Paul Defends His Ministry and Message

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All right, everyone.
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Well, good morning.
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I want to invite you to open up your Bibles and go to Galatians chapter 1.
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We have spent several weeks examining Galatians 1, and then I took two weeks off, and I thank you for the time away.
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I was able to see my son graduate from basic training and then move on to tech school, which has been a wonderful thing for our family.
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It was a pretty tough trip, though.
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I'm not going to lie.
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I've never been to Texas, and if you've never been to Texas in the middle of the summer, it feels like a sheep is just laying on you all the time.
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It's just heat.
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It's an oppressive heat, and I'm from Florida, but it was like a wall of heat everywhere we went.
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We spent a lot of time just sitting in the car talking because the car had air conditioning, and he wasn't allowed to leave the base for most of the trip, so we would just ride around the base and sit under a shade tree and talk.
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It was good to spend time with him, and it was good to see him.
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But what I'd like to do today is I'd like to do a chapter overview of chapter 1 because of a couple of reasons.
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One, we've been out for two weeks, and I think if we jump right into chapter 2, we might miss some of the context.
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But also, I know some of you guys are new and haven't been here, and so sort of overview what we've already done.
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So we're going to read the whole chapter together.
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We're going to pray, and then I'm going to go back, and I'm going to just give you an outline of how I would outline the first chapter and the major points that Paul is making in the first chapter of this book.
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Sound good? All right, well, let's read chapter 1 beginning at verse 1.
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We'll read down to verse 24.
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Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead, and all the brothers who are with me, to the churches of Galatia, grace to you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins, to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever.
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Amen.
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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 man? If I were trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
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For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel.
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For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
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For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church violently and tried to destroy it, and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people.
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So extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers.
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But when He who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son to me, in order that I might preach Him to the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me.
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But I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.
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Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, and remained with him fifteen days.
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But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother, in what I am writing to you before God, I do not lie.
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Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ.
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They only were hearing it said, He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith He once tried to destroy, and they glorified God because of me.
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Father in Heaven, I thank You for Your Word.
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I pray now that as I seek to give an exposition of the Word, Lord, that You would, by Your grace, keep me from error.
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For I am a fallible man, and I am capable of preaching error.
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But I do not want to for the sake of Your great name, for the sake of my conscience, and most for the sake of these men who are here to hear Your Word preached.
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Lord, I pray for them.
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I pray that the Word would be to them a challenge to their heart and to their mind.
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Lord, that it would penetrate the ear, go into the mind, down into the heart, and to the very soul.
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Lord, that it would not return void.
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And Lord, that the Word of God would change us today as only it is able to do by the power of the Holy Spirit through the Son of God, Jesus Christ, in whom we pray.
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Amen.
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The book of Galatians, as we have mentioned in previous lessons, is unique in the canon for several reasons.
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One, it is unique in that we believe that it is likely Paul's first writing.
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It was written before Acts 15, because in Acts 15, we have something called the Jerusalem Council.
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This is when the disciples or the apostles in Jerusalem met with Paul and Barnabas to discuss the question of whether or not Gentiles, that being people who were non-Jewish, were able to be accepted into the church without having to first become Jewish.
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That was a huge question.
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Can a person be a Christian without first being a Jew? Jesus was a Jew.
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All of Jesus' disciples were Jews.
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The first disciples in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost were Jews.
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Three thousand souls were saved and they were in Jerusalem for the purpose of celebrating Pentecost, so we can assume they were Jewish people.
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And so it stands to reason that Judaism would be the prerequisite for Christianity.
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You can't be one without the other.
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At least that would be the argument that was being made.
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And so in Acts 15, Paul and Barnabas go to Jerusalem to contend for the reality that a Gentile could remain a Gentile and still be a Christian.
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That he did not have to be circumcised.
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That was the great divider.
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And you guys know what circumcision is.
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I don't have to explain it.
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But the great divider between Jew and Gentile was that mark that was received that was first given to Abraham.
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Abraham was separated from the world by a single mark on his body, the cutting away of the foreskin.
