1616. Understanding the Book of Galatians

This has been one of my favorite chapel series that we've actually gone through. You know, what is the fruit of the Spirit? How do I walk in the Spirit?

What does that look like? And I remember, in particularly one of Steve Pettit's chapel messages, he said that now we have the capability to actually walk in the Spirit. Now that I'm in Christ, I no longer have to fulfill the desires of the flesh, but now it's a possibility to even walk in the Spirit. That was so encouraging to me, because Christ does give the power to overcome sin, and I no longer have to walk in the darkness.

I think the most important part of the chapel series this semester, at least for me, was discussing how the fruits of the Spirit apply to our own lives. One thing I've really learned is that there are things in Galatians 5 that we're told to put off before we can put on other things. And I always kind of skip the step of putting off and just want to put on all these good things and put on the works of the Spirit, but I've learned that I need to be putting off the things that are wrong and the things that are hindering me from following the Lord and what He wants me to do. The main thing I learned was, like, you can't only put off the sin.

You also have to put on the fruits of the Spirit to replace it, because if you don't replace the sin with something else, then you're just going to go right back to what you were doing before. I think the biggest thing I've learned is to just, like, let our worries go away and just trust in God and that His plan that He has for us is perfect. The message that Steve Pettit brought that has stuck with me the most has been how, because if we're walking in the Spirit, we're no longer enslaved by the lusts of the flesh. It was just a super big encouragement for me, because a lot of times I feel like I'm really deep into sin, or, you know, if my walk with God gets distanced or whatever, I feel like I'm really into sin, but I can know that, you know, if I'm walking in the Spirit, I'm not enslaved to that. It doesn't consume me.

It doesn't rule over me. Welcome to The Daily Platform, a radio program featuring chapel messages from Bob Jones University in Greenville, South Carolina. You just heard several BJU students talking about chapel programs preached from the Book of Galatians. For the next several days on The Daily Platform, we'll be hearing Dr. Steve Pettit lead us through a study in the Book of Galatians called Walking in the Spirit. Steve writes, In going down the road of the Christian life, you never want to swerve too far to one side or the other because dangerous extremes lie in either direction.

So how can we keep away from these extremes that will certainly ruin us? The Apostle Paul states in Galatians 5 that it's by walking in the Spirit. In today's message, Steve will help us understand the Book of Galatians. Take your Bibles and turn with me please to the Book of Galatians. Our theme this semester is Walking in the Spirit. And my intention this morning and the time that we have is to lay a brief foundation for understanding the Book of Galatians. What is it all about? What would you say off the top of your head if you think of the Book of Galatians?

What comes to your mind? Generally, it's various topics like the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5, or I am crucified with Christ, Galatians 2-20, or you reap what you sow, Galatians 6, or bear one another's burdens, or Christian liberty. In other words, a lot of people when they look at the Book of Galatians, they actually look at it thematically or topically.

But what I'd like us to do is actually try to understand it more expositionally or expounding or grasping the whole so that you can understand the parts. So I want to begin by saying that as we look at the Book of Galatians, the first thing you have to notice is you have to get a feel for its style. That is in the way in which it was written. And the style sets the mood, the tone, the atmosphere. You understand that when somebody walks in a room, if they're mad, that sets the atmosphere.

If they're happy, that sets the atmosphere. So what's the atmosphere of the Book of Galatians? Three things very quickly. Number one, it is written in what we call a polemical style.

That's just a big word that simply means combat, or fighting, or going on the attack, or spirit of militancy. And that is in the Book of Galatians, we discovered that there was a doctrinal and moral problem that was potentially destructive to the early church. And so Paul goes on the attack mode. Number two, it was very passionate.

When you read the book, you'll see it that Paul's language is very urgent. His tone is very direct. How many of you have ever seen your father mad? Raise your hand.

How many of you have ever seen your mother mad? Yeah, that's a little worse. Okay, it's fire coming out of her eyes. You understand what I'm saying, okay? Paul is not like that, but he's passionate. He's urgent. And then number three, it's very practical because it addresses a tremendous problem that not only existed in the early church, but it is one that exists today right at this very moment. And Galatians addresses that issue.

So what is Galatians all about? This morning, I want us to take just a 20,000 foot view and try to get the big picture idea of the book. If you're taking notes, you can write these down.

