Galatians 1:1-9

[00:00:00] Let's get to the book of Galatians.

[00:00:01] We're gonna look at Galatians 1 verse 1 through 9 together today.

[00:00:07] I'll read it out loud.

[00:00:08] You can follow along in your Bibles or on the screen,

[00:00:12] starting in verse one, Paul, an apostle,

[00:00:16] not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ

[00:00:20] and God the Father who raised him from the dead

[00:00:23] and all the brothers who are with me

[00:00:25] to the churches of Galatia.

[00:00:27] Verse three, grace to you in peace from God our Father

[00:00:30] and the Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins

[00:00:33] to deliver us from this present or the present evil age

[00:00:37] according to the will of God of our God and Father

[00:00:41] to whom be the glory forever and ever, amen.

[00:00:44] I am astonished verse six that you are so quickly

[00:00:48] deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ

[00:00:52] and are turning to a different gospel.

[00:00:55] Not that there is another one,

[00:00:56] but there are some who trouble you

[00:00:58] and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

[00:01:01] But even if we are an angel from heaven

[00:01:03] should preach to you a gospel contrary

[00:01:06] to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed.

[00:01:08] As we have said before, so now I say again,

[00:01:11] if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary

[00:01:16] to the one you received, let him be accursed.

[00:01:20] Let's pray together.

[00:01:21] Lord, we come to you this morning

[00:01:23] and we pray that through our study of Galatians,

[00:01:26] not just today, but in the weeks and months to come

[00:01:29] that our appreciation for the gospel would rise

[00:01:33] and that Lord the outflow of that message

[00:01:38] as it's impacted us would show us how free we are in you

[00:01:43] to live the life that you've designed for us to live.

[00:01:45] So we pray Lord that you teach us today

[00:01:47] from this passage in Jesus' name.

[00:01:50] We pray together, amen.

[00:01:52] Okay, well the word that I've chosen,

[00:01:54] I like to kind of pick a theme for each book of the Bible

[00:01:57] that we're going through because there is a center point

[00:02:01] of each book of God's word generally.

[00:02:04] And the word that I've chosen for this study

[00:02:07] is the word fly, the word fly, not the noun,

[00:02:10] like you know get the fly swatter,

[00:02:13] not the adjective, you know, 90s rap is the flyest.

[00:02:19] Though it is, but the verb, you know,

[00:02:25] a bird is meant to fly, a bird is meant to fly.

[00:02:29] The reason that I've chosen this theme is that

[00:02:31] because when you go through the book of Galatians,

[00:02:33] one of the things you'll notice just upon casual reading

[00:02:36] is that in the first three and a half, four chapters,

[00:02:40] Paul doesn't really tell the reader what to do.

[00:02:44] There's not very many times where there's an imperative,

[00:02:47] an exhortation, a command, a commission.

[00:02:49] There's a couple of them, you know,

[00:02:51] he'll tell his readers to know something,

[00:02:54] to consider something.

[00:02:55] But it's not until the end of the book

[00:02:58] that beautiful exhortations on how to live

[00:03:01] began to blossom forth.

[00:03:06] And in those last two chapters,

[00:03:07] the life that's described is incredible.

[00:03:09] To me, it describes a life in flight.

[00:03:12] Galatians 513 describes it as a life that is free

[00:03:17] from all forms of legalism,

[00:03:19] free from any manmade yoke or structure,

[00:03:23] free enough to lovingly dedicate itself

[00:03:26] to the service of others.

[00:03:28] Galatians 516 describes it as a life

[00:03:31] that walks in the spirit

[00:03:34] and bears the fruit of the Holy Spirit

[00:03:38] coming from its life.

[00:03:39] It describes in Galatians 6 verse nine

[00:03:42] as a life that does not grow weary

[00:03:44] in doing good to everyone.

[00:03:46] This is an impactful life, they're impacting other people.

[00:03:50] Galatians 522 to 23 describes what the Spirit does

[00:03:53] to this kind of life.

[00:03:54] It makes them a loving person, a joyful person,

[00:03:57] a peaceful person, a patient person, a kind person,

[00:04:02] a good, faithful, gentle person,

[00:04:05] a person of self-control.

[00:04:08] It's the kind of life that has,

[00:04:10] according to Galatians 524 and 25,

[00:04:12] killed off the passions of the flesh

[00:04:16] and has replaced them instead

[00:04:19] with being led by the Spirit of God.

[00:04:22] So there's a spirit's leadership in this person's life.

[00:04:25] It's kind of life, Galatians 6 verse one

[00:04:27] that restores people who are struggling,

[00:04:31] all while maintaining a posture of humility,

[00:04:34] knowing that I'm capable of doing those very same things.

[00:04:38] And it's a life that bears the burdens

[00:04:41] of other people really well.

[00:04:43] It's a beautiful life, it's a life

[00:04:47] that is soaring in God's grace.

[00:04:50] Okay, but Paul wrote to the Galatians

[00:04:54] and he wrote the book of Galatians for all of us

[00:04:57] because they and us are in danger

[00:05:02] of neglecting the message that leads

[00:05:05] to that brand of life.

[00:05:08] In other words, if we adulterate the gospel,

[00:05:11] if we add to it in any way,

[00:05:13] we will not be able to enter into that life.

[00:05:15] We'll not be able to fly.

