April 27, 2025 • 29 mins
What does true unity in the church require? Paul’s bold defense of the Gospel shows us that real unity is not found in compromise, but in truth and shared mission.
Originally preached to Ekklesia Churches by Dan on February 23, 2025.
This message from Galatians 2:1–10 walks us through Paul’s private meeting with the Jerusalem leaders, revealing key principles for gospel-centered unity in the face of pressure and distortion.
Teaching Highlights:
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Unity requires rejecting any false version of the Gospel.
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True fellowship embraces diversity in mission while maintaining one Gospel.
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Christian unity flows into practical care for the needy, beginning with the household of faith.
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Real unity demands work, discernment, and a commitment to the truth.
As our culture offers countless substitutes for the Gospel and cheap versions of community, the church is called to a better, Christ-centered unity.
Learn more about us at EkklesiaChurches.org.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
This message is from Galatians chapter 2 verses 1 through 10 and is entitled "United Around the Gospel"
It was originally delivered to Ecclesia churches on Sunday, February 23rd, 2025.
One of Paul's goals in this letter to the Galatians is to put an end to the disunity that is being caused by those who would preach a different gospel of legalism
(00:27):
or really anything other than the true gospel that they were saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
It's a rather confrontational letter, but it is a letter in pursuit of the unity of the church.
So in chapter 2, Paul begins writing about a trip he took to Jerusalem and why he went there.
(00:48):
It was a strategic trip and it tells us a lot about what unity looks like to Paul and what that was going to require.
So let's start with verse 1.
(01:24):
So Paul spent three years in Arabia and Damascus and then he goes to Jerusalem briefly to meet with Peter
and spends about 14 years primarily in Syria and Salicia preaching and establishing the church.
Paul is essentially nearing a two decade mark in ministry at this point.
(01:47):
And also of note here is that Paul is requesting this meeting privately because he wants to get to the heart of the issue.
He's not interested in calling people out in a public assembly if he can help it, though he's not opposed to doing that if it's necessary.
These influential people are disciples, he says that in verse 9.
(02:09):
And Paul is checking in with them to make sure they were in alignment around the gospel,
particularly Paul is concerned about the ongoing pushback from people who demand the conversion of Gentiles to Jewish customs in order to be saved.
That there was something additional they needed other than Jesus and that something additional was Jewish customs such as circumcision.
(02:33):
Paul is confident that his message is true and it is from Jesus directly,
but he also recognizes that he is not in a solo endeavor.
He is not the only person founding and pastoring the church at this point.
The whole community is at stake here and he can't afford to be silent.
(02:54):
He must make sure that no one is undermining the work of the gospel, particularly from within the church.
So the first thing that we're going to see is necessary to Paul and to us.
If we are to be united around the gospel is a rejection of falsehood.
(03:15):
There is no space for compromise when it comes to the gospel.
And so let's get into the heart of the matter.
And again, here the heart of the matter is against these legalists with verse 3.
But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek,
yet because of false brothers secretly brought in who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus,
(03:44):
so that they might bring us into slavery, to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment
so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.
So Jewish Christians who believed that gentile converts to Christianity needed to follow Jewish laws and customs,
(04:05):
particularly circumcision, to truly be saved.
These were the false brothers that Paul refers to when he's talking about these people.
He's referring to those who were trying to spy out their freedom and bring them back into the slavery of lawkeeping.
It's also evident that Paul does not actually believe that these people are brothers at all.
(04:30):
He says as much that they were false brothers.
Paul submits Titus as almost an awkward exhibit A, right, that he has not given in to these people.
Titus is not circumcised even though he is Paul's direct disciple.
So he is the guy that Paul is training up and even he is not being forced to be circumcised.
(04:55):
So it sounds like Titus has been the center of many of these debates for Paul.
Titus is a student, he's an uncircumcised Greek, and he's not been forced by Paul or other disciples to submit to circumcision.
Circumcision, by the way, wasn't just a Jewish thing.
I know it keeps coming up and usually it's in the context of a Jewish tradition.
(05:17):
However, it was used within several ancient Near Eastern cultures around that time and well before it to show purity or being set apart for the priesthood.
For Israel, it was a little different because for Israel, it was a covenant promise between them and God as his chosen and set apart people.
(05:38):
So in other religions, it would have been a way that they marked themselves as pure or set apart.
Circumcision for Israel was an agreement between them and God that God had set them apart.
And so you can see why it was something that was taken seriously by these Jews who had converted or almost converted to Christianity but still wanted to hold on to this Jewish practice.
(06:05):
Departure from the Gospel, though, is a serious thing.
It is the one thing that we cannot unify under.
Teaching a different Gospel, a different Jesus, a different requirement for salvation, these are not minor issues.
These are things that we cannot, as the Christian Church, yield on even an inch.
(06:26):
Paul says we did not yield to them in submission even for a moment.
