Freed to Unite, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. So if we love the church and we love the gospel and we love each other, we will confront people when their attitudes toward others are not in line with the gospel. And if our identity in Christ is secure, we'll have the courage to do that even if it ruffles some feathers. You can become a Paul to others and you need to have Paul speaking into your life because the unity of the body is worth it and the gospel is worth it. Hey, thanks for joining us here on Summit Life with Pastor J.D. Greer of the Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina.

I'm your host, Molly Vidovich. Okay, freedom. That's a good thing, right? If we've learned anything over the last year and a half, it's that when our freedom feels threatened, boy, do we have a lot of things to say. The truth is if I'm free to have my opinion, then you're free to disagree.

But this disagreement can easily lead to conflict. So today let's talk about a different kind of freedom, a freedom in Christ that should actually bring us closer together and lead us to greater unity. We're being reminded of our ultimate identity that overcomes every difference. Pastor J.D. titled this message Freed to Unite. If you've missed any of the previous messages in our study of Galatians, you can find them all online at jdgreer.com.

But now let's dive into the message. Here's Pastor J.D. Whenever cultures come together in close proximity, such as in a church like here, inevitably there's going to be some misunderstanding or some confusion or even some conflict.

And as we often experience right here in our own country, when people from different backgrounds or different religious upbringings, different cultures are brought together in close proximity, quite often we experience conflict. This is the practical problem that the Apostle Paul was writing about in Galatians chapter two. And what Paul is going to say is that practical problems in our lives or areas of immaturity are not found by growing beyond the gospel, but by going deeper into the gospel. The gospel is not just a diving board. The gospel is the pool itself. And so Paul is going to deal with a practical problem in a gospel way. Here we go.

Okay. Chapter two, verse 11. But when Cephas, Cephas, if you remember was Paul's nickname for Peter, it means the rock.

When the rock came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face because he was to be blamed. Because he regularly ate with the Gentiles before certain men came from James. James was the leader of the Jewish branch of the church, the Jerusalem church, James the half brother of Jesus. However, when these Jews came, he withdrew himself and separated himself because he feared those from the circumcision party, which is another way of saying the Jewish Christians there.

Now here's what had happened. In Acts chapter 10, Peter had been given this vision where a gigantic blanket kind of unrolls from heaven. And in this blanket are all kinds of animals that Peter and other Jews considered to be unclean, like rabbits and shrimp and the pigs and that kind of stuff. And the voice of God called to him from heaven and said, Peter, kill, grill and eat. And at first Peter resists and he says, I can't do that Lord because these are unclean and I'm the Jew and I don't eat unclean things. But God shows Peter that Jesus's death had made all food clean for the believer. And thus ritual cleanliness had nothing to do anymore with being close to God. And so Peter started to eat with the Gentiles and he began to eat what they ate. And here's the thing, once you eat bacon, there's no going back. Amen?

Amen. But then some Jews from Jerusalem show up and Peter withdraws and he goes back to his old ways of not even eating with Gentiles, lest they, you know, shake some of their uncleanness dust on him or they give him the uncleanness cooties or whatever. Verse 13, then the rest of the Jews joined in his hypocrisy. And so the rest of the church, you know, following Peter's example, they begin to separate themselves from Gentiles and begin to insist that if Gentiles are gonna be real Christians, they need to adopt the manners and the customs and the eating habits of the Jews.

Now watch this, watch this. But when I saw that they were deviating from the truth of the gospel, I told Cephas in front of everybody, he says, we know Peter, that a person is not justified by the works of the law. We're justified by faith in Jesus Christ, by the works of the law, no human being will be justified. And then Paul concludes chapter two, verse 20, I've been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live yet not I, but Christ lives in me. In the life I now live in the body, I'm living by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. In this story, we're gonna see Paul illustrate at least three different kinds of freedom that we experience when we trust Christ.

The first of these three is the most substantial. Paul says, because of Christ, we are now finally free to unite. Paul is showing us that a lot of barriers that exist between people come because we are trying to justify ourselves through some things, some characteristic about us.

