Galatians Chapter 1 — Chip Brogden

And be glad in it. Hello again everyone, this is Chip Brogden welcoming you to another edition of our webcast. We're streaming online at www .watchman .net and we are continuing our study in the book of Galatians beginning with chapter 1.

So if you will take your Bible and turn to Galatians chapter 1, we'll begin this week and I want to say hello to all the people we heard from last week saying how much they are enjoying the webcast in whatever country they may happen to be in.

We have people listening of course in the United States and Canada as well as United Kingdom, New Zealand, Australia, Israel, the Netherlands, Austria, the Philippines and many others and so we're delighted to have you and we hope that this will be a blessing to you.

I even got an email yesterday from Karen Shaw in Georgia and she says I have a small home fellowship that meets on Wednesday mornings in my home and she says our Wednesday morning group gathered around my computer yesterday to begin our study together with you in Galatians and she says what a blessing.

Well Karen, hello to you and to your group and thank you so much for writing in. I'm glad that it's a blessing and I hope that it will be a profitable time and a time where we see Jesus increased as we look into his word and see and hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

Prayer for Revelation of Christ

So we're going to get right into it and before we do though let's go to the Lord and ask him to bless this time that we have together. Father I thank you in Jesus name that your Holy Spirit has been given to us to be our teacher, to be our instructor and Holy Spirit we pray that you would open our eyes, open our hearts to see and to know this Jesus of whom Paul preaches and this Jesus of whom we are in union with.

He abides in us, we abide in him and I thank you for that relationship that we have. I thank you for the fellowship that we have in the Spirit as we walk in the light, as he is in the light, the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from every sin and we have fellowship with one another.

I thank you for the fellowship of the body of Christ all over the world and for the connectivity, the connection that we have here through this webcast and so Father thank you so much for this time that we have and I pray that it will be a blessing to us and by blessing I mean more of Jesus and less of us.

I praise you for it in Jesus name amen and amen. Well I hope that by now you have had a chance to read through the book of Galatians and get kind of an overview of the book. We did the introduction to Galatians last week and basically just to give you a bottom line of the letter, it was written to Gentile Christians who were recently converted or recently saved through grace, through the grace of Jesus Christ according to the gospel that Paul preached and not long after they came to the Lord some Jews from Jerusalem passed by or came through the area and said you know it's a good thing that you accepted Jesus and praise the Lord for that.

We are believers in Jesus also and so that's all well and good but just in case you didn't realize it there's some Old Testament laws and some Jewish commandments that God expects you to keep and it's good to have Jesus but now you also need to pay attention to the law and specifically what they wanted them to do was to be circumcised because that would indicate that they had converted to Judaism.

So this was an issue if you look in the in the book of Acts you will see just how an important, how big of a problem this was between Paul who was preaching Christ and these Jewish believers who accepted the Lord Jesus but they were still very zealous for the law of Moses and not only did they expect to continue on in the laws of Moses but they expected these Gentiles who were not Jews to learn about the law of Moses and so you had this mixture between Judaism and the Lord Jesus.

Galatians Addresses the Judaizing Error

So this is the circumstance that Paul found the Galatians in and so he writes this letter as a way to bring correction and to get their focus back on the Lord Jesus so it's important to understand that these letters of Paul they're very practical.

They are eminently practical letters written to address real life issues. Paul just did not sit around thinking up theology and doctrine and I need to put together a teaching this week and you know everything that you see in God's Word is a result of some practical problem, some practical issue coming up and that's exactly what we have in these letters.

Paul didn't set out to say well I know 2 ,000 years from now people are going to be studying my writings and so I'm going to put together something. No, he wrote in response to issues and problems that came up in the early church and so that's the result that we the result of that is we have these writings here which are very practical and we need to take them practically and not just take them as something to study and you know just one more piece of information that we have filling up our brain.

We need to really get into the situation of what the problem was and what is the correction that Paul is bringing to address this issue and to address this problem. So that's one thing to keep in mind no matter what you're reading in scripture there is a practical application there.

It's not just trying to communicate spiritual teachings or doctrines or truths to us. It does all of that but it is preeminently trying to get us into a practical application. There is something there for us today and that's why God's Word is valuable to us.

Scripture Points to Christ

Now the other thing you need to keep in mind is the primary purpose of the Word of God and of all prophetic speaking is to point us to Jesus. It is the truth concerning Jesus that inspires the prophetic word Revelation 1910 in the Knox translation tells us.

Not just the spoken word but the written word is pointing us to Christ and where you'll miss it when you're studying the Word of God is you look at the Word of God and you're looking for a teaching or an answer to a question or you're trying to settle an argument instead of looking for Christ behind the scriptures the scriptures are pointing us to Jesus and so we need whatever whatever we're reading or studying in the Word of God we need to look for Christ in that passage of scripture and that is how Jesus is increased through his Word.

