“GET READY TO FIGHT”

A Sermon Based Upon Galatians 2: 1-14, NRSV

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin.  

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Pentecost 7, July 19, 2015

“We did not submit to them even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might always remain with you.

(Gal 2:5 NRS).

Recently I had to trade in my old car for a newer one.   It wasn’t new, but it was new to me and it was supposed to be certified.   Being “certified” should mean it is held to a higher standard, both inside and out.

I bought the car on a cloudy, rainy day.   That was a bad mistake.  When the sun came out, I noticed at least 30 chip repairs where all rain drops had been.   It had been touched up, but I also noticed that the paint on the bumper did not match the color of the paint on the car.   When I took the car back to complain, the manager said that he could do nothing.  He said that the hood had been properly repaired, for a used car and he added that you couldn’t match paint on plastic bumpers.   I did not agree, so he at least consented to doing some research and said he’d call me back.   He didn’t call back when he said, so I put a stop payment on the check.  

In the meantime, I consulted with a good lawyer who told me to read the fine print in the contract.   I did.   When I called the manager of the car dealership again and told him that I put a stop payment on the check until the car was fixed properly, he told me I could be guilty of “Grand Theft Auto”.   But of course, he said he would be nice and not press charges if I went ahead and paid for the car.   That didn’t agree with me, so I called the N.C. Attorney General’s office and got to know a nice lady named “Jessica” and asked her if I was being unreasonable.   To make a long story short, now they are going to fix the car.

In a world where many people want more than their fair share, sometimes you will have to put up a fight.    As Christians, as followers of Jesus Christ, who teaches us to invite the kingdom by ‘turning the other cheek’, we should not be easily pushed into a fight.   If we want the new kind of world to come into reality, we have to fight differently.   “That’s well and good,” as my mother used to say, but the kingdom hasn’t come, yet.   In a fallen world, where the tendency is not only to fall into sin, but also to be enslaving to others or be enslaved by others, sometimes we still have to put up a fight.   As Christians we should fight fair, and we should fight in the most humane and advanced ways (which is what the Sermon on the Mount means), but if you want freedom, and you want to remain free, you still have to know when and how to fight.

In our text from Galatians, Paul is ‘fighting the good fight’ for freedom in Jesus Christ.  Interestingly, he is not merely fighting against the ‘evil’ in the world, but he is ‘fighting’ against ‘false believers’ and he is even fighting against some very good people who have it terribly wrong.   There is much to learn about ‘fighting’ in this text.   If you are going to keep your freedom, sometime or other, you will have to learn how to put up a fight.

DO NOT SUBMIT (vs. 5)

Before we look more closely at how Paul ‘fought the good fight’ for the cause of Christian freedom among the churches Galatia,  I want to tell you another ‘car’ story.   However, this one is really not about cars, but it’s about people.   Many years ago, when I arrived in Europe, I came across a little ‘fender bender’ on the highway.   The looked like they were getting very ‘emotional’ with each other.  They were waving arms, giving the policeman an earful and with were excessively arguing their points.   It all looked rude and impolite to me.  So I asked an experienced German driver about my observation.   He said that this was all very necessary.   In European culture, the one who doesn’t speak up is assumed to be the guilty one.

Paul is ready to speak up and to speak out in our text.   He knows who the guilty part is, and it’s not him.   For this reason, the entire letter to the Galatians is written in emotional, aggressive, if not aggravated prose.   Paul is hot.  He is passionate and he is angry because his ‘call’ as an apostle is being questioned by ‘false believers’  who have ‘secretly’ come to ‘spy on the freedom’ Christ has given (4).    They have come to ‘spy’ because they do not agree with Paul’s allow ‘new converts’ to remain ‘uncircumcised’ which goes against Moses.   Since Paul has not ‘compelled’ Titus to be ‘circumcised’,  he knows these ‘pseudo believers’ have come to trap him and to challenge his freedom.

