Walking in the Gospel

Brandon Fisher

 

I’m happy to be here this morning.  I’m always so excited to be able to serve you in this way.  My name is Brandon, I’m the youth pastor.  If you’re new to Keystone today, I want to say, “Welcome,” we’re glad you’re here.  If you’re new to Keystone within the last few months, and there are a lot of you, I’m glad you’re here too. 

 

Would you just do me a favor?  If you’ve been attending Keystone for more than five years, would you raise your hand?  If you’ve been attending Keystone for less than one full year, would you raise your hand?  I think introducing yourself to someone can sometimes be an awkward thing because you pass that time where you know you should know them by now, but you still can’t remember their names.  Or you ask someone if they’re new around here and they say they’ve been coming for the past decade.  I just want you to know that’s fine.  A little embarrassment is a great ice breaker.

 

If you’re around Keystone long enough or are reading your vision booklet each month, you’ll catch a phrase about preaching the gospel to yourself everyday.  This was a strange concept for me when I first starting attending because I often thought of the gospel only in terms of my salvation.  We believe that the good news or gospel is that Jesus Christ lived the perfect life that we couldn’t live, died on a cross in my place for my sin, and was raised on Easter morning so that I could be raised from the dead too.  The gospel is what I used to get saved.  When we think of the gospel then, we think that we’ve been saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. 

 

I think there is a problem that follows if we only see the gospel in that way.  If we see the gospel as simply the thing that saved us at conversion, what are we left with to fight against sin today?  Christians, and honestly non-Christians as well, don’t know what to do about the sin that remains in the lives of people who claim to be Christians.  I think part of the problem is in how we identify what makes a Christian a Christian. 

 

Christians are often defined by what we do; we go to church, we read our Bible, we don’t get drunk, we save sex for marriage, we vote Republican, we wear clever but often very unhelpful Christian t-shirts.  Whatever it is, people end up identifying Christians much like they identify any other group of people—by their performance.  That way of defining who is a Christian is often finds its way into the church so that here’s what happens:

 

Some people think that being a Christian means they should act or perform in a certain way, so they bottle up that pain that they feel and hide that sin that they do so that they can continue to be part of the church.  They cover up whatever looks rotten and put on a mask.  It’s the only way they think they can be part of the church, if their lives show complete righteousness.

 

Some of those people can’t take the charade anymore and throw in the towel and say, “I tried my best, I couldn’t stop sinning, I’m done being a Christian.”  That’s how a lot of people walk away from the church.  They were told that the gospel was a second chance to start acting right.  So with their best set of intentions, they white knuckle their way until they give up and say they can’t be a Christian any longer. 

 

Whenever our definition of what it means to be a Christian involves rules we obey, we have robbed the cross of Jesus of its purpose and swerved from the truth of the gospel into one of two great errors:  legalism or license.

                                                                                      

Before we can begin today, it is important to know just a little background information.  Our main voice and author of the book is Paul.  For simplicity’s sake, Paul grew up as a very, very religious man.  As a Jew he knew God’s laws inside and out and was basically a professional religious guy.  According to the law, he was blameless; he kept not only the Ten Commandments, but also all 600 other laws.  That was his job. 

 

While on a mission to punish, sometimes even kill, people who weren’t living according to those rules, he met Jesus.  And on that road to Damascus, Paul was converted from being a religious guy and became a gospel guy.  From that moment on, Paul began telling people about Jesus.

 

Our second main character, Peter, has a much more vanilla testimony.  Peter was one of Jesus’ twelve disciples.  In fact, he was one of three disciples that were a part of Jesus’ inner circle, and was called on for certain tasks.  Peter saw Jesus raise a girl from the dead, saw him meet with Elijah & Moses on a mountain top, and was asked to pray with him in the Garden of Gethsemane on the night of Jesus’ betrayal. 

 

Peter is alpha dog of the pack.  When the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, it was Peter who stood up in front of the masses and preached the first gospel sermon where 3000 people were saved.  He preached boldly again, even to the same people who crucified Jesus, and another 5000 were saved.  Peter is the leader of the early church.  James and John are rounding out the two & three position.

 

When the church began to grow, its congregation was comprised primarily of first century Jews—people who believed in God and abided by the Jewish laws of Moses—we would call them religious people.  At that point, Gentiles, that is non-Jews, weren’t even being considered in the early church.  No one was paying any attention to them.

