“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.

“It’s Not Complicated”

A Sermon Based Upon Galatians 1: 6-24, NRSV

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

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Pentecost 7, July 12^th, 2015

Have you ever been angry?   When Teresa and I were first married, we had to adjust to being married.  We were both ‘firstborns, which means we were stubborn and strong-willed.   We still are.   The test of the blending of our wills came as I was ‘stupidly’ insistent that Teresa follow the role of being  like my mother.   That was my first bad mistake.  

During this transition period we were picking on each other and old a cold spring day, as I went outside with table scraps, Teresa locked the door on me.   She was just playing, but I was getting cold.  It hurt my pride.  I demanded she opened the door.  She just stood there, laughing.  I said, “Open the door or I’ll open it!”  I meant that I’d put my hand through the glass.  She laughed and said, “You won’t do that!  I did that and I fixed it too.

That’s anger.  That’s passion.  It can take us right to the edge.   In our text today, Paul’s passion for the gospel and anger at those who would try to ‘pervert’ or ‘preach’ another gospel that is ‘contrary’ to the gospel, infuriates Paul and takes him to the edge (1:7). Similar to what I felt when my (ideas of) manhood were being threatened, Paul’s upset because the ‘revealed’ gospel is now being manipulated and perverted.   He has given his life for this gospel and he’s willing to give his life to keep it the gospel the gospel ‘revealed’ to him.     

How do we keep the gospel the gospel?   I love the wonderful punch-line of an popular advertisement that shows children helping an adult understand how ‘simple’ everything should be.  “It’s not complicated!”   It’s pure genius because most everything in our lives seems to be getting more, and more complicated.     We are supposed to live in a ‘paperless’ society, but the truth is you still need paper and now you have to print your own.   We are supposed have technology to improve our work lives, but we keep getting more and more information that we must decide upon and need more technology to do that same work.   The idea of “It’s not complicated” can become, well, a lot more complicated.

In Paul’s day there were those who wanted to ‘complicate’ the gospel too.   Last week we began our summer conversation about freedom talking about our human tendency to ‘enslave’ others and to do things that enslave ourselves.   Today we are going to understand how losing freedom is seldom our intention, but ironically, the more we try to preserve 'our" freedom, the more we are likely to pervert it rather than preserve it.   By adding things to the gospel, we end up less free, or not free at all.

PERVERTING FREEDOM

Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia begins with very serious charges.   He accuses the Galatian Christians of ‘deserting’  and ‘turning to a different gospel’ (1: 6), which is really no gospel at all.   Paul is specifically referring to those who would ‘turn back’ the clock on God’s grace, going back to salvation as it was before, by law and legalism rather than salvation by grace.

Before we too, in this sin-filled world, are motivated to renege on grace we need to understand what the ‘gospel of grace’ meant and still means.   For Paul it meant that he was a Jew who followed the laws of Israel, but it did not make him do good things.   For all Jews, it meant that they had been given the law of Moses, but like Peter, they are sinners anyway and were unable to perfectly follow it.  For us Gentiles, grace means that we are sinners too, even without having had the law to tell us we are.   We are sinners because the law is written in our hearts, even if it is not in our traditions.   Paul’s point is that we all need God’s grace, just like we also needs laws.   But even if we need laws to live, it is only God’s love and grace that can truely set us ‘free’ from sin.

In the wonderful story about the horse named Seabiscuit we have a story about grace.   During the Great Depression a horse whose racing days should have been over, was given another chance by a special jockey who saw something redeemable in that horse.  Giving grace to the horse changed that Jockey’s life too.   The whole story of the underdog, or underhorse, is a powerful story of a second chance.  This is what God’s grace means.  It is God’s way of giving humans a chance to be redeemed, not by by living a life of rules, but by living a life that matters, that loves and learns to live by faith.   

But God’s grace is appropriated into our minds and hearts through a relationship with God, which begins as we receive God’s love and respond by loving God in return, as we also learn to love others.   We do this in faith, believing that God has saved us, not through fear  but by faith.  In Jesus Christ, salvation begins with faith and ends with faith, because God’s love and grace is all we can ultimately depend upon.   As Martin Luther discovered in a thunder storm when lightening nearly killed him; everything in our lives depends on God.  Luther learned in that moment that God calls us to do good because God’s loves us, not because God is out to get us.   This took him back to the truth in the Bible that humans and church people can too easily forget:  A life worth living is lived out of love, devotion and grace, not out of fear and frustration and burdening demands.  

