Abounding Grace

Guest (Male): Next on Abounding Grace, see how the grace of God changes lives.

Pastor Ed Taylor: The gospel is rooted in the person of Jesus Christ. You have a new relationship with the living Savior, and he has given us a book. To understand God and theology, yes, and identity, but the gospel itself is a call to a person, not to a church, not to a denomination, not to a system of thinking. It's a relationship that over time you grow in that relationship. Over time, you understand the book that God wrote, and you grow.

So I'm sorry about your past. I wish it wasn't that way, but I'm telling you every day you walk with Jesus, you are becoming a new woman and a new man. We are grateful that you are part of the family of God and no longer living in sin, but living for the Lord Jesus Christ. We are grateful for you. You share that testimony as best that you can, and don't let anyone shame you into thinking that God isn't real or you're following some fairy tales. They're wrong, and Jesus is right every single time.

Guest (Male): Welcome again to Abounding Grace online at aboundinggraceradio.com. Today Pastor Ed Taylor returns to our study of Galatians. If we had to sum up the message in a few words, I suppose they could be seeing the grace of God in changed lives. If you're a Christian, you have a testimony, and people need to hear it. Take some time out with us to recall your story of life change. Pastor Ed begins by sharing a bit about his.

Pastor Ed Taylor: I was away this week with a whole new group of people that don't know Marie and me at all. They don't know anything about us. We met believers, we're in the family, but we're complete strangers. The question in moments like that is, tell us a little bit about yourself. They wanted to hear our story, and it's actually a very fascinating story of the grace of God in our lives.

I always love sharing it with Marie because she has such a different angle on our whole story. I remember it one way, she remembers it another way, and then together, it was really bad. It was really bad. We're sharing it, we're talking about the grace of God, and we're going back to our teenage years. We're going back to all of the mess to ramp up right to the point where God has done his work and who we are today.

I should have known better ahead of time that sharing our testimony would, for me, result in bad dreams that night. When I told Marie in the morning that I had these dreams, she said she knew it would happen, being the encourager that she is. She was right. I should have known it would happen too because when you start rehearsing that, you start unlocking all this nonsense, and then you go to bed and rest, and it's all in your head. It wasn't debilitating, but it's just a bummer.

However, I'm not that person anymore. It was just a moment, just a time, just a little bit of dreams to endure. It was worth sharing. We shared our testimony probably five times over and over. We told the same thing over and over and over again, reminding us of the grace of God. Then you're listening and you think, that's an amazing story. That's something that when you're listening to it you think, that's not true. But it's true. It's worse than true. It's even worse than I remember it.

That's where this is the entry point into people's lives. You are Exhibit A of the grace of God. You don't need Titus. You don't need an example, although I'm sure you do. You're the example. Sometimes you have to remind yourself of the work of God. You're at a place where you don't think you're going to make it, and you don't think you're going to survive. Yes, I know it's really bad, but you are born again and God loves you. He is your strength and your sufficiency. How? By the grace of God.

I didn't earn it. I don't deserve it, but I receive it and live in it. As you're sharing, it's interesting because you're wanting to tell people about your story and it's a bridge into the gospel. Don't you ever get tired of hearing that Christianity is just a crutch? It's just a fairy tale. You're following a book that has been made up by man. It's a false belief system for weak people. You're a weak person, you need Christianity.

Ted Turner is quoted as saying before he died that Christianity is just for losers. You can get real defensive and say, wait a minute, nothing could be further from the truth. Although there is a kernel of truth in that. We are weak. A lot of our sin, we did lose out on things. So the accusation is not completely inaccurate, but on the wrong day, you can start to be ashamed of the gospel of Christ.

You can forget how far God brought you. For some of you, you walk in today all beat up because of a current situation. You made a mistake, you sinned, and you're all messed up. You think you're not a good Christian and you're horrible. You've forgotten how far you've come. You're looking at the moment, but if this argument or whatever happened 20 years ago, you wouldn't even be here. You would have just peace out, you're done, and don't want anything to do with that.

