Introduction to Galatians — Chip Brogden

Rejoice and be glad in it. My name is Chip Brogden and it's my pleasure, my privilege to welcome you to the first weekly webcast of Watchman .net and I am excited to be able to hopefully begin to put together a series of teachings for you each week.

I think this is something that the Lord has impressed upon us to produce and he's given us the equipment to do it and I certainly have plenty of things I'd like to share with you and I know that for many of you listening in other countries, you and I may not be able to meet one another face-to-face, but that's what is so wonderful about the internet and I'm just excited to be able to have the privilege to share God's Word with you and basically what we are here to do is to equip the saints, get us focused on Jesus and really, I hope, grow the body of Christ to a place where we can see the fullness of Christ being manifest in his body, the church that he is building.

Jesus is increasing and the kingdom of God is increasing. It's a wonderful time to be alive. It's a wonderful time to be a Christian. It's a challenging time, but it is an exciting time and so we are happy and we are blessed to be able to bring this program to you.

The Centrality and Preeminence of Jesus Christ

I hope that we can do it once a week. We'll do that to begin with anyway. I've got plenty to share and so I really feel that the Lord would have us to do something that I'm not used to doing. You may not be used to doing, but I really sense that there is a need in the body of Christ for some in-depth teaching along the lines of scripture certainly, but teaching that gets us not just into another Bible study, not just into another Bible doctrine, not just so we can study theology or different subjects and have them as themes or topics for discussion and we fill our brain with a lot of facts and knowledge and really pride ourselves that we know the Bible, but I mean teaching that focuses on the centrality of Jesus Christ and focuses on the preeminence of Jesus over all things.

It was Spurgeon, I believe, that said that every scripture in the Bible, every passage and portion of scripture is a path towards Christ. In other words, he said when you read the scriptures, you should be asking yourself, what of Jesus do I see here?

What pertaining to Christ is this telling me? And so you have that testimony from C .H. Spurgeon and then you have T. Austin Sparks and I just appreciate his ministry so much. Of course, he has gone on to be with the Lord now, but his writings and some of his audio teachings are still available, but the thing that is so extraordinary about T. Austin Sparks is every place he ministers from out of the Word of God, regardless of whether it's Old Testament, New Testament, whatever, some obscure portion of scripture, he sees Jesus in that scripture and he always brings it back around to Christ.

And I respect that. There are not many people that know how to do that and are even trying to do that, but I believe that the scripture, Jesus said that the scripture speaks of himself. He says that even Moses, the writings of Moses, the law, the prophets, Jesus says that they speak of me, Abraham saw my day, Moses saw my day, and if you know where to look in the Old Testament, you see all of those passages of the Old Testament are simply bringing us into a deeper understanding, a greater awareness of Christ.

You see those wonderful passages in Isaiah where it talks about a child is born, a son is given, and of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end. And just passages like that from the Old Testament scriptures.

Scripture, the Spirit, and Spiritual Discernment

And then, of course, the New Testament begins to explain and interpret for us all of those types and shadows of the Old Testament. And I'm afraid, friends, that as we emphasize more and more in these last days the inspiration of the Spirit and prophetic things, that Christians are pretty much getting dumbed down when it comes to knowing the Bible.

Now I'm not talking about you have all the chapters and verses memorized, but I mean just a basic understanding and knowledge of what the scripture says. And you have to have that because I believe that the written word of God is the objective standard by which all of our subjective revelations are measured.

Now what does that mean? What I'm saying is we can get inspiration from a lot of different sources and say, in the name of the Lord, or I received this, or God told me, or God showed me, and if you're on the Internet, you get several words and prophecies and visions like that on a daily basis.

Well, you need some objective standard by which you can measure and test and judge those things that are being spoken out. And the word of God, the written word of God, the scriptures, the Bible, gives us that objective standard.

In other words, whatever you hear, it has to and it must line up with the scriptures. It cannot contradict the scriptures because the scriptures, Jesus says, they testify of me. And it is the testimony of Jesus that is the inspiration of all prophecy, Revelation 19 .10 tells us.

So, now if all you have is the Bible, and you don't have the spirit to help you interpret and know and give you revelation into what the Bible is saying, then you are a Pharisee. You will just basically have the written word of God there.

You'll have the Bible. You'll have the scriptures, but without the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to help you interpret and understand what it is you're reading, you won't have a clue. So certainly we need the inspiration and the revelation of the Spirit of God.

