Apologia Church Live - Evangelism and Mormonism

Galatians and the Danger of Adding Works to the Gospel

All right, you guys can open your Bibles to Galatians chapter 1. We've been there many many times before but it'll serve as kind of a starting text for today. And I hope today for those of you guys have been a part of our body for a long period of time that we talk About some new things and some more helpful things That will sort of relate not necessarily Strictly to Mormonism and reaching our Latter-day Saint friends and neighbors and family, but it also relates to other issues and other religions and Movements that ape Christianity or borrow our terminology whether it be Islam whether it be the Watchtower Bible and tract society whether it be Roman Catholicism.

Whatever it might be. I hope this today will be very helpful. So go ahead and get to Galatians a very short letter by the Apostle Paul. Many argue would argue that the letter of Paul to the Galatians is probably one of the earliest letters of the Apostle Paul that would probably be earliest.

Which is significant because it means that one of if it is true that it's the earliest. It means that the Apostle Paul chose as one of his First things to write about and circulate in this way under divine inspiration.

He chose an issue related to how a person is Justified before God. How does a person have peace with God? Even a person that that professes all those essential things like Jesus is God. He was in the flesh.

He died for sinners and rose from the dead physically. There's nothing in the letter that would show that these people in Galatia were denying any of those essential kinds of things of the faith. This is an issue where people were adding to the gospel.

They were adding essentially to the idea of justification. Works or a work added to faith in Jesus in order to be declared righteous before God the Apostle Paul it calls that a false gospel and he says that anybody who believes that anybody who teaches that is lost and Christ has become of no effect to you.

He says in Galatians 5 when you add to the gospel in that way of the work of Christ in that way. So this is the letter of Paul to the Galatians. Galatians chapter 1. I'm actually gonna start from verse 1.

It's not far into it, which is significant that Paul begins to address it directly. Galatians chapter 1 here now the words of the Living and Holy God 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's another one, but there are some who are trouble 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 anathema 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 manner of God or am I seeking to please man. If I were still trying to please Man, I would not be a servant a slave of Christ.

Thus far as the reading of God's Word. Let's pray father I want to pray that you would bless today God as we God enter into your holy word as We open it and we Lord listen. I pray that you would bless us by your spirit teach God get me out of the way.

I pray that you would use Lord what is said from your word to ignite within us a passion for the gospel Lord to remove from us Lord any indifference, but to actually Lord bring to our own minds understanding so we would see Lord How important it is to understand your word and to get it, right?

And I pray that you would put Lord this good news on our lips and That you would Lord cause it to go forth into our families. Into our businesses into our communities that you would use it God to transform the world and Lord Get to the ends that all the families of the earth return and worship you as you promise.

I just pray God that you would use this church to bring this good news into the world in Jesus name. Amen. This is big because Like I said if Galatians is the earliest letter written by the Apostle Paul into the churches.

He's fighting over an issue of justification now some people today I think in the modern church would look at the Apostle Paul and would want to pull him aside. Right want to pull him aside for being a little too mean-spirited being a little too dogmatic, right?

I mean when we put up a few things, I think this week we put up some stuff confronting things. Even within the Christian community and the first thing is responses not just from atheists. We get lots and lots of those and the language is always very very colorful and interesting.

Believe me, by the way, don't read the YouTube comments. Trust me. But we also get resistance from within the church and the resistance is not you're wrong. The resistance is not that's not biblical. The resistance is you ought not to act that way towards another believer.

You ought not be so prideful that you believe that it's true. So you should actually tell somebody. Because it might hurt their feelings it might cause friction within the church. But what's interesting here is the Apostle Paul wrote this and listen, this would have been read in the church service.

Hey guys, we come on. We got a letter from the Apostle Paul. There's a letter from Paul. Let's read the letter and they read the letter and it's like grace and peace and they're like, oh Paul. You're so wonderful.

You always bring so much joy to my heart. It's I love letters from Paul grace and peace and yes. You're an apostle and this is awesome. And then he says I'm amazed That you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ.