And so I want to look at a few of these today and compare them to the real Gospels so that you have a good understanding of how a small change can completely change the message of the Gospel.
Paul calls these distortions.
(06:47):
And we've touched on a few of them a few weeks ago, but here are some others to be aware of.
One of the most popular today is called the Prosperity Gospel.
You may have heard of this.
And what the Prosperity Gospel claims is that it is making salvation about earthly success rather than Christ's redemptive work.
(07:09):
And so the Prosperity Gospel says God wants you to thrive in the here and now.
And that includes being physically successful, wealthy, healthy.
Basically, life is going to be nothing but good for you if you're following Jesus.
(07:31):
That stands in opposition to the kinds of things that Jesus said.
Jesus warned in John 15-20, "If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you."
He also said in John 16, a chapter later, 1633, "In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world."
(07:57):
In Matthew 24-13, Jesus says, "The one who endures to the end will be saved."
None of this sounds like living our best life.
I want you to take a moment and think about the best vacation that you've ever been on.
Is that something that you would describe as something that you endured?
(08:18):
No.
However, Jesus promises to be with us.
And he describes this end result as a pearl of great price or a treasure that we have found that was worth everything else that we went through to obtain that treasure.
Endurance with Jesus and eternity in his kingdom is better than the temporary pleasure and eternity apart from him.
(08:46):
So the true gospel says we may suffer in the here and now, but we are going to rejoice forevermore.
And Jesus is with us even in the here and now, all the way through eternity.
The prosperity gospel tries to twist that by saying that all good things and pleasure is for the here and now.
(09:09):
And if somehow you're not experiencing that here and now, then you must not be in God's will.
That's actually not the case.
The next category or twist would be moralism or a workspace salvation, which really reduces Christianity to being a good person or being a person who follows the rules.
(09:32):
You are earning your keep, essentially.
And we see this in a lot of modern day free license Christianity where you're told you just have to be a good enough person and somehow balance out the scales on your own.
But we also see this in the rigorous religious traditions like Catholicism even and cults like Mormonism.
(09:53):
Their traditions and ceremonies and rights are what saves you.
The Catholic Church, for example, will teach that you receive the grace of God directly through the ordinances or practices that are provided by the Catholic Church.
Let's look at what scripture has to say about that.
(10:14):
As to earning your own salvation, Jesus says in Luke 1819 that no one is good except God alone.
Only God is holy. Only God is righteous.
Right? We are not going to make ourselves perfectly righteous to the standard that God requires.
(10:37):
Paul writes that there's a different system in place. In Ephesians 2, 8 through 9 he says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, not a result of works."
There's also a story of a young man, a rich young ruler who comes to Jesus in Mark 10, 17 through 22.
(11:01):
He says that he wants to be saved and he's kept all of the commandments.
He hasn't, spoiler alert. Jesus says, "Oh, if you've kept all the commandments, you're still lacking just one thing.
You have to stop idolizing your wealth." He tells him, "You have to leave all of your wealth behind. You have to come follow me."
And the man has idolized his wealth to the point where he can't drop his wealth and turn to Jesus.
(11:33):
And so he walks away from Jesus. It's a tragic story.
All of these show us that being good by human standards isn't enough. Following the rules isn't enough.
We need the righteousness of somebody who is actually righteous because we are not. We need Christ's righteousness.
We don't earn our way to God's good pleasure. God is pleased with Christ in us.
(11:56):
And everything else we do is a joyful response to an identity that is firmly in Christ.
Does God take joy in the good things that we do out of our identity in Christ? Absolutely.
But that doesn't mean that those good things are what's earning us his good pleasure.
It's the pleasure of God and Christ in us. So Scripture paints a picture of adoption for us.
(12:19):
Jesus uses this several times. When a parent adopts a child, the child doesn't earn their way into the family
or have to prove their worth first. The parents choose them and love them and give them full rights as their child.
And then the child's good behavior flows from their secure identity as a beloved family member,
(12:42):
not from trying to earn their place in this family.
So the story of the gospel is not about earning our way or about anybody else giving us righteousness other than Jesus alone.
The gospel is about what Christ has done for us, not what we or anyone else can do for us.
(13:03):
The final one we'll talk about today is something called universalism.
I would also mix this in with like a cultural Christianity, the teaching that all paths or many paths at least lead to God
and that Christian identity is really more of a cultural or social kind of title that represents just one potential option.
(13:28):
So Jesus said in John 14.6 something that's going to be a problem for that viewpoint.
He said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
That is no one receives salvation except through me. Jesus is the only one. He's the only option. There is no other option.
(13:53):
Peter declared in Acts 4.12 when he's preaching, "There is salvation in no one else. There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."
The exclusivity of Christ is a core gospel truth.
Being a moral person, right, trying to be good does not save you.
(14:17):
Being an American conservative does not save you.
