Well, good morning, church. Happy New Year. I hope you all had a good Christmas holiday.
! We are in the book of Galatians this morning. That is page 193 in the Pew Bible, if you'd like to turn
! with me there. Last week we began our series in this book, and we'll be considering the message
of Galatians for the next few months as we begin this new year and as we head towards Easter. Now,
the book of Galatians is a book that is all about clarifying the true and real message of what the
New Testament calls the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. If you've been around Trinity for a
while, you know that we love this word. We even talk about being a gospel-centered church, and we
talk a lot about the gospel, well, because the New Testament talks a lot about the gospel, and because,
well, the whole Bible is really all about this thing we call the gospel, and because the thing that has
sustained and nourished and protected and advanced the church throughout its history
is the gospel, the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. But here's the thing. It is very possible, some might
even say inevitable, for churches and for Christians at times to get muddled and mixed up and confused
about what the gospel really is. And that's what happened in Galatia in Paul's day, and it can happen again
and again in our day and again and again in our own lives. And the results of that confusion aren't just
unfortunate. They are disastrous. Galatians is one of the Apostle Paul's most passionate letters.
You know, when we're thinking about renewing the website for every sermon series, we think,
hey, what would be a good verse to put on the home page of the website? There are a lot of
verses in Galatians we probably would not put on the home page of the website.
Why? Even in our passage today, right out of the gate, we hear Paul speaking with passion and with
urgency. He breaks from convention in typical letter writing and just gets right to the heart of the
matter. No thanksgiving, no praise. He says, I'm astonished. Why such passion? Why such urgency?
Because when the gospel is at stake, everything is at stake. Everything.
So let's turn to Galatians chapter 1, verses 6 through 10. And for context, I'm going to begin
reading at verse 1, but we'll focus on verses 6 through 10 today. Let me pray as we come to God's
Word. Father, help us now as we come to this passage of Scripture. Oh, Lord, our rock and our Redeemer,
would You help us to rest and see and rejoice again in this glorious good news of our Lord Jesus
Christ. We pray this in Christ's mighty name. Amen. All right, Galatians, picking up in chapter 1,
verse 1, reading through verse 10. Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus
Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead, and all the brothers who are with me to the
churches of Galatia. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,
who gave Himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of our
God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. I am astonished that you are so quickly
deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.
not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of
Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one
we preach to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching
to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the approval
of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be
a servant of Christ. So here's the problem in the churches of Galatia. In the late 40s, the apostle
Paul arrived in the region of southern Galatia, what's now kind of south-central Turkey, and upon
arrival he proclaimed the good news of what the God of Israel had done in Jesus Christ. And as they heard
this message, both Jews and Gentiles responded in faith. They received the good news for what it truly
is, good news. And as a result, they began their new life under the lordship of Jesus, Israel's Messiah,
and the world's true Lord. And the gospel had changed everything for them, their relationship to God,
their relationship to each other, their relationship to the world, to themselves, to the future, to their
work, to their trials, everything. But now, not long after that, sometime a little before 50 A.D.,
Paul needs to write to them because as he says in verse 6, they are turning to a different gospel.
And as verse 7 immediately clarifies, this different gospel is really no gospel at all. Not that there is
another one, Paul says. In other words, this different gospel is really a non-gospel. Other gospels may
sound plausible at first, but in reality, they are no gospel at all. So what we see, what we can see in this,
even in this opening paragraph, is Paul beginning to contrast and distinguish the true gospel
from any non-gospel. Like the Galatians, we often struggle to tell the difference between the true
gospel and what is a different gospel that is really no gospel at all. We have a hard time distinguishing
the real from the fake, and if we're honest, we sometimes aren't sure why it really matters that much.
I mean, you have your version of the gospel, I have mine. Does it really matter all that much at the end of the day?
Why bother? Well, let's take a look at some of these contrasts, both explicit and implicit, in verses 6 through 10,
and let's find out. The first contrast that Paul makes is this. The true gospel exalts grace.
Non-gospels distort grace. Look again at verses 6 and 7. He says,
"'I'm astonished you're so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.'"
Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort
the gospel of Christ. Look at that phrase, "'Him who called you in the grace of Christ.'"
Him there refers to God, right? In particular, God the Father. And what, according to the true gospel,
does God the Father call us to Himself with? The grace of Christ. There it is. The heart of the gospel
is the grace of Jesus Christ. Grace, utterly unmerited favor and acceptance, purchased and won and freely
given through the person and work of Jesus Christ. The true gospel exalts grace. It's a message of a
lavish grace from first to last. I mean, consider if you were to summarize the gospel, how would you do it?
We often think of summarizing the gospel with four short words, God, sin, Christ, response, right? Well,
let's walk through that. First, it begins with God, right? The triune God creates and sustains all things.
If you want to learn more about the doctrine of creation, come next week, Sunday school, 9 a.m. Luke
began us this morning. It was awesome. Check out the podcast. You can catch up. You can come. You won't
miss a beat. Come at 9 o'clock. But according to the Bible, does God have to create the world?
Is God somehow obligated to make the world out of nothing and to give it being, to sort of make up for
some kind of lack in His essential being or perfect beauty or perfect eternal happiness? No.
God creates you and me and the world and everything out of His sheer good pleasure simply as an act of
grace. And He places humanity in the midst of His creation as His image bearers. And is this something
that humans warrant through their own desert, through their own being? No. God imparts His image to us
humans as a sheer gift. And He gives humanity a vocation, a calling to bear that image and to
steward creation for His glory. So, the gospel begins with God, and even in the beginning, it's full of grace.
But of course, before we get to the heart of the good news, there's the bad news, right? Humanity decides
to turn away from God rather than receiving and resting in our existence as a gift from God,
rather than honoring God as God and living for God, the source of who we are out of His own gracious giving.
We push God away. We rebel against Him and act as if we can be a law unto ourselves.
And this is the sort of absurdity that the Bible calls sin.
Because here, as we talked about this morning in Sunday School, Luke so beautifully illustrated,
here we rest in the branches of God's grace and love, just in our very being. And instead,
we start to saw the branch off, thinking we can be gods unto ourselves.
And this sin brings death, spiritual death, and eventually eternal death. Rather than living
under God's blessing as His creatures, we reject God and come under sin's curse. God, sin. But it doesn't
end there. The third part of the good news is the heart of it all, Christ. God comes in the person of
Jesus Christ, fully human and fully God. And because He's fully God, He actually does what no human being
tragically had ever done. He actually loves God and worships God fully and completely. He lives a life of
utter freedom and perfection to the glory of God. And because He's fully human, taking our nature into
Himself, He does that for us. Because He's human, He can do it for us. And when He died on the cross, He died to bear the
punishment for our sin. And when He rose on the third day, He rose as a promise that all who are united to
Him will also rise with Him to eternal life. Now, do you see, do you see that the center of the gospel
is not the work that we do, but the work that Jesus has done? All that He purchases and accomplishes for
us, a perfect record of righteousness through His life that warrants God's unmitigated blessing,
a complete wiping away of our sinful record through His death, all of the curse done away,
total assurance of new life now and forever through His resurrection, all of this is done by Him for us.
We were helpless, guilty, doomed.
Our bankruptcy wasn't partial, but total. I've read recently that there are actually two forms of
bankruptcy. Maybe this isn't true anymore. It was kind of an old book. For the reason there's two
kinds of bankruptcy. One is sort of like, yeah, you're kind of in trouble, but maybe you can work
your way out. And there's another kind of bankruptcy like, you're toast. Like, you lose everything, right?
I forget what title it, which one is. Some of you finance people can tell me afterwards.
Right? Which one is our state? It's the latter. We're utterly forfeit.
But what we could not pay and what we could never pay, Jesus gladly and in love paid in full for all who trust in Him.
He gave Himself, the beginning of Galatians says.
So, you see, it's grace. It's radical, undeserved grace. He didn't have to save us. He didn't have to do any of it.
And we certainly don't deserve it. We had actually done everything to not deserve it.
But He looked upon us in love and lavished His grace upon us.
And now, here's the very radical thing.