You can look in your book. But let me just cover those with you very, very quickly, sort of a big picture view of the book. Number one, the first reason why he wrote this book was to expose the false gospel. Galatians is Paul's first letter that came after his first missionary journey. He and a man named Barnabas went to a region in central south Turkey. They left from Antioch, went to the island of Cyprus, and then they went north into the region of Galatia, which is in Turkey. He and Barnabas went there, and what did they do? They preached the gospel of free grace, and you can read it, many, many people were saved. Well, Paul leaves. He goes back to Antioch, and after he leaves the Galatian region, sometime later, over the course of the next year or two, certain teachers came to Galatia from Jerusalem. And they began to preach a different gospel.

That's important. Not a different God, a different gospel. Look at verse six in chapter one. Paul says, I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel which is not another.

In other words, it's not another of the same kind, but it is one that is completely different. Years ago, my brother-in-law and I traveled together in the ministry of evangelism. We both had a trailer, and we pulled our trailer with trucks. We had the same truck. It was a Ford F-350. That's Dooley's in the back, four-door. His was candy apple red.

Mine was jet black. And when you put them side by side, they looked exactly the same until you opened up the hood, and you looked at the engine, and you discovered one was a diesel engine, and the other was a gas engine. And they were completely different.

What Paul is saying is that these teachers had come, and though they were speaking about Jesus, and they were speaking about the gospel, they were actually changing the gospel message. And it was being changed from one thing into another thing so that you no longer have the same thing. If you go to Chick-fil-A, it's not to get a hamburger. If you go to McDonald's, it's not to get a Chick-fil-A sandwich.

They're two completely different things. This is what Paul was saying. What was their message?

And it's this. False teachers were both Jewish and professing believers in Jesus. All right, I want you to get that. They believed in Jesus, and they were Jewish. And they came instructing the Galatian Christians, who were Gentiles, that in order for them to have a relationship with God to be saved, they had to be circumcised, which was a law from the Old Testament for the Jew.

So let me make it real simple. They were saying a Gentile had to become a Jew in order to become a Christian. Were they rejecting Jesus?

The answer is no. They believed in Jesus. What were they doing? They were adding to Jesus.

You could say it this way. Their belief was Jesus plus. So what's the problem with adding circumcision to Jesus?

I mean, what's the big deal? Well, think of it this way. If you require that you keep one part of the law, that circumcision, in order to have a relationship with God, then you have to understand, folks, you've got to keep the whole law.

It's not pick and choose. You've got to do the whole thing. Listen to Galatians 5-3. For I testify again to every man that is circumcised that he is deader to do the whole law. In other words, you have to keep all of the law of the Old Testament in order to have a relationship with God. You just can't do one law. And in the Old Testament, how many laws were they? We know that the Jews codified the laws, and there were 613 laws of Moses. So you couldn't keep one and neglect the 612.

You had to keep them all. And the issue is this. By adding the law to Jesus, you are taking away from trusting in Jesus completely. Listen to Romans 4-14. For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void and the promise made of none effect.

In other words, it's either law or faith, but you can't have both. And what do we have in the Galatians church? We have an illustration that we have seen throughout church history. And that is groups of professing Christians who have added works to grace. Paul is clear, for by grace are you saved through faith and not that of yourselves. It is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. One preacher said it this way.

He said if you believe in baptism, you can get baptized so many times every tadpole knows your social security number. But that's not going to get you into heaven. You are not saved by works. If you add something to Jesus, let me put it this way.

Jesus plus anything equals nothing. You're either saved by Jesus or you're saved by your good works. And the church history is a history of believers adding works to grace. Historically we call that legalism, adding works to grace. We find that, and if you take the umbrella of those who believe in Jesus, and I'm being very broad, Roman Catholic Church, Orthodox Church, Protestant Church, Evangelical Church, Pentecostal Church, Fundamentalist Church, that's the big broad umbrella of those who believe in Jesus.

Under that umbrella are people who believe that you are saved by believing in Jesus plus. And so Paul wrote this Gospel to expound, excuse me, to expose the false Gospel. Number two, he wrote this Gospel or this letter to expound the true Gospel.

You see, good leaders make things clear. This is exactly what Paul did in the early church. He makes clear what the Gospel is and what the Gospel is not to those who would drift from the truth. And he does two things in expounding the true Gospel.

Number one, he clearly enunciates the Gospel. Look if you will please at Galatians 2 and verse 16. For here Paul declares how a person is justified. The word justified is a term for salvation. It means to be declared just or declared righteous in God's sight. The big question is, how can an unrighteous man be righteous with God? How can we as sinners be guilt free?

