Foundations: Galatians 2

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Good morning.

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Thank you. Hello, hello

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everybody. Can you hear me? Can you hear me?

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Am I on? Am I on now? It's on now? Okay.

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Hi everybody, how are y'all doing tonight?

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Doing good? Uh,

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let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you, uh, for

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your presence here tonight, Lord. We thank you for your word.

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You've always wanted your word to change our hearts, Lord

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God. You're after our hearts, so we just give

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you the praise and glory for that tonight, Lord. Help us to hear you,

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help us to respond to you, and give you the praise and glory. In Jesus's

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name, amen. Okay, well, we're going to be in— we're going to continue

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our study in Galatians. We're going to be in chapter 2 tonight. So if

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you have your Bibles, you can, you can get ready there. I'm going to be

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mostly teaching out of the NIV. I move around a little bit, but don't

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worry about that. Whatever translation you want to use is

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fine. Um, as we go

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into, uh, Galatians 2 tonight, we're

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gonna, we're gonna see that the Apostle Paul finds himself

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wedged in between 2 realities.

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First, Pastor Ronnie covered a lot of this last week in chapter

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1, the first part of the letter to the Galatians. And again,

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I think that's been explained, is that this is one letter.

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There's 6 chapters, but this is one letter to the

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Galatians. Paul

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was completely astonished and taken aback

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in what we heard last week in chapter 1. Yeah. The Amplified

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says that he was astonished and extremely irritated.

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That the Galatians had already abandoned the gospel

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message of faith in Jesus Christ to what he called a

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different gospel, which is no gospel at all. That was

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6-7. And then in verse 10 of chapter 1, he

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goes on to say that he was not trying to gain approval

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of man, but approval of the Lord. Amen. He may have

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been astonished and at least a little bit irritated

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more than just at the Galatians, and we'll see that in

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our discussion tonight. So then the second part is

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that this part of the letter to Galatians chapter 2

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now really shifts the focus away from the Galatian

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people or the Galatian churches and starts looking

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at the leaders, quite honestly. And, you know,

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again, because he said in 6 and 7 that it was

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something— it was a different gospel, and it was

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really no gospel at all that he was preaching faith in

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Jesus Christ alone. So we're going to go ahead and I'm

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going to read chapter 2. It's not terribly long, but

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I'm going to go ahead and read it. You can try to follow along.

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Then after 14 years, I went up again to

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Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along.

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I went in response to a revelation and meeting privately with those

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esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I

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preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure that I was

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running and not had— and had not been running my race

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in vain. Yet not even Titus, who was with me,

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was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. This

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matter arose because some of the false believers had infiltrated our

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ranks to spy on the freedom that we have in Christ Jesus

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and to make us slaves. We did not give in to them for a

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moment so that the truth of the gospel might be

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preserved for you. As for those who were held in high

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esteem, whatever they were makes no difference to me.

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God does not show favoritism. They added nothing to my

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message. On the contrary, they recognized that I had been

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entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the

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uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised.

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For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the

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circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the

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Gentiles. James, Peter, and John, those

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esteemed as pillars, gave me Barnabas and the right

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hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me.

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They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the

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circumcised. All they asked was that we should continue

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to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along.

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When Peter came— some of your translations would say

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Cephas, but that's Peter— came to Antioch—

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the Antioch is Pastor Ronnie in Galatia, not Antioch

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down the road. I thought that was really funny. I opposed

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him to his face because he stood condemned.

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For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with

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the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and

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separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of

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those who belonged to the circumcision group. The other

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Jews joined in, joined him in his hypocrisy, so that

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by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray.

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When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the

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gospel, I said to Peter in front of them all, you are

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a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew.

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How is it then you force the Gentiles to follow Jewish

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customs? We who are Jews by birth and not sinful

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Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the

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works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we too

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have put our faith in Jesus Christ so that we may be

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justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the

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law, because by the works of the law no one will be

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justified. But if in seeking to be justified in

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Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the

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sinners, doesn't that mean that Christ promotes sin?

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Absolutely not. If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I

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really would be a lawbreaker. For through the law I

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died to the law so that I might live for God. I have been

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crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but

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Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body I live

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by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself

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for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if

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righteousness could be gained through the law, Jesus

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Christ died for nothing.

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Some pretty good stuff. Mm-hmm.

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A quick little summary— whoops, that's the wrong one.

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Our acceptance from God comes from— comes by

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believing in Christ alone. Salvation does not come from obeying

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the Jewish law and/or some combination of the law with

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the gospel message. We are

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free in Christ alone and not under the jurisdiction of

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Jewish law. Paul emphasizes this, is that

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salvation was by grace through faith in Jesus Christ alone.