 

This changed when God gave Peter a vision that essentially said, “You should preach the gospel to both Jews AND Gentiles.”  So Peter went to a Gentile named Cornelius and when Peter arrived, Cornelius was ready with a whole household of Gentiles who wanted to know about Jesus.  (PS.  That is a terrific way to plant a church.)  Peter preached, they were saved, and the Holy Spirit came to them in the same way it came to Jewish Christians.

 

This is great news for us, because now we Gentiles can be saved and become partakers in the promises that God made to Abraham back in Genesis 12.  However, not all of these religious Jews felt so welcoming of these “Gentile sinners.”  The question arose as to whether Gentile Christians needed to begin following the laws of the Jewish Christians.  In other words, did the Gentiles need to get circumcised and avoid eating certain foods?  Some Jewish Christians (i.e. the Circumcision Party or the Judaizers) said, yes, they do.

 

Enter Paul.  Paul is aware that there are Gentiles being saved in Galatia who are being led to think that they now that they’ve become a Christian, they need to get circumcised and start living according to Mosaic Law.  To counter this thinking, he writes a letter to the churches in Galatia that counsels them in Galatians 1:6-9,

 

⁶I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— ⁷which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. ⁸But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! ⁹As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!

 

Slowly a false gospel was beginning to creep into the hearts and minds of the churches in Galatia.  They began to say that salvation came by faith in Jesus PLUS something else.  Some said faith plus circumcision was needed to be saved.  Some said faith plus avoiding pork bbq sandwiches.  In Galatians, Paul is on a mission to preserve the truth of the gospel.  The main thrust of the whole book is Paul telling these churches that “Jesus plus anything ruins everything.”  (Driscoll)

 

In Chapter 2, we find out that Paul traveled to Jerusalem to run this gospel message past the leaders of church.  In a way, he wanted to have the seal of approval from the big guns in Jerusalem—Peter, James, and John.  He wanted to confirm with them that Gentile Christians didn’t need to follow Jewish law to be saved.  In an excellent move of diplomacy, Paul actually brought along Titus, an uncircumcised Gentile Christian.  I’m pretty sure I know what Titus’s prayer was the entire journey.  In the end, they all approved of Paul’s gospel, Titus was relieved, and so they went back to preaching.

 

We’re going to meet up with Peter & Paul in chapter 2, verse 11:

 

Pray

 

¹¹When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong. ¹²Before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. ¹³The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

 

¹⁴When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, "You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?

 

¹⁵"We who are Jews by birth and not 'Gentile sinners' ¹⁶know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.

 

Here’s the scene, Peter visits Paul in Antioch and has no problem hanging out at a pig roast with his Gentile friends.  However, when Jews come, Peter slowly begins to separate himself from the Gentiles.  Before long, Peter has withdrawn from eating with the Gentiles and has convinced other Jews and even Barnabas, Paul’s right-hand man, that they should avoid Gentiles as well.

 

At first glance, we might think Peter isn’t necessarily doing anything wrong.  Peter is perfectly free to eat with anyone he pleases.  But Paul is concerned that Peter’s actions are giving Gentiles, and Jews, the impression that in order to be saved, they need to perform certain Jewish laws.  For this, Paul confronts him to his face.

 

Paul tells Peter in front of everyone that he is not walking in line with the truth of the gospel.  It’s at this point, I need to stop for a moment.  When Peter is caught in the act of hypocrisy, what is Paul’s response?  “Peter, stop being a hypocrite.”  “Peter, rule 197-B of the Christian Code book says you shouldn’t discriminate on the basis of pork products.”  No.  Paul doesn’t actually address the sin of hypocrisy specifically.  He tells Peter that his conduct is not in line with the truth of the gospel.  Paul tells Peter he’s not walking in the gospel.

 

What follows is a lesson in the gospel.  This is amazing to me because Peter was the first person to ever preach the gospel!  He’s the first person to ever preach the gospel to Gentiles!  I would argue, no one has used the gospel more than Peter.  If anyone knows the gospel, Peter surely does!  And Paul confronts Peter to his face and preaches the gospel to him.  Why?  Because he wasn’t saved?  No.  Because he was clearly in the wrong. 

 

Apparently we never outgrow our need for the gospel.  The gospel is not just the message that saves us; it’s also the message that changes us.  The gospel affects both our eternal destination AND our present situation.  At Keystone, we want to be a church that preaches the gospel to ourselves everyday because the gospel frees us from the penalty of sin (that is hell) and frees us from the bondage to sin.  Paul is arguing for the fact that Peter is tethered to sin because he is not walking in the gospel.

