Galatians 1:1-5 Christ from the Beginning

Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan where you can grow in faith community and service. We're currently studying Galatians in a series called off the chain finding freedom in Galatians.

Here's Pastor Don Filsak.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Recast Church. I love to hear the conversations going on, but we're gonna we're gonna go ahead and formally get started here. So if you can find your seats, that would be great.

I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here and I'm glad that you've joined with us for worship this morning. Be sure to check out the worship folder that you received when you walked in. I am very grateful for.

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That's labeled recycling. They're labeled. Well, so it sounds kind of confusing it makes sense when you're standing there but if you just drop that envelope in the Recycling one if you're not going to use it to give this morning, then we can just reuse it next week.

And that helps us out our fiscal year here goes from June to July. So we are actually just entered into a new financial period here another year. And so I'm gonna ask Zach Lloyd who has been really handling our finances from the from the start we obviously it's our desire to be as just completely transparent with the funds and Where the money goes and we are just so grateful for God's blessing on us from these three years.

We've met our expenses every single month. It's just been amazing to see God provide for us and over an abundance I mean, so we're very grateful for that Zach. Oh, I don't want to steal your Thunder. So you want to come up and give us a report?

Galatians as the Heart of the Gospel and the Freedom of Grace

This morning we're going to be starting a sermon series called off the chain finding freedom in the book of Galatians and This book has been somewhat controversial over the history of the church. You can go ahead and turn to Galatians.

I see some of you kind of looking down at your Bibles now. That's on page 832. That's in the Bible in the seat back in front of you. We'll be reading that here in a little bit, but let me give some introductory comments.

We'll read the text and then we'll then we'll sing some songs together. I'm worshiping God, but it's been controversial in church history. When I talk about church history There was a time in in history around the 1400s and prior to that where the entire church was the Catholic Church.

Now as I recognize some of you have attended a Catholic Church some of you were raised in a Catholic Church, and I certainly don't want to bash the Catholic Church, but During that time in history some things happened that really led Christianity to on a little bit of a sidetrack where Christianity was primarily to be a Christian meant that you you you approach God in a certain way with a significant level of Fear involved in it with a bunch of hoops to jump through a list of do's and don'ts and that was the primary Way for centuries that people in the church were relating to God and God raised up a man named Martin Luther.

Not Martin Luther King not Martin Luther King jr. Those guys were named after this dude. But Martin Luther in the 1500s in Germany an awesome guy who was a monk in the Catholic Church. He was in it. He was totally invested and He was a monk in a monastery studying through books of the Bible, and he was like wait a minute.

What like I find grace in here. There is grace in here. There is a sense in which all my relationship with God is meant to be based on His love for me not because I have done this this and this and this for him, but just Unmerited favor, that's what grace means.

I didn't deserve it. I didn't purchase it. I didn't I didn't get it for myself. I didn't obtain it. He's just lavished grace on me and so Martin Luther referred to the book of Galatians this book that we're going to be studying over the next couple of months few months.

He called it my Katie von Bora. Does anybody want to guess who Katie von Bora was? His wife. In essence saying I am married to the book of Galatians. Now that's gonna make sense as we study through this book and you understand.

This is a man who was raised in an environment where everything relating to God was based on laws rules regulations. Crossing all your T's dotting all your eyes and then he comes to Galatians and he finds life in the book of Galatians.

He found water for his soul. He found refreshment. Like a man who is lost in the desert and totally just parched coming upon a lemonade stand. It's like wow. Okay. This is like my birthday here and he called Galatians his wife.

He said this is like it's like I'm married to this book. It says something about his relationship with his wife. I don't know how she took that. I'm sure she was. I'm sure she was complimented by that.

But it's gonna totally make sense why Martin Luther loved the book of Galatians as we go through it you see as we dig into this book, we're gonna find in it the heart of the gospel and the heart of the good news.