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He highlights this later on in the next chapter. You'll hear

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probably this next week in chapter 3 by saying,

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Clearly, no one is justified before God by

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observing the law, because the righteous will live by faith,

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faith in Jesus Christ. So

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our almost perfect church attendance record

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doesn't justify us. Our reading the

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Bible every day or breaking our longest consecutive

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streaks on the Bible app doesn't justify us. Does anybody do that

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besides me? Okay. Anyway,

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you know, you can go in and fix that if you miss a day. Yeah,

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I just figured— I just figured that out. I just figured— yeah, it's cheating, but

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I just figured it out. Right. Okay. All right.

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You're only cheating yourself. I know,

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I know. Uh, while all these things are great to do, we, we

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should do them out of an already established, uh,

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relationship with the Lord because he's already changed our hearts. We're not, we're not doing

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those things to earn His love.

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As we read here, there had been— there had become a struggle with some dual

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identity. We could probably imagine how Paul

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felt after all these years coming back and

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dealing with what seemed to be internal struggles with the Galatian

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churches. I'll try to say this without, you know,

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tripping on my own words. Their Jewishness—

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Jewishness. Jewishness-ness? Their Jewishness.

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Constrained them to be strict followers of

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the law and Jewish traditions in addition to believing in

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Jesus. Paul contended belief in Christ should bring

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believers liberty and freedom and warned against returning to the

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bondage of the law. Later in chapter 5, he's gonna state, it

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is for freedom that Christ sets us free. Stand firm

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then, and do not be encumbered once more by the yoke of slavery.

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Pastor Ronnie also highlighted this last week, that Paul

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spent quite a bit of time in the first chapter

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about his testimony and what the Lord did in his life. You know,

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that firsthand knowledge of that it was not by any human,

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but it was not by any teacher, but it was a revelation from

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Jesus Christ. He talked about, you know, Saul's— Paul's

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conversion to Saul. So, I mean, I didn't have a testimony

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like that, but my testimony was really pretty simple. I

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was cutting the grass, actually, I was dethatching the

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grass one day in my front yard, dethatching it, pulling

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up all the dead stuff so that the new grass could grow.

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That's why you do that. And I thought, the Lord just— the

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clouds opened and God just kind of said, that's what I've

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been doing to your life. Yeah. See, I was raised

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Catholic. And then Melanie drug me to

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church at night. I didn't even know they had church at night,

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but we went to church at night into a Spirit-filled church.

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And I just started going through this, this, you know, wrestling in my mind of

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what did I really believe, right? Well, you know, eventually the Lord got a hold

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of me. But that same night, my brother-in-law

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asked me to go to a prayer meeting at our church. And the prayer

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meeting, I don't even remember what the prayer meeting was about. I mean, it was

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just like people are praying in tongues. There, there's all, all of stuff

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going on. And I just felt the Holy Spirit pick me up and say, go

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talk to Pastor Ray. And he was a big dude, like

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6'4. And what's on your mind,

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son? When I got up to him, I said, I think I need to give

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my life to the Lord.

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Like, it was a simple testimony.

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And I would argue that most of our testimonies aren't going to be grandiose like

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Paul's or others. But It's not about us, is

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it? It's about Jesus. It's about what he did.

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So we can never underestimate the power of our

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testimony, no matter how we perceive it to be.

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It's our testimony to testify of what Jesus did,

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not of what we did. He did it. Okay, so

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we, we see that in chapter 2, there's, there's a few different

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camps here. Okay. There's, there's now Jewish-born

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Christian leaders, right? I guess the church had become

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Christian. They started calling them Christians by then.

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Maybe not, but it doesn't, it doesn't matter. Somebody can fact-check me on

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that one and let everyone know. But they were leaders of the new,

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of the new faith in the Christian church.

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And then there's these false brothers. Some translations call

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them Judaizers or agitators. And then there's

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the Galatian Gentile followers that I mentioned before. But

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I'm not going to cover much about the Gentiles. That

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starts to come next week. I'm sure Pastor Jonathan is going to do that.

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I will say, though, that it was pretty clear from what we heard in

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the beginning of tonight on how he, he was astonished,

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right, at how they've already fallen away.

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It's a bookend of this. And remember, this is one letter.

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There's, there's not chapters and verse numbers in the

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letter. But the very first verse in chapter 3

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says Paul addresses, addresses them as foolish

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Galatians. The Amplified says they're thoughtless and

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superficial Galatians. And I love The Message Bible

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because it just gets kind of blunt and to the point and says, crazy

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people, who has bewitched you? Who has

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cast an evil spell on you? Wait.

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You sure this wasn't a letter to the Americans and not the Galatians?