Just having the scriptures by themselves, without that Spirit, is just simply not enough. You look in the book of Acts, and you'll recall that there was an Ethiopian eunuch who was reading from the book of Isaiah, and Philip the Evangelist was led by the Spirit to meet this man out, I guess in the desert, out there on the way back to Ethiopia.

And you'll recall that that eunuch was reading from the scroll of Isaiah, and he wanted someone to explain it to him. He didn't understand what it meant. He had questions, and he needed insight and revelation.

Of course, the words were there. He had the same words, but he didn't have the Spirit there to give him illumination. And that's when Philip prayed for him, and he received the Lord, then that Holy Spirit came to live within him, and then he could read and understand and interpret the written word from there on out.

Growing in the Word and the Knowledge of Christ

So we need both. We need the inspiration of the Spirit, and we need an understanding of the Word of God. And I'm just amazed at the number of people I come in contact with who don't have a basic understanding of what the Bible says.

And so what I really hope that we can do with this weekly webcast is to get into the Word of God and really get into the meat of the Word, but do it in such a way that leads us back to Christ and do it in a way that is going to build us up spiritually, build us up on the inside, not just fill up our mind with more facts and more figures, more trivia.

We don't need that, but what we need is Spirit and truth and the Word of God mixed with the Spirit of God working together. This is how we grow spiritually, and this is how we are able to come into the full knowledge of Christ.

So many people, they will email me, or they'll call, or they'll ask for a word from God, but they don't know the Scriptures. If you know the Scriptures, the Lord can speak to you through those Scriptures, and you won't have to run all over the world looking for someone to give you a word, quote, unquote.

There's nothing wrong with getting a word from God, but you need to know God's Word first. Otherwise, you won't be able to exercise good spiritual discernment, and someone can easily lead you astray. So we want to be wise, we want to be prudent, and we want to not be foolish, but discern the Lord's will.

One of the best ways to discern His will and know what He wants, know what He wants for you, know what His purpose is for you, is to get into this Word of God and begin to study it. What I propose that we do is just basically take one book out of the Bible and go through it chapter by chapter.

The Bible has 1 ,189 chapters, so depending on how many chapters you get through in the course of a week, it could take you a good deal of time, but I think there is value in going through the Word of God, going through the Scriptures systematically, and I think it helps if you have other people who are studying along with you.

So if you know that we're going to be in a certain chapter on a certain week, it's easier to simply read through that chapter, be thinking about it, and then be prepared as we discuss it. Everyone is on the same page, and so who knows, we might just have the world's largest internet Bible study before it's all over with.

But whether it's large or whether it's small, it can be valuable if we will devote ourselves to it and ask the Lord to speak to us in it. So why don't we just go to Him right now and ask His Holy Spirit to give us that illumination into His Word.

Prayer for Illumination and Revelation

We thank you, Father, for Your Word. We thank you, Holy Spirit, because You are the Teacher, You are the Counselor, You are the One who leads us into all truth, and You are the One who grants us, who gives us that spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

And so to everyone who is listening right now, I pray, Lord, that You'd open our eyes, open the eyes of our understanding, the eyes of our heart, that we may see and know You. Open our ears that we may hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

And as we are decreased, Lord, may You be increased in us. And I thank You, Father. We thank You for this time that we have together, and I just pray that whoever is listening and wherever they are in the world, that You would speak Spirit and truth and life to them through me, and I praise You in Jesus' name, amen.

Introducing the Study of Galatians

Praise the Lord. Well, I have had on my heart for some time to put together some kind of a teaching on a particular book in the Bible that I think has definite application to us today. They all have application to us in one way or the other.

But this one in particular really, I think, speaks to the condition that we find ourselves in today as a church, as disciples of Jesus Christ who are growing and hopefully growing and wanting to mature in the full knowledge of Jesus.

So what I'd like to do, if you're in agreement, is to begin a study on the book of Galatians. So if you would take your Bible and turn to the book of Galatians chapter 1, we'll begin reading with Galatians chapter 1, and if we just do one chapter a week on Galatians, that would give us six weeks in Galatians.

You think, six weeks just to do one book of the Bible, isn't that kind of a long time? Well, you may think it's a long time, but God's Word is so rich and it's so deep, honestly it could take me longer than six weeks to go through it.

