Accept No Substitutes

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Don Filcek, Finding Freedom in Galatians; Galatians 1:6-10 Accept No Substitutes

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Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service.
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We're currently studying Galatians in a series called Off the Chain, Finding Freedom in Galatians.
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Here's Pastor Don Filsak. I'm Don Filsak. I'm the lead pastor here. So again, thank you for coming.
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And hopefully you were able to collect some of the information there that you needed. We're gonna be back in the book of Galatians this morning.
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Our second second sermon in this series that we're gonna be going over this summer. And I always like to take some time at the beginning of the service to introduce the topic, kind of walk through the text just a little bit, so that we're getting our mind in that direction before the band comes to lead us in worship.
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As I highlighted last week, this book that we're going to be studying, the book of Galatians, is all about grace.
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And so what we're going to encounter throughout the book is a little bit of irony because Paul is going to be addressing the topic, the author,
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Paul the Apostle, is addressing the topic of grace. But what comes across this morning is that he does so in somewhat of an ungracious way.
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Like he comes across pretty aggressive in our text this morning here in Galatians 1, 6 through 10. So it's kind of ironic that the defense of the grace of God is central, but Paul is going to level his sights at the
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Galatians. And really ultimately at us as we go through this text.
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He's really seeking to address this issue where the people in Galatia were literally changing the good news of free salvation through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
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He found it, I get the impression that Paul was completely intolerant of any type of change to the good news.
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And we're going to be talking about that as we go through this book. So there are all kinds of religious thoughts out there.
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As we think about the gospel, the good news that Jesus Christ came and gave his life for us, and it was a free gift, something that we didn't deserve, something that we didn't earn.
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There's different kinds of thoughts that we encounter in our culture. There are many out there who would claim to have unlocked the key to happiness, and it is for sale.
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And if you exercise like them, if you diet like them, if you buy their products, if you believe the same things that they believe, then you will have happiness.
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Have you encountered that out in our culture? Has anybody watched TV recently? Watched a commercial? Like it's just all about that product.
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And boy, if you drive the right car, you use the right deodorant, you listen to the right music, everything's going to be okay for you, right?
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It's all going to run smooth because you've got the good news of the culture, their gospel.
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And everybody is out there in the marketplace selling a gospel, some kind of good news. My product is going to make the difference in your life.
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But in our text, Paul is going to strongly, directly, and vehemently oppose the notion that there is any other gospel.
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Gospel being a word that simply means good news. And he says there is one good news.
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There is one, one piece of information that brings goodness and wholeness and completeness and other things fade away in light of this gospel, of this good news.
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And that is the good news of Jesus Christ, and that it is the one true message that provides hope, forgiveness, restoration, and new life.
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So are you guys ready to get blasted by the Apostle Paul? Are you ready for that? He let the Galatians have it, and I think we would do well to listen in to him this morning and in a careful way discern our own hearts and try to figure out where he may be addressing issues in our lives as we think about the gospel.
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So I want you to open your Bibles, please, to Galatians 1. And we'll be looking at verses 6 through 10. That's page 832 in the
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Bible in the seat back in front of you. Again, 832. And if you don't own a Bible, please take that one with you.
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It's our desire that everybody has a copy of the Word of God. But follow along as I read this short passage,
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Galatians 1, 6 through 10. Let's jump in. 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.
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Not that there is another one. But there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
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But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.
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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.
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For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please men?
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If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
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Let's pray. Father, as we have an opportunity to come to worship, it is really only that we can worship you based on the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that our hearts can be turned inside, changed, that we can be given new life and that out of that new life flows an awe of the gospel, of the good news that we have been changed because of the grace of Jesus Christ.
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And so Father, as we have these thoughts rolling around in our mind about the different good news is out in the culture,
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Father, I ask that you would help us to put those things aside, those other things that we would be tempted to cling to for hope, and abandon everything for the sake of the good news of Jesus Christ, that He is our hope.
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And Father, that we would lift our voices up together and worship to you because we recognize that you are gracious and merciful and kind and just, and you are working in our lives in amazing ways.
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I praise you for that in Jesus' name. Well, I want to say thanks to the band for leading us.
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Very grateful for the time and energy that they put in. Yeah, go ahead and give them a hand. Really, really appreciate that work.
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And then also, I just want to say, I know we just got done taking a break, but feel comfortable at any time to get up and get some coffee or donuts or more juice.
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You can just get up at any time during the message. You're not gonna distract me unless you get up and shout at me or something like that.