 

In one verse, 16, Paul tells Peter that no one is justified by works of the law.  We see that word justified over and over again in this text, and the moment I open my mouth to give a definition of justification, I know some eyes will immediately begin to glaze over.  Please don’t do that.  Yes, the Bible uses big words that aren’t used very much in our day to day conversation, but so does Starbucks.  I know you can handle it.  Justified simply means “counted as righteous.”  To justify someone does not change what someone did, but it does change the way that person is viewed.   

 

Here’s an example that might be able to help us here.  Parents that love their children have rules like, “Look both ways before crossing the street.”  If, while playing outside, a son darts across the street and barely dodges a car, what does the mother do?  She grabs a spoon, marches outside, uses his middle name, and we know that boy is toast.  His mom saw what he did, so he stands condemned by the rule and deserves a whoopin’. 

 

Now suppose the mother walks out and sees that the car has stopped and there is a small crowd around her son. As it turns out, her son dashed across the street because his younger sister was about to get hit by a car, and he dashed out to save her.  That boy is justified in front his mother.  Why?  Did the boy break his mother’s rule?  Yes.  Does his mom condemn him?  No.  She counts him as righteous.  He was justified.  Being justified doesn’t mean he didn’t break his mother’s rule, but it changes the way his mother views him.

 

Before God, we all stand condemned according to the law.  Not one of us has been able to obey even the Ten Commandments.  We have all sinned against God innumerable times.  The Bible tells us we are condemned and as such, objects of wrath, deserving punishment.  When Paul says that no one is justified by works of the law, he means that no one is able to stand before God and change the way God views him by presenting a list of good deeds. 

 

I think part of the reason is because God just doesn’t despise the sinful things we do, but God isn’t even impressed with our best attempts being righteous.  The Bible says God looks at our religious, good deeds and calls them feces and bloody tampons.  (Philippians 3:8 & Isaiah 64:6)  I know, that is gross; that’s what God thinks too. 

 

Since even our righteousness is unclean to God Paul is saying God is not going to be impressed even if you bring a lot of it to him.  More manure isn’t a great bartering chip.  No one will be justified by works of the law.  To understand grace is realize that you contribute NOTHING to your righteous standing before God.  When we stand before God, we don’t show God our filthy rags and ask him if it was enough.  We tell God we have nothing to give; please count Jesus’ righteousness as my righteousness; please count his death as my death.  And Paul says that we are justified because of Jesus.  That’s grace; his performance is credited to us.

 

If grace is preached rightly, the correct question to ask is, “Why would I try to obey at all?”  It’s a logical question.  If God sees my good works as dung and if my righteousness contributes nothing to my salvation, why would I bother obeying him?  Why would I want to fight against sin? 

 

Paul argues that Peter’s conduct was not in LINE with the truth of the gospel.  Tertullian, an ancient church father, one said, “Just as Christ was crucified between two thieves, so this doctrine of justification is ever crucified between two opposite errors.”  Walking in line with the truth of the gospel means that we can swerve in two dangerous directions:  legalism and license.  Each one robs the gospel of its power and its glory.  And each one can be just as destructive to the Christian’s life and faith.  Paul is on a mission in Galatians to prove that leading people into legalism is just as dangerous as leading people into license. 

 

The line that separates legalism from license is the gospel.  The gospel implies that we are both sinful and righteous.  If as Christians we only think we are sinful, we will try to earn our own justification and righteousness through being good.  That’s legalism.  If as Christians we only think we are already righteous, we will live as though sin is not a problem.  That’s license.  In either case, we insult God and pervert the gospel.

 

Some will argue that if you don’t need any of your own righteousness to be saved, you’ve lost all incentive to live a life of obedience.  In other words, if my performance contributes nothing, why perform?  That’s so wrong.  If the only reason you were obeying was to be saved; if the only reason you were feeding the hungry or clothing the naked was to get salvation from God, then you didn’t love God at all.  You loved yourself.  You didn’t want Jesus.  You were just using Jesus as a means to get what you really want, heaven.

 

Charles Spurgeon, a preacher in England during the mid-1800s, told a story of peasant farmer who lived in the kingdom of a good and merciful king.  The story goes like this:

 

Once upon a time in a kingdom far, far away, there was a gardener who grew an enormous carrot in his garden. Now this man loved his king, so he came and presented the carrot to the king, saying, “This is the best carrot my garden will ever grow. I love you, and I want you to have it.”  Now the king discerned the gardener’s heart of love and devotion.  This moved the king, and he said, “You are a wonderful gardener.  There are five acres of farmland beside your garden, please take it, it is yours.  I know you will manage it well.”  So the man went home rejoicing.

