interspersed amongst us with
this Sermon on the Mount stuff as well as he has opportunity.
Let's pray. We thank you, Father, for the
day that you've given us for this evening, for the opportunity
to come together and to worship and to hear your word. Lord,
I pray that as I speak and as I teach that my flesh would not
inhibit the truth Indeed, it cannot, but that you
would be gracious to allow us to see it by your spirit, and
that we would embrace it, we would understand it, we would
apply it in such a way, Lord, that our joy would be full in
Christ Jesus. We continue to pray for our church
family, for all the needs that we have among us. You know us,
you know the depths of our hearts and minds, and so, Father, we
thank you that you are the Lord that provides. We thank you that
you have provided eternal life and eternal hope and assurance
through Jesus Christ, and it's in his name we pray. Amen. All
right. We are going to do a reading
through Galatians, and we started last week with a little introduction
here, and we are not really formatting this in such a way that it would
be as thorough as exposition. I'm just reminding us of what
it looks like. But at the same time, it's still going to be
beneficial so that we can get through the book. I've also decided
that I may, at times, as I move into some of the Colossian stuff
that we're supposedly continually reading, and I'll pastorally
give some insight there. I may throw a couple of those
Colossians in since I've already done two. I might as well do
it. So just to give you an update on that. Here we are. Let's start reading verse one.
Paul, an not from man 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. Amen. I'm astonished that you
were so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of
Christ and turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another
gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort
the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from
heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach
to you, let him be accursed. As we've 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. For am I now seeking
the approval of man or God? Or am I trying to please man?
If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a slave of
Christ. For I would have you know, brothers,
that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For
I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but
I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you heard
of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of
God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism
beyond many of my own age among my people. So extremely zealous
was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had
set me apart before I was born and had and he called me by his
grace, was pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I
might preach him among the Gentiles. I did not immediately consult
with anyone, nor did I go to Jerusalem to those who were apostles
before me. But I went away into Arabia and
I returned again to Damascus. Then after three years I went
up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen
days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's
brother. And what I am writing to you
before God I do not lie. Then I went into the regions
of Syria and Cilicia. and I was still unknown in person
to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 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." Now look at this little resume. Now Paul gives another
resume to the Philippians. He gives the resume about how
he was a Jew of all Jews, born from the tribe of Benjamin, circumcised
on the eighth day, given the name of Saul, the first king
of Israel. And he was a zealous person after
the law, indeed a Pharisee. A Pharisee was a Jewish reformer
to bring back the right worship, to bring back the Word of God
as the authority of Israel. By the time Paul is in that place,
to be a Pharisee was to be an unbeliever. To be in Judaism
was to be an unbeliever. And here he is, on his missionary
journeys, going to the regions of Galatia, to the assemblies
there, preaching the gospel, and God is saving his elect out
of those people, out of the world. And he leaves, and the Judaizers
come in. Now last week when I talked about
this, I sort of entitled the message, uh, uh, anger because
of a false gospel, a holy anger. Now some commentators disagree
with my assessment that this is an angry letter because they
cannot fathom that anger is not sin. But Paul himself actually
says to the letter to the Ephesians, be angry, but sin not in your
anger. Do not let the sun go down on your anger unless you
give the devil a foothold and When I preach that specific thing
some years ago, I preach it this way, is that anger, if it is
that which makes God angry, is justified, is righteous indignation. But the way we understand anger
in our flesh is not the way God exhibits anger. For God does
not walk in anger in any way or express anger in any way that's
not decisive. So where I may get upset and