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Anyway, again, I'm not gonna talk about the

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Galatian church itself tonight as far as the people,

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but really focus on more of these Jewish-born leaders and

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the so-called false brothers. So

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chapter 2 started out after 14 years of ministry, Paul

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met with them privately, as it said in verse 2,

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with the key leaders of the church, and shared the message that he had been

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preaching to the Gentiles. And he said, I wanted to be sure that we were

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in agreement and all my efforts were not being wasted.

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I think this was really wise on Paul's part to collaborate with the

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other leaders before setting out to do ministry work for the

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kingdom. We don't need any Lone Ranger Christians,

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right? I mean, so he had, he had that covering.

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At the worst, you know, he took— he was taking Barnabas. We all, you know,

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Lone Ranger had tanto. Right?

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That's why somebody asks you a question, you know, how, you know,

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you know, you know how to answer them. Anyway, you have to get there.

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Some of you are too young for that. That's how Tonto greeted

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everybody. Hello. How? The leaders

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supported him, as it says in verse 3 and 4. They didn't

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demand Paul's companion Titus, who was a Greek in ministry, to be

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circumcised. Even that question came

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up because of the false believers were secretly brought in.

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They sneaked in to spy on us and take away the freedom we have

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in Christ Jesus. Now, I mean, it doesn't, it doesn't

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say, you know, for sure. This is me just kind of introjecting. But it

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sounded like to me, or it seemed like to me, they were just like a

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plant, like they had these guys come in just to do

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the dirty work for them. Now, I don't, I don't know that that's the case.

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That's just how I was struck. Some commentary that I

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read said these false brothers were most likely from

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the party of the Pharisees, and we could read this account in Acts

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chapter 15. They were likely

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some of the stricter leaders of Judaism.

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Some say they were well-meaning and, and that they felt their

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belief in Jesus was just going to be a continuation or building

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in addition to the Jewish laws. Others say they, they

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weren't legit. They were just false brothers or agitators.

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Either way, most of the commentary agrees that neither Peter,

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James, or John, they were not actually part of this group,

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but perhaps they let what they were doing and saying be an

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influence on them. Yes. Paul

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said in verse 5, but we didn't give in to them,

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the false brothers, for a minute as to preserve the truth of the

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gospel message. Not for a second.

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He wasn't going to give in to them. But then in verse 6, he turns

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back and he starts calling out the leaders. And that's where we're going to camp

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for a little while. As those— as for those who

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seem to be important, those of high reputation,

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whatever they were makes no difference to me. God does not judge

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by external appearance. Those men adding nothing to

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my message. I could just see Paul

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saying with a little bit of attitude, you ain't got nothing on me.

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Did you hear how I got saved? He probably

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didn't do that, but he— it was pretty clear that he wasn't gonna—

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he wasn't not only gonna put up with the false believers or the agitators, he

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wasn't going to show favoritism to leaders who had

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perhaps got off track. He wasn't going to let it pass.

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But then in verse 9 or verse 7 to 9, we read Paul actually starts

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to give the leaders some props. He

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said, Paul, that he was entrusted to preaching the

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gospel to the Gentiles, just as Peter had been entrusted to the

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Jews. The pillars of faith, James, Peter, and John,

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they all recognized that the grace that was given to Paul

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and Barnabas to go to the Gentiles, just as they

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to the Jews. So they had their sphere of influence

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forged out for them by the Lord. And quite honestly,

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so do we, right? God's put us here uniquely at

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this place and time to have an influence on those

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who are around us, on who he's put in our sphere of

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influence. And, and, and they did the same

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thing. And verse 10 just said, And they asked,

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don't forget the poor, which Paul said he was

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eager to do. And we can see that throughout the

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New Testament and writings of Paul, that that is

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something certainly that he continued to do. So

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then he built them up a little bit, but then we see

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he comes right back in the next 10 or so verses

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from 11 through 21, and he lowers the boom on

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them, and he starts to oppose Peter and the other

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leaders for their hypocrisy. We tend to say that

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Peter was the brash and direct apostle.

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Perhaps. But perhaps with all the time that they

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spent together, Paul rob Peter to pay Paul.

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Get it? Yeah. Robbed Peter to pay Paul. Okay.

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So some of us have squirrels that interrupt us

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when we're trying to study, and that

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certainly happens to me. Uh, I have a squirrel

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story back in— but anyway, I'm more of a rabbit

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hole or bunny trail. I get something gets me

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going, and then I start going down the bunny

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trail. Anyway, you get it. Um, but did you know

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that this rob Peter to pay Paul, uh, phrase

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actually likely comes from These 2 great

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apostles? Anybody know that? Yeah, it's

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true. There's, there's 2 thoughts, right?