Being raised in a church does not save you.
Romans 10, 9 through 10 says that we are saved in this way.
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
(14:42):
For with the heart one believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
Believe and confess.
Repent and follow. We see this kind of two-part thing where God invites us in, we respond and we turn to him.
(15:04):
And here we see the exact same thing.
So moving on to the next big thing that is required for unity.
We must have an acceptance of diversity, particularly in the mission.
So you'll notice that so far the two things that are required for unity.
One is that we have to reject falsehood.
(15:25):
It doesn't seem very unifying, but it sure is if we're rejecting what is false and unifying around what is true.
And the second thing is accepting that there's some diversity of mission.
So probably not what you expected to hear around unity, that there should be rejection of some things and diversity around other things.
Essentially, I'm going to say that we all have the same mission, but we have been uniquely equipped for that mission to various people.
(15:53):
We are one body with many parts.
Let's see what Paul is talking about. This is verses 6 through 8.
"And from those who seemed to be influential, what they were makes no difference to me, because God shows no partiality.
Those I say, who seemed influential, added nothing to me.
On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised,
(16:17):
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."
Okay, Paul is getting very wordy here, but he's trying to communicate something that's important for us to understand and important for us to not misunderstand.
(16:42):
Paul is not putting down the disciple. He's talking about them seeming to be influential to me.
And then he says, "It really doesn't matter to me, just because they seemed influential, it didn't really add anything to me."
Paul is not putting down the disciples. He's recognizing that they are perceived by the church to have influence.
(17:03):
And that influence isn't what Paul is after.
Paul is not going to the Jerusalem church leaders because he needs their permission.
He says, he uses this phrase, "God shows no partiality."
What that literally means is God does not accept the face of a man. That's the meaning of the Greek phrase.
(17:25):
It's interesting that it's a Greek phrase, right, that he's using.
It means the gods are not impressed by the social standing of men.
But Paul means it in a little different way. He means it in the scriptural way that says, "God looks at the heart of a man."
Paul does not go to these disciples in Jerusalem for their blessing or their permission.
(17:46):
He says they didn't give him any authority that he wasn't already given by Jesus.
And yet he goes to them. Why?
He goes to them because it's becoming clear that all of these apostles are submitting mutually to a higher authority.
That authority is not influence, right?
Their influence over people is not the authority that they have.
(18:09):
And it's not the following that they have. It is actually Jesus who gives them that authority
in the same way that the only authority that I have to preach and teach
and the only authority that we have to pastor is the authority given us by Jesus by submitting to his word.
That's it.
We all have the same mission here, but we have been given different mission fields.
(18:34):
And Paul recognizes that in this verse 8, because he says,
"The same God that worked through Peter, through this ministry to the Jews,
is also the same God who's working through me to the Gentiles."
It's the same mission, just the two different groups of people.
And so when we think about ourselves, we have all been empowered and sent by Jesus in different capacities.
(18:56):
And we have not all been sent to the same people.
So this is the ongoing tension, right? Between Paul, the preacher to the Gentiles, and Peter, the preacher to the Jews.
And it's led some, not Peter and not Paul, but some people,
to develop their own ideas about dividing how the gospel functioned, right?
Meaning, is there a different deal for Jews than there is for Gentiles?
(19:20):
This is an idea that you might hear called dispensationalism, to dispense.
It means to dispense grace in different ways.
And so when you take that to an extreme, you end up here where there's one deal for the Jews and another for the Gentiles.
And that's not the story of Scripture.
In verse 9, finally, we see unity prevail, that it's the same gospel.
(19:44):
And it's for all people.
Verse 9 says, "When James and Cephas," that is 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 they to the circumcised."
Again, they did not give them permission or authority.
(20:06):
They gave them fellowship.
They said, "We're with you. We're behind you."
So accepting diversity in the church does not look like, let me clarify, intentionally trying to collect people of different races, backgrounds, and ethnicities.
That is not the diversity that I'm talking about.
(20:27):
That ends up being an artificial diversity focused around the wrong metrics.
And we'll actually get into that exact issue in the next chapter in chapter 3.
He also isn't talking about trying to collect people of different viewpoints, because there's strength in diverse viewpoints.
That's an idea that's become very popular in the last, I would say, 10 to 15 years.
(20:51):
And that's actually proven even in the secular world not to hold true.
What's actually a bigger deal for the success of an endeavor of a mission is that people are of a singular mind and purpose when it comes to the mission.
So for us, the mission of making disciples needs to be what we're centered around.
The gospel needs to be what we're centered around.
And some of our other positions and experiences matter a whole lot less than that being unified around the mission.
(21:21):
So this diversity is about understanding that we're on the same mission to be disciples of Jesus, to make disciples of Jesus.
However, we each have different giftings and stories and experiences and even mission fields.
In other words, it's going to look a little different for each of us.