I think if we do 30 minutes a week, one chapter a week, and spend six weeks in Galatians, by the time you're finished with Galatians, you're going to have a very good understanding of this epistle. And this is a very critical letter that Paul wrote because it speaks to, as I said before, it speaks to the condition that we find ourselves in today.

I get lots of questions by email, and a lot of the questions that people are asking me would be answered if they would simply go to the book of Galatians. And you'll see what I'm talking about as we go on, but let me give you a little introduction here about the book of Galatians.

Galatians as a Continuous Apostolic Letter

And please understand, folks, when Paul was writing these letters to churches, he did not write in chapter and verse. He did not realize he was writing scripture for us 2 ,000 years later. He just wrote one continuous letter.

It was from his heart. And so, the chapters and verses are added for our convenience. They're not inspired, but it helps us to find and to locate particular passages. But keep in mind, when Paul is writing, he is not writing chapter one.

That is something that we added in, that man added in, the translators added as a matter of convenience to us who are reading. So what is the background of the book of Galatians? Well, it's one of the first, it's not the first, but it's one of the earlier epistles that Paul wrote.

And basically, here's the situation. Paul had gone through the province of Galatia, and he had preached Jesus, and as you read through the book of Acts, you'll see the evidence for this, that Paul preached Jesus.

Some people believed, some people did not believe. The ones who believed were disciples, and before you know it, there was a church. Paul did not go out to plant churches. Now see, this is one of the problems we're going to have as we endeavor, by the grace of God, to go through each chapter, one chapter at a time.

Preaching Christ Rather Than Planting Churches

Something strikes me, and I just want to go out in that direction, and it's going to take discipline to keep me on this chapter by chapter study of the Word. But basically, and this is a topic for another discussion, Paul did not plant churches.

He preached Jesus. That's a whole other message. But he preached Jesus, and when people believed into Jesus, they became disciples of Jesus, and Jesus gathered them together, and all of a sudden, there was a church.

That's another message altogether, because I know planting churches is a big thing, and I'm here to tell you, if Paul did not plant churches, he planted Christ. His object was not to see the church grow, but to see Christ increased, and as you are in union with him, obviously you're going to grow spiritually, because he's going to increase in you, and spiritual growth is less of you and more of him.

But one of these letters is Galatians, the epistle of Paul to the Galatians was a letter written back to these churches that he had seen birthed out of the Holy Spirit, making disciples for Jesus, and then Jesus gathered them together into his ekklesia, the church.

Galatia was a province, and so there were many gatherings of disciples in that province, and what you need to understand is that Galatia was a Gentile province. These Christians were Gentiles, they were not Jews.

Paul was known as the apostle to the Gentiles, and these Christians that Paul is writing to, they were Gentiles. In other words, they were not Jewish. Now, Paul was Jewish until he met the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus, and without realizing it, that was the beginning of the end of his career in the Jewish religion.

Just as when I met the Lord Jesus, that was the beginning of the end of my career in organized religion. It just seems to happen that way. When you meet the Lord, and you have that encounter with him, your life is different.

There's going to be a change. So it happened to Paul, and Paul traveled north from Jerusalem. He went through Asia Minor, the provinces there. Galatia was one of those. He preached Jesus, and they believed.

The Galatian Crisis: Law Added to Grace

Now, the situation behind this letter is this. After Paul preached Jesus, got them started, and they began to grow, then Paul left them and went on as the Holy Spirit led him to other parts of the world.

He got a report that some of the people from Jerusalem, some of the Jewish Christians, had gone through and gone behind where Paul had just left, and was teaching them that they needed to be circumcised.

Now, what is the significance of that? Well, basically, they were trying to convince the Galatian Christians that having Jesus is good, but if you really want to please God, here is the set of Jewish laws that you need to obey.

And this will make you more spiritual. This will bring you into the inner sanctum, so to speak. And so, basically, they were taking these people who believed in Jesus, and they were trying to get them to convert over into a Jewish slash Christian type of a relationship with God.

Now, that's really giving it a bottom line analysis. That's just so you can, by way of introduction, know what we're talking about when we start reading through these chapters, and why Paul is compelled by the Holy Spirit to bring some correction here.