And either we do it by our own perfect works which nobody can do or we do it through someone else. And that's what Galatians 2 16 says. Notice, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by the faith of Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Jesus Christ that we might be justified by the faith or the faith in Jesus Christ and not by the works of the law for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. Paul could not be more clear and direct.

How are you justified? You're justified by faith in Christ alone. This is the truth Paul taught the Galatians so clearly and yet they had become confused over.

So question, if the truth of the Gospel was misunderstood in Paul's day can we safely assume that the Gospel might be misunderstood today? Even among professing Christians, I grew up in a nominal Christian home. My dad was a deacon and a Sunday school teacher. I went to church, I can remember going to the nursery. I can remember four years old.

And I went all the way through more or less my high school years except my last few years. And I grew up in a church that believed in Jesus and I grew up believing that the way that I got into heaven was by being good. I would stand before God, He would take my good and put it here and my bad.

He would put it here and He would weigh them out. And if my good was bigger than my bad, I would go to heaven. If my bad was bigger than my good, then I would go to hell. And I didn't understand the Gospel until I was 17 years old in front of my public high school when a friend of mine opened the Bible and showed me that there's a penalty for my sin and that was death. And for the first time in my life, I realized because of my sins I was going to hell and I needed a Savior.

And it wasn't about my good works. It was not adding to Jesus. It was trusting Jesus. Paul enunciates the Gospel. Then number two, he also clearly validates his Gospel.

You say, what do you mean? He connected what he was preaching to the apostles of his day, Peter, James, and John. Look at what he says in Galatians 2, 1. Then 14 years after I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas and took Titus with me also.

Titus was a Gentile. And I went up by revelation and communicated unto them that Gospel which I preach among the Gentiles. He went up and shared with them what he was preaching. Look at Galatians chapter 2 in verse 9. And when James, Cephas, that's Peter, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me, me and Barnabas, the right hand of fellowship, which means they accepted them that we should go unto the heathen, that's the Gentile, and they unto the circumcision. In other words, Paul was reaching into the Gentile world. These in Jerusalem were reaching into the Jewish world, but they were both preaching the same Gospel. The apostles validated Paul's Gospel. There was no difference in their message.

It was only different in their audience. So question, what should define us today as Christians? Should it not be first and foremost our commitment to the truth of the Gospel? I mean, what else is more fundamental than being soundly committed to the Gospel? What is the Gospel? That message that brings to us everlasting life. That is far more important than anything else. It's very interesting to me that the apostle Paul never connected practically to Jerusalem.

Why is that? I believe that the message, are you listening? Are you listening, young man? I believe that the message is more important than any man, any person, any personality, any preacher, and is more important than any movement. Because there was a movement of God in Jerusalem, but there was also a movement of God in Antioch. And what is most important, what is supreme, is the message of the Gospel. It's more important than any personality.

It is more important than any kind of movement. Look, if we have to agree on every jot and tittle as a Christian to work together, we'd never work together. That's why we have a creed here at Bob Jones University, because that's the Gospel. So I could expound on that.

Our time is limited. He did this to expound the true Gospel. Then number three, he wrote this book to exemplify the right response to a wrong message. Paul's actions show us what we're to do when people preach or practice something contrary to the Gospel. And his actions are quite clear.

Two things he did. Number one, he shows us how to respond to a false teacher. Now Paul is not talking here to Hindus or Buddhists or Muslims. He is confronting people who are talking about the Gospel. They had come into the churches, they were agreeing with Paul, Christ is the Savior, he's the Messiah, his work is redemptive. However, they were saying that salvation could not be complete until you add works of the law to the message of faith. And Paul shows us how to respond to those who change the Gospel. Remember, he was militant. He was fired up. Look at Galatians 2.4.

And that because of false brethren, unawares brought in who came in privily to spy out liberty, which we have in Christ Jesus, that they might bring us into bondage to whom we gave place by subjection. No, not for an hour. Let me just make it real simple. He didn't put up for it even for an hour. He took a stand. He did what we often call separation. And the separation was over the Gospel.

There's no place for dialogue, no room for debate, no Christian recognition, no Christian cooperation. Paul says they are spies, they are kidnappers, and they are slaveholders. And so he was strong against false teachers.

And so should we be. Number two, he shows us how to respond to true brothers who identified with the false teachers. One of the most incredible events in the book of Galatians is in chapter 2 verse 11.

You can go back and read it, but what happens? Peter is in Antioch with Paul. So he goes up from Jerusalem to Antioch.

And what is he doing? He is eating with Gentile Christians. Now this is something a normal Jew would never do.

