Intro to Galatians: Letter of Liberation Galatians 1 EMN 17AUG14 Well Goodmorning Emmaus. Today we want to launch out on a study of Galatians that will take us through much of September and I think you re going to enjoy this study. Our plan is not to go verse by verse. That would probably take us a year. But Abe and I are going to go chapter by chapter with an introduction today and Abe doing chapter 1 next Sunday and I ll do chapter 2 on the Sunday before Labor Day and on through 6 chapters. I love to study the word this way and I hope you ll find God speaking to your own heart not just to fill your knowledge with what s in this book but in a way that challenges you to walk this life with Jesus by faith and living more fully and completely in the power of the Holy Spirit without which you ll never be able to live in a way that honors God. We live in challenging times and saying no to the desires of our lower nature (we ll see those in chapter 5) saying yes to God and living out the fruit of the Spirit is even more difficult than it was just a few years ago. If we re going to be a channel for God s work, His love, His blessing if we want to experience the blessing of God working through me, we re going to have to have HIS great power alive in us. Cause we ll never be that in our own strength. I had just a great conversation with my daughter Kim who is 1
serving the Lord with Fusion International in London England. And she was talking about how she looks back on her time at Bethel University now with huge appreciation for the things she learned there about living life to the glory of God. She s ministering in a very post-christian society. You would think that in a country that has a state church, there would be greater awareness of the Bible, greater knowledge of the gospel, greater participation in the work of the church to better society. But it s a society that has for the most part left the church, ignored God and said, don t bother me with that bible stuff. And she was talking about her Christian Foundations course way back as a freshman where she was challenged with the question, What kind of Christian do you want to be someone who is a REJECTOR of the culture around you or an ACCEPTER of the culture God has dropped you into or a TRANSFORMER of the culture, applying the transformative truth of the Gospel in a broken world with hoards of broken people. Great Question, isn t it? Lots of Christians are just REJECTORS Whatever the world is saying they feel they have to say the opposite. Their just attached to a by-gone era and wonder why things aren t like they used to be. They often are heard to speak truth but without any thought of whether how they speak truth draws people to Jesus or turns people away from Jesus. I know lots of folks like that. There are also Christian people in our culture who just go along with the flow. Whatever society says, - That s OK with me. 2
Whatever trend the culture is buying this decade boy they re right there. In fact if you looked at how they live and how they process moral and ethical issues, you wouldn t find any daylight at all between how they think and what the society is advocating. I had a great conversation this week about whether those folks should call themselves Christians at all cause the words of Jesus and the truth of scripture doesn t impact them at all. But those are not the only two choices Rejecter / Accepter. Some look at Jesus who came to seek and save the lost. Jesus who came to redeem lost people into relationship with God and with the promise of abundant life - with the promise of freedom from the bondage of sin Jesus who went to the Cross not only to forgive our sin but who rose from the dead to demonstrate that His power could really change our life and through us would reshape our society and our world. That s a great question isn t it? What kind of Christian do you want to be? Rejectors make much impact on their world. Accepters don t accomplish much of anything for God. Transformers those folks often see powerful, amazing, impactful stuff happen as God works in them and in the folks they touch with the love of Jesus. I know what I want to be. Now let me tell you, that s a good set of glasses for reading Galatians. We re going to be challenged with this question again and again, cause Paul the apostle writing to these several churches in the Southern part of Galatia Derbe and Iconium and 3