That's what's at stake by the way grace in the gospel. He says that there are there's not another gospel you're turning to a different one but there is only one and these people who are troubling you want to distort the gospel and he leaps right in to just Horror saying I can't believe essentially that you're deserting grace.

You're losing Christ the Apostle Paul is confronting a church who was Essentially allowing this thing to take place and if you look in the next chapter chapter 2 you see actually a conflict between the Apostle Paul and Peter.

Can you imagine how uncomfortable that would be think about it for a second way oftentimes? We take ourselves out of like the reality of the scriptures that these are real people in the real world, right?

It's like a real church service. Imagine like koinonia. Right, we're having koinonia everyone's having a great time. It's awesome. We're playing kids are smashing their faces against each other and falling out their kids crying.

We're picking them up again, and you know, we're eating food and you know, maybe there's a little food poisoning the next day. No, you know, but you know, that's we're having a good time. Nonetheless, right at least for now.

Okay, and all of a sudden I stand up and I get in pastor Luke's face right, everyone's like. Right, you know, I'm in his face and I'm confronting him over behavior that's denying the gospel. Well, that's what takes place in the church while they're hanging out.

Together read the text Galatians chapter 2 in verse 1 you see after 14 years He went up again to Jerusalem at Barnabas taking Titus along with me. Now if you move to verse 11, you can see now where Paul has a confrontation with Peter.

But when and the word that's Peter there came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face. He didn't pull him aside Privately and get out of the room with him, right? Something you're doing he actually opposes him to his face in front of everybody.

Because he stood condemned. For before certain men came from James. He was eating with the Gentiles but when they came he drew back and separated himself fearing the circumcision party and the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with Him so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy.

What does the Apostle Paul do when he sees? Hypocrisy within the church. He calls it what it is. It's hypocrisy your Behavior is not consistent with the gospel. What you're doing is not consistent with what you say and so he confronts it.

He says but when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel. I said to Cephas Cephas before them all if you though a Jew live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How can you force the Gentiles to live?

Like Jews now listen, this is table fellowship stuff. You got to catch this for us. We'd be like, what's the big deal for them? It was a big deal now after being Jewish the whole lives. After having kosher laws and dietary restrictions and dress codes and things that separated them from Jewish.

Sorry from Gentile people now Gentiles worship and love the Lord God of Israel. They're children of Abraham just like the Jews and now these people got to get together and hang out. Right, they got to get together and hitch up become bedfellows right and hang out together.

And that was a weird situation in the first century because they weren't used to it. They worship different even their worship smelled different. They ate things that were different dress different everything was different and now Jews and Gentiles are together and it got weird.

It's sort of like that very awkward Christmas party. You have to go to every year, right? You don't want to go. But you kind of have to and there's the conflicts that take place within those family gatherings.

Well, this is that this is that but like uber level, right? And Peter is acting like a hypocrite because he's separating himself from Gentiles while these other Jews are around but then he gets around them when they're gone and acts differently and Paul sees it and He sees that he's creating two churches.

Two distinct churches instead of one church united by faith and the issue was they were adding Circumcision to the work of the gospel saying that well in order to really be in you have to be circumcised.

You got to at least keep that one part of the law Circumcision and you got to at least have that and so they were separating themselves and they were seeing people as like lower Cat class citizens in the church now watch what he says here in verse 15.

We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners yet. We know listen, this is big and this applies name it name it Roman Catholicism Mormonism the Watchtower Bible and tract Society Christian scientists and you name the movement that adds works of any Kind to faith in order to be declared righteous.

He says this. Yeah, we know that a person is not justified by works of the law, but their faith in Jesus Christ. In order to be justified by faith in Christ. Sorry in and we also have believed in Christ Jesus in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law.

Because by works of the law no one will be justified. But if we endeavor to be justified in Christ We too were found to be sinners. Is Christ and a servant of sin. Certainly not. For I rebuild for if I rebuild what I tore down.

I proved myself to be a transgressor. For through the law I died to the law so that I might live to God. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me and the life I now live in the flesh.

