Book of Galatians - Ch. 2 Vs. 3-31 (07/16/2000)

Park Meadows Church

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speaking, he says, but neither Titus, who was with me being a

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Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. And that because of false brethren, unawares brought in, who came in privately to spy out our liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage.

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This word bondage, if Paul is saying they intend to bring us into bondage, then it must mean,

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Fred, that we are out of bondage. Bill, what kind of bondage is he referring to in the fourth verse?

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I think he's referring to bondage of being under the law. All right. Okay. And we're free from the observance of the law except in Christ.

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Does not mean we're free from trying to, or living a

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Christian life, but no longer is the law demanded in our life.

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End of bondage. I thought quite a bit about this, and he makes it very clear that they wanted to make the law active again in everybody's life.

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Then I looked at the church of today, and I see much the same thing in so many churches.

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By the way, I must read you something. Bryan, Texas.

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Solidity is not part of one Southwest Texas preacher's plan to gather more people around his flock.

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Every Sunday morning, the Reverend Rick Sebastian cruises around the missions, cheap motels, and housing projects of Bryan in a big blue bus emblazoned with this plea.

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We will pay you $10 to come to church in this bus. So a new way of getting church members has just been opened up.

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Bondage. Maybe the people of today are not pushing for the law, per se, but they are slipping into the church sideways and bringing their own theology with them.

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Little by little, they come in one by one. Until the church is more strict on its members, it'll always be this way.

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Ever since I can remember being raised in a Baptist church,

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I saw no difficulty in joining our little church. Seemed as though to me, of course

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I was very young when I first took notice of it, but anybody that wanted to join, all they had to do is say so.

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And they had just as much right to vote as my father did. So I think we're instructed in the scripture to be very particular who joins in the earthly church.

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But they come little by little, implementing that for which they stand. Well, there's one thing wrong with that, and it is that it is wrong.

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The blood -bought church of Jesus Christ is the only church that is real here on earth.

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Now there's lots of organizations call themselves a church, themselves a church, that are not a church in our definition.

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Going back to Paul, there were three factions in the Jerusalem church.

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There was Paul and Barnabas. They claimed and preached that the gospel belonged to the

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Gentile without circumcision, without the law. The Judaizers were there.

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These had accepted Jesus humanly, and they had to accept him to do that.

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But they knew nothing of the salvation through the blood. They didn't understand that.

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Then there were some of the apostles that were being urged by the false Christians to have

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Paul and Barnabas teach that the Gentiles must be circumcised. So the first church had their problems.

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Paul goes on to say that these people, wanting to speak in the church, their meeting was perhaps a little different than ours has always been, at least in the last hundred years.

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In the first church, anyone could stand and speak if recognized from the front and could say what was on their mind.

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So the Judaizers were doing that. Paul says in verse 5,

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To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you.

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He said they wanted to get up and talk and we would not listen because we knew their theology was wrong, their doctrine was wrong, their purpose was wrong.

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Everything that they were doing was for their own gain and own benefit. And he says don't do that.

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Paul says not to allow any person to speak in church if they do not believe the blood bought way.

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It's far too much time given to discussions today that should never have time for discussion.

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And for me to sit here and name them would violate the old principles that I've just mentioned.

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We don't have to learn all about the untruth and the cultism and all of that. All we have to know is the truth.

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Verse 6, But of these who seem to be somewhat. Brother David, that always kind of amused me.

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He's talking about the apostles. And two or three of them seem to be the leaders.

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And Paul, of course Paul did not know them personally before this visit.

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He said but of those who seem to be somewhat, whatsoever they were it makes no matter to me.

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God accepteth no man's person. He stated an awesome truth.

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For they who seem to be somewhat in conference. They added nothing to me.

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Yes. That's right.

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That's right. I don't know if it's so good either.

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Paul felt like it made no difference to him who they claim to be. That was between them and God.

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He goes on to say God accepteth no man's person. Let me give you the

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Greek of what it literally says. God accepts no face of any man.

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Makes it more personal. He shows no partiality because of a man's natural abilities.

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Well, Fred, that's rather amazing. If he's made you a certain natural abilities, why wouldn't he show partiality to you?

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All right. So a person that has established a great reputation in the music world and has good talent and everything, can they at the point of salvation say, now

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I'm going to use my talent for God? Why? We all come to God with nothing.

