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Hi, this is Pastor Tom Holliday, I want to welcome you to Daily Drive Time
Devotions. We're in Galatians chapter 2 this week, day 1 of our look at this
chapter. We're going to look at verses 1-5 in just a moment.

You might remember last week we began a look at the good news that Paul tells in
the book of Galatians together. Paul began a look for us at how you and I should
handle the good news. We need to handle it with a sense of integrity and a sense
of the importance of it, also a sense of the joy that we have in it.

In chapter 2 of Galatians we get to see how the history of Paul's life and
Paul's ministry is all caught up in the telling of and the defending of, the
spreading of the good news. As we walk through that history we're going to learn
some things about the good news but even more this week as we look through
Galatians 2 we're going to look at some things about ministry and how you and I
can serve Christ, serve Jesus in ways that are significant and meaningful in our
lives. With that in mind let me read for you Galatians chapter 2 verses 1-5.

14 years later Paul writes, "I 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 preach 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 our 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. " So you see in these verses some history of Paul's life. Now
really we began this history last week.

You have three years last week in chapter 1 and now we have here 14 years. Paul
says after he left Damascus the first time, after he had been saved, well in
fact let me go through sort of the history of Paul's life. You remember he was
saved on the Damascus road.

He's on the road to Damascus. He's going there to persecute the churches and
Jesus appears to him in a blinding light. He says, "Why are you kicking against
the goats?

" And Paul decides to follow Christ. Paul is blinded while he's on that road. He
goes to Damascus after his decision to follow Christ.

He meets with a man by the name of Ananias and he's introduced to the church.
He's introduced to Jesus. He is freed from his blindness and he begins to follow
Christ.

He begins immediately to preach, to tell others what has happened to him.
Immediately, as was true with all of Paul's ministry, he is threatened and
because of the threats against Paul's life, they take him to the city wall of
Damascus and they lower him in a basket through one of the windows in the wall
outside at night and then he runs off into the night. Now Paul later in his
ministry was ashamed of this moment, his decision to do that.

He wished he would have stayed but he goes and he spends three years after that
somewhere apparently with Jesus Christ and he learns the ways of Jesus. He
learns the gospel of Jesus Christ and then after those three years he comes back
and eventually he makes his way to Jerusalem and there the church is still
afraid of him. They still remember when he persecuted the church and so this
time he's introduced to the church in Jerusalem and then in Antioch by a friend
by the name of Barnabas.

Now Barnabas means "encourager. " He was called "The Encourager" and he
encouraged the early ministry of Paul and there in Antioch Paul and Barnabas
together grow with the believers and as a result of their growth they go on
what's called the first missionary journey. They go out and they reach out to
people who are not Jews.

They successfully reach many, many Gentiles and at the end of that journey and
here's where we get to these verses for today. At the end of 14 years Paul's
come back, he's met people in Jerusalem, he's gone to Antioch, he's gone out on
the first missionary journey and now 14 years later he's come back from that
journey and there are questions. People have questions about these Gentiles,
these non-Jews come into faith.

Up to that point it had been all Jewish people and so Paul has a revelation from
God and based on that revelation he and Barnabas and some others go to Jerusalem
for what's come to be known now as the Jerusalem Council. You can read about it
in Acts chapter 15 in the Bible and this is where it's decided that the Gentiles
can become believers in Jesus Christ without first having to become Jews. Now
actually God had decided this long ago, you can read it through the Old
Testament even and certainly in the ministry of Jesus in the New Testament.

But this is where the church, the early church puts a stamp of approval on God's
will. This is the 14 years later. That's what we read about here in Galatians
chapter 2 and as you read about what happened when Paul went up to Jerusalem
from his own lips, from his own voice, you learn a lot about the heart of Paul.

You learn a lot about the heart of serving others. Let's walk through these
verses with me real quickly and look at what we learn. You learn some things
about partnership in ministry.

Paul says I went with Barnabas, I went with Titus. If you read about the
ministry of Paul you see he always did things in partnership with others. He
never did it alone.

We're not meant to serve Christ all alone. We're meant to serve Christ in
partnership with others, serving other people. If you're in a place right now
where you're discouraged in ministry, discouraged in serving God using his gifts
through your life, the first place to always look is am I trying to do it alone?

Because God doesn't mean for you to do it alone. We do it in a body. We do it
together.

Paul also says, as you read through these verses, that he went to Jerusalem in
response to a revelation. That teaches you also something about the ministry of
Paul and serving others in our life. Paul, for him, ministry meant following
Christ.

A revelation simply means Jesus told him to do something and so he did it. He
decided this is what Jesus wants me to do, that's what I'm going to do. I'm
living my life in response to following Christ.