Gospel is just a Fandangled word that means good news and the heart of the good news is that we've been set free. By the forgiveness and grace of Jesus Christ. Set free. Does that sound good to you guys?

There's the concept of being set free from bondage to sin from being chained to something anything how many of you like the idea of just being like chained to a wall. I'm not able to get someplace it doesn't sound good to me to be chained to something and being set free sounds awesome and It's set free from the power of sin, but also being set free from the bondage to rules and regulations.

We all have a tendency to slide into one of two opposite errors in our relationship to God, I Think that you can look at your upbringing. You can look at the way that you've approached God look at your personal walk with him and the way that you've related to him.

And either we can tend to slide into this notion that God is the Big Daddy in the sky. Who is just forgiving and gracious and ready to just hug everybody and bring everybody in and man? He'll just he'll just forgive it all it's all gonna be okay in the end.

We're all gonna get there and all roads lead to the same place. You know He's just just compassion. But God is not a pushover and as we read scripture. How many of you know when you read enough scripture to know?

There's some passages that kind of you got to deal with that might push that notion that he's just a pushover to the side. Have you encountered that yet in scripture? Is he just a pushover? No. But the opposite problem is some of us have approached God solely based on fear.

Solely based on this notion, and so we've tried our best to keep his laws. We've tried to cross all of our T's and dot all of our eyes. And we see God is a cosmic killjoy who's looking for a chink in the armor so he can smite us and destroy us.

Which is kind of silly if you think about that notion because how many of you know that if he wants you gone you're gone. Like I mean he doesn't need to look for a chink in the armor. It's already there boom.

He's done with me. I'm done. I just drop right or cease to exist. But we still entertain these notions that and I mean yeah I don't not gonna ask for a show of hands. But I want you to wrestle with this in your mind before we even get further into this like where were you raised?

How was your upbringing? What what things have happened in your life, and where do you see yourself on this spectrum of over here? God is just all grace and all love or over here. God is looking for a chance to smite people.

He's looking. He's just a killjoy, and where are you at on that? Spectrum. Because as we come in Galatians is going to come into the fray here in this spectrum and going to attempt to correct us with truth.

By the Spirit and that's my prayer as we as I've been preparing and working through this. This preparation for the book of Galatians that that God would speak into our situation would challenge us. From where we are now that we would be changed by the end of this series that we would come in and counter The truth in the book of Galatians through the power of the Spirit, and that's what has the power to transform us.

That this word which is true would change the way that we think. And it's going to be a crazy ride. I think because grace. Grace is a crazy radical thing. It is a powerful crazy thing. Something that I'm convinced that many of us and even me as a pastor I'm not sure that I fully get my mind wrapped around how awesome how Expansive God's grace is towards those who are his.

Towards me towards you. If you are in Christ. And and to just just to tell you the confusion that can something sometimes what we're gonna try to clarify is how free is free. How free are you. And that's a scary question because we we're like well I don't want to be too free because if I'm too free I know my own tendency is to go over into sin right and I don't want to let you be too free because if you're too free I know you're gonna go over into sin, too, and so there's this thing that we're gonna wrestle with.

But if you are in Christ you are honestly truly and completely set free. So does grace open itself up to abuse. Absolutely, but as we go through this book, we're gonna grow in our understanding of the way that we walk forward in this freedom that has been given to us and it is not a Life based on laws and rules and regulations, but it is freedom to truly love God in relationship with him.

We sing a song here from time to time and this song is probably gonna end up being Repeated over and over again during this series and it's one that I think has been misunderstood. But as we sing the song and we sing the lyrics more like falling in love.

How many of you heard that song you we've sang it here some of you have maybe have been a little confused by that and what I'm the reason we even sing that song here because there's a little bit of a controversial song because the words falling in love have a little bit of a Mushy gushy notion in our culture.

Don't they like it's just like oops. I slipped and I fell in love. Just walking along and there she was it. Oh and that's our culture's mindset of it, but I Want us to if I can take some liberty and reinterpret that notion of falling in love.