Charles Spurgeon said that in 19th century London, he saw three main dividers between people in the society. He said, there is the pride of race. He said, number two, there is the pride of face and place. And he said, number three, there's the pride of grace, the pride of race. Hear me very clearly, our ethnic identities and our cultures are beautiful things, but when they become our primary distinguishing identity, they always cause division. First Corinthians nine, Paul says to the Jew, I became a Jew.

You say, well, what's shocking about that? He was a Jew. So how does a Jew become a Jew to other Jews? It's showing you that his ethnic identity was so light to him, he could take it on and off like a garment. To a first century Jew, their Jewish ethnicity and their heritage was precious to them. And Paul says, yeah, he says, but compared to who I am in Christ, even that identity seems like it's just not that significant.

Yes, I love it. Yes, it's important. But my identity in Christ is so far more significant to me that even if I disagreed in some of these things, or even if you do things differently than me, it's not going to affect how we relate to each other. When there's racial division, quite often the cause that it goes back to is that something about our culture or something about our political disposition or whatever, it's become so significant to us that it causes division. Now that's a huge one.

I realized that. The other two that I'm going to hit real quick here on the two kinds of pride are not as, we'll do these much more quickly, but they also cause division. Spurgeon says, there's also, in addition to the pride of race, there's the pride of face and place. The pride of face and place. And that's where you think that some personal accomplishment, some characteristic sets you apart and justifies you before others. We all tend to see people in categories, right? The successful and the unsuccessful, the intelligent and the dull, the beautiful and the ugly, the fit and the fat, the rich and the poor. And we look down on those who are less than we are in whatever area is important to us. And we feel intimidated by those who are more than we are in an area that's important to us.

Paul would say, friend, do you not understand the gospel? First, do you realize how little of your talents you can actually take credit for? I mean, your parents are the ones who gave you your genes.

You didn't choose them for yourself. And God is the one who gave you the health and the opportunity to pursue them. When somebody is really proud of their accomplishments, I always want to ask them, like, do you really feel like if you were born as an orphan in the middle of Sudan, that you would have accomplished all that you have accomplished?

No. Everything you have is ultimately a gift of grace. And so pride about those things is stupid.

Second, do you realize how utterly worthless your talents were when it came to the things that really mattered? They could not justify you before God. They could not bring spiritual life in you and others. Before God, there's only one kind of sinner.

There's just hopeless, dead sinners. And what I've got now in Jesus is worth infinitely more than any of those talents or accomplishments. Who cares if I'm not that intelligent now? I am promised that I will inherit one day the mind of Jesus Christ. Who cares if I'm not that beautiful now? I'm clothed in the righteousness of Christ. And one day in eternity, God promised He's going to make my outside look as beautiful as His righteousness on the inside. So I can handle being ugly for 70 or so years because one day I'm going to be eternally beautiful.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if I'm not that successful now because all the promises of God for me are yes in Christ Jesus. And it doesn't matter if somebody now doesn't appreciate me because in Christ I had the undying love of the eternal Heavenly Father. So pride of race makes no sense. And the pride of race and place and face and all the other ace words, they don't make any sense either.

Maybe worst of all, Spurgeon says, is the pride of grace. This is the pride that comes from having lived a moral or religious life, having avoided certain shameful sins or mistakes. And you feel a sense of pride and distinction because you've lived a pretty good life.

You've never been to prison. You've never been fired from your job or you didn't get pregnant before you were married or maybe you came from a good family where your parents never got divorced. And so now you feel a sense of distinction, even superiority over other people who have gone through those things or made those mistakes.

For example, I know parents who don't want their kids to date somebody whose parents were divorced because, well, you know, that stuff kind of runs in the blood or something absurd like that. Friend, do you not understand the gospel in Christ? There are no good people or bad people. There's no winners or losers.

There's no people who have it together or dysfunctional people. There's only bad, dead, sin-sick rebels without God and without hope in the world. And God for him to save any of us is a sheer act of grace. And it is a resurrection from the dead. And just because God in his grace kept you from some of the worst fruitions of your sin does not mean that you are made of something different than other people who have gone down that route, or it was any less of a miracle for God to save your wretched soul.

