The Gospel-Uncompromised

I've never gotten used to that so we we can we can leave that off to the side appreciate it all right if you'll turn in your

Bibles with me to Galatians chapter 1 if you know your

Pauline epistles you just probably said oh this is gonna be a fire -breathing sermon but not necessarily

I want to do something again a little unusual this morning and compare and contrast two texts from the

Apostle Paul and hopefully by doing so grow in our understanding of God's truth and especially how we are to live to glorify

Christ in these very trying and difficult days certainly we are facing challenges that we have never faced before we are facing alignments that we could not have imagined only a few years ago as we've gathered for these 21 years together we are applauding individuals that we never thought we'd be applauding and were stunned that others that we thought we would be would be supportive of for example our

Christian freedoms are not and this has led as we looked at in Sunday school to some interesting divisions and so one thing that I think requires

Christian maturity over time is how do we deal with issues of division and a recognition of what's definitional and what is important but primary secondary issues and then those things that are called the

Adi Afra the things that do not matter and I think we are given a lot of direction in Scripture so notice with me the beginning of the epistle to the

Galatians is unlike any other work in the entirety of the New Testament when you compare this epistle with Ephesians or Philippians or Thessalonian correspondence the

Corinthian correspondence Romans obviously you find that and there is a theory and I think there's good reason for it you get to the end of the epistle and Paul says look what large letters

I've used to write to you it may be that Paul actually wrote Galatians himself there seems to be some discussion there certainly is discussion of Paul possibly having eye issues and yet he wanted to write this epistle himself rather than using an amanuensis a scribe as he often did a number of times he mentions who his scribe was and he dictated the letter the point is that the introduction is extremely short and it is not like many of the others you compare it with Philippians or things like that and it's not gentle it goes by rather quickly and immediately in verse 6 you get into the substance of the letter

I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel which is really not another only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ for even though we are an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you let him be accursed as we have said before so say

I now again if any man is preaching you a gospel contrary to that which you received let him be accursed for am

I now seeking the favor of men or of God where am I striving to please men if I were still trying to please men

I would not be a bondservant of Christ you have to for a moment imagine what it was like that first Lord's Day morning when this letter arrived from the

Apostle Paul and was read in the churches in Galatia more than one church this is an area obviously that this is being sent to I could not have been an overly joyous morning in those churches the people that are being discussed the people who are causing distortion we're sitting in the congregation and everybody knew exactly who they were

I would imagine since I'm a Baptist they were gonna have a potluck that afternoon of course

I doubt many people ate much

I think most of the mac and cheese and fried chicken went home untouched that day

Paul will say that he's writing with tears and yet he also is writing with tremendous passion

I remember when I debated Barry Lynn I don't know if any of you remember Barry Lynn he was he passed away you know how you're getting old you start going through the

I've done 175 moderated public debates in my career since 1990 and what's really interesting is the list of people that I've debated who are now dead is growing longer all the time and sadly just this week

I did a debate with dr. Greg Strawbridge only a few years ago he was younger than me and he suddenly passed away this week and Barry Lynn has passed away as well and Marcus Borg passed away and Bishop John Shelby Spong passed away and it is different to think of Christians you debated passing away and then those who you know were not

Christians passing away that is interesting but when

I quoted from the book of Galatians in my debate with Barry Lynn on homosexuality in 2001

I believe that's what prompted him to say that Paul was over -the -top in Galatians and to claim that he as the

United Church of Christ minister was just as inspired as Paul and therefore he could reject what Paul said in the epistle to the

Galatians there are no epistles there's no place else in the

New Testament I suppose Matthew 23 might be similar but there is no epistle that has as strong a language as you will find here in Galatians 1 and in Galatians 5 where the

Apostle uses very very very strong language and many people find it just beyond the pale it's beyond what we can accept of course most of those folks have never read any of the