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That became the defining mark of what became the Hebrew people that later would be known as Israel.
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Why were they called Israel? Because of the grandson of Abraham whose name was Jacob who would later be called Israel.
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And his sons, the 12 tribes, were called the 12 tribes of Jacob or the 12 tribes of Israel.
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And so you have these people, the Jewish people, and out of them comes the Messiah, Jesus Christ.
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This was promised in Genesis 12 when God says to Abraham, through you, all the nations of the world will be blessed.
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Later in Galatians, we're going to see that Paul says that was God's promise to Abraham that a Messiah was coming.
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Through you, through your seed, all the nations of the world were going to be blessed.
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But notice that all nations thing.
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Not just the Jewish nation.
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Not just the Jewish people.
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Yes, they are a nation.
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They were a nation set apart by God.
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They were sanctified by circumcision and they were cleansed by the Levitical priesthood which gave them the sacrifices, which gave them the festivals, which gave them the feasts, which gave them all of these things that were necessary to distinguish them from the rest of the world.
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The Jewish people were meant to be a peculiar people.
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Now we think the word peculiar is bad.
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If somebody said, oh, you're peculiar, you'd think that was a negative thing.
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But the biblical term peculiar simply means to be set apart or to be distinguishable.
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And the Jewish people were always meant to be set apart.
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They ate differently.
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They dressed differently.
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They worshipped differently.
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And they had the mark of circumcision which separated them from the rest of the world.
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Now, Jesus Christ comes in as the Savior of the Jews.
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But He was not only the Savior of the Jews.
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The Bible says He came to the Jew first, but also to the Greek or the more expressive term, the Gentiles.
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He came to the Jew first and also to the Greeks, to the Gentiles, those who were not Jews.
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So Jesus' ministry, though first to the Jews, was not only to the Jews, but His ministry encompassed the whole world.
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And His ministry encompassed people from every tribe, tongue, people, and nation.
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So Paul in Acts 15 goes to the Jerusalem council and says, look, we have seen the Gentiles filled with the Holy Spirit of God.
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We have seen the Gentiles saved the same way we're saved.
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None of us were saved by circumcision.
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None of us were saved by the law.
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None of us were saved by ceremonies, by feasts, or by any other thing that is external.
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We have all been saved the same way.
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By grace alone, in Christ alone, through faith alone.
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That is how we have been saved.
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And that's the way the Gentiles are saved.
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And the response of the Jewish apostles, Peter, James, and the others in Jerusalem was a positive response.
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You're right.
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And so they made a decree.
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They made a decision that the Gentile people would not be required to keep the Jewish ritual laws.
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They would not be required to be circumcised.
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They would not be required to keep the feasts.
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They would not be required to keep the ceremonies.
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Well, Galatians was written before that.
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That's a key interpretive grid to understanding this book.
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Because after Acts 15, that issue is not put to bed to the sense that it would never come up again, because there's always going to be people who try to create controversy even after the decision's made.
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Even after the law has been laid down, there's still going to be people who fight.
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And we see that later.
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But the point of this and what I'm saying today is Galatians and the book of Galatians written about two years prior to what happened in Acts 15.
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And so in Galatians, we see Paul contending against people who are still holding to the view that we call the view of the Judaizers.
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Meaning, as I've already said, before you can be a Christian, you must be a Jew.
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Before you can become a Christian, before you can believe in Christ, you have to go through the ceremonies of what they would call proselytization or conversion.
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Remember Jesus said you cross sea to make a proselyte? What that meant was somebody who was converting to Judaism.
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You cross land and sea to make a proselyte.
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That's that word.
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It means you're doing all this to turn somebody into a Jew.
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So having understood all that, I want to now look at why Paul writes Galatians and what he's writing when he writes this book.
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Paul is writing Galatians with the concern that these people, these Judaizers, are actually preaching a false message.
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They're preaching a false gospel.
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And if you want to outline, I see some of you taking notes, I'll give you a very brief outline of the first chapter.