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The first one they say is a myth, that it came from the

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Great Britain churches and your other European churches

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in that were named Saint Peter or Saint Paul,

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right? And it was about borrowing money from one church to the

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next to fund the next church. That's right. Let me say that's a myth. But

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it was more likely that it was about their familiarity with each other and being

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more alike, and that their messages were interchangeable and

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somewhat inseparable, and their teachings that they did throughout the New

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Testament. Regardless of any of this, we can

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see in Scripture Paul was also pretty straightforward. He was, he was an

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in-your-face kind of guy. He wasn't afraid to call a spade a spade,

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because Scripture says when Peter came for a dinner party in

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Antioch. He could have

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come to Smyrna. We have a lot better restaurants. Anyway, I

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opposed him to his face because he was clearly wrong. Now,

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that's one apostle to the next. That's not— I didn't make that up. What

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he calls Peter and the other leaders out for is hanging out with the

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Gentiles as long as other Jews weren't around.

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We read, we read this in verses 12 through 14. For

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before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the

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Gentiles, he meaning Peter. But when they,

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the Jews, arrived, he began to draw back and separate

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himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who

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belonged to the circumcision group. The other Jews joined

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him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy

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even Barnabas was led astray. So Paul's running buddy was even

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led astray by this. When I saw that they were not acting in line

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with the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter in front of all of

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them, you are a Jew, Yet you live like a Gentile and not like a

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Jew. How is it then that you force Gentiles

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to follow Jewish customs?

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I wonder if we've ever done this when we're around certain people.

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I don't know if it's what they call modern-day code-switching

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when we talk a certain way to pander to people,

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to give off an impression or a vibe that we used to be like, or

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this is what we're like, or the way we wanna talk to fit in, or

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the way we wanna behave to fit in. Yeah. Um, the

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trap of feeling like we have to fit in.

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I struggled with this in the corporate world, uh, with, with not being,

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uh, very highly educated. Uh, I was around a lot of really smart people

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in meetings, I actually knew that I didn't fit in or

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fit the mold that they wanted, so I stopped trying to fit in. But then

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I found myself at odds once or twice with them.

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Okay, maybe more than twice.

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Really smart people in that setting are hard to get

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along with. I don't really want to go there, but I didn't really think they

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had much common sense. Common

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sense did prevail to Paul, though. They were being hypocrites. That's the

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language that he used. It seems that their

: 00:22:38

Jewishness, their Jewish heritage, still had a pretty good hold

: 00:22:42

on them, a stronghold, if you will. And we're going to see that

: 00:22:45

regarding circumcision. Jewish,

: 00:22:49

Jewish heritage is deeply wrapped into the

: 00:22:53

way of their religious life. Being Jewish is their

: 00:22:56

nationality, it's their identity, it's their faith background, it's

: 00:23:00

all wrapped up together. So maybe these leaders

: 00:23:04

who were still new themselves felt compelled to still seem, well,

: 00:23:08

Jewish. I'm gonna get into the weeds

: 00:23:12

here a little bit on this topic. We could, we could do,

: 00:23:16

we could do that on many topics, but

: 00:23:20

sometimes the path that we travel or the path that we should be on, the

: 00:23:24

one that the Lord has illuminated for

: 00:23:28

us through his word, through his Spirit.

: 00:23:32

It's well worn because it's well traveled, and it's used by

: 00:23:36

us and it's used by others. That, that path leads us

: 00:23:39

through some rough places, but it usually—

: 00:23:44

hopefully it leads us to pleasant places in our walk with the Lord.

: 00:23:48

When we don't use it, or when we don't walk it, it

: 00:23:52

can get overgrown with weeds. Because we choose

: 00:23:56

not to walk on it. Or we can tune things out of the Lord and

: 00:23:59

we can create our own paths and our own strength, and then we

: 00:24:03

have to do weed control. Um,

: 00:24:07

we have some property that I had a road cut in. It's just gravel. And

: 00:24:11

when we first went there, we would go quite often, and now we don't go

: 00:24:14

much at all. It was just gravel. And the last time I went, I could

: 00:24:18

barely see the road. It's not being used. If

: 00:24:21

that's what we do in the path and the road that the

: 00:24:25

Lord has given us, with what he's given us, his word, his

: 00:24:29

Holy Spirit, we will get lots of weeds on our

: 00:24:33

path, okay? So

: 00:24:36

being Jewish has some really

: 00:24:40

key things, some customs and traditions that these

: 00:24:44

Jewish leaders would've been really, really

: 00:24:48

accustomed to, ingrained into them, and

: 00:24:52

quite literally cut into these leaders' lives.

: 00:24:56

They followed the Shabbat, or the Sabbath, the day of rest.