Jesus says the scriptures testify of me. Praise the Lord. So don't just look at the surface level and say well it you know this is a letter to the Galatians. Well it is but in these scriptures if we will look the Holy Spirit will reveal Christ to us and so that's that's the purpose of studying the scriptures.

That's why we pray before we study the scriptures and we ask the Holy Spirit to give us that wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Jesus. Not just Bible knowledge but the knowledge of Christ through the Word.

Paul’s Apostleship and the Galatian Greeting

So Galatians chapter 1. Let's get right to it in verse 1. Paul writes he says 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 brethren who are with me to the churches of Galatia grace to you in peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father to whom be glory forever and ever amen.

Praise the Lord and what an introduction Paul has a way of just lifting you up into the heavenlies just with his introduction. Now my task here as we go through this the scriptures chapter by chapter it's impossible for me to go down into all of the depths of God's Word and bring up every little thing that's in here in the course of 30 minutes so I really see my task more like like a guide who takes you, who hands you a map and takes you down a path and shows you where the treasure is and I can show you some some treasures that I've discovered and kind of get you going in a general direction but it's going to be up to you during the week during your own private prayer time and study time to take the shovels and the picks and the map that I give you and do your own digging and bringing up treasures on your own so don't think that I'm going to just lay it all out for you and hand it to you on a silver platter.

My task is to stir you up and to equip you with the tools that you need and to get you going in the right direction and give you a general focus and then you take it and you apply it and you go deeper and deeper and deeper and as you do then God's Word will become real to you.

Active Study Rather Than Passive Listening

Now I might be doing this a little bit different differently than what you're used to. I don't consider myself to be a great preacher or a great teacher or a great spokesperson. That's not the way I go about it.

I am just going to share with you what is on my heart as God leads me and the idea that a teacher is supposed to teach and the students are supposed to just passively sit back and listen while the teacher does all the work I don't agree with that premise at all.

I think it makes you spiritually immature just to sit back and passively listen to someone week after week. So what I'm hoping to do is for 30 minutes get you stirred up to the point that you will begin to pray and to study on your own and take the tools that I'm giving you and begin to dig up these treasures.

So I am glad to be able to do that but I'm not going to do all the work. I'm more like a coach that says here's what needs to be done here's the areas you want to focus on and now I encourage you to go and put it into practice.

So praise the Lord just so we have that understanding. Now Paul says I am an apostle not from men nor through man but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. Folks there are only two kinds of apostles.

We're not going to talk about are apostles for today or are they not for today. Absolutely God has apostles. He has prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers and according to my understanding of God's Word those people, those functions are part of God's gift to help grow all of us till we all come to the full knowledge of Christ and since we have all not gotten there yet we still need those apostles and prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers but the thing to keep in mind is that everyone who calls himself an apostle is not an apostle of God and the same being a prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher.

Just because they call themselves that doesn't make them that there are two kinds of apostles. Those who are called by man and those who are called by God those who are credentialed by man and those who are credentialed by God and Paul right from the beginning he needs to establish and reestablish himself as an apostle of Jesus Christ that gives him spiritual authority to speak to the situation.

Now he already had a relationship with the Galatians so he's not just coming out of left field someplace and saying I'm Apostle Paul and here's what I say and you better submit to my authority he had a relationship with these believers because he is the one who went and laid the foundation of Christ there and as their spiritual father if you will he wanted to make sure that his children would grow up into Christ.

In fact you'll see later on in Galatians it says that he is wrestling in prayer for them so that Christ would be fully formed in them he is obviously concerned and you'll see why as we continue to read on that they have they have gotten off of the narrow way and they are they are being distracted into something that is it is not according to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Authority Comes Through Relationship With Christ

So Paul starts out saying that he is an apostle but unlike so many in his day and in our day who are self-proclaimed apostles they take a title to themselves and they have an idea in their head that an apostle is someone who has authority over everybody else.

Well certainly apostles have authority but I believe that apostolic authority simply comes from a personal relationship with Jesus because I know God face to face I have authority it means I know what I'm talking about.

It says that the people were amazed at Jesus teaching because he taught as one who had authority and not as the other scribes and the teachers of the law did Jesus had authority because he had a relationship with his father see that's where spiritual authority comes from it doesn't come from me taking a title to myself and trying to use that as a way to manipulate and control other people.

Authority in the kingdom of God comes from having a relationship with the Lord and intimate knowing of who he is and then when someone speaks and they have been in the presence of God you know it and there's authority behind that.