[00:05:16] We'll be like a bird trapped in a cage

[00:05:19] and at best what we'll do is hinder ourselves

[00:05:23] from living God's ideal,

[00:05:26] but at worst we'll be believing a false message,

[00:05:30] trusting a false message for our salvation

[00:05:33] and we'll be misleading other people.

[00:05:36] That's the last thing we wanna do

[00:05:37] is communicate through our convictions,

[00:05:40] through our lives, through our beliefs,

[00:05:42] through our statements that if you want to be saved,

[00:05:44] you need to believe in Jesus and anything else.

[00:05:49] Okay, we wanna get rid of that

[00:05:51] because it will lead people astray,

[00:05:53] it will lead them to say

[00:05:54] that's not a good news message,

[00:05:56] that's a bad news message.

[00:05:59] This was the danger that the Galatian believers were in.

[00:06:03] Now Paul had been to Galatia.

[00:06:05] Galatia is not a city by the way, it's a region.

[00:06:09] It'd be like saying the churches in California,

[00:06:11] not the churches in Monterey.

[00:06:14] And Paul had gone through the region of Galatia

[00:06:16] which is in kind of our modern day Turkey kind of area

[00:06:20] if you're a geography person.

[00:06:22] In the Bible he went there in Acts chapter 13 and 14.

[00:06:26] He went through cities like Derby, Lystra,

[00:06:29] Iconium and Antioch if you remember those

[00:06:32] from your time in the book of Acts.

[00:06:34] And when Paul went through those cities,

[00:06:36] they were rocked with the gospel.

[00:06:37] Churches were started and when he left

[00:06:40] an imprint of Christianity was left behind.

[00:06:43] But after he left apparently others arrived

[00:06:48] and they began adding to the gospel in various ways.

[00:06:51] We'll talk about in a moment

[00:06:52] they were troubling it says in verse six.

[00:06:54] They were troubling these infant churches.

[00:06:57] So because of that, because of the situation

[00:07:01] that Paul is writing into, he starts this letter

[00:07:04] in these first nine verses I assure you notice

[00:07:06] it's a very serious tone that he writes with.

[00:07:09] And that tone is found right away

[00:07:12] in the way he introduces himself in verse one and two.

[00:07:15] Look at it there in your Bibles.

[00:07:16] He says, Paul an apostle not from men nor through man.

[00:07:22] In other words nobody made me this but Jesus.

[00:07:25] But through Jesus Christ and God the Father

[00:07:27] who raised him from the dead

[00:07:29] and all the brothers who are with me

[00:07:31] to the churches of Galatia.

[00:07:34] Now the word apostle is used in the Bible

[00:07:37] in a couple of different ways.

[00:07:39] One way that the word apostle is used

[00:07:41] is to describe people who are sent out

[00:07:44] like as missionaries perhaps they have a special ministry

[00:07:48] gifting or calling our high school kids

[00:07:51] are actually today, this is the deadline

[00:07:53] to sign up for our Thailand missions trip

[00:07:56] where they're gonna partner with David Joannes

[00:07:59] who has come and spoken and shared with us today.

[00:08:02] To me he's that kind of guy.

[00:08:03] He's a small A apostle kind of guy.

[00:08:06] I don't think he'd ever call himself that

[00:08:07] but just has a vision for a region in the world

[00:08:10] and God is using his life in really effective ways

[00:08:12] to reach the lost and plant churches

[00:08:15] and really do some amazing things,

[00:08:17] make a great impact for the kingdom of God.

[00:08:20] In the Bible people like Barnabas

[00:08:22] are spoken of in this way.

[00:08:23] Barnabas was Paul's ministry companion and friend

[00:08:26] and he had this title at times in scripture.

[00:08:29] But the second way the word apostle is used in the Bible

[00:08:32] you might say it like this like big A apostles.

[00:08:36] Those were the original disciples that Jesus called

[00:08:39] as his disciples first and then would turn

[00:08:42] into his apostles there were certain requirements

[00:08:44] to be an apostle you had to have seen Jesus

[00:08:46] during this earthly life and stuff like that

[00:08:48] be a witness to his death burial and resurrection.

[00:08:52] So that helps us understand that the big A apostles

[00:08:56] they're not around anymore.

[00:08:57] They're a special group that laid down the doctrine

[00:09:01] that the church is grounded and founded upon.

[00:09:05] We are standing today on the foundation

[00:09:07] that the apostles laid and Paul announces here

[00:09:11] I'm one of those guys.

[00:09:13] Now he alludes to the fact that he wasn't one

[00:09:15] of the original guys but that Jesus still called him

[00:09:20] nonetheless but in Paul's mind there is no

[00:09:23] and we're gonna see this next week.

[00:09:25] He's not like a second class big A apostle

[00:09:29] because he wasn't there walking with Jesus

[00:09:31] during his ministry in the Galilee or in Judea

[00:09:34] before he died on the cross.

[00:09:36] In Paul's mind he has a special calling as apostle

[00:09:39] because it was the risen Jesus who called him.

[00:09:43] That's what he alludes to there in verse one.

[00:09:46] I wasn't called by man or through man

[00:09:49] really nobody else after that could say that.

[00:09:52] I mean we might be called by God

[00:09:54] but other people kind of verify and say like yeah

[00:09:57] we see it, we see what God is doing in your life

[00:10:00] and if people just walk away and say

[00:10:01] I don't wanna have anything to do with you

[00:10:03] it's kind of a little bit of a hint

[00:10:04] as to whether you're actually called or not

[00:10:06] but Paul was called by Jesus directly

[00:10:09] who was risen from the grave he says.