Remember what I've taught you before on this. This is a statement by John Owen. The seed of every sin is in every heart. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. There's none righteous, not even one.

There's none who does good. There's none who seeks God, Romans chapter three. And that destroys any false distinctions of superiority between us.

So where do you get off thinking that you are somebody superior? No merit of yours brought you closer to God. It was all gift righteousness that Christ purchased by his blood. There's not one of us that was worthy in God's sight and not one of us that was spiritually live. He saved us and he justified us and he gets all the grace and that destroys boasting. The gospel Paul says that we are justified by faith alone in Christ's finished work. That destroys all these kinds of pride. So in Christ, he says, we got the freedom to unite. Let me give you, like I said, just a couple of others.

They're a lot shorter, but they tie into this one. Paul shows us that not only in Christ am I free to unite, part of that is in Christ I'm free to confront. I mean, y'all think about it for a minute. Paul confronting Peter was a pretty gutsy move. So for Paul to confront Peter, he's putting a lot on the line in that confrontation. Paul could do it because he was secure in his identity in Christ.

And Paul said, I don't really care what Peter says about me. I don't even care what you say about me, because I'm a servant of Jesus Christ and I know what he says about me. In fact, here's how Paul explained it in Galatians 1 10, am I striving to please people? If I were trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

I'd be a servant of people. And because my identity is secure in Christ, I can ruffle some feathers if that's what it takes. And I can create some tension and awkward in relationships because what Jesus thinks about me is much more important than what other people think about me. There are some of you who cannot confront the people in your lives who need to be confronted because you are captive to their opinions and you can't risk the damage that would come if you said something that was unpopular to them. There are people in your lives that need to hear about Jesus, but you can't work up the courage to tell them about Jesus because you're afraid of what they're going to think about you. When you begin to know Christ and when you begin to sense who he is and the reality of his love for you, you quit caring as much about what other people are going to say and you just want to tell them the truth. There are people in your lives that you need to warn because they are making disastrous decisions, but you're never going to have the courage to do it until your identity in Christ is more significant than the opinions of other people.

And since we've been talking about race, let me just go there for a second. Some of you have family members or friends in your small group who say discriminatory things and you don't have the guts to confront them the way Paul did Peter. Oh, that's just uncle so-and-so and that's just how he is. Or you don't want to call a friend out and make things awkward, but it is hurting the unity of our body. You say, oh, I don't know. Well, they don't ever say it to those people and so it's not really hurting those people. Well, God hears it and it grieves his spirit. And second, those kinds of statements create a culture that you can't really hide.

If you don't believe that, just ask some of your minority friends if they can sense when they're in the kind of place where that kind of talk is tolerated. So if we love the church and we love the gospel and we love each other, we will confront people when their attitudes toward others are not in line with the gospel. And if our identity in Christ is secure, we'll have the courage to do that even if it ruffles some feathers. You can become a Paul to others and you need to have Paul speaking into your life because the unity of the body is worth it and the gospel is worth it. Third, Paul says, this is the last one. He says in Christ, we're also freed from insecurity.

This ties into the other two, free from insecurity. One of the most famous verses in Galatians and the whole Bible really is chapter two, verse 20. It is Paul's ultimate statement of his identity.

And I want you to note that it comes out of his discussion about racial division in the church. Galatians 2 20, I've been crucified by Christ, nevertheless I'm living. It's not I, it's Christ who lives in me. And the life that I'm now living in the body, I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

That's the essence of who I am. I've been crucified in Christ, all that I used to hold dear, all that used to define me, all that used to give me confidence or give me insecurity, that's been put on the cross for Jesus. And now I'm alive and the life that I'm living, I'm not even living by my own strength and power. Christ is living in me. That means not only do I have a new identity, I'm in Christ.

