Sermon Transcript
So I’ve come this morning and I’m multitasking. You didn’t realize it. First of all, I’m preaching a sermon, preaching a message as we continue in our message series on Galatians, and I am also a walking billboard these next few minutes that we’re together for Family Fun Night. We’ll talk more about that later, but I hope that you saw some of the t-shirts out front or different people are wearing that say, I’m in, are you in? In the back, Family Fun Night, October the 27th.
Again, we’ll talk about that later, but glad you guys are here. We’re continuing in our series in the book of Galatians. We’re on our 3rd week, and so if you wanna take your Bible or whatever device you use to be able to read from God’s word, we also have some scriptures that are put in the bulletin. Not all of them from today, but there’s several in there. However you wanna follow along, it’d be great, but we’re, over this week and next week, I’m gonna be doing a little 2-part message that I’m calling part 1, part 2, A Hill Worth Dying On.
A Hill Worth Dying On. And I started thinking about this because unless you’ve been asleep for the last week or weeks or months or a year or trapped under something heavy for, I don’t know, the recent past, there is no shortage of hills upon which people are willing to stake their claim and die. And I’ll just throw out some topics: immigration, politicians, North Korea, tax reform, healthcare reform, kneeling or not kneeling during the Star-Spangled Banner. We could just take 30 minutes or so and just have a good old fight if we wanted to and just take some of these topics. In fact, let’s do that.
I’m just gonna leave for this and then you guys pick some topics and you all just rest and then I’ll come up and pray at the end and then we’ll be— Now, the fact is, is we have different things upon which we focus our attention where we say there’s a line drawn in the sand here. These issues I don’t care about. This one, and I don’t know what that issue is for you, or issues. I have opinions on some of these things. But we say, this is the hill upon which I’m willing to die.
This is where I’m putting all of my energy. These other things, I’ll save my energy for another day. And I don’t, again, know what that is for you. This happens all the time in our homes, doesn’t it, with parents? Where we have to pick our battles.
You could make the choice, it’s a foolish choice, but you could make the choice to make every little single thing a battle in your home. As a child or as a parent, and you could say, we’re gonna go toe-to-toe on this one. I’m digging in my heels over the length of my hair, over how late I can stay up, over whether or not I should eat breakfast, or whether or not I’m allowed to wear these clothes out of the house, or whether or not I’m allowed to listen to this or this TV show, or whether or not I’m allowed to hang out with these people. And parents, some of the things they say, okay, I can live with this, but not this over here. We’re gonna have a confrontation about this.
We do this all the time.
And after your first child, you begin to kinda loosen up a little bit. And after your second child, if you have more than 2, then you begin to kinda loosen up a little bit. The things that were convictions for me when I was a younger man are different than they are now. Some of them are the same, some of them are stronger, and I feel more firmly than ever about planting my flag on that particular hill saying, It’s go time. I’m ready to fight for this right here.
But then there are other things that don’t really matter as much. Are you like that? Things that you cared about when you were, I don’t know, middle schoolers, high schoolers, when you were younger, you find that they don’t really bother you as much. And then other things that didn’t really bother you, now they bother you. Sometimes you go through college or different life circumstances, or you just learn to just kind of take it all in.
But the fact is, is that we all have hills upon which we’re willing to die.
And the Apostle Paul, we’ve seen already in this letter to the Galatians in the last 2 weeks, and we’re gonna see over the next 2 weeks, he had a certain hill that he was gonna just cash in all his chips on to say, this is the one. These other things are important, some are urgent, Some are important and urgent, some are important but not as urgent, but this particular hill is the one I’m gonna just put all of my energy and all of my time into. And what is that hill? It’s the gospel. It’s the gospel, and that’s really what Galatians is about.
The idea of the gospel is something that we talk about all the time, and I take it for granted that we all know what we’re talking about whenever we hear that word, the gospel, and we as pastors and communicators try to to express in different ways what the gospel is because everything that we teach, if you haven’t noticed, comes back to the gospel. And Galatians, every verse comes back in different ways to the gospel and this is the hill upon which Paul is saying is more important than any other hill. This is the one he was intent on saying it’s more important to me than popularity, it’s more important to me than my security and my safety. This is all Paul talked about. This is all Paul wrote about.