: 00:25:01

Key holidays like Passover, you know, we all know what

: 00:25:05

Passover is. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. They had

: 00:25:08

strict kosher laws regarding food, things like not

: 00:25:12

mixing dairy with meat. Commitment to daily

: 00:25:15

prayer, morning, midday, and evening. And a big

: 00:25:19

thing with them was life cycle events: birth,

: 00:25:23

bar and bat mitzvah, the coming of age,

: 00:25:26

marriage, and death. Any one of these on their

: 00:25:30

own can be a focus, or some combination of

: 00:25:33

them. We can let them still be a part of the

: 00:25:37

fabric of our lives and then let them take more

: 00:25:41

prominence or precedence or importance than

: 00:25:44

they should. That life cycle event at birth is

: 00:25:48

called Brit Milah, B-R-I-T-M-I-L-A-H, or

: 00:25:52

circumcision. And this is an area of

: 00:25:55

contention that we see being brought up and

: 00:25:58

Paul addresses throughout this whole

: 00:26:01

letter. Brit milah, or the circumcision

: 00:26:05

ceremony, had many aspects in Jewish life.

: 00:26:08

It's a significant ritual that symbolizes

: 00:26:12

the covenant between God and the Jewish

: 00:26:15

people, marking a newborn baby, a newborn

: 00:26:19

boy's entry into this sacred relationship.

: 00:26:22

It's performed on the 8th day after birth.

: 00:26:28

Honestly, when I was, you know, looking up the meaning, I was hoping

: 00:26:32

that I could find some, you know, special Hebrew meaning that was a

: 00:26:36

happier thought. But

: 00:26:40

Old Testament physical circumcision means what we think it means.

: 00:26:44

It means to be clipped, to curtail, or to cut around.

: 00:26:49

It's not only a religious obligation, but also a profound expression

: 00:26:53

of deep importance, community, and cultural

: 00:26:57

identity in Judaism. This ritual

: 00:27:00

signifies the eternal covenant established between God and

: 00:27:03

Abraham, representing a commitment to Jewish faith and identity.

: 00:27:08

Um, Genesis

: 00:27:09

10-14

: 00:27:13

is where we see this. This is my covenant with you and your

: 00:27:17

descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: every

: 00:27:21

male among you shall be circumcised. You are to undergo circumcision,

: 00:27:25

and it will be the sign of the covenant between you and me. For the

: 00:27:28

generations to come, every male among you who is 8 days old

: 00:27:32

must be circumcised. including those born in your household or

: 00:27:36

bought with money from a foreigner. Those who are

: 00:27:40

not your offspring, whether born in your household or bought with your money,

: 00:27:43

they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh

: 00:27:47

is to be an everlasting covenant. Any uncircumcised male who

: 00:27:51

has not been circumcised in the flesh will be cut off from his people.

: 00:27:55

He has broken my covenant.

: 00:27:59

Carrying it into, you know, some more modern-day Jewish

: 00:28:03

belief, They see it as a big

: 00:28:07

community and identity issue. It serves as

: 00:28:10

a communal celebration, reinforcing the boy's connection

: 00:28:14

to the Jewish community and heritage. It's very

: 00:28:18

obligatory. The Brit Milah is considered one of the most

: 00:28:21

important commandments in Judaism,

: 00:28:25

emphasizing the importance of following religious law. This

: 00:28:28

covenantal birthright even supersedes the Shabbat.

: 00:28:33

if the 8th day falls on the Sabbath.

: 00:28:37

You know, an interesting little factoid you could look up?

: 00:28:43

The blood in a baby's body actually starts to

: 00:28:47

clot on the 8th day. Interesting.

: 00:28:51

God doesn't do anything without an intention.

: 00:28:56

It's a symbol of faith. The act of circumcision is seen as a physical

: 00:28:59

manifestation of a Jewish person's faith and commitment to God.

: 00:29:04

When I first got saved, I did a lot of business

: 00:29:09

with, you know, Jewish companies. And there was this

: 00:29:13

one guy named Morris Abraham, devout Jew.

: 00:29:17

I don't know, he wasn't the kind with— what are they

: 00:29:21

called, Keith, with the hat and the curly thing? Yes. He was not that,

: 00:29:25

but he was a very devout Jew, very, very solid businessman, very

: 00:29:28

honest. And I'm a new Christian.

: 00:29:32

I don't know any of this stuff. And he starts showing me pictures

: 00:29:37

of his son's circumcision party. I mean,

: 00:29:41

it's a real thing. I mean, you can go

: 00:29:44

look it up. It's a real thing. It's like announcing birth.

: 00:29:51

And like, there's a party, there's gifts, there's a special meal. I

: 00:29:54

mean, I'm, I'm not kidding.

: 00:29:58

No, I— so I, you— I should have put it up on the screen,

: 00:30:03

but just like— No,

: 00:30:06

y'all went— y'all went where I wasn't going there. It was an

: 00:30:10

announcement. There's no— come on. Okay,

: 00:30:15

listen what it says. In observant— in observance of this sacred

: 00:30:19

Jewish rite, the Brit Milah, son of

: 00:30:23

was entered into the covenant of Abraham and Sarah on the day

: 00:30:27

and given the Hebrew name. He gets a Hebrew name. There's a date of

: 00:30:31

birth, and there's a Hebrew date of birth. So this is, this

: 00:30:35

is a big deal. Again, this is like a— it's,

: 00:30:38

it's a big deal. And it still goes on.

