SOMETHING WORTH FIGHTING FOR

SOMETHING WORTH FIGHTING FOR

Galatians 1:1-10

Dr. Wm. J. Maxwell

First Presbyterian Church, Newport, RI

March 5, 2006

It was my first pastorate, a small, rural congregation located in central Ohio. I was the first full-time pastor the church had had in years. As a result, they were quite happy and so was I.

Now, I wasn’t so proud of my seminary degree that I thought I had it all together as a pastor! That’s why I accepted the invitation of a seasoned, retired Episcopal pastor to come over to his house for a visit. He was very gracious, offering me some books from his personal library that he no longer needed. He showed me how he had learned to preach with notes, cutting paper into half sheets. It’s a practice I’ve kept to this very day.

There was one other lesson he taught me that I haven’t forgotten either. He told me forthrightly, “As a pastor, you’ll have to learn to choose your battles carefully. You’ll have to find something worth fighting for, because, quite frankly, some things just aren’t worth it!”

This was wise advice given to a very green pastor - and of course, he was right! Sure, there are things some people get all upset about, such as deciding on the color of the sanctuary carpet, or deciding on the use of the church parlor for a youth pizza party, or the use of a certain kind of music during the worship service.

Several years ago, I was interviewed for a pastoral position in the greater Philadelphia area. In that interview, I discovered that the church Session took six months before deciding to have candles in their sanctuary. After that, it took them another six months to decide to light them! (Strange, but true!)

Well, to some, these are important issues and we can respect this. But they are not worth fighting over. And yet, some things are … such as the content of the Gospel. That’s how Paul felt, anyway.

THE SITUATION IN THE CHURCHES OF GALATIA.

Paul had a real concern for the welfare of the churches he planted in Galatia during his first missionary journey. After he left, some legalistic Jewish-Christians (“Judaizers”) came in and stirred up a great deal of trouble.

They began first by attacking Paul, calling him a self-appointed apostle, since he was not one of the original twelve apostles. They also therefore stated that his teaching was highly questionable.

Thus it was that they then distorted the Gospel message of Jesus Christ. Their “gospel” included not only faith in Christ and in what He did, but also the necessity of circumcision and obedience to Sabbath laws and dietary restrictions. In other words, for reconciliation with God to ever occur, Gentiles must first become Jews, and then accept Christ.

Their formula for how a person comes to a place of right standing before God was this: “Christ (grace) + circumcision (law-keeping) = right standing with God.” The Gospel Paul declared was very different indeed: “Christ (grace) + nothing else = right standing with God.” [i]

In this matter, Paul was mad … fighting mad! Paul knew, and at times confessed, that there are some matters in the life of the Church that are negotiable. They are important issues, but not issues essential to one’s salvation.

The Gospel, however, is different! The Church’s core message of the Gospel is not open to negotiation or amendment. Paul made this vividly clear in the case of the Judaizers and the Galatians. This servant of Christ declared that any other version of the Gospel than the one he had preached was “no gospel at all.”

In righteous indignation, Paul indicated that they were in danger of deserting God the Father and rejecting Christ as their Savior, if they accepted a gospel that says “Jesus Christ is not enough.” “But even if we or an angel from heaven,” he stated, “should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!”

Paul was adamant about this! So, in case they didn’t hear him the first time, he said it again. “Anathema – a curse – be on the one who preaches a different Gospel!”

THE SITUATION IN OUR CHURCHES TODAY.

Now, it’s one thing to look back upon the situation of the churches in Paul’s day. But what about the Gospel and the condition of our churches today?

Some in traditional or evangelical churches immediately point to liberal churches and state that they are in grave error by failing to take sin and the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ upon the Cross seriously. In some churches, the Gospel seems to have been brought down to the lowest common denominator: “God loves you and accepts you just as you are,” and the cross is rarely mentioned, if at all.

Some have gone so far as to actually speak out against the cross. For example, at an ecumenical women’s gathering of mainline denominations in 1993 called the “Reimagining Conference,” ultra-liberals like Delores Williams spoke out ever so clearly: “I don’t think we need a theory of atonement at all. … I don’t think we need folks hanging on crosses and blood dripping and weird stuff.” [ii]

Obviously, such thinking, preaching and teaching go beyond the realm of traditional Christian faith. But we in the so-called evangelical stream of the church should look to ourselves as well. It is relatively easy to point fingers at others, without considering ourselves, as well.

John Macarthur has written a hard-hitting book addressed to evangelical churches, entitled,

Ashamed of the Gospel: When the Church becomes like the World. He is worth quoting at length, so please listen carefully:

The new philosophy is straightforward: The church is in competition against the world. And the world is very good at capturing people’s attention and affections. The church, on the other hand, tends to be very poor at ‘selling’ its product. Evangelism should therefore be viewed as a marketing challenge, and the church should market the gospel the way all modern businesses see their products. That calls for some fundamental changes. The goal in all marketing is ‘to make both the producer and consumer satisfied,’ so anything that tends to leave the ‘consumer’ unsatisfied must be jettisoned. Preaching – particularly preaching about sin, righteousness and judgment – is too confrontive to be truly satisfying. The church must learn to couch the truth in ways that amuse and entertain.

… (This) all may sound very modern, and very shrewd – but it is not biblical. And it has given the church a hard push onto the slippery slope. Marketing principles are becoming the arbiter of truth. Elements of the message that don’t fit the promotional plan are simply omitted. Marketing savvy demands that the offense of the cross must be downplayed. Salesmanship requires that negative subjects like divine wrath be avoided. Consumer satisfaction means that the standard of righteousness cannot be raised too high. The seeds of a watered down gospel are thus sown in the very philosophy that drives many ministries today. [iii]

Look around at many evangelical churches today … and you can see that he’s right!

WHERE WE NEED TO BE.

If anything, the Church must come to see that the Gospel is worth fighting about in the sense of holding steadfastly to it and in preaching and teaching it clearly. The solid rock of Christ and His Gospel is precisely the ground upon which we must take our stand.

When Edward Mote wrote the familiar hymn, “The Solid Rock,” he knew that when a person

builds a life upon the objective truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, “all other ground is sinking sand.”

Born of poor, ungodly parents in London, he consequently never even knew at first that there was a God. But as a youth, he became an apprentice to a cabinetmaker, who taught him about the trade, and about Christ as well. In time, the young man was genuinely converted and eventually became a Baptist pastor.

Just prior to his death, he stated with the utmost of confidence: “The truths I have been preaching, I am now living upon, and they do very well to die upon.”

After his death, a grateful congregation placed a tablet near the pulpit with the following inscription:

In loving memory of Mr. Edward Mote, who fell asleep in Jesus November 13^th, 1874, aged 77 years. For 26 years the beloved pastor of this church, preaching Christ and Him crucified, as all the sinner can need, and all the saint desire. [iv]

What great words are these: “… Christ and Him crucified, as all the sinner can need, and all the saint desire”! Oh, dear friends, if we are to ever have any hope of a life in right standing with God, it will only be through the cross of Jesus Christ.

And if we here at First Presbyterian Church are to offer others any hope of a life in right standing with God, it will be because you and I see the Gospel of Jesus Christ as essential and as being non-negotiable; it will be because, here at FPC, we “lift high the cross.”

May it be, dear friends. May it always be!