Title: Vertical Living in a Horizontal World (Part 2)
2 Then after fourteen years I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. 2 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 I was not running or had
not run in vain. 3 But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a
Greek.
4 Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in
Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery— 5 to them we did not yield in submission even for a
moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you. 6 And from those who seemed to be
influential (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)—those, I say, who seemed
influential added nothing to me.
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 8 (for he who worked through Peter for his
apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles), 9 and when James
and Cephas 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 they to the circumcised.
10 Only, they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do.
11 But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before
certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and
separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. 13 And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with
him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that their conduct was not
in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a
Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”
15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is not justified by
works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to
be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be
justified.
Have you ever been talked into trying the StairMaster at the gym?
It looks harmless enough - just a little escalator that goes the wrong way.
You step on, punch in "30 minutes," and for the first two minutes you feel great.
By minute ten, you're negotiating with God.
By minute twenty, your legs are shaking like a newborn calf and you're sweating in places you didn't know
had sweat glands.
The machine keeps cheering you on - "Great job! Keep climbing!"
And finally, it beeps: "Congratulations! You've climbed 87 floors!"
You stagger off, feeling like you could plant a flag on the summit.
Then you look around.
You're still on the ground floor.
Same rubber mat. Same mirror. Same guy grunting at the water fountain.
All that climbing, and you never went up one inch.
?- How’s this relate to what it means to be saved?
Well, religion built on our works is like that stairmaster.
It feels vertical. It looks vertical. You'll certainly sweat like it's vertical.
People pray harder, attend more, give more, try more - hoping the machine will finally tell them they've
made it.
But at the end of it all, they're standing right where we started - on the ground, no closer to God.
They’ve been trying to achieve a vertical impact through horizontal legalistic methods.
True vertical living doesn't start with our climbing, but started with His coming to be our Savior.
[Lead] And learning to live that way, in a world full of StairMasters, is what we're continuing to explore this
morning in -
Vertical Living in a Horizontal World (Part 2)
It can be especially grievous when we’re seeking to live vertical in a horizontal world and we keep running
into what seem like Christian ideas that aren’t gospel-based ideas.
They may reference God and Jesus.
But, when it comes to our part, they treat God’s saving grace as if it’s dependent on what we do.
These ideas can sound as sweet as “Say your prayers” or “Make sure you go to church.”
But if a person’s salvation is thought to be attached to these actions, the teaching is an anti-gospel.
These are horizontal religious ideas in the sense that they look at what WE do as ways to make God love us.
They’re not the vertical gospel truth that looks at what Jesus has done in His death and resurrection and
says, “There’s nothing more to be done.”
Recall from last week that false teachers had been putting horizontal ideas into the Galatians' heads.
They said Paul was a people-pleaser.
He only preached grace, they claimed, because he didn't want to tell anyone they had to keep the law.
To this silly accusation, Paul wrote -
* 10 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still
trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
From Paul’s example of how he lived vertical amid horizontal accusations, I encouraged you to -
1. Choose God’s Approval Over People-Pleasing.
2. Trust the Gospel Over People’s Instructions.
3. Glorify God with Your Story Over Elevating Self.
We’re learning more from Paul’s experiences as he defended the gospel to the other Apostles.
This might sound really strange to think that the gospel had to be defended to the Apostles.
It makes it easier to understand this when you realize that they were all Jewish.
They all had grown up being taught that the nation of Israel was God’s covenant people.
All they had known was that someone had to join the nation of Israel to be in relationship with the one
true God.
This morning, we’re going to learn from a few showdowns that Paul had over the gospel.
And we’ll wrap it up with the plain unmistakable truth that, no matter who you are, you can only have a
relationship with God by 100% grace. PERIOD
Before we get into Galatians 2, I think it’s important to go over the background of this Jew/Gentile issue.
The book of Acts is so helpful for our understanding on this.
As the men in our Saturday Men’s Bible Study have been seeing, much of the book of Acts follows this
transition in the thinking of the early church.