I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. I do not nullify Big one mark it down highlight it put stuff around it circle it. I do not nullify the grace of God void it. For if righteousness were through the law.

Then Christ died in vain. That's big and it's and it's over an issue that people would say come on Paul. They say Jesus is God. They say he's the Son of God. They say that he came in the flesh. They say that he died they say that he rose again.

They say that he's ascended they believe in the communion of the saints the fellowship. They believe in the Word of God. Come on. They're just saying you got to at least keep this part of the law and Paul says this when you do that.

When you add a work of the law to faith in Jesus in order to be declared righteous. He says you have now voided Voided the grace of God you've voided the gospel. You've nullified the whole thing because you see we are only in Christ by faith.

We're joined together him by with him by faith apart from any work of law and Paul is so concerned About the truthfulness of the gospel that he says this in Galatians 1 look if I come back and if I say Any other gospel if I tell you anything different than I've already told you about the gospel.

He says let God Condemn me to hell forever. Anathema accursed is is eternal separation from God forever. It's the strongest word Paul could have used in the Greek probably to express the idea that it's eternal Damnation and he says look even if an angel comes from heaven and preaches a different gospel.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it looks good. It doesn't matter if it sounds Christian. He says you have to see that as anathema. That's Galatians chapters 1 2. So this issue is so huge because we're talking about people's Souls, we're talking about the earth their eternity.

It's just one of those things like like I think this week and seeing the the conflict that has happened even in like the situation. Not directly related to this but this issue a situation with abortion in, Oklahoma.

It starts to draw out of you whether or not we believe what we say. Come with me for a second because this is big this is big just as a related issue so Oklahoma this week has a bill proposed that would call abortion what God calls it right so murder first-degree murder and Christians we say it all the time.

Well, so we tell people for 40 years. We've been telling people that like that's a image-bearer of God. You can't kill that baby. That's murder. God sees it as murder. You have to protect that baby. Don't kill that baby and then a bill gets passed and Then you begin to see there are people who are within the pro-life movements that won't stand for a bill like that.

And you ask yourself the question wait, wait, do we do we really believe what we say. Or is it just something we say because we're Christians. Are we just speaking the ghetto language? This is what Christians are supposed to say.

It's how we're supposed to behave. We check the box like I'm pro-life. I'm pro family and marriage. I'm done. Did I go down the list? I've checked the box. So I'm in the in crowd, right? He asked yourself the question do we believe what we even say?

Because some of the greatest resistance this week to that bill wasn't necessarily from the unbelievers. It was from within those who were in the pro-life movement. So you ask yourself the question. Do we believe what we say?

And in light of that when you think about what the Bible says about justification by faith in Christ alone apart from any work of law and you see people who are preaching a false gospel one that is Not the gospel when we treat them like well, it's no big deal.

I ask again. Do we believe what we say? When I see somebody that's lost believing a false gospel. Having a false message of life and I don't Do what it takes to reach them with love and compassion and humility and grace.

I don't do what it takes to lay myself down for their good. I have to ask myself the question Do I believe what I say? Is it just words? Because the Apostle Paul says it's so serious that somebody who does it is damned.

So it matters. It matters in dr. White's book the God who justifies. He has this he has this part in the book where he talks about how important this issue is. I think it was actually here in Galatians when he did so by the way get the book.

It's really really good. If you haven't read the God who justifies it's all about justification. That's worth it's worth its weight in gold to get that get that to study this issue. But he actually talks about the people who drive by on their bicycles with their white shirts and their ties and the black nametag.

Elder snow elder such-and-such and he says that when these people drive by on their bicycles and they go door-to-door. He says that it's a message of death. He said that these people are soul killers.

He says to preach a false gospel is to commit eternal murder. Because you're giving somebody a message that is not a message of life. It's a message of death it does not bring peace with God and. So it's important.

So when I first moved here in 1996 1996 I had long hair slicked back in a ponytail. Yeah, it's the same year that I was Johnny Cage in Mortal Kombat. And so I used to wear like skin-tight like shirts.