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That might get my attention. But as we dive into this text, remember we're in Galatians 1, 6 through 10, if you're not already there.
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We already read that together. But it's not very often that I argue from silence in Scripture. Like something isn't there, so you argue something about it or you talk about that.
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But there is something that is just crazy absent from the book of Galatians that should draw our attention.
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It doesn't because we don't very often. How many of you have ever read like 1st Timothy in like alongside of Galatians to figure out how
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Paul commonly wrote letters? Like probably not many of us do that on a regular basis, right? So that's one of the benefits of my role and my ability to just kind of get in and study the
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Scriptures and figure things like that out and study guys who study Scripture from all different kinds of angles and stuff. So there's something that's missing here.
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There's something that's glaringly missing from the letter to Galatians that exists in all of Paul's other letters.
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And so if you're reading a letter from Paul, it always contains this section that is missing from this letter.
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You see, usually Paul opens with a formal greeting, which is what we talked about last week, the formal, you know, all of this stuff.
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And then the next step is to offer thanks to God for the good things he hears about going on at that place or with who he's writing to or whatever.
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It's just kind of a general thanks to God for the... In a sense, he's thanking
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God because he's commending them. Do you know how you can thank somebody and at the same time be thanking
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God, but at the same time commending somebody? Like, I thank God for the way that he's worked in you. I thank God for the band and what he's doing through them, you know, something like that.
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So anybody want to guess what's missing from Galatians? Thanks and commendation.
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Absolutely. It is not there. No commendation. No thanks. No joy for what
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God is doing in the churches in Galatia. But I mean, should that grab our attention right away?
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Paul wants to get right down to business because something is going on in Galatia that is so grabbed his attention that he's not going to take the time for the little niceties off to the side.
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It's like, I got to get this and I got to hit this hard right off the bat. Now, it's important for us to understand as we dive into the book of Galatians that he loved these people.
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Have any of you ever had to speak some hard words to somebody that you love? That's what's happening for Paul here.
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He loved them deeply to the extent of self -sacrifice in planting those churches in what is now modern -day
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Turkey. We looked at maps last week in the introduction in the south, the south -central region of Turkey.
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He had planted churches like Lystra, Antioch, Iconium, Derby, in those towns.
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Those are the towns and the churches in Galatia.
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And he had actually been run out of town. He had been beaten. He had been stoned. He had been left for dead. So his love and commitment to them was real and it was strong, even to the point of self -sacrifice for them.
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Now, that's important because when he brings these kinds of railing things against them that we're going to see throughout the book of Galatians, it shows all this more strongly how he felt.
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Somebody that you love, if you're speaking harshly to them or directly to them, it shows that this is really intense.
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So basically, in the place of thanksgiving is indignation and an aggressive approach. He starts with a statement of utter surprise and shock in our text.
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I am astonished. I'm surprised. I'm in shock, says
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Paul. Deeply and gravely concerned. And Paul is doing his best to verbally express the bewilderment that he is experiencing over some reports that he's received.
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Now, we don't know how he was communicated with, whether he received a letter from them, whether somebody who had been present there in the churches in Galatia had actually boarded a ship and come to Antioch, where he's at when he's writing this, and reported to him.
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Somehow, he's getting through the grapevine what's going on in these churches. Are you seeing that? And he's getting word from them and we don't necessarily know how he gets those reports, but he's very shocked, bewildered, troubled deeply over what these reports are.
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So, what is in this report? Well, we can tell what's in the report by what he addresses, even though we don't have the report itself.
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And that is that they are quickly deserting God, who called them by the grace of Jesus Christ.
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They are turning, in essence, he says, to a different gospel. Now, the tense of the verb for deserting here implies that they have not yet deserted their faith, but they're making decisions to.
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They're right on the edge of it. Have you experienced that? Like you, some of you are raising kids or you have somebody that you're responsible for.
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Have you ever just noticed that they're about to sin? Like they're about to go over the edge.
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Have you noticed that? Maybe you even see it in your own life. Like you just recognize like that tension inside yourself or whatever, or you see it in somebody else and you're like this.
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They've made their mind up and they are ready to head this direction. I haven't yet. And you get just a moment sometimes in people's lives to kind of like, like correct that before it happens, right?
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And there's, I mean, you recognize that in your own life. Sometimes it's a small window, small window of opportunity where you're about to raise your voice and it's like, and that spirit is there kind of saying, don't do it.
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Paul is writing to them to say, don't do it. You're about to forsake him. You're about to walk away from the good news of Jesus Christ.
