I'll turn with me to the book
of Galatians. It's been long coming. I've been
studying this book as you know for some considerable time. We've
all been impacted by it in various ways over the last 10 years or
so now. It's been an exciting journey
and this book has become more precious. It's remarkable, isn't
it, to think that this was Martin Luther's favourite book. It's
where he went to again and again. And when you think of how much
our world has been transformed by the Reformation, taken out
of darkness and superstition, of all that darkness that Catholicism
had sort of covered Europe with like a blanket, so much of our
world that we live in today and so much of the material benefits
that we might enjoy, so much of what we see as the Gospel
recovered is the result of this precious, precious book. But
what's precious about this book is what's precious about what
it says about our Saviour, what it says about who He is and how
He saves His people. And I think it's remarkable.
I want to spend my time today on verses 1 to 5, and it's a
remarkable way that Paul began. We'll look into the history of
all of this and look to the circumstances a bit more as we go on through
the book and we'll lay something of that history. But basically,
he was converted and spent time in the church of Antioch, which
is in sort of the northern part of modern-day Syria up on Lebanon,
and then he was taken by the Lord's command and with Barnabas
up into those regions of what's sort of probably best described
as northern, central, western part of Turkey. And that's where
these churches were. And he came back to Antioch and
he found that while he'd been away false teachers had come
into the church at Antioch and they didn't stop in Antioch.
They'd gone down, they'd gone up into these regions there. up into these churches of Galatia.
And the question of course is, who do you trust? And the frightening
thing for me who stands behind a pulpit is, what did these people
look like? How do you get into Paul's pulpit? How do you get to preach and
to be a leader in churches, those churches further along around
Ephesus, where Paul had planted them and pastored them for years,
and John had overseen them, and Timothy had been their preacher.
How do you get into one of those churches and get to a position
of promise? You've got to use all their words. You've got to look so much like
them in activity and in word and deed that you are caused
to think that they are genuine. And yet Paul writes this letter,
and he writes with great passion about those who are leading them
astray. He loves these people. We've
been studying 1 Thessalonians, and we see that Paul has a heart
of a nursing mother and a loving father. For people who have responded
to the Gospel, when the Gospel has come with power, Paul is
knitted together with them in bonds of deep, deep love, a deep
love for their soul's well-being, a deep love for the glory of
God to be revealed in them." And so he writes this letter
with great passion. He speaks to them, he says in
verse 6, he says, I marvel, he says, I'm astounded that you're
so quickly deserting the one who called you. He says in chapter
3 verse 1, he says, O foolish Galatians, who has bewitched
you? Who has bewitched you? You are
foolish, verse 3 of chapter 3. You've begun in the Spirit and
you've now made perfect in the flesh. Will you actually begin
with God's Spirit working in you, revealing who the Lord Jesus
is? Will you finish that activity? Will you finish your work by
fleshly activities? Are you being perfect by the
flesh? He pleads with them. These people
were preaching a righteousness, weren't they? They were preaching
a righteousness and a morality that is based on human activity
and based on the law. In verse 9 of chapter 4 he says,
After you have known God, or rather known of God, how then
do you turn to those weak and beggarly elements wherein you
desire again to be in bondage? These people were saying quite
simply that the expression of true Christianity is an expression
that is exhibited by obedience to the Mosaic Law. And his heart
is breaking for them because they have moved away from the
Gospel. The Gospel that he preached when
he came there in chapter 4 verse 13, because he had an infirmity
in his flesh. It seemed as if there was some
problem with his eyes and up in that part of the region there
were healing waters. But they received him, verse
14, he says, you received me as an angel of God. even Christ Jesus. In verse 17 he describes them.
They zealously affect you. They came with great zeal and
great religious passion, came with open Bibles, came talking
about righteousness, came talking about the Lord Jesus. They zealously
affect you, but not well. Yea, they would exclude you that
you might affect them. He says, My little children,
whom I am in travail in birth again until Christ is formed
in you. He sees that they have become
entangled. Chapter 5, verse 1. Stand fast
therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, and
be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage. Fleshly activity
and law-based fleshly activity is a yoke of bondage. They began well, chapter 7, verse
7 of chapter 5. You ran well, you did run well.
