Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] I can't eat this.
[00:00:04] I was having dinner along with my wife and a very good friend of ours, Wayne Cole, with a family that lived in apartments next to our church in Birmingham.
[00:00:19] And his family didn't have much.
[00:00:22] They were living in poverty, to be honest with you.
[00:00:26] But they wanted to honor the three of us with a meal. We had been talking to them about Jesus, and as I looked over the bowl in front of me, it seemed as though they had just gone to their refrigerator and taken everything that they had in their refrigerator and poured it in a bowl that was full of slightly warmed, flavored water.
[00:00:54] And as I looked in, I saw a chicken bone floating in my bowl with what seemed to be cabbage.
[00:01:02] And then floating to the top were.
[00:01:05] I think it was fish eyes or chicken eyes. I don't know. It was not fried chicken and cornbread and mashed potatoes that I'm used to.
[00:01:16] And I looked at Wayne, my dear friend, who is so kind and compassionate.
[00:01:22] And I said, he's not really. But I said, I can't eat this.
[00:01:31] And he whispered back with me with a smile, looking me in the eyes, knowing that our host family would probably not understand what he was saying because they mainly spoke Spanish.
[00:01:43] He said, you are pathetic.
[00:01:48] Eat that to the glory of God. Now, I said, well, if you put it that way, that's what I'll do.
[00:01:57] It's kind of like the time I was in Peru and we were sitting with a family, very similar situation.
[00:02:04] And what was put on my plate at first I thought was a rat that had been cooked.
[00:02:12] And I looked at the missionary that we were with and said, is this a rat?
[00:02:17] And he said, no, it's a guinea pig.
[00:02:21] And I said, like the things that are in pet stores.
[00:02:26] And he said, yes, it's a delicacy here. Eat up.
[00:02:32] And I did.
[00:02:34] Well, in the New Testament, we have this issue of eating together that often comes up.
[00:02:42] And the point is who we gather with and who we gather around tables with. For eating food together communicates who we think God accepts into his kingdom, who we believe God will accept around his table.
[00:03:01] As we've seen in Galatians, Paul has been very clear about who God accepts.
[00:03:08] Those who believe in Christ alone, those who have trusted in his death in their place, his life in their place alone. Those who look to Jesus as sufficient and nothing else. These are who God welcomes and accepts around his table.
[00:03:28] And Paul says, if that's true, that should be displayed in your gatherings, as you fellowship together, as you eat meals together.
[00:03:37] But as we've Talked about the Judaizers, the false teachers. This is the reason the book of Galatians is being written. They teach something vastly different.
[00:03:47] They say it's not just Jesus alone that God accepts.
[00:03:52] That's not the only thing that gets you into the kingdom. That's not the only thing that will make you right with God. You, you've got to add some stuff to Jesus. You've got to add circumcision, the traditions of the law. You've got to become a Jew to be accepted. And you can't believe that Jesus alone will make a Gentile clean enough to eat with.
[00:04:16] This is what they are propagating and other false teachers. As the church is beginning to grow and Gentiles and Jews are having to gather together and, and even eat together.
[00:04:28] And their arguments were so aggressive that many leaders in the church, even apostles, began to question.
[00:04:38] And some of them, as we'll see in our text, began to cower publicly to this message. They began to compromise by separating themselves from their Gentile brothers and sisters.
[00:04:53] And as Paul's apostleship is being questioned and his authority is being questioned, many of these false teachers see, they're saying, see, Paul doesn't agree with Peter, James and John.
[00:05:06] They can't even get together on this issue.
[00:05:10] And Paul says, well, actually, I've had to travel to Jerusalem to clarify the issue.
[00:05:18] I've had to go even call out some of the leaders over this issue.
[00:05:23] So I'm not scared of your arguments. I've gone up to Jerusalem to clarify. And that's what we see in verse 1. As Paul says, there should be a boldness in our fellowship that declares the gospel.
[00:05:37] Notice verse one. He says, After 14 years, I went up again to Jerusalem. Now, last week we talked about this time where Paul is spending time preaching the Gospel in these Gentile areas. Arabia, Sicilia, Damascus. He is preaching the Gospel there. And he says, After 14 years of doing ministry in those areas, I went up to Jerusalem again before I spent about 15 days with Peter. But I went back again and this time, notice, he takes with him Barnabas, Titus.
[00:06:12] Now, why is this significant?
[00:06:14] Well, this is a Jew and a Gentile. Barnabas was a Levite. He was a Jew to the core, a very generous man. He vouched for Paul's ministry when many were fearful of the Apostle Paul.