Yes, it was uh, I had like a belt buckle. That was like a car seat belt. That like clicked and it had like I had soda bottle caps that went all the way around Pastor Luke. It was awesome. I'm so glad that you didn't see that because I would never ever hear the end of it.

Um, but so I I was here and I think you guys have heard the story before where I was driving around town and I saw ward after ward after ward after ward and it was like wow I didn't even know that was out here.

And now I know why God brought me here and so I was driving one day and I saw a billboard for the Mesa Easter pageant and I thought what is this Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Easter pageant open to the public.

I thought I know where they're at. I Get to go where they're at and imagine you're fishing and someone says hey all the fish are over here. You're like, that's fantastic. I don't have to waste any time.

I hate fishing by the way for that very reason. Jason's like, okay, Jason gets up. He now relinquishes his membership. So imagine that like there's the fish you could just go there and cast the net and you get all the fish there right there.

Well, so I go and I didn't really know anybody and so I had like a backpack and I had my Bible and I had all kinds of different works from like Gerald and Sandra Tanner's Lighthouse ministry and this back in the day before Google and Internets and so like you had to carry the stuff and there were big fat books and all kinds of Documents and I wanted to bring it so I can have a conversation.

I get out there and there are thousands and thousands and thousands of people and I get out on the sidewalk. And there are a limited number of Christians on that sidewalk to reach them. Alpha and Omega Ministries was there.

Dr James White, Rich Pierce, I think Summer was actually there that first night. Jerry was there that first night a little like think maybe how old were you Jerry 14? Yeah, you were a little boy. Okay, little Jerry skinny little Jerry and and.

And so I'm there and I got to see all these conversations take place and it was an amazing thing. You saw Mormon missionaries return missionaries Mormon bishops state presidents and the average Mormon.

Just they're surrounding people and they're just engaging in like Combat right getting into the text and it was just an amazing experience and I got to preach the gospel. That's where Jerry and I first met we tag-teamed and witnessed to this guy.

It was it was just incredible and it firmed me up that night that this work must be done. Here are all these people who need the gospel who are believing in a false gospel. And it wasn't that we were out there and they were saying well, that's just your interpretation and and it wasn't clear it was Vividly clear.

This is a false gospel. This is a false God. They saw it. They heard it and you would send them home with the scriptures and since 1996 I've been going and at this point I've lost count as to how many Mormons have come to Christ as a result of that Ministry out there a Mormon missionary on his mission came to Christ and at the very next day He was out at the temple with us handing out our tracts witnessing to the Mormon missionaries.

I'd preach the gospel to somebody and they would go away in tears and I'd meet him a year later. They were now in Christ at a good solid biblical church reaching their Mormon friends and neighbors. I tell the story many times before where we handed out tracts and some night you go out you hand out tracts and there's nothing no response.

No response people just get mad and they're maybe yelling at you and you think is this really worth it? And one day I get a phone call at 7 30 or 8 o 'clock in the morning, I'm meeting with a pastor at Starbucks.

Hanging out right my phone rings and it's a woman I don't know and she says hey, I got this tract and I wanted to know can I make copies of it? I have a business where I work with lots of Mormons and I want to give it out to them if I give it out.

To them can they call you and I said well, of course I said but real fast quick quick question. We haven't handed that out in months. Where'd you get the tract? She said? Oh, I didn't a sister in Christ.

She got it. She was a Mormon somebody handed it to her while she was at the Easter pageant. She came to Christ and then she gave it to me and then this woman is now making copies of the tract and handing it out to her Mormon friends and family.

That's the kind of stuff that God does. This ministry is so very important not just at the temple. But in your daily lives with the people around you that you know in your neighborhoods that need Christ.

This is a conversation that we can have and I want to actually say this today as we enter into the text. I Want to say what I said on Thursday to everybody. I Believe that we are at such a unique time.

Now as a church in terms of our witness to the Mormon community is such a unique time. You see back in 1996 when I first started studying Mormonism and I'm getting into it trying to reach them when I first started this.