Who did hinder you that you should not obey the truth? This persuasion comes not of
him that calls you." And he talks about this being a little leaven,
a little tiny grain of yeast, and it leavens the whole lump. These people, as fancy as they
looked on the outside, and as much as they must have looked
and acted and talked like Paul and John and Timothy, They desire
to make a fair show in the flesh. They constrain you to be circumcised
and circumcision was just the way in to all of that Mosaic
law keeping. And they do it, verse 13 of chapter
6, that they may glory in your flesh. They don't keep the law. They don't keep the works that
they tell you to do. They have a desire for glorying
in the flesh. They're hypocrites. And Paul,
at the finish of it, reminds them that he bears in his body
the marks of the Lord Jesus Christ. He bears in his body the wounds
he suffered for Christ. So there's the situation. Apostle
deeply passionately caring for the souls of these people, deeply
passionately concerned about the glory of God. And how do
you respond in that situation? He's being attacked personally.
His Gospel is being attacked. His Lord and Saviour is being
attacked. Those who He loves are being
attacked. They're being undermined. They're
being drawn away from the Gospel. How do you begin? How do you
begin a letter for these people? These first five verses are just
remarkable. They're remarkable. He begins
by laying out before them the Gospel. laying out before them
the messenger of the gospel of grace. He describes himself and
God's call on his life. He talks about grace in chapter
3. He says grace is the cause of
salvation, the cause of the gospel, and the result of the gospel
is peace. And the heart of the Gospel and
the means of the Gospel is our Lord Jesus Christ who gave Himself
for our sins. The effect of the Gospel is that
He might deliver us from this present evil world. And He's
talking about not just the wickedness of the pagan world, He's talking
particularly about the evil of the religion of this world, the
religion that masquerades as Christianity. talks about the foundation of
it all is the will of God and our Father. Our God is a God
who is sovereign and he has a purpose and he has a people. And the
purpose of the Gospel is the glory of God, verse 5, to whom
be glory forever and ever. Amen. So he lays out the Gospel
in all of its beauty. He lays out his position as a
messenger. The question that's laid before
us is who do we trust? Who do we trust? What a remarkable
picture we were given. of that horrible, horrible incident
in France. of all those people being led,
entrusting themselves into the hands of that young man as a
pilot and being led to destruction. Paul is passionate, he's passionate
about the dangers, he's passionate about the glory of God. But he
begins by laying this foundation, he prepares the hearts of these
people for the rebuke that they need the encouragement to come
back. This message is so much like,
this book is so much like the rest of the scriptures, isn't
it? It's a restoration, a returning to the gospel. Return, come back,
examine the true again. examine the true, and by looking
again and again and again at the true, the false will be revealed
in relation to it. So Paul begins. begins this letter
by describing himself, Paul. Not Reverend Paul, Dr. Paul,
Bishop Paul. Just Paul. Just Paul. A sinner like the rest of us.
Just Paul. But he's an apostle. An apostle
not of men, neither by men. an apostle that was called by
Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead.
