Galatians chapter 2 verses 1 to 10. Then 14 years after I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and took Titus with me also, and I went up by revelation and communicated unto them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run or had run in vain. 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 privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage.
To whom we gave place by subjection, no, not for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. But of these who seemed to be somewhat, whatsoever they were, it maketh no matter to me. God accepteth no man's person.
For they who seemed to be somewhat in conference added nothing to me. But contrary-wise, when they saw that the gospel of the uncircumcision was committed unto me, as the gospel of the circumcision was unto Peter, for he that wrought effectually Peter to the apostleship of the circumcision, the same was mighty in me towards the Gentiles. And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision.
Only they would that we should remember the poor, the same which I also was forward to do. So as I mentioned earlier on, in the first chapter of Galatians, Paul spoke about the the other gospel that the church was chasing after, and Paul rebuked them for this. They were after another gospel.
The church that he had planted had drifted, they had departed from the gospel that he had preached. And as Paul starts to deal with this issue, in amongst this he also defended his call to ministry. So if Paul isn't an apostle sent by God, then the gospel he delivered was one of lies, but here we see that he was confirmed to be preaching that same message.
A major aspect of the gospel that Paul wanted the church in Galatia to grasp, as we mentioned, was that doctrine of justification. And we heard earlier on how essential justification is to the gospel. Without that there is no gospel message.
And these things were important for the church to understand, and it's important for us to understand as well. If a church gets justification wrong, then it ceases to be a church. It's just a cult that is seeking to pervert the true gospel.
It is a big deal. So again, as I mentioned earlier, we're going to be looking at Christian liberty, and Christian liberty can only be true liberty if it is set on justification. Justification by faith.
Justification through Christ alone, with no works added to it. Well let's just set the scene, first of all, in the first two verses in chapter 2. Paul says, then 14 years after I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and took Titus with me also, and I went up by revelation and communicated unto them that gospel which I preach among the Gentiles, but privately to them which were of reputation, lest by any means I should run or had run in vain. So Paul has gone back to visit Jerusalem after 14 years of ministry.
He was led by the Lord and Barnabas and Titus went with him. Titus in particular is of issue here because he was uncircumcised. He was an uncircumcised Gentile.
And Paul arrives at the church and he's aware that there are false brethren in the church. These were supposedly Jewish converts, but they had come in and they'd sought to corrupt the gospel by stating that Titus and those who claim to be believers must be circumcised for salvation. Their justification has gone.
Paul then goes on to tell us that he meets with James, Cephas and Peter later on in these verses and they extend the right hand of fellowship. So these apostles accepted fully that Paul was a believer and a fellow apostle. They came together and they were of one mind preaching that same gospel message.
So there was a unity there. Paul wasn't out preaching a different message. Paul was preaching the same message that they were and they were together and unified in this gospel proclamation.
And that is just a real basic view of what Paul had gone through at that time. What I really want to get to is verses three to five and it's in these verses where we see the gospel being attacked and Christian liberty being attacked and that's what we will focus on now. So Paul has come in with Titus and there are people expecting Titus to be circumcised and then Paul here says this in verses three to five.
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 privily to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus that they might bring us into bondage. To whom we gave place by subjection no not for an hour that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. So here we have false converts.
False converts and their false gospel. The thing about the false converts here is that they could not help but spout the nonsense that they believed. They didn't believe this quietly, it had to come out and it had to get into the church.
They came in and attempted to corrupt the gospel, to corrupt the foundation of the church. And we'll see more and more of this as we go through the book of Galatians of how these people come in to rob the church of the gospel message. And that isn't just a problem for then, it's a problem for us today.
We've had people deny the Trinity. How can we have the gospel without a triune God? We've had others believe in sinless perfection and we have others seeking to add works to justification. This is here and today.
We must be on guard. Christian, this is your job too to be on guard against another gospel. Be aware of those that seek to bring you into bondage, to rob you of what you have in Christ, that freedom that you have in Jesus.
Christian, when you understand liberty, true liberty in Christ, then you will see when the people who come in to bring a false gospel, to bring you back under bondage, you will see what they are doing. But you have to know true liberty, you have to know what it is to be justified by faith. In verse 4, the false convert wanted to spy out the liberty that Titus had and the others had in Christ.
We may look at that thinking, oh well it was a ceremonial law, it was something from the Old Testament. But if we think about it logically, it wasn't freedom from the old covenant, it was a man-made law that they had introduced. So if we go back to Genesis 17, God made a covenant with Abraham.
Verse 10, this is my covenant which ye shall keep between me and you and thy seed and after thee every man child among you shall be circumcised. You see this was a sign of the covenant between Abraham and his seed and God. That was an old covenant.
We must remember that circumcision didn't mean that the individual was saved. Not all of Israel are of Israel. The descendants of Abraham may have been circumcised but without faith in the promises it meant nothing.
But because Christ has fulfilled the law, as we heard earlier, and so circumcision is no longer required. To state that it is required is a man-made law. There's a misunderstanding between the old and the new covenant, the covenant of grace that we have.