And it's important to be able to say, "We're with you to one another."
(21:42):
For us to be able to look at the stay at home mom or dad, your mission field is primarily your children.
You are not less than in any way, your mission field is just different.
And probably a little shorter than the rest of the world, right?
For parents pulling double duty, working and raising a family, your mission field is a different kind of complex because it includes people from two worlds and two roles.
(22:10):
And that is where you are called to and equipped for by Jesus.
The mission field of a single man or woman is not only to those in your work or your social circles.
It's also in continued preparation as a disciple who may end up one day being a husband or a wife, maybe a mother or a father, but also may be called to a life of singleness.
(22:32):
Those are both biblically viable options.
And scripture doesn't tell us which one we have to take.
We actually get a lot of choice in that.
But all of those choices revolve around following Jesus and trusting that he has prepared what is best for you.
We will not all have the opportunity to be missionaries to a faraway country, but we are all called to be on mission for Jesus.
(23:01):
And this is not a job that's exclusive to pastors, disciples, meaning all of us following Jesus are called to make disciples.
And that will look different and it's important that we are unified around each other in that very diverse work.
Finally, we come to the final point here that almost feels like an afterthought, but actually it's the one that feels the most like unity, right?
(23:28):
And it's what I'm going to call the practice of common care.
A united church actively cares for one another and for the church around the world.
So after we have rejected the false teachings of another gospel and we've dealt with the fact that each of our missions are going to look a little different,
(23:50):
we still huddle around each other.
In verse 10, Paul says, "Only they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do."
So it's interesting that after recognizing they have all been sent to different places and audiences with different specialties.
They are still centered around the gospel and they are still united around serving the poor.
(24:13):
Who is the poor?
To them, we have to understand that first, right?
It's important to get that the poor is a shorthand term.
It's a nickname actually and it's referring to the Christians, the saints in Jerusalem.
Why?
Because these people were some of the poorest people in that world.
(24:38):
Christians in Jerusalem and the nearby area got the nickname the poor because they had had to abandon more than most.
The disciples' concern is that Paul in a Gentile church with him will grow and move and forget the suffering church in Jerusalem,
(25:01):
who is under persecution even now.
So to be a Gentile Christian is to abandon many other forms of religion for Christianity.
They would have got at worst a shoulder shrug from most of their neighbors.
To be a Jewish Christian in the heart of Jewish culture was a much harder thing.
Add to that the severe poverty among Judean Christians and they become known in that region as the poor.
(25:30):
Several New Testament passages illuminate how the early church served the poor.
And an important distinction is that the vast majority of this was directed toward needs within the church.
The church was told to do good to all, but meeting needs was first targeted at those in the family of faith.
And we'll see this return in Galatians 6.
(25:53):
We'll talk more extensively about this.
There's this idea of regular provision for poor within the church.
So we see this for sure in Acts chapter 6 where the needy widows within the church have this regular systematic distribution.
Remember the widows at this point had no other means of being cared for.
They were ones that received regular support because they had no other means of providing for themselves or for their children.
(26:19):
1 Timothy 5 in the 3 through 16 talks about detailed instructions for caring for widows in the church.
So the reason that widows came up in this context was because they couldn't care for themselves.
The society, the way that it was built especially in Roman controlled areas was that these widows were shoved to the side.
(26:40):
They had no provider. They had no means to provide for themselves very well.
And so they often ended up being the very poor.
James 2 15 through 17 actually says that if you have true faith, it has to be accompanied by this practical care for those who lack food and clothing.
And the context is talking about the brothers.
(27:02):
And so it's actually referring to within the church, which is what we see in Acts.
It's what we see talked about in Timothy.
It's what we see in James, this regular provision for the poor within the church.
We also though see this help being sent to other churches.
So in Romans 15 25 through 27, Paul talks about collecting aid from all of these Gentile churches for the poor believers in Jerusalem.
(27:30):
Right. So I think as a church today, we have to think through both of those things.
How do we regularly provide for the poor within our church?
How do we regularly provide for each other? Right.
But also how do we send help to other Christians? Who might that be?
How do we give to international missions?
And when I say international missions, I am not talking about going to the Bahamas for a week to help with Bible school at a local church.
(27:56):
That is a vacation that you're asking the church to pay for.
That's my personal opinion. That's not in scripture.
I'm just saying that doesn't quite line up with what I see the missionary work of Paul looking like.
I'm talking about giving to missionaries who are invested in the long term building of the church in countries that have little access to the gospel.
That's what I mean.
(28:18):
So who might we begin giving to or caring for in the family of faith as a church?
Pray about this.
We have to think a little harder in a first world country about how we engage around this.
That doesn't mean it's not important.
We can't separate the need for evangelism from the need for discipleship.
And discipleship includes caring for the most needy among us.
(28:43):
So to close us out, we see unity in the church requires work.
That work of rejecting false versions of the gospel.