Paul makes much of his apostleship. God, in his ascension gifts,
has given the Church apostles and prophets and teachers and
pastors. They are of God's appointing. The apostles were this particularly
special group, there were only 12 of them. There was a church
across the road, I'm not sure if it's still functioning, but
they said that unless you have a real apostle in your church
today, you don't have a proper church of God. The reality is, If they do have
an apostle today, they are not the Church of God. There are
just 12 of them. There were just 12 of them. They
were witnesses. And Paul was a special one. He
was chosen particularly by God. He did see the risen Lord Jesus,
which is why at the end of that verse he says, who raised him
from the dead. Again and again you'll see in
this that Paul is with a group of people who stand alongside
him. In verse 2 he says, "...and all
the brethren which are with me." that brethren would include those
who were with him when he was writing, but all those that he
included as brethren. And he goes down, you see the
personal pronouns. He says, Grace be unto you and
peace from God the Father and from our Lord Jesus Christ, who
gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this
present evil world. To be saved you must have apostolic vindication
of the gospel you believe. So Paul is making a distinction,
isn't he? He's saying, this is who I am
and I have brethren with me. If you are not fellowshipping
with us, you are not fellowshipping with God the Father, no matter
how much you talk about him, you are not, you cannot say with
us, our Lord Jesus Christ. You cannot say that he gave himself
for our sins. If you're not one with us, then
your sins, you are still in your sins. And if you're not one with
Paul and the apostles and the brethren, you are not delivered. You are not delivered from this
present evil world. Pronouns matter. Paul again and again, and he's
forced in this letter, as he is in the Corinthian letters
and in other places, he's forced to defend his apostleship. He's forced again and again to
vindicate the call of God upon him. Not because he wanted to
boast about himself, but because he wanted these people he loved
to hear the Gospel he preached and to heed the warnings he is
given. See, to challenge Paul is to
attack the very character of God. to attack his faithfulness,
to attack his ascension gifts, to attack his gospel. See, to be saved is to be a believer. And you must believe a message,
a message delivered by men, men who have all the weaknesses and
frailties of the people they're speaking to, men who are just
men. but they are more than just men
when God is using them. It's a message delivered by men,
but it's a message that's about the person and work of the Lord
Jesus Christ. If you don't fellowship with
them, you have no fellowship with God. That's what John says
in 1 John 1. It is that simple and it is that
serious. God will have it no other way,
which is why Paul has to say that he's an apostle. And he's
not an apostle as we know from his own history which is given
again and again in Acts. You can read about his conversion,
his meeting of the Lord Jesus in Acts 9, but it's repeated
in Acts 22 and it's repeated in Acts 26. It's repeated again
and he will talk about his own activities here and God's work
in his life. He's wanting to show that he
is not someone who has this message because he's been trained by
people or he's sought some position before men. It's not of men or
not by men. It didn't come out of man's will
or man's wisdom and it didn't come out of man's appointment,
from man's institutions. He was the best of the best that
was available. in those days. the best that
the Jews could possibly muster in terms of knowledge and intelligence
and brilliance and passion and zeal for that Jewish religion
and all of its morality and all of its hypocrisy was only exposed
to Paul when he came face to face with the Lord Jesus Christ.
That's why he has such passion. He knows what it is to meet Jesus
as a sinner. He knows what it is to meet Jesus
in his sins, and he knows what it is to meet Jesus as a Saviour. He never got over it. He never
got over it. He never wanted to get over it. He never wanted to move beyond
salvation by free and sovereign grace. You'll describe it so
beautifully later in this chapter, isn't it? He says in verse 15,
he says, But when he pleased God, how did he get to be an
apostle? God was pleased to take he who was most violently opposed
to the Church, most violently passionate about his own work's
righteousness, when it pleased God who separated me from my
mother's womb and called me by His grace to reveal His Son in
me, that I might preach Him among the heathen. He was called of
God. God's servants are called of
God. They are commissioned by God.
They are appointed by God. They are empowered by God. And all the brethren with him.
He's not alone, Paul, in writing this letter to them. He stands,
as I said earlier, he stands together with a group of people
who stand alongside him. They are fellows in the one ship. That's what it is to be in fellowship,
isn't it? Fellowship is a business term, as 1 John uses it. They're actually together in
an enterprise where they're supporting each other and they have one
goal in mind. They have one purpose in mind. and they are with me, they stand
with Him. And so to be outside of that
fellowship, like these other teachers were, and the Galatians
who have led astray by them were, to be outside of that fellowship
is to be in a place of the most extreme danger. Someone is flying
their ship. and it's heading for disaster.