: 00:30:42

Even some Messianic believers still do this. This is,

: 00:30:46

this is an invitation to a Brit Milah. You won't know him,

: 00:30:50

he's Logan Marks. Uh, the Creator, the Creator, the God

: 00:30:53

of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God and Father of our

: 00:30:57

Lord Yeshua the Messiah, and our God and Father too, has a

: 00:31:01

special place in his heart for little children. He wants

: 00:31:05

them to come closer to him. Once, when people brought

: 00:31:08

babies to Yeshua so the miracle-working Rabbi would

: 00:31:12

bless them, His disciples were annoyed and tried to

: 00:31:15

prevent them from coming to Him. However, Messiah

: 00:31:18

rebuked His disciples and said, let the little children

: 00:31:22

come to Me and stop hindering them, because the Kingdom

: 00:31:26

of God belongs to those like these. On another occasion,

: 00:31:30

He said, see that you never despise one of these little

: 00:31:33

ones, for I tell you that their angels in Heaven are

: 00:31:37

ceremoniously seeing— are continually seeing the face

: 00:31:40

of My Father in Heaven. And it ends with this. Through

: 00:31:44

circumcision, Logan is taking a big step closer to the

: 00:31:48

3-in-1 God of Israel. Logan didn't do anything.

: 00:31:58

Anyway, it was a big deal, okay? And, and I'm—

: 00:32:01

what I'm— what I believe I'm trying to say here

: 00:32:05

is the Jewish people, this was part of

: 00:32:09

who they were. This was their identity, and

: 00:32:13

they were obviously struggling letting go of it. Again,

: 00:32:17

Old Testament circumcision is a physical sign of the covenant between

: 00:32:21

God and his chosen people, Israel. It

: 00:32:24

signifies a commitment to God and a life set

: 00:32:28

apart for his purposes. The act of circumcision was not merely a

: 00:32:31

physical procedure, but also carried a deep spiritual

: 00:32:35

implication, it representing the cutting away Of sin and

: 00:32:38

impurity. Deuteronomy 10:16 says, circumcise your

: 00:32:42

hearts therefore, and stiffen your necks no more. We

: 00:32:46

can read the account in Exodus when Moses and his family

: 00:32:49

were on their way back to Egypt to deliver the Israelites from slavery.

: 00:32:53

They weren't even going to Jerusalem. But at a lodging place

: 00:32:57

on the way, Exodus

: 00:32:58

4:24-26, the Lord met

: 00:33:02

Moses and was about to kill him. But Zipporah took a flint knife, his

: 00:33:05

wife took a flint knife, and cut off her son's

: 00:33:09

foreskin and touched Moses' feet with it. Surely you are a

: 00:33:12

bridegroom of blood to me, she said. So the Lord let him alone.

: 00:33:17

She said bridegroom of blood, referring to the circumcision.

: 00:33:21

Then we can read the prophet Jeremiah.

: 00:33:25

The Lord used the prophet Jeremiah to begin to change the

: 00:33:29

narrative on this topic.

: 00:33:33

3-4 says, this

: 00:33:37

is what the Lord says to the people of Judah:

: 00:33:43

break up your fallow, your unplowed ground,

: 00:33:46

and sow not among the thorns. Circumcise yourselves to the

: 00:33:50

Lord, remove the foreskin of your hearts, O men of

: 00:33:54

Judah, inhabitants of Jerusalem, lest my wrath go

: 00:33:57

forth like a fire and burn with none to quench it

: 00:34:01

because of the evil of your deeds. I don't

: 00:34:05

have this up here, but he says in 9:25, the days are coming,

: 00:34:08

declares the Lord, when I will punish all who are circumcised only

: 00:34:12

in the flesh— Egypt, Judah, Edom, Ammon,

: 00:34:16

Moab, all who live in the wilderness and distant places. For all these

: 00:34:19

nations are really uncircumcised, and even the whole

: 00:34:23

house of Israel is uncircumcised in heart.

: 00:34:29

And another one from Jeremiah in chapter

: 00:34:32

33-34. This is the covenant

: 00:34:36

I will make with the people of Israel after that time, declares the Lord. I

: 00:34:40

will put my law in their minds and write it on their

: 00:34:43

hearts. I will be their God and they will be my people.

: 00:34:47

No longer will they teach their neighbor or say to one

: 00:34:51

another, know the Lord, because they will all know me.