In response to this Paul writes this letter.   He speaks out.  He speaks up.   He writes that when these ‘false believers slipped in to spy’, in order to ‘enslave us’,  ‘we did not submit to them even for a moment….”   (2.5).   This is strong language.  It is strong because it sounds like Paul goes against everything else he has taught.   Paul is the kind of fellow is willing to submit to almost anything for the sake of the gospel.  He is willing to be beat up for it, to be stoned for it, to be whipped for it, and he is willing even to die for it.  And Paul is willing to ‘submit’ to any or all of this for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ and he will not even lift as much as a finger to resist this.  But now, Paul says he ‘will not submit’  even ‘for a moment’.   Do you know why Paul is taking such a stand?   Do you know why Paul is getting angry and uptight?   It is not his ‘own’ personal freedom that he is ready to ‘fight’ for, but it ‘the freedom we have in Jesus Christ’. (4)  Paul is not ready to put of a fight for what he wants, nor is he ready to put up a fight for what is good just for him.   Paul is ready to fight for the ‘freedom’ that has been ‘entrusted’ to him as ‘the gospel for the uncircumcised’ (7).   The ‘freedom’ that Paul will not give up, is the freedom that everyone needs.

You could say that the wisdom of this text is to remind us all that if we are going to put up a fight for something that is right, we still need to know how to ‘pick our battles’.   We need to make sure that we are fighting for what is right, not just for what we want or for what we think is right.    But when we know it is right, and when we know it is the ‘truth of the gospel’, we should ‘not submit’ even for a ‘moment’ (5).  But how do we know, when to hold the line and when to give in?  How does Paul know for sure?

DON’T TURN BACK (vs. 12).

When we understand what is happening, this all becomes clear.   It is the same kind of clarity we all need before we ‘draw a line’ or ‘pick our battle’.   In the story before us in this text that line has already been made clear.  The church in Jerusalem, or whoever sent those ‘spies’ to ‘spy’ on Paul and his freedom,  already knew where this ‘gospel was going’.   Even before Paul had been ‘ordained’ or ‘commissioned’ as a preacher and missionary to be ‘entrusted with the gospel for the uncircumcised’ (7),  Peter and the church had made an agreement that they would not put the requirement of ‘circumcision’ on the new Christians.   The vision had already been revealed to Peter.   The Holy Spirit was already pouring out blessings on the uncircumcised believers.   Even the council in Jerusalem, where Paul, Peter, James and all the church leaders had come together to consider the matter,  they had come to the clear, concise, compassionate decision to allow Gentile Christians not to have to obey the ‘circumcision’ requirement.   If it was good enough for the Holy Spirit, it was good enough for the church.   The new direction of the Spirit had was officially clarified and the church already agreed (Acts 10-15).  

What caused Paul to stand up and ‘fight’ was the fact that now, Peter and the church were now giving in to a faction in the church who did not like the decision.   It was not like they had ‘differences’ but it was that were ‘turning back’ to reverse the decision that had already been made.   This is why Paul ‘opposed’ Peter ‘to his face’.   This is why Paul called him out in front of everybody, even if it made him look bad.    Paul is not resorting to violence, nor to mere anger for the sake of blowing off steam,  but Paul  is relying on the ‘truth’ to gain the upper hand.   And the truth is that ‘until certain people’  of the ‘circumcision faction’ came from James and the church in Jerusalem,  Peter  ‘used to eat with Gentiles’.   It is obviously, definitely, and absolutely clear what everyone decided.   But now,  when the pressure was on,   Peter ‘drew back’,  and ‘turned back’ to the old way, out of fear of people, not out of the fear of the Lord.

Nowhere in the Bible does God give freedom or ‘slack’ to ‘backsliders’, and this is exactly what Peter and the church are doing.   But they are not sliding back ‘unintentionally’ or ‘unknowingly’ but they are sliding back to who things once were with full intent and this ‘intent’ is not in line with the mission that has been entrusted to Paul and the decision that had been agreed upon by the church.   Whatever a church must not do,  whatever a Christian must not do,  whatever a person who wants to be free must not do, is to never ‘turn back’ nor ‘reverse’ the decision that has been made clear by God, by the Spirit or by the leadership.  