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The first five verses is what is typically referred to as the greeting.
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And then the next four...
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I said chapters, I meant verses, excuse me.
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The first five verses.
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Verses 1-5 is the greeting.
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Verses 6-9 is Paul's immediate concern.
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His immediate concern is this.
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There is only one gospel.
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That's Paul's immediate concern and we see that.
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And that actually sets the theme of the whole book.
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I believe verses 6-9 of chapter 1 is the thesis statement of the entire book.
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I don't know how many of you guys remember high school or even some of you in college where you had to write a paper and your teacher said, in the first paragraph, when you write that paper, there should be a statement that summarizes the whole paper.
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That's your thesis.
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That's what you're arguing.
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That's the truth statement that you're trying...
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Everything that comes after this is going to support that statement.
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Verses 6-9 is the thesis statement of Galatians chapter 1.
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We're going to go back and look at it in a minute, but let me just give you what the rest of the book, since we're doing the outline now.
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The rest of this chapter, verses 10-24, is Paul's defense.
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Paul's defense.
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You see, there were enemies who were trying to discredit Paul.
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Can you imagine...
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I just want to, just for a second.
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Can you imagine trying to discredit the Apostle Paul? I mean, there are people today who do it.
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There are people today who don't believe that Paul was a genuine Apostle.
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There are many liberal scholars who deny much of the Bible, and the first thing they throw out is Paul.
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Because Paul said things that were...
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Even Peter says in his epistle, some of the things Paul wrote are difficult.
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And so he's the first one they want to get rid of.
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Paul was the one who spoke with such clarity about the Gospel of grace.
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But he also talked about the reality of sin.
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Sins that today aren't even considered sins anymore.
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Sins like homosexuality.
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Paul very clearly addresses this issue.
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So what does the modern liberal scholar want to do? He wants to get rid of that.
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We don't like that.
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He talked about the fact that women ought not preach.
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They don't like that.
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They throw that away.
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Paul said many things that are offensive.
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And majorly offensive to the modern ear.
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And so people want to get rid of it.
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Well, Paul had his detractors then too.
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But here, the difference in the message was this.
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They were telling people, unless you become a Jew, you can't be a Christian.
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We've already established that.
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Because Paul had given them the Gospel of grace.
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And they were saying this.
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And this is something you need to understand.
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Everybody should understand this.
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They were saying grace is good, but it's not enough.
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That was the message of Paul's enemies.
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Grace is good.
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They might even say grace is great! Grace is awesome! Grace is fantastic! But it's not enough.
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I will tell you this.
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This is the difference between the Gospel and not the Gospel.
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And here it is.
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Very simple.
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Someone who doesn't have the Gospel will say grace is necessary.
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The Gospel doesn't say grace is necessary.
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The Gospel says grace is sufficient.
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There's a difference.
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The grace of God is not only necessary to save you, it's sufficient to do all that you need to be saved.
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You can't add one small dot to the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
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You cannot add one iota.
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That's the smallest letter in the Greek language.
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You can't add one iota of increase to what Christ has done.
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That's the difference between the Gospel and not the Gospel.
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Not the Gospel will always say grace is good, grace is great, grace is fantastic, but it's not enough.
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You've got to do something.
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You've got to add something to grace.
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Whether it be something you do.
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You've got to be baptized.
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You say, well, isn't baptism important? Yes, but it does not add to grace.
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Baptism is a response to grace.
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Baptism doesn't cause you to be saved.
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It is the response to you having been saved.
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The Lord's Supper.
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The table that we take.
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I don't know how often you guys take it.
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We do it every Sunday.
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We have the Lord's Table.
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We have the bread and the cup.
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That is not adding to our salvation when we go and take that.
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It does allow us to have an opportunity to be reminded of grace.
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That's what it is.
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Do this in remembrance of Me.
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But it doesn't add anything because we cannot add to what's already sufficient.
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It's already done.
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You go out and you do good things through set free.
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As long as you're here long enough, and praise God, I hope you are, you'll get an opportunity to do many good things here.
