The Gospel Pt. 2

Pastor Jesse Carr clearly explains the Gospel throughout the Easter Season.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

I want to ask you to take your Bible, if you would please, and turn with me to the book of Galatians, chapter number one. Galatians chapter number one. And we're going to read one verse, but we're going to look at a variety of verses within this great book. Galatians chapter one and verse number 10. Galatians chapter 1 and verse number 10. Now, for those of you that may not know me, my name is Jesse. I am blessed to be the lead pastor here at Mud Creek. And I am a people pleaser. Now it is in remission, so I appreciate your prayers. I'm getting over it. But at the end of the day, I am really not much more emotionally complex than my golden retriever. I just want somebody to pat me on the head, tell me I'm a good boy, and let me go take a nap. That's all that I need. Really, to be happy in life. And I know that some of you here this morning are people pleasers. Now, I know some of you are not. In fact, some of you have never realized that there are actually other people living in your world. And you are a rock, you are an island, you need nobody, and you do not need their approval. But if that's you this morning, then chances are you are probably married to the kind of person who apologizes to the doctor at the emergency room when they go to be seen. I'm so sorry, my appendix ruptured. I don't want to inconvenience you. The passage of scripture that we're going to read today, and much of the conversation in the book of Galatians is about people that are trying to please other people. And the Apostle Paul is going to deal with this in this passage and in this book, knowing that our tendency to be people pleasers actually comes from something far, far deeper. It's not that we love other people, that all of us are head over heels in love with ourselves. And we need something that is going to draw us out of ourselves so that we can love God and love others. So let's consider that today. Reading, and just beginning in one verse. Galatians chapter 1 and verse number 10, Scripture says this. Apostle Paul asks, For do I now persuade men or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still please men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the word of our God abideth forever. The book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul is deeply concerned about a group of Christian friends that he thinks are drifting away from the gospel. He believes that they have embraced a false gospel, a counterfeit gospel, even saying in Galatians chapter 3 and verse number 1 that they have been bewitched by people that are perverting the gospel. And if you were here with us on last Sunday, on Easter, we talked about how the message of the gospel was being confused by people that were making the message of the gospel not about what Jesus has done for us, but about what we do for him. The gospel had become a message of good advice instead of a message of good news. And when that happens, one of the consequences of it is that you and I are encouraged and empowered to continue in our deep infatuation with ourselves. And as he works through this idea in the book of Galatians, the Apostle Paul is going to show us that what can happen when we're not brought out of ourselves is that we can ping-pong back and forth between either being self-righteous and believing that we are better than other people, or we can even believe that and become self-condemning, believing that we are worse than everybody else. But in some ways it doesn't matter if we are self-confident and self-reliant, or if we are just always wallering in a pit of self-pity. Regardless, Paul is going to show us that we need to be pulled out of ourselves. So Paul begins in chapter number one by affirming that he's not a people pleaser. And what he's going to do here is he is going to use his experiences, his testimony, his background before he knew Jesus to talk to us about the danger and the disaster of turning inward. The disaster of turning inward on self. Paul asks this question in Galatians 1.10 Do I now seek to please men? Am I a preacher of the gospel in order to make people happy? Let me just interrupt myself right here and say that one of the ways that God cures people pleasers is he calls them to preach. Because it turns out that pastors and preachers just can't make everybody happy. And you learn to live with it. And Paul's learning to live with it. But even though the Apostle Paul is not preaching the gospel to please men, he is preaching it to please God. But even though that's true, the Apostle Paul did know something about being a people pleaser. What he begins to do in Galatians chapter number one is talk about his life before he met Jesus. And I want you to see how he describes himself in verse number 13. He says, For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. Now notice his self-assessment in verse 14. And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. Do you see what Paul's saying right there? Paul says that not only was he a people pleaser who knew exactly what other people were saying about him and how other people