SPEAKER_00: Our passage of scripture for today's sermon comes from Galatians two one through ten.
SPEAKER_00: Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me.
SPEAKER_00: I went up because of a revelation and set before them, though privately before those who seemed influential, the gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure that I was not running or had not run in vain.
SPEAKER_00: But even Titus, who is with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek.
SPEAKER_00: Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in and slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery.
SPEAKER_00: To them we did not yield in submission, even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.
SPEAKER_00: Even from those who seemed influential, what they were makes no difference to me.
SPEAKER_00: God no shows no partiality.
SPEAKER_00: Those I say, who seemed influential, added nothing to me.
SPEAKER_00: On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the circum to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised.
SPEAKER_00: For he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised, worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_00: And when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, received the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of the fellowship to the Barnabas and me.
SPEAKER_00: That we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.
SPEAKER_00: Only they asked us to remember the poor.
SPEAKER_00: The very thing I was eager to do.
SPEAKER_00: This is the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: So it was on YouTube this past week, as you do, you know, um throughout the week.
SPEAKER_01: Um and I was scrolling mindlessly, and a video popped into my suggestion feed amongst the plethora of video game soundtracks and ambient noise videos, right, which is the majority of my feed.
SPEAKER_01: Um and this video in particular, it was a video of an interview.
SPEAKER_01: Uh it was interviewing people in the American prison system who had accepted Jesus as their savior.
SPEAKER_01: The video opened with a man convicted of double homicide, serving two counts, two life sentences rather, in the state of Mississippi.
SPEAKER_01: And he began to tell his story about how the gospel changed him.
SPEAKER_01: And he wasn't the only one.
SPEAKER_01: There was interview after interview, person after person, whose life had been changed while they were incarcerated.
SPEAKER_01: Eventually, the video cut to an interview with one man who was telling his story, and he he didn't mention his crime or how long he was in, but uh he said something that I thought was very profound.
SPEAKER_01: Uh he had accepted Jesus as his Savior right before he went to prison, and he said, even though I'm in prison now, I am free in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That even though I am imprisoned, I have true freedom in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: What a profound thing to say.
SPEAKER_01: Well, this morning, what we will see in this text, that the truth that we're going to see is that Christ sets us free, truly free.
SPEAKER_01: And what he sets us free from is he sets us free from the law, which that that's a big term, right?
SPEAKER_01: When we say the law, we mean the commands of God, as summarized in the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_01: And what we mean when we say that he sets us free.
SPEAKER_01: It's not that he sets us free to not obey those things.
SPEAKER_01: He actually sets us free from the condemnation brought by the law.
SPEAKER_01: We'll get into what that means in this sermon.
SPEAKER_01: Here are two points this morning.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel frees us from the law.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel frees us from the law, and it unites us in our freedom.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel frees us from the law and unites us in our freedom.
SPEAKER_01: So first, verses one through five, the gospel frees us from the law.
SPEAKER_01: He starts out in verse one.
SPEAKER_01: Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me.
SPEAKER_01: I went up because of a revelation, and I set before them, though privately before those who seemed influential to me, the gospel that I proclaimed before the Gentiles in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna stop right here.
SPEAKER_01: There was a lot that went on right there.
SPEAKER_01: I want to make sure we're all tracking with the story.
SPEAKER_01: So, Paul, in the last chapter, he was converted.
SPEAKER_01: There was some other things that happened.
SPEAKER_01: He spends 14 years after that going throughout Asia, planting churches, preaching Christ to the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_01: That means anyone who wasn't ethnically Jewish.
SPEAKER_01: So he does that, and then one day Paul receives a revelation from Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It says, get up, go to Jerusalem, go talk to the apostles.
SPEAKER_01: So he does that, and he brings along with him Barnabas, who is an ethnic Jew like Paul, and he brings along Titus, who is a Gentile.
SPEAKER_01: So he takes them with him, he sits with the church there, and he lays out, he explains the gospel that he's been preaching to the world.
SPEAKER_01: He says here that he sets privately before those who seemed influential.
SPEAKER_01: We know this is referring to John, James, the brother of Jesus, James, and the apostle Peter.
SPEAKER_01: We know this because they're mentioned later in the text.
SPEAKER_01: We'll get to that.