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You're about to throw it all away. Don't do this thing. That's the report that he's getting.
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And he's writing them to try to keep them from faltering. Now, Paul pictures salvation as a calling by God.
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I want you to see that here in verse six. I'm astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ.
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And you are turning to a different gospel. He pictures salvation as a calling by God, the father in the grace of Jesus Christ.
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And one way we can conceive of our salvation, the way that God saves us is that God, the father opened our eyes to see the glory and grace of Jesus Christ.
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Now, most of us that are present in this room have gathered together because we have seen something in Jesus that is unique.
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You have somehow seen the glory, the supremacy, the awesomeness of Jesus Christ and been captured by that.
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And that is a work of God in your life. That is him opening your eyes to see that. How many of you, some of you are here that can remember a time when
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Jesus Christ was not glorious to you. Some of you were saved later in life. Now, me,
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I was raised in the church and I was saved somewhere around the age of eight. And always there was something about Jesus.
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I knew he was unique and different. And I remember, I mean, at an early age coming to realize, well, he's not just something, he's it, right?
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But some of you experienced some life against Christ before you came to him.
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Kind of like the apostle Paul here, who knew what it meant to oppose him and knew what it meant to be called through the grace of Jesus Christ, through his glory, through his majesty, through seeing him as he was.
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And that was the scales falling off of his eyes, so to speak, for his literally, but for us figuratively, right?
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And some of you can give glory to God just for the time that you remember the scales falling off and your eyes seeing and your ears hearing and beholding the glory of Jesus Christ.
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And that's one way that we can conceive of or picture our salvation. We've experienced his grace in a powerful, transforming way in our lives.
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And that is because the father, the father has called us to himself. But the
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Galatians have begun to desert by turning to a different gospel, to basically forsake him.
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And a different, what they've done is they basically are beginning to adopt a different mindset, a different understanding of salvation.
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It's something that I think we can slide into if we're not careful. This different gospel is going to become more clear as we march through the entire book of Galatians.
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But there's some things just from this text alone, from these few verses that we can gather about this distortion, this different gospel.
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And that is that it is a distortion. That's the word that's used for it in verse seven. The word distortion is a word for a warping.
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Okay, it's not a completely... How many of you know that sometimes you have a completely different thing, like a completely different gospel?
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Okay, this is kind of like the good news tweaked, just changed or twisted or warped.
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But there's still... It started with the gospel that you're saved by grace, but something has been transformed or changed in it.
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So it is no longer the same thing. Does that make sense? That's what we're getting from the word distorted here. And that's from verse seven.
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We also can find out in verses eight and nine that it is contrary to good news. It is not really good news at all.
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It's contrary to it. And we also find out how it was brought to Galatia. It was brought to them by some troublemakers in verse seven.
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So what we can tell so far about this error, this false gospel that's going on in Galatia is that it was brought by troublemakers, plural.
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There was more than one bringing this message in. It's a distortion of the gospel and it runs contrary to what is genuinely good news.
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So that's what we can tell from our text about it. Paul identifies that this truly is not really...
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You can't really use the word gospel for the message that's being presented in Galatia. You can't use the word gospel because what does the word gospel mean?
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Good news. And so it is not truly good is what he's saying.
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Paul directly states here in our text that there really is only one good news.
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No other true gospel. But some had apparently come into the churches in Galatia and they'd begun to stir things up.
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And as we'll find out later, these were people who were coming to Galatia from a Jewish background, not followers of Jesus Christ, but kind of getting into the church with a
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Jewish mindset. And they began to question Paul's authority. Like who was this Paul guy and why did he bring you this new message, this gospel?
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But not only did they question Paul's authority, which in and of itself would probably cause some confusion, right? Like imagine that somebody has come in and planted a church and then the next person comes in and is like, well, who was he and what was his message?
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Like why was he there? What you really need is you need my message and then going on from there.
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Like would that cause confusion? I would say so. And so that's what's going on there.
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But they didn't only question Paul's authority, they also began to tell new believers that they needed something more.
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They needed to follow the law. Okay, this whole gospel thing, great, good, handy, that's nice.
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Okay, so you're forgiven. Awesome. Now, dance to my tune.
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Jump through my hoops. And then you'll really be in with God. Okay, the gospel brings you close to God.
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That's okay, you know, I'll accept that Paul had some things. Okay, that's okay. But now you need more.
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You need just follow me, just follow my ways, do my thing. And things like circumcision, following dietary laws, basically becoming a
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Jew in order to be acceptable with God. That's what's going on in Galatia.
