This week in a message entitled, “The Work of the Gospel”,
we are going to see that it is not only the Gospel that can change us. Another
way of saying it is that the finished work of Christ not only justifies us
before a Holy God, it sanctifies us before Him as well.
In Ephesians 2 we read, “For by grace you have been saved
through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not the
result of works. So that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created
in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that one should
walk in them.” These are familiar words to many, but notice, if you examine
them carefully you will find not justification by grace alone, through faith
alone, through Christ alone in the first two sentences, but sanctification in
the third and final sentence. Paul’s point is all the work that must be done in
our lives is a work of grace.
It’s to truth that Paul points in our text – Galatians
2:6-14. In verse 14 he declares, “I saw that their conduct was not in step with
the Gospel…” What Paul seems to be saying is that the Gospel sends out a line
of conduct that should characterize the active grace of God in our lives.
Here’s a historic example of that line of the Gospel. It’s
said that no one treated Abraham Lincoln with more contempt than Edwin Stanton.
He not only denounced his policies, he called him a “low cunning clown.”
Stanton nicknamed Lincoln “the original gorilla.” He used to say that explorers
didn’t need to go to Africa to try to capture a gorilla, all they needed to do
was travel to Springfield, Illinois. Lincoln said nothing in reply. In fact, he
made Stanton his war minister because he thought he was the best man for the
job. He treated him with every courtesy. When Lincoln died, one of the first
people to see the dead president was Edwin Stanton who said, “There lies the greatest
ruler of men the world has ever seen.”
Now what was it in Lincoln’s life that changed Stanton? It
wasn’t a scolding from the President. It was pure unadulterated grace. The
grace of God in Lincoln’s life melted the heart of Edwin Stanton.
In Acts 21:20 we read that when Paul and Barnabas arrived in
Jerusalem there were many thousands of Jews who had believed in Christ. All
Paul and Barnabas had to do was to stand up and preach to the people and
excoriate the false teachers and their teaching. But they don’t operate like
that. They don’t speak to the people. Rather, they meet with the leaders of the
church behind closed doors. And in so doing, they absolved them of their error.
We see the same thing in Peter’s visit to Antioch described
in Sunday’s text. What we see here is the dynamic force of the Gospel in the
daily lives of these early Christian disciples. There’s so much here in this
last half of chapter 2 that we will spend this Sunday and next Sunday unpacking
it.
In preparation for Sunday you may wish to consider the
following:
- How is it possible to be a genuine Christian and still live in bondage?
- What is the root of such bondage?
- How do the words of Jesus in Matthew 11:27-30 relate to Paul’s argument in Galatians 2:1-14?
- How do you explain Peter’s behavior in Antioch, especially after the Jerusalem meeting in Galatians 2:1-10?
- How did false teachers in Jerusalem and Antioch demonstrate that they fail to understand grace?
- Why do the Christian leaders in Jerusalem ask Paul to remember the poor (verse 10)?
- Why does Paul say that it is something he is eager to do?
- What does Paul mean in verse 14 when he says that their conduct is out of step with the Gospel?
- How does the Gospel change the Christian’s walk?
- Who are you more like – Paul or Peter?