And there are amazing events that God uses to transition their thinking.
One of these events is what takes place on the day of Pentecost.
This took place after Jesus was resurrected and ascended to heaven.
He had told his followers to stay in Jerusalem and wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them.
At Pentecost is when all of Jesus’ followers received the Holy Spirit for the first time.
And it was evidenced by their speaking in tongues, which turned out to be languages that were
understood by other Jews that were from all over the Mediterranean area.
This resulted in over 3,000 Jews also believing in Jesus as their Savior.
Acts gives other examples of the gospel progressing beyond just being believed by a Jewish sect.
But none is more astounding than what takes place in Acts 10 involving the Apostle Peter and a Roman
Centurion named Cornelius.
You can’t get any more non-Jewish than a Gentile centurion of the Roman army.
In short, as Cornelius is listening to Peter explain the gospel, he and his family trust Jesus as Savior.
And the Holy Spirit chooses to show evidence of their salvation by them also speaking in tongues.
To this Peter responds,
* Acts 10:47 “Can anyone withhold water for baptizing these people, who have received the Holy Spirit just
as we have?”
In Acts 10, we have the evidence and the recognition that Jews and Gentiles both can receive Jesus as
their Savior by God’s grace through faith alone.
What’s important is that it’s not just that it’s Gentiles that were saved.
But it’s also important that it was Peter who witnessed this take place.
And Peter goes on to have to defend himself to the Jewish church in Jerusalem in Acts 11.
Pivot - Acts 15
So, let me take you to a monumental meeting that takes place in Acts 15 and is likely what Paul is talking
about in this section of his letter where he talks about convincing the Apostles.
It takes place after Paul’s missionary journey in which he has seen many Gentiles come to salvation.
And he’s seen the Holy Spirit establish churches around the Mediterranean region.
=> We read in Acts 14:27 of his report back to the church in Antioch.
Acts 14:27 27 And when they arrived and gathered the church together, they declared all that God had
done with them, and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles.
Then Acts 15 begins with the debate in Antioch of whether Gentiles can be saved without being Jews.
Acts 15:1-14 1 But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are
circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” 2 And after Paul and Barnabas had
no small dissension and debate with them, Paul and Barnabas and some of the others were appointed to
go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and the elders about this question.
6 The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. 7 And after there had been
much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a
choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. 8 And
God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us,
9 and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.
10 Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that
neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11 But we believe that we will be saved through the
grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”
Following Peter’s testimony, Paul shared about the salvations that he had seen on his mission trip.
Then the leaders of the church in Jerusalem agreed that it was obvious that God was saving Gentiles.
From that point forward, it’s been clear that the church is made up of all peoples - Jew and Gentile.
I hope you find what we’ve covered in Acts to be very informative in understanding Galatians 2:1-16.
This brings us to what we’re taking away from these verses.
The first of this morning’s takeaways from Paul’s example of living vertical in a horizontal world is to -
1. PROTECT THE GRACE OF THE GOSPEL.
* 4 Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in—who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in
Christ Jesus, so that they might bring us into slavery— 5 to them we did not yield in submission even for a
moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.
The question was always a matter of whether God’s grace was being shown directly to Gentiles, not
requiring them to become Jews first.
There’s two interesting ideas in Paul’s account of the days he was defending Gentile’s right to be Christians
without first becoming Jews.
First, he speaks of “false brothers” in the Jerusalem church.
This is speaking of those who claimed to be Christians, maybe thought they were Christians.
But they were false.
They weren’t true Christians.
But they were claiming to speak biblical truth regarding how a person can/should be saved.
The second is the contrast that we see in Paul’s description of the situation is that of freedom and slavery.
These false brothers were there in Jerusalem to attack the freedom of being saved by grace.
Instead of freedom, Paul says they sought to bring them into slavery - slavery to the fruitless pursuit of
salvation by works.
?Whats it mean to be saved?
It means to walk in freedom not slavery
Paul says that he and his partners didn’t yield one second for the sake of us Gentiles, so that we wouldn’t
be confused between God’s grace coming to us through faith and a salvation by works.