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You'll get to go and do the outreaches where they go and give out clothes and food and play games and do face painting and they preach the Gospel, especially to underprivileged folks, folks in need.
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You'll be a part of that.
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You'll be a part of sharing the Gospel on the street and handing out Gospel trash.
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You'll be a part of that.
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But, that will not add to your salvation.
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You see, that's the difference between the Gospel and not the Gospel.
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Not the Gospel will always say you have to do this to add to your salvation.
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The Gospel will say we do these things in response to what has already been done that cannot be added to, that cannot be increased in any way.
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Nothing you do can increase what Christ has done.
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All it can do is respond to it.
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Does this make sense? Alright.
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Well, what I want to show you this chapter is an apologetic.
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Do you know what an apologetic is? The word apologetic you probably think means like I'm sorry.
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It means a defense.
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Thank you.
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The word apologetic means defense.
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In fact, this is the word that used to be used in legal terms I'm talking about centuries ago when they would say an apologia.
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An apologia was when a defense attorney would come and give his statement.
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He was making an apologia.
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He was making a defense for whatever the situation was.
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Well, this is Paul's apologia.
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This is his apologetic for two things.
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This first chapter.
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In fact, the whole book is a polemic.
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Polemic means an argument.
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It's a polemic and it begins with an apologetic.
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It's an argument that begins with a defense.
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You ever done that? You ever been in an argument and you immediately start by defending your position? That's what he's doing.
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He's in an argument and he's fortifying his position and he's defending two things.
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One, he's defending his ministry and two, he's defending his message.
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Yeah.
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First, he's defending his ministry.
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Two, he's defending his message.
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Let's look first at the ministry.
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I'm going to show you several things in this chapter where Paul defends his ministry.
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The first is in chapter 1, verse 1.
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Paul says, Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead.
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Just stop right there.
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Why would Paul say it that way? Why would he say, Paul, an apostle, not from man? Because he's making the point about his credentials.
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Thank you brother, that's very true.
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He's saying, look guys, I am who I am, not because some man gave me this title.
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I am who I am, not because some group of men appointed me to this position.
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You realize as a pastor, I had to be ordained.
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What that means is I had to be investigated by a group within the church who wanted to know what I believed and what I would teach.
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They wanted to know my history.
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They wanted to ask me questions about my positions on certain things.
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And once they had done their investigation, which I went on later, now I've sat in it and I've been on investigative teams to investigate other men.
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Examination maybe is the better word.
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Investigate sounds so ominous.
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Examine them.
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And I've been on examination councils myself.
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The whole idea is to find out if this guy is really true.
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And that's what they wanted to know from me.
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Am I really true? Afterwards, they would deliberate.
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They would discuss and they would come back and they would say, okay, based upon our time in prayer, based upon your answers to the questions, based upon your life lived since becoming a Christian, we agree.
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God has called you to this.
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We will ordain you.
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And so they pull you up to the front of the church.
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This is done over a long period of time.
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But once they're ready, they pull you up in front of the church.
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They lay hands upon you.
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They commission you to the gospel ministry.
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And you become then a pastor.
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I don't remember.
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I think I was ordained in 2004.
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So 15 years ago.
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And from that point on, I had a commission and an ordination to preach the gospel.
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Now I could argue that my commission and ordination is from God.
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I believe it was.
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I wouldn't have sought it if I didn't believe God had called me to it.
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But I also had the commission and ordination of the church of men, if you will.
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Paul didn't have that.
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Paul didn't need that.
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Paul received a direct revelation on the road to Damascus which included a direct ordination to the ministry of the gospel from Jesus.
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Could you imagine Jesus is the one who ordained you? That's it.
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I mean, what kind of a confidence would you have if Jesus Christ was your ordaining pastor? Jesus doesn't have to examine.
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He knows.
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And He knew how bad He was.
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Remember how bad Paul was.
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And Paul explains that later in this chapter.
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He says he was a person who hated the church and persecuted Christians.
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And yet, God had set him apart before he was born to be a preacher to the Gentiles.