That work of recognizing that there is a diversity of gifting and calling among us.
And then also that work of caring for the needs of one another and other believers in the broader church.
(29:10):
Unity is a beautiful thing.
It is absolutely necessary.
It is something Jesus prayed for.
And I think after seeing the work that it takes to work towards unity,
you start to get an idea of why Jesus prayed fervently for the unity of the church.
For the glory of God.
(29:31):
Ecclesia is a church of house churches gathering weekly in Councilbloss, Iowa and in homes throughout the week.
We are a Bible-centered church focused on preaching from Scripture and making disciples of Jesus.
You can learn more about our statement of faith and contact a pastor by visiting ecclesiachurches.org.
[MUSIC]
This message is from Galatians chapter 2 verses 1 through 10 and is entitled "United Around the Gospel"
It was originally delivered to Ecclesia churches on Sunday, February 23rd, 2025.
One of Paul's goals in this letter to the Galatians is to put an end to the disunity that is being caused by those who would preach a different gospel of legalism
(00:27):
or really anything other than the true gospel that they were saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.
It's a rather confrontational letter, but it is a letter in pursuit of the unity of the church.
So in chapter 2, Paul begins writing about a trip he took to Jerusalem and why he went there.
(00:48):
It was a strategic trip and it tells us a lot about what unity looks like to Paul and what that was going to require.
So let's start with verse 1.
(01:24):
So Paul spent three years in Arabia and Damascus and then he goes to Jerusalem briefly to meet with Peter
and spends about 14 years primarily in Syria and Salicia preaching and establishing the church.
Paul is essentially nearing a two decade mark in ministry at this point.
(01:47):
And also of note here is that Paul is requesting this meeting privately because he wants to get to the heart of the issue.
He's not interested in calling people out in a public assembly if he can help it, though he's not opposed to doing that if it's necessary.
These influential people are disciples, he says that in verse 9.
(02:09):
And Paul is checking in with them to make sure they were in alignment around the gospel,
particularly Paul is concerned about the ongoing pushback from people who demand the conversion of Gentiles to Jewish customs in order to be saved.
That there was something additional they needed other than Jesus and that something additional was Jewish customs such as circumcision.
(02:33):
Paul is confident that his message is true and it is from Jesus directly,
but he also recognizes that he is not in a solo endeavor.
He is not the only person founding and pastoring the church at this point.
The whole community is at stake here and he can't afford to be silent.
(02:54):
He must make sure that no one is undermining the work of the gospel, particularly from within the church.
So the first thing that we're going to see is necessary to Paul and to us.
If we are to be united around the gospel is a rejection of falsehood.
(03:15):
There is no space for compromise when it comes to the gospel.
And so let's get into the heart of the matter.
And again, here the heart of the matter is against these legalists with verse 3.
But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek,
yet because of false brothers secretly brought in who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus,
(03:44):
so that they might bring us into slavery, to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment
so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.
So Jewish Christians who believed that gentile converts to Christianity needed to follow Jewish laws and customs,
(04:05):
particularly circumcision, to truly be saved.
These were the false brothers that Paul refers to when he's talking about these people.
He's referring to those who were trying to spy out their freedom and bring them back into the slavery of lawkeeping.
It's also evident that Paul does not actually believe that these people are brothers at all.
(04:30):
He says as much that they were false brothers.
Paul submits Titus as almost an awkward exhibit A, right, that he has not given in to these people.
Titus is not circumcised even though he is Paul's direct disciple.
So he is the guy that Paul is training up and even he is not being forced to be circumcised.
(04:55):
So it sounds like Titus has been the center of many of these debates for Paul.
Titus is a student, he's an uncircumcised Greek, and he's not been forced by Paul or other disciples to submit to circumcision.
Circumcision, by the way, wasn't just a Jewish thing.
I know it keeps coming up and usually it's in the context of a Jewish tradition.
(05:17):
However, it was used within several ancient Near Eastern cultures around that time and well before it to show purity or being set apart for the priesthood.
For Israel, it was a little different because for Israel, it was a covenant promise between them and God as his chosen and set apart people.
(05:38):
So in other religions, it would have been a way that they marked themselves as pure or set apart.
Circumcision for Israel was an agreement between them and God that God had set them apart.
And so you can see why it was something that was taken seriously by these Jews who had converted or almost converted to Christianity but still wanted to hold on to this Jewish practice.
(06:05):
Departure from the Gospel, though, is a serious thing.
It is the one thing that we cannot unify under.
Teaching a different Gospel, a different Jesus, a different requirement for salvation, these are not minor issues.
These are things that we cannot, as the Christian Church, yield on even an inch.
(06:26):
Paul says we did not yield to them in submission even for a moment.
And so I want to look at a few of these today and compare them to the real Gospels so that you have a good understanding of how a small change can completely change the message of the Gospel.