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Does that make sense to you guys? You're getting what's going on there? Now, it's interesting to note before we move on that Paul had experienced this himself.
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He knew what he was talking about when he dealt with the law. When he starts talking about law, now we're in Paul's wheelhouse.
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Okay, this is where he hits home runs. He knows the law in and out. And he's not going to rail against the
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Jews out of some kind of book knowledge about the law. Oh, I think I heard sometime, I read a book once about a guy who used to follow the law.
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Like that's not the basis on which Paul has to address people steeped in the law, right? Because Paul himself was a devout
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Jew before he came to Christ. He knew what it meant to try to cross every T and dot every
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I, what it meant to try to please God by following rules and regulations. And he had come up short and he knew that it could not satisfy even the human heart and the desire for hope.
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How many of you know that really the law does not bring hope? Did you know that? The law brings condemnation, right?
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Like in what sense do we hope when we know that we haven't quite done enough? Like have any of you ever tried to please
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God by rules and regulations? Have you been to that place in life? It is a miserable place, very miserable.
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Because you know what happens? Is when have you done enough? When have you done enough?
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You can't do enough. And so it's always like, I failed in this way, I failed in this way. Oh, I forgot to do that.
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I didn't do this. Oh, I did do that. And it's just constantly beating yourself over the head with this.
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Paul had been there. He knew what it was and what that lifestyle was like.
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He had lived the law. He had taught the law. He had been immersed in the law. And we even know that by following the law, the law had led
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Paul to zealously oppose Christianity. He was going around killing Christians for the sake of the law.
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So Paul was no stranger to the law. And so when he speaks of it throughout the book of Galatians, he speaks as one with significant authority.
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He used to be a preeminent teacher of the law, a former Jew. And he used a great word for what these troublemakers are doing.
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He says they are distorting the gospel of Christ. I mentioned it earlier. Now, so often we think of a distortion or we think of a religious problem regarding religion as a taking away from the truth, right?
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Like you missed something. You forgot to include something or you left something out. This is a different kind of distortion that's happening here.
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This is a distortion in Galatia where people are coming in and adding to the truth.
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They're adding something extra to it. They got the gospel down here. That's fine and dandy. You have your little gospel over here.
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And then we'll add some things to it to really just beef that thing up and give it some structure, make it work for you.
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You getting what's going on there? They're adding to the gospel rules and regulations and things that you must and mustn't do in order to please
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God. Basically, in essence, questioning the sufficiency of the cross of Jesus Christ.
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And you need more. But the cross is okay. But what you really need is rules and regulations and law.
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That's what's going on in Galatia. And we can tend to do this as well.
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Think about your own lives as you ask yourself the following questions. Is the cross of Christ enough to heal me?
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Is the cross of Christ enough for me for forgiveness in God's eyes?
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Is it enough? Answer that honestly. Because the follow -up question is this.
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Do I live like the cross of Christ is enough? Do I live like Jesus Christ has taken care of my sin?
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You know, you wrestling with that? Are you thinking through that? Do I live in such a way that demonstrates that I trust and rest in the cross of Christ?
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How many of you know that your joy is tied in with this? The way that you live in this world with joy or with fear?
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If you don't think the cross of Christ was enough, you're going to live based on fear.
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Guaranteed. Your life is scared. You are terrified of that day of judgment that maybe
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I haven't done quite enough. Sure, there's the gospel, but then I need to add some things to that.
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And I'm not sure if I've gone to church enough or if I've prayed enough or if I've read my Bible enough relating to what
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I'm saying here. But if you know that you are okay with God based on the cross, you've thrown yourself a hundred percent on his mercy and said,
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I need the cross or there is no way I'm getting in. You rest in that.
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That is sure. That is rock solid. That is the good news. The good news that says you can be made whole and complete through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
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Nothing that you can do to add to that anymore. It's done. It's been done for us.
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And so what should we live like going out into this next week? Hearing that it is by grace and grace alone.
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There should be a skip in our step, a smile on our face, and joy in our hearts because we've been redeemed.
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We've been bought back from a life of sin. Are there things that we should do moving forward in grace?
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Yeah, we're gonna talk about that. Galatians is gonna deal with that too. But it's not rules. It's not based on laws or rules or regulations.
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It's based on grace, relationship, loving the one who has loved us and gave his life for us.
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So now we've entered into a relationship with him, but not based on rules and things like that.
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You gotta ask yourself this question. Do I add a bunch of behaviors? Do I add a bunch of activities?