I’ve told the story about the first time I ever drove to “Love Valley” with my friend Gary Marshall.   I wanted to see Love Valley because I heard it was like an old ‘cowboy’ town with unpaved streets and wild west style buildings.   My friend was from Texas, so I thought he would be a good person to have with me.   When we arrived at the small entrance to the town, we met an old, dilapidated pick-up truck with three long-haired hippies inside.   If you know anything about Love Valley, you’ll know that this was a normal sighting in Love Valley in the 1970’s.  We met these ‘hippies’ at the small entrance, but there was no room to get buy.   They had more room than we had to ‘back up’ but they didn’t budge.  I was ready to put my car in reverse, but my Texas friend said, “Don’t do that!”   I suddenly felt the adrenalin rush like it was ‘high noon’ at the OK Corral.    About the time I was going to trump my friend’s desire to sit tight,  one of the hippy-haired fellows stuck his neck out and hollered:  “Hey, would you mind backing up,  our truck doesn’t have a reverse?”   With a sigh of relief,  we avoided what I thought was going put me on cemetery ridge.

Like that old pickup,   God certainly has no reverse.   God doesn’t have reverse, not because God is hard to get along with, or because God is an broken down truck,  but God doesn’t have reverse because life doesn’t have any reverse.  Life and Truth only have one direction and that is ‘forward’ and ‘straight ahead’.  If the church of Jesus Christ wants to maintain its mission focus and keep it’s costly freedom that was established in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we cannot have a reverse gear either.   If you think about going backwards, don’t even think about it.  Don’t turn back.   The truth only knows how to ‘go marching on’ and the freedom God gives does not work in reverse.

DON’T BE LED ASTRAY

Anyway we lose this freedom God has given us is bad.   But if there’s a worst way to lose our freedom, it’s when we don’t know we are losing it.   This is the ‘slickest trick’ in Satan’s arsenal.  He can put us in a pot like frogs, thinking everything is fine, and then he turns the heat on.   When the heat comes on,  being led astray is worse than ‘giving in’ or ‘turning back’ because without realizing it,  now our freedom is gone forever.  

This is what happened even to ‘good ole’  Barnabas.   It’s the kind of thing that happens to ‘good ole’ friendly people.   Barnabas was a special friend to Paul.   He had supported Paul and his Gentile mission since the beginning.   He had been there with Paul when he was still Saul and he had gone the distance.   He even had the nickname, “The Encourager’.  Barnabas was a good and kind man.  He was a disciple of Jesus and he was close to Paul.  But even Barnabas could be  ‘led astray’ (2.13).

I’ll never forget how a man came to warn me that his wife had turned against me.  He agreed she had no good reason, but she still had her reasons.   When I called the Chair of Deacons to meet with the couple and to try to resolve the issue, with his wife by his side,  that husband would not agree with anything he told me before.   I wondered why he even came to me.   Either been ‘led astray’ by his wife too, or he realized he had to go home and live with her.   I think that was the reason, and I understood.   But I don’t think they are together today.   If you are led astray, even for what you think it is for a good reason, if it’s not for the right reason, it won’t always be good.

Why are ‘good’ people sometimes the most vulnerable people?    It’s not hard to figure.  When we want to do good, or we have been raised to be good, sometimes we’ve not experienced the slick tricks of the devil or we’ve sheltered too much and haven’t been introduced to the way the world really is or to how easily we too can get caught up in the emotions,  the feelings,  the fears and the frustrations of life.   If we don’t have a strong sense of mission, or we haven’t settled for sure and for certain what that mission is and what we should be doing to accomplish it,  we too can be more easily led astray.  We can understand what caused Barnabas to ‘join in the hypocrisy’ of the others who were opposing Paul,  but we can understand how even good people can get caught up in the ‘enslaving tricks’ that can rob any or all of us of the freedom we should have in Jesus Christ.   How can good people avoid such a trap?

BE CONSISTENT WITH THE TRUTH

The best answer comes in consider how Paul describes Barnabas’ failure, and the failure of all those ‘good people’ were giving in to the temptation to take the ‘well-worn path’ rather than the ‘new’ path that God had put them on.   Paul says that the major problem of Peter,  of Barnabas, and of James and the ‘circumcision party’ from the Church in Jerusalem was that ‘they were not acting consistently with the truth of the gospel.”   It is because of this ‘inconsitency’  that Paul calls them all out and even confronts Peter (or Cephas) ‘before them all’ (14).    What Peter has to pay Paul,  is to explain how he can now, inconsistently say to the Gentile Christians,  “Do what I say,  not what I do?   Isn’t this what Paul means when he says: “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew,  how can you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews (14)?”