There was so much information that I couldn't believe that Mormonism still existed. Because there was so much information in terms of Joseph Smith's false prophecies in terms of the history of the church and so much Documentation.

I had a library full of stuff. But nobody knew and it was so hard to get into their hands because they were caught they were told that's anti-mormon. They wouldn't take it from your hands but after Google Things have changed dramatically.

I think believe God has raised up Google for this very purpose. Because now the average Latter-day Saint can go online and if they type in Mormon Mormonism in YouTube it is video after video after video after video exposing Mormonism the false teachings and the false prophecies the history of the Mormon Church.

Lots of videos from us come up on there. And if you type in Mormonism the average Mormon can get all the history right there at their fingertips in Private where nobody can see them and so they can really get into this or the Mormon Church is Experiencing now in a way an exodus out.

But here's here's the here's the important thing. Listen closely. It is not good that Mormonism collapses. Without those people knowing Jesus you got to understand that many people are fleeing Mormonism and they're going off into agnosticism or atheism because they believe if I was lied to about Joseph if it was all a Charade if it was all false and a con then I can't follow Jesus because it's probably the same thing.

And they don't realize the difference between those two is that Joseph Smith used Jesus and his gospel in his name To destroy people's lives. He was a false teacher and a false prophet so we are at an amazing time in history.

Where we can speak the truth of the gospel into the Mormon community and we could see those people come to Jesus Christ and experience life. That's where we're at. But we have to know the truth. Amen, and we have to be willing to engage.

So here's the thing Mormonism has experienced so much of a change. I remember I'll just say this briefly 1996 in 1996 when I was out there, dr. White was there surrounded by people and he was probably in four conversations at once.

He was answering one then answering another than answering another than answering another he was like all around him one after the other and then When I got into it same thing one after the other after the other and they wanted to go With you to the Bible they would open it up.

They'd say look what that says you can become a god see and they were ready coming to Christ and What happens first thing? Acts chapter 9. After he comes to Christ, you can read the story later. He gets not knocked off his high horse.

He comes to Jesus. His eyes are open and look for and taking food he was strengthened for some days he was with the disciples at Damascus and Immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues saying he is the Son of God and all who heard him were amazed and said is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem and those of Those who called upon his name and has he not come here for this purpose to bring them bound before the chief priests?

But Saul increased all the more in strength and watch. Confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by Proving that Jesus was the Messiah. Okay, so the Apostle Paul goes into a religious context. They don't agree and so it goes into a religious context and refutes them in their own synagogues proving Jesus was the Messiah.

You might be tempted to say if you're a 21st century Evangelical that that's disrespectful. That he ought not do that because it's not very friendly Apostle Paul you should engage in more friendship evangelism.

Right, and that's you know. Make friends with somebody have barbecues with them and maybe after five years earn the right to preach the gospel to them. How many of you guys have heard that or the popular very squishy torn out of context?

Preach the gospel if necessary. Use words that's like saying feed the poor if necessary use food. Doesn't work does it and it doesn't work with the gospel. It's a message you must preach right but watch what happens in verse 26.

No, sorry verse 23 when many days had passed the Jews plotted to kill him. But their plot became known to Saul they were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him. But his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall lowering him in a basket.

Okay, they so hate his guts. He is so ticked them off that their response to him refuting them in the synagogues is to kill him and. So the church has to have him escape by lowering him in a basket right so that his life is preserved.

That's the result of the Apostle Paul preaching the gospel and brothers and sisters let me say this if we truly want to get back to the kind of revival the kind of Transformation that took place in the first century.

We are not lacking the same Spirit of God that they had we have the same message same God same power. What's wrong? It's us. The Gospels the power of God for salvation these apostles these early church pastors and leaders.

They went into the culture at large the marketplace the place of greatest philosophical debate. They went into where everyone was including their religious institutions. And they preached the gospel, and they did it in such a way that it actually caused a fight.

Somebody might say to Paul Paul, I think maybe like your method is off. Because you preach the gospel, but every time you preach it people want to kill you. Think about it. That's how we respond these days to any time.