For the Christian, we still have circumcision, but it's circumcision of the heart. Romans 2 28 and 29. For he is not a Jew, for he is not a Jew which is one outwardly, neither is that circumcision which is outward in the flesh, but he is a Jew which is one inwardly and circumcision is that of the heart in the spirit and not in the letter, whose praise is not of men but of God.
So we have circumcision of the heart. A heart has been, a hardness of heart has been crushed. We have been given a new heart, one that seeks and loves the Lord.
So we've had circumcision of the heart. Then in Romans 4, I won't read for you now for the sake of time, Paul explains this in greater detail about how circumcision was a sign and a seal of the old covenant. So where is circumcision now in the new covenant? Colossians 2 11.
In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Again, we're speaking of this spiritual circumcision. We have circumcision of the heart.
In Christ, Titus need not to be circumcised because he was not under the old covenant of works, he was under the new covenant of grace. Circumcision was no longer required and not only that but Titus wasn't even a Jew. They were trying to burden him with so much.
He was just a Gentile. This didn't even apply to him anyway. But this demand was not from God, it was from men.
Now understanding the beauty and weight of what we have in Christ enables us to grasp true liberty and come away from the influences of the world. Not just liberty in regard to the old covenant but complete liberty that we have in Christ. And again, we look back to justification.
When we understand justification and that we are justified and that is all the work of God and it is nothing that is wrought in us, then we understand all that we have in Christ and we understand all that he has done for us and we know that justification, the instrument of that, is faith. Again, faith is a gift from God and only then will we receive this faith and rest on Christ and his righteousness alone. So this certain justification that is ours in Christ is true, is certain and eternal because our Saviour was raised from the dead, Romans 4.25. He was delivered for our offences and was raised again for our justification.
We have all that we need in Christ. There is nothing in on others that we must do in order to be saved. That is true liberty that frees us from that worry and that burden of thinking we must do in order to be saved.
But now I want us to focus on liberty and how we are free from things such as what the false converts were bringing in. Firstly, why did they want to bring in another gospel? Well, they were only doing the work of their father, the devil. The devil hates Christ and the devil hates his bride.
The devil wants the bride of Christ to remain under the slavery of sin and not be free from the chains of the devil. Now today we may not have people coming in to force circumcision on us but there are false doctrines, there are man-made laws that seek to bring us back in under bondage. We may have a desire to go back to the old covenant under the ceremonial laws.
There may be a push to reject the the covenant of grace and go back to the old ways. We may have people claiming that if we do one thing or another thing or a certain thing then we cannot surely be saved and these will be things that we don't find in Scripture. We may even be forced into doing what is perceived as good works.
If you don't do this, if you don't give this much money, if you don't worship in this manner with these feelings then you surely can't be of the Lord. The list is endless. There are so many ways in which man-made laws will creep in and rob us of our liberty.
So to protect ourselves today we're going to look at what we are saved from and what we are saved to. We will be looking at Christian liberty. So firstly, Christian, remember that you have been purchased with a price.
As Calvin puts it, you have simply been granted freedom. It's been purchased for you. The price was your Saviour being crucified and being raised from the dead.
Now Christ has purchased for you freedom. Freedom from the guilt of sin, freedom from the wrath of God and the severity and curse of the law. You are free from all of that and that is where the devil will come in and attempt to draw you from.
He will seek to bring condemning guilt, making you doubt your own salvation. If you sin you possibly cannot be a believer. Those are the things that you will hear.
You must look and sound behave in a certain way that will make you a Christian. Are you sick? Are you poor? Are you struggling? Are you depressed? Something's wrong? Are you sure you're a Christian? You may have eaten this type of food, you may have taken a sip of wine. If you're doing these things you possibly cannot be saved.
This is how the devil gets you. He adds things to burden you. Now I want to be crystal clear here.
I'm not saying it is okay to sin. We're not free to sin. We have to be careful here.
I'm not okay in any sort of lifestyle. Sin is the reason why Christ was nailed to the cross. I'm not taking sin lightly.
What I'm saying is that we should not be put under the burden of man-made laws. The false convert whose mind cannot be changed seeks to create sin where God has given freedom and they will seek to bring you under that false condemnation, robbing you of the joy that you have in Christ. Remember that you were once guilty before God.
It was a real guilt. It was a guilt and a sin that separated you from God. If you're in Christ then that guilt has been removed.
The curse of the law that was placed on Christ has freed you from this. Christ fulfilled the law where you couldn't. Christ took on the wrath of God where you wouldn't have been able to tolerate.
You would have been crushed by that. Galatians 3 11 to 14. But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God.
It is evident that the just shall live by faith and the law is not of faith but the man that doeth them shall live in them. Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law. Be made a curse for us for he's written cursed is everyone that hangeth on a tree.
That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ. That we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. See Jesus has purchased and freed you from the curse of the law because he was made a curse for you.