And this will be the chord that Paul strikes throughout the book of Galatians.
Now, there is no righteousness.
Nothing.
We need to add to be made right with God.
When you are united to Christ through faith, His perfect righteousness is credited to you.
Is there anything that you could add to that?
To warrant God's good favor towards you?
To get a little more of God's blessing in your day to day?
Imagine you could take a spaceship to the surface of the sun.
I know that's not possible, but we're imagining, right?
Burning with the heat of a million furnaces.
And imagine you're there in your spaceship and you roll your window down.
Because it's an old spaceship, so you've got to roll the window down like this.
You take a matchstick, a little match, and you throw it into the fire.
Would that matchstick add anything to the brilliance or perfection or heat of that star at the center of our universe?
No, nothing.
And so there is nothing that you can add to the perfect righteousness of Christ that clothes you completely when you are united to Him.
And that means God the Father looks upon all those united to Christ with absolute, unchanging acceptance and favor.
On your good days and on your bad days.
And what sins?
What sins are left for you to atone for?
You have a perfect righteousness, but what about all your sins?
But consider what sins are left for you to atone for that His cross hasn't already paid.
From the cross, Jesus Himself declared it's finished.
And that declaration, it is finished, standing at the center of redemptive history, stretches in every direction.
Stretches back over your past sins, over all of your present sins, and even into the future over your sins yet to come.
It's finished.
There's nothing left to atone for.
The record has been wiped clean.
And that means any wrath, any curse, any justice your sins rightly deserved are satisfied.
You see, in the gospel, God doesn't turn a blind eye toward our sins.
He actually sees them fully and in more depth than you and I could ever know.
An old pastor from the Philly area famously once said,
Here's the good news.
You're much worse than you think you are.
God doesn't turn a blind eye toward our sins.
He sees it all.
But He sees them as completely atoned for at the cross.
Justice has been fully satisfied when Jesus died for you.
Nothing can be added.
Nothing taken away.
And so the gospel proclaims to sinners
full and complete reconciliation with God,
an ongoing life with God,
an eternity with God,
fully and totally,
in every moment of it,
by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.
You add nothing to what He has done.
You take nothing away.
The only thing we can do
is receive it.
This is the fourth part of the gospel,
the response.
To entrust ourselves to the risen Lord Jesus,
to be united to Him
through what the Bible calls repentance and faith.
This is the response
that the gospel calls for.
Faith.
What is faith?
Faith is when we stop trusting in ourselves
to be right with God
and entrust ourselves
to the risen Lord Jesus.
Faith is relying wholly on Jesus
and on His grace
and nothing in us
to be accepted by God
and to live for Him.
So the true gospel exalts grace.
But non-gospels, on the other hand,
they distort grace.
We see this in verse 7
where Paul says,
there are some who trouble you
and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
It's interesting that the word distort there
means not just to kind of confuse
or to corrupt,
but it even means something like to reverse,
to kind of turn on its head.
Now how were these teachers
who showed up at Galatia
flipping or reversing the gospel?
Well, it's clear from reading the book of Galatians
that after Paul left,
false teachers showed up
who started to teach
what was in essence a different gospel.
And we see a glimpse
of what they were probably teaching in Acts 15
that Kosh read for us earlier.
It says,
but some men came down from Judea
and were teaching the brothers,
unless you're circumcised
according to the custom of Moses,
you cannot be saved.
Now you can see why that message
might have been plausible
to these new churches in Galatia, right?
After all,
these teachers who showed up,
they were from Judea.
Wasn't that where Jesus himself lived
and taught during his earthly ministry?
Wasn't that where the message of Christ
originated and rang out from?
They're from Judea.
Talk about a pedigree.
And not only were they from Judea,
but they were advocating something
that seemed ancient
and rested on good ancient tradition,
something even prescribed by Moses himself.
Just think of all the Old Testament passages
these teachers could have quoted
to show that God required circumcision
under the Mosaic Covenant.
How plausible it must have sounded
to the Galatian Christians
as these teachers came and said,
yes, Jesus is the Messiah,
but you still need to obey the law of Moses
and be circumcised if you're going to be saved.