This was the heart of his life. And yet it may not be the hill that you’d be willing to die upon or that I’d be willing to die upon ’cause we get distracted. ‘Cause sometimes we fight the wrong battles, don’t we? As parents, we’re like, I’m gonna fight this battle, and afterwards your kid begins to pull away and you’re like, maybe it wasn’t that important to fight that battle. Or sometimes you dig in your heels on something with a coworker or your boss or somebody like that and You go, well, you know what?
It wasn’t worth it. It really wasn’t worth it. Couples fight about the wrong things. Sometimes we fight about the wrong things, and yet Paul comes back again and again and again to the gospel. So I want to define it for us once again, and this is just a simple definition.
You can add in your own words here, but I just want to make sure before we get into chapter 2 that we’re on the same page here. The gospel is first the good news, the good news, Or it’s an announcement, it’s a message. That’s literally what the word gospel means. It’s the good news of what God has done, meaning you didn’t create this. We didn’t get a group of people in the room to say, I know, let’s come up with some good news.
No, God gave this message. It’s the good news, the message, the announcement of what God has done. He initiated it. He’s put everything behind us. Thirdly, through Jesus’ sacrifice, substitutionary, and that’s an important word, death and resurrection, meaning Jesus substituted himself.
He died on the cross so that we wouldn’t have to die for our sins. It’s the good news of what God has done through that act of atonement, that one-time act, in order to bring us to himself and make us right with him. In order to, chapter 1, verse 4 says, to rescue us, in order to save us, in order to give us life. You fill in the blank with whatever you find there in the New Testament, but that’s what Jesus died to be able to bring us, to reconnect us with God. We were connected with God and then because of our sin, and all of us are sinners, separated from God, and the gospel is the good news of you can be made right with God, not because of what you’ve done and your performance, but because of Jesus’ performance for you.
And Paul said nothing else is more important. That’s the hill I’m planting my flag on. That’s the hill upon which I’m willing to die. The other things, Yeah, we can have conversations about that. It’s the gospel that matters more than anything else.
But what happened is, is he preached the gospel and taught it everywhere he went, including to the church of Galatia, who’s receiving this letter to the Galatians. He didn’t call it the letter to the Galatians. He just sent a letter to them to check in on them, because after he proclaimed this good news to them, he left. As soon as he left— and this happened all the time to him— as soon as he would leave a place, A group would come in, and they all came by different names. This particular group was called the Judaizers.
They’d come in, and they would say, we believe in many of the same things that you believe, but what Paul taught you, Galatian church, was incomplete. You’re not really a Christian. In order to become a Christian, you need to become more Jewish. You need to be made right with God by adhering to and not abandoning these ancient traditions that God’s people have known for centuries. Such as circumcision, such as dietary laws, such as days that you can worship on or not worship on, and different restrictions.
And some of those were okay things, but that’s not what saves a person, Paul is saying. And you foolish Galatians, he’s writing in this letter, have abandoned this message. I came in preaching a message of good news, and all of a sudden this other group’s coming in and they’re piling things on, and you’re abandoning this so quickly. What are you doing? I’m astounded.
I’m amazed, ’cause that’s no gospel. The gospel I preach to you, the good news, is that Jesus has paid it all for you. You don’t have to add things on top of that. That’s a one-time act. And so that’s really why this is so urgent to Paul, and the more that the Judaizers creeped in, crept in, and infiltrated the ranks of the Galatian church, the more Paul fought.
The more that he said, we’re coming back to this very single issue. And that’s where we are right here, because sometimes we focus on the wrong issues, and Paul’s gonna show us, here’s how you fight the battle that really fights. If you’re a Christ follower, a true gospel believer, this is the fight that we all must fight every single day. And let’s look at how he did it. Chapter 2.
We’re just gonna look at the first 10 verses this week, and then we’ll get to the rest of the chapter next week in part 2. He says in chapter 2, verse 1, 14 years later, Galatians, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas, and I took Titus along also. I went in response to a revelation and set before them, these leaders of the church, the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. Those who are not Jewish. The Galatians were not Jewish, but the Judaizers are saying you need to be Jewish.
But Paul’s going there and he’s setting before the church leaders the gospel that he preached among the Gentiles. But I did this privately. To those who seemed to be leaders, for fear that I was running or had run my race in vain. So what Paul’s having here is a summit conference, some sort of a leadership gathering of people, and he starts off by saying 14 years later. Well, 14 years later, like, what are you talking about, Paul?
