If you look at the life of Paul,
it is that God used this man powerfully. It wasn't because
of Paul, it was because of God's grace. He said so himself. He
said in 1 Corinthians 15, verses 9 and 10, He says in verse 9, "...I am
the least of the apostles that am not meet or fit to be called
an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God, but by the
grace of God I am what I am. And His grace which was bestowed
upon me was not in vain, but I labored more abundantly than
they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me."
There you go. Paul himself understood that
it was all God's grace. And so, when you look through
that, you'll see that. We're going to look at from the
13th verse of chapter 1 through the 10th verse of chapter 2 today.
And I want to read that with you, but first let's pray. Gracious
Father, we pray that you would be with us as we open your word
that speaks of your Son and our salvation. And we pray, Lord,
that by your Spirit working in our heart, it would mean everything
to us so that all of the things this world would appear for what
they are, a criminal and crucified thing. And we would seek for
you with our whole heart and find you too. And you would find
us in Christ our Savior and bless us for his sake and give him
all the glory. Help us never to try to take any for ourselves.
not to fear men, not to seek their praise, but to follow our
Savior with our whole heart. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Galatians chapter 1 verse 13
says the apostle is going to pick up now what he started in
verse 1, which is to explain his apostleship in order that
the Galatians might understand his authority given to him by
God through the Lord Jesus Christ. and his ability to instruct them
in their present attack that they were experiencing by the
Jews who were coming in and trying to tell them the opposite of
what he had preached in the gospel. So he's going to reinforce the
message of the gospel by showing them how God worked in his own
life and gave him this grace. And so that's a general summary
of it. I've entitled this message, to
reveal his son in me. Because that's what Paul said
God did when it pleased him. And when it pleased him, he says
in verse 15, to reveal his son in me. He called me by his grace. So let's read this, verse 13.
He says to the Galatians, for you have heard of my conversation. That word conversation in the
King James Version just means my manner of life. The way I
lived. You've heard of my conversation
in time past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted
the Church of God and wasted it. So Paul was an expert in
the Jews' religion. And he's trying to make them
understand that it's important they know that he was an expert,
or is an expert, in the Jews' religion. That he fully understood
it because the Judaizers came in claiming they had something
that Paul didn't teach the Galatians and therefore they had to add
to it. But he says, no, you've heard of my conversation in times
past in the Jews' religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted
the Church of God and wasted it. and profited in the Jews'
religion above many mine equals in mine own nation, being more
exceedingly zealous of the traditions of my fathers." So Paul was not
only very knowledgeable of their religion, but he was very zealous
in this. He was enthusiastic. He did what
he did with all that he had, all of his strength in that religion.
He was so zealous that he, as if the rest of the nation, the
cheering Jews, when he went out and he persecuted the Christians,
men and women, not just men, but men and women, he found them.
put them in prison. Paul stood by and held the clothes
of those who stoned Stephen in Acts chapter 7. So he was very
zealous as a Jew, and he was zealous for the traditions of
his fathers. More zealous than many in his
own nation. And so he's trying to underscore
this to the Galatians because he's going to build on this.
But notice he says this in verse 15. He talks about his own conversion.
He says, but when I was this way, when I was just like the
people who are coming to you now and persecuting you, undermining
the truth of the gospel, when I was that way, I was attacking
Christ's people. I was fighting against Christ.
I was opposing his gospel when I was that way. When it pleased
God, who separated me from my mother's womb before I was born,
the Lord had selected and sanctified and separated me for Himself.