Reformation debates especially those involving Martin Luther who made both Paul and everybody else pale in the language that was used in a few of those correspondences but very clearly we have in chapter 1 a laying out of what this book is going to be about and there are people in the churches in Galatia who are preaching another gospel not just a different version not just a different understanding not just something with a little bit of a different emphasis but a different gospel that's what verse 6 says and they are deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ it's really not another gospel you're being disturbed it's a distortion and it brings about the anathema the curse of God now that is very very very strong language but it doesn't just stop there look at chapter 2 in discussing the issue of circumcision verse 3 but not even

Titus who is with me though he was a Greek was compelled to be circumcised but it was because of the

Pseudo Delphoi Pseudo Delphoi we all know Adelphos in Greek we know

Philadelphia the city of massive crime I mean city of brotherly love that badly named these days but you know those terms

Philadelphia love of the brethren but here it's Pseudo false

Adelphoi Pseudo Delphoi false brethren it was because of the false brethren who had sneaked in to spy out our

Liberty remember when this epistle is read in the church they are sitting right there everybody knows who

Paul is talking about and he has not said here the confused brothers he's not said here the brothers with wrong motives he is literally saying that there are people who are pretending to be what they're not they are false brethren it was because of the false brethren who had sneaked in I want to say snuck there

I'm not sure if I'm agreeing with the new American standard who had sneaked in to spy out our

Liberty which we have in Christ Jesus so see there they're spying something out that they don't know they don't have

Liberty in Christ Jesus these are not believers but they're sitting in the congregation they sang the songs they may have been sorry guys they may have been in the worship group leading the music maybe they passed the plates they were part of the fellowship

Oh Paul you're being divisive but look what he's being divisive about our

Liberty which we have in Christ Jesus in order to bring us into bondage that sounds pretty important in order to bring us into bondage they have a purpose there's a reason why they have entered into the fellowship with a false gospel which is not really a gospel at all it brings a curse they snuck in to bring us into bondage but we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour why so the truth of the gospel might remain with you so the truth the gospel might remain with you no matter what else you do with these words you have to understand but for the

Apostle Paul as he wrote to the churches in Galatia he saw this issue as being about the very truth of the gospel and that if there was compromise even for a moment even for an hour the truth of the gospel would be lost and would not remain with those believers in the churches in Galatia those are difficult words they're difficult words because we live in a day where there is so much diversity not just an expression of the

Christian faith but so much diversity in what calls itself the Christian faith that the very idea that there is a gospel truth that there is a truth of the gospel that can be known that has been abandoned by a large portion of those who call themselves

Christian leaders and ministers in our world today I hate to have to tell you that but in a large portion of Bible colleges and seminaries it is wishful thinking to think that there is a truth of the gospel that is discernible defendable and communicable from generation to generation and Paul says these false brethren it was their intention see once as long as the truth of the gospel is still clearly known then there will be liberty in Christ Jesus and we will not be able to be brought into bondage so the first thing you've got to deal with is bring confusion you've got to get rid of the truth of the gospel and once you have done that well how do you get rid of it how do you get rid of something like the truth of the gospel

I would say to you one of the most effective ways I have ever seen this done in our day is with a false gospel a false gospel that appeals to man appeals to our pride appeals to our sinful desires there are churches in our land today that have gathered today and they're the size of sports stadiums in fact one of them

I'm thinking of is a former sports stadium and there has been lively music and there are many important people in the community in attendance and when a man gets up in that room he's gonna be smiling oh he's got the most perfect smile in the world it's almost blinding and he's gonna tell all those people about how much

God loves them and they're gonna if they just listen to what he has to say and put a fair amount of money in the offering plate as it goes by they can have their best life now and they're never gonna be challenged about their sin they're not gonna be told well sin is just simply missing

God's greater purpose for your life not taking up your cross and denying yourself not putting to death your sin and being at battle with it each week no

God wants you to be successful rich healthy in all things that is bondage those people in that room are being placed under bondage because the truth of the gospel is not being presented to them they're being placed they're being encouraged in their bondage to their flesh and to their sin do you see how that is and Paul says we did not go down that road despite the false brethren and the temptations that false brethren bring to us many of us want to be at peace we don't want we don't want warfare we don't want difficulty can't we all just get along right so the easy thing to do is if they dress like us they sing like us they talk like us they use our language let's not worry about the content of the message let's just all get along there is a great temptation to go that direction believe it or not

I don't like conflict you're all like right 175 debates you don't like conflict right no

I don't that is that is a weakness of mine any person who's involved in ministry should recognize where their weaknesses are if you don't if you don't think about that you're a foolish person and I would say that's an area of weakness

I don't I don't want to see conflict in the church and I don't want to have to some sometimes

I'm just gonna I have to be forced into dealing with certain of those issues because it's easier let me tell you something difficulties in the church discipline issues holiness issues even when you have to you know excommunicate someone man it sucks the life out of any minister divisions oh

I can't tell you how many former seminary graduates work in IT today because of division and difficulty in the church it's true and so we have to be encouraged here we have to see the the apostolic example and we have to recognize if you look around and you don't see who the false brethren are then you don't have much of an ability at discernment but what was in Galatia the the dividing line the thing that identified who the false brethren were it was the very gospel itself it was very gospel itself

I said I want to contrast things I do turn over with me to Philippians chapter 1 because you see you can read

Galatians chapter 1 and everything I just said I believe but I also know that there are people who can read

Galatians chapter 1 and they develop a mindset and an attitude that they then import into all sorts of other aspects of how we deal with fellow believers and so you'll notice beginning in verse 12

I want you to know brother that my circumstances turned out for the greater progress of the gospel so that my imprisonment my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole praetorian guard and everyone else and that most of the brethren trusting in the

Lord because of my imprisonment have far more courage to speak the

Word of God without fear Wow I'll have to admit until recent days most of us would have to admit the entire idea of imprisonment was far far from our thoughts can't happen here this is this is the

United States of America we've got the Constitution we've got our flag we've got our guns and then we saw pastors just a bit north of us going to jail and we had a lot of Christians going well was good that they went good they went they weren't doing what

Caesar told him to do you see and now that same nation has said if did you know that that law that they passed in Canada that if you take someone outside of Canada come here the

United States receive counsel to help someone they don't want the feeling of same -sex attraction or they they they're dealing with gender dysphoria and if you take them out of Canada to receive counsel to remain in their

God -assigned gender or to remain in an appropriate sexual desire situation and you come back to Canada even if the act took place outside of Canada you can be arrested and jailed up to five years for doing that and remember something folks that passed without a single dissenting vote not one there was not a single person in elected office that voted on that bill that said no so we hear of Paul's imprisonment and all of a sudden it means something a little bit more than it did just a few a matter of months ago he says my imprisonment so my imprisonment the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole praetorian guard and everyone else and that most of the brethren notice he said most most of the brethren trusting the

Lord because of my imprisonment can't be trusted in Paul when he's stuck in the who's go have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear that's great

I would want to hear that they come for me and take me away from my family stick me in prison for what

I'm preaching I would like to receive word that others have taken my place and are even more emboldened to do so that would be great that'd be wonderful but then we have this some to be sure are preaching

Christ even from envy and strife but some also from goodwill the latter do it out of love knowing that I have appointed for the defense of the gospel the former proclaim

Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives thinking to cause me distress in my imprisonment

I've always found this so strange why would these people do this why would they think they would be causing

Paul distress in his imprisonment by preaching

Christ Paul knows they're doing it I was selfish ambition so evidently it must have been some of the people who opposed

Paul we know that there were people in Corinth that did obviously there are people in Galatia that did doesn't really seem to be of any faction in Philippi that did but maybe he's referring to other places but they are literally proclaiming

Christ out of selfish ambition rather than from pure motives what then verse 18 only that in every way whether in pretense or in truth

Christ is proclaimed and in this I rejoice yes and I will rejoice how do you put this together with what we read in Galatians chapter 1

I sense a attention that was the that was the term that was used when

I was in seminary I went to a seminary that was far to my left and when they wanted to try to avoid saying contradiction they said there's a tension in attacks no actually the reality is there are places of tension because you're addressing different subjects and different contexts and sure there are places where you have to think through some challenging things

I don't think there's a contradiction here I don't think Paul's being inconsistent but we do have to recognize the language that Paul uses when writing the

Philippians is joy -filled it's completely different than what you have in Galatians people have even recognized that when you translate

Galatians and if you translate Philippians Galatians is choppy there are times

Paul just skips over the verb which you can do in Greek he's he's in a rush it's very very different the person who wrote

Galatians was in a different frame of mind than the person who wrote Philippians and if you have a problem with that it's it may be a problem with your thinking that the

Bible is somehow written by automatic writing where God just sort of just turns you into a zombie and you're right out so oh look at that a letter to the

Philippians isn't that wonderful and you didn't even know no men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

Holy Spirit and one thing we learned in the Psalter there are

Psalms of great rejoicing and happiness and then there are some Psalms that you really don't want to read when you're in a bad mood because you're gonna get even darker there are some

Psalms that don't even end with the resolution of the suffering of the psalmist and so obviously when it says men spoke from God as they're carried along by the

Holy Spirit that means in God's providence there were times when they spoke out of suffering and out of sadness and out of grief in times of joy and rejoicing as well and so Philippians and Galatians are very different books and so there is a difference between them and so we keep we keep that in mind that's something you factor in but you will notice that verse 17 of Philippians chapter 1 says they are proclaiming

Christ and so I would suggest to you the primary difference between Galatians 1 and Philippians 1 it's not that there were not bad motivations involved there are bad motivations there right in Philippians 1 they are there they're proclaiming

Christ of selfish ambition they don't have pure motives so there are people who proclaim the truth and they've got the wrong motives for proclaiming the truth but it's still the truth my old fellow elder for over 20 years years and years ago

I remember it was the first is back in the late 80s when I first attended that church he used an illustration a terminology that I think works really really well

I think it says something that's very very important he says never forget God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick

God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick and I'm really thankful he can do that because we're all in reality crooked sticks and I think back over my

Christian experience and especially in those really formative late teen years

I remember the church we went to at that time I remember the pastor that church preaching some sermons that were just it was like heaven came down it was worshipful it was awesome

I think of one experience where the minister of music in that church it was the first time

I ever heard Don Francisco's song he's alive I don't know if any of you know that song but you might hear it a lot at Easter and it was a large church had a 250 voice choir and a full orchestra and when he got to that last part he's alive the choir stands up the lights come on the orchestra comes in I've got goosebumps right now remembering just wow how incredible that was in the years since then looking back at my naive young age

I now realize there were some real problems there and I realized that you know two weeks later the pastor preach a sermon that in comparison to two weeks before was a real clinker theologically speaking and I've learned stuff about the music ministry in the years since I was there that just if I had hair would curl it but you know what

I those were still really formative spiritual experiences and yes looking back and going oh wow you learn from that and you but it doesn't change the reality that God used that now

I learned a lot of that when I ran sound I've told you before writing sound is the most thankless job in a church if you do it perfectly no one even knows you exist and will never say thank you you do anything wrong even if it isn't your fault and everybody knows where to look that's just the reality and when you've got a you've got 5 ,000 people in the auditorium you got 250 voice choir and a full orchestra let me tell you everybody knows who to blame and it's you who runs run sound and we who ran sound we had to work with the soloists and we even joked amongst ourselves we're gonna have t -shirts made that said more me on it because the soloists we always be down front more me in the full back please and we're we'd sort of reach over and air air adjust actually it weren't touching anything but they didn't know that and because we didn't want more me or more them in the in the mix at all it was it wasn't gonna work so we we observed the the egos it hasn't changed the fact that there could be people who were truly impacted in those services by the beauty of the worship and everything else it but we knew sitting up there behind the board they didn't really have the best motivations you know so you learn that after a while they didn't really have pure motives but God can draw a straight line with a crooked stick and he does it all the time because there's no one who's ever stood behind this pulpit that had absolutely perfect pure motives we're all being sanctified and so they really didn't have pure motives because they thought that they would cause

Paul distress in his imprisonment by their proclaiming of Christ but the point is the difference between Philippians and Galatians is that while they're not having pure motives the motives of the false brethren were to bring the people into bondage these people aren't trying to bring people into bondage we we can look at this and go man this is this is these people are shallow these guys are making proclamation of Christ out of selfish ambition that's shallow but they're not perverting the gospel and they're not trying to bring people into bondage and there is the dividing line there is the difference between the two and that's where we have to have maturity today

I have used the phrase and you have to this is a gospel issue well my friends it better be a gospel issue if you're gonna say it's a gospel issue it can't just be this is really important to me this is really important to my tradition no if you're gonna say something's a gospel issue it really needs to be a gospel issue when

Paul says the churches in Galatia the truth of the gospel is at stake it was it was are there gospel issues that we are dealing with today you better believe it a couple weeks ago

I preached a sermon on January 16th we joined with our

Canadian brothers and I preached on God's law regarding human sexuality and if you cannot define what sin is any longer then you don't need a sin -bearer there's a cross on the wall over there and there is a meaning to that cross from the

Christian perspective it has to do that's where the love of God and the wrath of God meet in perfection but if you have no basis for the wrath of God that just simply becomes an empty symbol and so there are gospel issues that we cannot compromise on today but on the same at the same time you know the

Bible frequently gives us the dangers of both sides I certainly have learned driving my

RV you get into those construction zones especially in Texas oh goodness they love these narrow narrow narrow construction zones and I'm going through there

I'm 44 44 feet long 13 feet high and I weigh 16 ,000 pounds and here comes a semi coming the other direction and it's just like this is not gonna happen and somehow we get past each other but there's these constraints these these concrete barriers on both sides and you just don't have much of a margin for error and the scripture warns us you can't you can't deny the gospel you can't do that which would redefine the gospel but on the other side on the other side there is a real temptation for us to take that exhortation and now everybody who disagrees with us everybody who doesn't look like us that's a gospel issue and I'm gonna get out my big

Galatians 1 theological gun and I'm gonna shoot you with the anathema and it happens all the time we see people

I've been I can't tell you how many times I've been anathematized it happens regularly and so we want it we want to recoil from that well

I don't want to be one of those people I don't want to be one of those people we have to have balance and in our day it is very very easy to start losing that balance because when you're always pulling one direction when you're playing tug -of -war you will not remain balanced you know how you prove that the other side let's go what happens to you you fall backwards because you're not balanced and when we're always pulling against one side we have to recognize we have to always be looking

I need to be careful because there might be some enemies behind me there might be a pit right behind me gotta have balance we have to remain we have to be stand firm but we have to balanced if you're gonna say it's a gospel issue make sure it really is a gospel issue

God will bless that we can't abandon those things but at the same time we have to watch our own hearts because it's so easy to grab hold of that stuff and to become brittle and angry in how we present the gospel let's think about these things and ask the

Lord to bless us as we seek to be faithful to him father we thank you that your word gives us direction and warning in our day we must stand firm we must not compromise but Lord at the same time let us not become brittle backbiting individuals that divide over every little thing or it's a balance and we confess we do not always walk the line properly give us grace give us guidance let us listen to others let us stand firm as lights in a dark world and yet those who are gracious all under the leading of your spirit in your scriptures we pray in Christ's name