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Not even that which we thought we had. He shows no partiality because of his position, his possessions, his office, in or out of the church.

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And neither should we. But we do. Unconsciously we do.

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Unknowingly. Maybe unknowingly instead of unconscious. Some of us are...

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Well, even though our preacher asks us to do a certain thing, are we to do it simply because he asks us?

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Or tells us? Now don't be afraid of your preacher.

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I didn't hear you. All right.

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Brother Barney and this man here is the only people in whose presence I could make that statement.

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I would have been run out long before I was. We are to do it because the

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Lord asks us to. The leader, the teacher, the preacher, whoever might suggest it and that might be the trigger, the catalyst.

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So if we have the conviction in our heart the preacher is right, then we should follow through.

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Do nothing because you're persuaded to do it. Turn to Romans 14, 23.

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Bill, read that please. As he that boweth his down, if he eateth for whatsoever is not of faith, is sin.

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Look at the last part of that verse. Whatever is not of faith is sin.

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The first part Paul was referring to eating meat that had been offered to idols.

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Well, he was talking specifically about roast beef. We can apply it to anything.

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If we do something not out of faith means we do it out with doubt.

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That's a sin. You're to do nothing with doubt. If you doubt it, don't do it until you can determine for sure.

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Do you understand that? I'll get no reaction.

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Yes. God shows a personal favor.

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I was just thinking here the other day. He brought to me the thought that often we hear and often we use the word but judge not unless you be judged in the sense of not dealing with sin and actions of sin and sin in the community or our own

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Christian behavior. So we don't make a stand or a statement using that passage to judge not unless you be judged.

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Doesn't this passage kind of reflect that really the judgment that they're talking to in this other passage and also here is that you don't look at their position as a worldview that whether they're rich or poor or whether they're black or white or whether they're perfectly stable.

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That's right. We've grown up in a world in a society that has always shown favoritism but that doesn't make it right.

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When we do, we're operating in the carnal. Thank you,

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Clarence. I meant to bring a lock again.

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I think I did last time we were at this place. Padlock. Everybody knows what a padlock looks like.

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Suppose you have one in your hand. You put it through the hasp and you snap it shut.

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What does it take to open it? Why? All right.

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We are like that padlock. We can snap it shut and it'll lock itself.

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We sin because we want to but we cannot get out of it without the key of what?

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Confession. See, he's telling you to leave him alone.

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He knows what it is. All right.

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Padlock. We're a lot like the padlock. We can run into sin and boy, when we do, Arthur, we're locked.

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We cannot get out of it without that key of confession. How many of you ever snapped a padlock shut?

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How many have not? Joy never has. Fred, when you get home, get her a padlock.

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Then she'll understand what we're talking about. She lost the key to it. All right, verse 7.

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But Contrawise, Contrawise, when they saw that the gospel of uncircumcision was committed unto me as the gospel of circumcision was unto

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Peter, for he that wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me toward the

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Gentiles. And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, again he says seemed to be, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go unto the heathen and they unto the circumcision.

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Only they would that we should remember the poor. The same which

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I also was forward to do. Paul says I've been doing that anyhow. They would that we should remember the poor.

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Well, that's true. And they knew that. Or they do now, certainly after visiting.

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And you're to remember that. I think it also means whoever the Lord puts you in front of, wherever you are, whatever you are, wherever you find yourself, he gives us nothing to ignore.

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And he is the one that guides all circumstances, puts us where we are at any given moment. He not only has put us there, he's put the other people there.

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And if he brought them into our vision, and they need help, then we're to do something.

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It might be that we only know where to go get the help. Doesn't necessarily mean that we personally have to do it.

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We should if we could. But there's some things that we run across that we have no resources.

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But we certainly can pray and strengthen them and try our best to find some way to help them.

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That's what I think it means. They said,

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OK, well, you can go out and speak to the Gentiles, but remember our people back here. Ultimately, he said they had a situation where they wanted,

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OK, well, you can establish churches, but they need to be circumcised.

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And then even when the first disciples were established, the reason behind that was because the widows of the

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Gentiles were being neglected. Yes, that was what they said.

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The disciples, I'm sorry, I think, they were first established because of the widows of the

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Gentiles being neglected. So Paul has quite a bit to go against these types of things that he's pointing out that he's got this mission.

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Not you, and all that you have here underlines what is in the agendas.

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This is what I'm going to do because this is God's work. That's certainly true.