When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and
called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach
Him among the heathen, immediately I conferred not with flesh and
blood. Now this is a conversion. God, the Lord Jesus Christ, met
Paul on his way to Damascus to imprison Christians. He appeared
to him, and it was at noonday, and the light of Christ's appearance
was brighter than the sun. Paul was blinded by it. The Lord
Jesus spoke to him, told him, you are a chosen vessel to bear
my name to the Gentiles. And so it went with Paul from
there on. He was completely changed. All that he trusted before became
refuse or garbage to him. He says in Philippians 3, it
was dung to me. All of my righteousness I formerly
trusted became dung to me. When he realized who the Lord
Jesus was. It pleased God to do this to
Paul. Our salvation is because it pleases
God. And our salvation occurs when
it pleases God. God's choice of us is before
the foundation of the world. But in our own experience, it's
at that appointed time in God's calendar when he's going to appear
to us and show us his Son. And so here he did this to the
Apostle Paul. when it pleased God, who separated
me from my mother's womb." He's referring now to the fact that
before he was born or had done any good or evil, it pleased
God to make him a chosen vessel for his own use. Make Paul a
chosen vessel. Just like Jacob and Esau, two
boys in the same womb. And God said, Jacob have I loved
before they were born. This is what Paul is saying about
himself. It pleased God. And this is true
of every believer. When it pleases God, he saves
us. That's the way grace works. Grace is not God's response to
us. Grace is God's response to himself. He finds a reason in himself
to save us. And that's what he did here.
Before his conversion, Paul sincerely believed that God would accept
him. and favor him because he was
a Hebrew, just because he was a Jew. He thought that God would
reward him because he kept the law and because he practiced
these traditions of his father's in that religion. He thought
that God was more pleased with him because he was so zealous
against these people who were opposed to the Jews' religion. But he didn't understand just
like all the rest of the Jews. He didn't understand that their
own religion that God had given to them spoke of Christ. He was
blind, just like they were. Blind to the purpose of God's
law. Blind to what the scripture said
about the Lord Jesus Christ. But he was zealous anyway. And it's funny how in our day
and throughout history, the most egregious, the worst thing that
we can find ourselves in is being comfortable and self-satisfied
in organized religion. without Christ. This is the way
the world is today. In fact, when the Galatians speaks
about the word world, it's talking about this. This culture of the world is a religious
culture. And it's a culture in which men
practice their religion and they become self-satisfied in the
practice of that religion. And they oppose the true gospel
because the gospel exposes them as false, as false believers,
as opposed to God. And so Paul was, he was steeped
in this. It was his life. But the Lord
Jesus converted him. When he was trusting in his own
works, he was converted. When he was opposed to Christ
in his gospel and his people, the Lord converted him. The Jews
and Paul used God's law, but they used it unlawfully. And
this is what we do naturally. God's law has a purpose, a very
clear purpose. But what we do when we don't
understand the purpose of God's law is we try to come to God
by keeping His law. And so we actually oppose the
purpose of God's law. What is the purpose of God's
law? Why did He give it? There's really seven reasons,
and I just want to mention them. The first thing that God did,
why God gave us His law, was to make us know that our sin
is against God. Our sin is against God. Remember
what David prayed in Psalm 51, verse 4? He said, "...against
Thee, Thee only have I sinned." So the law is meant to show us
our sin is against God because whose law is it? It's God's law. It says that sin is transgression
of the law, 1 John 3, 4. So, the first thing God's law
teaches us is that our sin is against God in heaven. And the
second thing is that the law does is it proves that we're
guilty before God. That we've actually wronged Him.
We have not done what He told us to do, and we've done what
He told us not to do. That's what Daniel confessed
in Daniel chapter 9. We've done what you told us not
to do, and we haven't done what you told us to do. There's no
goodness in us. We're full of unrighteousness.
So that's the second thing, the law. It says that in Romans 3,
verse 19. We know that whatever the law
says, it says to them who are under the law that every mouth
may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God. And the third thing, the third
reason God gave us His law is to shut our mouths. When we appear
before God, we have nothing to say because we're guilty. And
it's our fault. And we're speechless as guilty
and condemned before God. That's the third thing. To show
us our sin and prove that it's against God and to shut our mouths
before God. We have nothing to say. And the
fourth thing God shows us by His law is that the sin that
is in our heart actually spills out and becomes worse in the
face of God's law. Romans 5.20 says the law entered
that sin might abound. Might spill out. Overflow. That's what God's law does. He
tell a sinner what they ought to do and tell them what they
shouldn't do. And they become worse. Because in their heart
they're sinners. And so it breaks out all over.
