Galatians 1:1-10

Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2 and all the brothers who are with me, 

To the churches of Galatia: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. 

6 I am astonished [blown away] that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 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. 9 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. 

10 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. 

Imagine you have been assigned a project at work.  It is a huge project.  You find yourself working 12, even 15, hours a day to get this project up and running.  You spend your own money.  You take your work home with you.  You work seven days a week. You eat, sleep, and breathe this project for over a year.  Finally the day comes when you are done and you hand off your work to others and move on with your life.

But six months later, word comes to you that your fined-tuned, successful project has been entirely dismantled by others.  New experts have taken your blood, sweat, and tears and chunked them in the trash in an attempt to “improve” upon your labors.

Or, maybe you work inside the home.  You spend large amounts of money for the proper curriculum to educate your children.  Or you pay significant sums to that private school to make sure your children get all the tools they need to live a successful and spiritual life in this present evil age.  You lose sleep when he’s sick.  You are anxious when she throws a hissy fit.  You pour all of yourself into raising your children.  That is an absolutely worthy and necessary goal. But the day comes when you send your child to college and, despite all your expense and intense efforts for 18 years, your child rejects everything you have invested into his or her life.  They begin to live and think in the exact opposite way.  This is the nightmare of Christian parents.

The project utterly ruined.  Children rejecting all you have taught them.  Paul poured his energy, time, money, and whole life into these congregations of Galatia to bring them the news that they are free from slavery to performance and approval; yet they reject that message in favor of one brought by false teachers from Jerusalem instructing these new believers that they must keep the Mosaic Law to find salvation.

That is the tragedy that prompts Paul to write Galatians, his very first epistle. It is a raw and powerful letter that has been called “the Magna Carta of Christian liberty.”  People once set free have willingly and eagerly returned to abject slavery.  WHY?

If you remember nothing else about this letter over the next 14 weeks, remember this theme that explains why free people are tempted back to slavery: The flesh craves performance; the soul craves love.  Human beings are hardwired to work and to be accepted, approved of, and loved.  But when Adam rebelled against the work God gave him to do, he lost his sense of both purpose and love.  You and I inherited from the Adams’s a slavery to performing unsatisfying labor and pursuing unsatisfying love and approval. That’s why we willingly and repeatedly run back to the slavery of “Do!”  That’s why we are all attracted to a message of “Jesus + something” – which Paul says is no gospel at all.

That inherent condition of all mankind is what tempts away the churches of the region of southeastern Turkey, the Gauls, from a message of blissful freedom and back to a method of performance they think will earn them love.  Nice people have come from Jerusalem to tell the nice people of Galatia how to be nicer.  It’s no different a brand of false Christianity that you get in many churches today – a nice man telling nice people how to be nicer because the flesh craves performance; it craves checklists to measure performance, and it craves human approval.

Our passage this morning shows us:  (1) the gospel in two words; (2) Good News is NOT good advice; and (3) real approval is vertical, not horizontal.