But Paul rightly sees
that even though on the surface
that sounds plausible,
it's a distortion.
It's a reversal
of the true gospel of Christ,
the radical fulfillment
that Jesus had accomplished.
Why?
Why was it a reversal?
Because it was making a human work
a precondition of God's grace
and favor of their salvation.
Their message was basically saying
that your obedience to the law
must precede God's acceptance of you.
First, you obey.
Then, God will save you.
That's what they were saying.
But you see,
that gets it all backwards.
The true gospel
is that God saves you
by His grace in Christ.
And then, in freedom and joy
and the transformation
of being saved by grace,
then you obey.
The false teachers were saying,
obey in order to be saved,
but the gospel says,
God saves you by grace
in order that you can even
think about obeying.
The false teachers were saying,
become the right sort of person.
You have to kind of take on
this exterior thing
of becoming a good Jew,
getting circumcised,
or whatever it is, right?
Become the right sort of person first,
then God will save you.
But the gospel says,
in Christ,
God rescues you by His grace,
and then by that same grace,
He'll make you more and more
into the image of His Son.
You see, friends,
any version of grace
that makes it sound like
you have to earn
or warrant
or achieve it
isn't grace at all.
It's not a gift
if you have to earn it first.
If you've worked
and earned something,
even something so slight
as circumcision,
that's not a gift.
It's a wage.
It's not grace.
Grace is something
you don't deserve
and can't earn,
and it has to come to you
freely.
At the cost of another,
yes, but freely to you.
Non-gospels
distort this grace.
The true gospel
exalts this grace.
That's the first contrast.
But what difference
does this all make?
Well, there are actually
three more contrasts
that Paul makes
in this passage
or that are kind of
implicit in this passage,
and we're going to go
through them quickly
to see why all this matters.
Here's the next contrast.
The true gospel
comforts the heart.
Non-gospels
trouble the heart.
Did you notice
how Paul starts his letter
in verse 3?
As he gets going,
he says,
grace and peace to you.
Grace and peace,
friends,
are inseparable.
Where grace
is received
and experienced
and believed,
peace abounds.
That's why
the true gospel
comforts the heart
because if your standing
before God
is based on the grace
of Christ,
not your works,
not your performance,
not your pedigree,
not your position,
then you will have peace
because nothing can shake
or change
or diminish
the grace of Christ
towards us.
It's a well
that doesn't run dry.
It began in eternity past
and will run
for all eternity to come.
But non-gospels
trouble the heart.
Notice what Paul says
in verse 7,
there are some
who trouble you
and want to distort
the gospel of Christ.
If you are standing
with God,
it depends
on your performance
or some work
that you have done.
even if you feel
like you've just
got to add
a little bit
to what Christ
has done.
If that's
where your standing
depends,
you can never
have real peace
because who's to say
when the work
is enough
and who's to say
you've done
whatever that work
is with enough
sincerity
or consistency
because God
doesn't just see
your outward actions,
He sees your heart
motivations as well.
Who can say
whether even the best
of our good works
were done
for true love
of neighbor
and for genuine
love of God
and not some other
mixed motive?
After all,
was it not also
to look good?
Was it not also
to prove
a little bit
that I'm a good person?
Was it not also
done in fear
that I might not
measure up?
Now, at this point
you might be thinking,
but wait a minute,
wait a minute.
If God saves us
completely by His grace,
what motivation
is there
for doing good
at all?
I mean,
if we have complete
and total peace
with God
through Christ,
why obey?
Now, that's a very
understandable question
and Paul will have
a lot to say
about it
as we get to chapters
5 and 6
of Galatians.
But consider
just here in our passage
the difference
between a calm
and a troubled heart.
Imagine two boats
out on the ocean.
One boat's sailing
across the calm sea
and the other
is sailing across
the troubled sea.
Which sea
is going to be
more productive
for sailing?
Well, of course,
it's the calm sea, right?
The wind fills the sails
and the boat glides
across the water
to its destination.
But consider
the boat amidst
the troubled sea.
On this boat,
there may be
a lot of activity.