[00:06:28] This man who used to kill Christians is all of a sudden preaching the Gospel. And Barnabas was a man who stood up and said, yes, the grace of God is with him.
[00:06:37] But he also took Titus, who was a gentile convert, as we'll see uncircumcised.
[00:06:45] He became a pastoral assistant of Paul and later a church planter in Crete. So he takes with him to Jerusalem to clarify this issue. Are Gentiles accept it the same way Jews are accepted in Christ alone? And he takes a Jew and a Gentile to suppress the issue, you see, as he goes to Jerusalem, this isn't some di move on the part of the Apostle Paul.
[00:07:11] No, he is throwing in their face what God is doing.
[00:07:16] Look at what God is doing. A Jew and a Gentile before you, and they are one in Christ.
[00:07:23] And what he will say even to the leaders and false teachers in Jerusalem. If you have a problem with this, these two men being brothers, you have a problem with God.
[00:07:35] This is what God is doing through the Gospel. They have equal standing. And we see here in this act that the Gospel is to motivate and encourage and cause a bold type of fellowship among us.
[00:07:52] A fellowship that pictures people who would never, ever even associate with one another outside of church, who gather together and actually love and serve Jesus together.
[00:08:07] That's what we see here, a bold display of the Gospel, boldness in their fellowship.
[00:08:13] You see, we got to be a place where folks come in and they. They look around this room and they say, I know that person.
[00:08:25] I know that. I'm actually friends with both of them on Facebook.
[00:08:29] And they ain't agreeing about nothing.
[00:08:34] I don't even know how they like each other.
[00:08:39] Why would they go to church together?
[00:08:42] They don't agree about anything.
[00:08:44] And it is the proclamation of the gospel we don't agree about much. But Jesus and Jesus brings us together as brothers and sisters. And there is a boldness in that where we delight in it. We're not irritated by it. When we look around the room and we see differences in our background, in our finances, we delight in those things because we see the gospel and we boldly celebrate those things. And Paul here is throwing it in their face in this way. But notice next we see boldness in freedom.
[00:09:20] Paul goes to Jerusalem. Notice, he says, I went because of a revelation. And we can assume that this is a revelation from Jesus.
[00:09:28] Jesus is telling him, you got to go make this clear in Jerusalem with the leaders there.
[00:09:33] One of the points we can make with that is that Jesus wants clarity on the gospel. He wants this issue solidified in the context of the church as it grows. And notice he's Paul set before them.
[00:09:48] He's talking about here, the pillars of the church or this group. But specifically, notice, though privately, before Those who seemed influential. And so there would have been meetings where Paul is unpacking the gospel and all that is God is doing. And then he takes, as we'll see, Peter, James and John aside, and he tells them notice, he puts before them the gospel that he proclaimed among the Gentiles. And what is this gospel?
[00:10:14] That Jesus is enough.
[00:10:16] That Jesus life and death is sufficient to save anyone who trust in him alone from their sins. That it is enough to believe in Jesus, to be accepted by God. Yes, I am preaching this among the Gentiles.
[00:10:31] And he puts this before we would say these Jewish leaders in Jerusalem, and notice why, in order to make sure I was not running or had not run in vain.
[00:10:44] Some 14 years or more of gospel ministry, where he is preaching the gospel, planting churches. And many of those churches would have been full of Jews and Gentiles.
[00:10:55] And what Paul is understanding is if the leaders in Jerusalem are in disagreement over these things, it's going to hurt these churches that I'm planting.
[00:11:05] It's going to hurt the church in general. And so I went to put my gospel before them, not that they would affirm my gospel, but so that we would get on the same page. That and they would not hurt the gospel, they would not hurt the churches that are being planted.
[00:11:22] And he says, when we did, verse three, notice, even Titus, who was with me, remember the Gentile was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. We have to wonder if Titus was okay with being a case study in this way.
[00:11:39] Circumcision was a sign of the covenant.
[00:11:43] It's what made you a Jew. But what Paul's going to argue in Galatians, that this is a step toward having to obey the whole law.
[00:11:52] To take this on in this way as a requirement of salvation is going to mean that then we have to obey the whole law. And no one can do that.
[00:12:01] This is the gospel that they are preaching. And we've said over and over, this is a gospel that says Jesus isn't enough.
[00:12:08] And he says, if the apostles in Jerusalem believe this same thing about circumcision being added to Jesus, now was the time to say it. You have a Gentile before you.
