Holiness and the Spirit: Part One (Galatians 2)

When was the last time you spoke TO someone ABOUT a difficult person? Maybe your supervisor spoke disrespectfully to you in front of your colleagues and during lunch that day you had several conversations ABOUT your supervisor instead of speaking WITH your supervisor. Perhaps you had a strong disagreement with your spouse and instead of working things out WITH your husband or wife, you hashed it out with a friend. Edwin Friedman calls this "an emotional triangle" - speaking ABOUT a difficult situation to an uninvolved person rather than speaking to the actual person in a way that could lead to resolution. These triangles form because we are uncomfortable with one another and this discomfort MUST work itself out in some way. In families, churches, neighborhoods, and businesses these "triangles perpetuate treadmills, reduce clarity, distort perceptions, inhibit decisiveness, and transmit stress." Triangles may feel good for a moment, but they are bad news. They will not make the situation better. In fact, triangles affect communities like a virus. They attack. They spread. They compromise the health of the entire system. Likewise, a virus was threatening the church in Galatia and Paul's letter is medicine that is designed to boost the Galatians' immune system so the virus can be eliminated. This virus was a distortion of the Gospel as it required Gentiles to submit to Jewish Law in order to be fully accepted members in the Christian community. Interestingly, in his book A Failure of Nerve, Edwin Friedman argues that to remain immune to emotional triangles, what a leader needs is a healthy sense of self. This is exactly what Paul helps us build in Galatians - a Gospel sense of self that is rooted in the faithfulness of Jesus the Messiah (Galatians 2.16, 2.20). This message speaks directly into our exploration of Holiness. We will realize a Gospel kind of holiness, only when it is rooted in the faithfulness of another, namely, Jesus the Messiah. Here's how Paul's message of Gospel holiness works.

The Gospel is about our sense of self.         

Peter's sense of self was wobbly and this is understandable. When we follow Peter's story in the book of Acts, we notice that Peter had a number of run-ins with Jewish leadership (see Acts 4 and 12). What's more, this conflict always surrounded how the Apostolic Gospel welcomed Gentile believers. Peter's conviction regarding the inclusion of Gentiles in the people of God was rooted in the word of God that was spoken to him in Acts 10.9-16. Not too long (God had to say it three times!) after the vision, Peter visited a Gentile man named Cornelius.  Peter had this to say. 

You know it's forbidden for a Jewish man to associate with or visit a foreigner, but God has shown me that I must not call any person impure or unclean. That's why I came without any objection when I was sent for (Acts 10.28-29a, CSB). 

This was quite a transformation of identity for Peter who had previously responded when God was telling him to eat something that used to be considered unclean: "No , Lord! I have never eaten anything impure and ritually unclean" (Acts 10.14, CSB). It took a while, however, for Peter's identity (his sense of self) to be fully overwhelmed by the Gospel. Paul records Peter's struggle in Galatians 2.11-14. Peter was faithfully obeying the Gospel and did not have any objection to regularly eating with Gentiles (2.12). He wavered, however, when pressured by Jewish leaders who came from Jerusalem and objected to Peter's new found identity. In this moment, Peter forgot what the Gospel says about him and others and out of fear "he withdrew and separated himself." Because Peter's identity was not strongly rooted in the Son of God who loves Peter, who gave himself for Peter, and who was faithful unto death on Peter's behalf, Peter forgot who he was and listened to others' evaluation of him rather than the evaluation of God. Paul calls this heresy. Indeed they were deviating from the Gospel. Tom Wright's translation is helpful. He writes: "When I saw that they weren't walking straight down the line of gospel truth." Did you catch that? Prejudice and favoritism are gospel issues. RACISM IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE GOSPEL! Prejudice is a denial of orthodoxy! Brothers and sisters, may the voice of God drown out the loud competing voices that try to make us forget that the Son of God loves us (and them), that he gave himself for us (and them), and was faithful unto death on our behalf (and their behalf). What gospel consequences will God produce through this truth in our lives?

Two Gospel Consequences

First, the gospel will necessarily create hospitality in us toward those who are different from us. What is your posture toward those who are clearly different from you? What about the person whose yard hosts a political sign for a cause or candidate you do not support? What about the cashier or waitress who just seems too different from you to establish a connection? What about the person at work with whom you just experienced conflict this morning? What about your infuriating spouse? If we have truly been changed by gospel, we will find ourselves supernaturally drawn to connect with these people. This is why "welcoming the stranger" is one of the things that will distinguish between sheep and goats "when the Son of Man comes in his glory" (Matthew 25.31-46).

Secondly, we must return, again and again to who the gospel says we and others are. A good summary of the Gospel is found in Galatians 2.20. "I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So the life I now live in the body, I live because of the faithfulness of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (NET). When the world seeks to name us - that is, when the world seeks to give us our core identity, we must remember that we are not who the world says we are. We are not first and foremost, American, Republican, Democrat, Married, Single, Divorced, etc. We are first and foremost the ones in whom Christ lives because he loves us and gave himself for us. One of my favorite films is The Help. In this movie, Viola Davis plays Aibileen, a Nanny to "little white girls" who are mostly neglected by their mothers. Aibileen loves these girls like her own and wants to "give them a chance." At pivotal moments in the story, Aibileen will repeat these words to these neglected children: "You is kind. You is special. You is important." Aibileen understands the good news. She grasps what Peter was failing to grasp and what had turned Saul of Tarsus' life upside down. In order to become what God has gloriously planned for us, we must have a Gospel sense of self. We must believe a different self-narrative than the world is giving to us. Beloved, if we are in Christ, we live by the faithfulness of the Son of God who loves us and gave himself for us. Nothing else matters! Thanks be to God. 

Click to here download and listen to our message, Holiness and the Spirit: Part One