felt about him, the apostle Paul says that I was climbing the ladder of Judaism, and I knew the people that were in front of me, that were higher than me on the ladder, and I knew what it would take to pull them down, and I knew the people that were beneath me that I had stepped on to get where I was at. Paul's not just a people pleaser. Paul is a type A competitor, alpha male. He is a winner, and he knows it, and he wants to make sure that you would know it too. And because Paul knows something about this, he's able to get into the minds of the people that are confusing the gospel in the city of, or the cities of Galatia. And he will explore at the very end of the book in Galatians chapter 6 their motives for preaching a false gospel. He says in Galatians chapter 6 and verse number 12, for as many as desire to make a good showing in the flesh, these would compel you to be circumcised only that they may not suffer persecution for the cross of Christ. Why are they changing the gospel? Because they want to please people. They don't want to suffer. They don't want to hurt. They don't want to be persecuted. Then he says in verse 13, he says, For not even those who are circumcised keep the law, but they desire to have you circumcised that they may boast in your flesh. They want to attract disciples to themselves, recruit followers to their movement, to point to you and say, Haven't we accomplished something great? They did not love their disciples, they were using them. But that begs the question. How is it that this message of this austere religious discipline and dedication was actually appealing to the people that it took advantage of? Why would anybody go in for a message that says, Well, you need to believe in Jesus, but you need to keep Jewish laws and be circumcised too? Why would anybody believe that? It's kind of a hard sale, right? Here's why. Because it appeals to something in me. That if I contribute to my salvation and I do something to earn the favor and the blessings of God, then there are other people that I can look at and say, they have not tried as hard as I have. They're not as disciplined as I am. They're not as dedicated. They're not as godly, and therefore they are not as important. And Paul puts his finger on that pulse in Galatians chapter 5 and verse number 19. And he says to the church, he says, you need to be careful that you don't bite and devour and consume yourselves as you continue in this behavior. And he says in Galatians 5.26, let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. What the Apostle Paul does in Galatians 5.26 is he exposes two ways that we live in a self-centeredness that we need to be saved from. On the one hand, we can be self-righteous, believing we're better than everybody around us. You might even make a good case for that. On the other hand, we can live in self-despair and self-defeat, saying, all those other people are so much better, they're more successful, they're more beautiful, they're more dedicated, they're more godly. I'll never be the Christian that they are. And so I would just encourage you to understand today that the Bible says that the fundamental flaw we all have because we are sinful is that we are creatures turned in on ourselves. That in many ways, but it doesn't matter if we are self-loving or self-hating, we're still self-obsessed. And even if you're here today and you say, Well, I don't really care too much about myself, you can't even say that without talking about yourself. And there are some of you that are here today, and you leave every conversation, every interaction, thinking, man, I bet those people were really impressed by me. My intelligence just captivated them and took their breath away. But then the other half of y'all are here today, every time you have a conversation, you leave that conversation saying, I know I made myself look like an idiot. And I know those people are now talking about how dumb I am. And in both instances, you believe that when you leave the room, everybody's talking about you. First, I'm gonna tell you today that pride and insecurity, they are first cousins, as far as the Bible's concerned. There isn't an ounce worth of difference in them because we are all creatures turned inward. We're self-reliant, we're self-preserving, we're self-righteous, or we're self-condemning, but we love ourselves, and we need something to draw us out of ourselves. And Paul's gonna show us what that message is in Galatians chapter number two by showing us the message that turns us outward. We need somehow to be pulled out of ourselves. We need somebody to stop the tennis match between I'm incredible, I'm terrible, I'm the best, I'm the worst. Everybody loves me, everybody hates me. What stops the tennis match? He's gonna show us in a conversation that he has with another apostle named Peter in Galatians chapter 2. He talks about it in verse 11 through 16. And evidently, this exposes that some of the conflict in the Church of Galatia over Jews and Gentiles was racially motivated. The Jews believed that they were closer to God because of their deep Jewish ethnicity and Jewish heritage. The Gentiles weren't sure where they fit, the Jews didn't want them to fit. There's