Galatians 2:1-14 - Jimmy Alexander

So, church, this morning we will be in Galatians 2.

Galatians chapter 2, and we will be looking at verses 1 through 14.

Galatians 2 · chapter mention

Galatians chapter 2, verses 1 through 14.

Galatians 2:1–14

The letter of Galatians is all about the gospel of righteousness that comes by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And this letter shows us the importance of gospel truth and why it's worth fighting for.

So if you remember, Paul on his first missionary journey, he preached the gospel in Galatia.

And by God's grace, a church was formed.

And this was a diverse body of both Jew and Gentile believers, which is amazing to see Jew and Gentiles together as one under the banner of Christ, which levels us all.

So Paul is deeply encouraged.

A church has been established in Galatia.

They have believed in Jesus Christ.

They are growing.

But as time passes, and as Paul goes on in his ministry, the report comes that this church is now drifting away from the true gospel.

So they started well, but now they are compromising.

So false teachers, namely Judaizers, from within the church, are saying, Jesus is not enough.

We also need to obey the law.

So they were saying that salvation was not in Jesus alone.

You also need to be circumcised.

You need to have some skin in the game, no pun intended.

But to these false teachers, Paul's gospel just didn't hold up.

God could never accept us as we are.

Surely there's something we must do.

And just to be clear, these false teachers, they're not outright denying Jesus Christ.

They're affirming his atonement, his work on the cross, the payment for sin.

But what they said was this Jesus' atonement is about 90% sufficient.

We still must do our 10%.

But to Paul, this wasn't just a slight deviation from the gospel.

This wasn't let's agree to disagree or let's set aside our theological differences and seek unity.

No.

This was a complete perversion and desertion of Christianity 101.

So much so that he boldly declares in chapter 1: if anyone preaches a different gospel, one that includes salvation by works, let them be ananthema.

And what that word means in the Greek is eternally condemned.

And so Paul is so upset.

This is the only letter he wrote where he doesn't thank God for the church in his introduction.

He was so dismayed that these Galatian believers were so easily led astray.

But this is no different than today.

The false gospel that we can earn our salvation has plagued us since Genesis 3.

Millions have bought it and believed it straight to hell.

From Cain's offering to the end of Revelation, we see humanity trying to earn God's approval.

Like the Tower of Babel.

We try to work our way to heaven so that we can boast and approach God on our own terms.

And so we try to add a comma where God has put a period.

We say, I will make it right when Jesus has said it is finished.

But God's salvation has always been by grace through faith in the Old Testament and the New.

But so many are determined to live by sight.

We want something tangible, something we can hold on to, a certificate, a moment, a decision that we can present to God in the world and say, look at what I did.

God saved me, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I played a part, I made the choice, I got baptized, I said the prayer, I took the step, I went forward, I, I, I, I.

But as Aliester Begg once said, if someone asks you how you were saved, and your answer to that question is in the first person, you have not understood the gospel.

Our answer is Jesus.

He pursued me when I was his enemy, he rescued me when I was dead, he drew me, he persuaded me and cleaned me and changed me from start to finish.

It is Jesus Christ.

And nothing in my hand I bring, but simply to the cross I cling.

And so, church, do you see why this is so important?

If we get anything right, let it be this.

If there's a hill we're going to die on, a fight we're going to contend for, it must be this.

We can't get this wrong.

And this is why Paul defends his ministry and his message here in chapter 2.

Because it was under attack.

People rose up from within the church and they began to question and accuse Paul's gospel.

They said things like, Paul is a he's a people pleaser, he's lazy.

I heard he's stealing money from the churches.

The gospel he pr he preaches, it promotes sin.

He blasphemes the law of Moses.

He neglects clear commands from God, such as circumcision.

Paul is a false teacher.

And you start to wonder who's right.

Maybe these guys are correct.

It's confusing.

One guy says the water's poisoned, the other guy says it's healthy.

One guy says, believe me, I've got the truth, and the other one says the same exact thing.

So who are you gonna believe?

Well, you're going to believe the one who has more legitimacy, validation, and authority.

So Paul doesn't need to defend himself, but it is necessary because he is under immense criticism and attacks.

As the old proverb says, if you can't kill the message, kill the messenger.

And that's exactly what these Judaizers did.

They slandered Paul and his character and his ministry and his message.

So Paul is combating this.

And after defending his conversion and his apostleship, at the end of chapter one, he now gives the Galatians more validations here in chapter two and verses one through 14.

