Unity Despite Different Contexts

Ten years ago, I remember going to a rugby world cup game here in Brisbane. The world cup was being hosted by Australia at that time. And one of the rare occasions where I could get a ticket or afford a ticket to go and watch a game, it was the Springboks versus the Samoan team. Was anyone there? Does anyone remember that game?

Yeah, it could be. That was one of the few times that South Africa have actually won at Suncorp. And I went to go and watch this game. It was exciting.

But I remember that it was one of the most physical games I've ever seen of rugby. These were two very big teams with very big boys going at it really hard, and they were certainly not afraid to throw their weight around. I particularly remember one tackle against Derek Hogart, the fly half of the Springbok team, that pretty much folded him in half. It was a big Samoan centre and he just absolutely laid him flat. Every man, woman, and child in that stadium let out a collective groan at the sight of it.

I just remember that scene. It was brutal. But the most amazing thing happened after this tough game, and it's something I'll never forget. These boys that had been going at it hard for eighty minutes came together, arm in arm, hands around the waist or around the shoulders, and prayed together after the game. It was something amazing to see. Brutal and physical as this game was, the fellas came off the field as brothers in faith.

And I remember watching this game again because we won on TV because I recorded it and just slowly replayed that tackle over and over. I remember the commentators seeing this prayer together, this huddle, and what they said. And they were deeply moved by what was going on, and yet they couldn't really understand the significance of it. They couldn't understand why these guys would do it. But it was, for them, a sign of immense unity that they would do this after this incredible game.

This morning we're going to be talking about unity. We're going to be looking at why these big boys would come together like this in a sign of immense solidarity after having this really tough battle together. What is the origin of this unity? What is involved with expressing this or showing this unity? Paul talks about it in his letter to the Galatians in chapter two.

So let's turn to that and we're going to read a little bit about that this morning. Galatians chapter two, verses one to ten. Paul writes, "Fourteen years later, it sort of would catch him halfway through his thought. Fourteen years later, I, Paul, went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also.

I went in response to a revelation and set before them the gospel that I preached among the Gentiles. But I did this privately to those who seemed to be leaders for fear that I was running or had run my race in vain. Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised even though he was a Greek. This matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. We did not give in to them for a moment so that the truth of the gospel might remain with you.

As for those who seemed to be important, whatever they were makes no difference to me. God does not judge by external appearances. Those men added nothing to my message. On the contrary, they saw that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the Gentiles just as Peter had been to the Jews. For God, who was at work in the ministry of Peter as an apostle to the Jews, was also at work in my ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles. James, Peter, and John, those reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognised the grace given to me.

They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the Jews. All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do." So far, our reading. What we find here is Paul continuing his testimony. We talked about that last week.

Paul is sharing his story to these Galatians to remind them of what he preached to them and why he preached that to them. And so Paul continues his story about how he was saved by God's amazing grace. But now he jumps forward fourteen years into his ministry. And this time, he goes back to Jerusalem, back to the heartland of Christianity. And according to the account in Acts, fourteen years later would have been quite a big amount of time that Paul had already spent in ministry.

Paul was travelling far and abroad. He was all over the place. Asia Minor, Turkey, going all the way to places like Ephesus and obviously the Galatian area. And so we see that Paul comes back to Jerusalem from these far flung places. Now, why would Paul do this?

Why would Paul come back to Jerusalem after being so heavily involved in mission work overseas? What motivated him to go back to the heartland of the Christian movement? But we see here two motivating factors. The first one is an internal one. God revealed to Paul that he must go back to Jerusalem.

We know again from the accounts in Acts and from his other letters that Paul as an apostle was divinely guided by the Holy Spirit. We know that he was sent into some regions and that he was hindered by the Holy Spirit to preach in other regions. And so we see Paul again that his ministry was guided by the Holy Spirit, enabling him to preach the gospel. So that was one of the motivating factors. The other one was an external factor.

