A few weeks ago after I preached I called people forward for prayer and thankfully there were many needing prayer. It actually went on longer than the service time and still people were queuing to be prayed for. This may seem very strange but it absolutely true. I need to point out that my message was in no way connected to doing better or pleasing God it was actually about what Christ has done for us. However apart from a couple needing prayer for healing the vast majority, I would say over 90% of the people I prayed for asked for the same thing. “I want to be a better Christian; I feel so guilty that I have let God down; I don’t feel I am a proper Christian; I want to please God but I cannot.” It was actually devastating. How had these people come to such a place? They believed what they did was more important than what Jesus has done for them. They had not understood it is never what I do but who Jesus has made me that counts.
I say all that because it leads us into the challenge Paul walked into when he visited Jerusalem and had a private meeting with the apostles. He brought Titus, a gentile and uncircumcised and yet a Christian brother and leader. Paul obviously brought him purposely. He needed to show an example that converted gentiles are as much in the family of God as Jewish believers.
“Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. 4 This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. 5 We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.” (Galatians 2 v 3-5)
Paul describes how ‘false believers’ crept into the meeting unseen, infiltrated, by stealth, doing what they thought was important work for God. They wanted to bring this new movement back to the Torah. But Paul saw that as a step back to slavery.
Stealth has been used all our life and we often don’t even recognise it is happening.
Stealth is used in war. The US arguably have the best stealth bomber planes in the world. They are created so as to get into enemy territory unnoticed deflecting or absorbing radar signals.
Stealth is used by the enemy of our soul, the great infiltrator, coming as an angel of light even.
The false believers were believers and that is what made things difficult. If only our greatest threat is obvious. It isn’t. It is deception. The false believers wanted to bring the movement back under the Torah. The Torah supernaturally given by God on Mt. Sinai which had served the generations of God’s people.
The Torah showed us we could never be perfect and acceptable to God. The false preachers taught the opposite that if we obeyed it we could.
The big challenge was this: how big is your vision? Could God do this? Could the family of God become international with none of the Jewish conditions?
Could this new movement realise it is not what I do but who I am and that is the truth of the gospel?
These are questions still being asked today.
Missions Paul 