: 00:34:55

From the least of them to the greatest, declares the

: 00:34:58

Lord, for I will forgive their wickedness and will

: 00:35:02

remember their sins no more. Again, when we look at

: 00:35:05

this part of the Jewish way of life, we can see that it

: 00:35:09

was taken very seriously. And, you know, again,

: 00:35:12

perhaps we can understand a little bit why they felt

: 00:35:16

that way. Now, as we go into the new system, or the new

: 00:35:20

system, the New Testament takes the practice of

: 00:35:23

circumcision and it takes on a whole new meaning. We

: 00:35:27

can see Paul, we saw as we read that Paul was opposing

: 00:35:31

his critics, both the Jewish leaders and the false

: 00:35:34

brothers, and he took this topic on directly.

: 00:35:38

I believe Pastor Ronnie shared this verse last week later on

: 00:35:42

in chapter 5, verse 6. For Christ Jesus, neither circumcision

: 00:35:46

nor uncircumcision has any value, All that matters

: 00:35:50

is faith expressed through love. Paul

: 00:35:55

is emphasizing that physical circumcision is no longer a

: 00:35:58

requirement for God's people, as faith in Christ

: 00:36:01

supersedes the old covenantal sign.

: 00:36:05

28-29 says, a man is

: 00:36:09

not a Jew because he is one outwardly, nor is

: 00:36:12

circumcision only outward and physical. No,

: 00:36:16

a man is a Jew because he is one inwardly,

: 00:36:20

and circumcision is a matter of the heart by the Spirit, not

: 00:36:24

by the written code. The spiritual circumcision

: 00:36:28

of the heart is what truly identifies a believer as

: 00:36:32

part of God's covenant relationship.

: 00:36:38

11-12 says it this way: In

: 00:36:42

him you were also circumcised, In putting off your old

: 00:36:45

sinful nature with the circumcision performed by Christ

: 00:36:49

and not by human hands, and having been buried with him in

: 00:36:52

baptism, you were raised with him through your faith

: 00:36:57

in the power of God who raised him from the dead.

: 00:37:06

God has always wanted our relationship to be an inward, personal one.

: 00:37:10

of the heart, not an external superficial one of

: 00:37:14

the flesh. Circumcision of the heart serves as a

: 00:37:17

powerful symbol of the believer's relationship with God.

: 00:37:21

It represents the cutting away of the sinful nature and

: 00:37:25

a call to live a life of holiness and obedience.

: 00:37:29

Amen. So

: 00:37:35

after this kind of controversy, controversy, there was, there was a

: 00:37:39

resolution came and I had referenced Acts Acts 15,

: 00:37:43

um, where the, the leaders, the

: 00:37:46

Jerusalem Council, actually did get together and they concluded that

: 00:37:50

Gentile believers were not obligated to be circumcised, affirming that

: 00:37:54

salvation comes through the grace of the Lord

: 00:37:58

Jesus Christ and not through adherence to the Mosaic Law.

: 00:38:03

Um, interestingly though, shortly after

: 00:38:06

that— this one kind of perplexed me— Pastor Justin had actually taught

: 00:38:10

on this I think a while ago in

: 00:38:14

Pursuit, that in Acts 16:1-3,

: 00:38:21

Paul had come to Derbe and then to Lystra. Again,

: 00:38:24

Pastor Ronnie talked about those places that was on his ministry

: 00:38:29

path, where there was a disciple named Timothy, and his

: 00:38:32

mother was a Jew, but his father

: 00:38:36

was a Greek. But he was a believer. The

: 00:38:40

believers at Lystra and Iconium spoke well of

: 00:38:43

him. Paul wanted to take him along on the

: 00:38:47

journey, so he circumcised him because of the

: 00:38:50

Jews who lived in that area, for they all knew

: 00:38:54

that his father was a Greek. And that got me like,

: 00:38:58

wow, well, he just did the same thing that Peter

: 00:39:01

did, right? He just— this is a double standard,

: 00:39:05

or now he's being a hypocrite, right? But really

: 00:39:09

not. Timothy's circumcision wasn't a

: 00:39:12

salvation one. It wasn't for his salvation. He

: 00:39:15

was having Timothy strategically circumcised

: 00:39:19

because of the ministry journey that then he and

: 00:39:23

Timothy were gonna go on. It was gonna be, it was

: 00:39:27

gonna be a kind of a reflection and an importance

: 00:39:31

where he went into those cultural areas that

: 00:39:34

would have recognized, you know, an

: 00:39:37

uncircumcised leader. So it really wasn't a

: 00:39:40

contradiction. It was really just for

: 00:39:44

the benefit of where they were going. Now,

: 00:39:50

I mean, that could still sound like a double standard, and I struggled with

: 00:39:54

it for a while. This isn't a very good analogy,

: 00:39:59

but I remember that when Melanie and I were gonna get married,

: 00:40:03

her mother had said, I don't care where you guys get

: 00:40:07

married, but you better get married in a Catholic church. And her

: 00:40:10

mom wasn't Catholic, but her mom was smart enough to know,

: 00:40:15

and she knew my parents pretty well, that they and the rest of

: 00:40:19

my Catholic family would not recognize our marriage.