[00:12:20] What are you going to do?
[00:12:22] And they had pressure to circumcise Titus. But notice verse 4.
[00:12:30] Yet because of false teachers secretly brought in, who slipped in to spy. Now all of the language here means they are up to no good. There's secrecy, there's spies.
[00:12:43] As they hear, Paul is in Jerusalem, he's gathering with the apostles there's leaders, there's meetings. They slip in to church services, but notice they're spying.
[00:12:54] They're like operatives to do harm to the church. They're spying our freedom that we have in Christ.
[00:13:01] They're showing up at these meetings and going, these folks really do accept Gentiles. Here we have this man Titus before them.
[00:13:09] They really do fellowship and celebrate this gospel that says Jesus is enough to save even the Gentiles. And they're spying these things out. Notice. So that they might bring us into slavery. That is their motive. And they're there to put pressure on the leaders to say, yes, you must be circumcised. Yes, you must add the law to Jesus so that notice, Paul explains it this way. They might bring us into slavery. They might say, Jesus is not enough. So you got to do some more stuff.
[00:13:42] You got to add the law to Jesus. And Paul says that slavery. And we're going to talk about that throughout the book of Galatians. But notice something here. He says, so that they might bring us into slavery.
[00:13:54] He doesn't just say Titus. He says, all of us.
[00:13:58] Because if what they're saying is true, we're all going to be in bondage.
[00:14:02] Because if they're saying that we must add the law to Jesus, Jesus hasn't done enough. We're without hope because even us Jews can't obey the law perfectly. And that's the standard of the law. So we're all going to be in slavery, we're all going to be in bondage.
[00:14:22] But notice, Paul protects the gospel here for the sake of freedom to them.
[00:14:28] We. He's talking about the leaders himself, his mission team.
[00:14:34] We did not yield to these false teachers even for a moment. Their arguments, their condemnation, the guilt that they were heaping upon us.
[00:14:43] Notice why?
[00:14:45] So that the truth of the gospel might be preserved, it might be kept, it might remain pure. We didn't give into any action that would confuse the gospel.
[00:14:57] We didn't tell Titus, you got to be circumcised.
[00:15:02] We didn't dismiss the Gentiles from our meetings because of what they were saying, why we didn't want to give anyone the idea that Jesus wasn't enough, that those who believed in Jesus Christ alone had not done enough to be accepted by God. So we didn't dismiss them. We didn't separate from them at this time.
[00:15:25] And notice, we see Paul is boldly protecting the gospel, making the gospel clear. And it is for the sake of freedom, so that we might remain free in Christ.
[00:15:39] We are. We have to be abundantly clear, what saves us, what gets us to heaven, what gives us approval before God, accepted as sons and daughters by God, as children of God. And it is Jesus and Jesus alone.
[00:16:02] It is his life, death and resurrection and faith trusting in that alone. And we are always clear about that. But for the sake of freedom, we don't want to add this bondage.
[00:16:16] We don't want to be working for Jesus as slaves.
[00:16:21] And it's so important in the life of the church. That's why when we come to things that are good, things that are right, things that are biblical, even things that we should do, we clarify, there are good things that you do as Christians, but even some of these things aren't required to make you a Christian. And we clarify we do so for freedom, not to minimize the good things. Take for instance, baptism.
[00:16:53] When we bring someone to the baptistry, we're really serious about that around here. By the way, we got the cattle trough up here as advertisement.
[00:17:05] When we bring someone to the baptistry, you'll hear one of the pastors always say, this isn't saving them.
[00:17:13] There's nothing magical about this water.
[00:17:16] This act is not making them a Christian. They are declaring to us that they are a Christian, which is vitally important, which is crucial.
[00:17:27] But we clarify what's going on, why? For freedom.
[00:17:31] And we have to do that even in the life of this church, where there are a lot of things going on that are really, really good.
[00:17:38] Even as we call you to serve this church, we gotta be clear in our tone that these are really, really good things, that it's gonna bring you a lot of joy to serve and be a part of what's going on in this church. And by the way, there's just a lot of things we gotta get done these days.
[00:17:58] But we want to be very clear.
[00:18:00] These things don't make you a Christian. They don't save you. And as leaders, boldness, it takes a lot of courage to say that. Because sometimes when we're calling you to serve, we're going to twist your arm just a little bit, make our life easier, make you feel, hey, I may not be a good Christian if I don't do this, and that's sin.
[00:18:22] We have to be careful with that.