SPEAKER_01: So he says he has this meeting with John, James, and Peter, and he does this in order to make sure he was not running in vain.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he means.
SPEAKER_01: This might seem confusing, because like if we've been reading Galatians up to this point, if you're tracking with us, like he spent, he said earlier, if anyone preaches another gospel, let him be accursed.
SPEAKER_01: So it seems sort of weird that Paul would be preaching this gospel for 14 years and planting churches, and then all of a sudden say, I should probably go and make sure this is like the right thing to be preaching.
SPEAKER_01: You're like, hey, you've been at this for 14 years.
SPEAKER_01: I think there was time for that, right?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: But that's not actually what he means.
SPEAKER_01: See, what he means is that he wanted to make sure there was a consensus between the church in Jerusalem and the Gentile churches.
SPEAKER_01: Paul had spent 14 years planting these churches throughout Asia, and what would happen, inevitably, is after Paul would plant this church, and this was the same thing happening in Galatia at the time, is people claiming to be Christians would come in after Paul had planted, and they would say, Well, Paul almost got it right.
SPEAKER_01: They would say, Yeah, it's true that we're saved by Christ.
SPEAKER_01: But what we also have to do is follow the law.
SPEAKER_01: What we also have to do is keep the Jewish law.
SPEAKER_01: Specifically, most of the time they were talking about being circumcised and following the dietary restrictions.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're sort of new to studying your Bible, you might be like, that's that's pretty weird, right?
SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
SPEAKER_01: That's a normal thing to think.
SPEAKER_01: Why harp on circumcision?
SPEAKER_01: It was because in the Old Testament, Jewish people would circumcise their boys, and this act of circumcision was supposed to be an outward sign that these people belonged to God.
SPEAKER_01: It was a way of differentiating who was Jew and who was Gentile.
SPEAKER_01: It was a way of differentiating who belonged to God, and mostly, most importantly, rather, to be circumcised meant you were supposed to be one who followed the law, who kept the law.
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, we know they didn't.
SPEAKER_01: But that was what it was supposed to signify.
SPEAKER_01: So by saying that you had to be circumcised, what these people were saying was, hey, you have to trust in Christ, but in order to be saved, you also have to keep the law.
SPEAKER_01: Paul says, no.
SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you why, because in verse 3 he says, even Titus, I brought Titus with me, and I went to the apostles, right?
SPEAKER_01: And we talked.
SPEAKER_01: He was a Gentile.
SPEAKER_01: And guess what?
SPEAKER_01: He was with me.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't force him to be circumcised.
SPEAKER_01: So if someone tells you that you're saved by Christ plus the law, they're lying.
SPEAKER_01: Then he he sort of gives this direct attack against us.
SPEAKER_01: I believe this might be yeah, this is probably the first really real time we get into this idea in this book that following the law, trusting in the law is slavery, spiritual slavery.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he says.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 4 Because of false brothers secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ, so that they might bring us into slavery.
SPEAKER_01: We'll talk about that in a second.
SPEAKER_01: To them we did not yield in submission, even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.
SPEAKER_01: As part of this meeting with the leaders in the Jerusalem church, there were those who said, just like the people in Galatia, that you had to be circumcised to be saved, that you had to follow the law.
SPEAKER_01: Notice the language Paul uses for that.
SPEAKER_01: Notice how harsh it is.
SPEAKER_01: He calls them false brothers.
SPEAKER_01: He said they were sent to spy out our freedom.
SPEAKER_01: That's military language.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying they're enemies to the cause of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: They were sent to bring us into slavery.
SPEAKER_01: To believe in the message of Jesus plus works.
SPEAKER_01: It is to be spiritually enslaved.
SPEAKER_01: I know that's that's a heavy word that carries a lot of baggage, that's intentional.
SPEAKER_01: That's the point.
SPEAKER_01: It is a great evil.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because to trust in the law to save you would mean to trust in your ability to keep the law.
SPEAKER_01: And guess what?
SPEAKER_01: You couldn't do that.
SPEAKER_01: I couldn't do that.
SPEAKER_01: That's not a you, you, me thing, right?
SPEAKER_01: We couldn't do that.
SPEAKER_01: The law was good, but it was not saving.
SPEAKER_01: I heard another pastor put it this way: if sin was a broken bone, the law was like an x-ray, right?