have to withhold words or withhold hands or withhold funny faces,
God, if He says anything or reveals anything in anger, it is decisive
because He is not controlled by emotion. So as we are angry,
as Paul was angry, I'm sure he didn't hear of the Judaizers
in Galatia and then immediately pop off a text message or a Facebook
post to tell them how terrible they were and how sorry they
were and how wicked they were. No, that is sinful. It is a lack of wisdom in our
fleshliness even when we are angry about that which angers
God, when we respond in an immediate state without wisely waiting,
praying, and asking, how did Paul write? I'm writing to you
before God and I do not lie. And that's everything, not just
what he's saying there, that's the whole letter. We need to
take and apply that. If we don't get any pragmatism
out of this letter, let us get that. that though we may assert
in some way that Paul just got up off his couch and wrote this
letter and shoved it by camel to Galatia, it was probably a
very prayerful and well-thought-out writing. Now, of course, higher
critics may say, well, you just don't understand. The grammar
shows something different. I disagree, because I believe
that if it is indignation from a righteous point of view, that
it is the same attitude and heart that God would have. So I believe
if God gave him these words, and that's what the whole first
10 verses really deal with. This is God's word. This is God's
gospel. This is God's message. This is
a letter from God. Then I seriously doubt that there
was any part of Paul's flesh involved in writing this letter. And when I say flesh, I meant
his sinfulness. None whatsoever. So some people say, well, he's
astonished. Look at verse 6. I am astonished. I'm flabbergasted. I am so perplexed. I am puzzled
in such a major way that you've deserted so quickly Him who called
you in the grace of Christ. Now we'll just leave it there
for a second. So of course in Paul's anger against false Gospels,
not against the Galatians, it's against false Gospels, it is
It is something that he, what does he normally do here? I mean,
when Paul writes a letter, he introduces himself, he says,
grace and peace from the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father,
somewhere in that construction. And then the very next thing
he always does in all of his letters is what? I thank God
for you. Praise be to God. Even Corinth,
I'm thankful for you. And he gives what, it's hard
for me to get away from these two terms, he gives commendation
before he gives condemnation. Not for Galatia. Of course, this
is Paul's first letter. Maybe he hadn't fit the pattern
yet. I don't think this is the first thing Paul ever wrote.
You don't become a Pharisee and sit on the Sanhedrin having not
written. But I believe that the passion
and the zeal for and against, for the truth and against false
gospels is so important that Paul does not want to take away
the severity of why he's writing. So instead of being thankful,
they have to wait for the Thanksgiving, don't they? They have to wait
for it. Matter of fact, you get over
there in chapter 2, then in chapter 3, then in chapter 5, you start
seeing Paul say he's thankful. He lets his gratitude be to God
and then he goes straight into a rebuke. I'm astonished. I'm amazed. I cannot believe
what I'm hearing. I cannot believe what is happening
here. Now let me explain something
to you. In verse 6, it shows us the nature of what was happening.
Paul is not astonished and angry at the message of the false gospel. In as much as he's angry at the
fact they're listening to it. That's what he's upset about.
Now let's put that in our pipe and smoke it for a few minutes.
What does it look like in our present day with many people
who defend the faith and they are angry and belligerent with
everybody who has a false gospel. But yet, they make no distinction
between that anger and belligerence with the anger and belligerence
they may have with the saints who follow in some sense a false
gospel at times. Now, I'm gonna get away from
what you might be thinking. You might be thinking, well,
Tippins is gonna just sort of lay it out there and say it's
okay to be confused by a false gospel. No, it's not. There are
many areas of doctrine that we can be confused with, but there
is a difference in doctrinal confusion and a false gospel.
A false gospel, as I said last week and as I say almost every
time someone asks me what it is, is to take away from or add
to the doctrine of Christ. Who is He? What did He do? Where did He come from? What
did He accomplish and for whom? All of those and many more comprised
the teaching of who Jesus is, comprised the reality of the
proclamation of the gospel of sovereign grace and the gospel
of free grace, the gospel of Jesus Christ. This good news
about what God the Son has accomplished and who it is for and how it
is obtained and all of this. There is no room for us to have
another gospel and say we believe the gospel. And that's what Paul
is writing about. That's what he's writing about.
