Galatians: No Other Gospel

Welcome to this brand new series in the book of Galatians. This will be the first of our two in depth studies of Scripture this year, meaning that unlike all the other series we have over the course of a 52 week period, in the next two months, we’ll be looking line by line at a book and the passage and analyzing it so that we can apply it to our lives faithfully. In July we’re going to study the book of Revelation, at least the first part of it and really try to get a handle on for the spring and summer, how life should be in a church that is not cultural, but faithful. Let’s start Galatians 1:6-10. ⁶ 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— ⁷ not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. ⁸ But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. ⁹ 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. ¹⁰ 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. Let me give you some framework into this book because we have to keep it in our minds to really begin to understand the complexity of what’s going on that the Apostle Paul is addressing. Paul set house churches up in an area called “Galatia” which is modern day Turkey. If you want to read about these churches, and how Paul set them up, you just need to read Acts 13-14. While he was in the cities of Galatia, Paul was stoned multiple times. He was stoned multiple times for preaching the gospel, that is, he was having a theological conversation with people and they decided they needed to kill him. Let me give you the modern day version of this: it would be like talking with several theological leaders about the legitimacy of gay marriage and the implications it has politically and religiously and then one of the opponents getting up, finding a glass Snapple bottle and smashing over your head. Basically this was happening in all the churches that Paul and Barnabas were setting up. Yet, despite this challenge of being stoned to death, they persisted and persisted. As a result because you can’t stop God no matter how hard you try, a group of people called “Judiazers” came and tried messing up the gospel message that Paul was bringing on behalf of Jesus Christ. So, with knowing that as the background, verse 6. Allow me to break down verse 6 for you: Paul wants everybody to hear this, in regards to messing up the gospel. If you believe something other than the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as the reason you have been freed from sin and bondage, then you are not just turning from the religion of Christianity, but you are turning yourself away from the grace of God that is holding your very life together. Let me tell you how this happens, because we often lose the gospel of Jesus Christ, when we become culturally assimilated into the religion and lifestyle of Christianity. Case in point, it’s why the Westboro Baptist church can go and do what they do: burn books from other religions, protest at military funerals, and hate on gay people. They do this in the name of God. They call themselves believers in Christ. But they don’t believe in Jesus Christ and His saving grace, they believe in an idea that has nothing to do with Jesus or God, but a legalism attached to nothing. You heard it here first, the founder of that church will come out of the closet. But they are the extreme example. We have another example of this happening where the gospel is distorted for no reason other than the fact that it goes against human nature. Human nature dictates that we have to earn our place which is directly against what the gospel of Jesus is. Here’s what Jeremiah, the prophet says, because this isn’t the first time people tried to do this. We find this in religious communities most often. Yes, atheists are their own religious community. They want to be gutsy and pretentiously agnostic, but they believe in the god of no god. So, let them have their own religious rules and sects. Jeremiah 23. ²⁵ “I have heard what the prophets say who prophesy lies in my name. They say, ‘I had a dream! I had a dream!’ ²⁶ How long will this continue in the hearts of these lying prophets, who prophesy the delusions of their own minds? ²⁷ They think the dreams they tell one another will make my people forget my name, just as their ancestors forgot my name through Baal worship. ²⁸ Let the prophet who has a dream recount the dream, but let the one who has my word speak it faithfully. For what has straw to do with grain?” declares the Lord. ²⁹ “Is not my word like fire,” declares the Lord, “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces? – Jeremiah 23:25-29 NIV People, historically, liked to do whatever they felt made them more prosperous and more comfortable. Am I wrong? Of course not. I’ll tell you right now that, the reason I became a pastor, the reason I don’t take a fulltime role at the church, is not because I can’t. It’s because that wouldn’t be what God called me to. We get so confused sometimes thinking that God calls us to a place where life is easier. But that’s absolutely not true! We need to stop believing in the lie that God’s call on our life is to make our life much more comfortable. Honestly, it would save me hundreds of thousands of dollars over the period of a lifetime if I didn’t have to go to church and preach. It’s much more profitable for me to sit at home on a Sunday