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Do I add a bunch of dogmas to the cross to kind of cover my bases? So I think some of us live that way if we're honest.
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It's like, well, I believe Jesus died on the cross for my sins, and I'm grateful for that.
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That's awesome. But man, if I happen to go stand before God on a day when he's kind of like,
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I don't know if the blood is enough, well, then maybe I'll have, you know, I have gone to church and I've done these things, and what's gonna be your follow -up?
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You know, what would be your follow -up answer? It's like, if the cross of Christ doesn't cover me, I got nothing else to go to. Are you hearing what
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I'm saying? But I think we live our lives and we tend to walk through our life kind of like, well, but then
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God is gonna be more pleased with me if I do this and this and this, and maybe it'll get me some brownie points or something like that.
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Am I seeking the approval from God on the basis of anything other than the cross? These are serious questions that the
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Galatians were starting to waver on. But be warned that expressing insufficiency in the cross of Christ for salvation will always result in a different gospel.
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If Christ's sacrifice is not sufficient, then it is something different. We are saved by Jesus from first to last.
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It's initiated by Him, we are brought in by Him, we are kept and held by Him, and we will be brought home by Him.
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We'll talk some more about the distortions of the gospel at our conclusion here this morning, but check out how
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Paul responds to those who are distorting the gospel. Good news, I've got some harsh words for them. In verse 7, he says,
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But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach something contrary to the gospel that was originally delivered, let that person be accursed.
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Paul was so crazy sure that the gospel that he had first proclaimed in Galatia was true and accurate that he didn't even allow room for himself.
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Notice the pronoun we in the text. He didn't even allow room for himself to come into Galatia and correct it.
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You hear what I'm saying? If I were to, Paul says, if I were to come back to you and preach something different or add to it or subtract from it, let me be cursed.
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And notice that he even acknowledges that if a supernatural manifestation, how many of you know like having an angel appear to you, a little bit supernatural?
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That'd be, that kind of freak you out? Like say an angel were to appear to you and bring to you like 12 gold tablets, for example, or something like that.
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Just saying. Was it 12? Is that the right number? Two? Is it only two? I thought maybe it's seven.
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Say that an angel were to appear to you and bring to you some gold tablets that spelled out a different way to get to a right relationship with God, what would you do?
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What does Paul say? That's not an angel serving God. He says, let it be accursed.
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He says, the supernatural experience doesn't trump what is written in this text.
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Are you hearing what I'm saying? Sometimes we get this backwards. Would you admit this? Like we put our experience here and then the
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Bible here and we let the Bible interpret our experiences when we need to basically start with the
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Bible first, right? The word of God and interpret our experiences through the
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Bible. And so that's, you know, he's just very direct here. Not even a supernatural experience would trump this, especially if it's anything that opposes the truth that Jesus died on the cross for sins and that that is enough.
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And the indictment on anyone proclaiming a doctrine contrary to the true gospel, Paul uses in Greek, a naughty word.
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He does. The word accursed here is a very super strong Greek word.
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It's condemned, devoted, destruction, or even damned. And Paul is not fooling around or pulling any punches.
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When he writes this, he is fired up. And he says, if anyone comes in messing around with the core, central, fundamental belief that we are saved by grace through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, let them be condemned.
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Strong words. Does that sound strong to you? And in a day and an age when ink and parchment and scrolls were an expensive commodity, he decides to make sure they get it.
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And even repeats himself in the same context, even saying, let me say it again. If anyone preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.
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Now, how do we find that gospel? What are we talking about? Like, because somebody comes in and share something about a pre -tribulational, premillennial rapture at the end times or whatever.
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Is that part of the gospel? Well, the gospel is this, the story of this from beginning to end is just congealed down to a very simple few sentences.
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Jesus Christ came to heal our broken predicament, died on the cross for our sins, was raised again three days later to prove his vindication that he was the chosen one of the father, that anyone who would throw themselves on the mercy of Jesus, acknowledging him as Lord and asking him to save them would have eternal life and be made reconciled with God.
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Pretty simple core of what is fundamentally the good news. How many of you know there's a lot of other peripheral things here that Paul was not eager to condemn people for disagreeing about?
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He's saying, this is core, this is central. Anybody comes in and adds to that and says, you need to take communion every week in order to be saved.
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How many of you know that's adding to the story of the Bible, that's adding something in? Somebody says, you need to go to this church, or you need to use this kind of Bible, or you need to use my translation, or you need to speak in tongues, or you need…
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How many of you know there's all kinds of things that could be added to the gospel that are not part of the gospel? How many of you know there's a lot of hoops that our culture, that different churches, that different people want you to jump through, jump through my hoop to get okay with God?