It's just like if if you let's say on television or on the radio you hear someone being interviewed and during that interview as they introduce him they say this is doctor so-and-so and he is the world's foremost authority on gardening or on I don't know whatever children, child raising, auto mechanic it doesn't matter what the area of expertise is but when they introduce him as an authority it means he has experience and he knows what he's talking about and that's where authority comes from folks.

It doesn't come from your title there are a lot of people that they take a title they have absolutely no authority because they have no knowledge of the Lord. They don't know Jesus well Paul knows the Lord and he says I'm an apostle and I'm not called by man, I'm not credentialed by man but I am an apostle through Jesus Christ so praise the Lord.

Turning From Christ to Another Gospel

Now we have to keep moving in verse 6 he says I marvel that you are turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel now let's take our microscope here and really go down get real close to Galatians chapter 6 he says I marvel that you are turning away so soon from him, from him see and if you're not careful you might lose that in all of those words but what is he saying?

He is not charging them for deserting his teaching or not following Paul anymore or anything to do along those lines but he says you have turned away so soon from him who called you from him, from him see.

I just recently wrote an article called him we preach and I encourage you while you're on the website to pull that article up just go to the read section and you'll find that under the church category him we preach and the whole point of that article is that Paul did not go around as so many people would think that he went around trying to establish the Christian religion or trying to plant churches or trying to teach people the the institutes of the Christian religion this new religion that he invented.

He was not so much trying to plant churches as he was planting Christ. See Jesus is building his church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it. Paul was preaching the Lord Jesus and in that article him we preach there's probably I don't know a couple dozen or so references that discuss how throughout the scriptures throughout the New Testament the paramount thing the paramount issue for the that the church was not planning churches it was preaching Christ.

Now churches came into being as they preach Jesus but go read that article I think it'll help you but even here we see that Paul's whole problem with the Galatians is not that they were had stopped following him or or anything to do along those lines as far as man is concerned but he says my real concern for you is that you have turned away so soon from him from him and see that's exactly where we find ourselves today exactly what I see happening so many people turning away from him who called you from Jesus who called you to sit at his feet and hear his word and this is the one thing that is needed and how simple is that.

And yet every day I see people who have turned away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel to something that distracts them something that that is not going to help them grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Instead it's going to get them bogged down into another gospel. Now we go on to verse 7. He says it's really not another see it really is no other gospel. It's not another gospel. But there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.

The One Gospel and the Anathema Against False Gospels

So he's addressing as you'll see later on he's addressing these Jews from Jerusalem who came to the new Christians in Galatia and they were telling them that unless you keep the law of Moses you can't be saved.

You need to be circumcised. So see here's the point folks circumcision is not the issue. Tithing is not the issue. Ten Commandments is not the issue. Sabbath day is not the issue. The issue is you have turned away from him who called you into something else.

You have turned away from him who called you by grace into arguing about the Sabbath or into the circumcision or into the Old Testament law. And see he wants to preserve them for Christ and that they not be distracted with anything else.

So he says anyone who tries to trouble you is by leading you away from the grace and the simplicity of Christ. They're simply preaching a different gospel which is actually a perverted gospel because there is only one gospel.

So in verse 8 he says. But even if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you other than what we have preached to you let him be accursed verse 9 as we have said before. So now I say again if anyone preaches any other gospel to you then what you have received let him be accursed.

Now that word their curse is anathema. And it means if we were to put it in 21st century English it would be equivalent to saying let him go to hell. It is cursing someone for preaching a different gospel.

And you say boy that sounds really tough. Well you know when people are being distracted from the simplicity of the simplicity of Christ and the truth concerning Jesus someone needs to stand up and say no that's not right.

And Paul says if anyone he says even we he includes himself under this curse. He says if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you then what we have preached let him be accursed let him be anathema.

And he repeats himself just so there's there is no misunderstanding the point at all. And I'm afraid in our touchy feely don't want to offend anyone mentality that these words would be too strong for for most people.

Pleasing God Rather Than People

But Paul's not worried about that because verse 10 he says this for do I now persuade men or God. Or do I seek to please men. See that's the whole problem. That's why we can't stand up and really say what the truth is concerning Jesus.

That's why people are so easily distracted and removed from him into other things. Because those who are supposed to be watching over us and watching over them most of the time not in every case but in most cases they are man pleasers and not God pleasers.

Well Paul says if I'm going to please man I have no business being a bondservant of Christ. How do you like that. Or do I seek to please men. Paul says for if I still please men I would not be a bondservant of Christ.

See now that word still there says if I still please men what. There's a little clue there that says he used to be a man pleaser. He used to do things that were calculated to please people. And now he says since I've been called an apostle by Jesus Christ I am called by him.