than it is to drive 80 miles one way and 80 miles back. But we want to tell ourselves, people want to tell us that God says such and such and if it makes our lives perceivably easier, then we’re all for it. That’s not the gospel. In fact, that’s trading the gospel for something else—some imagination of sorts. As believers we need to no distort the truth of the gospel. We shouldn’t be watering it down so that it becomes acceptable in the 21^st century. It just doesn’t work. I want to address this in terms of diet fads. In particular, the prosperity gospel which you may think only manifests itself on TV, but it’s everywhere in different forms. If you ever heard a pastor say, well if you pray x number of times, then you’ll be on your way to a better paycheck. Or if you start memorizing more bible passages then you’ll be able to make more money. Or if you encountered the, if you pray a certain way, or do a certain religious practice or read a religious book, then you’ll know that it’s all BS. Because nothing that you did or you do can ever make your life better. It just doesn’t happen that way. Likewise, it never will happen that way. I’m just saying. I’ve even heard in hospitals that if the level 4 cancer patient would just recite the Lord’s prayer 5 times an hour, he would be healed. It just doesn’t work. But it’s so much easier to believe in a fad, then it is to believe that we have nothing to do with our salvation and that we’re left to the mercies of God to cling to for our hope and salvation. It just doesn’t make any sense. Does it? Let me give you the psychology behind the gospel that Paul believes and the gospel that we preach and practice here at this church: we believe that God is jealous for His glory and zealous for the souls of His people. Here’s what that means: the gospel (the good news) is that God, in and for His own glory sent Jesus Christ, His only son to live, die and be raised so that death may be conquered for the people whom He chooses (that is, people who believe). God is JEALOUS! He doesn’t want us trying to turn away from Jesus for any reason, for anything. Paul here says that even means angels won’t be coming here telling you otherwise to detract from the Glory of God. It also means that God is zealous because He doesn’t want to lose a single soul. If there is a gospel or a message that is being preached from the church pulpits or by the actions of its people and that separates and detracts or hinders people from coming to believe in Jesus Christ as their savior, then that is not the gospel. Verse 10. “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.” Let me translate what the Apostle Paul is saying because we get tripped up here. You see, there is something that as happening. I picked the book of Galatians because when I prayed and thought about our own trajectory as a church, I found myself in the midst of a battle. The battle being that of ideologies. The current ideologies of religion today have us placed squarely in a small, narrow box because we are evangelicals. Now, the biggest problem is not that we’re evangelicals, but that we’re people pleasers. Yes, that’s you and me. But here’s the issue, the world expects us to be people pleasers so that we can remain in some type of stupid box that the world has us in. Just because we’re Christians, we’re supposed to act Amish? Of course not! Likewise, just because we’re Asian, does that mean we need professions in mathematics and science or engineering? Even in church, we need to please people to be in good standing of the church even if that means sacrificing your belief in the gospel for it. And that’s unacceptable. You see, everything else can be sacrificed and changed and succumbed to except what the gospel does for us and why we preach the gospel. Everywhere we go, we should be oozing the gospel, not in a proselytizing way that’s obnoxious and annoying, but in a way that shows people that you are living a life of freedom and fulfillment through the zealousness of God chasing after your soul. Paul says that the manifestation of the gospel looks like this in service, let me read to you 1^st Thessalonians 2. ⁵ For we never came with words of flattery, as you know, nor with a pretext for greed—God is witness. ⁶ Nor did we seek glory from people, whether from you or from others, though we could have made demands as apostles of Christ. ⁷ But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother taking care of her own children. ⁸ So, being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves, because you had become very dear to us. – 1 Thessalonians 2:5-8 It’s a humility that loves other people affectionately without any asks of reciprocation. That is God’s good news to us isn’t it? He never asked us for anything in return for the sacrifice of his one and only son. He just simply wants us to come and enjoy it with him. Likewise, when we put the gospel into motion in our lives, we take gentle care of people, not to alienate them but to zealously chase people because we love them. I challenge you this afternoon to put this manifestation of the gospel in play into our lives. I want you to believe that God is jealous for His glory and that He is even more zealous for people’s souls and live in that place where you receive his jealousy as grace upon your life and love to be spread to His people. Let’s pray.