Paul calls these distortions.
(06:47):
And we've touched on a few of them a few weeks ago, but here are some others to be aware of.
One of the most popular today is called the Prosperity Gospel.
You may have heard of this.
And what the Prosperity Gospel claims is that it is making salvation about earthly success rather than Christ's redemptive work.
(07:09):
And so the Prosperity Gospel says God wants you to thrive in the here and now.
And that includes being physically successful, wealthy, healthy.
Basically, life is going to be nothing but good for you if you're following Jesus.
(07:31):
That stands in opposition to the kinds of things that Jesus said.
Jesus warned in John 15-20, "If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you."
He also said in John 16, a chapter later, 1633, "In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world."
(07:57):
In Matthew 24-13, Jesus says, "The one who endures to the end will be saved."
None of this sounds like living our best life.
I want you to take a moment and think about the best vacation that you've ever been on.
Is that something that you would describe as something that you endured?
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No.
However, Jesus promises to be with us.
And he describes this end result as a pearl of great price or a treasure that we have found that was worth everything else that we went through to obtain that treasure.
Endurance with Jesus and eternity in his kingdom is better than the temporary pleasure and eternity apart from him.
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So the true gospel says we may suffer in the here and now, but we are going to rejoice forevermore.
And Jesus is with us even in the here and now, all the way through eternity.
The prosperity gospel tries to twist that by saying that all good things and pleasure is for the here and now.
(09:09):
And if somehow you're not experiencing that here and now, then you must not be in God's will.
That's actually not the case.
The next category or twist would be moralism or a workspace salvation, which really reduces Christianity to being a good person or being a person who follows the rules.
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You are earning your keep, essentially.
And we see this in a lot of modern day free license Christianity where you're told you just have to be a good enough person and somehow balance out the scales on your own.
But we also see this in the rigorous religious traditions like Catholicism even and cults like Mormonism.
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Their traditions and ceremonies and rights are what saves you.
The Catholic Church, for example, will teach that you receive the grace of God directly through the ordinances or practices that are provided by the Catholic Church.
Let's look at what scripture has to say about that.
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As to earning your own salvation, Jesus says in Luke 1819 that no one is good except God alone.
Only God is holy. Only God is righteous.
Right? We are not going to make ourselves perfectly righteous to the standard that God requires.
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Paul writes that there's a different system in place. In Ephesians 2, 8 through 9 he says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith, not a result of works."
There's also a story of a young man, a rich young ruler who comes to Jesus in Mark 10, 17 through 22.
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He says that he wants to be saved and he's kept all of the commandments.
He hasn't, spoiler alert. Jesus says, "Oh, if you've kept all the commandments, you're still lacking just one thing.
You have to stop idolizing your wealth." He tells him, "You have to leave all of your wealth behind. You have to come follow me."
And the man has idolized his wealth to the point where he can't drop his wealth and turn to Jesus.
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And so he walks away from Jesus. It's a tragic story.
All of these show us that being good by human standards isn't enough. Following the rules isn't enough.
We need the righteousness of somebody who is actually righteous because we are not. We need Christ's righteousness.
We don't earn our way to God's good pleasure. God is pleased with Christ in us.
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And everything else we do is a joyful response to an identity that is firmly in Christ.
Does God take joy in the good things that we do out of our identity in Christ? Absolutely.
But that doesn't mean that those good things are what's earning us his good pleasure.
It's the pleasure of God and Christ in us. So Scripture paints a picture of adoption for us.
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Jesus uses this several times. When a parent adopts a child, the child doesn't earn their way into the family
or have to prove their worth first. The parents choose them and love them and give them full rights as their child.
And then the child's good behavior flows from their secure identity as a beloved family member,
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not from trying to earn their place in this family.
So the story of the gospel is not about earning our way or about anybody else giving us righteousness other than Jesus alone.
The gospel is about what Christ has done for us, not what we or anyone else can do for us.
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The final one we'll talk about today is something called universalism.
I would also mix this in with like a cultural Christianity, the teaching that all paths or many paths at least lead to God
and that Christian identity is really more of a cultural or social kind of title that represents just one potential option.
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So Jesus said in John 14.6 something that's going to be a problem for that viewpoint.
He said, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
That is no one receives salvation except through me. Jesus is the only one. He's the only option. There is no other option.
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Peter declared in Acts 4.12 when he's preaching, "There is salvation in no one else. There is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved."
The exclusivity of Christ is a core gospel truth.
Being a moral person, right, trying to be good does not save you.
(14:17):
Being an American conservative does not save you.
Being raised in a church does not save you.
Romans 10, 9 through 10 says that we are saved in this way.
If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
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For with the heart one believes and is justified and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.
Believe and confess.
Repent and follow. We see this kind of two-part thing where God invites us in, we respond and we turn to him.
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And here we see the exact same thing.
So moving on to the next big thing that is required for unity.
