OPEN: About 500 years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem, a famous battle took place in mountain pass called Thermopylae in Greece. The Persians invaded Greece with approximately 150,000 soldiers, and King Leonidas of Sparta led a small force of soldiers to oppose them. The Spartan strategy was to force the Persians to funnel huge army thru a small pass and hold them off until the other Greek cities could get their own army ready. It’s said that the Persians sent a messenger to King Leonidas saying how futile their fight was: “Our archers are so numerous that the flight of their arrows darkens the sun.” But the Spartan King was not intimidated: “So much the better. For we shall fight in the shade.”
You have to admire courage like that. This small Spartan army died in that pass, but their courageous stand delayed the Persians long enough for the rest of Greece to prepare their armies, and later defeat the Persians.
They stood in the gap and ultimately, Spartans helped save Greece. By refusing to yield, King Leonidas was declaring: You shall not pass. As long as I live, I will stand in your way!!!
Now intriguingly, there are times when God calls for us (His people) “stand in the way.” In Ezekiel 22:30 God declared: “I sought for a man among them who would make a wall and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land….” And in Proverbs 25:26 God warns us “Like a muddied spring or a polluted fountain is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked.”
God’s people - at our best - are willing to stand in the gap and resist evil. There will come times when the church will be threatened, both from OUTSIDE and from INSIDE, and how strong the church is will depend on who stands in the gap.
But now, the question is - how exactly are we supposed to do that? How exactly do we “stand in the gap”? Well, A couple things come to mind
1st - God expects us to defend and protect His church. Now, the first line of defense in protecting the congregation are your elders. Paul talked with the Elders at Miletus and told them: “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood. I know that after my departure fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock; and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things, to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish every one with tears.” Acts 20:28-31
You see, ultimately, it’s the job of the Elders to protect the flock. And we (who are part of that flock) have to LET those Elders do their job. But they don’t have to do it alone. YOU have a role in protecting the church as well, and that role has to do with prayer.
In Psalms 106:23 “(God) said he would destroy (Israel)—had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him, to turn away his wrath from destroying them.” Moses stood in the gap… and he protected Israel from the wrath of God. While Moses had been up on the Mountain receiving the Law, the Israelites had intimidated Aaron into creating a golden calf. And so when Moses came down from the mountain he found them doing things they ought not to be doing and he was mad. And God was mad. And God said “Let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them, in order that I may make a great nation of you.”
But Moses implored the LORD his God and said, “O LORD, why does your wrath burn hot against your people, whom you have brought out of the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?...
And the LORD relented from the disaster that he had spoken of bringing on his people.” Exodus 32:10-11 & 14
Moses - one of the greatest men of the Old Testament – protected God’s people by prayer.
ILLUS: This past week, I was encouraged-talking to one of the ladies of the church. She told me that she regularly prayed for me and Scott, and a number of the Elders in the congregation. You know what she was doing? She was protecting us thru her prayers (And I know that a number of you have been lifting the church up in prayer).
I like this statement: “Prayer unlocks the power of Heaven, and shakes the gates of Hell.” When you pray, you unleash the power of God, and you make Satan tremble.
Ephesians 6:12 puts it this way “We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” As Christians we are called to wrestle with evil, and the most powerful way we can do that is on your knees. So stand in the gap - and protect this Church by your prayers.
But as important as our prayers are - once in a while, we are called to personally stand up and make our voices heard. Here in Galatians 2, Paul tells us of a problem in the early church - that had to do with false doctrine. There were heretics trying to influence the church, and Paul said “to them we did not yield in submission even for a moment...” Galatians 2:5
A Church should never yield to false teachings.
ILLUS: There’s been times I’ve addressed false teachings from the pulpit. Now I don’t do it all the time… but I do do that. I’ve talked about things taught by cults and even by various denominations - that are wrong. I may not name which group teaches a specific doctrine (in fact, most of the time I’ll deliberately avoid naming names), but sometimes I don’t have to name names. Sometimes it’s obvious who’s teaching what.
And when I preach against certain doctrines… occasionally I’ve offended some folks. I don’t like doing that… I don’t like offending people, but I’ll tell you straight up, when it comes to telling you about false teachings, I refuse to yield. It’s part of my job to warn folks of false things being taught in religious world. If I offend folks by doing that… that’s the way things are going to be. Those false teachings shall not pass. As long as I live… I will stand in their way.
But now those groups (I just talked about) are OUTSIDE of our congregation. It’s our job (the Elders, the Sunday School teachers, the staff, and myself) to warn you about stuff like that. But what do we do about folks INSIDE the church that have become influenced by bad doctrine?