And Paul makes it clear in verse two that he was afraid. That he feared something with it. It was a second reason for him to go to Jerusalem. Fear, he says, that he was running his race in vain. That he had run his race in vain. Why this fear? What was he afraid of?

What race is he talking about? Well, the race he's talking about here is one that he has been running, or talking about all along, and that's his ministry of proclaiming the gospel. This message that he was so passionate about, that we saw in Galatians chapter one. Paul had been involved in missions for fourteen years. That's a long time.

That's a long time. And up until that point, he had been preaching the same message over and over again. And his fear was now that all of that time, all of that energy could come to nothing. Why? Not so much that he would be wrong, that he was missing the target.

His fear was that if these false teachers that had started infiltrating the ranks that he was talking about had persuaded or could persuade the other apostles of a different gospel, Paul's ministry wouldn't stop, but it would just be so much harder. It would be so much harder. The fear for Paul here is the threat of disunity in the church, of two different messages. A disunity of the mission of the church. Paul says in verse four that the matter arose because some false brothers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves.

The freedom that the church had in Christ was under threat. And therefore, Paul says, the very truth of the gospel was at stake. The very truth of the gospel was at stake. This meeting that he was planning, the reason he went back could have ended up splitting the entire church. It could have split the entire church.

And at its very early stage where it was at, where these apostles found themselves, where these early Christians found themselves, it would have virtually meant two different religions would emerge. No wonder Paul felt fear. No wonder he felt urgency. The stakes couldn't have been higher. It was massive.

So Paul decides to go back to Jerusalem. So what was the result of his visit to Jerusalem? Well, Paul takes Barnabas, his missionary companion, his best mate with him, as well as a young man called Titus. Now, it was crucial that Paul takes Titus along with him. Paul travelled in a pack of blokes that preached and taught the gospel, but he specifically chooses to take Titus and Barnabas with him.

It was especially crucial that Titus went along because Titus was a Greek Christian. Titus was a Greek Christian. He was a flesh and blood uncircumcised Christian. The false brothers in Jerusalem would have insisted that this man Titus go through the whole yard and get circumcised in order to be saved, in order to have fellowship with this man. Titus, in other words, needed to trust in Christ and live according to the Jewish rituals.

So Paul takes Titus to the apostles as a concrete test case. He was going to be the conference's crash test dummy. Would they require Titus to be circumcised or not? Verse three says, however, that Titus wasn't compelled to be circumcised even though he was a Greek. By God's grace, apostles stood firm in their understanding of God's grace.

They didn't insist on Titus to be circumcised before extending their right arm of fellowship with him. They added nothing to my message, Paul says. They added nothing to my message. And so their acceptance of Titus was proof that they accepted the gospel that Paul was preaching. They accepted the radical implications of the gospel.

They extended the right hand of fellowship, it says, and they welcomed both Paul and Barnabas and Titus into the church with them. They had a meal with them which was a sign of inclusion and acceptance. They accepted them as preachers of the true gospel and Titus as a concrete evidence of God's grace even to the Gentiles. Now why is this important? Why was this important?

Why does Paul mention this to the Galatians now? He says because everyone's freedom was at stake. Everyone's freedom was at stake. Paul again highlights the two sides of the arguments. The false brothers' teaching would result in making us slaves again by preventing us from enjoying the freedom we have in Jesus Christ.

Paul is saying that the biblical gospel gives freedom. It is liberating. While the opponent's message of earning your salvation would actually lead into slavery. It's the opposite of liberation. So how does the gospel give freedom?

How does this actually work? Well, the gospel leads us to a freedom in culture or a freedom from culture. The natural condition of the human heart is to design rules and regulations for joining the club. Whether that be on how to look good, how to be skinny, how to be fat, whether you should wear a burqa or a shawl or a hat. These rules and these regulations get cemented in a community, in any community.

It marks whether you are in or out. Whether you get the tick of approval or not, whether you are accepted or not. If the false teachers had it their way, if these false teachers had it their way, then no Italian, no Roman, no African would have been able to become a Christian. They would have had to become culturally Jewish. Christians would have had to form little ghettos in each city.

