Our Sermons

Bible Passage: Galatians 2:11-21
Pastor: Pastor Schlicht
Sermon Date:  July 7, 2019

I’m going to give you two scenarios and see if you know why they are different? #1: A husband comes to his wife on their anniversary, gives her a bouquet of flowers and says let’s go out for dinner. She says “Thank you, you didn’t have to do this!” The husband responds, saying, “Yes, I did. It is sort of my obligation as your husband to do something on our anniversary. I don’t want you to be mad at me and so this is required.” #2: A husband comes to his wife on their anniversary, gives her flowers, and says let’s go out for dinner. She says, “Thank you, you didn’t have to do this!” The husband responds saying, “Yes, I did. I think it’s important to celebrate our love. And nothing makes me happier than to see you happy.” What’s the difference? Although in both cases the husband gave his wife flowers and went out to eat, the motivation behind the actions makes these very different stories. One was motivated by the fear of his wife being angry and the unwritten expectations of what a husband should do on an anniversary. The other was motivated by his love for his wife and a desire for her happiness. The actions were the same, but one man was living under the law while the other was living in grace. And that is what made all the difference. And it makes all the difference in any human relationship and especially in our relationship with God, the one who first showed us grace. That’s what we are going to talk about today in the 3rd week of our Galatians sermon series. I’m going to do this in a rather straight-forward way. I’m going to break down the situation in Galatians 2:11-21 in order to define what living in grace means and then I’m going to draw out some applications, three things that living in grace frees us from.

We begin with verse 11 of chapter 2. Paul is actually telling his Galatian readers a story of how he once had to correct the apostle Peter regarding the same issue they were having in their churches. He says, But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly wrong. 12 For before some people came from James, he ate with the Gentiles. But when those people came, he drew back and separated himself, because he feared those from the circumcision group. In Antioch, the apostle Peter was communing and breaking bread with Gentiles in the church. That is until some Jewish men came from Jerusalem, and Peter separated himself and started eating only with them. It turns out Peter was afraid. We don’t know exactly why Peter was afraid, perhaps he didn’t want to look like he had turned his back on his Jewish heritage or maybe he was afraid they wouldn’t respect him if he was eating with the Gentiles, but in any case, Peter sinned by separating himself from the Gentile Christians. Paul continues, 13 And the rest of the Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. Paul calls what Peter does hypocrisy because Peter knew that this wasn’t the message of the gospel! Peter was the one who received the vision in Acts 10 where God declared all food clean. Peter is the one who stood up at the council in Jerusalem and said that God does not discriminate between Jews and Gentiles, In fact, he said this: “We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.” (Acts 15:11) This was hypocrisy because Peter was acting in direct contradiction with his own convictions! And the rest of the Jews in Antioch, even Barnabus, followed him in this hypocrisy! Can you imagine that poor church? Completely split down the middle. Jews on one side, Gentiles on the other. Can you imagine if I asked every one of German descent to sit on the right and everybody else to go on the left? Can you imagine a church cookout where half of us go inside to eat and half stay outside? This was incredibly damaging for this church in Antioch.

Paul knew that this behavior was leading people to cause division and distort the gospel so when he arrived in Antioch, he called out Peter publically: 14 But when I saw that they were not acting according to the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of all of them, “If you, a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, why do you compel the Gentiles to live like the Jews? We are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners. We know that a person is not justified by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. So we also believed in Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law.” Three times in two verses Paul says that justification, the declaration of innocence—forgiveness and salvation, is only found through faith in Jesus Christ. And three times in these same verses he repeats that no one can be justified by the works of the law. He cannot emphasize it enough: Salvation is Jesus Christ, nothing less and nothing more. Whether you’re a Christian in Galatia, or Antioch, or Madison, WI, salvation is Jesus alone. If someone tells you that you need to be circumcised to belong to God, if someone pressures you to change your diet to get right with God, if someone thinks that you need to shape up your act or do something before you come to church, whatever law they try to add on, they are all wrong. Salvation is God’s grace; it is faith in Jesus Christ with no strings attached.

Paul knew this and Peter knew this, but it is one thing to know something and another to live it. So Paul defines what it means to live in grace in verses 20-21: I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I am now living in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21 I do not regard the grace of God as nothing.” Paul says he has been crucified with Christ. He says that part of me, that sinful, greedy, prideful part of me was crucified with Jesus and was buried with him. And the one who rose from the grave wasn’t my sinful self, it was Jesus. He says, I no longer live, but Christ lives in me! This is the story for you as well in Jesus! The person you most regret being, the person who committed that sin, the person who said those damaging words, the person who lived a lie, the hypocrite, the chief of sinners in all of us, that person died with Jesus on his cross. Each time we come to God in repentance that sinful nature is nailed to the cross and we live a new life. More accurately, Christ lives in us. This is what it means to live in grace. It means to live by faith in the Son of God who loved you and gave himself for you! It means the theme of your life is how much Jesus loved you, the unconditional and boundless love of God. That’s grace! That’s what God wants us to live and breathe, to model and share. That is the message here in Galatians 2. Now from this text, I want to draw out three things that living in grace frees us from. 

