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SERMON:
Do you find it easy to get
distracted? I do.
I go to clean the garage so I can
actually walk around in there, and at the end of the day, it’s still not done.
First I had to organize my tools. Then I paused to fix some things that had
been waiting on the workbench. Then I had to take a trip to dispose of all that
old oil. On the way back I remembered that I still needed a couple things for
supper. After battling with grocery store amnesia, I ended up filling a cart.
It was all stuff we needed, but it was also stuff I had to put away when I got
home. By then my wife needed to run out to an appointment, and the kids needed
supper. At the end of the day, the garage is still a mess.
Maybe it isn’t cleaning the garage
for you. Maybe it’s some other task that eludes you because of the distractions
that push and pull at your time. The little rabbit trails you allow yourself to
follow. Sometimes we struggle to put first things first.
▬
Today we’re going to start a sermon
series based on Paul’s letter to the Galatian Christians. We’re going to call
this series, “First Things First”.
Talking about Galatians, one Bible scholar has said,
“Together with the epistle to the
Romans, Galatians ranks first in doctrinal importance, because in both letters
Paul discusses the fundamental doctrine of the Christian faith” (Book of
Books, p.250).
This fundamental doctrine is the
Gospel.
Now, the reason why Paul focuses
this letter on the Gospel is because the Gospel was being altered in Galatia.
Paul was the missionary that first brought
the Gospel to the people in the Roman province named Galatia. But recently he was
told that there were new teachers springing up in the congregations there. And
these new teachers were adding things to the message.
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Paul had grown up believing that God
can’t stand sin. The teachers of his youth had instructed him that the way to
get your sins forgiven was to obey God’s laws better. If you really kept the
Ten Commandments, and brought the right sacrifices to the Temple, and observed
the right religious ceremonies, then you could work your way back onto God’s
good side.
The religion which defined Paul’s
early years was a work-righteous religion. Any religion that teaches that you
have to do something to work your way to heaven is a work-righteous religion.
Paul took the work-righteous religion of Judaism fully into his heart. He was
so convince that Judaism was the way to God that when Christianity sprung up in
Jerusalem, Paul tried to crush it.
You see, the Christians weren’t
following all the religious ceremonies that Paul felt were crucial to reaching
God. And they were teaching more and more people that real religion meant
trusting that God had sent a Savior to take everyone’s sins away. They said
that Jesus of Nazareth was really God’s Son, and that through His suffering and
death the penalty for our sin had been erased. Paul didn’t buy it. Paul saw
Christianity as a sect that was stealing people away from the true religion. And
so, Paul began to hunt Christians.
He would try to get them to say
something bad about God, so that there would be reason to stone them. When this
didn’t happen, Paul had Christians arrested and put on trial for their beliefs.
But one day when Paul was traveling
to city in order to find the Christians there and arrest them, the risen Jesus suddenly
appeared to him. And through the things that Jesus told him, Paul realized that
he had been tragically wrong. Jesus explained to Paul that what the Christians were
saying, was absolutely true, and that even Paul’s sins had been paid for. He
was free from the treadmill of work-righteousness. Though he didn’t deserve the
tiniest bit of God’s mercy, even through he had been actively hunting God’s people,
Paul was forgiven all, through the suffering and death of God’s Son.
Paul was baptized, and went on to be
one of the greatest ambassadors for Christ that the world has ever seen.
▬
Now, because of Paul’s history, he
could smell work-righteousness a mile away. And because of the astonishing
forgiveness that Paul had received, he would have nothing to do with work-righteousness
anymore.
Paul understood that the Good News
of forgiveness is a gift. It cannot be earned or deserved. Like a delicate
machine part that has been crafted by precision instruments, any addition or
alteration to the Gospel of Christ renders it incapable of doing what it’s
supposed to do.
In our reading for today, Paul sets
forth a number of reasons why the Gospel of Christ is precious, and must remain
pure and unchanged my man.
Galatians 1:1-10 (NIV)
1 Paul, an
apostle—sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father,
who raised him from the dead—2 and all the brothers and sisters
with me,
To the churches in Galatia:
3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord
Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from
the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to
whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one
who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—7 which
is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into
confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But
even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we
preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 9 As we have
already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other
than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!
10 Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or
of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please
people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
▬
First of all, Paul
says that the Gospel message must remain unchanged, because it come from God.
When Paul went
out to persecute Christians, he was following his own, human counsel. But when
Paul later went out to tell people about God’s gift of forgiveness, then he was
following God’s orders. The truth of Jesus’ message was verified most clearly
to Paul when the resurrected Jesus appeared to him in person. Only God can
raise the dead, and He doesn’t raise false prophets back to life.
If Christianity
were some organic religion that had grown out of a collection of human ideas,
then sure, we could go ahead and change it however we want. But if the Gospel
comes from God, than we dare not alter its substance. What Jesus taught, we
should also teach and believe.
▬
Second, Paul
says the Gospel must remain unchanged, because of its immense value. In verse 4 Paul
says that Jesus Christ,
“…gave himself for our sins…” (Galatians 1:4 NIV).