Form little pockets in each city, everywhere, because they wouldn't be able to associate with other Gentiles. You wouldn't be able to do open business with them. You wouldn't be able to share meals with them or really interact with them in any significant way. You wouldn't even be able to touch these guys or other guys. But the gospel produces freedom, Paul says, because its message is that we are accepted.

We are accepted by God first. He's the one that really matters. He's the one that really matters because He looks at the heart first and not the external appearances. To have maintained Jewish ceremonial laws would mean that there would be far too much emphasis on cultural separation rather than an internal distinctiveness of the spirit. An internal distinctiveness of motive.

Distinctiveness of outlook, of perspective. That's when Christians act one way at church and another way at home. That's cultural slavery. Because we elevate being culturally proper in the circles in which we operate. It leads to a slavish emphasis on being nice, on smiling a lot, on dressing nicely or appropriately.

It doesn't free. It doesn't liberate. And in fact, Christians that operate within that framework become intolerant. They become prejudiced. They are the very example of ungrace.

Why? Because they're slaves to the cultural rules of another community. They are slaves to the cultural rules of Christianity rather than a freedom, a freedom to act in love, to act in grace, flowing from a deep understanding and a deep appropriation of God's love and God's grace. The gospel, secondly, leads to an emotional freedom. Anyone who believes that our relationship with God is based on moral behaviour is on an endless treadmill of insecurity and guilt.

A treadmill that never stops. In fact, it keeps speeding up and you're just running and running and running. The scriptures don't free us from the moral imperatives of God's law, from the ten commandments. It doesn't free us from that. Christians shouldn't lie.

Christians shouldn't steal. Christians shouldn't commit adultery. We're not free from God's moral laws as a way to live. We are free, however, from it being a system of salvation. We obey not in fear and insecurity, fighting and battling and resisting and striving for approval.

Rather, we obey because of the freedom of having security. Having security, knowing that we are already loved, that we are already accepted, that we are already saved. We obey in freedom of the heart. Unless your motivation for obeying God's law is this grace gratitude motive of the gospel, you'll still be stuck in slavery. Unless your motive for obeying God's law is this grace gratitude motive of the gospel, you will still be stuck in slavery.

The gospel, Paul says, brings freedom both culturally and emotionally. The false gospels are the ones that destroy this. When the church, when our church understands this deeply, when we are able to bring this really home deep into us, the church becomes vibrant, it becomes robust, it becomes unified in a way that no organisation in this world is. Because the gospel itself produces unity. And that was what Paul wanted to protect so badly.

He was willing to fight for it. That's why he felt compelled to go all the way back to Jerusalem to have this conference. Gospel unity was at stake. And by the grace of God, and we cannot overemphasise how big this event was, by the grace of God, the penny dropped for the apostles. They understood it.

It was a huge shift from how they were thinking. And because of it, the church remained united and it continued to grow and advance at phenomenal rates. This real Christian unity shown with the Samoans in the Springboks perhaps has two marks. Firstly, it means an acceptance of anyone and everyone who is in Christ. An acceptance of anyone and everyone who is in Christ regardless of their culture, regardless of their ethnic background.

Just as Titus wasn't forced to be circumcised to become a cultural Jew, so today we must not take any account of cultural distinctives in being unified and accepting other brothers and sisters. Christian unity is never dependent on being the same. Christian unity is never dependent on being the same. Many churches and Christian groups, however, add cultural rules to the faith.

We do it all the time. About how we dress, about how we do what we do, about how we speak. They insist that no one who violates these standards could possibly be a Christian, and it could even exist in the reformed church. I didn't hear any gasps. No one who worships with Hillsong songs could be a Christian or at least a good one.

No one who plays music above a certain decibel level can be a Christian or at least a good one. No one who has a Christmas tree and gives gifts on Christmas can be a good Christian. Have you heard those sorts of things before? In C.S. Lewis' Screwtape Letters, a really good read, there's a fictional correspondence between two demons and how they deal with the threat of Christianity. And Screwtape, the big demon, writes to a lesser demon.