14 years after what? Well, 14 years after a couple verses ago, chapter 1, verse 18, where he says that after 3 years after his conversion, he went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter. So after being converted, Paul went to this area called Arabia and then perhaps to some other places, and then 3 years later he went to Jerusalem. And he was there for 15 days, chapter 1, verse 18 tells us. Met with Simon Peter, who was the leader of the church.
Met with James, the brother of Jesus, but that was it. He was there for 15 days, he left, and then he didn’t come back for another 14 years. You say, well, why does this timeline even matter? Well, the Judaizers were saying, Paul, you didn’t get your message from these people, and Paul’s gonna use this timeline to say, Yeah, you’re right, I didn’t get this from other people. I got this from God.
This message that I’m preaching to you was given to me by God himself, and I didn’t have to consult people. In fact, I wasn’t hardly even with the apostles. Nevertheless, after 17 total years, he now comes back to Jerusalem for this summit conference meeting. And let me just set the stage. We have different parties involved.
We’re always interested in summit meetings. Leaders get together. Are they going to shake hands? How are they going to shake hands? Are they going to Like, let’s all look at their body language.
Are they gonna pull one another in and are they gonna hold that handshake for extra long and what are they doing and what are they focused on? Well, this here, we have 3 parties. We have the delegation from Antioch, the Church of Antioch, which was the 2nd Christian church, the 1st one being in Jerusalem. The 2nd one where Paul and his buddies Barnabas and Titus, we’ll talk about them. That’s the 1st delegation.
Then we have the early church leaders primarily made up of Simon Peter, one of Jesus’ closest friends and followers and one of the pillars of the early church. And then you have John, another leader in the early church. And then you have James, not John’s brother James, who was one of Jesus’ disciples, but James, brother of Jesus, another leader in the early church, a prominent leader who wrote the book of James later on in the New Testament. So we have the delegation from Antioch, Paul, Barnabas, Titus. We have Peter, James, John, and then we have this mysterious group that included Judaizers and perhaps other people.
Who basically didn’t like what Paul was preaching. And so Paul’s saying, I went up to Jerusalem, Galatian church. I wanted to deal with this once and for all, to say I’m not preaching my own thing. I’m preaching exactly what the leaders of the church are preaching. These leaders that you hold in such high regard, I’m gonna have a private meeting with them.
And the Judaizers would say, oh, I bet, Paul, that they’re calling you there because they wanna confront you and tell you what you’re not preaching. They’re gonna call you on the carpet. You’re in trouble, Paul. No, I went there because he says, verse 1, of a revelation from God. I went because God told me to go.
Now in Acts chapter 11, there’s a prophet who has a revelation from God, and this could be that visit. We don’t know. It doesn’t really matter. The fact is, Paul got revelations from God all the time saying, go here, go there, do this, do that. And Paul responded.
He’s saying, that’s why I went. I had this meeting with these leaders and And he says they’re so-called leaders. These— and he, in fact, he even 3 times in these first 10 verses has what sound like derogatory terms for these guys. In verse 2, he says these guys, Peter, James, John, who seem to be leaders. Verse 6, he says these leaders who seem to be important.
Verse 9, he says those who were reputed to be pillars. Paul’s sounding sarcastic, but he’s— is he being sarcastic about the leaders? Does he not respect Peter, James, and John? No. We know that he does.
He’s most likely using his sarcasm and directing it towards his opponents, his Judaizers. These people, guys, that you hold in such high regard, guess what? I had a face-to-face, closed-door meeting with them, and I got to talk to all the big shots there in Jerusalem, and we dealt with it. And what I did is I laid out the gospel before them, which was a very humble thing for Paul to do if you think about it. He could have gotten defensive and said, no, I’m gonna do my own thing.
I’m my own leader, but he submitted himself to these leaders, Peter, James, and John, presented the gospel that he’d been preaching for the last 17 years. It’s not like he didn’t believe in his gospel message. He’d been preaching it for 17 years. He didn’t go for them to check on it. He was going, he said, verse 2, because he was in fear that he was running his race in vain.
He had all these opponents along the way, and he’s saying, listen, I don’t wanna put so much time and energy into this effort if behind closed doors The apostles are saying one thing, but out in public, then they’re doing something else, and they’re watering down the gospel. If they’re not gonna stand with me, I’m wasting my time here, and the Judaizers and my opponents will come in, and they’ll just mess things up. So Paul’s saying, let’s nip this in the bud, and I’m gonna bring along the 2 best people I can bring along. I’m gonna bring along Barnabas. That name may be familiar to you.