I fell in love with my wife Linda, right and it was a commitment and it's a relationship and it's an ongoing thing. That is I'm constantly every day I should be falling in love with her more and more every day, right?

And if I were to just approach her and say, you know what formally speaking you're single. I'm single. Let's get married and let's just I mean we could we could have a family and we could have a house and maybe maybe get a dog or a cat and something we could just live a life and just I could see this working and I just approached it and here would you sign this contract and agree to marry me?

Here you go it's more like falling in love than just a creed and That's what we're singing when we sing this song is that if you take this spectrum. The pivot point to grace or law is not in the middle.

It's not in the center. We're not trying to balance in our lives law and grace. The pivot point where this thing balances is more Towards grace more like falling in love more like relationship. Are you getting that and that's what Galatians is going to point to is that we have in so many areas of our lives.

We get used to balance in the middle and grace and law are not balanced in the middle in the Christian life. It is not about keeping your laws and your rules all balanced over here and grace all balanced over here it is more like falling in love than just merely mental ascent to a list of doctrines and rules and regulations and things that you're supposed to believe.

I'm getting it. So that's where we're going in the book of Galatians. Let's go ahead and open if you're not there already page 832 in the Bible in the seat back in front of you I think most of you already there.

We're just gonna read the introductory comments to this letter. And I think even just in this five verses. There's a lot of things that Paul is going to just draw right out and he's gonna let us know where he's going with this.

So think about these things if you don't own a Bible, by the way, please take that one with you. It's our desire that everybody owns a copy of the Word of God. Let's dive in 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. Let's pray father. I ask that your spirit Who is present here and actually resides in those who are your children father that he would? That we would hear his voice this morning Through your word and that you would illuminate and set light to your word in our hearts father I recognize that there are people that are sitting here this morning that are hurting and they need a word of encouragement.

And then there are people here who are sinning and rebelling against you and they need a word of conviction and then there are those maybe here who do not even know you and They need a word that brings light to the gospel that they might believe and that their eyes might be open and father I pray.

That by your spirit. You would bring power and authority through your word to speak right to people where they are at. Father that as we come to worship, and we sing these songs. We would sing out of hearts redeemed by Jesus Christ.

That we would stand as though we are standing before your throne as we sing these songs and that these words would not just merely go Through our eyes and out our mouth. But that they would lodge in there in a way that we are genuinely Recognizing these are words to our great and awesome God and we give you praise and honor this morning in Jesus name.

Amen. Well, thanks a lot to the band for leading us in worship. I appreciate that I know we just took a break, but at any time during the message if you need to get up the restrooms are back here. There's some more donut holes there and some more juice and coffee if you need to or just get up in the back and you know.

Do your calisthenics or whatever it takes to keep? Focused on the Word of God and that's kind of our that's obviously our goal. But we're coming off of a those of you who have been here recast I know some of you this your first week.

But we're coming off of a series in the book of Esther and so for those of you that are here consistently. This could be a little bit of whiplash because it's like we've been going through this book. That was basically ancient ancient ancient history and it was written like history and now all of a sudden whiplash up we're in a New Testament letter and It's very very important when you're studying scripture that you know what you're studying.

Are you studying a poem in the Psalms? Are you studying a letter in the New Testament? Are you studying Old Testament history or law or the genre if I can use that word the the style that it's written in?

Helps us to interpret it and so obviously in like poetry you're gonna expect more figurative language and things like that in history. You're gonna expect less flowery language and more just facts and things like that.

So I think that it's valuable for us to understand what we're reading here is a letter and it's a letter that's written by the Apostle Paul true to a group of churches in a district of Rome called Galatia which is on the south side of modern-day Turkey and They are churches that he started.

He was the church planner who? Went into these communities and into these cities and actually started the churches and I'm gonna give you a little brief history on how That all went down so that we can kind of understand this letter that's written to them.

