Message of the Week

The Little White Community Church

Scripture: Gal. 2: 1-21 Jan. 26, 2025

Message:

"How the past prepares us for the present!”

by Pastor George Gnade

Intro: 1. Let me begin with a quick review. In Act. 9, Paul was saved and called to be an apostle to the Gentiles. In Acts 11, Barnabas took Paul under his wing and trained and encouraged him while they worked in Antioch. 

a. Due to a famine, they then traveled together to give gifts to the poor in Jerusalem and also met some of the apostles who affirmed what they were doing. 

b. After returning to Antioch, in Acts 13:1-3, the leaders in Antioch commissioned Paul and Barnabas and sent them on a missionary journey. 

2. This brought them into the region of Galatia where they led many to the Lord (Acts 14). Rejoicing in all God had done, they returned to Antioch only to learn that Jewish teachers had come into Galatia and confused the new Christians. 

a. These Jews said Gentiles who became Christians had to be circumcised and keep all the Jewish laws besides accepting Christ.

b. Paul said: Absolutely not! Salvation in Christ was simply an act of faith alone, apart from any works of the Law.  The question was: Who would they believe?

A. To prove whom they should believe, Paul had to refer back to experiences he had in the past, including some of the key experiences I just mentioned above. 

1. In the early church, God’s Word had to have the appro-val of the apostles.  So Paul began this book in Galatians chapter one by sharing how he became an apostle when Jesus Himself called him on the road to Damascus. 

2. Secondly, after his call, we also learned in Gal. 1:17 how Paul received other visions from Jesus while in Arabia. We might call those three years his time of training. 

3. Thirdly, in Gal.1:18, about  3 yrs. after he was called, we learned how Peter and Jesus’ brother James met Paul for about 15 days and approved of all Paul said. All of these  experiences from his past were meant to help the Galatians to trust and believe in what Paul told them in this book.

B. Today we come to Gal. 2. In this passage, Paul explains two more experiences from his past that would help the Galatians to believe in him and not the Jewish teachers.  

1. The first occurred about 14 yrs. after Jesus met him on the road to Damascus (Gal. 2:1). This time Paul is referring back to Acts. 11 when he and Barnabas brought gifts to the poor in Jerusalem.  He didn’t go to Jerusalem to get approval for his ministry. He went to help the poor. 

a. But in the process, he now met more of the apostles and he deliberately met with them privately to verify with them all he and Barnabas had been doing.

b. In Gal. 2:4, we are told why they had this meeting.

2. Paul writes: “This (meeting) arose because some false brethren had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves (of the Laws of the O.T.).

a. In plain words, the very group that was now affecting the Galatians had already tried to influence the Christians in Jerusalem. But they did not succeed. 

b. In fact, that is why Paul and Barnabas had taken 

Titus with them on this trip to help the poor.  They knew Titus was a Gentile who had accepted Christ, but he had not been circumcised. And they brought him with them as a test case (Gal. 2: 1-3).  

3. If new Christians had to get circumcised to be true believers, then the other apostles would have demanded that Titus do this.  But they didn’t!

a. That means James, the brother of Jesus, who was the head of the church in Jerusalem, did not start this heresy, nor did any of the other leaders in the early church such as Peter and John.

b. Once again, the point Paul was making is that none of the other apostles added to what Jesus had already taught Paul.  Therefore, this was another reason why the Galatians could trust him. How thankful Paul must have been for this past experience!

4. Because of this, Paul and Barnabas were sent on their way back to their home base in Antioch with everyone’s approval. And they were told preach the gospel to the Gentiles in the same way that Peter was called to preach the gospel to the Jews.

a. So in Acts. 13: 1-3, when Paul and Silas were sent out on their first missionary journey, all the leaders in the Christian church were in agreement with each other.

b. The gospel Paul preached while in Galatia was the true gospel. The teachings of these Jewish leaders who came after he left were false teachers. 

C. But one more thing happened that Paul wanted to share with the Galatians. We learn in Gal.2: 11-16, sometime after the famine, after had Paul returned to Antioch with Barnabas, but before their first missionary journey, Peter came to visit them.

1. In the beginning he ate with Gentile Christians and ate the same food they did. In Acts 10, Peter had had a vision explaining to him that, now that Christ had come, all food was to be treated the same. So he had no problem eating with the Gentiles. In that same vision, he also learned that Gentile Christians were just as good as Jewish Christians.

2. But then some Christian Jews arrived in Antioch who were still living by the O.T. rules. For some reason, to keep them happy, Peter stopped eating with the Gentiles and started to eat like the Jews.

a. This gave the impression that Jewish Christians who kept the O.T. laws were better than new Gentile Christians who were under no law.

b. This confused everyone. So Paul confronted him and scolded him for going back to his old way of life instead of living under the new rules Christians now had. 

3. I’m sure Paul was concerned that the Galatians might hear about that and think Peter agreed with their false Jewish teachers. Praise God, Paul was very consistent in what he taught and how he practiced his faith.

a. So Paul shared this story about Peter with the Galatians in Gal. 2: 11-16. As soon as Paul saw what Peter was doing, he felt led to confront him publically.

b. In vs.14, he said to Peter: “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it then that you are forcing Gentiles to follow Jewish customs?”

c. In vs. 15, he continues: “We who are Jews by birth and not ‘Gentile sinners’ know that a man is not justified by obeying the Law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we have put our faith in Jesus Christ and not in obeying the Law because by observing the Law no one will be justified.”

In Conclusion:  And what Paul told Peter is exactly what he wanted the Galatians and us to understand too. 

a.  Even if someone like Peter were to do the wrong thing, it still wouldn’t make it right. And the Jews who were leading them astray didn’t make it right either. 

b. Salvation is by faith in Jesus Christ through grace alone. We can’t earn it or deserve it. It is simply a free gift from God to whoever will receive it. That is what matters. c. And thank God for our past experiences that help prepare us for the present. They are also a gift from God.