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There is one hoop, and it's really good news, that there is nothing that you can do to be made right with God other than trust in the provision that he has made.
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That's it, trust in the provision that has already been made for you. Accept it, embrace it, it's there for you.
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By grace, grace a word that just means gift. You don't buy gifts for you, for,
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I mean, buy somebody, that doesn't make sense, you do buy gifts for each other, but what am I trying to say? You don't pay somebody for a gift that they give to you, it's free.
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And all of that, I got on a side note, I don't even know where I'm at on this page, so give me just a second. What Paul is boldly declaring here, in essence, is that the gospel that I just proclaimed is a higher authority than the apostles, it's a higher authority than pastors, it's a higher authority than the angels.
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What we have written here of the good news of Jesus Christ is above experiences like angelic revelation.
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No pastor has the right to change it, no author has the right to change it, no culture has the right to tweak it so that it makes them more comfortable.
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Nobody has the right or the authority to add to the good news of Jesus Christ in any way, or to add anything to it.
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And as we wrap up the text, Paul points out the nature of his rant, and he clearly shows that, obviously
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I'm speaking this way, I'm not seeking the approval of people, of man.
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How many of you know that often standing for the truth is unpopular? Do you agree with that? Standing for the gospel in our culture can be unpopular, and it's not an easy road.
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And Paul recognizes here in the end of verse 10, he recognizes that it's not always possible to please both
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God and man, and so therefore he infers that he himself, in weighing his motives, has been seeking to please
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Jesus Christ. And if his top priority was to please people, he would not be able to even rightly call himself a servant of Christ, he says.
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So Paul levels his sights on the church in Galatia and pulls the trigger.
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He's really like a father who has found out that his son has been making some very dangerous decisions. He's concerned, he's emotional, he's angry, and he's very direct.
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But there's a bit of question that, there's a question that lingers in my mind as I read this passage, because we all live somewhere on the spectrum of pleasing people or pleasing
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God. Would you agree with that? How many of you maybe already thought up some questions in your mind about, well, is that permissible to please, is it okay?
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You know, we all live in that spectrum. So are we supposed to be enemies with everyone?
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What if somebody happens to like us, is that okay? Yeah, me too.
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Is it okay to ever do things that help people to like us or like our message or like the gospel?
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And the answer is, of course, of course that's okay. But I want to highlight that Paul actually said,
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I became all things to all men for the sake of the gospel. The same Paul that here says, for am
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I now seeking the approval of man or of God, or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man,
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I would not be a servant of Christ. And then he says in the book of 1 Corinthians, I became all things to all men for the sake of the gospel.
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Anybody think that seems somewhat contradictory? If you find that somewhat contradictory, I'd encourage you to read my blog that I wrote this week, just reference that.
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I could end up spending an entire sermon on that, so I decided to blog about it instead about the limit of likability.
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Like there is an actual line in our lives where we can't be liked over and above, over and against the truth.
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So we either compromise the truth for the sake of people liking us, or we say, this is the line and I can go no further.
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And the line is simply this, the gospel. The gospel is the line. I'm going to be, you know, if the gospel becomes unpopular in our culture, then we ought to become unpopular in our culture because that is the line that we can go no further and still call ourselves followers of Jesus Christ.
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Is that making sense? There is a line, a limit of likability.
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So Paul made this statement, I became all things to all men for the sake of the gospel. He clearly tried to fit in with a variety of people for the cause of Jesus Christ.
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But in his statement is the definition of where we draw the line. And we as a church and individuals would do well to draw the line in that same place at the gospel.
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And so a question, a couple of questions that we can ask ourselves as we're thinking through our own behavior and the way that we, if we're honest, we would like our coworkers to like us.
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We'd like our neighbors to like us. We'd like people around us to like us. And so we can ask ourselves some questions.
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This is what I'm doing contrary to the gospel. And I'm going to know that the gospel goes beyond a set of beliefs, but it goes down to our lives, right?
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There are, I'm going to know that there are things that we can do that would actually speak more volumes than the word, more, more than the words that come out of our mouth about the gospel, right?
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And so it's, it's a question of, is what I'm doing, is my life running in the face of the gospel, flying in the face of the gospel with the people around me?
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Does it assist? Does this thing that I'm trying to think about, does it assist in the presentation of the gospel?