[00:10:13] So Paul needed them to know this.

[00:10:14] He needed them to know I'm a divinely appointed apostle

[00:10:17] and I come with a divinely appointed message.

[00:10:21] That's what he alludes to in verse three through five.

[00:10:24] Look at it again with me.

[00:10:25] He says, in his greeting grace to you

[00:10:28] and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ

[00:10:30] who gave himself for our sins

[00:10:32] to deliver us from the present evil age

[00:10:34] according to the will of our God and Father

[00:10:36] to whom be the glory forever and ever amen.

[00:10:40] Look at those words.

[00:10:42] In verse three he says that grace and peace

[00:10:44] from God are possible.

[00:10:48] But they're possible because Jesus gave himself

[00:10:53] for our sins he says to deliver us

[00:10:57] from the present evil age.

[00:11:00] That word deliver is an impressive word.

[00:11:05] It is used at other points in the Bible

[00:11:07] like in the book of Acts it's used a few times

[00:11:10] and in the book of Acts it's used to describe a rescue

[00:11:13] like when Stephen recounts Old Testament history

[00:11:16] he said God rescued the people of Israel

[00:11:20] from their captivity in Egypt.

[00:11:22] Or there's another time where Peter was in prison

[00:11:25] and the church was praying for him

[00:11:26] and God rescued him from prison.

[00:11:30] Or there was another time where Paul was being attacked

[00:11:34] by a mob of people and the Roman soldiers came in

[00:11:38] and rescued Paul from these attackers.

[00:11:43] It's a word that means there's a deliverance.

[00:11:47] There's a rescue required.

[00:11:50] And that's the word that Paul uses to describe

[00:11:52] what Jesus did because Christianity is a rescue mission.

[00:11:58] In other words, Jesus didn't come primarily

[00:12:02] to exemplify love.

[00:12:05] Jesus did not come primarily

[00:12:07] to be a thought provoking teacher.

[00:12:10] Jesus did not come primarily to show us

[00:12:12] a different brand or a different way of life.

[00:12:15] Jesus came to save.

[00:12:18] And the reason Jesus came to rescue

[00:12:20] is because we needed rescue.

[00:12:24] We were dead and lost in our trespasses and sins

[00:12:28] and without him, we'd be eternally irreparably doomed.

[00:12:35] That's why Paul said in this quick introduction

[00:12:37] in verse five that God is the one

[00:12:40] who gets the glory forever and ever.

[00:12:43] It means from age to age, all the ages in the future.

[00:12:46] He's saying God is the one who did this.

[00:12:49] God is the one who rescued.

[00:12:50] The gospel is God's idea.

[00:12:52] And so there is in the gospel no credit given

[00:12:56] to a human being at all.

[00:12:58] It is all God's glory.

[00:13:00] It is all God's honor.

[00:13:02] We get no glory at all.

[00:13:06] But the people who came to Galatia,

[00:13:09] they were adding to the gospel

[00:13:11] and saying things that would give people credit and glory.

[00:13:15] And so Paul had to let them know

[00:13:18] it is dangerous to add to the gospel.

[00:13:20] So we're gonna spend the remainder of our time

[00:13:22] looking at verse six, seven, eight and nine,

[00:13:25] which we already read,

[00:13:26] to think about three ways that Paul thought

[00:13:29] it was dangerous to add to the gospel

[00:13:32] so that we will be encouraged

[00:13:33] to accept the gospel as is.

[00:13:36] And the first reason that I'll hold out to you

[00:13:37] is from verse six, Paul said

[00:13:40] that adding to the gospel is dangerous

[00:13:42] because adding is abandoning Jesus.

[00:13:46] Look at verse six, he said, I am astonished

[00:13:48] that you are so quickly deserting him

[00:13:51] who called you in the grace of Christ

[00:13:54] and are turning to a different gospel.

[00:13:58] Okay, this is full force from Paul.

[00:14:00] Some of you have read the New Testament before

[00:14:03] so you've read all of Paul's letters

[00:14:06] and you probably know that a lot of times when Paul wrote

[00:14:10] he would express thankfulness for the church

[00:14:12] that he was writing to

[00:14:13] or he would express prayers for the church

[00:14:15] that he was writing to.

[00:14:17] He'd have some word of commendation,

[00:14:18] some little memory, maybe he'd talk about a certain person

[00:14:22] that was in that church

[00:14:23] that he was really thankful for or something like that.

[00:14:25] And he would do that really across the board

[00:14:27] for all the churches.

[00:14:29] Even the Corinthian church,

[00:14:31] they had so many issues, they had so many problems,

[00:14:34] they were just buck wild in sin.

[00:14:36] When Paul started his letter, first Corinthian to them

[00:14:38] he still had some nice things to say at the very beginning

[00:14:40] but here to the Galatians, nothing.

[00:14:43] He just gets right into it because

[00:14:46] he saw them messing with the crown jewel of scripture.

[00:14:53] They're messing with the gospel,

[00:14:54] they're adding to the gospel,

[00:14:55] they're tempted to add to the gospel

[00:14:57] so he's going to deal with it head on.

[00:15:00] His tone is full force.

[00:15:02] In Paul's mind, to say that right standing with God

[00:15:06] comes by Jesus plus anything is distancing yourself.

[00:15:12] Paul says from Jesus, he says you're abandoning him.