And the fifth thing is that it shows us the exceeding sinfulness
of our sin. Because God's law is holy. And
because God's law is holy and it makes us appear worse and
condemns us to death for what we are, then it shows us that
our sin is really bad because by what is good, we appear worse. And the sixth thing that God's
law does is it shuts us up in a prison of our own guilt and
corruptions and helplessness to do what's right. Galatians
3 verse 23 and 24 says the law was our schoolmaster. God shut
us up. before Christ came, shut us up
to the faith that would be revealed later. That's what God's law
does. It shuts us up so that there's no way out for us. We're
helpless and hopeless in ourselves. And it's painful. For the reason
God has given His law, it's painful to us because it It pushes our
face in the dust before God. We have no boasting before God
and we are made humble before God and men by God's law. But
that's the purpose of God's law. But we, in our pride, we oppose
that purpose and we turn God's law into an occasion to hate
God and oppose Him in hostility. So we try to keep it, and then
we boast in our limited, occasional, partial attempts to do so, and
boast of ourselves compared to others. And then we expect God
to treat us more kindly because we really want to do what's right,
but we just can't quite do it. And so we become hateful towards
God that He would be so just. But the seventh reason of the
law was to show us, eventually, to anticipate our salvation in
the Lord Jesus Christ. Because we're not only shut up
to sin, our own sin, but He reveals in the law that there's only
one way that our sin can be taken away, and that's by the blood
of a substitute who satisfied God's law and successfully saved
us from our sin, and that's Christ. But before Paul's conversion,
he opposed Christ. He opposed God's law in his own
heart. God had to bring that law to him. And he had to show
him the Lord Jesus Christ. And when he did that, it put
Paul in the dust before God. It pleased God. It pleased him
to choose him. The Lord separated Paul. The
Lord set him apart to make him a vessel of honor to his own
glory. The glory of His grace. And this
is the way God saves us. God always saves us by His grace.
Everything about salvation is by grace. Think about it. It
says in Romans chapter 9 that the purpose of God according
to election might stand not of works, but of him that calleth.
Romans 9.13. The purpose of God's election
towards us is that our salvation would be by grace. Who chose
to be saved? The Lord Jesus said, you didn't
choose me. I've chosen you. God had to choose us. God had
to choose us to salvation. And that choice was not based
on what we did before the children were born. God chose Jacob and
he rejected Esau. It was God's choice. So election
is of grace. And aren't you glad it is? If
salvation were not of grace by God's electing choice, no one
would be saved. No one. And we know that's true. Isaiah 1.9 says that had the
Lord not reserved for Himself a very small remnant, we would
have been in Sodom and Gomorrah. We all would have been damned
and deserving it. God spared, He spared Lot. He waited to destroy Sodom and
Gomorrah until He brought His elect man out of there, Lot. Just like He brings us out, electing
grace. Salvation is by grace and it
begins with God's choice. It's by God's will, not our will.
And our salvation, our redemption is by grace. In Ephesians 1 verse
7 it says that He has forgiven us according to the riches of
His grace. In whom, he says, in whom we have redemption through
his blood, even the forgiveness of sins according to the riches
of his grace. So, election is of grace. That's
the purpose of it. And redemption is of grace because
we didn't deserve it. We didn't know how to reconcile
ourselves to God. We couldn't pay the price. We
didn't even want to be reconciled. We were hostile towards God.
And God redeemed us by His Son, by the death of His own Son.