I've also got a new source of power. He's in me, Christ in me. Many of you know that you stand accepted by the merits of Christ. You get that part, but you don't yet realize that you live righteously by the resurrection of Christ. The gospel is you in Christ and the gospel is also Christ in you. The righteousness comes from God. It's not your righteousness. It is a gift in Christ that is imputed to you. It is put upon you when you receive Jesus as savior. And it is a power of righteousness that is infused in you when you trust Christ as the power of new life in you. You see many Christians seem incorrectly to think that salvation is basically Christ paying off your sin debt, and then he leaves it up to you to build a new life.

That's insane if you understand the gospel. Say that I was poor and homeless and my family was starving because I lost all my money gambling because I had a gambling addiction and I'm an alcoholic and I have a terminal disease and I'm crippled and blind. And so some rich guy who's really compassionate comes along and says, hey, hey man, I'm going to pay off your debt. I'm going to bring it back to zero. Now go take care of your family.

That's not really going to help me. My balance may be back to zero, but I'm still an alcoholic and I still got a gambling problem and I still have a terminal disease and I'm still blind and crippled. I need not only to have my debt removed, I need the power of a new life. That's where we are spiritually. Not only were we guilty before God, we were also utterly incapable of pleasing God and utterly incapable of building a life of any spiritual significance at all. So the gospel is not just about me being in Christ where I get his righteousness. The gospel is also about him being in me where I flow with his power. And some of you really need to wrestle with this because for many of you, your whole identity is based on you. Your self-conception, your self-image is based on the talents you have, the life you've lived. When you think about your capabilities in the future, you only think about your capabilities, what you are capable of, but that is not the identity of the Christian.

The Christian's identity is I'm in Christ and Christ is in me. You see, when God sees you now, he mostly sees himself. He didn't even see you anymore. When he looks at you, he sees somebody clothed with Christ's righteousness and filled with Christ's resurrection power. By the way, that's why he calls you to live such a miraculous life that you feel utterly unable to do. Of course he knows you're unable. He's not counting on you to do it.

He's counting on somebody supernatural in there to do it. There's only one person who ever had the power to live the Christian life and he was so good at it, we named it after him. And now he lives inside of you and he says, I know you can't do it, but I can do it through you. I can be Christ through you.

That is the hope of glory. So stop basing your identity on you and start basing it on Christ in you. You see, for many of you, you feel, you may feel abandoned, but in Christ, you're loved by God.

You may feel condemned, but in Christ, you are spotless and above reproach. You may feel down on your luck, but in Christ, you are blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. All the promises of God for you are yes in Christ Jesus and all things are working according to good and according to the plan that your eternal good heavenly father has for you. You may feel neglected by others, but in Christ, you have been chosen by God and not a hair falls from your head without his knowledge.

Surely goodness and mercy follow you all the days of your life and he knows the plans that he has for you, plans to give you a future and a hope and to prosper you and use you for his kingdom. You may feel defeated by temptation, but in Christ, you have died to sin's power and now Christ lives through you. You may feel dead and lifeless, but in Christ, you have resurrection life literally coursing through your veins. You may feel like you can't make any difference in life, but in Christ, you've been raised with Jesus in the heavenly places and he has blessed you to be a blessing.

You may feel broken, but in Christ, you've been made complete. In Christ, you are a new creation. In Christ, you are adopted into his family. In Christ, you've been made a partaker of the divine nature. In Christ, you are a beloved child of God. That's who you are.

Quit acting like somebody else and quit seeing. Quit seeing when you look in the mirror the thing that Jesus died for on the cross because Jesus has crucified that and he says now I've clothed you with my righteousness and I've filled you with my power. So your identity is based on not you, it's based on me and it's based on what I've done in you and over you and through you and what I've accomplished for you. So seeing Galatians 2, Paul shows us that when we've got a relational problem or a self-image problem, whether that's feelings of division or pride or insecurity or fear, the answer is not to read a book on five ways to overcome your pride or five ways to get along with people who aren't like you. The answer, he says, is to go back to your identity in Christ.

Again, I'll end right where I started. The gospel is not just a diving board off of which we jump into the pool of Christianity. The gospel is the pool itself. The way that we really come alive in Christ is not by going beyond the gospel, it's by going deeper into the gospel.