[00:15:17] The word abandoning is the word for deserting.

[00:15:23] It's the word that their people would have used

[00:15:25] to describe military desertion.

[00:15:29] Nogoni and A-wall turning to the other side,

[00:15:31] treason so to speak.

[00:15:34] Paul is saying you're leaving him.

[00:15:37] What that means is that adding to the gospel

[00:15:39] is not only an abandonment of a theological

[00:15:43] doctrinal belief or position,

[00:15:45] it's the abandonment of a person,

[00:15:48] the abandonment of Jesus.

[00:15:50] And I'm sorry if somebody announced to you

[00:15:52] if you're visiting today, I'm sorry

[00:15:54] if somebody has been telling you

[00:15:55] or if you've somehow got the impression

[00:15:57] that Christianity is a set of rules

[00:16:00] or that Christianity is a certain political party

[00:16:03] or that Christianity is,

[00:16:05] you have to do certain religious ceremonies

[00:16:08] or that Christianity is being baptized

[00:16:10] in a certain place or something like that.

[00:16:12] I'm sorry if that's the message that you have received

[00:16:15] but Christianity is attached to a person

[00:16:18] and that person is alive today.

[00:16:20] It's Jesus Christ.

[00:16:22] He came to die, he came to rise

[00:16:25] and now he's ascended to the right hand of the father

[00:16:27] and what Paul is saying is to add to his cross,

[00:16:30] to add to his gospel message is to abandon him.

[00:16:34] It's to take the rescue mission of Jesus

[00:16:38] and to refuse to acknowledge that it's effective by itself.

[00:16:45] To me it's like saying to Jesus,

[00:16:46] thank you for doing your part.

[00:16:49] Now I will do my part

[00:16:51] and together we will earn my right standing before God.

[00:16:56] But listen, if a person is carted to the ER

[00:17:01] because they're dying and they are technically dead

[00:17:05] on the table and a team of medical professionals

[00:17:08] revives them and brings them back to life,

[00:17:12] who gets the credit?

[00:17:14] Even the person on the table is like,

[00:17:16] I think it must be me.

[00:17:19] It must be this really embarrassing,

[00:17:22] way too little medical gown that you put me in.

[00:17:26] It must be the fact that I'm willing to eat jello

[00:17:29] and ice chips like that must be why I'm alive.

[00:17:34] No, it would be the medical professionals

[00:17:37] that are celebrated because they brought the dead back to life

[00:17:40] so to speak.

[00:17:43] We have no business saying that we're approved by God

[00:17:45] through Christ's work plus anything.

[00:17:49] I vote right, I'm a good person,

[00:17:51] I have biblical concepts down,

[00:17:53] I'm environmentally conscious, I give to the poor,

[00:17:56] I serve a lot, I'm not judgmental, I pray.

[00:17:59] Some of these things might be good things

[00:18:02] that are an outflow of maybe Jesus' Lordship in your life

[00:18:06] or an outflow of being led by the Spirit

[00:18:08] and letting Him guide your life

[00:18:11] but they're not required for the message of the gospel.

[00:18:15] To add to his gospel is to abandon Jesus.

[00:18:19] I say this because I think in the human heart

[00:18:21] we like to have the idea that we can save ourselves.

[00:18:25] We love to think we can save ourselves

[00:18:27] if our surrender to Jesus is of the higher caliber

[00:18:31] and I'm really devoted, therefore I'm favored by God.

[00:18:37] We love to think we can save ourselves

[00:18:38] if we hold the right views.

[00:18:40] We love to think we can save ourselves through good works.

[00:18:42] I'm a good person after all God should accept me,

[00:18:46] I'm no evil person, I'm good.

[00:18:50] We love to think that we can save ourselves

[00:18:52] through religious ceremonies and regulations and trappings

[00:18:56] but none of that works.

[00:18:58] It all detracts from the radical saving power of Jesus.

[00:19:03] Now if someone's drowning in a public pool,

[00:19:05] what does the lifeguard do?

[00:19:06] The lifeguard jumps in to save them.

[00:19:09] The lifeguard doesn't walk over

[00:19:11] and toss them a manual on how to swim.

[00:19:14] Doesn't pull out his phone

[00:19:15] and look up the wiki page swimming.

[00:19:18] Step one, he doesn't start shouting out directions to them.

[00:19:22] A drowning person doesn't need a teacher,

[00:19:25] a drowning person needs a savior.

[00:19:30] We might like the feelings of self approval before God

[00:19:35] but we cannot earn God's favor.

[00:19:37] It's given to us in Christ Jesus.

[00:19:40] Remember being a little boy and they had,

[00:19:43] and I think in my preschool they had those little charts

[00:19:47] with your name and they had little categories

[00:19:49] and you get a gold star for certain things.

[00:19:52] And I love getting those gold stars.

[00:19:55] Oh Nathan, you cleaned up after snack,

[00:19:57] you get a gold star.

[00:20:00] I love those feelings like look at all my gold stars

[00:20:03] and I think that that feeling never leaves us.

[00:20:05] We like to think that we can approve ourselves

[00:20:08] in the sight of God

[00:20:10] but though legalism might be our default human tendency

[00:20:14] we can't add to the good news of the gospel

[00:20:17] because it distances us from the very God who wants to save us.

[00:20:21] I was reading recently, I saw that quarterback

[00:20:24] in the NFL named Matt Ryan,

[00:20:25] you might know him if you're a football fan.