The crew is straining
at the oars.
They're tying down
the cargo.
They're fighting
against the wind.
There's activity
and work on all sides.
But are they
getting anywhere?
Just so,
in the same way,
a heart
troubled
by a non-gospel
may look
like a vessel
full of activity
wildly
pulling at the oars.
But is that activity
truly done
for love of God
and love of neighbor?
Or is it also done
for oneself
or in competition
with another
or just in response
to a weary,
burdened,
conscious
trying to get relief?
You see,
only the heart
made calm
by the gospel
will then give rise
to a life
of genuine love.
when the storm
of a guilty soul,
when the storm
of a troubled soul,
a soul burdened
with idols
that can never satisfy,
when a stormy soul
meets Christ,
when a stormy soul
sees Christ
clothed
in all of His grace,
going into the storm
of the cross
for you,
bearing your guilt
and sin,
and coming through
victorious for you,
when the stormy soul
beholds that
and the weight of sin
is lifted
from your heart
and you hear
the Father
say over you
what He spoke
over Jesus,
this is my beloved
child
in whom I am
well pleased.
When the Spirit
comes and makes you
alive to that,
to the love of God
and the costly grace
of God,
paying the infinite
debt of your sin,
oh,
when that calm
sweeps
over the once
troubled soul,
then
real
and genuine
love
begin to flow
for God
and for neighbor.
We will begin
to love
not in fear
or anxiety
or with a troubled
conscience,
we just love
because He first
loved us.
And out of love
for this God,
we delight
to keep His commands.
Yes,
we'll even strive
and pursue holiness
out of love.
we will raise
our sails
to the wind,
we'll put our oars
into the water
and pull
with all the strength
that He provides,
strength that comes
also by His grace.
So,
the true gospel
comforts
and calms
the heart
and empowers
the heart,
but non-gospels
simply trouble
the heart.
The next contrast
we see is this.
The true gospel
is odious.
Yes,
odious,
offensive,
but true gospel
is odious
to man.
Non-gospels
are odious
to God.
You see,
the true gospel
tells us,
right,
that apart from
radical grace,
we cannot please God.
and that is a blow
to all
of our human pride.
And in our fallen nature,
we don't really
like that message.
The sinful human heart
doesn't really accept
its radical sinfulness
and its dependence
on radical grace
in Christ.
That message
is odious to us,
but by His Spirit,
through the word
of the gospel itself,
through the message
of grace,
God actually softens
our hearts
and breaks through
our pride.
And what was once
odious and offensive
to us becomes sweeter
and more desirable
than anything this world
could offer.
Through the Spirit's
inner working,
we see that it's better
to be loved by God
in His grace
and to find acceptance
in His infinite favor
than to cling to our pride
and our self-justification.
So yes,
the true gospel
is a true gospel
of God.
non-gospels, they steal God's glory. Because after all, if the deciding factor between my
ruin and my rescue is what I do, whether that's my circumcision or any other human work,
then ultimately I get the glory because, well, I did it.
And these false gospels ultimately lead God's people into ruin. They don't just diminish God's
grace or steal His glory. They lead God's people into ruin because false gospels cannot save,
because they point us away from Christ and point us to ourselves.
And friend, because false gospels are odious to God,
that means they should be odious to the church as well.
That's why Paul puts it the way he does in verses 8 through 9. He's telling the churches in Galatia
to be discerning and to be decisive when it comes to these non-gospels. It doesn't matter what the
source is. Even if Paul himself were to come back preaching a false gospel, a different gospel than
the one they received that exalts the grace of Christ, what should they do? Throw him out.
After all, everything's at stake in the gospel. Who God is, who we are, who Christ is and what He's done,
the basis of our life and work, the motivation for our love and deeds, the assurance of our eternal
future. It's all at stake in the gospel. The gospel isn't just something that unbelievers need to hear.
It's something that believers need to constantly live in and unpack and unfold and rest in every
single day of our lives.
One more contrast. We've seen that the true gospel exalts grace.
Non-gospels distort grace. We've seen that the true gospel comforts the heart. Non-gospels trouble the
heart. We've seen that the true gospel, yes, is odious to fallen humans, but the non-gospel is odious to God.