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Think about that. You see, many churches attempt to be postmodern and cool, but really that's junk in the end.
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If it's an end in and of itself, the reality is that to some in our culture, church will always be super uncool.
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Is that reality? And no matter how we, how we dress it up or paint it up or sing it up or wear shorts or whatever,
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I mean, no matter what we do, it's just imminently uncool to go to church, right? And in reality, in some ways, if we stand on the gospel, there is a limit, there is a limit to how cool we can become.
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There's a limit to how relevant we can be to our culture. And the gospel, again, defines that limit.
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If it becomes uncool to talk about sacrifice, if it becomes uncool to talk about judgment or the reality of hell or the reality that Jesus Christ is the only way, then we are faced with a choice like the
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Galatians. Either we become uncool or we desert him who has called us by the grace of Jesus Christ.
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Those are the choices that stand before us. We either accept the distortion and with it the approval of our culture or we reject it.
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We reject the approval and embrace the gospel. Is that all making sense? You see, there's a multitude of distortions of the gospel in our culture, and I'm going to list out a couple of them.
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The first one, it's very unpopular to proclaim that we are all unworthy of salvation.
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Is that a message that strikes well with our culture? You're all unworthy. Nobody's worthy.
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We're all sinners. You see, the entire self -esteem movement shot ourselves in the foot, and it's all based on how, you know, you're all snowflakes.
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You're just one of a kind. You're so unique. You're an original. You're a firework.
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You know, you're gold. You're a shooting star. By the way, that all comes from recent lyrics in songs.
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As a matter of fact, most of those are the titles of songs. So, it's like we ought to just step back and wow.
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We ought to applaud the amazing and awesome you. Man, you're just one of a kind.
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There's something cool about being made in the image of God. I don't want to downplay that and I don't want you to walk away just feeling like crud about yourselves, but in all honesty, there's some things that the gospel says that are true of us that grates on the ears of those whose ultimate hope is based on their 15 minutes of fame, right?
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You're a sinner. I'm a sinner. I am broken. And not only am
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I broken, but I break things. Yeah, I'm unique.
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I have a unique pattern of sin, right? A unique wake of destruction behind me.
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Right? And the gospel takes for granted that we know we need to be saved from the mess that we have made in our rebellion against God.
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Fundamental reality. Fundamental to the gospel is that there's this good news and it always starts with the bad news.
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We're sinners. Good news is hardly good news without the backdrop of bad things happening, right?
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And there's crud. That's the first thing. It's unpopular to proclaim that we are all unworthy of salvation.
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The second thing, to preach a gospel in our culture that declares the righteous judgment of God towards all.
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Whoa. How many of you know that's unpopular? To say everyone will get to heaven?
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That's popular. That's the way you fill auditoriums and seats and boy, we could just get a lot rolling here if we could just say everybody gets to heaven and just have a positive self -esteem message here this morning.
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But to acknowledge the wrath of God is reality. That it is true and just and right towards a rebellious race of sinful people.
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Just try leading off with that with your unsaved friends and report back to me how it goes next week, right?
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That's not really a good lead off, is it? But is it reality?
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Is it true? Is it a component of the gospel? It is. The third thing, to proclaim that Jesus is the only way of salvation is one of the ultimate now cultural blasphemies in America.
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To say there is no other way but Jesus. Our culture defines us as closed -minded, arrogant, and uncultured.
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But this is the reality of the gospel that Jesus Christ himself declared that he is the way, the truth, and the life and no one will come to the
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Father except through him. And just kind of one thing is like,
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I mean, he's God, right? And so does he have the right to designate the way of restoration?
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He has the right, doesn't he? And he's even provided us a way. That there's a gate, that there's a door, that there's any way that we can be made right with him is just awesome in and of itself.
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He doesn't have to provide us dozens of ways as the culture would tell you. He's provided us a way.
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And he's even declared that the gate is narrow. And the gate is one.
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And the gate is Jesus Christ, his son, who died on the cross for us. To proclaim a gospel that proclaims those realities is to proclaim a gospel that pleases
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God but rarely pleases people. But please be clear that every false gospel out there really takes a nasty turn.
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You know that there's false gospels out there. They're, those false good news, as Paul says, is not real.
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They're really not good news at all because in the end they turn to bad news. They ultimately all have a point where they turn and betray the one following them.
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You see, like, for example, the false gospel of health works great until you get sick, right?
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And then all of a sudden it's not as good anymore. But as long as you're healthy, great news, great news.
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God wants you to be healthy until you're sick or you get in an accident or worse, you die.