So our redemption is of grace. God's call to us by His Spirit
is of grace. When He called me, Paul said,
by His grace. In verse 15 of Galatians 1. Our
sanctification of the Spirit is by grace. Eternal life is
the gift of God, Romans 6, 23. Faith itself is the gift of God,
the gift of His grace, Ephesians 2, 8, 9. And repentance is the
gift of God. Now unto the Gentiles God has
granted repentance unto life, Acts 11, 18. And in 2 Timothy,
let me just take you to this verse, 2 Timothy, because this
is what Paul understood this... Paul understood this because
this is the way he was before the Lord saved him. 2 Timothy
chapter 2 and verse 24, he says, the servant of the Lord must
not strive, not always be debating and arguing. In order to make
his point as if he's got to be right all the time, the servant
of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt
to teach, patient. In meekness, instructing those
that oppose themselves. That's what Paul was. Someone
who opposed his own salvation. If God, peradventure, will give
them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth. That acknowledging
of the truth is faith in Christ. and that they may recover themselves
out of the snare of the devil, who are taken captive by him
at his will." This is the way God works. Everything, the fruit
of the Spirit of God, everything is by God's grace alone. Chosen
by God, redeemed by Christ, born of His Spirit, kept by grace,
preserved by grace, perfected by grace, everything is by grace.
Excuse me. Grace excludes all of our works. The opposite of grace is work,
and the opposite of work is grace. If it's of grace, it's no more
of work. If it's of work, it's no more of grace. Romans 11,
verse 6. All spiritual blessings are given
to us, not of our works, but because of God's grace. And notice
in Galatians 1.15, when it pleased God who separated me from my
mother's womb and called me by His grace. Understand this. God's grace is personal. In Romans
9, he talks about individuals. God chose individuals to salvation. God saved this man, Paul. Each
of the people that Paul is writing to, he speaks to them on a personal
level because grace is personal. God has grace on us personally. And when he does, we know it.
The Lord, Paul said, when it pleased God. He turned me from
trusting all that I did. All that I practiced. I took
pride in what I was doing. I even profited. I was earning
from my labors in opposition to Christ. They rewarded me handsomely,
both with accolades in the Jews religion and also with compensation. This is the way Paul Behaved
himself, but then God stepped in and pleased God to save him
by his grace. It was personal and he knew it.
He couldn't deny it. And what was this salvation?
Verse 16. Galatians 1.16. It pleased God. He called me by his grace. It
was a call that Paul heard and he could not resist. It was an
effectual call. It got done what God meant to
get done by it. To save Paul. Verse 16. And this
was his call. It pleased God to reveal His
Son in me. You see, when God saves us, it's
all about His Son. To reveal His Son in me. To reveal
the work of Christ in me. To show that it was all of His
work and to His glory. That's what Paul is telling these
people here. In other words, he's saying to
the Galatians, look. Listen, I was thoroughly lost. I was a perishing sinner under
the wrath of God. In the Jews' religion, I thought
all that I did made me pleasing to God. But when I was blinded
in my ignorance and my pride, while I opposed Christ and His
gospel and the salvation of His people, even while I opposed
my own salvation and had no interest in Christ and was hostile towards
Him, then Then God saved me. Saved me in Christ by His grace.
He called me by His grace to reveal His Son in me. This is
what He's saying. Listen to me, He's telling these
Galatians. The Lord delivered me from the
Jews' religion. You are infatuated with it. You're enticed by it. Because
these men come to you telling you, you can be better. All you
have to do are these things. What you have in Christ isn't
enough. You need something more to save
you. You need circumcision. You need to keep the Law of Moses.
And that's what works does to us. It entices us. It makes us
fear that we don't have enough in Christ. So we leave our rest
in Christ and we begin to get busy. rather than standing still
and being amazed that God has saved us by His grace for Christ's
sake alone when we were in bondage to sin and to God's law and blind
in our pride. And this is what Paul is trying
to teach the Galatians here. He's using himself as an example.