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Paul was ordained not from men or through man, but through God and Jesus Christ.
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So that's first.
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That's a defense of his ministry right there.
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This is a defense.
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He also says in verse 10, moving down, that he was not a man pleaser.
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Again, remember he's defending his ministry.
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Verse 10, he says, for am 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, I would not be a servant of Christ.
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You say, well, what has that got to do with anything? Paul is making this point, I believe, because his enemies are arguing that he has watered down the message.
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Paul has watered down the message.
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He's taken away all the ceremonies.
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He's taken away circumcision.
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He's taken away all the trappings.
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And by doing that, he only did that to satisfy you Gentiles.
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He's a man pleaser.
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And Paul says, I'm not a man pleaser.
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In fact, if I were a man pleaser, I couldn't be a servant of Christ.
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But he was once a man pleaser.
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Look at verse 13.
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For you have heard in my former life in Judaism how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it.
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And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people.
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So extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers.
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There was a time in Paul's life where all Paul cared about was advancing among his peers.
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All he cared about was getting the accolades of being a Pharisee.
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Remember what the Pharisees were? They wore the best robes.
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They had the best seats in the synagogues.
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They were the religious elite.
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And Paul wanted to be that.
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He wanted to be the guy that everybody respected.
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He wanted to be the guy that everybody sought after.
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He wanted to be the guy that everybody knew.
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Everybody knew.
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Gamaliel, that was his teacher, he wanted to be the next Gamaliel.
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He wanted to be the next exalted teacher.
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He was a man pleaser and he knew it.
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But he says, now I know more because if I wanted to please men, I wouldn't be serving Christ.
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The people serving Christ are being burned.
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The people serving Christ are being crucified.
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The people serving Christ are being fed to lions.
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If I wanted to please men, I wouldn't be a servant of Christ.
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I can't be a man.
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It doesn't work.
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That's still true today.
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A true servant of Christ will never be a hero to the world.
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Think about the great faith heroes.
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I want you to think in your mind.
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I don't know how much you know about church history or even modern church history with the pastors that are there today that are really making and preaching the Gospel well and making their names known.
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Men like R.C.
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Sproul and John MacArthur.
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These are men who are powerful preachers of the Word.
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R.C.
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has gone to be with the Lord last year, but still his message goes out.
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These are men that the church looks to and says these men are tremendous teachers, but the world thinks they're crazy.
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Jonathan Edwards 200 years ago preached and he was a powerful preacher of the Word.
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He was one of the ones responsible for the Great Awakening when America was visited by God and there was a tremendous revival among the people here in the United States.
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And Jonathan Edwards was one of those preachers.
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Nowadays, Jonathan Edwards' name is a punchline among the liberal elite because Jonathan Edwards had the gall to preach a sermon entitled Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
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And if you've never heard or read, I encourage it to your reading when you get to the point where you can read things other than Scripture.
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I know some of you are still in phase 1.
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When you get to the point where you can read outside things, I encourage you to read Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
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It's one of the greatest sermons ever preached outside of Scripture.
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And in that sermon he talks about how a man is like a spider on a web that is over a flame and the top tips of the flame are licking the web and it's just about to collapse.
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And there you stand on the precipice of hell about to slip and fall in and your life will end and you will be in utter ruin for eternity.
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I mean, these are pictures that modern ears would say, oh, how horrible! Oh, how terrible! These are great men of God, but they're not men-pleasers.
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Jonathan Edwards didn't seek to please men and therefore he did a great work for God.
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Paul says, I'm not a man-pleaser.
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If I was, I couldn't serve Christ.
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Paul was also radically changed.
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He persecuted the church.
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Verse 13, we just read that.
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But he was called by grace, verse 15 says.
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He had three years of time that we don't know anything about, but as I said in a previous lesson, I think that time was spent in study and in fellowship with Christ because the other apostles had three years with Christ here with them.
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Paul gets saved and then it says after three years he goes to Jerusalem.
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So there's a three year gap.
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And I believe that gap was his time of personal fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ.