[00:20:27] I just saw this headline that apparently he'd hit

[00:20:29] an amazing career milestone.

[00:20:31] He'd thrown for 60,000 career yards.

[00:20:33] I don't know a lot about football

[00:20:35] but apparently it's an impressive deal.

[00:20:36] They took the football and they put it

[00:20:38] in the Hall of Fame.

[00:20:40] It's a huge achievement for him

[00:20:41] and his life it means he's been really good

[00:20:43] for a really long period of time.

[00:20:45] But I do know that there's one game,

[00:20:47] at least one in his career that he wishes he could have back.

[00:20:50] It was in 2017.

[00:20:52] He was the quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons

[00:20:55] and his team was in the Super Bowl

[00:20:56] and they were crushing it.

[00:20:57] They were winning 28 to three at halftime.

[00:21:00] A lot of people just stopped watching the game

[00:21:01] because they thought this game is over.

[00:21:03] There's no way the Patriots can come back

[00:21:06] from such a huge deficit but they did.

[00:21:09] They came back, they shocked the world

[00:21:11] and they became world champions.

[00:21:13] Well apparently every football in the NFL,

[00:21:16] every actual football has a serial number on it.

[00:21:20] And so after Matt Ryan threw for a 60,000th yard

[00:21:24] they took that football, put it in the Hall of Fame,

[00:21:26] took pictures and put it up online

[00:21:28] and people began noticing that the serial number

[00:21:31] was the number 283.

[00:21:34] 28 to three.

[00:21:38] The lead that he had in that Super Bowl.

[00:21:42] I read that little thing

[00:21:43] and I thought that's how legalism is.

[00:21:46] You think, I'm doing pretty good

[00:21:48] and then a reminder of some of your biggest failures

[00:21:52] comes rushing back into your mind.

[00:21:56] Even when we're at our absolute best

[00:21:58] there's plenty to remind us

[00:21:59] that we're still sinners in need of a savior.

[00:22:01] That's why adding to the gospel is so foolish.

[00:22:04] You're distancing yourself from the one who came

[00:22:07] to save you.

[00:22:09] But a second reason that adding to the gospel

[00:22:11] is dangerous is because adding to the gospel

[00:22:14] is destructive.

[00:22:16] Look at verse seven.

[00:22:18] He says not that there is another one,

[00:22:20] there's no other gospel,

[00:22:21] but there are some who trouble you

[00:22:23] and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

[00:22:27] Paul is clarifying, he's saying,

[00:22:29] you know, you've turned to another gospel

[00:22:31] but really when I say that what I want you to know is

[00:22:33] there really is no other gospel.

[00:22:37] Paul knew that the teachers who troubled these Galatians

[00:22:42] were actually, he says there in verse seven,

[00:22:43] distorting the gospel of Christ.

[00:22:47] In other words, they weren't augmenting

[00:22:48] or adjusting the gospel,

[00:22:50] they were destroying it by reversing it.

[00:22:53] Now the good news of righteousness,

[00:22:56] acceptance in God's sight by faith

[00:23:00] was being replaced with righteousness,

[00:23:02] acceptance from God by works.

[00:23:07] And that never can satisfy the heart of God,

[00:23:10] can never impact us as we think it can.

[00:23:13] And all this distortion was troubling

[00:23:15] these new Galatian believers.

[00:23:17] That's a word that Paul uses there in verse seven,

[00:23:19] you are being troubled.

[00:23:22] It's a word that they would have used

[00:23:24] to describe seasickness.

[00:23:27] I grew up here in this area

[00:23:28] so I've had lots of opportunities to go out

[00:23:31] on the water and I always hate it.

[00:23:34] I don't like being on the ocean,

[00:23:36] I always get seasick.

[00:23:38] I remember for my 16th birthday

[00:23:40] my dad thought it would be so much fun

[00:23:42] for us to go fishing together

[00:23:44] on a little eight foot aluminum boat

[00:23:47] out in the water or just off the coast in Carmel.

[00:23:51] And it might've been fun for him,

[00:23:53] but and it might've been fun for the fish

[00:23:55] who got my Cheerios that day,

[00:23:57] but it was not fun for me.

[00:24:03] When you begin to feel seasick,

[00:24:04] you begin saying there's something wrong.

[00:24:07] I'm unsettled.

[00:24:10] There's something happening inside me right now.

[00:24:13] And these false teachers with their false gospel,

[00:24:16] we're doing that to the Galatians.

[00:24:18] Even though legalism is often attractive to us,

[00:24:21] it unsettles us.

[00:24:22] It turns a grace based relationship with God

[00:24:27] into a troubling pact of works righteousness before God.

[00:24:33] And once that joy is killed,

[00:24:35] pretty soon our fruitfulness is crushed

[00:24:37] and we just can't fly into the life

[00:24:40] that Paul describes in Galatians five and six.

[00:24:43] Now, some of you might be asking the question,

[00:24:46] well, what were these troubling false teachers

[00:24:48] saying to the Galatians?

[00:24:50] It's a little tough to figure out with precision

[00:24:53] because Paul didn't write this letter to them.

[00:24:56] He wrote this letter to the Galatian believers

[00:24:59] that he loved.

[00:25:00] If he'd written this letter to the false teachers,

[00:25:03] he probably would have had like a line by line rebuttal

[00:25:05] of the things that they had been saying.