[00:18:25] Except when it comes to awana and parking. We need a lot of help with awana.
[00:18:31] And if you are a member of this church and you're still parking close to this building, we need to sit down and explain the gospel to you.
[00:18:41] Now, we want to be clear about the gospel for the sake of freedom. Why is that?
[00:18:47] When we're clear about the gospel, all of these other things bring joy in our life.
[00:18:52] When we know why we are doing it, when we clarify the gospel, then we come to the baptistry and it is a celebration of freedom. Then when we are serving the church, we are doing so with joy. It's not bondage, it's not miserable slavery. So we are mindful about what is required before us, before God, Christ alone. And Paul is bold with that. Here he doesn't give in at all. But notice he's also.
[00:19:19] We see the boldness in mission in verse 6.
[00:19:24] Notice during this time the pillars, those who seemed influential. And it is almost as though Paul is throwing out digs. It's probably just clarification because he doesn't want to confuse the Galatians as he talks about these leaders, the pillars in the church. They were influential, but remember last week, they weren't going to influence me. It was the grace of God that influenced me to preach the gospel.
[00:19:49] He says, what they were makes no difference to me. God shows no partiality.
[00:19:54] What he means here is in Christ we all have the same status in the same gospel.
[00:20:02] Those I say who seemed influential added nothing to me. As we're having these meetings, as we're talking, they didn't add anything to my ministry. They didn't add anything to my gospel. They didn't say, go back to these areas and circumcision must be a part of what you teach. The law must be added to Christ. They added nothing. No, on the contrary. Verse 7. When they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, they're hearing about what Christ did in my own life. We talked about last week, he called me in this way, it is Jesus who gave me authority. Just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised, the Jews who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me and mine to the Gentiles. And they begin to see how the grace of God is moving. We read in the Book of Acts and we see all of the signs and wonders that is declaring the gospel is moving into all of these areas. And they see God's grace and they see God's power in verse nine. And when James and Cephas, this is Peter and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceive the grace that was given to me, they see me. Paul, once a Pharisee Hebrew of Hebrews, blameless for the law, persecutor of the church.
[00:21:27] When they see God's unmerited favor to me that I am now preaching the gospel to the Gentiles. They gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me. They said, go back and preach the gospel. Notice that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised. Let's be very clear here. There's not a division in mission. What's going on here is equal authority is established. Paul has the same authority as apostle to preach the gospel to the Gentiles as Peter to the Jews.
[00:22:02] There's equal authority. And we can only imagine in this moment if these three apostles went on record in saying, no, no, no, Paul's ministry was inadequate these last 14 years or Jesus isn't enough, imagine what direction Christianity and the church would have gone in in this moment because of the grace of God. They see the gospel in the life of the Apostle Paul and his ministry. They see Jesus mo and they go on record, yes, Christ is enough.
[00:22:36] They only ask one thing, verse 10, that we remember the poor. And he says, this is something I was eager to do. We even see Paul in his ministry taking up offerings to take back to Jerusalem for churches that are suffering there. And why is that significant?
[00:22:53] We want to go on record. We are one church. There are churches in Jerusalem that are suffering and many of them are suffering financially. We take an offering from the Gentile churches back to say, no, we have the same status.
[00:23:08] There's not two churches, Jew and Gentile. There's one we see here in this section a commitment to a bold mission which says Jew and Gentile are saved by the same gospel. And if they're saved by the same gospel, then we preach them the same gospel to Jew and to Gentile. And there's a boldness in doing that. We're not going to require something from one people group that we wouldn't from the other. No, we require they believe in Jesus alone.
[00:23:42] I'll never forget early on in ministry, Pastor David and I were at a church and there were kids that were coming to the church from a very rough part of town and they didn't have Christian parents and they were intermingling with kids who came from a much better part of town who had Christian parents.
[00:24:13] And I'll never forget this mom who began to connect the dots here.
[00:24:18] My children are intermingling at youth group in the children's ministry. They are associating, they're in the same classes with these other kids and bless her sweet precious heart and you always know when someone from Tennessee says that something rude is coming, right?
[00:24:37] She began to connect the dots. And she said, okay, if those kids are coming here and they're coming to church here and they're hearing about Jesus here, then those kids from that part of town may get saved.
[00:24:52] And if they grow up here together, one of them, she said this, might want to marry my daughter.
[00:25:01] And Pastor David, I didn't even know he's. I had already prepared to say this before I knew he's going to be here.
[00:25:07] He's so kind and sweet.