And his anger is not that there is another gospel, because he's
not going to stop that, is he? The whole of the religious world,
as a majority, will have a false gospel. And I'm not even talking
about the cults and world religions. I'm talking about what we would
say would be Christianity, evangelical, Protestantism. We most have a
false gospel. But yet, we can't be all up in
arms about that every time we hear it because we would never
be able to find peace, instruction, unity, fellowship. That's right. None of that. And He's not upset that some
people are believing it. He's also not upset that there
are charlatans preaching the true gospel. As a matter of fact,
we see what Paul says in Philippians, there were some that took advantage
of his imprisonment and began to mimic his message so that
they can make money on it. But he told the disciples and
the church of Philippi, he said, y'all let them preach because
they're mimicking the truth that I preach. So Christ has proclaimed,
what a dumb bunch of fools. Let them preach it, because it's
right. However, had it been wrong, He would have said, no, stop
this stuff. They are not authentic. So there's a lot of things in
the way of application that just sort of swells around in our
hearts and minds. But specifically now, look at
verse 6 again. I'm astonished that you are so
quickly deserting Deserting. What are they deserting? What
does it mean to desert something? Put out a cake? Put out some
snacks? No. To leave it. To abandon it. To stop approving of it. To consider it no longer valid. When you desert something, you
leave that thing and you go someplace else. So you are deserting. And look what Paul says. Paul
doesn't even deal with doctrinal things here explicitly. He does later. But this is the
first punch to the gut of the Christians of Galatia. I'm astonished
that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace
of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. So see that
for a second. But keep in mind, if we just
leave it there and we don't look at this holistically, this letter,
we don't remember what he says in verses 3 and 4 and 5, we may
think that Paul's so upset he's cursing the church. He's not. Paul does not reject the true
believers of Galatia. Paul rejects the ones who believe
the false gospel. That means, beloved, that there
were some professing Christians of that day in that region who,
because of the influence and the preaching of the Judaizers,
were believing the gospel of the Judaizers. Did you hear that? And Paul sets the record straight. So when he says, I'm astonished
that you were so quickly, he's not talking about all of them.
He's talking about those that are. Simple grammar in the English. Those that are. You who are so
quickly deserting. And if we're one body and half
of us are deserting the gospel, then we're deserting the gospel.
There's a problem. Not everybody was guilty of the
sin of incest in Corinth. Yet the church was guilty of
the sin of incest. Why? Because they're one body. And they weren't doing anything
about it. They weren't willing to say what needed to be done
and do the hard thing because they just didn't want to get
in it. And if Paul teaches harshly about
the discipline of someone in grievous public sin, how much
more serious is it for those who spurn the Son of God by receiving
and believing a false gospel? You want to know who is and who
is not a believer? Listen to their gospel. Don't watch their
lives because you may catch them on a bad day. You may catch them
in a bad week. You may sneak up on them and
they say an ugly word. Ask them what they believe. Ask
them where their hope is. Ask them, how are you righteous
before the Father? And what is your assurance of
that righteousness? What is the good news of Jesus? Let that come out of their mouths
and ring true. But these Galatians were being
inundated and troubled by false teachers who were not perverting
the truth or twisting the truth. they were adding to the truth,
and I emphasize that a lot. And I'm going to emphasize that
for the remainder of our time in this letter, because I want
you to see that the simple gospel, the simple grace of God, is the
only truth. And that when God saves His people
with the gospel, He cannot save people with another gospel. Now
see, that makes sense, doesn't it? Does it make sense to say
something like that? It makes sense. And as I spoke
yesterday in our Hebrews class for our high school students,
we have a really hard time recognizing or putting ourselves in the shoes
of first century Jewish people. Or what it must have been like
to grow up in a culture that's thousands of years old in its
religious practices. with the oracles of God, and
these great men of God, these priests and teachers, rabbis,
and all of these high priests who every year would do all this