#1: Fear – Living in grace frees us from fear. Living under the law leads to fear, fear of people and fear of God. Just like when Peter was afraid of those Jews from Jerusalem. If you live in fear, you too may be living under the law even though you know it isn’t what God desires for you. If you feel pressured by someone at work, if you can’t stop worrying about your family, if you are afraid about the future, whatever it may be; your primary need is to live in the grace you believe. Stop and think about what it means that God gave his Son to die for you. The gospel must mean, if anything, that God Almighty is for you and not against you. If God has judged you as righteous because of Jesus, how can you be so afraid of the judgment of others? If God has promised to be with you and to work for your good, then live in that grace and do not be afraid. Paul writes in Romans 8, What then shall we say to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? Or as the writer to the Hebrews says, “The Lord is my helper, I will not be afraid; what can man do to me?” (Hebrews 13:6). Paul says in 2 Timothy 1:7, “God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and self-control.” We have our temporary lapses of faith, like Peter, but God is gracious. He sent Paul to Peter to bring him back in step with the gospel, and this morning he reminds you that if you live in his grace, you don’t have to fear anyone or anything.

#2: Legalism – Living in grace sets us free from this temptation of legalism. Paul says to Peter in verse 14, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?” If Peter had said, “I haven’t told them they have to live like Jews,” Paul would have said, “Your actions speak louder than your words.” That is the definition of legalism: requiring a person to meet a certain standard in order to be accepted by God or by the church. That’s not grace! That’s Jesus plus something else. Jesus alone is salvation. Beyond repentance and faith in Christ, we dare not place anything in the way. We don’t tell people to be good so God loves them, so let’s be careful not to model something different through our actions. This could be as obvious as refusing to invite someone to church or talk to them about Jesus because of sins they boast in or habits they have. (This person needs to change before I could ever have that conversation…) Or something as subtle as a sideways glance at someone who is dressed differently in worship. Legalism is present among us, too. The answer? You guessed it: living in grace! Grace teaches that all people are equally sinful, and yet equally and eternally loved by God. Grace leaves us no room for unloving judgment or prideful conditions. Grace teaches us to reach out with God’s love regardless of ethnicity, regardless of how someone is dressed, regardless of who they are in life or what they have done.

#3: Law-based Relationships – Living in grace sets us free from law-based relationships, which are the most common types of relationships. They are everywhere! Does the car repairman get the job done and on time? If he does you pay him and come again. Does the food taste good at the restaurant? Was the waitress attentive? If so you’ll tip nicely and consider coming again, if not you leave a smaller amount and don’t return. That’s a law-based relationship. They make sense in the professional world, but they are horrible in the home. Sadly, this is the story for many marriages, for many child-parent relationships, and for many friendships. We would never say that our love for people is conditional or focused on performance, but like Peter, our behavior sometimes says differently. We don’t want to feel like we are trying to earn the love of our spouse, we don’t want children to think their parents love is conditional or fear coming to them when they make a mistake, we don’t want friendships to be as cold and performance driven as the workplace, and we certainly don’t want anyone to think that God’s love is conditional. Thankfully living in grace frees us from this. The Gospel says that God loves us before anything happened and despite anything that has happened and through anything that will happen. Grace frees us to serve God in thankfulness and joy, not in fear or a sense of obligation! And we can infuse this grace into our other relationships as well!

As an example of what that might look like: I heard a father talk once of how his son had done some foolish things and ended up getting kicked off his college football team and losing a hefty scholarship. His father was extremely angry. But after praying about it, the first thing he said to his son was “I love you, and this doesn’t change that one bit. And you are God’s child, and this doesn’t change that either.” He didn’t ask him how he could be so foolish, he didn’t tell him he was a disgrace to the family, he didn’t talk about the money that was lost. What a blessing it was for that young man to hear grace from his father. Parents we need to have grace-based relationships with our children. If we want them to come to us with their mistakes, if we want them to listen to us in love not just obligation, let’s affirm God’s grace and our unconditional love for them! Do it every day if you can! Spouses, the same is true, could you remind yourselves of God’s love and your own love for one another before you discuss difficult matters? When was the last time you told your husband or wife that nothing can change your love for them? Would that change the discussion? Finally, you and I, as Christians, may be the one grace-based relationship some of our friends will ever have. Let’s be Christ to them and show them his commitment and compassion. Let’s live in the grace God has shown us. Even when the kid in the drive-through gets the order wrong, even when somebody annoys you at church, even when you mess up yourself, live in God’s unconditional grace.

Amen.