isn't a backroom conversation.

Paul specifically believes this needs to happen in front of

everybody because it is an essential It's a spiritual, theological,

heart level battle for what's going on in that church.

Can you imagine what it's like. I mean, I'm sure

that nobody is in the lunch room going fight, fight, fight, fight,

but it's got to be electric. And the picture I

have in my mind, as silly as it might be,

is of a whole crew of gardeners. And you've got

two main leaders of this, this whole crew, and one

of the main lead gardeners is planting all the tomatoes

upside down. The fruit is going into the soil and

the roots sticking up, and they're just having a great

time doing this. And then the other main gardener shows

up and it's like, who, We're not doing that. That's

not how this goes. This is important. You can't just

stick this in any way you want to. We're not

having it. This isn't a difference of opinion. This isn't

me being nitpicky. These things have to be planted this way.

That's the kind of feeling this scene is giving us.

It's a serious conflict over something of major significance. What

exactly is the issue? Well, before we get to exactly

the issue, I want to notice a few features before

we get to the essence, here are a few features

of the fight. First of all, it must be serious, right,

I mean, whatever it is they're fighting over, you can

see that it's serious. Paul says in verse eleven that

he opposed Peter to his face because he quote stood condemned.

In verse thirteen, Paul calls what's going on hypocrisy twice.

In verse fourteen, he says, what Peter and the rest

of this group are doing is not in step with

the truth of the Gospel. It's serious. Paul's not just

being quarrelsome here. This isn't a petty disagreement. It's not

just some ego thing. Paul saying we got to deal

with this, and he's doing it publicly because it's a problem.

He's like, hey, everyone, we've got to deal with this problem.

It's serious, it's deadly. So there's that. The other feature

that I want to point out here is that not

only must it be serious, but it must be pretty subtle.

Must be pretty subtle, I mean again verse eleven. This

is Peter Cephis comes to Antioch, the apostle, Peter one

of the leaders. Yes, he was often getting things wrong,

but it's still he's a leader. This is someone who

walked with Jesus and not just him. Verse twelve. Certain

men who came from James. In other words, these are

folks from the church in Jerusalem with real influence. This

is Jerusalem is the center of Christianity at the time,

So when they showed up, there's this serious social pressure

and Peter was afraid. So the text says he drew

back fearing this circumcision party. And here I have to

quote my friend Richard Kahm, who said that sounds like

the worst party ever. Yes, circumcision party. Party as in

group of people, not festive event. And this group of

people are called the circumcision party because they were maintaining

advocating for everyone who came to Christ to not only

receive the sign of baptism but also the sign of

circumcision as a sign that they were committing to living

by the Old Testament law. They were trusting that they

would be righteous before God based on the fact that

they were living out the law of God. Seems to

make sense. And this group of people who were pushing

this idea is who Peter was afraid of, and not

only afraid of, but like he was somewhat convinced by them.

Even Barnabas, where does it say that verse fourteen thirteen,

even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. This is

Paul's missionary partner, missionary, partner to the Gentiles. Barney should

know better, and Barney should know so much better that

here's what we have to notice that not only is

this serious, it's subtle. This idea of trusting myself, trusting

my performance to make me righteous before God, that if

God is going, my obedience to God is going to

earn my acceptance from God is a subtle error that

works its way through every passage way of the human

heart and is present in every church. So if you're

a Christian, guess what I'm saying is this, you should

be alert to this and like nobody's trying to circumcise me. Yeah,

that is not the point. That is not the essence

of this fight. And what we're going to talk about

what the essence is and just a moment, but be

alert that this fight about who you're trusting is serious

enough for Paul to do this record scratch moment in

the Antioch lunch room, and it's subtle enough for it

to lead astray Peter and Barnabas and all the other

Jews in this church. This is a theologically minded group

of people. It's a spiritual tug war, and Paul is

naming it and confronting it because the Gospel is at stake.