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The false gospel of wealth works great until the money dries up or the job is lost or the economy tanks like it has.
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And really, if you think about it, even in the midst of the gospel of wealth, it doesn't even work while it's being applied.
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The good news that God wants you to be wealthy, it cannot make sense of the millionaires who need just a few more dollars, a few more toys, or just a couple more houses, right?
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Do you know what I'm talking about? I mean, even that gospel, while it's in operation, doesn't work. It doesn't take an economic downturn to say, this is just not working.
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The gospel of self -esteem, I mean, I'm sorry, the gospel of self -help, which seems to be great until after finishing the 25th book on 25 ways to better yourself and you're no better.
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Like that could be a clue that maybe this is kind of, this is a, this is betraying me. This isn't working.
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All other gospels fail. All other places that we put our hope and we put our hope in some good things.
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Some of you put your hope in a spouse. You put your hope in your kids or your grandkids or you put your hope in your jobs or we put our hope in a lot of things, but ultimate hope, everything is going to fail us except for one hope.
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One truth, one gospel. There is one good news that is not going to disappoint us.
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All other gospels fail. You can't buy enough. You can't study enough. You can't manufacture the solution to your own brokenness.
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But there is one gospel that has the power to change you. It has the power to sustain you. It has the power to carry you through dark times.
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And one day we are going to stand on death's door. And there is only one gospel that takes the sting from death, that gives confidence, hope and purpose.
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And this gospel will not forsake you in this life regardless of what comes.
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It will not forsake you in this life and it will carry you past death's doors into a new life.
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That's good news. That is the gospel. And it is a simple gospel of God's grace.
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We were in a state of brokenness, crushed under the weight of centuries of human sin, then heaped on top of that our own.
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And God by grace sent Jesus to dig us out of our mess and to take that sin that was crushing us and to put it on his own shoulders and let our sin crush him on the cross.
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He stood in our place. And the only reason we have any right standing before God is not because we read our
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Bible today, not because we follow a bunch of rules, not because you came to recast church this week, not because you did kind things for others this past week, not because you gave money or time or service to the church, not because you told others about Jesus last week, not because you were a great mom or dad or husband or wife or employer or employee, not because you pray a lot but only because Jesus Christ died on the cross for you.
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That is it. And there is only one good thing that can be said about Don Felsick as I stand here and that is that Jesus paid for my sins.
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That's the only thing that is good that can be said of me. That's the only thing that can be said of any of us in reality that is good and I embrace that and I don't say that as self -effacing drivel,
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I mean that sincerely. And I think that's why Paul, I was mystified at one point about how
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Paul talks about boasting in the cross of Christ, that's what it means. Paul says the only thing of value in my life is the cross and that alone, that is it.
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Grace and glory be to God, He has saved me. I don't deserve it, not a bit.
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I don't deserve for God to even glance my direction and He saved me and He poured out His wrath on His Son that I might be purchased, that I might spend eternity with Him and hang out with Jesus on the new earth and I'm looking forward to that.
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Anybody else looking forward to that? Glory to God. There's only one gospel and it is the gospel of grace.
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It is a free gift, not based on what we have done, no strings attached and it is on this truth that Recast Church will stand.
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Let's pray. Father, I am in awe of Your grace.
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I'm in awe of the great and awesome sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And as I read
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Paul's text, I can just sense and feel the concern as a pastor for those who might be embroiled in a life of fear -based religion towards You.
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That there may be some present who have not yet fully let go of themselves and acknowledge that it is solely by Your grace and solely by Your mercy and that salvation only comes to us by faith in Jesus Christ.
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It is not based on our church attendance or our giving or how often we read the
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Bible or our prayer lives. Our relationship is based on this wooden implement of torture that Jesus Christ gave
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His life on. So Father, I pray that as we have an opportunity and Bill comes to lead us in some words about communion,
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Father, that You would be honored and glorified as we remember. Thank You for the sacrifice.
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I thank You for the good news and I ask that we would walk out from this place with eyes wide open, that You would give us discernment as we look out in our culture, that we would discern our own hearts and where our hope is placed and constantly be arresting our hope from other gospels and from other things.
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So many things in our culture, so many things in our lives that would grab our ultimate attention and seek to rise up with loud voices and say,
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I am ultimate, I am the thing that will give you hope, I am the thing that will give you purpose, and it's all rubbish and junk and things that will lead us down roads of destruction and decimation and disappointment.
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So Father, I pray You'll grab our hearts, grab our visions, and let the cross fill our vision this week.