And Paul steps in as he did before Peter, and steps in and stands
in front of them as it were, and what he stands in front of
them with is with the gospel. This gospel. All these people
stand with him, but he says, These brethren are with me and
he's writing unto the churches of Galatia." You see, he still
considered them churches. He still considered that in these
churches that he was writing to, because he had witnessed
personally the Gospel coming as it did in the Thessalonians,
it came with power and it came with conviction and it came with
much assurance. They were still amongst these
bodies of people meeting together. They were still a group who's
called a church. You see, what's different, of
course, with our day is that in those days, in those early
days of the Gospel, all of the churches began with the foundation
of the true Gospel. All the original churches were
started by an apostle or someone appointed by an apostle. And
so they had the truth laid out before them. We have come to
a time in this world where the opportunity for that to happen
is a very, very rare thing in this world. To have the truth
laid out before you as a child or as a young person and to grow
up in a church where the truth is proclaimed with faithfulness
is an incredibly rare thing these days. But in those days that
was the standard, wasn't it? Which is why in the New Testament
letters there's a continual call of these people, stay in fellowship
with us. Do not be moved from the gospel
that we proclaim. Test yourselves, examine yourselves,
says Paul to the Corinthians. Incredibly wayward bunch, but
examine yourselves to see that you're in the faith. It means,
are you holding to the apostolic testimony? Are you still holding
to the faith? The faith, which in the scriptures
is so often a noun, a description of the Lord Jesus and the perfect
finished work of Him. They were still churches there. They were under serious, serious
attack. The only hope for them is in
verse 3, isn't it? Grace be unto you. That's his prayer, isn't it?
His prayer in this opening is grace be unto you. These people that he's troubled
about, the only possible hope The only possible hope for any
spiritual good is that grace, the grace of God, the grace that's
bestowed through the merits of the Lord Jesus would come to
them and He was here reminding them. He's reminding them of
the Gospel that He preached to them. He wants to have this laid
out that the believers and the false teachers and those who
are wavering how to go. Every time they got to read this
letter, they would have to be confronted again and again by
the Gospel. Grace, sovereign free grace,
is God's bestowal of His blessing and favour. It's unmerited, it's
undeserved. Sovereign grace. People say that
when you say free grace, we're saying something, we're repeating
something. What a glorious thing to repeat. If it's free, it's
grace. And it comes to guilty, undeserving
and unworthy. It comes to them who have no
merit in them. It comes to people for whom there
is no compensation demanded from them. It comes to people not
only with no positive merits of their own, but those who are
thoroughly ill-deserving and hell-deserving. And it's unattractive. It's unattracted, brothers and
sisters, by anything in us, anything from us, or anything by us. Grace cannot be bought. Grace cannot be earned. Grace cannot be won by anything
that you do or I do, ever. Ever. The recipient has no claim
upon it ever. It comes as pure love. It's unasked
for, it's undeserved, which is why Paul is a pattern. He's a
pattern of believers. What was he doing on the road
to Damascus that warranted him to be a recipient of grace? Did he ever get any better? Did
he ever get into a place where he could say, now God owes me
something for what I have done? It's the opposite to works of
any sort. Turn to Romans 11 verse 6. You
probably know it well. It's good just to read it. It's
good just to read it and ponder it again and again. He's talking about this remnant.