How many of you think it would be valuable to understand? What how those churches formed and what their relationship was like with Paul in order to understand a letter that's written to them, right? There's value in understanding that relationship and how they interacted.

So we take we're gonna just take in this morning. Just the opening of this letter. Just the introductory formalities the introductory comments. But even in the midst of what might seem like formalities Paul begins to frame up the rest of the content of this letter by telling Us right away by how he greets them and what he has to say to them just from the get-go.

Now the very first word that occurs in this letter is the name Paul. So Paul is the very first is the very first word. Paul an apostle and he goes on and unlike our letters today I'd be valuable for us to understand what a letter looked like in ancient Greece.

That was the most common way to start a letter you started by saying who you were now how many of you have ever received a letter and. Maybe the envelope was Nondistinct or whatever and and you had to scan down you you immediately before you read anything scan down to the bottom to see Who am I reading this from?

Have you ever done that before like I want to know who who's saying these things? I mean you read it all the way through and then get down to the bottom. It's like I got to read that again. Context matters.

So in one sense, it kind of made sense like in Greek culture like I don't know why we put it at the end because it would be nice to know up front right at the beginning who it is that's speaking and. So that's what they did in those ancient times.

The greeting first they actually addressed it up at the beginning then also who they were writing to and he's going to mention that he's writing to the Galatians. But it kind of it makes sense that they started with that with Paul.

It's interesting to note that one of the commentaries that I was reading one of the scholars is a Professor at a school over in Chicago that I was reading I actually read his entire commentary and then I'm actually reading through it again chunk by chunk as I'm going through this and just a very valuable commentary, but he said that as a Sitting scholar at a prominent seminary over in Chicago.

He said he he would often Receive letters from prospective students that were written in Pauline fashion. And he said it was so aggravating and annoying when somebody would do that. I was like, do you understand you live in a culture here?

And now why are you writing like Paul? This isn't ancient Greece. Get over yourself. He said he would receive letters like this. They'd be like Don Felsick pastor of recast Church and servant of the Lord Jesus Christ in Matawan to consumers energy.

Grace and peace to you from God our Father. You know I'm saying you're not gonna we're not learning here how to write a letter, right? That's not the point of why letters are in the Bible. We're here for the content.

And so I just thought that was funny that in his commentary He actually had received so many letters from prospective students people who wanted to study under him that were written that way that actually aggravated him, but um.

The format doesn't necessarily translate to us, but the content does and so it's important for us to get down to that. Some of us went through the book of Acts together and those of you who were here during some of that series or Even just part of that series or all of that series.

We felt like we kind of got to know the Apostle Paul fairly. Well, did you feel like over the course of the book of Acts you got to know Paul a little bit as we were going? Obviously, it's a lot about his life, but just a quick reminder of who Paul was.

Paul was a man who had opposed Jesus Christ so it's important for us to understand who's writing this letter. He lit up literally persecuted and killed Christians. One of the prominent Foremost leaders are early church leaders named Stephen was stoned to death by the Jews and it says Paul Stood by and guarded their cloaks.

Now, why did he have to guard their cloaks. Because they needed good range of motion in their shoulders while they were throwing rocks to kill Stephen so he's there guarding their cloaks. Ascending to the murder of a follower of Jesus Christ.

That's what's going on. So that's Paul. Paul who traveled it wasn't satisfied with persecuting Christians that he happened to run into at work traveled from city to city. Aggressively seeking to destroy the Church of Jesus Christ and in one of those trips.

Will remember this is radical Conversion experience he was traveling to the city of Damascus still there modern-day Syria today traveling there to actually arrest Christians and bring them back to Jerusalem.

Extradite them and basically put them to death. Imprisoned them and by the way to be put in prison during that time and that era was almost a death sentence. Anyways, you didn't survive well in a dungeon type environment.