After these meetings and discussion, Paul says that the leaders of the Jerusalem church gave him and his
friends, the right hand of fellowship, which means they embraced them as brothers in the Lord.
It was accepted that, while the Lord had set aside Peter to reach the Jewish people with the gospel of
grace, Paul had been called for the purpose of reaching Gentiles with the gospel of grace.
Have you ever signed up for one of those 3-day, 2-night free resort vacations?
You get there and you learn that your whole family is expected to attend a “short welcome presentation.”
You file in with other unsuspecting sheep to the timeshare presentation slaughterhouse.
When it starts, you’re thinking, this vacation is still worth it.
But by hour #3, after dehydration sets in and you hear 50 different financing options, and the salesperson
bringing up the legacy you could leave to your grandkids, you’re asking if you can cut the trip short
and just go home.
You want to just say,
“Kids, forget about the luggage. If you’re not in the car in 5 minutes, I’m leaving without you.”
This is totally different than friends handing you the keys to their beachfront condo and saying,
“Make yourself at home.”
What if after the presentation from hell experience, you’re thinking “What’s the catch?”
You remember your Gramps telling you, “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
And this is true.
The timeshare company has to break a certain number of people in order to pay for your free vacation.
And your friends offer of their condo isn’t free either.
It cost them quite a bit.
But your friends with their generous hearts have made all the payments and just want to share what they
have with you.
When it comes to salvation, the truth is the same - “There’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
But how can that be true when the gospel says we’re saved from hell and given a relationship with God
from now through eternity?
It’s true because Jesus paid the price.
Salvation isn't a free lunch. Somebody paid. It just wasn't you.
And it took the death of God the Son to pay the penalty of sin for every person from every point in history.
Protecting grace this week can mean catching yourself when you think God loves you more because you
had a good week, or less because you had a bad one.
"You should” is fine.
“You must, or God won't love you” is not.
Don't say it to yourself. Don't say it to your kids. Don't say it to anyone."
The next evidence that Paul gives that his gospel of grace is legit is from the fact that he defended it
against hypocrisy.
This is where we heard Paul talk about opposing Peter/Cephas to his face along with others who had
followed in his hypocrisy.
From the epic showdown of the Apostle Paul confronting the Apostle Peter, we can learn to -
2. KEEP THE GOSPEL OVER KEEPING THE PEACE.
As Bob read, Paul tells a story about a time when the Apostle Peter came to visit the church in Antioch.
Antioch was a city about 300 miles north of Jerusalem where the church had really taken off.
There were a number of Gentiles that worshiped as followers of Christ there alongside their Jewish
brothers.
While Peter was there, he’d embraced his Gentile brothers and sisters, even eating with them, which went
against the Mosaic Law.
He likely did this, not as a permanent change of practice, but to show his solidarity and the primacy of the
gospel over the Jewish traditions.
Well, it happened that representatives showed up from Jerusalem.
And when this happened, Peter drew away from eating with his Gentile brothers and sisters.
We’re told that he did this because he was afraid of the “Circumcision Party.”
This isn’t a political party or a sadistic form of celebration.
This can just be another way that they referred to Jewish Christians.
Lead - So, the Apostle Paul confronts the Apostle Peter’s hypocrisy in front of everyone.
* 14 But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before
them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live
like Jews?”
?- Why did Paul confront Peter so strongly along with the other Jewish Christians that joined with him?
He states that it was because their conduct wasn’t in step with the truth of the gospel.
?- What does he mean by this?
The gospel proclaims that Jesus has done all that needs to be done to make us right with God.
For Peter to treat the Gentile believers like they were 2 nd class Christians, undermined this truth.
Paul also interpreted what Peter was doing as saying, “You Gentiles need to live like us Jews.”
He uses a verb that’s very interesting - ἰουδαΐζω, which basically means to live like Jews.
Interestingly from this verb, the false teachers are sometimes called Judaizers.