At this present time there is a remnant according to the election
of grace. And then he says in verse 6,
And if it is by grace, then it is no more by works. Otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it
is no more of grace, otherwise work is no more work. Cannot mix the two together. They do not mix ever. You cannot
put sovereign grace and human works together in any way at
all. Look how much effort he goes
to to make sure that you get the message. How often do we
need to get the message? Our flesh is wanting to say a
million times a day, do this and live. And grace says, the
Lord Jesus has done it, now live. And if by grace there is no more
of works, otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of
works then it is no more grace, otherwise work is no more work. It's the opposite to works of
every sort. It comes as a gift, a free gift
of God. It bountifully flows. There's a lovely description
in 2 Peter where he talks about the receiving of grace and it
comes to us as if it was a piece of ripe fruit that fell off a
tree into our lap. It just falls. It just comes
to us. Grace is eternal, 2 Timothy 1
verse 9, given to us before the foundation of the world. Grace
is free, Romans 3.24, given us freely, justified freely by His grace through the redemption
that's in Christ Jesus. Grace is sovereign. I love what
Romans 5.21 says, that sin has reigned unto death and even so
might grace reign. There is a reigning of grace. just as our Lord Jesus reigns,
His grace reigns, through righteousness unto eternal life. It reigns
purposefully. It reigns particularly. It's a gift. Grace is distinguishing. It does separate and divide. God refuses none who come to
Him empty-handed in the way of his appointing, but it exposes,
grace exposes the rebel hearts of people, doesn't it? It's sovereign
grace, it's bestowed upon whom God chooses to bestow it, and
rebel hearts, as you will see when Simon speaks from Romans
9, react violently to the declaration of the sovereignty of God. It
empties, it exposes rebel hearts and it empties the self-righteous. They've got nothing, nothing
meritorious whatsoever. Paul is a trophy of grace. The Corinthians are a trophy
of grace. Isn't it remarkable that if you
look at these two churches, there you have a group of Galatians
and there they are zealous. They're reading their Bibles,
they're talking about grace. They are zealous and they are
led by these people who are zealous and they're zealous to get them
to do all this Christian activity to make themselves look righteous
and they can encourage others to be as righteous as they are
righteous. You have those churches and contrast them with the Corinthians
who were just living in the most appalling wickedness in so many
ways. And yet Paul writes to these
Galatians, he says, I'm in fear of you. And he writes to the
Corinthians. Both of them have to receive
warning and rebuke from the Apostle. But you read the first, the opening
chapter of the Corinthians and he speaks so differently to them.
Such is the danger of legalism. Such is the danger of works righteousness. Such is the danger of these false
teachers. And they never stopped. If you
read Acts 15, you'll see when Paul came back from his missionary
journey, while they'd been away, they'd come into the church in
Antioch And then they're in those other churches in Galatia in
no time at all. In Acts 15 they had the Jerusalem
Council to discuss this matter which had caused great disputation. They never needed a Jerusalem
Council to discuss the Corinthian problem at all. The apostles
came and stood as one in this matter. And that's when Paul
says, the brethren are with me. He's probably referring not just
to the people who are with him, but all the other apostles who
stood as one. And we'll look in some detail
in time to come at that Jerusalem Council. Grace. is free, grace
is eternal, grace is sovereign, grace is a gift. And grace is
just in one, isn't it? It's the grace that's in the
Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is the communicator,
the deliverer and the revealer of grace. Our Father in Heaven
is the fountain of all grace, and our dear and precious Saviour
is the only channel, the only means of grace coming to you. And the Gospel is a publisher,
or it's a proclaimer of grace. The Holy Spirit comes through
the preaching of the Gospel, and He applies that Gospel to
the hearts of people, in saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus.
He makes the dead to live, the deaf to hear, the blind to see. He conquers rebels' wills. He creates life where there was
none before. What a glorious Gospel Paul has
to bring to these people. It brings grace. It's a declaration
of good news. Good news, not good advice that
if you do something, good things will happen, but good news about
something done. So the false teachers spoke of
grace. They must have used Paul's words,
but they denied, as they do today, they denied the completeness
of grace. In Acts chapter 15, Paul gives
you what they said. He says it was needful, except
you be circumcised. After the manner of Moses, you
cannot be saved. It's needful. Grace is God's
work in bringing the Gospel to the hungry and to the thirsty. And what's the fruit of it? Peace. Peace. Peace from God the Father. Peace. What a remarkable word. Peace from God. Every blessing that comes to
save sinners is by God's free grace, free unmerited favour. Election is the election of grace. Justification is the justification
of grace. Faith is the grace gift of God,
of Redefetians 2.8 and 9. Repentance is God's gracious
gift to His people. All that God requires, He supplies
by His grace. All of salvation from eternity
past, from that election in eternity to glorification and being with
the Lord Jesus is all of grace. That's where your peace is, brothers
and sisters. That's where my peace is. All
other refuges are refuges of lies. We've witnessed it, haven't
we, that you can take away the supposed peace and joy of professing
believers by talking to them about the character and the work
of the Lord Jesus. And their peace evaporates and
they are left troubled. when God gives peace. There is a peace that will withstand
all the storms and trials of this world. It will be a peace
that rather than being troubled by this book, will be bolstered
and secured and grow stronger as we read this book. Peace. Peace with God. Peace. He is our peace. So the genuine Gospel brings
genuine peace. Paul was troubled about where
these Galatians were at, but his peace before God was not
disturbed one little tiny bit, because genuine grace brings
genuine peace. God says that he is at peace
with me. I love how Paul describes it.