all this racial back and forth. And he explains that even Simon Peter, even Simon Peter gets caught up in this racial back and forth. And it happened like this. When Peter was around Gentile believers, Peter said, I don't care what skin color you have, I don't care what language you speak, if you can cook, I'll come fellowship with you. That's basically my theological position, too. If you want to eat, you're my crowd. And so he would go eat with these Gentiles and sit at their tables and drink their coffee, eat their ham, have a good time with them. But then when some of these austere, self-righteous Jewish leaders were in town, when the important people were watching, Peter would back away from the Gentiles. Say, Well, you know, this Friday night really doesn't work for me. And Paul has to confront him for this inconsistency. And here's how he does it. Notice in Galatians chapter number two and verse number 14, when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter, if you being a Jew live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews who are not Jews by nature and not sinners who are Jews by nature and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ, even as we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law? Now that's a mouthful, but here's what he's saying. Peter, you're inconsistent with the gospel. You're inconsistent. The word's straightforward. Well, let me ask this. How many people here at Mud Creek Baptist Church today have a titanium knee, a titanium hip? I don't know if they do titanium shoulders. You have titanium body parts. Put your hand up high. That's what I thought. There's enough titanium in our church this morning to build a submarine. Hopefully, hopefully that knee or that hip was put into you by an orthopedic doctor, an orthopedic surgeon. The word for straightforward, the word for straightforward that Paul uses in talking to Peter in Galatians 2.14 is the Greek word orthopedos. He's saying that your conduct and your behavior is not lined up. It's not straight because that's what orthopedic doctors do, right? They take things that are crooked and broken and worn out and they straighten them out. And he's saying the way you're living is not straight in line with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. So he doesn't come to Peter and say, Peter, now you know good Christians can't be racist. Which is true. I got one amen. Now listen. Good Christians can't be racist. But the reason they can't be racist is because we understand the message of the gospel that says we are all sinners. It doesn't matter what your skin color is, it doesn't matter where you were born, it doesn't matter how much better you are or you think you are than any other ethnic group, you are as hopelessly lost without Jesus as everybody in the world. But all of those people in the world are welcome to come to God through faith in Jesus. Therefore, I have no grounds for ethnic pride if I believe the gospel. Because I don't know God because my skin's white. I know God because of the red blood of the Lord Jesus. And that applies to numerous different places where we may take pride. I don't know Jesus because I'm smarter. I don't know Jesus because I make better decisions. I don't know Jesus because I'm more dedicated. I know Jesus because God in his grace brought me to faith, and I contributed nothing to my salvation but the very sin I needed to be saved from. And so therefore, I can't look at somebody else and say, Well, they're not as good as I am. And I can't look at somebody else and say, you know, they're a whole lot better than I am. No, because I'm justified by faith. I'm declared righteous by Christ alone, who does the work of saving himself. And as we enjoyed our baptism celebration this morning, this is one of the great things about the way Baptists baptize. And I like to tell the candidates for baptism this before I baptism, especially smaller kids, so that they understand. I tell them, and you may not see it, some of you were baptized here or you've been up there and you know this, but there's actually a seat in our baptism. Like we've made it so convenient. Man, some of us got baptized outside in the winter, and we spent six weeks in the hospital in pneumonia because we love Jesus. And now we've got heated hot tubs for you to get baptized. Just have a seat. But we do, and so I tell these kids, I say, just come in, you'll come in, and yeah, everybody's gonna be looking at you, but you just sit down. And that's it. Then I'll always ask those kids, I'll say, now do you know who's gonna actually do the hard work of making sure you don't drown? And they'll kind of think, like, not really. And then I'll say, I am. Because when we baptize, the way that we baptize, the one who's baptizing does the work. I'm the one that, no, it's not really hard work, but I'm the one that puts them under, and I'm the one that pulls them up, or some of our other pastors are. And I tell them, that's exactly the way Jesus saves us. He does all of the work. All we do is have a seat and rest in him, put ourselves in his hands, and therefore, I can't look at somebody and say, Well, I've done more than you did. They didn't do nothing but sit