And he tells them three things.

One, he tells them that his ministry was God-led.

It was God-led.

And two, he says that his message was enduring.

It persevered.

And lastly, he says that he had the apostles' blessing.

If Paul was who he said he was, a man that was commissioned directly by Jesus Christ to be a minister to the Gentiles, then we would expect three things: divine revelation, gospel preservation, and apostolic approval.

And as we will see, all three things are unrefutably evident in Paul's ministry and message.

So let us read this morning, verses one through fourteen.

Then after four 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 seemed influential, the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure that 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 in to 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 seemed to be influential, what they were 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 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 mine to the Gentiles.

And when James and Cephas 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 to the circumcised.

Only they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing that I was eager to do.

But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned.

For certain men came from James.

He was eating with the Gentiles, but when they came, he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party.

And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically 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 gospel of the truth, I said to Cephas before them all, if you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?

So allow me for a moment to summarize this whole story.

So the Apostle Paul is God led to go to Jerusalem.

This is vital to clarify because most people go to Jerusalem to gain a religious following, and they were accusing Paul of that.

But that wasn't Paul's motive.

When he got there, he didn't demand a public hearing before the apostles.

He went privately, he went quietly.

He wasn't out to prove anything before men.

He was out to partner with the apostles for the sake of God's worldwide mission.

So he knew that there would still be this tension between Jew and Gentile.

It's a hard pill to swallow to the Jew that salvation is now offered to all people, even though God told them that multiple times.

And there were rumors spreading whether Paul's gospel to the Gentiles was the same as what Peter was preaching to the Jews.

And the confusion wasn't in the message, but the differences of culture and the new relationship with the Mosaic law in the new covenant.

So Paul goes to Jerusalem to meet with those who seemed influential.

That's kind of a funny way of putting it, isn't it?

He's not saying they weren't influential, they were.

He's merely saying that their influence didn't matter to him.

He needed no approval for his gospel message or his ministry.

Jesus himself had given him that long ago on the road to Damascus.

And Paul took with him two men to this meeting.

He took Barnabas, a Jew, whom they knew, and Titus, a Gentile whom they didn't know.

And so Titus, the Gentile, is perhaps the most important person at this meeting.

Being a Gentile, he wasn't circumcised, but he did hear the gospel and he did believe in Jesus Christ.

He was a transformed Christian, but he had never been a Jew.

So Paul brought the gospel he preached in a real life Gentile as proof of the power of Christ's salvation in that gospel.

Titus was exhibit A.

You want to see the gospel I preach, says Paul?

Here it is.

Meet Titus the Gentile.

And Paul is wondering if this is going to be a vain effort.

This is a very important historical moment.

How would they treat Titus?

Would they demand that he be circumcised, or would they accept him as a brother in Christ?

Would they force him to heed the traditions of men?

Or would they believe what God has said that salvation is offered to all people, whether man or female or slave or free or Jew or Gentile, that it's received by grace through faith apart from works.

So today, being so far removed from this situation, we find it difficult to understand the enormity of this event.

This was a major point in church history.

If the Jerusalem apostles forced circumcision on Titus, proclaiming it necessary for salvation, the entire foundation of justification by faith alone would crumble and the gospel would lose its power.

If salvation is by works, then Christ died for nothing.

And it is no longer a gift.

And guess what?

We're all in big trouble.

But the gospel, the true gospel, prevailed.

Titus was not forced to be circumcised because they all agreed that faith in Jesus was enough.

It was not the mark on Titus' body that justified him, it was the marks on Jesus' body that justified him.

It wasn't a circumcision done by the flesh, by human hands, that made him right before a holy God, but it was the circumcision done by the Holy Spirit in the life of Titus.

As Paul says in the letter of Titus in chapter 3, verse 5, he says, We are not saved by works of righteousness, but because of God's mercy, he saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

Romans 9, 16, Paul says very clearly, it does not depend, therefore, talking about salvation, it does not depend, therefore, on human desire or effort, but on what?

On God's mercy.

So there is unity among the apostles.

They are preaching the same message of grace, they are serving the same Lord, they are in complete unity and harmony.

Harmony.

And so the air is cleared.

Salvation is offered to all nations.

All are welcome to receive eternal life, not by works, but by believing in Jesus Christ.

But of course, there was opposition.

Look at verse 4.

There were Judaizers, or as Paul calls them, false brothers in their midst, who were spying on their freedom and trying to bring them back into slavery.