We have peace not because of anything that we have done. It's
not something that we muster up in ourselves. He was delivered,
verse 25, chapter 4. He was delivered for our offences
and raised again for our justification, therefore being justified. By faith we have peace with God. Peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ. Peace. Peace at rest in a finished work. Peace at rest in a Saviour. At peace where God finds His
peace and where God finds His satisfaction. in the finished
work of his Son." I love what Romans 4.16 says. It's such an incredible verse.
It says, therefore, he talks about the law, and the law works
wrath. And where there is no law, there
is no transgression. Therefore it is of faith, not
of your works, it is of faith that it might be by grace to
the end the promise might be sure." Promises. What remarkable promises. What
remarkable promises did we read earlier in John Chapter 6. What remarkable promises of eternal
life. What remarkable promises the
Lord Jesus made to those disciples. What remarkable promises he made
that caused them to say we have nowhere else to go and caused
a multitude. a multitude who came seeking
signs and wonders and other things to turn away from Him. He stood there like a rock making
these extraordinary promises to the end that the promise might
be sure to all the seed. It's grace, it's a gift. It's
a gift that's given. It's a gift that he ensures the
reception of. I love what Romans 15, 13 says. It says, the joy and peace of
believing. You will testify, as I must,
that the times when my peace is gone and the times when my
peace is wavering, the time when my contentment in God." It's
always the same, isn't it? It's always the same. We're always
looking at something else other than the Lord Jesus Christ. We're
looking at something in the past, something in the future, something
around. rather than having our eyes fixed
on Him. And when we are drawn by His
grace, like He took those two disciples on the demise road
and is where He led them by the hand back into His fellowship
and back into the company of the believers, what did they
say? What joy they had in their hearts. What remarkable things they were
brought back to a place of peace. He had done it by His grace. Grace. If you really believe
that the Lord Jesus is all of your righteousness, all of your
sanctification, all of your redemption, if He alone is all of your wisdom,
You will, as a believer, feel joy. You will know peace from
God. You will know peace in your heart. In these Galatian churches there
was now biting and devouring and there was a real stirring. God's children will have peace,
even under those trials. They'll have peace from God that
will cause them to stand and stand like Paul did at the end
of his life, deserted by multitudes. And then he says, but, at the
end of 2 Timothy chapter 4, but the Lord stood by me and strengthened
me. If you and the Lord Jesus are
standing together, this world can do whatever it likes. I promise
you, this world can throw at you whatever it likes. If you
and the Lord Jesus are standing together, nothing else matters. Where does that peace come from?
He's made peace by the blood of His cross. In fact, Ephesians
2 verse 4 says, He is our peace. His promise, isn't it, is to
present sinners like us, sinners who have been made by His grace
to believe and to rest in Him. His promise is to present you
holy, unblameable, unreprovable in His sight. That's His promise. I like that promise. I find peace
in that promise. He's going to do it. It doesn't
depend upon me and my activities. So Paul begins, the cause of
the gospel is grace, the result of the gospel is peace. And he
comes to the very heart of the gospel, verse 4. Our Lord Jesus
Christ, he and the brethren with him have him as our Lord Jesus
Christ. My Lord Jesus Christ, our Lord
Jesus Christ. Not the one that these others
were proclaiming. They were talking about a Jesus. They were talking about a Christ.
but they are talking about one who wasn't our Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul defines him by his most
extraordinary activity, what he did. He gave himself for our
sins, for our sins. He gives him his title. Again
and again, you see at the beginning, in these 5 verses, 12 times he
mentions God. God the Father, God the Son.