: 00:40:23

as an official marriage if it wasn't done by a Catholic

: 00:40:27

priest. We did make a

: 00:40:30

compromise though. Um, I, I said we weren't going to have—

: 00:40:34

if, if Melanie couldn't receive communion at church

: 00:40:38

at our wedding, then we just weren't going to have communion. And that's, and that's

: 00:40:41

what we did, and that was okay. But you, you kind of get the parallel.

: 00:40:44

The parallel was they were trying— he was trying to have them be

: 00:40:48

culturally sound to where he was going for the ministry. Um,

: 00:40:53

you know, look, if we talk about, uh, if we, if, if we

: 00:40:57

talk about trying to fit in or doing things,

: 00:41:02

uh, we— Pastor Ronnie touched on this a little bit

: 00:41:05

last, last week as well— is where we have our own things that we do.

: 00:41:09

Like, I, I shared the things with, you know, the, the, the

: 00:41:13

Jewish Brit Milah, uh, you know, ceremony and the pageantry

: 00:41:17

and the, and the, and the documents or the, their certificate.

: 00:41:21

You know, we have, we have our things that we do too. Um,

: 00:41:25

so we have to be careful, right? We have to be careful that it's not—

: 00:41:30

it should be our faith and our trust in the Lord,

: 00:41:34

nothing more and nothing less. The death, burial, and resurrection. We, we can't

: 00:41:38

emphasize that enough. Um,

: 00:41:42

I could imagine going to somebody who was Catholic

: 00:41:46

and said, well, hey, look, this is pretty cool. You

: 00:41:50

don't, you know, you don't have, you don't have to be saved by a

: 00:41:53

priest wearing a white collar and a black suit, you know, but after you

: 00:41:57

pray for Jesus to come into your heart, you should still pray to Mary

: 00:42:02

and grab your rosary beads and say 5 Hail Marys and 10 Our Fathers

: 00:42:06

to make sure that you're okay. That would be kind of dumb, wouldn't it? Right?

: 00:42:09

I wouldn't put that on them to do that. And basically

: 00:42:13

Paul was saying, that's what you're doing to the, to the people of Galatia.

: 00:42:17

You're burdening them with law that Christ died

: 00:42:21

for. You're rebuilding something

: 00:42:25

that you've torn down, that Christ torn down, and you're trying to build it

: 00:42:29

back up. That's, that's, that's not the

: 00:42:33

spirit of the gospel. So then Paul

: 00:42:36

ends this letter in verses

: 00:42:40

19. Well, he ends chapter 2. He doesn't end the letter. We

: 00:42:44

have, we have 4 more chapters to go. For through the law

: 00:42:48

I died to the law so that I might live for God.

: 00:42:52

I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live, but

: 00:42:55

Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body,

: 00:42:59

I live by faith in the Son of God. who loved me and gave himself

: 00:43:03

for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for it is—

: 00:43:07

for if righteousness could be gained through the law,

: 00:43:11

Christ died for nothing.

: 00:43:16

Um, the ESV says he died for no purpose. If

: 00:43:19

we try to build and say that his death, his

: 00:43:23

burial, and his resurrection was to be

: 00:43:27

built on top of the law, Then he did it for no

: 00:43:30

purpose. Why, why, why did he have to die?

: 00:43:34

There was no need for him to die, right? Um,

: 00:43:38

living truth is the saving grace of Jesus

: 00:43:42

Christ, his mercy making our hearts of

: 00:43:45

stone become hearts of flesh. Amen. Amen.

: 00:43:49

Let's pray. Father, thank you that all

: 00:43:52

along you took words that You wrote on

: 00:43:56

tablets, a stone tablet, and words that we

: 00:44:00

have on our tablets now, or words on the,

: 00:44:03

the pages of our Bible, Lord. But those

: 00:44:07

words are not alive unless they get into

: 00:44:10

our heart. And Holy Spirit, we ask

: 00:44:14

that you would just continue to soften and till and

: 00:44:18

plow those tough places in our heart, Lord, where the word

: 00:44:21

can't penetrate. It's the condition of our heart, Lord, that needs

: 00:44:25

to change. Your Word is truth, and your Word is always faithful, and

: 00:44:29

it does not return to you void. So we thank you and praise you,

: 00:44:33

Lord, for doing a mighty work in our hearts, Lord God, and

: 00:44:37

we give you all the praise and all the glory. In Jesus' name, amen.

: 00:44:41

Amen. Bless you.