So they were trying to enslave them once again into a dead, faithless, works-based religion.

This is how false teachers are described in 2 Peter 2 and in the letter of Jude.

They are secretive, they are attractive, typically charismatic, they appeal to the flesh, they sneak in and they pervert the gospel for their own selfish gain in their greed.

So this is what false teachers do.

They appeal to the flesh, they appeal to our pride, they appeal to our emotions.

But Paul says in verse 5, we didn't even yield in submission.

We didn't even think about it, says Paul.

And this is how the Galatians should have responded in their situation.

Because if you give false teachers an ear, if you give them a platform, if you do not shut them down right away, you will have long-lasting damaging consequences.

Relational division, theological chaos, and eventually a church split or a church shutdown.

And Paul's main motivation for doing this, look at the text, was to preserve the true gospel message for them.

Satan in this evil world are trying to change or make shallow or distort the message of Christ because it is a saving message that reconciles sinners to a holy God.

So Paul's mission is to preserve it and spread it, because it is the only hope for lost people.

There is no other name under heaven by which men can be saved.

Some of the strongest language used in the New Testament, some of the darkest, heaviest, hellish imagery used are in passages that deal with false teachers.

There are so many scriptures warning us to remain faithful to the gospel, the gospel that the prophets and the apostles handed down to us.

Why?

Because it is so important.

Church, if our message is changed, what do we have?

What does this world have?

Like Paul, we must contend for it and preserve it in a world full of falsehoods.

This is what it looks like to combat heresy.

And what it looks like to overcome false believers.

We don't listen to them, we don't yield to their doctrines, we don't give them a foothold.

May we be like Paul and say, I will not yield.

But the Galatians, on the other hand, they are listening.

They are waffling.

Even worse, they're starting to believe it and they're questioning Paul's authority, listening to the lies.

Some of them are mutilating their own flesh for no reason.

Could you imagine getting circumcised as an adult?

And then the apostle Paul writes you a letter saying, uh, you didn't have to do that.

That's unnecessary pain.

They are bewitched.

Church, let us learn from Paul's example.

And Paul reminds them in verse 6 that nothing or no one could change, subtract, or add to his message, not even those who seemed influential.

So Paul isn't downplaying anyone's importance.

He's merely saying that God's grace levels us all at the foot of the cross.

It doesn't matter to Paul who Peter, James, and John once were.

All that matters to him is the gospel that they proclaim, which is the same gospel that he proclaims.

He's not intimidated by human status.

But this is where many of us fail.

Believe it or not, one of the biggest threats against our gospel integrity isn't merely bad sermons or heretical books, but the fear of man.

See, it's people pleasing.

I kid you not, two years ago, I was helping this very rich, influential man in the community here, and I was helping paint his house, and we were side by side working on a ladder, spiritual conversation got brought up, and he looked at me and he said, Jimmy, you know, I believe that you can atone for your own sins.

Uh, you can be good enough to make up for the bad.

And I totally beefed it.

I I kind of mumbled around, I was nervous of offending him, I didn't want to make a bad impression, I wanted this guy to like me.

I said nothing.

No defense of the true gospel.

No challenge to his thought.

I was just a total coward.

But the apostle Paul says, I don't care who's next to me.

Another apostle, a great preacher, the president, an angel from heaven.

My message doesn't change.

And no one's value or their reputation or importance will change the message that God has commanded me to proclaim.

So the apostles, they didn't add to Paul's message.

It was the same as theirs.

There's one gospel.

They didn't say, Now, now, Paul, you forgot to talk about circumcision.

You forgot to tell people about keeping the Sabbath.

No, none of that.

On the contrary, Paul says in verses 7 through 9, they affirmed and blessed his message.

They looked at him and they said, Paul, we see that God is working in your life and in your message and in your ministry.

So this idea that Paul went rogue or was preaching a different gospel than the apostles is totally destroyed here.

That's simply not true.

The end of verse 9 says, They gave the right hand of fellowship to he and Barnabas.

There is no greater blessing than that.

The only thing they mentioned to Paul was that he would take care of the poor.

They didn't demand circumcision, they didn't bring up the Mosaic law, they didn't talk about Jewish tradition.

Their only concern about his ministry was that he was taking care of poor people.

And Paul told them, I was very eager to do that anyways, because Christ is in me.

And just in case the Galatians are still not convinced of Paul's authority, he shares with them a short story about how he had to rebuke the Apostle Peter.