There's trouble or controversy. We say there's trouble. There's controversy so that must mean that something is off in how you approach it. But they preach the gospel. I'm not arguing by the way for you to act like a punk.

But they preach the gospel in such a faithful and loving gracious but firm and direct way that people's response was I want him dead and so When he had come to Jerusalem. He attempted to join the disciples and they were afraid of him for they did not believe that he was a disciple.

I would I wish that I was there for that part. Right he's really saved and he starts trying to come to church, and they're like I don't think so. Like that's crazy. Paul is saved and these Christians don't believe the power of the gospel.

They're like no no no no. God doesn't save Paul. Right not him, but he comes to Jesus. He's saved now his life's transformed. He's trying to come to worship and come to church, and they're like no no no.

This is our thing. You're not gonna screw it up Paul right and so now he has to have someone vouch for him. I love it. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the Apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord who spoke To him and now and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus so he went in and out among them at Jerusalem preaching boldly in the name of the Lord and he spoke and Argued he spoke and argued against the Hellenists, but they were seeking to kill him so now listen I Hope that's all I need to do.

Is this man is this kind of ministry engaging the culture engaging somebody at where they worship? And they have a false message is it biblical is it right? I'm going to show you God. By his spirit through the Apostle Paul sent these men and women into the culture and they created a godly ruckus.

They brought the gospel into the culture in such a way. They were bold and they argued and they loved people the result was sometimes people wanted them dead. But it says in the text the result was the church was built up.

They experienced peace and they were multiplied the church grew. They had peace and they were built up because they were fired up and bold about the gospel and brothers and sisters. I can't put that in you and I can't put it in me, but I can do this.

I can say to you this pray for that kind of boldness. Pray for that kind of heart and life and commitment to the lost that you sacrifice everything for them. That you give up comfort that you give up being liked even for the sake of the lost.

One more thing on this how? How do you get that in you? How do you get within you? The kind of boldness that's willing to say the truth despite the consequences. It's in Galatians the very same text where he tells them that's a false gospel.

Don't believe it. Even if an angel comes and tells it to you. Don't believe it. He says this am I still seeking to please men or? God. If I was still seeking to please men, he says this I would not be the slave of Jesus.

And so there it is. I think with my whole heart I believe this. I think that one of the things that stops us from telling people the truth is that we are still slaves to other people's passions and How they feel about us.

We're not slaves to Jesus we're not submitted completely to him we don't want to be owned by him. We're not seeking for his pleasure and what we do with our hands and what we say with our mouths. And so we want so much for the world to like us to be pleased with what we say and so we say I can't say that I can't do that because they're not gonna like it and As a result we become their slave and not Christ's know this brothers and sisters with a humble heart I say this to you every crossroads you come to in a conflict.

We have the opportunity to speak the truth and love every crossroads. That's the decision. Am I a slave right now to men or to Jesus? That's where it's at and so I Want to encourage you with our hope our?

Hope in this. It's pretty awesome. This is why it helps to be a Calvinist in a culture. That's so hostile to God Jesus says. And I hope it's our anchor verse for our church. I've been preaching it since the very beginning for you guys that were here since the very start.

You know I've been saying this to you for many years now. Jesus says in John chapter 6 44 no man Can come to me? Unless the father who sent me draws him and I will raise him up. Jesus raises up the hymn the father draws.

Jesus raises up the hymn the father draws the one that couldn't come and. So when we go out and preach the gospel Which is Romans 116 the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes we go tell people sometimes.

It's not the result. We want sometimes they want to kill us sometimes. They hate us sometimes they want us out of their communities. Whatever it might be we preach the gospel. We know they can't come on their own.

So God and his love it reaches down into the heart and soul of a sinner. And he draws them to himself by his grace and so when we go on preach the gospel to a hundred thousand people next week I Know that God in his grace has the power to knock somebody off their high horse.

I Know that God has his own power to take somebody that's dead and to raise them to life and to take their eyes and to peel them back so they can see finally and Jesus says I've come down from heaven not to do my will.