SPEAKER_01: So sin, the thing wrong with us, the law is there to expose, it's there to diagnose that, hey, there's there's something wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Trusting in the law, the works, to save us would be like trusting the x-ray to mend our bones.
SPEAKER_01: But whereas the law condemned us, the law shows us our sinfulness, in Christ, we have freedom from that condemnation.
SPEAKER_01: And as we as we talk about this, you know, we're talking about circumcision and the Old Testament law, and this may seem far off.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know anybody who's like, I'm going to heaven because I'm circumcised.
SPEAKER_01: If you're here and that's you this morning, I'm sorry, you are actually the first person I've met.
SPEAKER_01: No one says that, right?
SPEAKER_01: But we are surrounded by people who are trusting in themselves for salvation.
SPEAKER_01: We grew up in the Bible Belt, or I did, I'm sure a lot of you did as well.
SPEAKER_01: You might be here this morning and you think that in order to be saved, what you have to do is follow some convoluted step system of steps.
SPEAKER_01: You have to do all these works.
SPEAKER_01: You have to love your neighbor enough, you have to go to church enough, you have to give enough, you have to not drink enough.
SPEAKER_01: And this, trusting in all this, is spiritual enslavement because you could never be good enough.
SPEAKER_01: There's nothing you could do.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible says that even your best works are as filthy rags before God.
SPEAKER_01: They're useless, they're not saving.
SPEAKER_01: I don't tell you that to insult you.
SPEAKER_01: I tell you that because there's actually good news.
SPEAKER_01: There was one who did follow the law.
SPEAKER_01: Though we can't follow the law perfectly, Christ did.
SPEAKER_01: The good news of the gospel is that Jesus lived a perfect life.
SPEAKER_01: He followed the law perfectly, he then died on a cross, taking God's wrath for our sins, and he rose from the grave so that we could be free from the condemnation brought about by the law.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if we turn from our sins and place our faith in Christ, we can be set free from striving.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to earn God's favor.
SPEAKER_01: You might be here this morning and you are a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: And you you hear me say this, and you're like, Yeah, I get it, right?
SPEAKER_01: Saved by grace, apart from works of the law.
SPEAKER_01: But no, this is actually good news for our Christian walk.
SPEAKER_01: Here's why.
SPEAKER_01: Christ lived a perfect life so that imperfect sinners could be seen as perfect in God's eyes.
SPEAKER_01: You know what that means?
SPEAKER_01: It means even when you sin, Christian, even right now, that you're standing in God's eyes, it doesn't change.
SPEAKER_01: We often think of God like He's just a big version of us.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: When people hurt us, what do we do?
SPEAKER_01: We we distance them.
SPEAKER_01: No, when we sin against God, God draws us in if we are in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Our standing does not change.
SPEAKER_01: Christ freeing us from the law, it means that we're saved apart from our good works.
SPEAKER_01: It also means that we are loved even when we fail to do good works.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to strive to be loved by God, to be accepted by God.
SPEAKER_01: We should follow the commands of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We should willingly, lovingly.
SPEAKER_01: But when you fail, which which you will, you're still God's child.
SPEAKER_01: Could your kids do anything to make you love them any less?
SPEAKER_01: Why do we assume it's like that with God?
SPEAKER_01: He's a perfect father.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel frees us from condemnation, which means it frees us from striving.
SPEAKER_01: If we follow Jesus, we have freedom from the law.
SPEAKER_01: Christ lived a perfect life because you weren't able to.
SPEAKER_01: And only by trusting in him can we have true spiritual freedom.
SPEAKER_01: So we see that the gospel frees us from the law.
SPEAKER_01: We also see that the gospel unites us in this freedom.
SPEAKER_01: We see this in verses 6 through 10.
SPEAKER_01: First verse 6.
SPEAKER_01: He says, and those who seem to be influential, what they were, makes no difference to me.
SPEAKER_01: God shows no partiality.
SPEAKER_01: Those I say who seemed influential added nothing to me.
SPEAKER_01: So here again he's talking about James, Peter, and John, and he says that they added nothing to him.
SPEAKER_01: Not that the meeting was a wasted meeting, and he was like, Man, I'm really glad I walked all this way to Jerusalem for this.
SPEAKER_01: No, it wasn't like that, right?