And he doesn't share this to humiliate anyone or puff himself up or flex his power.

Okay, he shares this story to show the Galatians three things.

One, how easily any one of us can stray from gospel truth.

If the apostle Peter was being flaky, any one of us are vulnerable.

We are humans, we forget things, our hearts are prone to wander.

So if you think to yourself, I would never compromise on gospel truth, I've been a Christian for X amount of years.

This story is for you.

Listen carefully.

Secondly, what this shows us is the legitimacy of Paul's authority.

If Paul was anything less than an apostle, this wouldn't have happened.

No one would have listened to him.

They all would have laughed or shrugged him off.

But he was the lone ranger here.

Even Barnabas, his buddy, his ministry buddy, was led astray.

But he went up and he rebuked Peter.

You know, this is Peter, the pillar.

Some people call him the Pope.

You know, it's a bad joke, but he rebuked Peter.

And things were set right.

They listened to him.

God so worked in Paul that he used him to correct a fellow Capital A apostle.

And lastly, this shows us how to contend for the gospel.

If this was any lesser matter, you would follow the Matthew 18 model of correction.

But this is a tier one, a make or break issue in church history, and Paul deals with it head-on.

Because if he hadn't, it would have led so many people astray.

Misrepresenting the gospel message publicly, in word or in action, must be dealt with quickly and with severity.

So to summarize this story, Paul recounts this moment during a meal time where Peter disassociates himself with Gentile believers when Jews show up.

Now, remember back in Acts chapter 10, the lesson that Peter had learned through means of a divine vision had enabled him to associate with the Gentile Cornelius and the other Gentiles who were gathered in his home.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

So God had made it very clear that salvation is not based on national identity, nor is it based on good works, but it's centered on the work and the person of Jesus Christ.

And now that it is, that it's offered to all people, not just the Jew or the proselyte, but to all.

That's what Peter learned very thoroughly, very clearly in Acts chapter 10.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

But now he's in Antioch, and after the arrival of those who came from James, all of this changed.

Peter began to live as a Jew.

He's compelling the Gentile believers to live like him as a Jew in order to have fellowship with him and other Jewish believers.

What inconsistency! What hypocrisy! If Peter, a Jew, didn't need to live like a Jew, why did he demand by his actions that Gentile Christians live like Jews?

So Peter really struggled with what people thought about him.

That's obvious when he denied Jesus three times.

I can relate to Peter in a lot of ways, in the same way.

So when Paul recognized the seriousness of this situation, he confronted Peter personally and publicly.

Peter was corrected before all because the Jews had been wrong to follow him, and the Gentiles had been injured by his actions.

So I remember doing something similar back in high school.

I was at a sleepover at my neighbor's house with all these popular kids and the, you know, the high school quarterbacks there, and I'm wanting to fit in, I'm wanting to be cool.

I was kind of that nerdy kid in high school that, you know, I was in the World of Warcraft club and all that.

And so I was trying to fit in, and we woke up the next morning, and there's all my buddies around the window of this house, and they're like, Jimmy, get over here.

And I I look out the window, and there's my mom walking down the road.

She's got a headband on, she's got two five-pound dumbbells, and she's doing these lunges like down our road.

And I'm just so embarrassed.

I'm at that age where it's like parents aren't cool, you know, you don't hug your parents or say I love you or anything like that.

And they're like, bro, is that your mom?

And I looked and I said, No, like that's that's definitely not my mom.

But I denied the people I loved and I changed my behavior because I feared what other people might think of me.

And that's exactly what Peter did.

Church, may we never seek the acceptance or the approval of man, and may we never live our lives as a show for others, making appeal to the flesh, because when we do that, we might just find ourselves hurting and misrepresenting the gospel.

Christians who struggle with this, especially young Christians, listen to me.

You are approved by God through Jesus Christ.

And there is nothing you can do to change that.

You are loved and accepted and cherished by God your Father in Christ Jesus.

So you are free then to truly live.

You don't have to wear a mask anymore or obsess about what other people might think of you, or change who you are so that society might approve of you.

Paul reminds us back in chapter 1, verse 10 if I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

So you will never win the approval of others.

And if you try to do that, you will find yourself endlessly miserable and exhausted and disappointed.

But if you believe in Jesus Christ, you have God's approval.

His favor, his love, his grace, his unending delight is on you forevermore.

So the principle is this: we should not compromise on the gospel, not merely in doctrine, but also in our behavior.