Well, in today’s text we have a case study in that.
Paul writes about false teachers who had influenced Peter and Barnabas to behave badly. “When (Peter) came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James, (Peter) was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.” Galatians 2:11-13
WHAT HAPPENED? Well, Peter HAD BEEN eating with some Gentiles Christians (not circumcised), but when some Jewish believers came into the room that didn’t accept these Gentiles as Christians… Peter got up and moved. Peter knew that God had already accepted these Gentiles (whom he’d been eating with) as Christians, but he was afraid of “the circumcision party”
So, essentially – Peter gave into the bullies. He allowed the false doctrine these Jewish believers taught to rule the church. Peter was wrong… and Paul confronted and rebuked him.
Now before we get into what Paul did in this confrontation, I want you to notice the results of what Paul did. And this is really important, because too many Christians hurt the church because they forget WHY we do what we do as Christians. (repeat that phrase).
So, what were the results of Paul confronting Peter? Did Paul repeatedly shame Peter because he’d failed? Did they become enemies from that day on? Did they end up hating each other? Well, apparently not, because in 2 Peter 3:15, Peter referred to Paul as “our beloved brother Paul.” You don’t say things like that… about people you hate… or who hate you. But how could they get along after Paul publicly humiliated Peter?
Well, … I don’t think Paul had “humiliated” him. I don’t think Paul’s his objective was to destroy Peter. Instead, Paul wanted to wake him up and to make sure the circumcizers didn’t win.
You see, when you work with people in the church you’re working with flawed individuals. Romans 3:23 tells us “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Even Peter had sinned… and had fallen short. It wouldn’t have done the Kingdom of God any good, for Peter to have been destroyed because he messed up.
I don’t know if you remember, but earlier in the sermon I said that God expects us to defend and protect His church - and that includes people who mess up. That includes Preachers/Elders/Sunday School teachers, or just about anyone else, because all people fail somewhere along the line.
And God expects us to even defend and protect… them. These folks belong to Jesus, and Jesus wants to fix what’s broken in their lives.
ILLUS: Back in the first church I served, I got fired was because they had an unrepentant deacon who’d been “sleeping around” and I wasn’t willing to look the other way. In fact, I “fired him” from his deaconship, but the Elders put him back in. They knew what he’d been doing. They knew he was unrepentant. But they put him back in anyway.
Now, I could have gotten mad. I could’ve gone in the pulpit and read everybody the riot act. But there were a couple problems with that (PAUSE)
1st – I’d been raised to respect the Eldership. And I didn’t hate these Elders, I just knew what they were doing was wrong.
2nd – It seemed to me that if I did read everyone the riot act I could have split the church… and really not solved anything. I viewed the church as being God’s church… and the Elders as being God’s Elders, and I saw my goal as attempting to salvage what had been damaged.
So, I never attacked the Elders, or put them down, or talked mean about them behind their back. I just refused to back down. I confronted them about what they’d allowed, but I always tried to that with respect. I wanted those elders to be real ELDERS. I wanted them to step up and do their job, and I wanted that church to be cleansed of the evil they’d allowed.
Now, they still fired me… but God won out in the end. God dealt with those Elders, and God turned the church around. My point is this! There come times in just about every congregation when people mess up, and HOW we – as a church - deal with those mess-ups, can make all the difference in how God can fix the problem. The church doesn’t belong to me/ or you… it belongs to God, and we’ve got to be real careful in how we deal with problems.
Just as a cautionary tale, remember that the Pharisees were good at trying to stand for what they saw as righteousness, but they weren’t real nice to people who didn’t measure up to their standards. And Jesus condemned them for that.
CLOSE: When all is said and done, the church must stand in the gap. There’s a prayer offered every Sunday at West Point during chapel that should be a rallying cry for us: “Make us choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong, and never to be contented with half truth when whole truth can be won. Endow us with courage that is born of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy, that scorns to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when right and truth are in jeopardy.” http://www.usma.edu/Chaplain
BUT be careful because, while we must stand for right and truth, we’re STILL dealing with mortals. Someone once observed that the stuttering shepherd of this generation may be the mighty Moses of the next. The Samson who was blind and weak today may use his final strength to bring down the pillars of godlessness tomorrow. And the Peter who denied Jesus at tonight’s fire may proclaim him with fire at tomorrow’s Pentecost. (loosely borrowed from Max Lucado)
So stand in the gap… but be gentle with those who fail. The next person who may need mercy might be you.
INVITATION