I used to have a friend who was once a Baptist missionary in the northeast.   When he was going door to door, he had a favorite question he would ask people who said that they were Catholic.   He would respond by asking the point blank:  “Are you a good Catholic?”   This is the term Catholics used to express whether or not they were faithfully going to mass or whether they were just raised that way.   If they answered that they were a ‘good Catholic’,  he would go to the next door, but if they answered that they were not so ‘good’,  he would invite them to a Bible study and believe they might make a Baptist.   I’ve always ‘worried’ a little about his approach.   How do ‘bad Catholics make ‘good’ Baptist?  

What was not ‘good’ about the whole matter of return to ‘circumcision’ was that it was not the ‘truth’ of the gospel.   Whatever else the gospel means, at its very core it must be ‘true’ or it is no gospel at all?   We call this integrity.   We do not keep our freedom when allow the wind to blow us in any direction, but freedom is kept when we allow the wind of the Spirit to keep us moving in the right direction.   Peter knew when he ‘drew back’ that he was not being consistent with what he said God was doing.   Barnabas knew that when he was ‘led astray’ that he was not doing what he encouraged Paul to do.   The circumcision party in Jerusalem also knew that what they were doing was not what the Holy Spirit had led the leaders in the church to decide.   The problem with losing freedom is something that happens when good people know they are being ‘inconsistent’ with the truth, but they are ‘inconsistent’ anyway.   Isn’t ‘the lie’ always the noose around freedom’s neck that enslaves hearts and lives?   When good people give in, give up, go back, and are led astray, and they know it, or they don’t care to know it,  they can lose freedom.   Giving up the fight for freedom  is not much about being overcome, surprised, or tricked, but it’s ‘allowing’ ourselves to give in, to go back, or be led astray because we ‘fear’ the truth more than we belive in the truth.

The best way to ‘fight’ for the truth is to believe and to live what we say we believe.   Are you living ‘consistently with the truth’  you said you believed?   And furthermore, do you realize this the ‘truth’ of the freedom Christ gives  is a  ‘freedom’  that moves forward toward the new things that God is doing, rather than just walking in the same old steps that are taking you nowhere?  

Len Sweet tells that toward the end of the 19th century, Charles Sheldon, pastor of an average church in an average community in Topeka, Kansas, decided he needed to do something to perk up his Sunday evening services. Sheldon began preaching a kind of serial sermon, in which he told stories about average men and women and the kinds of situations and challenges they might find themselves facing in their ordinary lives.

The question Sheldon put on the lips of his fictional sermonic characters and the question he posed to his own parishioners was this: "What would Jesus do" in these same circumstances? This serial sermon or spiritual soap opera hit just the right note with his people. They were curious enough about the next "installment" to return week after week after week. They were so challenged by Sheldon's urging them to consider what Jesus would do if he were faced with the same issues as they, that a revival of sorts broke out in his church. It spread to the rest of the nation through the publication of In His Steps, the second best-selling "religious" book in all of American history. Only the Bible itself beats it out.

Ever since its publication, now a century ago, In His Steps has become a kind of Christian mantra for the faithful.   But what started out as a new and challenging road has gradually become a kind of safe, well-traveled path. For too many Christians, claiming to be following "in Jesus' steps" has become a substitute for forging ahead into unknown territories, for taking faith into places where the church has not yet trod. This kind of ‘moving ahead’ with Christ and in the Holy Spirit is the kind of ‘freeing truth’ Paul meant.  Like Peter and Barnabas,  we are all constantly tempted to reinstate those written down, black-and-white laws rather than having a living, breathing, growing, life-changing, and challenging faith that sets us free not only from sin, but sets us free to serve and to love Jesus and the world in new and exciting ways.

So, the question of Christian freedom is not only are you living consistently with the truth you say you will live, but it is a question of whether or not you are living consistently with the truth that sets us free, and will keep setting us free to serve and to love God in new, exciting and freeing ways.   And, as another Tomlin (Lilly Tomlin) once said in an unforgettable way:  That’s the truth!  Amen.