And so, that's your introduction to the book of Galatians. The problem is, these Christians had come to the Lord Jesus, and now people are coming in behind Paul and adding to the gospel of Jesus Christ, adding to salvation by grace through faith, adding to the cross of Jesus Christ, and saying, now that you're saved, now that you're Christians, now that you believe in Jesus, here are all these Old Testament laws you don't know anything about, because you're a Gentile.

We don't expect you to know them, but now that you're a Christian, now that you believe in Jesus, you need to start living according to the law of Moses. And Paul had this problem out of the Jews from Jerusalem all the time, and so he's going to address the situation here in the book of Galatians.

The New Covenant and the Fulfillment of the Law

And you know, I see it happening today, folks. I see the same thing happening when you take people who have been saved by grace, filled with the Holy Spirit, trusting in the Lord Jesus, walking after Him, and then here comes someone, some religious person, it could be any one of a number of different denominations or religious flavors, and they come along and say, that's good, that's well and fine, but here's something else you need to do.

And then they try to lay the law on them and say, you know, this is still for today, you need to obey this. And really, they don't have a good understanding of all that Jesus did, and they don't really understand all that is meant by Jesus being our high priest, being the mediator and the establisher of a new covenant, a better covenant, established on better promises.

When we get into the book of Hebrews, you can see all of this for yourself. But a lot of our questions as to, are we supposed to obey the law? What part of the law is valid for today? What about this?

And what about tithing? What about Sabbath days? All these are major questions for people, and these questions would be answered if they would read the book of Galatians and the book of Hebrews. Just those two books of the Bible, of course, you could read Romans and come to the same conclusion.

You could read Colossians and come to the same conclusion. But if you just read Galatians and read Hebrews, all those questions would be answered. And what would happen if you would really open your mind is you would see Jesus increased.

You would see him so enlarged that you would say, you know what? I just, he has done so much. He has established such a greater, such a better covenant than what we had before. I just, I can't go back to it.

Paul's Loss of Religious Status for Christ

And that's what happened to Paul. That's precisely what happened to Paul. He's more religious than you would ever be. He was more of a Jew than you would ever be. He was more righteous according to the law than you and I will ever be.

But when he met Jesus Christ, that was the end of that. He says, I counted all loss in Philippians. He says, you know, I was, I was this and that in the Jewish religion. I was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and I was of the tribe of Benjamin.

And I was of the Pharisees, the strictest sect of the religious leadership. And all these things that Paul was, all the things that Paul had in the Jewish religion before Jesus and after Jesus, he says, you know what?

I count all of that as loss. I counted all as done, all of it, even, you know, the religious stuff, keeping the law, the Torah, the observance of Sabbath and new moon and all the festivals. How was he able to do that?

Because he saw that Christ fulfilled them all and that they were all summed up into Jesus. And then in 30 minutes, it's impossible for me to convince you of that. If you are really into that kind of thing, I hope that you'll tune in next week.

Christ Above Every Religious System

And I hope that you'll stick around and listen because it will change your life. And all I'm trying to do here is just enlarge Jesus. I'm trying to increase him. I want him to be magnified. I don't want any religious system for better or for worse.

It could be good. It could be bad. It could be neutral for all I'm concerned. But I don't want any of that to take the place of Jesus Christ in your life. He must increase. He must be larger and larger.

And he is larger than that system of religion. Someone greater than Solomon is here, folks. Someone greater than Moses is here. Someone greater than Abraham is here. Someone greater. And he is the Lord Jesus.

And so this is the situation for Paul writing to the Galatians. And so I encourage you this week, see my time's already gone. I mean, you know, the same thing happens here as happens in real life. We did the School of Christ a couple of weeks ago in Wilson, North Carolina.

And I had all the material I wanted to cover. And we were supposed to get out of there at 6 o 'clock. And we didn't get finished until after 8 o 'clock. And I was so embarrassed that we didn't finish on time.

But see, that's what happens is there is so much to this word. And I just hope that you will this week pray, just pray. And if you want to join us in Galatians, you've got the introduction today. I hope this kind of gets you excited, gets your wheels spinning.

And why don't you this week maybe read through the book of Galatians. It's only six chapters. And you can read it through in probably 15, 20 minutes at a real leisurely rate. But why don't you read through that book?

And then when we come back next week, we will begin our study, actually verse by verse, chapter by chapter with Galatians chapter one. So we'll leave it at that until next time. This is Chip Brogdon. Thank you again for tuning in.

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