It's by Jesus Christ in God the Father, He says, Peace from God
and from our Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins
that he might deliver us from this present evil world according
to the will of God and our Father to whom be glory. Lord Jesus
Christ, Lord of sovereign rule and dominion of this world, Lord
of creation, Lord of providence, Lord of salvation. He gives him
his name, his human name, Jesus. You'll call his name Jesus for
he will save his people from their sins. That's what his name
means. God's salvation. He's not only God. He's not only man. He is the
Christ. He is God's anointed one. God's
promised one. The one who makes the promises.
The one who keeps the promises. He is God's prophet. He speaks
with perfect faithfulness in all that he says about himself
and about his salvation, about his finished work. Everything
he says is perfectly true and faithful. And he's the priest. He's God's priest. To be the
Christ, he must be prophet, priest, and king. If he represents you
right now in the holy of holies in heaven, if he's praying for
you right now, all is well with your soul. And he is a king. Despite what this world says,
he rules this world with absolute sovereignty. But also He rules
His own, doesn't He? We need someone stronger than
us, someone to sovereignly lead us into His presence, someone
to sovereignly lead us back into His care. We need Him to reign,
and God's children delight in His reign. He is all. He is all in salvation. Assurance and peace is found
in Him alone. He died for our sins. He gave Himself for the sins
of us. He didn't give Himself for our
righteousness. He didn't give Himself for our
good deeds. He didn't give Himself He gave Himself for our sins. Because that's all you've ever
done, brothers and sisters. That's all that you can contribute
to salvation, is your sins. And if your dirty hands want
to get out and start cleaning up your life, all you'll be doing
is adding sin to sin. It's all we can do. Gave Himself
for us. He took our place. I've spoken
in the last couple of weeks about how profoundly significant that
word for is. It means to stand in the place
of, to stand in behalf of. It also means to hover over,
to cover, to shield. What a remarkable picture it
is of the work of the Lord Jesus. There was the wrath of God falling
upon us with justice and God the Son steps in. He gave himself
for our sins. Substitution and satisfaction
are at the very heart of the Gospel, aren't they? his substitution
and his satisfaction. He by himself purged our sins. He by himself having obtained
eternal redemption for us. He has perfected gave himself for our sins. Paul wants these people, as they
examine this letter, and as they read the rest of this letter,
he wants them to think again and again about what he brought
to them. He brought them a message of
Jesus Christ and him crucified. He brought them a message of
salvation by free and sovereign grace perfectly completed. Nothing can be added to it without
destroying it completely. Nothing that we can do can enhance
it in any way. We are to come to a fountain
thirsty and hungry and we honour the fountain by drinking. We
don't honour the fountain by working at it. We come drinking. We come thirsty and go away satisfied. I love what the hymn writer said,
near, so very near to God, nearer I cannot be. Dear, so very dear
to God, dearer I cannot be. Because in the person of his
dear son, I am as near as he. The effect of the gospel, verse
four, He gave Himself for our sins that He might deliver us
from this present evil world. He's talking about that world
that's ruled by Satan. He's called in the scriptures
the Prince of this world, the God of this world, the Prince
of the power of the air. But in particular, He's talking
about the religion of this world. that He might deliver us from
this religion, this religious world. We are insatiably religious and we are in our Adam flesh
prone to wander and prone to think a thousand times a day
that if we just do something, God will reward me because of
my activities. You must. You must do something. They begin with those words,
don't they? You hear it again and again.
You proclaim the Gospel to people and you proclaim the glories
of the Lord Jesus and the finished work and the completeness of
it and how it sits in heaven, our inheritance sits in heaven.
And then the first word that comes out of their mouth so often
is, but. But you must do something. But surely you must do something. Look at all the things I'm doing,
is what they're really saying, and you can join me in doing
them. They want to boast in your flesh. They want to be able to
say, look how I've got that person to be a little bit more zealous
for God. They're reading their Bible,
four hours a day now. They're praying and I see them.