[00:25:07] But we can make some educated guesses

[00:25:11] by surmising what he said through looking at some

[00:25:14] of the passages throughout Galatians.

[00:25:16] Like for instance, right here in verse six and seven,

[00:25:19] they apparently distorted the gospel

[00:25:20] by turning from the grace of Christ.

[00:25:23] So they were turning to the opposite of grace.

[00:25:25] They were turning to the law.

[00:25:26] They were turning to works.

[00:25:28] Or in the rest of chapter one,

[00:25:32] we'll discover Paul defending his apostleship,

[00:25:35] that he's a real apostle.

[00:25:37] That must mean that they were challenging

[00:25:39] that Paul was a true apostle,

[00:25:41] saying no, he doesn't have the qualification

[00:25:44] of saying the things that he's said to you.

[00:25:47] Or in chapter four and in chapter five,

[00:25:50] they seem to have added onto the cross

[00:25:54] by requiring these Galatian believers,

[00:25:56] nearly all of whom were not Jewish,

[00:25:59] to obey certain aspects of the Old Testament ceremonial law,

[00:26:04] including things like circumcision for the men

[00:26:08] or different feast festival days for everybody else.

[00:26:12] So let's look into the Old Testament.

[00:26:14] They celebrated these feasts on such and such a day each year.

[00:26:19] So we will celebrate those.

[00:26:20] Or they kept circumcision as a ceremonial right.

[00:26:23] We must also do the same thing.

[00:26:25] And they seem to have done this,

[00:26:26] it says in Galatians six, 12 and 13,

[00:26:28] to avoid the persecution that would come for the cross.

[00:26:34] And that makes us believe that these false teachers

[00:26:38] were in Jewish communities,

[00:26:41] that they were Jews themselves.

[00:26:42] And they were a little more widely accepted

[00:26:46] in their Jewish communities

[00:26:47] because they were communicating, yeah, we do like Jesus.

[00:26:50] We are about Jesus,

[00:26:52] but we don't think that Jesus alone saves.

[00:26:55] We still think that people need to be circumcised

[00:26:59] and obey the ceremonial Old Testament laws.

[00:27:01] Even if they're Gentiles,

[00:27:03] they need to enter into that brand of life.

[00:27:06] All these additions to the gospel,

[00:27:10] Paul warned we're destroying the gospel.

[00:27:12] He said in verse seven, there's no other one

[00:27:14] to alter it is to destroy it.

[00:27:18] Now to add to the gospel,

[00:27:19] it's like rolling down a window

[00:27:22] on the International Space Station.

[00:27:25] Just saying what, it's just one window.

[00:27:27] No, you've killed everybody.

[00:27:29] It doesn't work.

[00:27:32] The windows have to be sealed.

[00:27:35] Once you've added to the gospel,

[00:27:37] you've killed it and it's no longer good news.

[00:27:40] The second you add to the gospel, good deeds,

[00:27:43] personal convictions, as I said earlier,

[00:27:46] political parties, religious ceremonies,

[00:27:51] the praise of man, socially accepted views,

[00:27:54] self mastery discipline, old covenant rituals,

[00:27:59] baptismal rights of any kind.

[00:28:01] You've got to be baptized here in this place, in this way.

[00:28:06] Denominationalism, systems of theology.

[00:28:09] You've adulterated and destroyed the gospel.

[00:28:13] Some of these items are good and will be an outflow.

[00:28:16] Like I said earlier, of the Lordship of Christ

[00:28:18] in your life or the leadership of the spirit

[00:28:20] in your life, but none of them should be added

[00:28:22] as a means of justification or added

[00:28:25] as a means of gaining God's approval and favor.

[00:28:28] And I think theologically,

[00:28:29] a lot of us are on safe ground here.

[00:28:30] We love the doctrine of justification by faith,

[00:28:34] but we have to be sure that we never treat the items

[00:28:37] that I just mentioned or things like that,

[00:28:39] anything that's an add-on to the gospel

[00:28:41] as a functional means of gaining God's approval.

[00:28:46] In other words, if someone doesn't measure up

[00:28:49] to the various deeds, views, ceremonies,

[00:28:52] or theology that you hold, do you banish them?

[00:28:55] Do you ostracize them?

[00:28:57] Do you think perhaps technically this person is saved

[00:29:01] and belong to God, but I can't have anything to do with them?

[00:29:04] We have to watch out for that.

[00:29:06] Now to sum it sounds dangerous to throw ourselves

[00:29:10] so completely on the work of Christ

[00:29:13] and to highlight our own work so little.

[00:29:17] And I get that danger Paul the apostle dealt

[00:29:20] with that accusation over and over again in his writings.

[00:29:22] The radical nature of the gospel he preached

[00:29:24] led many to say that is dangerous

[00:29:26] and he addressed it quite often.

[00:29:29] But it doesn't make it any less true.

[00:29:33] In the 16th century there was the great reformer

[00:29:35] Martin Luther, I'm sure you've heard his name.

[00:29:38] Martin Luther loved the book of Galatians.

[00:29:40] He actually wrote that the book of Galatians was his wife.

[00:29:44] That's how much he loved it.

[00:29:45] He just spoke of it, don't groan.

[00:29:48] It's not a bit bad, it's just he's saying,

[00:29:51] I love this book.

[00:29:52] I mean it meant so much to him theologically.