    1. TWO-WORD GOSPEL (1:1-5)
  • Grace, Peace
        1. All Paul’s letters begin with the “bottom line” of the gospel: the words grace and peace.  They sum up the essence of the gospel.
        2. Luther: “Grace and peace—these two words embrace the whole of Christianity. Grace forgives sin, and peace stills the conscience. The two devils who plague us are sin and conscience, the power of the Law and the sting of sin (1Cor. 15:56). …Grace contains the forgiveness of sins, a joyful peace, and a quiet conscience. But peace is impossible unless sin has first been forgiven, for the Law accuses and terrifies the conscience on account of sin. And the sin that the conscience feels cannot be removed by pilgrimages, vigils, labors, efforts, vows, or any other works; in fact, sin is increased by works. The more we work and sweat to extricate ourselves from sin, the worse off we are. For there is no way to remove sin except by grace.”  
        3. Sin is not cancelled by keeping the law.  Yet many of us make that mistake; we are sure that by more aggressive living we can find life and freedom.  But there is no peace for our weariness except in the gospel. 
        4. These two words grace and peace are the root and fruit of the Good News.  Grace is the root; peace is the fruit.  Notice what Paul goes on to say in v. 4.
  • Gave Himself
      1. … the Lord Jesus Christ  4 who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age 
      2. “The cross is the place where Paul hangs out” because he is satisfied there.  The Galatians weren’t satisfied with all that Jesus had done at the cross; so they were attracted to the “new truth” others claimed to have.
      3. Grace is not some ethereal concept to Paul.  Grace IS the Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for your sins.  It is the one-way love God descending from heaven in Jesus.  It is indiscriminant compassion shed on you that has absolutely nothing to do with you.  Grace IS the person and work of Jesus.
      4. John defines it just like Paul: In this is the love, not that we have been loving God but that He Himself loved us and sent out his Son – a propitiation for our sins (1 Jn. 4:10, my trans.).
      5. Paul writes in Rom. 5:8, but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
      6. Jesus’ work was a voluntary, penal, satisfactory, and substitutionary act.
      7. These opening verses are Paul’s confession of infinite indebtedness to God for God’s infinite sacrifice.  Our sin required the death of the second person of the Trinity.  What could be more infinite than that?  Calvin said this redemption is SO GLORIOUS that it ought to ravish us with wonder.
      8. Jesus sacrificed himself to deliver us from the present evil age – not from the presence of an evil world, but from the power of it. You will be in the world until you graduate to heaven; but the power of this evil age is being broken by Christ in you, the hope of glory.
      9. And Jesus has delivered us according to the will of our loving Father.  The Father loves his people.  Jesus’ death is no accident.  It was the plan of the Father to buy back his people out of Adam’s sin.  The Father has no “buyer’s remorse.”  His love is eternal and infinite.
      10. There is NOTHING we can do to please him because he is infinitely, eternally pleased with us already.  There was never a time God did not know you.  God knew and loved you before time-space existed, before one particle of this vast universe was spoken into existence. He know you would be an enemy to him.  He purposed to kill his Son for you. That is grace!  That is ONE-WAY love!
      11. The Law offends us because it tells us what to do.  But grace offends us even more because it tells us there is NOTHING we can do because EVERYTHING has already been done.
      12. The Law at least allows for the false notion that we can determine our own destiny, that we can make good choices and pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.  “Give me three steps to raising the perfect family and I will get ‘r done.”
      13. The Church produces more self-help books than the secular world because the flesh craves performance and the soul craves loving approval.  And if we have a checklist of steps, we’re sure we can guarantee the results and earn approval.
      14. The logic of law makes sense to us because we are hard-wired to work.  The logic of grace is totally counter-intuitive; it is risky, unsafe, and irrational.  That’s why every religion man has ever invented is a self-salvation project from start to finish.  That is why so much of the church may admit we are saved by grace, but still teach we are sanctified by works – mixing freedom with slavery.  The flesh craves performance; the soul craves loving approval.
      15. Grace began to bore the Gaulic churches.  They were tired of all that talk about justification by grace and ready for someone to come and tell them what to do.  “Okay.  We GET the grace thing.  Now tell us what to DO!”
      16. If you just tell us what to do, we can regain control of our marriage, our children, our jobs, and even our worship.
      17. Paul’s response is to take them straight back to the cross.  And he is NOT gentle about it!  He is passionate about grace because the Good News is NOT good advice.  The flesh cries, “Do!”  Jesus cried, “Done!”
  • GOOD NEWS, NOT GOOD ADVICE (1:6-9)
  • Astonished!
        1. If you look at Paul’s other letters, you will notice that he spends some time up front encouraging the congregations.  The Corinthian congregations read that Paul thanks God for them and rejoices in their spiritual gifts, despite the serious problems he will address.
        2. But the Gauls get no sugar with their pill:  “I am astonished [blown away] that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different [counterfeit] gospel”.
        3. Paul is shocked.  He is blown away, astounded, agitated, disturbed that the Gauls have returned to self-salvation projects.  When Jesus bids us to take up our cross and follow him, he bids us to come and die.  And the first thing that needs to die is our craving to perform because grace alone, not law, has the power to change our affections from self to Christ.
        4. There is no other gospel.  There is no “Jesus +” anything.
        5. But a man may preach the clearest and purist gospel message, may be as winsome and convincing as humanly possible, and have his hearers rise up to kill him.  That happened to Jesus, to Stephen, to Paul, and men throughout all history from East of Eden to the coming Consummation of All Things.