Lystra where he d won people to Jesus and planted churches there. We think he may have just left those churches and gotten over to Antioch in Pisidia his next major stop and he hears about stuff that s happened in those places just days after he left them. And with a heavy heart, he has to sit down and write a tough corrective letter back to those people he loves in those churches he started. So this is a very early letter of Paul the apostle. Probably the first of his letters to the churches. The major theme of the letter is God s grace to us in Jesus. And he s posing powerful correctives to those who came into the church after Paul left, or just as he was leaving. The Judaizers they re called. They came from Jerusalem, and they basically said to these new Christians, It s great that you ve received Jesus. That s good, but now let us give you the rest of the story. If you really want to be a full Christian If you really want to be acceptable to God, you ve got to become a Jew religiously and men you ve got to go through the Jewish rite of circumcision women you go through the ceremonies appropriate for you and practice the Jewish kosher rules. If you re a realy Christian you ll go through these ceremonies and live by these rules. And until you do that, you re not a real Christian, you re not really in, your life really doesn t measure up. They probably even went so far as to say you know that Paul, the gospel he s preaching isn t the full gospel. He hasn t given 4
you the truth, the whole truth. He isn t really an apostle you know, He wasn t one of the 12 He hadn t really known or walked with Jesus, so don t trust his gospel. Don t trust his authority. Now that helps us a little bit to date the letter very early, in Paul s ministry, cause in Acts 14 is the story of Paul s first missionary journey into lower Galatia. Acts 15 tells us about these Judaizers who were disrupting things in the churches preaching this doctrine of circumcision and Kosher law. So the apostles in Jerusalem call all the leaders together and they settle this issue and issue a proclamation about whether or not gentile Christians have to be fulfilled with the Jewish law. The decision is absolutely consistent with what Paul writes in Galatians, but Paul makes no reference in Galatians to that council. Why not? Cause it hadn t happened yet. If it had, Paul would undoubtedly referred to it, cause in that council the Apostles all decided. Paul s right. Trusting Jesus receiving God s grace is what it s all about Jesus + law (Jesus plus rules) is not the gospel. It s Jesus. Jesus alone. In the words of the book by Tullian Tchividjian (Billy Graham s preacher Son in Law) Jesus plus Nothing equals Everything. Having Jesus is what Christianity is all about. It s not Jesus plus something more. And that s a key theme of this letter. And it s what you ll discover as you walk with God. It s not Jesus plus a list of rules, Jesus plus a right bible interpretation, Jesus plus being good for God. You walk with Jesus and His Spirit will lead 5
You and show you how to live. When you read God s Word and ask for the Spirit to Guide you, and if you orient your life to how Jesus through the Holy Spirit directs you, you re going to be OK. You know, Martin Luther loved the book of Galatians. All the original reformers just loved this book. It was studying Galatians that Martin Luther came to personal faith in Jesus. It liberated him from trying to earn his salvation by being good for God. Luther, you know spent all of his early life taught by the church that to have salvation he had to do the church rituals and strive to become holy. He left worldly life and became a monk and a seminary professor because he was trying to be good for God. And his heart was still empty. He was so frustrated with the sin he couldn t get rid of and thinking that if his good works could outweigh his sins he d earn salvation. And as holy as he was, he knew he was an utter failure. He went on a pilgrimage to Rome and there he saw that the church he was trusting to save him had become so unbelievably worldly and corrupt, and it drove him back into Galatians and there he saw the beauty of the gospel. God saves us not cause we re good God saves us because we put our faith in Jesus who died for our sins who died for our failures. And trusting in Jesus absolutely turned his life around. Like so many thousands down through the years since the death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus plus nothing equals everything. I ran across these words by C.S.Lewis this week. Christianity will teach you that in fact you cannot be good (not for 24 hours) on your own moral effort at all. And then it will teach you that even if you were, you still wouldn t have achieved the purpose for which 6
you were made. Mere morality is not the end of life. You were made for something quite different from that. Isn t that good being moral is not the reason for life. It s trusting in Jesus living life following Him It s Jesus who can change you. Jesus plus nothing equals everything. As I wrap this up, let me just kind of touch on a number of themes were going to see in Galatians. You know this book is going to stretch us and challenge us. It s going to make us a bit uncomfortable at times. We re going to see some wonderful biographical stuff on Paul. How did he know it was God who had called him and how did he learn this powerful doctrine of salvation by grace through faith, quite apart from working to impress God. How did Paul know that the gospel He preached was right / really truth? How did He discover that? We re going to see that the ministry was sometimes painful for Paul, but how committed he was to serve the Savior. As I ve already mentioned, we re going to see so clearly that good works could never save us and make us right with God. That the only way into relationship with the Lord is by faith trusting in the Grace of God that comes to us through the cross of Christ. Salvation by Grace through Faith. We re going to have a chance to study how Christianity relates to the Old Testament and where Christian spirituality is similar to and where it s different from Jewish spirituality. Probably the biggest theme in Galatians is Liberty vs. Slavery. He s going to say, It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. 7