His name means the son of encouragement. If you’re gonna fight a fight and deal with opponents, you’d like a Barnabas by your side. So this was intentional. This was strategic. He was a Jewish believer.
Barnabas was highly respected. Nobody had a bad word to say about Barnabas, seemingly. And so he’s bringing Barnabas in as this encourager, this bridge builder, and he also brings this guy Titus. Well, who’s Titus? Well, Titus was not Jewish.
Titus was Greek. He was a Gentile who was saved under Paul’s ministry. And was gonna be exhibit 1A that Paul could say, hey, you people who say you have to become a Jew in order to be saved, look at Titus. He has the same Holy Spirit as everybody else.
And yet he’s converted and uncircumcised and a Gentile. And all you had to do was look at Titus’s life to be able to say he’s an equal member of the church here. And so Paul brings both these guys. This was intentional and strategic. And they have this conversation behind closed doors.
Paul presents his gospel, and what was the result? Unity. Agreement about 4 key areas that I just wanna focus on here, because this is so foundational for us. This is not some history lesson of something that happened 2,000 years ago. It’s something that affects us right here and right now in 2017.
Verse 3, one of the things that happened as a result of this private conversation and presenting of the gospel to the leaders, Verse 3, not even Titus, who was with me, this Gentile, uncircumcised individual, who was not following the ways of the Jewish people, not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. What is this saying? This is saying a very important thing to us. And I’ll say it like this, that belief in the gospel is what saves a person, not good works, and not human requirements. The Judaizers were piling on all these human requirements of things that people had to do, these hoops that people had to jump through.
You have to believe what we believe, you have to behave how we want you to behave, and then you might be able to belong if we think that you’re Jewish enough. And Paul is saying, no, that’s not what happened at all. We had Titus, this Gentile believer, uncircumcised, and at no time did they say, hey Titus, you should be circumcised. We think that that’d be a good thing. They looked at Titus’s life and his ministry and they said, we’re not gonna require that of this guy.
Are you kidding? Why? That would just be an external change. God’s already changed him internally. Why would we reject somebody that God has already accepted?
Why would we, church, say no to somebody that God has already accepted by his grace, who’s already received the gospel? Did it really matter if Titus was circumcised? Seriously, here, like, 2,000 years later, we look at this like, okay, so what’s the worst that could have happened? First of all, Titus probably would have been uncomfortable physically, in a variety of ways, to have to, as an adult, be circumcised. But on top of that, yes, it would have undermined everything that Paul had laid down as a foundation to say, hey, yes, you were saved by grace, but Titus, go on ahead and get circumcised.
That’s not what happened here. Belief in the gospel, Titus, is what saved you. Belief in the gospel, church, is what saves a person. We say, well, sure, no, I believe that. But then why do we add things on after a person’s been saved?
We, we seem to have a tendency to move on from the cross.
And I have to use a particular type of Bible, I have to follow a particular type of a teacher, I have to behave a certain way, things I can watch and not watch. And we start adding on these different types of things, some of which may be beneficial to us but are typically man-made rules and laws rather than saying, listen, if God changes your heart, you’re accepted into His family. And that’s the thing that they agreed on. The apostles could have said, we don’t agree with that, but they didn’t. They didn’t compel him to be circumcised.
That’s a big deal. The stakes were really, really high, and they stood up for what Paul believed in, what they’d been preaching too. It’s the same gospel. There’s a second agreement they had. Look at verses 4 and 5.
This matter of circumcision and of Do we have to become Jewish in order to become a Christ follower? This matter arose because some false brothers, some false believers, had infiltrated our ranks, Galatian church, to spy on us in order to make us— they came to spy on the freedom that we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. Verse 5, we didn’t give in to them, though, for a moment, in order that the truth of the gospel might remain with you. What are they saying here? They’re saying, to me, a collective agreement and belief that enemies of the Gospel, whether false teachers, false believers, anybody who claims to have a different Gospel than the Gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ, enemies of the Gospel and of our freedom in Christ must be called out and opposed.
I was trying to think of a positive way to spin this, and to me, I just couldn’t do it. Ultimately, they’re standing up and they’re saying, these guys are not just, like, Listen, let’s call it what it is. These are false believers. They’re preaching a false gospel. These are not just some people who’ve come in here.