        6. The same is true for the preaching of the Word on Sundays.  Without the ministry of the Holy Spirit, there is no hearing and receiving of God’s Word.  The Gauls were not just “tweaking” or “fine tuning” their doctrine; they were abandoning the Godhead (deserting him); you cannot separate our Lord Jesus, God the Father, and God the Spirit from the propositional truth of Scripture.  
  • One Gospel
      1. There is ONE gospel.  Though heaven and earth should change this one promise of peace between men and God never ever changes!  “Jesus +” teaching lacks the authority of God.  It is counterfeit because there is no deliverance from the power of sin; there is only slavery to self and the curse of God.
      2. Paul writes, “there are some who trouble you and want to distort [alter, turn around] the gospel of Christ. 8 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. 9 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.”
      3. Paul is saying, “May God damn the person who adds anything to the work of Jesus!”  He is so passionate about it, he writes it twice because Jesus’ glory is at stake and he wants the Gauls to know that this is no mere emotional outburst.
      4. “Jesus +” anything is a message that teaches we must IMPROVE UPON the work of Christ.  It is to declare that what Jesus has done is insufficient.  It is to call God a liar when he cried out at Calvary, “It is finished!”
      5. Paul and the nice men from Jerusalem taught much of the same doctrine.  They both taught Jesus was Messiah.  They both taught the virgin birth, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  They both taught that Jesus would return to judge the living and the dead.  They both taught of one God in three persons.
      6. In other words, both Paul and the nice men from Jerusalem could have recited the Apostles’ Creed or the Nicene Creed with no problem at all!  But only Paul was the genuine, God-ordained preacher of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Only Paul taught that the Christian life was a work of God from start to finish.
      7. Satan believes what both Paul and the Judaizers would affirm.  But Satan despises those truths and so do the Judaizers.  They both despise the original, authentic gospel because they want the VALUE of the original without the COST of the original.
      8. What is the COST of the authentic gospel? Death of self; death to the flesh that craves performance and approval. What was the one, seemingly-tiny difference between Paul and the nice men from Jerusalem? Human performance.  The Kingdom of Me.
      9. The nice men from Jerusalem were teaching that you must let Moses finish what Christ has begun.  To be more specific, YOU must finish what Christ has begun by keeping the Mosaic Law.  “He who began a good work in you expects you to get to work completing it until he returns” they would say.
      10. How do you determine is all your hard work is paying off?  Approval.  Approval from the nice men from Jerusalem.  Approval from your fellow congregants.
      11. So Paul concludes this opening section of his letter by speaking of real, horizontal approval in vv. 9-10.
  • REAL APPROVAL (1:9-10)
  • Substance, Not Form
        1. Paul is not the least interested in the outward appearance of the message or the messenger.  Vs. 8, “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.”  Neither robe, nor title, nor heavenly splendor count toward real approval.  It is doctrine, and doctrine alone, that matters.
        2. True, lasting approval comes through doctrine, trusting and proclaiming life in Christ alone. And the cures of God falls upon those who teach “Jesus +” anything.
        3. To teach a different gospel is the worst thing a person could possibly do; it brings down upon him God’s eternal curse.  To receive a different gospel is the next-worse thing a person can possibly do.
        4. The approval for which your soul naturally longs comes in receiving and resting in the message of Jesus + nothing.  Everything you need is yours ALREADY in Christ Jesus.
  • Pleasing Jesus
      1. Paul knows God’s eternal approval.  This former social climber, this former career backstabber and murder, is driven by the one-way approving love of the Farther through Christ Jesus.  
      2. Paul’s entire career as a Pharisee was driven by human approval.  But in Jesus, he has all the approval he needs.  He will tell the Corinthian church that he could care less what they think of him because he doesn’t bother to judge himself.  He is absolutely confident in God’s verdict and entirely free from slavery to popular opinion.
      3. Paul is at peace because he has no need of human approval.  His root is grace.  The fruit of that grace is peace, rest in God’s infinite approval.  
      4. My moral transformation is NOT the root of my peace; faith in the substitutionary work of Jesus is the ONLY source of peace.
      5. Paul says, If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.  In the OT, to be a servant of the Lord was considered to be the highest calling a person could have.  God spoke of His prophets as my servants.
      6. To be a king was less honorable than to be God’s servant.  In Paul’s mind Jesus WAS God, all the fullness of the Godhead dwells in him and there is nothing besides him, nothing even close to Jesus.
      7. Paul is a servant of Christ and all the approval Paul needs flows from Jesus!
      8. Imagine how peaceful your life would be if you didn’t need approval from people.  I’m a people-pleaser by nature.  It’s one of my greatest struggles to rest in the infinite approval that is already mine in Jesus instead of idolizing the fleeting, shifting approval of people.
      9. In ministry, someone is ALWAYS unhappy about something.  For me that means God is always out to destroy my idol of horizontal approval so I will see more of his vertical, infinite, one-way, unearned approval.

Grace and peace flow ONLY from the true “Jesus + nothing” gospel.  It is the only treasure worth having and holding.  If you belong to Jesus, every other thing you treasure he WILL tarnish, if not destroy, before your eyes.  Jesus did that to Paul in one instant on the Damascus Road.

And if he knows you and loves you this morning, he will tarnish and tear down your moral improvement righteousness, your perfect spouse and children righteousness, your financial righteousness, your job righteousness, and your “being liked by everybody” righteousness.  They are enslaving chains binding you to cravings for performance you can never achieve and love that will never satisfy. The flesh craves performance; the soul craves love.  Only Jesus can satisfy those cravings.  Don’t be blown about by the winds of false doctrine.  Come and cling to the grace and peace.  Come hang out at the cross.

Congregation of Christ, receive Paul’s benediction this morning:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.