[00:29:55] And what he did is he looked at the works righteousness

[00:29:58] and the religious trappings of Roman Catholicism

[00:30:02] that were dominating his world

[00:30:04] and he saw how an adjusted gospel,

[00:30:06] it's a destroyed gospel, it's not a real gospel.

[00:30:09] He said there's no middle ground

[00:30:11] between Christian righteousness and works righteousness.

[00:30:14] There's no other alternative to Christian righteousness

[00:30:16] but works righteousness.

[00:30:18] If you do not build your confidence on the work

[00:30:20] of Christ you must build your confidence on your own work

[00:30:25] to add is to destroy.

[00:30:27] All right, let me close with one last point though.

[00:30:31] Adding to the gospel is dangerous

[00:30:33] because adding to the gospel is a high stakes mistake.

[00:30:37] I'll look at verse eight and nine,

[00:30:39] our last two verses he says,

[00:30:40] but even if we are an angel from heaven

[00:30:42] should preach to you a gospel contrary

[00:30:44] to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed.

[00:30:47] As we have said before so now I say again

[00:30:50] if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary

[00:30:53] to the one you receive, let him be accursed.

[00:30:58] Okay, Paul holds out two hypothetical situations here.

[00:31:02] Okay and the first, him himself

[00:31:06] or someone from his ministry team

[00:31:08] they announced to the Galatians a gospel

[00:31:10] that is different from the one that Paul already delivered

[00:31:12] when he went back to them,

[00:31:14] went to them for the very first time.

[00:31:15] And what Paul said is he said if that were to ever happen

[00:31:18] if I ever came preaching in a different gospel

[00:31:20] or anybody on my ministry team came

[00:31:23] was preaching a different gospel,

[00:31:24] he said those people myself included

[00:31:27] we should be accursed.

[00:31:28] It's a strong word, he says it twice.

[00:31:30] It's a word that means cut off completely cut off.

[00:31:33] It's a word that means divine cut off.

[00:31:37] Like God is finished.

[00:31:38] God is saying you are completely judged.

[00:31:40] You're not part of my program.

[00:31:42] You're not part of my plan.

[00:31:44] Now this is interesting because Paul is going to

[00:31:46] he already has highlighted his apostolic authority

[00:31:49] and he's going to highlight it next week

[00:31:51] on our passage together.

[00:31:53] But what he's saying here is no matter what

[00:31:56] my apostolic authority is underneath the gospel's authority.

[00:32:02] I can't rewrite it, I can't redesign it,

[00:32:05] I can't restate it, I can't manipulate it,

[00:32:07] I can't change it.

[00:32:09] It is what it is and my authority is derived from it.

[00:32:14] It does not derive from my authority.

[00:32:17] So that's powerful because a lot of people

[00:32:20] have an attitude about the Bible and about the gospel

[00:32:23] that they are the judge over it.

[00:32:26] But even Paul, the apostle himself,

[00:32:28] a man given so much authority by God is saying,

[00:32:31] no I'm not over this thing, I am under it.

[00:32:35] And if I even changed it at all, I should be accursed.

[00:32:40] In his second hypothetical,

[00:32:42] an angel from heaven preached the gospel.

[00:32:47] One that contradicted Paul's gospel

[00:32:49] and he said if that were to happen,

[00:32:50] if an angel came and preached something different

[00:32:53] then that angel should be accursed.

[00:32:54] And you can just imagine how wild this would be.

[00:32:57] I mean imagine if we were just here at church one Sunday

[00:33:00] and we had our worship time

[00:33:02] and then we prayed for the tithes and offerings

[00:33:05] and then the video started rolling on the screen

[00:33:08] with a few announcements and then at the end

[00:33:12] the lights came back on and I started coming up

[00:33:14] and then there was like an angel who was like,

[00:33:16] excuse me Nate, can I have a few words?

[00:33:19] And it comes up, I don't know how we know he's an angel

[00:33:21] but maybe he's glowing a little bit,

[00:33:23] maybe there's a halo, maybe there's wings or something.

[00:33:25] Maybe we're terrified, we're like, oh shoot, it's an angel.

[00:33:29] And then he comes up and he says,

[00:33:31] I mean it's kind of like what are you gonna tell us?

[00:33:34] We're ready to receive anything, this is amazing.

[00:33:36] We're looking around, like are you guys

[00:33:38] seeing the same thing I'm seeing?

[00:33:40] Am I hallucinating?

[00:33:41] It's something, no we're all seeing the same thing

[00:33:43] and then the angel says something

[00:33:45] that contradicts the gospel as we've read it

[00:33:48] and understand it and received it in scripture.

[00:33:51] We're to say to that angel, of that angel, let him be accursed.

[00:33:56] Let him be cut off.

[00:33:58] I'm not gonna receive even one word that you have spoken

[00:34:01] even though it's angelic and powerful and beautiful,

[00:34:04] I'll receive none of it because it is not the message

[00:34:07] of the gospel that we have already received.

[00:34:11] This is powerful.

[00:34:13] A lot of people will say things like this,

[00:34:17] it's not me but I receive this in a vision or a dream

[00:34:21] or from an encounter with an angel.

[00:34:23] If you know my theology,

[00:34:25] I believe that God can speak to us in visions.

[00:34:27] I believe that God can speak to us in dreams

[00:34:29] but they are always subservient to the revealed word of God

[00:34:34] including the gospel message that we have received.

[00:34:39] Now for some Paul's language is way too strong.