No, like, they’ve snuck into our church. They’re preaching something that we’re not preaching, and they’re coming and they’re doing this in order to spy on this freedom that we have in Christ, and they’re trying to take away our freedom to make us slaves again, and that’s what Jesus died to take away, so that you’d be a slave to righteousness and not to sin anymore.
He came to lift that slavery off of us, and yet these people are putting you in bondage again. And Paul said, I’m not giving into it for a moment. And the apostles said, we’re not giving into it either. Why? Verse 5, so that the gospel, the truth of the gospel, might remain with you.
Were they just trying to make a point there so that they could say, we’re right, Judaizers, you’re wrong? It’s so much bigger than that. So much bigger than that. You think about the the countless Christians and Christ followers through the centuries who have been tortured and persecuted and martyred. You’re talking about people who’ve been burned at the stake and had their heads chopped off or died by the sword or through starvation or thrown in prison.
I read an account recently that talked about some Christian youth years ago in Great Britain who were martyred simply for translating the Bible into English so that other people could access it. Was the point of those individuals so that they could say, we’re right? No, so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you and that it might remain with me. That’s what Paul’s saying is more important than anything else. And if you’re preaching a different gospel— we already saw this in chapter 1 of this letter to the Galatians, verses 8 and 9— if you’re preaching a different gospel, that’s no gospel at all, and you were under condemnation.
And we need to be watchful for that, and we need to be able to call it what it is and lead in those moments. You don’t have to be a pastor to do that. Anybody can do that. But we have to be discerning and realize this is something that still takes place 2,000 years later, that there are people that add things on and include things, or they’ll take things away, or they’ll try to replace the gospel or say that it’s changing. And evolving in different ways.
Paul’s saying no. The gospel is going to remain with you and this is why we’re planting our flag firmly on this hill. There’s a third thing that happened here, verses 6 through 8, well actually 6 through 9, I’ll read 6 through 8 here for a moment. As for those who seem to be important, again, he’s being sarcastic, not towards the leaders, these important leaders of the church, but towards the Judaizers. As for those that you deem to be important, Basically, whatever they were makes no difference to me.
God doesn’t judge by external appearance. Those men, Peter, James, John, these leaders of the church, they added nothing to my message. On the contrary, verse 7, they saw that I’d been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles, just as Peter had been entrusted with this task of preaching the gospel to the Jews. Verse 8, for God, who was at work in the ministry of Peter as an apostle to the Jews, was also at work in my ministry as an apostle And I’ll stop there for a moment. What is this saying?
This is saying that true gospel believers, and this is what they were aligned around, in agreement with, the true gospel believers are marked by a couple things: unity and cooperation rather than favoritism or rivalries or competition. And we say, well, sure, no, like, that makes sense. And yet, what if they weren’t clear on this and they didn’t have each other’s backs? The gospel would have just folded in half. The Judaizers would have come in, other groups would have been able to just sort of tear it apart.
But they stood aligned with each other and they basically blessed each other’s ministry. Paul said they didn’t add anything to it. They heard the whole thing and they didn’t say, hey Paul, you’re missing some elements here. Have you thought about adding this or doing this in a different way? Verse 6, they didn’t add anything.
But what they did do is they acknowledged different burdens, different callings, different ways of getting the gospel out there. And they said, Peter, you have a burden for the Jews. So continue to preach that gospel of grace, of God’s love and atoning sacrifice through Jesus. Continue to take that message, Peter, to the Jews, because God is at work in you. But Paul, you’re our brother, and we acknowledge that you have a unique ministry.
Paul had a burden for the Jews. Those were his people. But he was uniquely called and set apart by God to be an apostle to the Gentiles, to take the gospel to the nations, and to do what other people didn’t— weren’t necessarily able to do. And so he had a unique calling, and notice they didn’t compete. What they did is they said, look at what God is doing.
Look at what God is doing through Peter. Look at what God is doing through Paul. Why would we try to stop this? Why would we compete? Why would we be rivals of one another?
Paul, you have your church. You be the Second Baptist Church, and Peter, you be the First Baptist Church, and we just like, we won’t do anything together here. Why would they do that? They validated each other’s ministry and the unique opportunities that they had, and they said the most important thing is not what we have in you know, that’s different between us, or different styles, or our different callings. What matters most is God’s at work.