It's by grasping more the beauty of the treasures of what Christ has given us, who he is for us, what he has done for us, what he plans to make us. The gospel is like a well. You don't get the best water in the well by widening the circumference of the well until it's as wide as the ocean.

The best water in the well is found when you go deeper into it. So it's not by going beyond the gospel that you really thrive spiritually, it's by going deeper into the gospel that you'll thrive spiritually. Martin Luther, the great reformer, who I told you is the book of Galatians for him, he said was like his wife. That's why he said, based on Galatians, he said, the progress in the Christian life is always to begin again. You want to go farther, you go back to the beginning and you go deeper into it. Progress in the Christian life happens when you begin again. The more you begin again in Christ, the more you will thrive spiritually. It's partially for this reason that a few years ago I wrote a prayer.

It was actually for myself. I ended up sharing it with you, but I wrote it to help me refocus my life on the gospel daily, because I knew that if I wanted to thrive spiritually, I needed to go deeper in the gospel. So it was a little four-part prayer that I just prayed daily in Christ.

There's nothing I could do to make you love me more, nothing I have done that makes you love me less. In other words, my acceptance, my justification is no longer based on what I do or don't do, what I accomplish or what I don't accomplish. Thank God it is settled for me as a gift, righteousness that God gave me and he clothed me in Jesus' righteousness and I can't add to it or take away from it.

I stand perfectly loved in the beloved Jesus Christ. Number two, you're all I need today for everlasting joy. I don't really need other people's approval, do I?

I don't need even creature comforts. I don't need all the things the world says I need because I have you. I have the ultimate opinion of the only one who really matters. Number three is you've been to me, so I'll be to others. It makes sense to me that if Jesus loved me and gave himself for me, Galatians 2 20, then I ought to love and give myself for others. So God, I want to use my talents and opportunities and resources today for others the way you use yours for me. Number four, as I pray, I'll measure your compassion by the cross and your power by the resurrection.

What I'm doing there is trying to say it's no longer about my abilities and my capabilities. I'm going to measure things by God's availability is made to me in the resurrection and I want to embrace Christ in me, the hope of glory. Your gospel identity is you in Christ, Christ in you. Have you embraced it?

Have you received it? Are you going deeper into it because it's the way that you will blossom and thrive spiritually. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.

You are a new creation. This has been a timely message about biblical unity from Pastor JD Greer on Summit Life. If you'd like to listen again or if you want to share this message with a friend, visit jdgreer.com. Knowing the scriptures better has been a primary goal for us this year. And to help you continue to grow, this month we're offering a custom Summit Life Bible as a thanks for your support. JD, in the Bible we're offering, we've customized it by adding a few pages at the front with a Bible reading plan.

What makes this reading plan helpful or unique to us? Yeah, the idea that we had behind the plan is that six days a week you're reading. I mean, we're like, well, there's seven days in a week.

Let's just say that like most of us, you have that day. So six days, let's just say that's a little less than four chapters a day. That's very doable. I will say that that's an eight to 10 minutes, usually kind of chunk of time. I mean, of all the minutes you have in the day, eight to 10 minutes to hear directly from God, I will say that that is about as good of an investment as you can make.

Right. This will help you maintain a good clip through the Bible in a way that's giving you the overall arc of the Bible. And it will move you along in a way that when you get to the end, reading less than four chapters a day with one day a week that you can miss, you will get to the end of that. And you will say, I have read the Bible. I understand the arc of it. And then you can see both your life and God more clearly. I think it's a great resource.

I've struggled for years, even after being a PhD in theology and a pastor, sometimes just reading through the Bible. And I have loved resources like this. And so it's a delight for us to be able to provide one to our listeners. You're welcome to request the Summit Life Bible as our thanks when you donate today to support this ministry. The suggested donation is $25 or more. And when you get in touch, remember to ask for the Summit Life Bible. Call 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.

Or you can give online at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Vidovitch inviting you to join us again Wednesday for a message titled Free to Change on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.