And so I don't have to please anyone. I speak the truth concerning Jesus and I am pleasing God and not him. Not man. Isn't that refreshing. Because then you know he's going to speak the truth and he's not afraid.

And he's not trying to please anyone. He's not trying to win any popularity contest. Okay now verse 11 he says but I make known to you brethren that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man.

The Gospel Comes Through Revelation of Jesus Christ

So first we see his apostleship is from heaven and it has nothing to do with man. He's not called by man. And then we see that the gospel he is preaching was preached not according to man not by flesh and blood.

Verse 12. I neither received it from man nor was I taught it but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ. Praise the Lord. You just cannot put too high of a value on spirit and truth revelation.

He says I didn't receive it from man and I was not taught it but it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ. Now talk to a brother last night on the telephone and he was telling me about an apostolic conference someplace.

And they're charging a hundred and seventy five dollars for people to go in and learn how to release the anointing of an apostle. You know how to be an apostle for only a hundred and seventy five dollars.

You know. Well like I said there's only two kinds of apostles those who are called by man and those who are called by Jesus Christ. And I will tell you there's only one kind of gospel. Everything else is a perversion.

The only gospel is the gospel that comes to us by revelation. Now you can hear about it you can learn it but you can't receive it from anyone else. It has to be the revelation that comes through Jesus Christ.

So praise the Lord. Verse 13. You have heard of my former conduct in Judaism and how I persecuted the church of God beyond measuring tried to destroy it. Verse 14. And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my many of my contemporaries in my own nation being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my father the traditions of my father's.

So see there he is pleasing man. My father did it. This is the way I was raised. This is my religion. And this is how I am going about it. And and what happened. What was the result. He persecuted the church of God persecuted Jesus Christ.

God Reveals His Son in Paul

But look at verse 15. But when it please God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through his grace to reveal his son in me that I might preach him among the Gentiles. I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood.

Let's stop right there he says God when it please God to reveal his son in me and see that is the key folks that is the key. That's where his authority comes from. That's where his gospel comes from. That's why he he doesn't have to please man.

He's only concerned with pleasing God. Even though he grew up he was more. He was more religious. He was a leader in in in the Jews religion. And I'm he it says that he was more advanced he said at the feet of the meal.

Another place in Philippians it talks about how he was a a Pharisee of the Pharisees of the tribe of Benjamin blameless insofar as the law is concerned. So we're not talking about someone who doesn't have a firm grasp of the Mosaic Law who doesn't understand the Old Testament.

Paul was a Jews Jew he was. He was the most religious most zealous student of the Mosaic Law that you could find but see when God revealed his son Paul says and that was the beginning of the end of his career as a teacher as a preacher for Judaism.

I mean that that was just it just like when I met the Lord Jesus and really had my eyes open to see who he really is. That was the end of my career as a preacher for organized religion. That was the beginning of the end of my days of pleasing man.

Now I please the Lord so says that God revealed his son in me that I should preach him among the Gentiles and again preach him preach him preach him. Not go plant churches not go in the name of Jesus and try to get people to convert to Judaism.

He says I'm preaching Christ among the Gentiles. He says I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood. Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me. But I went to Arabia and returned again to Damascus.

Christ Revealed Within and the Sufficiency of Revelation

Now what is the point. The point is that when you have that revelation in that that understanding and that knowing on the inside of you of who Jesus is when his son is revealed in me not just to me see Jesus can be revealed to you.

That's one thing. But then there there is a revelation of Christ in you. Paul says Christ in you the hope of glory. And when you see that and when you you experience that that Jesus you come to that understanding of Jesus on the inside of you.

You don't have to confer with flesh and blood anymore. You don't have to go and look all over the world for direction for a word for someone to give you an anointing or lay hands on you for this that or the other all you need is that revelation of Christ who he is in you and who you are in him.

And that is sufficient. That revelation is sufficient. And from there the Lord can begin to to work and to build and to increase Christ on the inside of you. And so Paul that he's giving us his history his life story here.

And that's how this book of Galatians the first chapter proceeds. We're not quite to the end of chapter one but we'll pick up here right where we left off next week. That's enough for you to chew on right there and ask yourself do I have the revelation of Christ.

Am I called of God to be who I am or am I depending on someone else's authority to tell me who I am and who Jesus is not flesh and blood. Folks it's the revelation of my father in heaven. That is the true knowledge of Jesus.

Thank you so much for being with me today. I'm sorry that we're out of time. But we'll pick up here again next week. This is Chip Brodkin again streaming on www .watchman .net. Send us an email at info at watchman .net.

God bless you and we'll see you next time.