[00:25:13] He blurted out, would you rather her marry an unbeliever from a better part of town?
[00:25:23] And it went silent, just like right now.
[00:25:27] Why it's convicting, right?
[00:25:31] Because we start asking the question, what if I go there and share the Gospel? What if they come here and we have to share the Gospel with them? Well, the answer is the gospel that saved you might save them.
[00:25:42] And that's the glory of God.
[00:25:45] That's the glory of God's grace. No, there should be a boldness to share Christ with people. You would be a little uncomfortable with showing up at church and very uncomfortable if they ever became a part of your family.
[00:25:59] Why the grace of God changes.
[00:26:02] That's the truth of the gospel, that we all are wicked.
[00:26:07] It's just expressed to various degrees among us, but we are all capable of the same sin. And yet Jesus, in his grace and mercy, saves us and rescues us by the Gospel. And we should delight in, and we should be bold to share the gospel. Jew, Gentile, rich, poor folks who look like me, who don't look like me, who were raised like me, who weren't raised like me, who live where I live, who would never be able to live where we should share the gospel, preach the gospel, invite to church disciple, making sure that this bold mission is expressed in the context of our church.
[00:26:49] But notice, finally, we see Paul's boldness in the gospel to Confront.
[00:26:56] Notice verse 11.
[00:26:58] We've seen boldness in fellowship, boldness in freedom, boldness in mission.
[00:27:05] And now we see boldness to confront verse 11.
[00:27:08] But when Cephas, again, this is Peter, came to Antioch, this is. This shifts. This is another story.
[00:27:15] We're in Jerusalem. We sorted all that out.
[00:27:19] Now we're in Antioch, the Gentile city, and Peter's there, and he's hanging out with Gentiles.
[00:27:26] Notice Paul, I opposed him to his face because he stood condemned. He's guilty. He's guilty of sin.
[00:27:33] And notice, he says to his face, not behind his back, not in A discernment ministry. Post online directly to his face. Why? Public sin, Public rebuke.
[00:27:55] Peter, the one who confessed, you are the Christ.
[00:28:05] And Jesus said, upon this rock I will build my church. This is Peter, leader, apostle.
[00:28:14] And Paul has to stare him in his face and confront him here. Why? Verse 12.
[00:28:20] For before certain men came from James, he was eating with Gentiles.
[00:28:26] Now why was he doing that?
[00:28:29] Well, God had given dietary laws to his people that separated them from the nations that declared their clean among the unclean. But In Acts chapter 10, Peter sees a vision. All kinds of animals, all kinds of food. And God commands him, take and eat. Why it's okay to eat with Gentiles now? Why? Because Christ makes them clean.
[00:28:55] It's not an issue of food and being unclean or clean. According to food, Christ has made them clean.
[00:29:02] We go back to Acts chapter 10, and Peter is willing to do so.
[00:29:06] And here Paul says he's eating with Gentiles in Antioch. But notice when certain men from James, now these seem to be false teachers who are visiting Jerusalem, even the leaders there. And now they're headed down to Antioch.
[00:29:22] But when they show up, notice he drew back and separated from them.
[00:29:29] When he finds out these guys from Jerusalem, these Jews who are investigating our Gospel.
[00:29:36] And I don't want to be seen eating with Gentiles. This is something I've been against my whole life.
[00:29:41] I can't be seen doing this.
[00:29:45] Eats with Gentiles for a while until these men from Jerusalem show up. And the one who once said to Jesus, or about Jesus at the cross, when Jesus is being crucified because of fear of man, I never knew him, now says the same thing about his Gentile brothers and sisters. I never knew them.
[00:30:06] I don't know what you're talking about.
[00:30:09] Notice why the text continues fearing the circumcision party, fearing these false teachers.
[00:30:15] And notice what happens, verse 13. The rest of the Jews acted hypocritically. If Peter's going to do this, we are too.
[00:30:23] So that even Barnabas, as we talked about earlier, was led astray by their hypocrisy.
[00:30:30] The word hypocrisy here means to play a part, to be an actor.
[00:30:37] And so one moment Peter is acting as if the Gentiles are accepted by Christ alone.
[00:30:45] Then at another moment, he's acting as if they're not. He separates from them. They got to get clean before I can eat with them.
[00:30:53] To the point where Barnabas does the same.
[00:30:56] Notice he's influencing them as a leader.
[00:31:00] This is the definition of Appeasing men for personal gain. And Peter of all people guilty of this, this Hypocrisy, this being two faced.