And it’s a sign of that, verse 9, and it’s a sign of that cooperation. Verse 9 says that James, Peter, and John, those reputed to be pillars of the church, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized this grace that was given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the Jews, not because they weren’t united, but because they were united. The right hand of fellowship. Nowadays we shake people’s hands and we kinda do it in a superficial way.
It’s kind of a rushed thing and we do it because it’s out of habit. Sometimes it’s a warm handshake and you kinda linger there, but the right hand of fellowship was a sign of promise. That’s how vows were made in the ancient Middle East. You’d clasp each other’s right hands, a sign of partnership. They’re saying you guys are equal partners with us.
It’s not us up here, Paul, and then you down here. And any opponent of the gospel, you need to know that we’re supporting each other. We celebrate each other’s ministry and what God is doing. We’re partners, we’re cooperating, we’re equal. And I think that that’s so huge because perhaps you’ve been in churches where that hasn’t been the case among the leadership or among competing ministries with one another.
I’m grateful that I’ve been here long enough to see continued unity, that you need to know that when I’m up here, that I know that Pastor Dave and Pastor Dan and Nate are pulling for me. And when they’re up here doing whatever God has given them the opportunity to do, I’m pulling for them. We have each other’s backs. We have a staff that has each other’s backs, and we’re not perfect, but so, to me, it’s just rare to have true partnership in ministry that says, I celebrate what God is doing in that ministry. I’m not against your ministry, I support it.
Is it bearing fruit? Is the gospel being taught? Praise God. We celebrate that, and that’s what true gospel believers should be marked by. The Judaizers wanted to divide them.
They got closer together, though. And then one more agreement that they came to, verse 10. All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, which Paul says was the very thing I was eager to do, was to remember the poor. The leaders didn’t say, hey Paul, one more thing. Can you listen?
Just go on ahead and get Titus circumcised. Not that big of a deal. Let’s just— hey Paul, we’d like you to come to Jerusalem more often so we could check in on you. Like we’ve got a 12-step curriculum, a little program here, and we’d like to bring you up to speed so that we can kind of oversee what you’re doing here and just make sure. No, Paul, we bless what you’re doing, just remember the poor.
Paul’s like, are you kidding? I get to remember the poor? That’s a blessing, that’s not a burden. Paul always remembered the poor. The 3rd missionary journey he took, one of the main reasons was not just to check in on the churches, but to say, hey, let’s collect some things, Gentile churches, and let’s collect money for the needy in Jerusalem as a sign of our support.
Let’s remember the poor. I’ll be honest with you, the first time I read that, I didn’t fully understand the significance of remembering the poor.
It seems to have come out of left field in addition to all the things that they’ve been doing there, but ultimately You think about it, a ministry to the poor and financial compassion for the poor is an essential priority for any gospel-centered ministry.
Financial compassion for the poor.
It’s not just an important component, no, it’s an essential component of any gospel-centered ministry. It comes right from the heart of the gospel. Jesus, 2 Corinthians 8 tells us, Jesus, though He was rich in heaven, left His riches in heaven, became poor, so that we who believe in him could become rich. Not financially rich, it’s not talking about that, but just enriched in terms of our life, to have a full life. Jesus became poor so that we might become rich.
That’s the gospel right there. And any adherence to a message or proclamation that is not coupled by a life change that is demonstrated by radical generosity It’s a different gospel. That’s not the gospel of Jesus Christ. And it comes out of the fact of what Jesus taught and how Jesus lived. At Luke chapter 4, the inauguration of Jesus’ ministry, He said, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me.
He’s anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. In Matthew 25, Jesus said, listen, anytime you serve the poor, those in prison, those who are without, and you’re doing so with the love of Jesus, you’re like, you’re actually serving Jesus whenever you do that.
One time a rich man invited Jesus to come to a feast. Luke chapter 14, I think, is where it is. And Jesus said, hey, next time you have a feast, why don’t you invite the poor? Invite the lame, invite the crippled, invite the blind. They can’t pay you back, they can’t reward you, but you will be rewarded eventually at the resurrection of the righteous.
The point is, The church is saying, this is a priority to us. It’s essential. It is essential that we demonstrate compassion because our money is not our own and our lives are not our own, as we’ll see next week. I’ve been crucified with Christ. It’s no longer me that’s living.
When Jesus comes into my life, there’s been this transaction that it is him living through me. And how would Jesus live through me? He’d live with financial compassion. He would share what he had freely with those around him. And they’re saying, Paul, Continue that.