And let me just say this, if you're not a Christian,

if you're here this morning and you're not a Christian,

this is the kind of thing that you should be

especially attuned to. Like, if you're here this morning and

you're not a Christian, then I assume that you're listening

because you have some interest in Christianity. And this, this

spiritual dividing line, this fight that is serious and subtle,

should you should totally lean in to understand because you've

probably noticed there are people who call themselves Christians who

somehow get the essence of Christianity dead wrong. And you

might not be able to name it, but you can

feel it. Something's off, something about their faith, their posture,

the message of grace has been distorted. And so often

it's this. This is the spiritual battle that gets lost

in the heart of someone who claims the Gospel but

who loses touch with the essence of the Gospel. So

it's serious, it's subtle, right, it can fool anybody. What

is it? What is the essence of this fight here?

It is the essence of this fight is over this question.

Is my person and my performance the root of my

right standing before God and my right living fore God.

Or is Christ's person and Christ's performance the root of

my right standing before God and my right living for God?

Which one is it? Because it can't be both. Can't

be both. If I am trusting my performance, If I

am trusting what I do or what I refuse to

do to earn my acceptance before God, that means I

am not trusting the person and work of Christ. For

that Where does your faith touch ground you or him?

See the way it up in this church and Antioch

is the Jewish Christians. They've essentially rebuilt a wall right

there in the lunch room. They've separated themselves from the

gentile Christians. Everybody here is claim in Christ. Everybody here

has taken the mark of baptism. But they've separated themselves

by saying, in order to be with us, in order

to eat with us and be on the right side

of this wall, which is to say, in right standing

with God like we are, then you also have to

take the mark of circumcision. And they're saying, if you

take this mark of circumcision and work to earn acceptance

with God, then you can be with us and you

can be a right standing with God. That's what's going

on under the surface. And if if you're a perceptive reader,

you might say, are you sure that we're talking about

earning acceptance with God and we're not just talking about,

you know, circumcision and eating together. Because he's talking a

lot about circumcision and eating together. Why do you see

it as earning acceptance from God? That's a great question.

I'm glad you asked that question, because circumcision and table

fellowship are just the surface level issues. Paul says, this

is about what one truly trusts to be effective in

the spiritual life. What is truly effective for right standing

before God? Do I trust the spirit to be effective?

Or do I trust the flesh to be effective? Do

I trust what God has done for me? Or do

I trust what I do for God? Christ's work are

my work? And we know that this isn't just about

taking this mark of circumcision, is about all kinds of

law based performance. Because Paul goes on in chapter three,

verse ten, this is his argument. The law says, cursed

be everyone who does not abide by all things written

in the Book of the Law and do them in

other words, to take the mark of circumcision again, to

take circumcision as that doesn't mean just like if you've

got circumcised as a baby in the hospital, that's not

what we're talking about. We're talking about if you take

circumcision as a mark that to do so is to

say I am trusting the law to make me right

before God. And the law is in all things and

do them proposition. But to take baptism as your mark

is to say, I'm trusting Christ to make me right

before God. And Christ's proposition is in me alone, by

grace alone, through faith alone. And you can even see

it in the mark and baptism. There is no mark

on the flesh. It isn't about the flesh. It's about

I have been united to Christ by faith, and in

Him I have died, and in Him I am raised.

I am with Him, and I'm counting on Him, not me.

As he said, truly, I say to you, whoever believes

has eternal life. Let me put it another way. What

you think makes right standing with God will show up

in what you think marks right standing with God. That's

what's at stake, this fight between trusting your person and

your performance or trusting Christ's person and Christ's performance. It's

at the very root of your faith. And I know

that that probably sounds nitpicky to some people. I know

that it's like so theological. I mean, if you've got

faith and you've got Jesus and you've got good works,

and it doesn't matter how you think about how it

all fits together. Yeah, that's like saying, well, if you've

got soil and you've got a root and you've got tomatoes,

does it matter what end you stick in the ground.

In one instance you have life giving fruitfulness, and in

the other instance you have dead fruitlessness. It absolutely matters.

That's why it's serious. That's why it's not in step

with the truth of the Gospel. If you want to

be spiritually dead, if you want to be spiritually burdened,

if you want to be spiritually anxious, if you want

to create divisions, then let the fight for the root

of your faith be won by works of the law.

It's what's at stake. Those two ways are at war,

the way of works of the law the way of

faith in Christ. Those two ways are at war. And

as Paul considers these two ways, he makes two comparisons.