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Again, I can't prove it.
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This is completely my interpretation based on, again, the three years, based on when it happened, based on the fact that during that he was in Arabia, so he'd gone away from the church and he was in a place where it was just him and the Lord.
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And I think that was a time of instruction for him.
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And his heart was changed and it was so apparent that verses 23 and 24 tell us that it was so apparent that the church could see his change.
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It says, He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.
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A man whose life is changed is obvious.
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A man whose life is changed will not be able to hide it.
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And Paul's life was changed so much that the church, even though they'd never seen him in person, the reputation had already spread.
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This man who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.
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So Paul has his ministry defense and that's what we see here in chapter 1.
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But then we see the defense of his message and that's the second part of the lesson I want to show you.
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He not only defends his ministry, he also defends his message.
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And I've already mentioned we're going to look at this.
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Let's look at verses 6 through 9.
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This is really the thesis of the book.
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Paul says, I am astonished.
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Just stop right there, just for a second.
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And again, I have to be careful because I always run out of time.
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When Paul says, I am astonished, it literally means just that.
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I'm amazed.
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And really, if you wanted to take it in a negative, I am outraged.
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I want you to picture something.
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I was thinking about this on my drive in.
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Imagine you built a house.
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You did all the work that was necessary to make the house livable.
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You poured the foundation, you erected the studs, you overlaid the outside with the hardy board, you went inside, you did all the insulation, you put in the sheetrock, you put in the HVAC system, you brought in the electricity, you got everything that was needed, put the roof on, built the trusses, everything that was needed for the house, and you built this wonderful house.
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And then you went away.
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And some scoundrel breaks into your house, busts up the sheetrock, rips the power box, the panel box, out of the wall, disconnects all the wires that you meticulously went in and very meticulously set up, knocks holes in your roof so the rain will pour through, busts the pipes so that the water will flow free and flood the house, and you return and see your house destroyed.
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Now, would you be astonished? You'd be outraged.
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Now, the Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3, there's no other foundation than that which is laid, which is the Lord Jesus Christ.
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And everyone builds on that same foundation.
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Some build with wood, hay, or stubble.
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Some with gold, silver, precious stones.
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But he's talking about building the church.
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Now, I want you to think of that analogy with the analogy I just gave.
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Paul went into Galatia.
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There was no church.
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This is the southern Galatian region, the cities of Iconium, Derbe, and Lystra.
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And he's gone into these places and there's no church.
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And he took the foundation of Jesus Christ and he built a church.
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He built several churches in these cities.
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And he went away because Paul wasn't a pastor.
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He was a missionary.
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Paul's goal was to plant and move.
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Plant and move.
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He would set up elders and move.
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That was his ministry.
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And then come the Judaizers with their hammers and they start to bust up what Paul had built.
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They began to destroy what he had erected.
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And now with that in mind, read again verse 6.
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I am astonished.
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I'm outraged 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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That's the group we're talking about there.
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Those people have come in to give you a different Gospel.
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They've come in to give you a different message.
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But know this, there's only one Gospel.
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It's the Gospel that I gave to you.
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And I'll tell you this, if anybody preaches a different Gospel, even me, notice he says that.
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He says, but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a Gospel contrary to the one that we preach to you, let him be accursed.
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Paul says, even if I come back and I've lost my mind.
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If I come back and maybe I've gotten a mental disease or maybe I come back and I've just lost and gone crazy.
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If I come back and I preach a different Gospel, you don't listen even to me.
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If somebody else comes and preaches, let me tell you this, even if an angel from heaven opens up the glory cloud and preaches to you a message.
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You know, there are world religions that have been established on men who believe they saw angels.
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Islam.
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Islam was started by Muhammad who believed that he was visited by the angel Jibril.
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Mormonism.
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The angel Moroni was the one who gave Joseph Smith the golden plates.
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What do they share in common? They deny the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
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If an angel preaches to you a different Gospel, do not believe it.
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And let that person who preaches it be anathema.
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That's the Greek.
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The English accursed is not strong enough.