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I thought of something real good while you was talking, and I forgot it. Fred? Brother, it seems to me, and I think

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I'm thinking exactly what you're saying, that if where you are, and among those that you're working with, that you want to work with, but there is something about you that hinders them from allowing you to be effective, then you should conform yourself to them so that they would benefit by your efforts for them.

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Isn't that what he's saying? All right. In other words, as a Gentile... That's true to a certain point.

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I had an opportunity several years ago to spend quite a bit of time with a group of Catholics, and it is my belief that Otis Fisher, in that situation, needed to and did become as much a

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Catholic as his Christian principles would allow him to. I did not agree with them, and I told them that, but they listened to a whole lot that I had to say, and they were hungry to hear the word.

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So I think you're right. I hesitate a little at the word conform to them, but we should become as much one of them as our

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Christian doctrine and principles will allow us to without violating any of that. And certainly

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Jesus himself come from the highest position in creation and became one of us.

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Now just think about the tremendous step down that that required, and he came and became one of us, yet he was not one of us, because he was

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God. Yet he appeared among us, he looked like us, he talked like we did, we should follow the same path.

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Your point's well taken. Now, where are we?

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I was looking at a reference. Yes. In Acts 11 .9,

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I wasn't going to say it, but I was going to say it. In Acts 11 .9, it says, when it is time to send relief unto the brethren which dealt in Judea, I have listened to your explanation.

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I kind of got the idea that he was saying the church that they originally belonged to, it was important that they remember the needs of that church.

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And just like we join a church or are a part of that church, and God has made you part of it, and yet you are on your, he sends you wherever in your travels,

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I think they were asked, and because you are, he gives us the day there, we may be out and see some of the needs, but remember that's not your church or God's.

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I think that's kind of what I think he was saying. I could be wrong, but this reference shows that these disciples determined in their hearts that they were going to send back relief to the brethren that they dealt with originally.

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That's right, because they knew the situation. Anything he causes us to know, we are not to ignore.

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I think that every church should have come from another church, and the church from which you come should be remembered.

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That's the way it is with individual members. I think that's the way it should be with the body of a church.

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For someone to go out and start a church because they're angry at somebody else, and they just go start their own,

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I cannot see that, and I would not want to be a party of that. And there's been lots of churches in this town organized that very way, and they're not very successful.

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They may have great numbers, but they're not very successful. Mrs. O 'Hare is that one person?

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Well, it seems like it's a lot of damage. It sure does. And if you and I had been running it, we'd have done something different, wouldn't we?

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I'm glad you're not running it. But when Peter was come to Antioch, I withstood him to the face because he was to blame.

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He was to be blamed. He reviews that for us, for before that certain came from James, from the home church in Jerusalem, they sent a committee down to Antioch to check on everything.

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And before they came, Peter was eating with the Gentiles. Now, this was after he'd had his vision, and the

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Lord told him that everything was available. He could eat anything. And if he had not had that experience with the

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Lord, he would not have been able to communicate with these Gentiles. Well, it got to the point that he was eating with the

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Gentiles, which in our eyes was perfectly fine. But when the entourage from the first church in Jerusalem showed up, but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision.

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David, what's it mean he was fear? He feared them. And he wanted to remain part of that.

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He didn't want to offend them. And the other

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Jews dissembled themselves with him in so much that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation.

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Even Barnabas followed. Peter was showing fear of the men from the first church.

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And Paul says this is wrong. And he called him on it. Paul didn't fear the men of the first church or anybody else.

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So I would say, never be afraid to stand for that which you believe. Be sure you believe it and stand for it.

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But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto

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Peter before them all, if thou, being a Jew, livest after the man of the

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Gentiles and not as do the Jews, why compelst thou the Gentiles to live as do the

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Jews? We who are Jews by nature and not sinners of the

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Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ.

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Whose faith is it? It's his faith. Even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith of Christ and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

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What's he mean that by the works of the law no flesh shall be justified?

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Generate your salvation. You cannot earn your salvation.

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All right. But what, you can't earn it. Is that what he meant by the flesh?

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The flesh is your self, the person of the spirit.

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You can't be made better. Okay. Is he saying that you can keep the law by the flesh?

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David, what do you think? That's right.

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He's saying you can keep all the laws because you can keep the law only in the flesh. And there is nothing of the flesh that can please

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God, even if he has set down the rules that the flesh must follow, which he did. But there is no way.