?-Why is Paul sharing this story with the Galatians?
It’s because he’s trying to make clear that the gospel he preached wasn’t influenced by others.
And he’s also making clear that Jewish Christians from Jerusalem had never been able to trump Gentile
freedoms in Christ.
I watch way too much reality TV involving law enforcement.
I remember one guy that couldn’t stop impersonating a police officer.
He had a business where he would escort funeral processions on his motorcycle which looked much like a
policeman’s bike.
But he was clearly one bullet short of Barney Fife because during his free time he would drive around and
pull people over for what he thought were moving violations.
Thankfully, for those of us who love watching these things, he wore a bodycam, which also became
evidence against him during one of his many trials for pulling this stunt.
On the body cam footage, many of the people he showed his fake badge to would tell him to take a hike.
They weren’t about to surrender their freedom to a person who had no authority over them.
How crazy would it have been if I paid a fine to this man who had a tin star and a loose screw?
We need to be prepared to reject those who try to bring us under a lie that doing good is what save us.
I can tell you that I’ve strongly disagreed with some who have attended Harvest in the past who insisted
that baptism was necessary for salvation.
As a member of the planning team for the Christian Men’s Breakfast, I can tell you that we will not take
that event to St. Bernard’s or St. Steven’s or even some of the Evangelical churches in Montgomery
County.
The reason is that these places teach a gospel of works which cannot save.
And many of us have invested years into that ministry to steer it away from its ecumenical beginnings.
Why are we willing to stand our ground on these things?
Because we should keep the gospel over keeping the peace.
The final take away from Paul’s storytelling here in Galatians is to -
3. STAND 100% ON THE GOSPEL AND NOT ONE BIT ON WORKS.
* 15 We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; 16 yet we know that a person is NOT justified by
works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be
justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.
It’s difficult to know if this is a continuation of what Paul is saying to Peter or a separate statement.
Either way, the point is still made - a person is justified only by God’s grace through faith in Jesus Christ.
It appears that Paul is referring to Gentiles the way that his fellow Jews typically did as “Gentile sinners.”
This is better than the typical insult of “Gentile dogs.”
He’s saying that even Jewish Christians recognize that doing works according to the Mosaic Law doesn’t
make them justified - declared righteous by God.
And Jewish Christians have come to God through faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection as a payment of
the penalty of their sin.
They choose this path, not because it’s easier than following the Law.
They choose salvation by faith in Christ because it’s the ONLY way to be saved!
Imagine a man walks into the Louvre in Paris carrying a paint kit and a brush.
He weaves through the crowd until he's standing right in front of the Mona Lisa.
He studies her for a minute, shakes his head, and says, "You know what she needs? A real smile."
He opens his paints, dips his brush, and leans in to give her a nice big grin.
You can imagine how fast security would tackle him.
But even if he got that brushstroke on the canvas, would anyone say,
"Wow, he really finished what Leonardo started"?
No! For 500 years the world has called it a masterpiece. Nothing is missing.
Every stroke that man added wouldn't improve it. It would ruin it.
When Jesus said on the cross, "It is finished," the masterpiece of our salvation was complete.
Our works can't give it a better smile.
When we try to add our own brushstrokes of effort, we're saying Jesus left something unfinished.
Paul says it this way in verse 21: "if justification were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose."
So put down the brush. Stand 100% on what Christ has done, and not one bit on what you can add.
We started this morning on a StairMaster - sweating, straining, climbing 87 floors and never leaving the
ground.
That's where every gospel of works leaves us.
Paul refused to let anyone put the Galatians back on that machine.
He protected the grace of the gospel against false brothers.
He kept the gospel over keeping the peace, even with THE Apostle Peter.
And he stood 100% on Christ and not one bit on works.
So this week, when that little voice whispers,
"Keep climbing - God will love you more if you do," step off the machine.
Put down the paintbrush.
The work is finished.
Salvation never came by our climbing.
It came by His coming to earth and paying the price of our sin.
You are saved by 100% grace.
PERIOD.