Remember that. Paul’s like, you got it.
Next week, there’s gonna be a meeting some of you know about. If you’ve been a part of the church the last 3, 4, 5 years, you know that Suresh and Sujana Panthulu have graciously sort of spearheaded— I don’t know if they signed up to lead this thing, but just they’ve modeled for us as a church how we can invest ourselves in the lives of those who are less fortunate and the needy and the poor, specifically in the San Jose area at St. James Park. There have been other outings that we’ve had to minister to the poor, to provide food and clothes and other things like that, but we recently found out that the city said, nope, we’re gonna move the poor away from here. They’re no longer allowed to be here. So Suresh and Sujanif called a meeting for next week that all of you are invited to come to.
You just need to RSVP before this Thursday. It’s gonna be next Sunday. After the second service, and we’re gonna gather together, not to talk about the poor, but to just say, God, what do you want us to do? Right, we wanna show compassion, and here’s an opportunity. We care about this.
This is essential. Why? ‘Cause of the gospel. It’s changed our life, and we wanna provide tangible assistance to those in need. So we need to be continually contributing financially, specifically towards those things that assist those in need.
That’s why we take up a benevolence offering. Today, the first Sunday of every month, like today, we’re taking up a benevolence offering. As you leave, you’ll have an opportunity to invest in ways that we can help those who are financially dealing with different challenges. It’s why I’m trying to put together a couple different mission trips down to the Houston area over the coming months to be able to provide ongoing relief to what’s happening in Houston, and perhaps some other trips will evolve because of how hurricanes have affected other people, and so we’re gonna go at Christmastime, It’ll be an interesting Christmas for those in Houston. What a great opportunity to serve the poor.
And we’re looking for ways to do this, but here’s the deal. We each need to be personally involved, to actually know poor people by name, and to be involved in ministry, and not just give, but to physically be a part of these types of opportunities. Why? Because that’s the gospel. So at any one of these 4 points of agreement, the church could have split.
There could have been a separation. But instead, there was greater unity and cooperation and a vouching of one another’s ministry. And what we’re gonna see next week is an indication of the change that happens when that takes root in a person’s life, where we become what the Bible says is justified. We’re gonna explain what that basically means, but I wanted to focus on this idea of unity and on the primary priority of the gospel. And I would simply ask, is the gospel primary for you?
Not like, not just have you accepted the gospel, but is it primary for you? If you were to hear a different gospel, are we discerning enough and bold enough to call it out and to say, that’s not the message I know? We don’t need to be ungracious about it, but we need to address it where it exists. Parents, we need to be teaching our kids the truth of what God’s Word says. This is why we have the ministries that we do, so that we can focus on these matters, because this is so important.
If we begin through the grace of Christ, but then we start feeling like we have to add on other things, it’s just more weight and more slavery and more of a burden, and that’s not why Jesus came. He came to bring us life. He came to lift our burdens off of Him. And if you’ve never said yes to the gospel like that, you can do so. We give you that opportunity every single week, and you can— you don’t even have to do it on a Sunday.
You don’t have to have a pastor pray with you. All you have to do is say, I’m not right with God. I need someone to make me right with God, and I believe that only Jesus can do that. What He did on the cross is sufficient. That means it’s enough.
I don’t need to add on other stuff to that. So I confess my sins before Jesus, and I say, Jesus, come into my life. Save me and forgive me. And if you’ve never done that, please do that. There’s salvation in no one else but in Jesus, and whoever calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.
It’s about the gospel. That’s the hill upon which we’re gonna plant our flag. Let’s pray. Father, I thank you for, to me, what’s an interesting passage. We’re dealing with something that seems like it’s just about first-century Judaism, but it’s really about something we’re dealing with today.
There are false teachers, there’s false gospels, there’s false beliefs. Maybe some of us are part of that in one way or another, and I just pray that we would come back again and again and again to the cross. That we would be crystal clear on the priority and on the message of the Gospel, on the purity of the Gospel, on the accuracy of the Gospel. I pray, God, that we would not build our life on any other thing but on the Gospel. I pray for anyone, God, who does not know You to receive eternal life today by saying yes to the invitation to be part of Your family.
God, we celebrate that You sent Your Son Jesus. You didn’t wait on us. You sent Your Son Jesus. To demonstrate His love for us, even while we were yet sinners. Thank You for that, and thank You for making the payment for our sin.
We could never repay You. We love You, God, and we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