SPEAKER_01: What he's saying is they added nothing to his message, right?
SPEAKER_01: He laid out the gospel before them, and they agreed wholeheartedly with Paul's message of salvation by grace alone, apart from the works of the law.
SPEAKER_01: He's telling the Galatians, once again, the church in Jerusalem agrees with me.
SPEAKER_01: These people are coming in here and they're telling you you have to be circumcised to be saved.
SPEAKER_01: They're liars.
SPEAKER_01: I also like this little aside he gives in here.
SPEAKER_01: He says, the apostles seemed influential, but that made no difference to him because God shows no partiality.
SPEAKER_01: That's an astounding thing to say about the apostles.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, like, let's think of it.
SPEAKER_01: These are like guys who walked with Jesus during his earthly ministry, and Paul's just like, you know, whatever.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: That's wild.
SPEAKER_01: But he says God shows no partiality.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't deem these people to be any more important as any other person.
SPEAKER_01: This isn't the main point of our text, but I think it is good to know.
SPEAKER_01: We live in like a celebrity culture.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_01: We have like influencers.
SPEAKER_01: Um, we have we watch vlogs, which, if that's your thing, great.
SPEAKER_01: I will never understand, but more power to you.
SPEAKER_01: We have this tendency to elevate people or leaders and put them on a pedestal and say, hey, whatever this person says, it's bulletproof.
SPEAKER_01: We even do this in Christian circles.
SPEAKER_01: I remember one time I had a buddy who was uh counseling uh a church member, and um this church member was sort of confused on the meaning of marriage, on what marriage was biblically.
SPEAKER_01: And my buddy was walking him through uh the Bible and showing him marriage in the Bible, and this buddy said, Well, not to, you know, not to argue with you, but John Piper agrees with what I'm saying.
SPEAKER_01: And my buddy went, Well, first off, that's not true, uh, because I know what John Piper says about marriage.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but secondly, if John Piper does believe what you're saying, John Piper is wrong, and this dude was just floored that anyone would say John Piper was wrong.
SPEAKER_01: And don't hear that as an attack on John Piper, like, love John Piper, benefiting greatly from John Piper's teaching.
SPEAKER_01: The point I'm trying to make is that no man is infallible.
SPEAKER_01: There's one infallible source of truth, that is God.
SPEAKER_01: Can other people be helpful?
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: We should thank God for great leaders, great teachers, but they're not infallible, trusting Christ alone.
SPEAKER_01: So he says, verse 7, on the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised, for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised, worked also through me, for mine to the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_01: Not only did they confirm that Paul's gospel was pure, they agreed that God was working in both places, both to the Jew and to the Gentile.
SPEAKER_01: The same God who appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus was the same Christ who walked with Peter and who ate with Peter and who had a relationship with Peter.
SPEAKER_01: It was the same God, it was the same Christ empowering both ministries.
SPEAKER_01: He then says, and when James and Peter and John, that's once again, there they are.
SPEAKER_01: That's how we know who we've been talking about this whole time.
SPEAKER_01: When James and Peter and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and then to the uncircumcised rather to the circumcised.
SPEAKER_01: Excuse me.
SPEAKER_01: When the apostles saw how God was using Paul and Barnabas, they affirmed them.
SPEAKER_01: It says they gave them the right hand of fellowship.
SPEAKER_01: We we use that word fellowship a lot in Christian circles.
SPEAKER_01: Um that's good in some ways because it's a Bible word.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's actually bad in other ways because it loses its meaning, right?
SPEAKER_01: We we sort of equate it to like, oh man, we're gonna like sit around and like watch the Super Bowl, which like that can also be fellowship, but you get my point.
SPEAKER_01: Like we sometimes lower the bar.
SPEAKER_01: But what this means is we have oneness.
SPEAKER_01: We have the same DNA.
SPEAKER_01: He said they agreed that we were one.
SPEAKER_01: We had one mission.
SPEAKER_01: They shared a blood, an identity, and a mission.
SPEAKER_01: And how they would achieve this mission was Paul and Barnabas, they would go to the Gentiles, keep preaching throughout Asia, and the other apostles would preach to the circumcised, the ethnic Jews.
SPEAKER_01: And this might not seem like such a big deal to us, because we don't, we're not in this culture, right?
SPEAKER_01: We're not in this context.