and that you can be under slavery to a list of Christian rules or you can be under slavery to a lifestyle of sin. Neither are real freedom. He s going to warn us away from those and teach us how to live in Grace and Freedom under the leading of the Holy Spirit. Another theme is just that - Life in the Spirit. What does it mean and what does it look like to be led by, directed by the Holy Spirit. He s going tell us where the power comes from to say no to our temptations and yes to God - How to live by faith. He ll challenge us to live in faith just like we were saved by faith. So this great Letter of Liberation has been so helpful for Christians to discover what it means to live for Christ and to experience genuine liberty in Christ. Harry Houdini, the great magician and escape artist challenged the police department wherever he went. He could be locked in any jail cell in the country, he claimed, and set himself free quickly and easily. He always he kept his promise, but one time something went wrong. Houdini entered the jail in his street clothes; the heavy, metal doors clanged shut behind him. He took from his belt a concealed piece of metal, strong and flexible. He set to work immediately, but something seemed to be unusual about this lock. For 30 minutes he worked and got nowhere. An hour passed, and still he had not opened the door. By now he was bathed in sweat and panting in exasperation, but he still could not pick the lock. Finally, after laboring for 2 hours, Harry Houdini collapsed in frustration and failure against the door he could not unlock. But 8
when he fell against the door, it swung open! It had never been locked at all! But in his mind it was locked and that was all it took to keep him from opening the door and walking out of the jail cell. You re going to love Galatians, especially if you re wondering how to know that your sins are forgiven and to have a relationship with the God who created you. Galatians is going to tell us. But you re also going to love Galatians if you ve been struggling under a load of self condemnation and just frustration with who you are. God s going to show you in this little letter just how much He loves and values you. And you re to love Galatians if you ve been struggling with a habit pattern you seem powerless to overcome and get free. How in the world you re going to get beyond this and break out into the sunshine where you can enjoy life and live free? Galatians is all about how to find Freedom in Christ to be all you were created to be. And I d encourage you to read ahead and study along. I discovered on my smart phone that that wonderful online bible called You Version can read it to you. In fact, it takes exactly the same time to read to me all the way through Galatians as it takes to drive from Owatonna to Northfield. I ve been listening to it and enjoying it again and again and again. 9
Every preacher eventually has the experience of using a sermon illustration that just sends people s minds spinning off into the ether. And sometimes we never get your minds back onto the subject. That s why I try not to use sermon illustrations about chicken dinners close to noon. And there s a story floating around Emmaus that I ve been assured is true of a greatly loved pastor bringing a live lamb into the pulpit and while he s telling the story the lamb drops a load of dirty and nasty on his shoes. And the more controversial the illustration is, sometimes the harder it is to really make the point the preacher is trying to make. Last Sunday had one of those, and I know that some of you wondered if there was some agenda in the story you heard in the introduction to last Sunday s sermon. Well, I want you to know that I ve gone back to both the recording and the sermon script and I ve talked to the preacher to make sure that indeed there was no agenda in the illustration. It was about the struggle of being good relationship with people whose lifestyle we might not approve of and how sometimes just their dress or their manner makes us struggle to have anything to do with them. But I want to assure you that that was not about someone advancing an agenda or trying to move the church some particular direction. It was about the struggle of belonging with those we d love to avoid. So I just wanted to tell you that, and that one of the things I ll be working on with the Council is how we address controversial issues. Now I want to ask you to pray with me that I don t bring any huge distractions into this message that really is an introduction to the book of Galatians we ll be studying for several weeks. 10