Look how far you've come where God has taken you from glory to glory and strength to strength. That could be another mirror component. Thank you, Lord, for your grace, and I thank you for how far you brought me. You have been so faithful in my life. In the days where I've been accused that Christianity is a crutch, I think I picked this up from Greg Laurie. Not only is Christianity my crutch, it's also my stretcher, my ambulance, and the hospital.

I have put my whole life in following Christ. If I need a little help along the way, I'll take it. If I need to be held up, I'll take it. If I need to get on a stretcher and be transported to a more suitable place where I can heal and be strengthened, I have laid my life. I don't want just a little bit of help in my life. I have surrendered my life to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Remember the gospel, the good news. You're not following a system of theology. You're not following a book. You're following a person. The gospel is rooted in the person of Jesus Christ. You have a new relationship with the living Savior, and he has given us a book. To understand God and theology, yes, and identity, but the gospel itself is a call to a person, not to a church, not to a denomination, not to a system of thinking. It's a relationship that over time you grow in that relationship. Over time you understand the book that God wrote, and you grow.

I'm sorry about your past. I wish it wasn't that way, but I'm telling you every day you walk with Jesus, you are becoming a new woman and a new man. We are grateful that you are part of the family of God and no longer living in sin, but living for the Lord Jesus Christ. We are grateful for you. So you share that testimony as best that you can and don't let anyone shame you into thinking that God isn't real or you're following some fairy tales. They're wrong, Jesus is right every single time.

That's what Titus would always remember, and Paul had it too, just like you and me. So verse three now: yet not even Titus, who was with me, being a Greek or a Gentile, was compelled to be circumcised. They came in and they said, he's a Gentile, he needs to be circumcised, disrupting the gathering. There were Judaizers there too, disrupting the gathering.

It says this occurred because of false brethren that secretly brought in, who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage. To whom we did not yield submission even for an hour, that the truth of the gospel might continue with you. We didn't yield an hour. Can you imagine Titus going, thank God we didn't yield. Acts 15 was the very hinge of what Christianity would become.

If they chose the route of these false teachers, then Christianity would just be a little sect in Judaism and not what Jesus taught and intended it to be. They didn't yield, Titus wasn't circumcised, and notice what happened in verse four. There were false brethren secretly brought in. If you like to take notes or jot it down, secretly brought in. That phrase literally means that they came in to steal. They were brought in to steal. That's where we get the phrase ripped off. They came in to rip off these Gentile believers.

Then notice it says they came in by stealth. That phrase in the original language means they snuck in to steal. Now you have two Greek words repetitively being used. They came to rip off. They came in to do this secretly. Then notice "to spy out" is the next phrase, our liberty or our freedom. That word "spy out" means they came to inspect it, check it out, so that they might plot against it. They came in to disrupt and to steal and to destroy.

Later on, in Acts chapter 20, Paul would call people like this savage wolves who came in among you, not sparing the flock. Even some among yourself will rise up, savage wolves. This reminds us of the teachings of Jesus. Remember what Jesus taught us? Turn back to Matthew chapter 7. Matthew chapter 7, you see how relevant the Bible is to today, to this very moment that you're listening to my voice. This is God's word to you and to me.

Notice Matthew chapter 7, verse 15. The teachings of Jesus that predate the teaching of Paul, but the same spirit. Verse 15: Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore, by their fruits, you will know them.

The problem with false teachers is that you can't tell right away. It takes time. You can't tell right away. They come in disguised, wolves in sheep's clothing. They're not easily noticed until someone gets hurt. Then you notice. You begin to pay attention. You see people going astray. False teachers hurt people emotionally, some hurt people physically, but all hurt eternally. This is the warning to us today: beware of false teachers.

You say, okay, then what's the fruit? What kind of fruit? Using the analogy of a tree, what kind of fruit are we to look for? I believe later on in Galatians, when we look at the difference and the contrast between the fruit of the spirit and the works of the flesh, that Paul included it because of this teaching of Jesus. He gives you fruit to look for: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, without which there is no law.

You want to look for those things, but often what you'll see, the way you can tell a false teacher very quickly is they have wounded people behind them. Bloodied sheep following false teaching, following false leaders. Jesus said beware, Paul said beware, Jude said beware, God in his word says watch out for this. There are two things to look out for right away that you can dismiss people right away.