The alternative to ‘salvation by grace through faith’ is ‘works salvation’.   Good works are very much a part of living a life of faith,  but ‘salvation’ by good works is a ‘perversion’ of ‘salvation by grace' not because of the presence of works but because of the absence of grace.   Grace is the grease that allows the wheel of faith to keep turning out good works through us, which comes from faith and not by fear.    The ‘other gospel’ the Galatians were falling back to not only laced grace, but became a‘human boasting’’ that tried to restrict God’s salvation, rather than release God’s salvation into the world, making it all human effort rather than  a result of divine love and grace.

The  problem some "false missionaries" had with grace was that they could not let God be God.   They would not allow that God would do anything new (which the prophets said he could do).    It was a reneging on moving forward with God by a stubborn selfish will that prided itself by resting in the past rather than moving into the future.    Like I was when I got married,  not wanting  to move forward in my marriage, and demanding that my relationship with my wife to be like the relationship with my mother.  What I needed to do, was get smarter and move on.   My mother was not being negated, but having a good relationship with my wife needed to be elevated, so I could get on with this new way of life.   In the same way,  though God once required salvation through circumcision and keeping of the Mosaic law for Israel, God is moving in a new way.  By and through God’s actions in Jesus, God has made a way of salvation for more people.   Is God changing?   No,  God isn’t changing in his being or nature, but God is extending and enlarging his way of saving.   Now, by grace, God is making salvation big enough reach around the whole world through ‘faith’ and ‘grace’ in ways that were limited by ‘law’ or ‘works’.  

On the basis of salvation ‘by grace through faith’ God is showing that he is God and that he is free to save more (and anyone) through faith, apart from the works of the law, through the saving work of Jesus Christ.   Jesus has become the basis, the inspiration, and the foundation cornerstone of everything God is doing to save.   If you add anything to Jesus, or take away from Jesus, you are ‘perverting’ the faith, says Paul.   Jesus should be enough for us, because Jesus is enough for God.   Salvation is no more complicated than this.

PRESERVING FREEDOM

God does all the saving through Jesus.   While this does not mean the law is negated, it does mean that the law is now subjugated and it has been superseded through the faith, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.   Now, that God has  ‘finished’ his saving work through Jesus, we are to no longer work for salvation, but are only to ‘work it out’ into our lives.    But is this too easy?    

We need to recall at another place in Scripture where Paul says we ‘work out our own salvation with ‘fear and trembling’  (Phil 2.12).    Because salvation by faith is bigger, broader, larger and greater than salvation by works, it can be simpler, but it can be even more challenging, engaging and rewarding for us.    When you make such a dramatic move, it can be earth-shaking and it can be life-changing and isn't that point?    Just following laws and rules change teach us about sin, about right and wrong, but it doesn’t cause us to want or desire to do right.  Following rules does not mean that the love of God has gotten into our hearts.  

So, now we’ve come to another issue about freedom.   We not only need to protect the gospel from perversion, we must have the kind of love and grace in us that preserves the truth of the gospel in the world.  This is where the gospel gets personal.    This ‘faith in Jesus that saves’  did something in Paul that the law never did for him---it changed his heart and redirected his life.    Three words say it all,   “BUT WHEN GOD….”  (1:15)   When salvation is a work of God in you rather than just a work you do for God, then salvation is preserved the power of God set loose in you.    You don’t have to add things to make your looked saved on the outside, because it is evident in you that you are being saved from the inside out!  God is at work in you and this is how faith is preserved.

From the very beginning,  our new contemporary Church in Yadkin County has been questioned and even rejected by certain "church" folk who keep insisting on certain ‘requirements’ to be a true church.   Some want a cross on the wall.   Others want an invitation like a Baptist service.   Still there are those who want them to preach and say certain words or sing certain songs or play certain music.   I recall very specifically, how one fellow was adamant that the church ought to have a cross on a wall, but he said nothing about carrying a cross in real life.   I recall a time when it was not good to have a cross on the wall, because it made you look Catholic.   I’m glad we don’t worry about that today, but I wished we cared even more about bearing the cross in our lives, and even bearing it for our brothers and sisters in the world and in the church.   

Somehow, we can still miss the point that goes all the back to those who resisted the gospel in Paul’s day.   As a wise old Baptist minister once told me during the days of Pentecostal renewal.   “The gift of the Spirit is not how high you can jump, but it’s how you walk when you hit the ground.”  In other words,  the spiritual life is about the life we live for Jesus and for others.  How we come to discover that life may differ, but the way we are to live for Christ is what preserves and protects true faith.  As Paul’s life changed, from having a religion of law and hate to grabbing hold to a religion of love and grace, that is still the only way the freedom of grace will be preserved.

PROCLAIMING FAITH

“We must not pervert the gospel of Christ”  (1.7) and we preserve this faith by letting faith change us.   But now we come to one final, very big question   Is having faith in Jesus really big enough to save the whole world?   Can we actually let go of a religion of rules, laws, and trust the Spirit to freely lead us to have salvation through grace?   Is Jesus and the gospel big enough to save us from ourselves and is it big enough to save everybody who still needs saving?