We must have an acceptance of diversity, particularly in the mission.
So you'll notice that so far the two things that are required for unity.
One is that we have to reject falsehood.
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It doesn't seem very unifying, but it sure is if we're rejecting what is false and unifying around what is true.
And the second thing is accepting that there's some diversity of mission.
So probably not what you expected to hear around unity, that there should be rejection of some things and diversity around other things.
Essentially, I'm going to say that we all have the same mission, but we have been uniquely equipped for that mission to various people.
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We are one body with many parts.
Let's see what Paul is talking about. This is verses 6 through 8.
"And from those who seemed to be influential, what they were makes no difference to me, because God shows no partiality.
Those I say, who seemed influential, added nothing to me.
On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised,
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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."
Okay, Paul is getting very wordy here, but he's trying to communicate something that's important for us to understand and important for us to not misunderstand.
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Paul is not putting down the disciple. He's talking about them seeming to be influential to me.
And then he says, "It really doesn't matter to me, just because they seemed influential, it didn't really add anything to me."
Paul is not putting down the disciples. He's recognizing that they are perceived by the church to have influence.
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And that influence isn't what Paul is after.
Paul is not going to the Jerusalem church leaders because he needs their permission.
He says, he uses this phrase, "God shows no partiality."
What that literally means is God does not accept the face of a man. That's the meaning of the Greek phrase.
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It's interesting that it's a Greek phrase, right, that he's using.
It means the gods are not impressed by the social standing of men.
But Paul means it in a little different way. He means it in the scriptural way that says, "God looks at the heart of a man."
Paul does not go to these disciples in Jerusalem for their blessing or their permission.
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He says they didn't give him any authority that he wasn't already given by Jesus.
And yet he goes to them. Why?
He goes to them because it's becoming clear that all of these apostles are submitting mutually to a higher authority.
That authority is not influence, right?
Their influence over people is not the authority that they have.
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And it's not the following that they have. It is actually Jesus who gives them that authority
in the same way that the only authority that I have to preach and teach
and the only authority that we have to pastor is the authority given us by Jesus by submitting to his word.
That's it.
We all have the same mission here, but we have been given different mission fields.
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And Paul recognizes that in this verse 8, because he says,
"The same God that worked through Peter, through this ministry to the Jews,
is also the same God who's working through me to the Gentiles."
It's the same mission, just the two different groups of people.
And so when we think about ourselves, we have all been empowered and sent by Jesus in different capacities.
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And we have not all been sent to the same people.
So this is the ongoing tension, right? Between Paul, the preacher to the Gentiles, and Peter, the preacher to the Jews.
And it's led some, not Peter and not Paul, but some people,
to develop their own ideas about dividing how the gospel functioned, right?
Meaning, is there a different deal for Jews than there is for Gentiles?
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This is an idea that you might hear called dispensationalism, to dispense.
It means to dispense grace in different ways.
And so when you take that to an extreme, you end up here where there's one deal for the Jews and another for the Gentiles.
And that's not the story of Scripture.
In verse 9, finally, we see unity prevail, that it's the same gospel.
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And it's for all people.
Verse 9 says, "When James and Cephas," that is 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 they to the circumcised."
Again, they did not give them permission or authority.
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They gave them fellowship.
They said, "We're with you. We're behind you."
So accepting diversity in the church does not look like, let me clarify, intentionally trying to collect people of different races, backgrounds, and ethnicities.
That is not the diversity that I'm talking about.
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That ends up being an artificial diversity focused around the wrong metrics.
And we'll actually get into that exact issue in the next chapter in chapter 3.
He also isn't talking about trying to collect people of different viewpoints, because there's strength in diverse viewpoints.
That's an idea that's become very popular in the last, I would say, 10 to 15 years.
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And that's actually proven even in the secular world not to hold true.
What's actually a bigger deal for the success of an endeavor of a mission is that people are of a singular mind and purpose when it comes to the mission.
So for us, the mission of making disciples needs to be what we're centered around.
The gospel needs to be what we're centered around.
And some of our other positions and experiences matter a whole lot less than that being unified around the mission.
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So this diversity is about understanding that we're on the same mission to be disciples of Jesus, to make disciples of Jesus.
However, we each have different giftings and stories and experiences and even mission fields.
In other words, it's going to look a little different for each of us.
And it's important to be able to say, "We're with you to one another."
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For us to be able to look at the stay at home mom or dad, your mission field is primarily your children.
You are not less than in any way, your mission field is just different.
And probably a little shorter than the rest of the world, right?
For parents pulling double duty, working and raising a family, your mission field is a different kind of complex because it includes people from two worlds and two roles.
(22:10):
And that is where you are called to and equipped for by Jesus.
The mission field of a single man or woman is not only to those in your work or your social circles.