Do not be robbed of that wonderful gift. And we come back to Galatians chapter 1 verses 3 & 4 where Paul writes, grace be to you and peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil world according to the will of God and our Father. Not only are you free from the guilt of sin and the wrath of God and the curse of the law, you are free from this present evil world too.
Before salvation you were of this world, you were in bondage to Satan, you belonged to him. However you were created to worship God and to worship God is true freedom. The chief end of man is to worship God and to enjoy him forever.
But in your sinful state, in your sinful nature, you worshipped yourself rather than the Creator. You were a slave to sin and a slave to the powers and the principalities of this world. You belong to Satan.
Can you remember that? Do you remember that feeling? Do you remember the pain, the fear, that dread that was in you? Do you remember life was without hope or joy and you were tossed by the waves? You may be there now, you may be without hope but there is freedom from this, there is freedom from this evil world, a freedom from that slavery to sin that crushes you. It is Christ. Listen now to what the Christian has in their beautiful Saviour.
So for you Christian, Christ gave his life so that you were freed from this evil age, in order for you to be set apart for him. So now you are free from the things of this world and free to do what you were created to do, to worship God in spirit and in truth. Those false believers that try to rob you of your liberty in Christ seek to rob you of what you were created to do.
They want to add a bondage over you that will pull you back from worshipping in the manner that Christ has called you to worship in. Others seek to add burdens that will draw us away further and further from the worship of God. When we think about our song worship, we may be in desperation, we may be pain and suffering from the things of this world, but we may be forced to feel a false joy, a false way of being.
Why do we sing the hymns that we sing? Why do we sing the Psalms that we will do shortly? Because the Lord has freed us to sing to him, to sing and use the scriptures rightly and to sing in spirit and in truth. We may be burdened to be happy and joyful even though inside we are crushed and hurting, but we are free to run to the cross, to be lifted up, to be encouraged and to be ministered to by Christ. So if we listen to the things of this world, if we listen to the false brethren that come out to spy out our liberty in Christ, they rob us also of our comfort that we have when we look to our death.
Imagine trying to keep up with man-made rules and doubting all along that you're good enough for heaven. Death will become terrifying. If we remove justification by faith and faith alone in Christ for salvation, then the thought of death will haunt you.
Here, Titus was being told he must be circumcised. For the weaker Christian, hearing that at that time, for being brought away from the true gospel and all that they had in Christ, they would be saying, oh I must do this in order to be saved. They would think to maybe others who hadn't been circumcised and thinking that they were lost to hell.
We still have that today, people coming in saying, ah you must do this in order to be right before God. So imagine facing hell and thinking, er, facing death and thinking, have I done enough? Will God send me to hell because I didn't do this, this or this? That's horrific, that is a burden that nobody can bear. But when we turn to the Scriptures and we look at 1st Corinthians 15, 54 to 57, we see what we truly have.
So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is in the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
In Christ the Christian has been clothed in the incorruptible righteousness of Christ. Eternal life is yours, Christian. Death has been destroyed.
Death no longer has a hold over you. If for a minute that you think your salvation is based on anything that you do, you will never be found good enough. But in Christ the grave has been defeated.
All glory be to Christ, who has given you this victory and this freedom from the fear of death. You see, the Christian liberty that was being attacked at the Galatian Church was more than just a freedom from circumcision. It was a freedom from the weight of sin.
It was a freedom from the wrath of God. It was freedom from the hold that this present evil world has over you. But there was also a freedom to have a relationship with God.
Because of sin, and in everyone there is that sin nature that separated us from God, there was a divide. But Christ is our mediator. He has brought us together with the Father.
We now have access to the throne of God. We can now come to his word. We can read it.
We can understand it by the power of the Spirit. We have access to the Father who we can now pray and say as Christ did, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. He hears us.
He answers us. He provides for us and delivers us from this evil world. This is what we are now free to possess.
We are the Father's children. How precious and wonderful is that freedom? Why would we chase after another gospel? Again, why would we seek to add works that we cannot possibly keep, thinking that we will be saved by anything that we do? If we look to works, then the Father is unapproachable because we are not good enough. But because we are in Christ, we can approach our Heavenly Father.
We have a joy knowing that in this world where there is pain, where there is hurt, our Heavenly Father hears our cries. We're no longer in bondage to fear, but we are adopted into the family of God. Because you have liberty and freedom from man-made rules and the old covenant, you are free to live and to seek to do the good works that the Lord has called you to do.
These works now become a joy to partake in because you don't think that they're for your salvation. You know that they are in response and you are able to do them and that they are acceptable because you are in Christ. If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.
I just want to finish now with what Paul tells the church in chapter 5 verse 1 and we'll finish here. He encourages them, he builds them up and he tells them to stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage. You are free from the yoke of bondage.
You have liberty in Christ. You are now free from all these things of the world and you are free unto good works to glorify Christ and your works are now acceptable because they are done in Christ. And now there is no fear of death.
We rejoice and have comfort knowing that we will be with our Heavenly Father in heaven for eternity. Amen.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.)