Your Choices vs. Someone Else’s Choices

There are so many ways that we have divided, judged, and separated over issues that, pretty adamantly, Paul is saying, there's freedom; and you shouldn't look down on other people because they have different convictions.

Galatians 2:3-6, "But even Titus, who was with me, was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. Yet because of false brothers secretly brought in – who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus so that they might bring us into slavery – to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you. And from those who seem to be influential (what they were makes no difference to me. God shows no partiality)."

In chapter 2 of Galatians, Paul is going to go into a situation where a lot of people were wound up (including Peter) about the fact that there were Gentiles who were becoming Christians who were not being circumcised. Now, in Jewish culture, we know that that was part of the law given to Moses, that they would be circumcised as a part of their display of submission to God; so that was part of their story, part of their history. So now it's feeling confusing because the rules are changing. Paul's taking the gospel to the Gentiles, and are these grown men supposed to go get circumcised?

It makes me really glad I'm a woman because I don't even have to think about that. But for these men who were becoming Christians, they were confused; and there were a lot of people spying on the freedom that Paul was preaching and saying that you don't have to be circumcised because it isn't an outward display anymore. It isn't a religious act that's going to get you saved anymore.

It is now about the internal circumcision of your heart. It is about the submission and surrender that you have to Jesus in your heart.

That is what Paul was preaching, and that freedom that he was preaching was really bothering some of the Jewish messianic Christians, and it was confusing to them.

So partly this whole letter is written in response to this because Paul is saying, "Listen, you're trying to complicate these people's way to God, and it is not okay, and I'm going to stand up against it because it goes against the gospel." He fights them. He uses strong language from the beginning of the book and strong language here - That they are spying on the freedom that they're experiencing in Christ. Don't take that freedom. So there's this sense of everybody looking again side to side, like we talked about last week, and deciding who is following Jesus correctly and rightly; and Paul is going to clarify all of this, that there's a lot of ways this can go.

You can be circumcised; you can be uncircumcised. You can eat meat (He says in another place in scripture) that was sacrificed to idols, or you cannot eat meat that is sacrificed to idols if that's where your conviction lands.

So he's opening up this whole new way of thinking that they can't even imagine because it was so much in contradiction to the way they had all been raised as Jewish leaders, which mind you, Paul was a Jewish leader as well. So he was raised in the same way and was a zealot at following these laws and these rules.

So there was some tension, but Paul is adamant: “It is by grace through faith.” We're going to see in these verses and in this book over and over again – “By grace through faith.”

You see those words throughout the New Testament. You see those words in Hebrews when they're looking back in Hebrews 11 at the history and the lineage of the work of God on earth through Abraham, through Moses; and you see that-

Even then, He's saying it was by faith that Abraham's righteousness was counted to him

So there's clarity coming to this generation, this new age of the church, where they're still confused by the religion that they've experienced.

How many of us can relate to that?

We've all experienced some version of this in our lives, whether it was distant or whether it was up close and we were part of a church that was very religious and said: "These are the things you have to do to be a Christian." So this was just blowing everybody's mind, but he was so adamant about it. He was like- "Listen, you keep adding to the gospel, and it's no gospel at all." But he's having the grace for those who are circumcised and those who would even pursue that. He's got this mentality that there is just freedom.

There is now freedom that we can enjoy in Jesus, that the old laws are no longer required to walk with God. They were symbols pointing to Jesus and ultimately pointing to the way that specifically circumcision of our heart would be; that we would submit and consecrate our hearts to God for our lives. That’s what it would look like to follow Jesus.

The point is that, as my mother-in-law often says, "Live and let live." It is this idea that we are to form our own convictions based on the Word of God and realize that there are many, many secondary issues and gray issues (as they're called oftentimes in scripture) that are not black and white. Now, we are not talking about the ones that are. I'm not talking about getting drunk. I'm not talking about sexual immorality.

I am talking about the many issues where we can have grace for each other. I am a believer that those who love Jesus in this day and age (and every age) are meant to take care of each other, be for each other, and protect each other. But we have gotten so divided on so many things, political things and issues of roles in the church and issues of whether we can drink or not drink and whether we have to homeschool or send our kids to school.

There are so many ways that we have divided, judged, and separated over issues that, pretty adamantly, Paul is saying, there's freedom.

When it comes to your convictions, you shouldn't look down on other people because they have different convictions.

So, take drinking for example. You certainly shouldn't look down on someone who doesn't drink. But people who don't drink shouldn't look down on people who do drink some in moderation. That is what he's talking about. There are going to be people who feel like they can express themselves and have more freedom, and there are people who are going to feel like, because of whatever situation in their life, they feel convicted that they can't enjoy that freedom. I'm not talking about black-and-white clear issues; but on issues where it is not black-and-white, I believe there's wisdom that we're supposed to use. But that’s not what I'm talking about today. I'm talking about the grace we have for other people and their different convictions.

I was talking to a friend of mine recently who basically believes leaders should never drink. Leaders shouldn't ever watch shows that are negative or bad. This person and I are great friends, so I reached out, and we had a great conversation about it, and I said, "Hey, I want you to read this book. It's called Grace Awakening." That's why I started reading it again; because I recommended it to him, and I hadn't read it in so long, and he loved it. He didn't change his convictions; but I've noticed, as he's been talking to other people about things, even more grace in his words. They're more seasoned with salt. That's what scripture talks about when it comes to speaking the truth to each other; that we're supposed to be doing it in love, with kindness to each other. We're having these conversations with winsomeness and not banging each other's heads off; which is, currently, I feel like what happens everywhere.

This takes pressure off (we're talking about pressure and grace in this season) because we don't have to be everybody’s policeman. I think that's just our human nature. We want to set the rules, and we want everyone to follow them, and we want everybody to have the same standard, and it's just not that simple.

There's the Holy Spirit. There are different circumstances. There are different proclivities to different things. There are different sins. I just think it gives us so much grace for each other that we don't have to play that role, that we get to walk around in grace and love each other and bear with one another when it comes to the black-and-white.

There is a time and a place to say something. It's not always live and let live. Think about the people that you're in deep community with (Not the whole world, not strangers you don't know, but the people that you're in deep community with) who have said, "Hey, I want you to hold me accountable." That's the place where you say, "Hey, I want to ask you about this. You spent all this money on this thing; I want to ask you about that. Tell me about your process in that. Tell me about your debt. Tell me about your finances, and do you feel good about that?", and you walk through life together. I am not talking about that level of connection.

You all know I'm a big believer in that; but largely, we are not correcting those that are closest to us. We are correcting the world out there; and even worse, we're not correcting them, we're judging them and talking about them behind their back.

That's what burden I want to take off your back.

You do not need to police the world. There have been so many times I've been in a conversation where people are judging someone else and they're talking about someone else, and I'll either leave the conversation or I'll turn the conversation, and I might even have something to say about it; but there is freedom to not say it, the freedom to walk away.

It is a burden too heavy to carry to keep up with everybody's behavior around you.

So, the pressure is off; and the grace is that we don't have to be everybody's bosses. We don't have to make sure everybody obeys. We get to enjoy God, set an example in our lives of love and purity, and use our words for goodness. Yeah, there are times and places to say the hard truth, but most of the time we are called to have a gentle response and to enjoy watching everyone express God and follow Him in their different ways. It's so much more fun to have grace.