down. These other people are so much better than I am. They're just no. All they did was sit down. The message of the gospel is a message that pulls us outward and draws us upward, and so Paul is going to finish in the book of Galatians by talking about how this message is the message that finally frees us to look outward to actually love and care for other people. And he does this in numerous ways in Galatians, and we're running out of time, and we are going to celebrate the Lord's Supper before you go, so I don't want to belabor the point. But I do want to tell you this that the church in Galatia had lost their ability to actually love one another. That's why Paul warns them in Galatians 5.15, you are biting and devouring one another, you have become cannibalistic. It's a cannibalistic church where people are judging and condemning and chewing other believers up and spitting them out, where some are looking at Christians as if there's different classes of Christians, and some say we're better, and others look up and say, well, we're so much worse, we don't fit because of this or because of that or the other. They're not able to love one another. They might at times use one another. The false teachers were using the Galatians to promote themselves. The Galatians, in a sense, were using one another to establish their own self-righteousness, but they don't love one another. Because they can only use people for their own benefit. They can serve and do good things, but only to make themselves feel better or to make themselves look better. And yet Paul says, once we believe in Jesus, then we are finally able to be freed from all of the self-righteous motivations, all of the self-destructive motivations, and we're actually able to care about people as they are. So much so that he will say this in Galatians chapter number five. He will talk talking to people that want to keep the law. But he says in Galatians 5, 14, for all the law, all the law, all the Ten Commandments, and 613 other statutes in the Old Testament law, all the law is fulfilled in one word, even this. That's what it's all about. It's what? Love your neighbor as yourself. Love your neighbor as yourself. Don't use him for yourself, but love him. And so, friends, as we transition to a time of communion here today, it's important for us to recognize that what we do around the Lord's table, this is not your kind of private experience with Jesus. This is not your daily quiet time. I hope you have one. I hope you sit at your table and drink coffee and read your Bible every morning. That's my go-to routine because coffee helps me love Jesus more and probably it helps him love me more too. Helps other people love me more. I know that. But that's not what we're doing. This is not about your individual encounter with Jesus. This is about a church family coming together around a table to share a family meal. Mud Creek, we are not just observing communion this morning. We are a communion. We are a communion. We are a family of believers that today are celebrating together what we see outside of us. You do understand, I hope, that just as those folks we baptized this morning contributed nothing to our baptism, that when you came into service this morning, the table had already been set. You didn't do anything to set this table. And I know it's just a plastic cup with a thing. I got that. But this is a powerful picture of a body that was broken for us, of blood that was shed for us, and we did not set the table. It was prepared and presented, and we receive it in the same way we receive Jesus by contributing nothing to it. And saying we take it into ourselves as a free gift of God, just as we've taken Jesus as a free gift of grace. And so we're going to pray and we're going to observe the Lord's Supper together this morning. And there are a few things I think we should consider today. One, Scripture warns us that if our relationships with other believers are not right, that if we have unconfessed and unrepentant sin in our hearts, we should not partake of the Lord's table. We don't take of the Lord's Supper because we're perfect. But we do not want to dishonor the body and blood of the Lord Jesus by living a life that is inconsistent with the life that He died to give us. The Bible also says that this meal is a meal for believers, for God's people, for those that have trusted in Christ, and for those that have professed this through baptism, as we saw this morning. And so, for some of you that are here, maybe you have trusted Christ, but you've never been baptized. Come see us, we can take care of that. Or even if we drain the water, we might can do it this afternoon. But some of you have never professed faith in Christ. I want you to understand today, and parents, this is a good opportunity to tell your young children that have never professed faith in Christ. To tell them that this cup of grape juice represents blood that was poured out for you on a cross. This little piece of bread, it looks like a cracker. It's about a body that was broken for you. And your mom and your dad, we want you to believe in Jesus and receive this. And we want this to preach the gospel to you because it preaches it to all of us today.