I was proud. I was against God's law, against
God's grace. I held low thoughts of God, high
thoughts of myself. I believed God would accept and
approve of me when all I did was to promote my own works and
boasted in myself and sought to profit from my zeal in the
religion that I trusted. But God, entirely by His grace,
saved me and called me. He revealed His Son in me. He
revealed His Son as His gift of grace, and grace and truth
came by Him. This is what Paul realized here. It was amazing. The Lord saved
him. And so we go on. He says in verse
17, he says, "...neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which
were apostles before me, but I went into Arabia and returned
again to Damascus." So after Paul was saved, he was in Damascus
for a little while preaching the gospel, but then he went
to a place called Arabia, which is sort of south of Syria and
off to the east of Egypt, slightly north and extending southward. He went there for a long time.
But then he returned to Damascus after he had been there. It says,
verse 17, I went to Arabia and then I returned again to Damascus.
Then after three years, after three years from his conversion,
most likely, I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and abode with him
fifteen days. So he went to Jerusalem, but
other of the apostles saw I none save James the Lord's brother.
Now the things which I write to you, behold, before God, I
lie not. Afterwards I came into the regions
of Syria and Cilicia, and was unknown by face to the churches
of Judea which were in Christ. But they had heard only that
he which persecuted us in times past now preached the faith which
once he destroyed. and they glorified God in me."
God has saved him. What was the reaction of those
who believed on the Lord Jesus? Amazing. Look what God has done.
The man who was our persecutor has become a preacher of Christ.
The man who was injurious and tried to imprison us now builds
the very church that he sought to destroy. He preaches to the
comfort and edification of the people he wanted to get rid of.
and they glorified God in me." I encourage you to take a look
at the handout because there's a lot of detail in those verses
that I didn't get through. I'm not going to take time to
get through, but look at chapter 2, verse 1. Then, 14 years after I went up
again, after, after what? Well, after he came back to Syria,
so this was about 17 years after his conversion. 14 years after,
I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and took Titus
with me also. Now, he's telling here in verse
1 of chapter 2 about an event that's recorded in the book of
Acts in chapter 15. And what happened is Barnabas
and Paul were in Antioch, which is in Syria. And it's off to
the right and slightly north of Jerusalem. And they were there
and some men came up from the churches or the places in Jerusalem.
And they began to tell the believers in Antioch that you needed to
keep the Law of Moses and be circumcised. And this created
a huge discussion or dissension between Paul and Barnabas and
these men. And so they agreed to go to Jerusalem
to talk to the apostles there. That's what he's referring to
here. But when he went there, he took Barnabas, Paul took Barnabas,
and he also took Titus. And Titus' father was a Greek,
but his mother was a Jew. Or maybe it was the other way
around. I think it was that way. His mother was a Jew. And Titus
was not circumcised, so when Paul took Titus to Jerusalem,
and he was a believer, really a Gentile because his father
was a Gentile, You would naturally think that if there was pressure
from the apostles and the elders in Jerusalem that they should
be circumcised, then Titus would have been circumcised. But that's
the very point here he's trying to make. I went up, I took Barnabas
and Titus with me also, and I went up by revelation. In other words,
God himself appeared to Paul and told him to go to Jerusalem.
Not only the church in Antioch sent him, but God himself gave
him a direct revelation to go there. And so, I went out by
revelation, and I communicated to them that gospel which I preached
among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation,
lest by any means I should run or had run in vain. So now Paul,
he goes to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and he goes there, God told him
explicitly, go there, and he communicated, he told them the
gospel that he had been preaching to the Gentiles. just exactly
what He had been preaching to them. He didn't change it. He
didn't change His message because He was now with the Jews in Jerusalem
who professed to be believers. He didn't change what He was
going to say to the apostles. He told them exactly what Christ
had told Him. And it's important that we see
this Because he's trying to convince the Galatians that what he was
given from Christ agreed exactly with what Christ gave Peter,
James, John, and the rest of the Apostles. So when he gets
to Jerusalem, guess what? There was perfect harmony between
Peter, James, John, and the Apostle Paul. And they did not even ask
Paul to circumcise Titus. So what he's saying here is that
not only was I an expert in the Jews' religion, zealous for the
traditions of the fathers, persecuting the Church of God, profiting
in their religion. I know about the Judaizers. But the Lord,
Jesus Christ, converted me on the road to Damascus, all by
His grace. He called me. When it pleased
Him, He called me by His grace and revealed His Son in me. He
revealed Christ in Paul. And that's what Paul was preaching.