It's also in continued preparation as a disciple who may end up one day being a husband or a wife, maybe a mother or a father, but also may be called to a life of singleness.
(22:32):
Those are both biblically viable options.
And scripture doesn't tell us which one we have to take.
We actually get a lot of choice in that.
But all of those choices revolve around following Jesus and trusting that he has prepared what is best for you.
We will not all have the opportunity to be missionaries to a faraway country, but we are all called to be on mission for Jesus.
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And this is not a job that's exclusive to pastors, disciples, meaning all of us following Jesus are called to make disciples.
And that will look different and it's important that we are unified around each other in that very diverse work.
Finally, we come to the final point here that almost feels like an afterthought, but actually it's the one that feels the most like unity, right?
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And it's what I'm going to call the practice of common care.
A united church actively cares for one another and for the church around the world.
So after we have rejected the false teachings of another gospel and we've dealt with the fact that each of our missions are going to look a little different,
(23:50):
we still huddle around each other.
In verse 10, Paul says, "Only they asked us to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do."
So it's interesting that after recognizing they have all been sent to different places and audiences with different specialties.
They are still centered around the gospel and they are still united around serving the poor.
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Who is the poor?
To them, we have to understand that first, right?
It's important to get that the poor is a shorthand term.
It's a nickname actually and it's referring to the Christians, the saints in Jerusalem.
Why?
Because these people were some of the poorest people in that world.
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Christians in Jerusalem and the nearby area got the nickname the poor because they had had to abandon more than most.
The disciples' concern is that Paul in a Gentile church with him will grow and move and forget the suffering church in Jerusalem,
(25:01):
who is under persecution even now.
So to be a Gentile Christian is to abandon many other forms of religion for Christianity.
They would have got at worst a shoulder shrug from most of their neighbors.
To be a Jewish Christian in the heart of Jewish culture was a much harder thing.
Add to that the severe poverty among Judean Christians and they become known in that region as the poor.
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Several New Testament passages illuminate how the early church served the poor.
And an important distinction is that the vast majority of this was directed toward needs within the church.
The church was told to do good to all, but meeting needs was first targeted at those in the family of faith.
And we'll see this return in Galatians 6.
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We'll talk more extensively about this.
There's this idea of regular provision for poor within the church.
So we see this for sure in Acts chapter 6 where the needy widows within the church have this regular systematic distribution.
Remember the widows at this point had no other means of being cared for.
They were ones that received regular support because they had no other means of providing for themselves or for their children.
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1 Timothy 5 in the 3 through 16 talks about detailed instructions for caring for widows in the church.
So the reason that widows came up in this context was because they couldn't care for themselves.
The society, the way that it was built especially in Roman controlled areas was that these widows were shoved to the side.
(26:40):
They had no provider. They had no means to provide for themselves very well.
And so they often ended up being the very poor.
James 2 15 through 17 actually says that if you have true faith, it has to be accompanied by this practical care for those who lack food and clothing.
And the context is talking about the brothers.
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And so it's actually referring to within the church, which is what we see in Acts.
It's what we see talked about in Timothy.
It's what we see in James, this regular provision for the poor within the church.
We also though see this help being sent to other churches.
So in Romans 15 25 through 27, Paul talks about collecting aid from all of these Gentile churches for the poor believers in Jerusalem.
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Right. So I think as a church today, we have to think through both of those things.
How do we regularly provide for the poor within our church?
How do we regularly provide for each other? Right.
But also how do we send help to other Christians? Who might that be?
How do we give to international missions?
And when I say international missions, I am not talking about going to the Bahamas for a week to help with Bible school at a local church.
(27:56):
That is a vacation that you're asking the church to pay for.
That's my personal opinion. That's not in scripture.
I'm just saying that doesn't quite line up with what I see the missionary work of Paul looking like.
I'm talking about giving to missionaries who are invested in the long term building of the church in countries that have little access to the gospel.
That's what I mean.
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So who might we begin giving to or caring for in the family of faith as a church?
Pray about this.
We have to think a little harder in a first world country about how we engage around this.
That doesn't mean it's not important.
We can't separate the need for evangelism from the need for discipleship.
And discipleship includes caring for the most needy among us.
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So to close us out, we see unity in the church requires work.
That work of rejecting false versions of the gospel.
That work of recognizing that there is a diversity of gifting and calling among us.
And then also that work of caring for the needs of one another and other believers in the broader church.
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Unity is a beautiful thing.
It is absolutely necessary.
It is something Jesus prayed for.
And I think after seeing the work that it takes to work towards unity,
you start to get an idea of why Jesus prayed fervently for the unity of the church.
For the glory of God.
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Ecclesia is a church of house churches gathering weekly in Councilbloss, Iowa and in homes throughout the week.
We are a Bible-centered church focused on preaching from Scripture and making disciples of Jesus.
You can learn more about our statement of faith and contact a pastor by visiting ecclesiachurches.org.
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