So that's the nature of the fight. Last two points

here are his two comparisons. Here's the first comparison that

Paul makes between these two ways. He essentially says this, Peter,

you tell me this way of works of the law

versus the way of faith in Christ? Which of those

two makes sense? Which of these two makes sense? I mean,

trusting and how well I keep God's law seems to

make sense. I mean it appeals to my sense of control.

It appeals to my sense of fairness. Oh Lord help

us if we think we want to be treated fairly,

it certainly appeals to my pride. But Paul says, let's compare.

If we're comparing trusting works of the law that way

versus trusting the way of faith in Christ? Which way

makes sense of our lives as apostles? That's what he's

getting at. In verse fourteen, he says, if you, though

a Jew, live like a gentile and not like a Jew,

how can you force the gentiles to live like Jews?

You say, Peter, Look, you know that in Christ you've

been given freedom, You've eaten bacon, you've had table fellowship

with gentiles. You know that our Lord is Lord of

the Sabbath, He's fulfilled the law. You've lived that way.

I've lived that way. So how can you now take

people who've never lived under those laws and suddenly demand

of them that they earn right standing before God by

keeping them? It doesn't make sense according to the way

we've lived as apostles. How can we rebuild this wall

that we've torn down and then require that people earn

their way over it. That's not how we've lived. Furthermore,

it doesn't make sense of what we know. This doesn't

make sense according to our knowledge as apostles, he says

in verse fifteen and seven. Fifteen and sixteen, he says,

we ourselves are Jews by birth and not gentile sinners

as you guys are calling them. Yet we know. Here's

what we know. A person is not justified by works

of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. That's

what we know, Peter. That's our theology. That's the gospel

we preach. This is the gospel we believed, and this

is what Psalm one hundred and forty three tells us.

No one living is righteous before him. So Paul goes on,

we also have believed in Christ, Jesus in order to

be justified by faith in Christ, not by works of

the law, Because by works of the law, by anything

you do, by anything you don't do, no matter how

much you do, no matter how much you don't do,

no matter how you live, no matter how much you pray,

no matter how much you read, no matter who you

hang out with, no matter who you don't hang out with,

no one will be justified by what they do. Paul says,

we know this, I know this, You know this. Our

experience confirms this, Our hope, our trust is in Christ.

We have to hold onto that, and we have to

help these people hold onto that too. I mean this,

trusting your work to make you acceptable to God may

feel like it makes sense, right, It does appeal to

our traditions and our control, our pride, but it doesn't

actually make sense. It doesn't make sense of how we

have lived, It doesn't make sense of what we know,

doesn't make sense of what Scripture has said, doesn't make sense.

And this, this fight just keeps coming up. Like I said,

it was going on in Antioch. This whole letter to

the Galatians is all about it. Romans has a long

discussion of it. It's essentially the fight that Martin Luther

wrote about in the sixteenth century happens in every generation.

It happens in every church, it happens in every heart.

Am I gonna trust myself? Or am I gonna trust Jesus?

David Powison put it this way. The Christian life always

moves towards one of two destinations, self reliance or christ reliance,

And the Gospel shatters that self justifying heart because the

Cross says you can't justify yourself. Someone had to die

for you. So, yes, trying to achieve acceptance by God

through obedience to God seems like it makes sense. But

when you look at the Cross, you realize that I'm

never going to be able to do that. I never

have to do that. So the first comparison the polls

make poll makes is this which way makes sense? The

second comparison the poll makes is this which way promotes sin?

Which of these two ways promotes sin? Now, it seems

like those who have these folks from James, it seems

like they've been advocating for adding trust in the law

with this basic argument. The argument kind of goes like this,

these people are a mess. If we tell them that

salvation is in Christ alone, and they continue living as

they've been living, then that's going to lead to more sin,

not less, And then Jesus in that case becomes a

servant of sin. These people need more rules, they need

more accountability, they need the law to clean up their act.

If you give them just Jesus, it won't be enough

to motivate real change. That's the logic, and that's what

Paul is responding to. In verse seventeen, he says, Peter,

if in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we

two were found to be sinners, Yeah, you and I?