 

Now a nobleman at court overheard this conversation.  He thought to himself, “If that is the response the lord makes to such a small gift, what will he give in response to a great one?”  So the next day he brought the king a fine horse, saying, “This is the best horse my stables will ever grow. I want you to have it.”  But the king discerned the nobleman’s heart, and in response he just received the horse and dismissed the nobleman.

 

When the king saw the look of confusion on the nobleman’s face, he said, ‘The gardener gave me the carrot, but you have given yourself the horse.’

 

Do you see what this teaches?  If you know God offers you his salvation freely, and there is nothing to do but to accept the perfect righteousness of his Son, then you can feed the hungry and clothe the naked just for the love of God and for the love of people.  But if you think you are getting salvation in return for these deeds, then it is yourselves you are feeding, yourselves you are clothing.

 

The man who works to get love is vastly different from the man who works because he is loved.  The truth of the gospel affects every aspect of our life.  I have three distinctions I want to draw out concerning the differences between the heart of religion and the heart of the gospel.    

 

Religion Enslaves.  Gospel Frees.

When Peter was caught up in the Jewish laws and what people thought of him, he was not free to love the Gentiles.  So many people think the gospel is simply gives us another chance to get it right.  People who think this are the ones who end up “getting saved” at every alter call.  These are the people who are waiting for that one powerful sermon or that one mystical experience that is going to release them from that bondage to sin.  They’re trying so hard to stop sinning that they never start loving others.

                                      

Until we’re able to see that we add NOTHING to our righteousness before God, we will never be free to take leaps of faith to love our neighbor.  If the greatest goal for my life as a Christian was to avoid sin, we should all move away from people and distance ourselves from any source of worldliness.  However if the greatest goal for my life as a Christian is to exalt the name of Jesus and spur others toward the life in him, you can count on life getting messy.

 

How often do we not reach out to someone because our self-righteousness keeps us from doing so?  Does a tattoo or set of piercings keep you away?  Does babysitting for a single mother cause you to wonder whether people might think you condone sex before marriage?  Do you feel uncomfortable being around a homosexual man with AIDS?  Are you afraid of people seeing you at a bar because they might think you’re getting drunk?  Are you ashamed for sending your kids to public school?  We have our own set of cultural “righteousness” that can get attached to the gospel if we’re not careful.

 

When we are walking in the truth of the gospel, we are free to love other people without the fear of ruining our own righteousness.  We are already counted as righteous because of Jesus.

 

Religion Excludes.  Gospel Includes.

Because of the law, Peter slowly began to remove himself from the rest of the Christians.  It’s so interested how quickly ethnic/social distinctions become reasons for ethnic/social superiority.  If we’re going to see God transform the lives of people different than us, we are going to need to let go of those cultural preferences.  It’s the gospel that frees us from believing that those preferences make us special. 

 

When people see Christianity as some club where people who have their lives together and don’t have really messed up lives, they will feel excluded from the church.  A non-Christian may look at the church and think they need to be perfect to get in.  In fact religion is the reason some Christians don’t feel welcome in the church.  Because they have a false understanding of what the gospel is and what it should mean for their lives, they don’t know what to do with the fact that they committed their life to Jesus, but their marriage is still a wreck. 

 

That person sitting next to you has a whole world of pain and sin in their life.  They look pretty and happy.  Some are.  A lot aren’t.  But they know they’re at church, and they know the church folk are righteous people, so they never show it.  Do you want to know what the church is?  The church is a group of terrible sinners who have been counted as righteous because they have their faith in Jesus for their salvation and redemption.

 

Because the gospel is not based upon performance, everyone is welcome.  Because we are acceptable to God apart from anything we do, there is no boasting, no superiority.  We are free to love anyone regardless of their condition or performance.  You are welcome here.  It’s okay to not be okay here.  We want Jesus and the gospel to bring healing to whatever is broken.

 

When we are walking in the truth of the gospel, we can be inclusive of anyone.  We are all sinful.

 

Religion Exalts Man.  Gospel Exalts God.

When Jesus Christ is our only righteousness, there is no place for boasting.  When no one will be justified by works of the law, there is no place for boasting.  We are simultaneously both just and sinful.  This paradox is what gives hope to every sinner saved by grace and what humbles every saint who pursues holiness.  The gospel keeps the cross of Jesus at the center of our lives.

 

When we are walking in line with the truth of the gospel, we will exalt God, not ourselves for our status before him.

 

Christians are simply people who have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.  That’s a truth that just isn’t needed at conversion, but must be walked in everyday.