[00:34:41] You're like, oh man, couldn't he have softened it up

[00:34:44] a little bit?

[00:34:45] It was very harsh but I want to note a few things.

[00:34:48] First of all, this cutting off or this accursed thing

[00:34:52] that Paul is saying should happen

[00:34:54] to those who preach another gospel.

[00:34:56] It's an equal opportunity curse.

[00:34:58] Paul is saying it should happen to the angel,

[00:35:00] it should happen to people on my ministry team

[00:35:01] and it should happen to me if I were to do it.

[00:35:04] Secondly, this is not a reactional thing

[00:35:09] that Paul is saying.

[00:35:11] You know you or me,

[00:35:11] if we were writing the book of Galatians

[00:35:13] we might be writing it on our phone.

[00:35:15] It might be like a response, it might be like a text message

[00:35:17] and I'm so angry and we fire it off real quickly.

[00:35:20] Paul is speaking to an Emanuensis

[00:35:23] who is pinning what he is logically saying

[00:35:26] and he has a moment at the end.

[00:35:28] If it was all said and done and he's like,

[00:35:29] oh that was just the flesh,

[00:35:30] that was just me being angry with the Galatian people.

[00:35:32] He could have just bagged the whole thing.

[00:35:35] He says it twice here.

[00:35:36] He uses the word occurs twice as if to reiterate

[00:35:39] this is a thoughtful conclusion that I have come to.

[00:35:44] Okay, so this is not reactional in any way.

[00:35:47] And finally, he's speaking with such strong language

[00:35:50] because as I said there's a lot at stake right here.

[00:35:53] Since the gospel touches on the destiny

[00:35:56] of the souls of humanity,

[00:35:58] it's a message of the greatest importance.

[00:36:00] So love is what drove Paul to stay in strong terms

[00:36:06] that anyone who messes with the gospel should be cut off.

[00:36:10] You know if you were on a cruise

[00:36:12] and that cruise liner began to sink

[00:36:14] and you saw passengers rushing into a damaged lifeboat

[00:36:19] but they didn't know it but you saw that it was damaged.

[00:36:22] It would be loving for you to tell them

[00:36:25] that lifeboat is broken, that lifeboat is damaged.

[00:36:29] Paul could not stand by and watch false teachers

[00:36:33] promote a message that was destined

[00:36:35] to harm people who believed it.

[00:36:37] He had to point out the faulty lifeboat

[00:36:40] because the stakes were way too high.

[00:36:43] Now when I was in middle school, my friends and I,

[00:36:45] we like to play this game called quarters.

[00:36:47] I don't know if you have ever heard of it.

[00:36:49] I think we learned it from Michael Jordan.

[00:36:52] But basically we would carry around a big bag of quarters

[00:36:55] or a roll of quarters and any little break in class

[00:36:59] that we would get we would find a wall

[00:37:01] and two guys would go up against each other one on one

[00:37:04] and you'd throw your quarter against the wall.

[00:37:06] The other guy would throw his quarter against the wall

[00:37:08] and whoever's quarter was closer to the wall

[00:37:11] got to take the other guy's quarter.

[00:37:14] We weren't supposed to be playing it.

[00:37:16] They told us it was gambling or something.

[00:37:21] But so every once in a while a teacher would come by

[00:37:25] and they'd say, hey you gotta knock it off.

[00:37:26] You can't be playing that game here.

[00:37:30] But it was real low key.

[00:37:31] It wasn't like you got in big trouble or anything

[00:37:34] because it's just a couple of quarters.

[00:37:37] But imagine that we were there tossing quarters

[00:37:43] as a way to compete for our entire future earnings.

[00:37:48] You know, it's like all right this throw,

[00:37:50] if you win this one everything I make in the future

[00:37:54] it goes to you.

[00:37:56] What if somehow that was legally binding?

[00:38:00] You know that same teacher would not correct us

[00:38:03] with any softness.

[00:38:05] They'd say you gotta get out of here.

[00:38:07] You don't know what you're doing.

[00:38:08] You're potentially throwing away your life

[00:38:13] on something so small and so frivolous.

[00:38:19] Paul is coming in hot in this letter

[00:38:23] because the stakes are that high.

[00:38:26] Adding to the gospel should never be done.

[00:38:29] Should not add to it the idea that our salvation

[00:38:32] is contingent on the quality of our surrender to Jesus

[00:38:37] or that our salvation comes when we hold

[00:38:39] the right cultural expression of Christianity

[00:38:42] or that we can save ourselves by being good people

[00:38:45] who do good things or that we can save ourselves

[00:38:49] through regulations and religious ceremony.

[00:38:51] We can't and the stakes are high if we add these things

[00:38:57] because first of all,

[00:38:59] we will never live the Galatians five and six life

[00:39:01] if we add to the gospel

[00:39:04] but second of all, the whole world that we're in

[00:39:06] will get the wrong impression

[00:39:08] and not know the true gospel

[00:39:11] and therefore Christianity will be repulsive to them

[00:39:14] and they will flee from the very message

[00:39:17] and the very savior that came for them.

[00:39:21] So we have to hold tight

[00:39:23] to the divinely inspired death, burial

[00:39:27] and resurrection of Jesus on our behalf

[00:39:30] to bestow on all who believe in him

[00:39:33] the favor, the righteousness, the approval of God

[00:39:36] because we are in the sun,

[00:39:38] not because of anything that we have done in our lives.