It gives him advice on how to beat this Christianity movement. And so in one situation, the bigger demon writes to the smaller one. "The real trouble about your patient, this Christian that you are sort of trying to reconvert, is that he is merely Christian. He is simply Christian. They all have individual interests, of course, these Christians, but the bond remains mere Christianity.

What we want, however, if men became Christians at all, is to keep them in the state of mind I call Christianity and. You know, Christianity and the crisis. Christianity and the new psychology. Christianity and the new order. Christianity and faith healing.

Christianity and physical research, Christianity and vegetarianism, Christianity and spelling reform. If they must be Christians, let them at least be Christians with a difference. Substitute for the faith itself some fashion with Christian colouring." It is so easy to bring this disunity into a church. It is so easy to bring this disunity into a church with a hard line view on something where it is elevated to a point that binds us or destroys us.

It's a fashion with Christian colouring, C.S. Lewis writes. A peripheral issue with a Christian veneer on top. But freedom is a bonding agent.

And unlike misconceptions that freedom causes independence and autonomy, because of the gospel, freedom brings different people together in the sharing of one joy. If Paul returned to Jerusalem and found that Titus needed to be circumcised, then it was all lost. Because today, we'd still be trying to walk a spiritual tightrope of ticking the boxes in order to please God. But if we are united in the joy, if we are overwhelmed with the gratitude of a Father who loves us lavishly, abundantly, pouring His love into our lives, exemplified in the cross of Christ, then nothing other than the gospel matters. Not a guitar song here or an organ song there.

A raised arm here or a pastor who preaches too slowly or too loudly. Or a kid who goes to a nightclub or a man who plays the lotto or that strange person in church, none of it matters. If we can hold on to mere Christianity, to simple Christianity, and not Christianity and. This church will never look back. This church will not be stopped.

Our church, friends, is going through a massively positive growth. There's a lot of momentum. It's fantastic. It's so good. We had another church council meeting yesterday and we were thanking God so much for so many good things.

But if we lose our gospel unity, we can close those doors or we can stay at home on Sunday mornings because it's never going to get us anywhere. We don't donate our money to this church to please God or to twist His arm to bless us more. We give our hard earned money to this church because we are grateful for what God has done for us, for His grace in our lives. We don't organise youth group nights because we don't have anything better to do on Friday nights. Hey, Jay.

We do it because we love God's grace and we urgently want it to be known by our young people. We don't give our Saturdays, our Wednesdays, our Monday mornings for any other reason than that we are overwhelmingly thankful for a King and a Saviour who has given us everything. If we have a single-minded focus, then this church can go through the highest heights and through the deepest lows and come out still as a family, as a united force. May we say with Paul, we did not give in to these false teachings, these fake veneers. We didn't give in so that the truth of the gospel might remain with us.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for your gospel. Thank you for your grace and your love that is lavish and abundant. Lord, it is humbling every time we think about it. Lord, help us to understand the implications of it.

Help us to understand and look around at the people with us this morning and understand that we are a family, that we stand shoulder to shoulder, arm in arm, praying together, worshipping together for one purpose, because we love you and we are grateful for you. For that let that become our Christianity. Let us be known as mere Christians, simple Christians. Develop within us a passion for your gospel, for knowing what is important and what is not. For where we stake our claim and where we fight to the death, and where we show grace and let things slide.

Create in us, Lord, a deep love for your gospel, for your church. Let us be unified together, Lord. Let us love as we have been loved. Let us forgive as we have been forgiven. Lord, we thank you that you have not left us to our own devices, that you have not left us to our own human condition of setting up rules and tick boxes.

And Lord, even though it is simpler in one sense to be like that, we may feel safer and we may feel more secure in the dos and the don'ts. Lord, let us have and enjoy the freedom of the joy we have. Let us be motivated by it. Let us be overwhelmed by it again this morning. Motivate us through it, Holy Spirit.

Remind us of it every single day. We ask in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and our joy. Amen.