SPEAKER_01: This was a big deal.
SPEAKER_01: In the first century, at the time this was happening, Jews are hostile towards Gentiles.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't like, all right, Jake, you're gonna do ministry in South Huntsville, and JD, you're gonna go over to Athens and you're gonna do ministry there.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't just a location change.
SPEAKER_01: For a Jew to even associate with a Gentile was almost unheard of.
SPEAKER_01: To give you an idea of the hostility between these two groups, we have archaeological finds today from Jewish synagogues in the first century.
SPEAKER_01: They had signs on the door that says, Gentiles entering here risk death.
SPEAKER_01: It was a deep-seated hatred between these two people.
SPEAKER_01: So what they're saying here is amazing.
SPEAKER_01: They're saying that the gospel, the good news about Jesus, it's stronger than any ethnic or political division that exists.
SPEAKER_01: The same God is working to the Jews and the Gentiles from Jerusalem to all nations.
SPEAKER_01: God is not for a certain type of people, He is for every people.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says in verse 10, only they told us to remember the poor, the very thing we were eager to do.
SPEAKER_01: Part, rather, of Paul's ministry was to care for the needy.
SPEAKER_01: That's important to us, right?
SPEAKER_01: As our church, we say, as a church, we say we want to be about ministries of justice and mercy.
SPEAKER_01: This is what we mean.
SPEAKER_01: We want to care for those who are hurting, as Jesus did.
SPEAKER_01: A really practical takeaway.
SPEAKER_01: How do we treat people in need?
SPEAKER_01: How do we treat the beggar on the street corner?
SPEAKER_01: How do we treat people who are hurting?
SPEAKER_01: Do we have the mind of Christ, who cared for the poor and healed the sick?
SPEAKER_01: But even more important about this verse is the context it was given in.
SPEAKER_01: So when they tell him to remember the poor, they're talking actually about something specific here.
SPEAKER_01: It's not like, oh, hey, Paul, you're going throughout these ministries or throughout these cities in Asia as you do, just go give money to people who are poor.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure he did that as well, but that's not exactly what they were saying.
SPEAKER_01: There was a specific collection in Jerusalem for poor Jewish Christians.
SPEAKER_01: And by telling him to remember the poor, what they're saying is, hey, Paul, go plant these Gentile churches, and when you do, have them send money back to us so we can care for these poor Jewish Christians.
SPEAKER_01: Gentile Christians were supposed to freely give to Jewish Christians, and vice versa.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine if your whole life you had an enemy and not like, I don't like what that dude posts on Facebook or like Samantha stole my lunch out of the office fridge.
SPEAKER_01: Like that's not what I'm talking about, right?
SPEAKER_01: Like an actual, an actual enemy.
SPEAKER_01: Someone who said, hey, if you come near me, if you come into my part of the neighborhood, I'm gonna kill you.
SPEAKER_01: And then imagine that one day someone told you to give a portion of your paycheck to this guy who said he was going to kill you previously so that he could afford food.
SPEAKER_01: All except the most Christ-like of us would say, go kick rocks, right?
SPEAKER_01: Probably.
SPEAKER_01: I pray that I would be in a different position, but honestly, I don't think I would be.
SPEAKER_01: If I'm just being honest with you, I think I'd say absolutely not.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Paul was telling these people to do.
SPEAKER_01: And the even cooler thing is they actually do it.
SPEAKER_01: We know from church history that they actually give to the collection in Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: Gentile churches send money to help Jewish Christians who, by all earthly standards, should be their enemies.
SPEAKER_01: What radical unity.
SPEAKER_01: These people were once enemies, real enemies, kill each other in the street, enemies.
SPEAKER_01: Now they give freely and gladly to each other.
SPEAKER_01: If you are a Christian, you have been unified by the blood of Christ with every other Christian.
SPEAKER_01: Meaning that that person is now your brother or sister.
SPEAKER_01: And that sounds like churchy, right?
SPEAKER_01: If you come from certain backgrounds, you might hear a deacon called like brother so-and-so, right?
SPEAKER_01: That's what this comes from.
SPEAKER_01: We've been unified.
SPEAKER_01: We have fellowship, oneness.
SPEAKER_01: And this unity is stronger than any socioeconomic difference, stronger than any cultural difference, stronger than any political affiliation, stronger than any other differentiator.