The Lord Jesus Christ and his salvation. And so when he gets
to Jerusalem, he preaches the same gospel. And they didn't
add anything to what Paul said because he had the perfect gospel. So what he taught the Galatians
was exactly what he told the apostles in Jerusalem. And they
agreed fully with him. So we go on. He says, and I spoke
to them privately. He said, which were of reputation,
meaning Peter, James, and John. Because he didn't want there
to be an argument, an open argument, amongst all these people who
believed you had to be circumcised to be saved. He didn't want that
argument to just throw the whole meeting he had with Peter, James,
and John off course. And then that would result in
mayhem, a mess in Jerusalem, which would get back to the churches
where he had been and basically fight against everything that
he had been teaching those people in Galatians and elsewhere. He
says, but neither Titus, who was with me, being a Greek, was
compelled to be circumcised. And that because of false brethren
unawares brought in who came in privately to spy out our liberty,
which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into
bondage. So there were some false brethren. Men who professed to
be believers in Christ, disciples of Christ, but they were not.
And he knew they were false brethren because they snuck in privately.
This was the way they persecuted the Christians. And they wanted
to spy out our liberty. You see, the natural man is offended
by the liberty we have in Christ. That's an amazing thing. Why
would we be offended by the liberty? No, no, we've got to be strict.
We've got to do this, that. You've got to wear these kind
of shoes, this kind of shirt, and look this way, a certain
hairstyle. You know, sit a certain way. Use these words when you
talk. You know, drive this kind of
a car, and so on. No, he says, Titus was not compelled to be
circumcised, even though these false brethren came in and tried
to bring us into bondage, saying you had to be, and to keep the
law. But verse 5, to whom we gave
place by subjection, no, not for an hour, that the truth of
the gospel might continue with you. Paul understood that if
he lost the battle here about circumcision, that we're saved
By Christ, but we have to do something else. Something small.
Just circumcision. Just an outward thing. In order
to make it a little better. And keep the Law of Moses. That
he would completely destroy the Gospel. Because the Gospel is
not works. It's grace alone. It's in Christ
alone. And God was behind this. God
sent him there. This is not like a new thing
that Paul stirred up on his own. This was God doing this because
this was always God's message. The law was never given to save
us. It was never by our own personal obedience. It was by Christ alone.
Verse 6. But of these who seem to be somewhat,
whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me. God accepteth
no man's person. For they who seem to be somewhat
in confidence added nothing to me. You see what I said? He had
the perfect full gospel. He had Christ and Him crucified. That's what He preached. 1 Corinthians
2.2, I determined not to know anything among you save Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. And that's it. That's all you
need. Because preaching Christ is preaching
the wisdom of God. The whole counsel of God. The
unsearchable riches of Christ. What are you going to do? What
are you going to add to preaching Christ? When we preach about
the Lord Jesus Christ, we're preaching everything. Jesus said,
if you've seen me, you've seen the Father. Can we add to that?
Of course not. So they didn't add anything to
me because I preached Christ and Him crucified. God revealed
it to me. And I was able to explain it
clearly to the Gentiles and to the Apostles. And they realized
this was God's grace in me. God revealed His Son in me. Verse
7. But contrary-wise, when they
saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed to me as the gospel
of the circumcision was to Peter." In other words, the uncircumcision,
that's the Gentiles. The circumcision are the Jews
who hold to, you have to be circumcised in order to be saved. Because
that's what God had given Abraham in that covenant that He made
with him back in Genesis when He told him to be circumcised
in Ishmael and all of his children. Verse 8. Paul says, for he that
wrought effectually in Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision,
the same was mighty in me toward the Gentiles. And so when James,
Cephas, and John, or James, Peter, and John, who seemed to be pillars,
perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave to me
in Barnabas the right hands of fellowship that we should go
to the heathen and they to the circumcision. Only they would
that we should remember the poor the same, which I was also forward
to do. Okay, so you see it now? Paul
was given the gospel. He preached it to the Galatians.