You can believe that salvation is by faith alone, but when you start playing politics and showing favoritism and fearing man, your actions are saying, I don't really believe that.

As Paul reminds us here, our conduct should be in step with the gospel.

So what we see in verses 1 through 14 is Paul's authenticity, his legitimacy.

And he is looking at this deceived church, saying, The gospel I gave you is true.

Look at my apostolic calling.

Look at my conversion, look at how the apostles affirmed my message and my ministry.

Look at how I rebuked Peter and he listened.

Church, friends, do you want more evidence?

What more validations do you want?

The gospel I gave you was true.

So, proclamation church, what do we learn from all this?

Well, I believe there are three challenges for us this morning.

And the first is this are you, like the Galatians, theologically confused because of false teachers?

With technology nowadays, it's literally at your fingertips.

You watched a YouTube sermon, you listened to a podcast, you watched a convincing lecture by some guy with a PhD, and now the clear gospel message of salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ is now muddied for you.

Listen to me.

Don't believe that lie.

Don't allow false teachers to tickle your ears.

The idea that you can earn your salvation, or that the idea that you can sin all you want and go to heaven, or any other message that involves legalism or licentiousness, it is not good news.

That's garbage.

And so turn from that false teaching.

Secondly, the second challenge is this.

Are you yourself contending for the true gospel?

That's what we see Paul doing here.

And I'm not talking about going on the public square with a Turner Byrne sign and getting all crazy.

What I'm saying is this: are you combating false teaching and are you contending for the truth of God's word?

And are you doing that lovingly, graciously, but yet boldly?

Are you refuting falsehood and promoting truth in your life?

I'm not saying you have to be a professor of systematic theology and apologetics.

But like Paul, are you able to point to your life and to scripture and say, this is the truth of Jesus?

This is God's gospel of grace.

None of us are Capital A apostles, none of us have directly seen the Lord Jesus Christ like Paul did, but we are redeemed children of God, and we have a testimony.

We have the Spirit of God indwelling us, and we have the complete canon of God's holy word.

So I hear people say this all the time.

I don't need to defend God, I don't need to fight his battles, I just need to love.

Well, Paul fought the good fight.

Jude commands us in his letter to fight for the faith.

We're told to give an answer when outsiders question us on why we believe what we believe.

The apostles, we see them constantly contending for the gospel.

Not because God needed them to, but because God called them to do it.

God works through his people, his church to defend and protect and preserve the gospel.

Are you doing this?

Or are you just passive about evangelism?

Fearful that people might not like you if you speak the truth?

Or maybe you're just careless, you're just a pacifist, and you're okay that people are going to hell forever because of false doctrine.

Lastly, are you submitting to spiritual authority?

Clearly, the Galatians were not which got them into trouble in the first place.

They did not heed Paul's instructions, which got them into this mess.

And by the way, Satan has done a great job making it very difficult to trust spiritual authority due to all the corruption and the scandals.

It's like one leader does something wrong and it's just Satan takes that and he just highlights it.

So it makes it extremely difficult to submit to spiritual authority.

But that's no excuse for us.

That's no excuse.

Hebrews 13, verse 17 commands us to have confidence in your leaders and submit to them.

Hebrews 13:17

Are you submitting to spiritual authority?

Are you more inclined to avoid the spiritual leaders that God has sovereignly placed in your life?

Or do you find yourself constantly criticizing them, keeping in arm's length, thinking to yourself, well, if I were in leadership, I could do it better?

Or are you going to them saying, Teach me, hold me accountable, show me where I need growth and where I should serve?

Which one better defines you?

So proclamation church.

May we be a church that does not waver from the gospel of Jesus Christ.

May we never be thwarted by the fear of men, and may we be a church that contends for God's word, and a church that joyfully obeys the leaders that God has sovereignly placed in our lives.

Let's pray.

Father, thank you for your holy word.

I pray this morning, Lord, that you would write the scripture, its principles, its applications, its truth on our hearts this morning.

And that it would make root and bear fruit in our lives.

Lord, help us to be a gospel-centered church, a church that contends for it, a church that preserves it, a church that preaches it to one another and to our children and to lost people and to our co-workers.

May we just be a light, Lord, in this community.

Father, I pray that you would grant us repentance this morning and help us to see clearly what changes we need to make in our lives for this to happen, Lord.

We love you.

We thank you that we can worship you.

We thank you that we can come to you this morning through Christ and experience the living and true God.

Pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.