SPEAKER_01: It is Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Once I heard it put that you have more in common with a Christian in Iraq than you do with an American who doesn't know Christ.
SPEAKER_01: To take it a step further, maybe in a way that might challenge us.
SPEAKER_01: Christians, you have more in common with a Christian who votes Democrat than you do a non-Christian who votes Republican.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not trying to make a political statement here.
SPEAKER_01: That wasn't a political statement.
SPEAKER_01: What I'm trying to show you is that Christ unifies across all barriers.
SPEAKER_01: All boundaries.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel to the Jew is also the gospel to the Gentile, which is the gospel to the Americans, to the Haitians, the rich, the poor, the pretty, the ugly, the man, the woman, the white, the black, the Republican, the Democrat, young, old, all the ends of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: When we are in Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek, nor slave, nor free.
SPEAKER_01: We are all children of God, and he loves us, and we have fellowship, oneness, we have unity with one another where once there was division.
SPEAKER_01: What's this practically mean for us?
SPEAKER_01: Well, first it means that living for Christ means that we show no partiality.
SPEAKER_01: Like God does.
SPEAKER_01: We preach the gospel to all peoples.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone who will give us an ear.
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't matter where a person is from, what a person believes, what a person's lifestyle is, every person, rather person who has not placed their faith in Christ needs the gospel preached to them.
SPEAKER_01: Guess what?
SPEAKER_01: That means we're going to have to associate with them.
SPEAKER_01: Even the ones we don't like who aren't like us.
SPEAKER_01: I would argue, especially the ones who we don't like who aren't like us.
SPEAKER_01: That was the model that Jesus gave.
SPEAKER_01: Eating with people that were different than him.
SPEAKER_01: It also means that petty quarrels have no place in the church.
SPEAKER_01: God forgave us when we hung his son on a cross by our sin.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, he put him up there because of our sin.
SPEAKER_01: We've been unified by Christ's blood.
SPEAKER_01: What could come between us?
SPEAKER_01: All the time I see Christians dividing over things that, I mean, quite frankly, are just sort of dumb.
SPEAKER_01: It shouldn't be that way.
SPEAKER_01: Do we not have unity in Christ's blood?
SPEAKER_01: This unity brought Jews and Gentiles, bitter enemies, together so that they cared freely for one another's needs.
SPEAKER_01: This is the type of unity we have.
SPEAKER_01: Christ said they'll know that you're my disciples by what?
SPEAKER_01: How you love each other.
SPEAKER_01: When the world sees people who shouldn't be friends, who should be enemies, and they're loving each other, they're freely giving to one another, caring for each other's needs.
SPEAKER_01: It's astounding.
SPEAKER_01: More than that, it's attracting.
SPEAKER_01: Why is there love when there once was hatred?
SPEAKER_01: It's because Christ has united us in the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Because of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, we have freedom from the law.
SPEAKER_01: We have freedom from striving.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to work to be in a right relationship with God.
SPEAKER_01: Christ did all the work.
SPEAKER_01: All we have to do is place our faith in him, trust in his work.
SPEAKER_01: That also means that we have freedom to love one another well.
SPEAKER_01: If Christ has reconciled us to each other by his life, death, and resurrection, what could tear us apart?
SPEAKER_01: I pray that we're a church that cherishes that message, that cherishes the gospel, and that rests in Christ and that loves one another well for his glory.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: God, we thank you so much for your word.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you for the book of Galatians.
SPEAKER_01: God, we thank you for how you have reconciled us to yourself.
SPEAKER_01: God, we repent of any ways we are trusting in our own works to be in a right relationship with you.
SPEAKER_01: We pray you would break us of that.
SPEAKER_01: That even as Christians, we would remember that our standing towards you doesn't change even when we sin.
SPEAKER_01: You still love us, that you still show us grace.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you for that truth.
SPEAKER_01: God, we thank you that we have been reconciled to each other by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: God, we would pray we would be a church that lives that out, that cares well for one another, and that the world would look at that care.
SPEAKER_01: They would see people who shouldn't be caring for one another, and they would say, Man, what a beautiful, surprising, God glorifying unity.
SPEAKER_01: And use that, Lord, to draw people to yourself.
SPEAKER_01: It's in your name we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.