Not in response to the voice of the crowd, not in response even to what I most
want to do. But I wake up in the morning and I say Jesus, what do you want me to
do? And when I get a sense of that I go after that.

Now sometimes you're going to have what Paul had here, you're going to have a
revelation. It's not going to just be a sense of this is what I should do. It's
going to be as clear as a bell and when those moments happen do not hesitate to
do exactly what he's revealing to do.

Ministry is following Christ. Ministry is done in partnership with others.
Ministry is also something that is done in the reality of the human heart and
because of that we face struggles sometimes.

Paul says I went up because I was afraid that I was running in vain or I had run
in vain. Now it's obvious as you read what happened in Acts chapter 15 that Paul
had great confidence that he was following God's call. So this isn't expressing
doubt about his call.

What he had real concerns about were that others might steal the life-changing
results of that call. He'd gone out and he'd preached to the Gentiles and now
the church was saying well we're not going to accept them as real Christians.
And Paul is saying I've got to go up and I've got to protect the gospel in this
moment.

And in this you hear something else about ministry with Paul. If you want to
have the kind of ministry that Paul had, the life-changing ministry, do it with
partners, do it following Christ, realize you're going to have ups and downs.
Paul certainly did, but stick to the strength of your convictions.

That is the hallmark of the ministry of the Apostle Paul. In these verses he
says we did not give in to them for a moment. He had strong convictions that
were based on the voice of Jesus Christ in his life and he lived out those
convictions and because of that God did great things through his life.

He says in these verses that he did this because there were many who were spying
on their freedom, who were seeking to make us slaves. He had strong convictions
because he knew that his convictions were very important. That if he let go of
the conviction of grace, not works, I don't get to God by my works, I get there
by grace, that he would end up losing out on the main message of the gospel.

Now I think it's important here to draw a distinction between convictions about
God's truth and convictions about our truth. Just having strong convictions are
not enough. I want to filter them through.

It's interesting. I'm going to turn to Martin Luther's commentaries a number of
times as we went through Galatians last week. Luther, as he writes in his
commentary, he obviously has a battle with a group called the Anabaptists and
also a battle with a group called the Catholics that we're more familiar with.

The battle with the Catholics was that they were teaching you could be saved by
means other than grace and even in his day they were saying you could buy
forgiveness for other people by giving certain amounts of money to the church.
You could actually purchase forgiveness. So he taught against this false
doctrine.

Great conviction. But Luther also had great conviction against the Anabaptists.
The same kind of conviction when they didn't have actually the same
disagreements.

They did have disagreements about baptism. And Luther had a hard time drawing
the distinction between false teaching and disagreements between believers. You
know what?

I think we all do. We all do. When I have a disagreement with somebody, how do I
know if it's not just an opinion or if it's really about teaching?

Well, I go to God's Word. And when I go to God's Word, I can find out is this
about just my opinion or is this about God's opinion? And it's also interesting
that the Bible teaches us that when I disagree with a fellow believer, I need to
confront that face to face.

When I disagree with a false teacher, the Bible often sometimes says stay away
from false teachers. But if it's with a fellow believer, somebody in my church,
if I'm not sure if they're a believer even or not, it needs to be face to face.
We get this one very confused today.

I see people all the time treating fellow believers like false teachers just
because they disagree with them over some political fact. And treating false
teachers as if they were fellow believers, not shying away from the danger of
what they're doing. I know someone's a fellow believer when they believe Jesus
is the only way to salvation, when they believe that God's Word, the Bible, and
whole is truth.

That's just an aside about the ministry of Paul, the strength of his
convictions. You want to have strong convictions about God's Word and live out
those convictions. Paul in the end says I'm doing this all for a purpose.

And if you really want to have the kind of ministry the apostle Paul had, here's
the purpose. He says so that the truth of the gospel might remain in you. The
motivation is to serve.

The convictions are strong, you do it with partners, you do it following Christ,
but the motivation is to serve people. God's put people into your life today to
serve in his name. It might be one person.

It might be a thousand people, but he's put them in your path, in your life
today with an opportunity to serve him. Let's pray today right now for the
strength to serve. Jesus Christ, make me a servant.

Help me to follow you. You didn't come to be served, but to serve. So today make
me a servant, first in my heart and in my soul, Jesus Christ, I want to humble
myself.

And instead of living today for me, I praise you that you've given yourself for
me so that I can live today for others. So in my heart, I want to serve. And
then with my hands, I want to serve.

Show me what to do. Show me how to serve. Show me how to make a difference for
your sake in the world today.

I pray this Jesus in your name. Amen. Tomorrow, we're going to talk together
about two powerful principles for serving others in love.