This wasn't like they didn't have cable TV or courtyard time or anything like that so He was he was a bad guy and he thought that Christianity was a blight on Judaism. He was obviously a Jew. But on one on that particular trip that radical change he was blinded on the road on the way to Damascus says he was almost there right around noontime a light shone brighter than the noonday Sun out shone the Sun and he encountered Jesus Christ.

Jesus Christ came to him and Spoke with him and at that point he was changed his world list. I mean Maybe your world would be turned upside down if you met Jesus on the road. Okay, he encountered Jesus Christ.

His world was completely flipped up side down. He was radically converted and the man who was passionately Aggressively persecuting the church now becomes a man who is passionately and aggressively building the Church of Christ.

He received both a conversion and a call to ministry and at this point Jesus actually saves him and gives marching orders to him. So that in verse 1 here in our text when it says Paul an apostle not from men nor through man.

Now we see the word apostle there, which is a generic in a generic sense means ambassador. Representative and he says I didn't become an ambassador because men called me there was no ordaining body. There was nobody that came to me.

He says I became an apostle not from men nor through man, and he's speaking honestly. He's not representing any faction or any counsel. He was not commissioned in any ultimate sense by any ordaining body.

He received his call straight from Jesus Christ. It's that kind of valuable for that to be communicated. We're gonna see that there's a reason why. It's gonna improve it's gonna prove to be important later in the book of Galatians.

Because it becomes clear later in this letter that some in Galatia were questioning Paul's authority. So he's been removed now. He's no longer in Galatia. He's removed from them. He started these churches and now he's miles away hundreds of miles away.

Across the entire Mediterranean Sea from them in a town called Antioch, and he's there. Writing back to them because he's caught word that some are questioning his authority back there. Basically saying on whose authority did this Paul come and proclaim this grace to you these these.

That you don't really have to live by the law anymore and things like that. So Paul immediately responds saying that his authority came straight from Jesus Christ. You want to know where my authority came from?

It comes from Jesus. Pretty high authority. Would you say pretty direct? Yeah. As a matter of fact the way that he states this in verse 1 highlights that Jesus by the way is not just a man. He says I wasn't called by a man.

I Was called by Jesus Christ. Do you see the theology that was already in Paul before? I mean we get into like all of these like was Jesus God and all of that. Paul was convinced that Jesus was God as a matter of fact on the equation.

He says he wasn't called by man. He was called by Jesus Christ and God the Father. Like he categorizes them together. You got Jesus Christ and God the Father on this side of the equation and man on the other not man Jesus and God called me.

Are you seeing that? I mean a pretty high pretty high understanding of who Jesus Christ is and To highlight the power and authority of God in a somewhat sarcastic way if you look at the text Paul says oh and in case you were wondering which God called me.

It's that one who did the whole resurrection thing. Okay, that's the God that I'm talking about the God the Father who raised him from the dead that that God. That's the one that called me that will the one that has power and authority for redemption and for bringing you to wholeness and rightness.

With God the one who the one who has formulated this whole gospel thing the whole good news by which you're saved. That's the God that called me him the one who raised Jesus from the dead. Again, he's just pouring it on thick that he has the authority.

But Paul was not alone in sending this letter and it's likely that he's writing from Antioch again the church that had sent him out and then he went on the dismissions trip and I'll have a map up here in just a second and.

And so the church in Antioch also one of the Galatians to know that they supported Paul in writing this and so he says in Verse 2 and all the brothers who are with me. This is coming from them, too. They're endorsing this letter.

They are they've read it and they're they're signing off on it as well. They agree with these things. So it might be good for us at the start of this letter to understand the history of the churches in Galatia.

Like I mentioned because that's who the letter is addressed to right here in verse 2 at the very end to the churches in Galatia the text says. So Paul and Barnabas were friends who? Ministered together at a church in a town called Antioch and if you pull the map up there, that would be helpful.

So actually that's not super helpful because I put that in white. I Thought I put it in black, but the heading there is supposed to be Galatia. Okay, and then over here at least you can see the box there.