[00:31:17] In verse 14, Paul says, When I saw that their conduct, Peter and Barnabas was not in step, means to walk straight. They weren't walking straight with the truth of the gospel. This is the issue here. They are preaching a false gospel in the way that they are acting, who they are eating with.
[00:31:37] Paul says, I said to all of them, before all of them, if you though a Jew, live like a Gentile, not like a Jew. Meaning when these guys aren't here, you're living like a Gentile and you're free to do so.
[00:31:52] God personally told you you're free to do that, to communicate they're clean in Christ.
[00:32:05] How can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?
[00:32:10] Now when they're here, you're saying to them, no, you got to be like us.
[00:32:17] You got to add traditions, the festivals, the law, specifically circumcision, before we can sit at a table with you and eat the same meal together. You're preaching a false gospel.
[00:32:30] This is because Peter was scared of men.
[00:32:34] This isn't just generic big bigotry, it's cowardice that's out of line with the gospel.
[00:32:43] Now it should comfort us that Peter struggled with this fear of men.
[00:32:49] We see it often with Peter, talks a big talk, never knew him, and Jesus is kind and restores him.
[00:33:00] And here Jesus is being kind and confronting him through the apostle Paul, which seems as though Peter repented, continues to preach the gospel, eventually dies for his Lord.
[00:33:14] But like Peter, there are moments in our lives where we're scared to speak the truth of the gospel.
[00:33:22] You feel that sort of terror in your soul before men.
[00:33:28] And you know, I need to say something about Jesus right now.
[00:33:32] I need to speak up and declare the truth right now because it would be in line with the gospel.
[00:33:39] My witness is at stake in how I'm going to act and what I'm going to say here. And we get scared and we appease men that fear that we would say there's no evangelism program or technique that could fix it.
[00:33:56] Tried them all. I just can't speak up about Jesus.
[00:34:01] Well, let's get to the heart of that. What's going on in our heart there?
[00:34:05] It's because we fear men more than God.
[00:34:11] We fear others. We fear people, flesh and blood, frail sinners. We fear them more than a holy, righteous God.
[00:34:22] And we clamor for their approval.
[00:34:25] We want to be liked. We don't want to be shunned.
[00:34:28] We want to be accepted.
[00:34:31] We don't want things to get awkward because we fear men more than God.
[00:34:37] You got to ask yourself the question in those moments.
[00:34:40] We go back to chapter one, verse 10, where Paul says, am I trying to appease men or God? Is my motive to please men or please God? Because that's going to determine my message and my witness for the Christian. There's good news.
[00:35:02] There's good news when you ask yourself that question in those moments of tension, even terror in your soul, when you're just given the opportunity to talk about Jesus and you know you should do it in this moment, am I trying to please this person in front of me or God?
[00:35:22] Here's the good news.
[00:35:23] God's already pleased with you in Christ.
[00:35:29] And if the creator of the universe, the holy righteous God is pleased with you, who cares what this man thinks about you sitting before you? Who cares what this lady thinks setting before you that you're about to share the gospel? God is pleased with me. That's all that matters.
[00:35:46] That in the gospel, I have been justified, I have been declared righteous in Christ, I am forgiven in his death, I am covered in him, I am in him. And in the Son I am loved by as a son, as a daughter, as a child of God, he is pleased with me so I can live at times with the displeasure of men, others who may not be pleased with me.
[00:36:15] You share the gospel with your neighbor, very direct about their sin.
[00:36:20] They're not going to be pleased to walk by your house the next day.
[00:36:24] Is he out? Is he mowing the yard? Is he going to try to talk to me again?
[00:36:29] Or that co worker that you have lunch with and you talk to them about Jesus and the whole time they think it's weird.
[00:36:36] Why are you talking to me about these things?
[00:36:42] Or that person on campus?
[00:36:45] Or you just went out and shared the gospel with them, you're part of a campus ministry activity and then they see you somewhere else on campus and they began to avoid you.
[00:36:57] That's uncomfortable, right? That's awkward.
[00:37:00] But don't give in to try and just appease men in that moment. Remind yourself, God is pleased with you in Christ. God is pleased with you. And that frees us up to share the gospel. That frees us up to preach this gospel. And at times we're going to end up around tables where we are more scared of the people than the food in front of us.
[00:37:25] And in our minds we need to say to ourselves, don't be pathetic.
[00:37:31] There's a Holy God who is pleased with you.
[00:37:34] This person is just flesh and blood that needs a savior.
[00:37:38] Speak up to the glory of God now.