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Just like the word astonished I think should be outraged, the word accursed should be damned.
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If any man preaches to you a Gospel other than the one that you have received, let him be damned.
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Even if it's me.
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Paul says there is only one Gospel.
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And it's not man's Gospel.
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Look at verse 11.
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For I would have you know, brothers, that the Gospel that was preached by me is not man's Gospel.
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Guys, this is something you need to understand.
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The Gospel offends men.
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And women.
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It offends people.
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1 Corinthians 2 In fact, go there with me just real quick.
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I have a few minutes left and I'm going to squeeze my time in here.
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1 Corinthians 2 Verse 14 The natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
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You know what that is? That's the Gospel.
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The natural man is offended by the Gospel.
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In fact, I can prove that, take a step back into chapter 1 of 1 Corinthians.
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You're there anyway.
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Turn to chapter 1, verse 18.
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For the word of the cross, that's the Gospel, for the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing.
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So what is Paul telling us here in 1 Corinthians? The natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God.
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Here's something you can know for certain.
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If a man's Gospel is pleasing to unsaved people, it is not the true Gospel.
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This is why I see these churches that are packed, stadiums filled, and the guys going in.
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And what you need to do is have your best life.
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That's a false Gospel because it's pleasing to the natural man.
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Yeah, that's true.
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If this is your best life now, you're going to hell.
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If this is your best life, you're going to hell.
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One time, R.C.
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Sproul, one of my favorite preachers, he was preaching about the death of Jesus Christ and the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ.
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And R.C.
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Sproul was a very learned man and he had an opportunity to preach at many, many places where there were a lot of learned people.
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And while he was preaching, one of the men from the audience yelled out in anger.
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I've never had that happen.
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I've had people yell at me after, but I've never had anybody yell while I was preaching.
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But the guy yelled out as R.C.
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was preaching, that is primitive and obscene! And everyone was stunned, one, by the gall of the man who was screaming, but also by the statement, the Gospel is primitive and obscene.
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That's what he was saying.
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And R.C.
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stopped his lecture.
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He stopped preaching and he addressed the man directly.
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And he said, you're right.
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The Gospel is primitive and it is obscene.
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And it will always be to the natural man.
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Think about what we believe.
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We believe in a crucified Jew who saved our soul.
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Do you know one of the earliest pictures of Christian art? Well, it's not Christian art, but one of the earliest art pieces that we have from the first century was a picture of a cross.
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It was a carving of a cross and the man on the cross had the head of a donkey.
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And it was intended to be offensive to Christians to say, look, your God is a jackass.
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That's the way the world sees Jesus Christ.
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We believe in penal substitutionary atonement, meaning we believe God's penalty for sin was so great that if we receive it, it's going to be hell, but Christ came as a substitute, took upon Himself the penalty that we deserve, and created an atonement between us and God.
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That is offensive.
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Because one, that says you are so bad, you deserve to go to hell, and God is so good, He's willing to send you there.
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And yet, He sent His Son.
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And His Son bore in Himself what you deserved.
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It's called penal substitutionary atonement.
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And it's offensive.
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The liberals of today won't take it.
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There's a song.
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On that cross as Jesus died, the wrath of God was satisfied.
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There was a liberal church wanted to change the words of the song because they couldn't accept the wrath of God being satisfied in Jesus Christ.
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It's primitive and it's obscene and it's foolish to the natural man, but it is the truth, the only truth, and nothing but the truth.
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There is no other gospel.
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And that was Paul's message.
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The whole book of Galatians is Paul's argument.
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Chapter 1 is his defense.
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And he wants us to know that no matter what we have been told about him, his ministry and his message are not from men, but from God.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for this opportunity to preach Your gospel again.
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I pray that it not only will be heard, but that it will be received.
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And Lord, for those who do not believe that they would trust on the Lord Jesus Christ, that they would see the Apostle Paul as an example of a man whose life was changed, and Lord, that they would desire the same change in their life.
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Lord, change us all through the preaching of Your Word.
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In Christ's name, amen.