They're fasting. Dear, our dear. We did it, brothers
and sisters. We needed rescuing from this
present evil world. We were all in it. And what's
the source of this deliverance? Is it your will? Is it your cooperative
activities? He makes it really clear whose
will's involved. If you are going to be delivered,
you're going to be delivered according to, on the basis of, the will of God and our Father. So often in the Gospels we have
these remarkable pictures, don't we, of people being put in a
place by the grace of God where there is absolutely nothing in
themselves and no hope in themselves. How do you get to be clean as
a leper? How do you get to see when you're
blind? How do you get to live when you're
dead? What did the leper say? If you are willing, you can make
me clean. I will, says the saviour. And they are cleaned perfectly. False teachers are saying, use
your will. use your will and use your activities. See, the problem is as soon as
people put themselves to doing something, they no longer see
what verse 5 says. They no longer experience the
glory of God. So that's the purpose of the
Gospel, isn't it? to whom be glory forever and
ever. The true Gospel is all about
the glory of God. In its beginning it's all about
His glory. Where were you? In its enactment
on the cross, it's all about His glory, its fulfilment, its
consummation. It's all about His glory. It's the Gospel concerning His
Son. Behold your God is what Paul
is saying. Behold your God. Rest in Him. Come to Him. Believe in Him. has one purpose, isn't it? The
declaration, the proclamation and the restoration of the gospel. That was the passion of all the
prophets. That's the focus of all of the scriptures and because
of that it's the focus of all Satan's attacks. Where there
is no gospel, there is no contention. The true gospel brings all this
opposition. Satan cannot act until God has
acted. But when God has acted in saving
power and brought his gospel, then he rises up. as an angel
of light masquerading like these false teachers did. And Paul
does what all the prophets do, he just reminds them, behold
your God, behold how glorious He is, what a Saviour, what a
salvation, what a deliverance. What a Gospel to proclaim. What a Gospel to find true peace
in. What a Gospel that reveals true
grace. reveals true grace that's given,
reveals true grace that's received and accepted by God's children. It's the love of Christ that
compels and constrains. It's the love for Christ that
compels and constrains. Paul has one purpose in mind. the restoration of the Gospel. I love the way he begins. May
it be the beginning for us again and again. When we wander, might
we go back to Paul's beginning here. When we are caused to doubt
and troubled by all the false around us and in us. May we be
caused to go back to these five precious verses of Paul and just
remind ourselves, as he does then, remind ourselves of the
glory of our God, the wonder of his finished work. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that
you would use your word mighty and powerfully in our lives. Oh, our Father, how prone we
are to thinking that we must do something, we must add something
to the finished work of your dear and precious Son. But somehow
it can be embellished by our works. Oh, our Father, You alone
can bring us to rest. You alone can bring us to a place
of peace. You alone can deliver us. We praise You, Heavenly Father,
that Your will is done in this world. We praise You, Heavenly
Father, that You have brought the Gospel to us. We pray that
we would find it. And who it describes as our rest
and our peace, we might find it a refuge in this world that
is so opposed to our father. We thank you again. We thank
you again for the perfect finished work of your dear son. We pray
that we might be encouraged to sing the songs of heaven with
our redeemed brothers and sisters, that we might be given by your
grace the means and the ability to stand firm in this cross gospel,
our Father, and not be led astray, not be led astray no matter how
enticing the words and how enticing the one who brings them. Heavenly
Father, help us to cling to a simple gospel that declares your dear
and glorious Son and the perfection of a finished work. We praise
you, Heavenly Father. That's what he said on the cross.
It is finished. It is paid in full. It is done. It is complete. And all of your
children are perfectly complete in Him. Help us to continue in
the faith as we began, Heavenly Father, as sinners in need of
a Saviour, as beggars in need of food. We praise You, Heavenly
Father, that the Bread from Heaven has come. We pray that it find
a fruitful place in our lives and You would, as we take these
elements that remind us of your dear and precious son's shed
blood and that broken body, we would know something of what
it means that he did it for us. Help us to be numbered among
them, Heavenly Father, and find delight and peace in that simple
gospel of your dear and precious son. We pray your blessing on
us, Heavenly Father, and those that we love and care for, that
they might be brought to hear this Gospel and find their rest
in Him alone. We pray these things in Jesus'
name. Amen.