Number one, they have a false Jesus, not a Jesus who revealed himself in the scriptures. That's how we know who he is. Jesus, the eternal unique son of God, God in human flesh who died for our sins and rose again singularly, not any of these other weird ways that Jesus has been described. Number two, another false fruit or bad fruit of a false teacher is that they call you to follow them. You are now following them and they undermine the teaching that you're under, they undermine what you've been taught, not in a way to help you understand the truth, but in a way to confuse you so that you can follow them.

Those are two things that you can see, that's bad fruit. You want to be careful even of false teachers with the works of the flesh. In verse six now, he contrasts. He says, now moving on from the false teachers to the leaders, he says, but from those who seemed to be something, whatever they were, it makes no difference to me. God shows personal favoritism to no man. For those who seemed to be something added nothing to me.

Now we know who they are, because he's going to say it later. These are the apostles, the leadership of the Jerusalem church that was primarily being used of God to reach the Jews. Paul was sent out with Barnabas from the church in Antioch. That was where the missionary heart of God really launched out was from Antioch. These guys were the apostles. These are the ones that walked with Jesus. These are the ones that Jesus personally picked.

The accusation against Paul is that he wasn't personally picked. That he's not a real apostle, that he's no big deal. Don't listen to him, he's a liar. All this stuff is being said about him, accusations. Then Paul says, okay, wait a minute, when I went to Jerusalem, I just want you to know how I went. I went knowing that God's going to show no favoritism to these men. He went in as a peer because he understood his calling as an apostle.

He told us and we've already learned that his calling in ministry happened in the womb. We learn from Jeremiah, it's before the womb that God's work was in his life. The grace of God didn't just show up in Damascus, the grace of God was all over Paul's life and all over his family, just like the grace of God is all over you, even those that are not believers. The grace of God is all over you. You're alive and God is giving you chance after chance after chance to believe him, that he loves you, that he wants to be in relationship with you.

The Bible even puts it this way: the longsuffering of God is for salvation. That's the grace. We aren't receiving in the immediate judgment that we all deserve. Some of us have the blood of Jesus Christ covering us, and others have a patient God waiting for you. Today could be the day, actually, since he's been waiting for this very moment. Paul says when I came in, he wasn't picking a fight, he's just letting you know I walked in as a peer. I'm confident what God called me to do. I'm confident it's from the Lord, and I'm confident that the message, even though I went in, I'm confident but I'm willing to be corrected.

I don't want to run in vain. It's possible to be both confident and humble at the same time. It's a work of the Holy Spirit. He says in verse seven, but on the contrary, when they saw the gospel for the uncircumcised had been committed to me. What's one of the ways they saw the gospel? His name is Titus. Titus is right there. Of course Paul shared his story and they all rejoiced, but they got Titus. Here's one of them right here. There are thousands of him.

You can see grace. You can see the work of God through people's lives. When they saw that, the gospel for the circumcised was to Peter. Again, definitions: circumcised is a phrase being used for the Jew, uncircumcised for the Gentiles. Verse eight: For he who worked effectively in Peter for the apostleship to the circumcised or the Jew, also worked effectively in me toward the Gentiles.

And when James, Cephas, which is another name for Peter, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that had been given to me, they gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, that we should go to the Gentiles, they to the circumcised. They desired only that we should remember the poor, the very thing which I was also eager to do. God is so gracious, his desire is to reach everyone at every strata of society. Don't forget the poor, the widow, the one that can't speak for themselves, don't forget the weak. He's adding that in their commission in how to share the gospel, which they were very grateful to do.

God shows no favoritism. Verse six, that's important for us today because in our current cultural climate, there's a lot of favoritism being shown, especially in the church. One of the places that favoritism is being shown or even demanded is the pulpit by leaders, by pastors demanding something from you. Don't you know who I am? Don't listen to that. In the church of Jesus Christ, at the cross, we are all equal.

Pastors and followers, men and women, Gentiles, Jews, free and slaves, we are all equal. There are no differences between us when it comes to our relationship with the Lord. He loves us all equally. There's no favoritism. You can't let that, which is another tactic of false teachers, they like to use position and authority to manipulate you. Paul reminds us here, God doesn't show any favoritism. My role in the church here is different than yours, that is true. I have a role and I have a position, I even have a gifting that's different, but it does not elevate me above you.