You and Peter? You know you and I are still sinners?

Is Christ then a servant of sin? Right? Are we

saying that trusting in Christ alone for our rights standing

before God? The reason that that's the reason why we're

still sinners. The reason we're sinners, Peter, is this, it's

Jesus' fault. Are we saying that Christ is promoting sin

in us? Of course not. You know better than that, Peter,

So why would that be the case for these folks?

It's not the problem. And then Paul goes on the offensive.

He's like, now, let's talk about which way promote sin?

If I rebuild what I tore down. I prove myself

to be a transgressor. In other words, it's not faith

in Christ alone that promotes sin. It's going back to

the law that promotes sin. Rebuilding that wall of separation,

bringing the law back in as a basis for who's in,

who's out, who's clean, who's unclean? That's promoting sin. You

want to know what true righteousness looks like, right living

before God? What that actually looks like? Here it is

for through the law. I died to the law so

that I might live to God. The law said that

sinners deserve death and judgment. So through the law, death

and judgment came for me, and Christ took it in

my place. And because I'm united to Christ by faith,

when he died, I died. I died to the law,

and it no longer has dominion over me. Dead people

don't do anything illegal. And now I don't live to

the law. I live to God. He says in verse twenty,

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer

I who live, but Christ who lives in me. It's

union with Christ, Peter by faith. We have been united

to Christ in his death and united to Christ in

his resurrection. So the life that we live now isn't

just you and me trying to obey the rules. Christ

lives in us. And here's how right living before God

now works the life. I live in the flesh, I

live by faith in the Son of God. I'm not

trusting my performance. I'm not trusting my person. I'm trusting

his performance and his person. The shape of obedience now

is eyes on Christ, because he's the one who's loved me.

He's the one who's given himself for me, and so

he finishes in verse twenty one. I don't nullify the

grace of God. These people are nullifying the grace of

God because if righteousness were for the by the law,

then Christ died for no purpose. Like if we're saying

that trusting Christ alone promotes sin, so that we actually

need to trust works of the law to keep people

in line, Paul saying, that's what actually nullifies grace. That's

the real danger to say Christ died for no purpose,

to act as if grace weren't enough. How's that from

promoting sin? True righteousness comes not through trusting our efforts,

but through dying to the law. Christ living in me

living by faith in Him. That's what right living for

God looks like. That's what it's based on. As Paul

Tripp wrote, living by faith in myself says God will

love me if I change, But the Gospel says God

will change me because He loves me. You obey not

to get God's favor, but because you already have it.

Obedience is your joyful response to grace, not your desperate

attempt to earn it. Christ died for this purpose to

justify me and to change me. The very son of

God loved me, became a man, suffered under the judgment

I deserved, and gave himself for me with great purpose.

So the life I live now I live with my

eyes on Him on that purpose, His loving, purposeful sacrifice,

scene with clear eyes in my heart opens up faith

filled obedience. As Ed Welsh said, you can't fight legalism

by just telling yourself to stop it. You fight it

by seeing Christ more clearly. That's the point. The life

you live, you live by faith. That's the way that

leads to real obedience. That's the way that promotes holiness,

not sin. That's the fight. That's the fight, and it's serious.

It's the very root of your faith, and it's subtle.

Any one of us can be led astray along the

way to start trusting in ourselves. So the question remains,

who are you trusting? Would you stand with me and pray,

Lord God, I pray right now that the answer to

that question, who am I trusting is one hundred percent Christ,

purely Christ, Christ alone. I pray that the answer that

question for this congregation is one hundred percent Christ. I

pray that those who are hearing the sound of my voice,

who may have never trust did Christ, or know in

their parts right now that Christ isn't the basis of

their trust, that that would shift even at this moment,

that they would see a little bit more clearly, maybe spectacularly,

more clearly, that faith in Christ alone, by grace alone,

through faith alone, the Biblical Gospel is opened up for them,

that they would have freedom and joy and holiness and

righteousness before you and live that out for you by

faith in the Son of God. Lord, maybe walk that

way where we maybe win this fight in every heart

and in this congregation in Jesus's name, Amen,