Paul reminds us again and again that he believes God’s grace is ‘big enough’.  It is big enough because ‘it is not of human origin’  (1.11) and it is ‘a revelation of Jesus Christ’.   It is big enough because he is ‘proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy’ (1.23) and now the very people he tried to kill are the people who are now ‘glorifying God’ (1.24) because of the grace that came to  him.   This was reason enough for Paul to believe in Jesus, but is this still reason enough for us?   Does what God is doing in us give us reason to believe this message of grace is still enough today?

Today there are many, many options for human salvation, or for distractions that might cause us to deny the importance of receiving God's grace.    Too many human ‘distractions’ have much more influence and draw much more attention than Jesus, don’t they?   I mean, look at what little power Christianity has in the Middle East these days.   I watched a 60 Minute News special interview where Orthodox and Catholic Christians, who used to be in the thousands in Iraq,  are now being forced to leave.  The past mistakes of many western nations has attributed to practically eradicating Christianity from  the Middle East,  but it may be that a weak Christian witness has put the final nail in the coffin.     

My point here is not to get political, but to wax philosophical.   What power does ‘grace’ have over this monstrous radical Islam that still elevates ‘law’ over ‘grace’,  which has largely been built out of the common Islamic notion that Jesus was good, but was not enough?  With this very big problem of an angry radical Islam before our world,  we can understand how Muslims believe Jesus is not enough, but do we?    Do we really trust in God’s grace and follow a faith we believe is for the whole world?    Do we trust this message of grace through faith as our own way, our own truth, and with our own life?   I’m reminded of what a German TV announcer once asked in a book:  Did Jesus Fail?   He spoke of how gentle, caring, compassionate and graceful Jesus was, compared to what we often see in the world.  Then, he made this statement.   He said:  “Some people say that Jesus tried to save the world and failed.   But I say something different.   I say that Jesus gave his all and we failed to take his message seriously enough.  Do we dare try this way of grace in the Sermon on the Mount, or the the way of grace at the cross,  which preaches a faith based solely on God's love and grace?   Has Jesus been tried and found wanting, or has Jesus ever really been tried?”

When I was in college, when we got tired and weary with learning, we would beg our professor, Dr. Van Murell to tell his parachute joke.  Dr. Murell was a wonderful teacher and scholar, but he couldn't tell a joke.  It was not that he couldn't remember it, but he had no correct tone of  voice, and he would laugh before he got to the punch line.  It was so funny to watch him try to be funny, that the joke was never as funny as he was, and we loved it.  It gave us a moment of grace from a teacher that expected your best, and that made us all nervous and tired.   

When got to the joke, he'd tell us how a man fell off a cliff high above a lake, was hanging on a limb for dear life, and then was heard praying for God to come to his rescue.  Someone came by, heard his prayer for help and offered him a ladder, but he refused, saying that as a man of prayer  he was waiting on God.  Then, a helicopter came by, but he waved it on with the same response.  Then a motorboat came under him, asking him to let go and they would pull him out of the water below, but he persisted in his belief that that God would still come. Still another person came and offered to throw him a parachute, so he could float down to safety.  At that point, Dr. Murell would say that this fellow was like a lot of us, praying but not studying hard enough to be saved from the upcoming test.  He would let out a laugh, but we would stop laughing in that moment.  Finally, his laughter would make us relax and he'd tell us how this fellow finally fell and died.  But when he got to heaven, he went to God to complain: "God why didn't you come to save me?  "We'll" God said, "I tried to save you.  I sent you a ladder, a helicopter, and a motorboat, and even a parachute?  Dr. Murrell would keep laughing at his joke, he'd told hundreds of times, and we'd laugh at him laughing because it was a moment of grace for us.

How do we know whether or not Paul is right to say that ‘the truth of the gospel’ (2:5) is the only gospel truth we need to trust change our lives and to save this world?   How can we prove it?  The truth is we can’t—we can’t sincerely preach it, proclaim it nor witness to it, unless we let go to trust and follow this one who lived and taught us everything we need to know about God's grace.  The only real way to protect and preserve this kind of faith is to trust it enough to fall into it.  Only when we trust in God’s grace with every bit of our lives, will we be able to proclaim the truth of THIS GOSPEL (1.15).  

Paul ‘stands firm’ on this gospel because it saved and changed him.   Grace isn't complicated because it either means everything or it means nothing.   In this very moment, through some very normal ways, God is sending his amazing grace to you.   Will you accept the ladder, the helicopter, the motorboat or the parachute?  It's not complicated, but you still have to let go!  Amen.