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Man, it is utterly impossible for man to be justified of himself or by keeping the law or by anything of the flesh.

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Remember, again I say it. God accepts nothing except it originate with him.

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Commit that to memory and to practice. But if while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore

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Christ the minister of sin? Says God, forbid such a thing.

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You can never influence anyone for Christ as long as you join them in their lifestyle.

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I'm reminded of an incident where a man and a woman was so burdened for her husband because he would not go to church.

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As far as she could determine, he was not saved. He liked to run around at night and he was always going down to the beer hall and everything.

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And she was just heartbroken. She cried all the time. Every morning at breakfast, she'd sit and cry.

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And every evening at supper time, that's all she could think about and she'd just weep.

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Finally, she got the idea that if that other kind of woman is what he liked, then she'd dress like that other kind of woman.

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And she did. And he couldn't understand it.

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He said, if I wanted a woman like that, I would have married one of them. And at the same time,

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Fred, the thought come to me as I was listening to that, how would you like to sit across the table at every meal from a crying woman?

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No way. No way. They finally worked out their differences and she began to love the man and to show it.

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And it worked. So don't think you can join in their lifestyle and win them and you young ladies, don't think you're going to marry a man and then change him.

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Because I know some men it'd be impossible to change. And it doesn't work that way.

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Same way as the men. For if I build again the things which

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I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. If I go back and I try to go back into the old way, then

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I myself am a transgressor. To revert to the things that I did before salvation, I am become a sinner.

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And that's impossible. You can never be a sinner again. I hope you understand the word sinner.

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Now you sin, but that doesn't make you a sinner. You were a sinner before salvation.

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For I through the law am dead to the law that I might live under God.

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So let me ask you, did the law die to you?

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Well, there was a death. Whose was it? Well, Christ died.

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Our old self died. We died to the law. The law did not die to us.

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That's why it keeps trying to get us to go back to it. But we died in Christ at his death.

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That was the death that broke the bond servant relationship to Satan. That's right.

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That the law of Christ might be fulfilled and was fulfilled and is fulfilled.

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Paul says in 20, I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. Yet not

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I, but Christ liveth in me. Now, I am crucified.

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Present tense. Right now. I am right now crucified with Christ. But I'm alive.

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Arthur, he's saying, I am dead, but I'm alive. Now that seems like an oxymoron.

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Can't be. And the life which I now live in the flesh,

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I live by the faith of the Son of God. Again, it points to his faith. And my life is not my life.

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It's the life of Christ that is alive in me. I live by the faith of the

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Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me to please the

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Heavenly Father. Christ lives in me, not through me.

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What's the difference, David? Well, through would mean if your body was his conduit and he was living through you in me.

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All right. Which way would we have responsibility and the other way we would not?

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If Jesus lived through you, then you have no responsibility. That's right. So he says,

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I live, he lives in me. Watch those little words.

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21, I do not frustrate the grace of God, for if righteousness come by the law, then

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Christ is dead in vain. He didn't need to die. If God loves everybody, then he must be very disappointed.

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Jesus must be very frustrated and the Holy Spirit feels very dejected if God loves everybody.

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All right, that brings us to the close of chapter two, and we'll start three next time.

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But before we disband, Virge, come up here, will you please give everybody one of those.

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I have a question for you. You'll see it. I want you to pick one of those statements and write at least one paragraph on the idea of what would the outcome be if it were like this.

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And you can pick any one of them you want. Don't try to write on all of them. Write on one of them.

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You can write on the same paper if you want to and turn it back in next week.

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But I want you to be sure, I want to be sure that you understand that if any one of these were true,

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I want to know what the consequences would be. So pick out whichever one you would like to, and I cannot make you do this, it's all voluntary, but it helps me a lot in my teaching.

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Any questions? Next week.

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This same time next week. Same station next week.

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Did you get one? Does everyone have one?

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Did you say in 500 words or less? No. I said in a thousand words or less.

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No, just write, I would hope it would be more than a sentence, I don't know how you could get it all down into one sentence, but do whatever you think you can and to fully explain the consequences of God loves everybody, or any one of them.

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Prayer changes God. What would be the outcome of that? I've heard a lot of sermons.

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I have too. I've heard a lot of them.

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Anything else intelligent to discuss? Sure has to be here.

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Well let's stand together, and Bill, would you dismiss us please? Marianne.