Just how
valuable is the Gospel? How much did it cost for God to make it available? Well,
the Son of God had to take on human flesh and blood. He had to be tempted in
every way, but not sin. He had to suffer horrible physical and spiritual
torture. He had to die. How valuable is the lifeblood of God’s divine Son? When
we try to calculate the value of what the Son of God was willing to do it ends
up sounding like people who talk about billions and trillions of dollars—what
does it even mean? It’s too much for my mind to grasp.
C.S. Lewis once
tried to described the incarnation of Christ like this…
“One may think of a diver, first reducing
himself to nakedness, then glancing in mid-air, then gone with a splash,
vanishing rushing down through green and warm water into black and cold water,
down through increasing pressure into the deathlike region of ooze and slime
and old decay; then up again, back to colour and light, his lungs almost
bursting, till suddenly he breaks the surface again, holding in his hand the
dripping, precious thing he went down to recover” (Miracles, chpt. 14, by C.S.
Lewis).
We are that
thing.
If we can grasp
just a tiny bit of how difficult this was for the Son of God to do, then we
might just begin to understand how it must insult God when preachers claim part
of our salvation hinges on what we do. “Yes, God’s So did this, but we must
also do something to help Him save us. We must add our own efforts and thus
help pay for our sins”. God forbid that we ever think this way. The praise for
our salvation belongs to God alone, for He has done it by Himself. We cannot
lay any claim to earning that which is a gift.
▬
The third
reason Paul states for leaving the Gospel unaltered, is the practicality the
Gospel. Someone might ask, what does the Gospel really do for me? The answer to this
question tells us how practical the Gospel is.
Because God’s
Son suffered hell in our place, we won’t have to spend eternity apart from God.
Because God’s Son gave Himself for us, we can stop trying to earn God’s love.
Maybe you
noticed as we read through this first section in Galatians that there are NO
ASSIGNMENTS here. There’s only a list of things that God has done FOR us. There
isn’t any work-righteousness here because Christ’s Gospel isn’t about working
our way to God. It’s about how God cleansed us for eternity with Him. He did
the work!
▬
But just as
it’s easy to get distracted in our daily activities, it’s also easy to get
distracted in spiritual things. But when it’s the Gospel that we’re being
distracted from, that’s a danger to our souls. If our faith were to be severed,
we would lose everything Christ came to give us. That’s why Paul got so upset
when he heard what was happening in Galatia. People were accepting the idea
that our forgiveness hinges on something other than what Christ did on the
cross? NO! The Gospel must not be corrupted. This is a matter of life and
death.
▬
When I was
training to become a pastor, we were taught that in all our preaching the
Gospel must predominate.
To predominate
means to be the stronger or leading force. To have numerical superiority or
advantage. To surpass other things in authority or influence. To exert
controlling power. To appear more noticeable or imposing than something else.
▬
Thinks about it
like this. When you go to buy something, what attracts you to a particular
product? Sometimes it’s where it came from. “Made in Taiwan” may not draw you
in. But if you’re buying a decorative rug, “Made in Persia” might.
Sometimes the
draw comes from the markdown. It was originally selling for $500 but now it’s
going for $50? I’ll take it.
And even if we
don’t know where it came from, or how much the original price was, sometimes we
are drawn to things because we have a need, and we know that what’s on the
shelf is exactly the right thing.
So, where’s the
Gospel from? Well, it was planned out in the eternal counsels of God before the
creation of the world.
So, how much is
it worth? Well, the sinless and divine Son of God had to suffer and die in
order for it to happen.
Okay, what does
it do for me? Well, it takes all your sins, past, present, and future and
washes them off the board, thus ushering you into a Father-child relationship
with the only true God. Oh, and this relationship will last past your earthly
death and into eternity.
This is why the
Gospel must predominate in a preacher’s sermons—it is from God, it is more
valuable than anything in the universe, and it gives forgiveness and eternal
life to sinners who receive it.
▬
But the Gospel
deserves center stage in more than just our Sunday meditation. The Gospel deserves
to surpass every authority or influence in our everyday lives.
In stead of
REDEFINING THE GOSPEL like the false teachers did in Galatia, we must instead
be REDEFINED BY THE GOSPEL. As sinners reclaimed by God we must begin to look
at everything through the lens of the Gospel.
We can begin to
see everyone around us as people God wants to reach. Precious people that God’s
Son died to save.
Parents can
begin to bring the Gospel into their discipline. At the close of each
correction we can remind our children that we forgive them, because Christ
forgave them first.
We can begin to
see our own sins and failures through the lens of the Gospel too. Not excusing
our bad behavior, but also not allowing guilt to gnaw at our peace. All we have
to do is look at our sins through the lens of the Gospel to see that they’re
not there anymore. They’ve been forgiven.
And we can also
begin to forgive others like God forgave us. Completely. Freely.
On the grand
scale, or on the small scale, God’s Gospel is thoroughly practical.
▬
Speaking about
the Gospel, Jesus once said…
“44 ‘The kingdom of
heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it
again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.
45 ‘Again, the
kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. 46 When
he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought
it.’” (Matthew 13:44-45 NIV).
Obviously, Jesus’
point isn’t that we buy the Gospel. His comparison is this, when you find
something this precious, you do everything you can to hold onto it.
Dear
Christians, don’t be distracted. In your hearts and in your lives, in the way
you think and in the decisions you make, let the precious, soul saving, life
giving Gospel—predominate.
Amen.
The peace of God which surpasses all understanding will
guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
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