That's that's where Antioch is. That's where Paul and Barnabas were ministers in that city. They had moved up there and they were hanging out and they were working in Antioch up there at a prayer meeting.

They're all together praying and singing praises to God and they had a calling of the Holy Spirit on their lives to go out to missionary work. The text in the book of Acts does not Explicitly state how what that call looked like did um did God speak through a prophet?

Did they hear an audible voice that said set aside for me Paul and Barnabas? We don't know exactly what the dynamic of that call was but the church confirmed it said yes. We believe you're called Paul and Barnabas.

We're called. This is all by the way in Acts 13 through 14. So if you're taking notes to write that down and I encourage you to maybe read that Section at least at some point while we're going through the book of Galatians.

Maybe you take off a little chunk and read it every a little bit every week or whatever read it once ever once a week or something. But it would be valuable because you're actually seeing the the forging the founding of the churches of Galatia in Acts 13 through 14.

But so they travel across the island of Cyprus you see the island there. We're looking at Israel up here over here on the right-hand side and part of Syria on the Mediterranean Sea there. They took a boat and they headed over to Cyprus that island.

Crossed it by foot or by horse or whatever sharing the gospel along the way planning churches. When they get over to the west side of Cyprus they actually lead a Roman since I mean a Roman Pro Consul the ruler of all of Cyprus comes to faith in Christ through their ministry there in Acts 13 they head north and shoot up north and then you can highlight the next city.

They end up going to Antioch and while they're there Catch up with my notes here because I'm looking at the map While they're in Antioch. They have a great response among the non-jewish audience there now there are both Jews and Gentiles there.

Gentile just a generic word that means not a Jew in that era and The Gentiles respond positively to the good news there the Jews not so much. Okay, and so when we think of this letter going out to Galatia.

We are talking about it going to primarily non-jewish readers. Okay, so it's primarily and that's helpful to understand who is our audience primarily non-jews but the Jews ran them out of town in Antioch and then they go to the next town which is called Iconium and While they're there in Iconium they again share the gospel.

They stayed quite a while there. So this was a this was a little bit longer. Layover here and again, the crowd was stirred up against them. There were death threats against them, but there was a response and a church was planted there, but but many Pushed them back and so then they had to flee for their lives because there's literally a threat somebody's gonna kill you.

We've heard it on the streets. They're planning. They're plotting. So then they move down south a little bit to Lystra while they're there at Lystra. They are up proclaiming the gospel in a large gathering place.

And there's a man on the front row who has basically been crippled from birth. Okay, he was born that way. He's never walked and Paul heals him and now we're talking about a Primarily pagan idol worship and gathering and they see this man stand up and they're like this dude can't walk and now he's walking.

This is amazing. These guys are gods and they basically say we're gonna worship Paul and Barnabas. We're gonna we're gonna go go get the ox go get the priest. Paul must be Hermes representative for Zeus and Barnabas they think is Zeus because Barnabas is older looks a little wiser and It's kind of quiet and that's their that's their mindset towards Zeus.

And so they're like well one is Zeus and one is Hermes go get the go get some oxen. I'm with garlands wrapped around them and we're gonna sacrifice to these two. Well, how do you think Paul and Barnabas?

They're gonna be respond are gonna respond to being worshipped. They freak out. But no, don't do this. No way. You can't sacrifice. We're just men like you. I don't know how they convinced the crowd that they weren't men.

But they eventually get there because the crowd literally turns against them says Jews came and caught up with them. Seems like some eerie timing but some Jews come down from Antioch and Iconium band together and stir up the crowds against Paul and Barnabas and they go from being worshipped one minute.

To being stoned to the next. I don't mean stoned. I mean stone okay, and. So they they get they get they get hit hard and in Paul. It says was stoned and drug outside of the city for dead. Like how many of you know if you are hit with rocks so hard and so many they think you're dead.