I'm no better than you. I'm a believer like you, obediently living out God's call upon my life. That's what I'm doing here. That's what we get to be a part of. You get to do the same thing. You're a woman, a man of God who is obediently living out your call, his calling upon your life. But I'm no better, and I don't have authority over you any more than anyone else in the sense that you have to follow me blindly. Or follow any man or woman blindly.

Your pastor and shepherd is Jesus Christ. He's the chief shepherd. We all follow him. You also know the fruits of my life or anyone else. In the early church they had this, there was an elevation of men. Some churches have carried on that tradition where men are more important than anyone. No, you don't follow any man, you follow Jesus. It just needs to be said out loud so that if you're in need of you, you need to get your eyes back on the Lord because as you're following someone, you hear somebody on YouTube, you see a TikTok video, and now all of a sudden this guy's teaching so important to you. You don't even know him.

You don't even have any idea to check the fruit in his life. God never intended you to follow men that way or follow women that way. Where do you go to church? I go to church on YouTube. You can't. You can't do that. Some of you might be watching online and because of your health, that's different. Obviously, you can't do something that you physically can't do. But in the current culture today, what happens is somebody catches your ear, and then they begin to use this. You know who I am, I'm Apostle So-and-So, and I'm Prophet So-and-So, and I'm Pastor So-and-So, to which you can say, okay, brother. That's what they are. Okay, sister, because that's what they are.

We're on the same plane, even though there is authority, church discipline or something has to happen, certainly God has given structure and authority. That's a different Bible study. But here, understand when Paul went in, he could go in as a peer. He says I'm with you guys. I received my calling a little bit different than you did, at a different time than you did, but I'm with you guys. I know everyone's looking up to you and thinking you're very important because of the time you spent with Jesus, but your importance is the same as my importance because we're both believers.

We're both servants of the Lord, and no man is to be followed, no woman is to be followed, only Jesus. So you have the two ministries: Paul was sent out from Antioch and he's primarily used among the Gentiles. Peter is called in his dream to not call anything unclean that God has called clean. You would think he's going to reach the Gentiles, but he actually is called to reach the Jew.

What was settled in Acts 15 and what is Paul telling the church right now? This is what he's saying. All those guys saying I'm a liar and accusing me, they're not true and I'll tell you why. I was at the council, I brought Titus with me, I had Barnabas with me, we determined that I was preaching the gospel, Peter was preaching the gospel, we were reaching different people and here was the determination: it was the same gospel. And that's what they settled.

This is again dealing with the false teachers that were trying to say it's a different gospel. No, it's not. It was the same gospel. That was settled back and taking us back in time, which we studied as a church already in Acts 15. All that Paul is saying with this section here is you can see the grace of God in changed lives from the same gospel that's preached in Jerusalem. Those apostles are preaching the same thing I'm preaching and lives are being changed. That's the summary of our Bible study. I could have done it in three sentences, but I chose 45 minutes instead because God is taking you along, ministering the word. Amen?

Guest (Male): Pastor Ed Taylor on Abounding Grace. What you've just heard is a message based in Galatians chapter 2 called You Can See Grace. You can hear it again at aboundinggraceradio.com or listen wherever you get your podcasts. Another option is the Calvary Church app.

Storms come and go in our lives, and when the storm hits, there is something you need to know. Pastor Chuck Smith unveils that for us in a book we'd like to get into your hands. It's aptly titled When the Storm Hits. When you give a donation of $25 or more to Abounding Grace, you're invited to request a copy of this helpful book. Give us a call at 877-30-GRACE. That's 877-304-7223. You can also order the book online at calvaryco.store.

You can also make a donation to the ministry online at aboundinggraceradio.com. And thank you in advance for helping us reach people with the love and truth of Jesus Christ here on the radio and the internet. Next time on Abounding Grace, we'll see how grace confronts hypocrisy as we go deeper into Galatians chapter 2 with Pastor Ed. Abounding Grace is brought to you by Calvary Church, Colorado here in Aurora.