Why? Because Gentiles were considered unclean. Jews don't eat with Gentiles. And Peter knew also that God had accepted these Gentiles by justifying them by faith because God gave Peter a vision about a Gentile being converted through the Centurion soldier named Cornelius. And he also knew that the Gentiles were not required to be under Jewish dietary laws.

He knew all that. So Peter's fellowship with them was based on his belief in the truth of the gospel. I can fellowship with these Gentiles.

Why? Because they're saved and God has accepted them. However, when the Judaizers came from James, that's in the city of Jerusalem, and they came to Antioch and they saw Peter's association with the Gentiles, they put Peter under fear pressure. You know what fear pressure is?

It's called peer pressure. And we don't know what it was. We don't know what they said to him. But we knew that basically Peter began to slowly withdraw from eating with the believing Gentiles. And by his action, Peter was rejecting justification by faith.

In other words, he was saying that they're not really clean. And he was now supporting the message of the false teachers. And what did Paul do? Paul confronted him and he said that's hypocrisy. Hypocrisy means your actions are contrary to your beliefs. You know that they're saved.

Why do you not eat with them? Your actions are saying they're not saved. Did Peter really believe the message of the false teachers?

No, of course not. However, when he removed himself from Gentile Christians, he sided with the Judaizers, and by this action, Peter gave Christian recognition to those that were not Christians. And therefore, he was not walking in line with the truth of the gospel. And his actions were so influential that even a good man named Barnabas sided with Peter and was led astray. How do you respond to those who support those who compromise the gospel?

What do you do? You confront. When Peter was come to Antioch, Paul said, I was stood him to the face because he was to be blamed. He reasoned with Peter from the standpoint of justification and showed him his actions were wrong.

It's not right for you not to eat with these Gentiles because these are believers. And when he did that, what he was doing is he was standing for the gospel. He shows us how to respond to true brothers who identify with false brothers. And as Christians throughout all of our lives, we're going to have to stand against false teachers, and there are going to be some times where those who profess to be Christians will compromise the gospel for the sake of whatever, and we have to stand and say, no, this is not right. In this case, thankfully, Peter changed his mind and came back and unity was brought together because of obedience.

One last thing and we'll be done very quickly. He wrote this book to explain the right use of the law and Christian liberty. More than any other book, Galatians explains the freedoms that we have in Christ.

The law was mentioned 30 times, especially in chapters 3 and 4. We have already seen that keeping the law is not a means by which we are saved, but what is the right use of the law? Because there is a proper use of the law for both in salvation and in sanctification.

We have to understand the proper use of the law, for the law shows us our need of Jesus for justification and the law shows us our need of the Holy Spirit for sanctification. And the freedom or the liberty that we experience is found in the work of Jesus for us and in the work of the Spirit in us. And that's why we're going to spend the whole semester walking through Galatians 5 and learning what it means to walk in the Spirit and how we should live our lives out in the power of God. Next week, we're going to look at what is Christian liberty. You've been listening to a sermon preached by Dr. Steve Pettit from the study series in Galatians called Walking in the Spirit. Steve is now utilizing his gifts as a compelling communicator and expositor of Scripture and travels to local churches with preaching, concerts, and conferences emphasizing Gospel-centered evangelism and Christian leadership development. You can get more information about Steve's ministry at stevepettit.com, that's stevepettit.com.

My name is Wyatt Smith. I'm a senior here at Bob Jones University studying multimedia journalism and I want to tell you a little about my experience here at BJU. I've been here a little over three years and I truly cannot say enough about the community here at BJU. Whether it has been in the halls of the dorms, in my incredible society, or even in the classroom, I have always felt a very strong sense of community around me that has aided in my growth as a person and as a Christian. BJU's commitment to academic excellence has also pushed me to discover and refine the skills and talents needed to succeed in life after school such as communication, critical thinking, and problem solving.

My time in the classroom has allowed me to gain hands-on experience in my field of study all while giving me the freedom to think creatively and build my skills. One aspect of BJU that I have really appreciated is that I have been continuously challenged to develop and grow my faith in Christ through the preaching of God's word and chapel and the daily discipleship of those in community around me. I have truly loved my time here at BJU and I hope others will be able to share the experience I have had. If you or someone you know is interested in an experience such as mine I would encourage you to check us out online at our website bju.edu and follow us on Facebook and Instagram at bju.edu. For any further information, please feel free to give us a call at 800-252-6363. Thanks for listening and join us again tomorrow as we continue the study in the Book of Galatians preached from the Bob Jones University Chapel Platform.