religious, bloody, nasty work to show the severity of the righteousness
of God in justice and wrath. in order that it may point to
the good news of all of this is that Christ would go into
the holy places, give Himself and His blood for His holy people,
and then be raised to life and ascended to the Father as a mediator
of the one true covenant. God saves through that gospel. Faith comes through hearing that
gospel. Guess what? Faith doesn't come
through hearing a false gospel. God will not regenerate in the
moment, in the season of a false gospel. So some people have argued
with me through the years, well, you know, all those evangelistic
approaches and strategies, God used it. No, He didn't. If I
tell you the way you know that you know that you know that you
have eternal life is because you stepped down here, then your
hope is that you stepped out in good faith. Your hope is that you said the
right words in good obedience. Your hope is that you put down
your cigarettes, and put down your beer, and put down your
cuss words, and got rid of all the girls that you used to date
who did the same thing, and you put up all your car magazines,
and you stop going to football games, and all the transformation
of your life, and your front row, or your back row Baptist,
that might be the more holy place, the back row Baptist, but you're
here every time the doors are open, And that's the majority
of our culture. Or worse, they get to the place
where they think that they made the right choice in order to
be saved, and so their hope and their assurance is in the choice
they made. I think I made the right choice
in the shoes I bought. They feel pretty good. Two days
later, what happens? You ever bought a bad pair of
shoes? Because they were on sale, name brand you couldn't pronounce,
you thought, this is pretty good for three bucks, let me see.
And uh-uh, I ordered a pair a couple of years ago, some steel-toed
slip-on tennis shoes. That don't even sound right,
does it? I mean, that would be great to work in the yard in,
your feet could breathe. It'd be like steel-toed flip-flops.
And I put them on, they were like $5. I put them on my feet,
walked around the house, went outside, Started bleeding. I mean, I just almost immediately,
what's going on? Because the steel toe rubbed my feet raw.
Well, now I got to send these back. Got to send these back. I made the wrong choice. But
I was so sincere when I chose them from Amazon. They looked
good. The reviews were all awesome. The pictures were great. Start
matching what I'm seeing with what I'm reading. It doesn't
match up. Boy, was I sincere. Did my choice
and my sincerity have anything to do with the outcome of the
quality of those shoes? No. Just like our choice and
our sincerity will have nothing to do with the quality of our
eternal life. Because I may choose and be sincere
today, but tomorrow I may have a really bad day and I may not
make the right choice. And that's another thing that
people don't understand is a false gospel. It's another gospel.
The Gospel of Decisionism, the Gospel of Sincerity, the Gospel
of Works, the Gospel of Public Service, the Gospel of Church
Attendance, the Gospel of Baptism, the Gospel of Membership, the
Gospel of Ministry. I've never met a pastor tell
me he was lost. What do you mean I'm lost? I've
been in the pastorate 30 years. But what is the Gospel, my friend?
Well, you know, when people say that, And it's atypical for them
to say, well, you know what that means? They're trying to make
it up. And I will say this to you, that
in the last year in our area, I won't tell you what town it
is, I've had a pastor who'd been pastoring for over 35 years,
and I just asked him, what is the gospel? And he gave me the
strangest, most convoluted string of run-on sentences that made
no sense, biblically, that I've ever heard. So are you sure you
have eternal life? Yep, I've been in the ministry
35 plus years. That's the gospel of being in
the ministry. Just like Paul was dealing with the gospel of
circumcision. It's not good news. You want
to add something to the gospel of grace? It's no longer grace. You want to see a response to
the gospel of grace? It's no longer grace. It's works. It's
earned. By grace, you have been saved. See, salvation is of the work
of God. It's a merciful act for His people
that we, in spite of our ability and our inability, in spite of
our righteousness or our wickedness, we are saved by His mercy. And He's justified in that and
He can justify His people because Jesus Christ pays the penalty
for their sins. And so Paul was upset with the
Christians of Galatia who were all of a sudden falling for this
false gospel and he wants to defend the truth. He wants to
protect the sheep and he wants to fleece the false converts. You have to remember that. There
will be a sermon one day. You are quickly deserting. