The Gospel-Uncompromised

I've never gotten used to that, so we can leave that off to the side. I 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, uh-oh, this is going to 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 we're stunned that others that we thought we 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 recognition of what's definitional and what is important, but primary, secondary issues and then those things that are called the Adiaphora, 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 the 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 had 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, or 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? Or 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. It could not have been an overly joyous morning in those churches. The people that are being discussed, the people who are causing distortion, were sitting in the congregation and everybody knew exactly who they were.

I would imagine, since I'm a Baptist, they were going to 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 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.

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 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 pseudedelphoi.

Pseudedelphoi. We all know Adelphos in Greek. We know Philadelphia, the city of massive crime. I mean city of brotherly love. Badly named these days, but you know those terms. Philadelphia, love of the brethren.

But here it's pseudo-false Adelphoi. Pseudedelphoi. 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 has 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, 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. And so they snuck in to bring us into bondage. But we did not yield in subjection to them for even an hour. Why? So that the truth of the gospel might remain with you. So that the truth of the gospel might remain with you.

No matter what else you do with these words, you have to understand that 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 in 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 communicatable from generation to generation.

And Paul says, these false brethren, it was their intention. See, 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 going to be smiling. Oh, he's got the most perfect smile in the world. It's almost blinding. And he's going to tell all those people about how much God loves them, and they're going to, 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 going to be challenged about their sin. They're not going to 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 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. And you're all like, right. 175 debates, you don't like conflict, right? No, I don't.

That is a weakness of mine. Any person who's involved in ministry should recognize where their weaknesses are. 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 want to see conflict in the church, and I don't want to have to, sometimes 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 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 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 dividing line, the thing that identified who the false brethren were, it was the very gospel itself. It was the very gospel itself. Now, I said I wanted to contrast things, and 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, Now I want you to know, brethren, 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.

This can't happen here. This is the United States of America. We've got the Constitution. We've got our flag and 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, it was good that they went.

It was good that they went. They weren't doing what Caesar told them to do, you see. And now that same nation has said, did you know that that law that they passed in Canada, that if you take someone outside of Canada, come here to the United States, receive counsel to help someone, they don't want the feeling of same-sex attraction or 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 for up to five years for doing that.

Arrested and jailed. 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. It's astonishing.

It's astonishing. So, we hear of Paul's imprisonment and all of a sudden it means something a little bit more than it did just a matter of months ago. He says, my imprisonment, so my imprisonment in the cause of Christ has become well known throughout the whole Praetorian Guard and to 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 trusting in Paul when he's stuck in the husko, have far more courage to speak the word of God without fear.

Oh, that's great. I would want to hear that. If 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 would 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 am 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 out of 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 were people in Galatia that did.

Doesn't really seem to be 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 tension.

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 the text.

Actually, the reality is there are places of tension because you're addressing different subjects and different contexts. 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 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 may be a problem with your thinking that the Bible is somehow written by automatic writing, where God just turns you into a zombie, and you write out stuff.

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 going to 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 were 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, and 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 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 is not that there were not bad motivations involved. There are bad motivations there, right in Philippians 1.

They're proclaiming Christ out 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 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 of 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 realize that, you know, two weeks later, the pastor would preach a sermon that in comparison to the 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? 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, running 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 5 ,000 people in the auditorium, you've got a 250-voice choir and a full orchestra, let me tell you, everybody knows who to blame.

And it's you who runs sound. And we, who ran sound, we had to work with the soloists. And we even joked amongst ourselves we were going to have T-shirts made that said, more me on it. Because the soloists, we'd always be down front, more me in the full back, please.

And we'd sort of reach over and air adjust. Actually, we weren't touching anything, but they didn't know that. And because we didn't want more me or more them in the mix at all, it wasn't going to work.

So we observed the egos. But that doesn't change the fact that there could be people who were truly impacted in those services by the beauty of the worship and everything else. But we knew, sitting up there behind the board, they didn't really have the best motivations.

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 can look at this and go, man, 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's the dividing line. There's 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 going to 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 going to say something's a gospel issue, it really needs to be a gospel issue. And when Paul says to 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's 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 at the same time, 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 construction zones. And I'm going through there, I'm 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 going to happen.

And somehow we get past each other. But there's these constraints, 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 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 going to get out my big Galatians 1 theological gun, and I'm going to shoot you with the anathema.

And it happens all the time. We see people, I can't tell you how many times I've been anathematized. It happens regularly. And so 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 lets 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. Got to have balance. We have to remain, we have to stand firm, but we have to be balanced. If you're going to 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. Lord, 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.

Amen.