Last, in verse 10, we see that the true gospel frees us from people-pleasing,
whereas non-gospels shackle us to human approval. Look at how Paul ends this kind of introduction to
his letter. For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I
were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Apparently, some of Paul's
opponents, including most likely these false teachers at Galatia, accused Paul of being a people-pleaser.
They might have said something like this. You know, this Paul, he preaches a message of nothing but
grace. He doesn't think you need to keep the law of Moses to be saved. Do you know why he's doing
that? He's doing that so he can win an audience and gain human approval. Paul's gospel is just a
people-pleasing gospel. That's what they were accusing Paul of. But what does Paul say here? He says,
no, it's actually just the opposite. In his former life as a Pharisee, Paul was obsessed with his own
performance. In the next passage of Galatians in verse 14, he says,
I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people. So extremely zealous was I for
the tradition of my fathers. Did you notice the language of comparison there? Paul says,
I was advancing beyond many of my own age.
You see, living in a non-gospel inevitably leads us to comparison and competition.
If my works, if my performance is what sets me apart and saves me, then I will inevitably start
comparing myself to others to see how well I'm faring. For Paul, it was, am I keeping the law of
Moses closely enough? And you know what? He thought he was doing a pretty good job.
But what is it for us? Am I engaging in good works sacrificially enough? Am I being impacted by the
Spirit's work enthusiastically or miraculously enough? Am I being the perfect parent or the
perfect student or the perfect friend enough? All of this focus on the self then leads to comparison.
How do my good works measure up against him or her? How does my experience of the Spirit compare to
him or her? How does my parenting or friendship or work compare to theirs? And when that comparison
starts to take hold, then we inevitably become trapped in human-centered approval or disapproval,
even if the human whose approval we live for is our own, the own voice in our own heads.
Paul says, I don't live that way anymore. He's actually found real interior freedom from human approval
and people-pleasing and comparison. Like a bird flying out of a cage into the bright blue sky,
he's found the freedom. Where? In Christ. If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant
of Christ. You see, the gospel of grace takes our eyes off of ourselves and off of comparison with other
people and puts our eyes solely on Christ and His beauty and His power and His perfection and above all
His grace. And when the grace of the gospel reaches us and we're united to Christ by faith, we don't live
anymore for what other people think of us, not even for what we ourselves think of us. We care only for what
Christ thinks of us. We don't serve others anymore. We don't serve ourselves. We only serve Him. Our lives
are hidden with Him. And friend, if I am a servant of Christ, the King of the ages, the risen Lord,
the never-failing friend, the one whose very name is faithful and true,
then how could I possibly live anymore as a servant of mere human approval?
You have the favor of the Lord of heaven and earth. His grace rescues you and empowers you every day.
That's all that matters. Now, I don't have to live to get the approval of others.
I don't live to get something from other people, you see. No, in Christ, now I can live simply
to bless them and do them good. I don't need their approval anymore. And because I don't need them,
now I can truly love them. That's the power of the true gospel. It can change the very structures
and motivations of your heart. It can change the very direction of your desires. It has the power
to truly set you free. Do you know this gospel, the true gospel of God's grace in Christ,
the gospel that calms your heart and sets you free? Or are you still flirting with a different gospel
that's really no gospel at all? If the Spirit's showing you that this morning,
then look at your own heart. Look at your own heart and say with Paul,
I'm astonished you're so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ.
Be astonished with Paul, and then run to the arms of your Savior, and let the waves of His grace
calm your troubled heart, and let the freedom of His grace lift you up and let you fly. Let's pray together.
Lord Jesus, we simply praise You that Your grace has reached even us. Would we live in the peace
and in the freedom of peace and in the freedom of that? Help us to have discerning eyes and discerning hearts
when the non-gospels that flood our world and even our own minds and hearts come rushing in. Lord,
quiet the voices of these false gospels and help us to see again that there's only one,
only one, only one gospel, only one Lord.
And in Him, we are loved forever. We pray this in Jesus' mighty name. Amen.