And yet they were tempted by these men who came in to try
to put them in fear that they couldn't be saved unless they
kept the Law of Moses, or that they could obtain a better status,
or whatever it was that they were looking for. And Paul said,
no, no, no. I'm an expert in the Jews' religion.
I was once there, like them. But the Lord converted me. That's
the difference between the gospel and what that was. It's the difference
between light and darkness. Between salvation and being lost. Between eternal life and judgment. That's the difference. If anyone
preaches any other gospel than what I've preached to you, whether
it be another apostle, myself, or an angel from heaven, let
him be damned in hell forever. Be cursed. Because this is the
only way that sinners can be saved. The only way God is glorified
in the salvation of his people. It's that serious. And so we
see this in the account that he's given here. But then, at
the end, He shows how that Peter did something very foolish, and
we'll get into that next time. When Peter came to Antioch, he
was eating with the Gentiles. Because he realized that God
had saved the Gentiles. And he had just come from this
council in the book of Acts, chapter 15, in Jerusalem. Where
they all decided, no, the Gentiles don't need to be circumcised,
don't need to keep the law. They're saved by what Christ
has done, by grace alone. But when Peter comes to Antioch
and he's eating with the Gentiles, here come some Jews from James. And he saw the Jews coming and
he thought, I'll go over and sit by the Jews. By what he did,
he denied the truth of the gospel. And that's what we're going to
go to next time, is to see how not only did Paul, was Paul an
expert, zealous, profiting in the Jews' religion? The Lord
converted him by His grace, but God gave him the gospel of Christ
and he was preaching it. There was success. Gentiles all
over the Mediterranean area and in Asia, that area up north of
there, in Corinthians, they were being saved by this Gospel. God's
Holy Spirit was bearing witness to the truth that Paul preached
about Christ. These men, there were people
who were healed, miraculously healed. And people were given
the Spirit with the outward signs that they could see. God's Spirit
has fallen on these people because they believe Christ. because
Christ had saved them. Not only was there this success,
but when he got to Jerusalem, the apostles said, you've got
it. You've got everything that the Lord has given us. And then,
here, he tells them also, not only that, but when Peter deviated,
and even Barnabas was led astray, and many other brethren, I corrected
them. I could perceive the error in
another apostle. And so he shows them all these
things in order to convince them that what I'm about to tell you
about your salvation in Christ is the very truth of heaven.
You need to take it to the bank. You need to go to the Lord in
this way and in this way only. Hold to Christ. Abide in Him.
Don't go beyond Him. The gospel you've heard is the
true gospel, and I am truly God's messenger. And by God's grace,
He's revealed His Son in me. This is the way He saves us.
He saves us all the same way. He reveals His Son in us, and
we know the Lord did this. He chose us when we weren't choosing
Him. He saved us when we had no interest
in His righteousness. We were always going about to
establish our own or living like heathens, like the people he
preached to. Let's pray. Dear Lord, we thank
you for your mercy. Thank you for this gospel. Thank
you that it's so rich. The riches of your grace are
revealed in how you saved us in the Lord Jesus Christ. Revealed
it to us when we were completely blind and looking the wrong places. thinking that it was our sincerity
or our intentions or things we were doing were going to make
us better someday or that we could add to what Christ did.
And then you showed us the truth. And Lord, we pray that you would
not let us depart from that. You would cause us to be completely
satisfied, resting in what you've done. not only resting but loving
you for it and loving your people and like Paul, giving ourselves
in this short life of ours to live for your glory with all
that we have, the strength you've given us and know that it will
be the grace of God working in us and not our own strength.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.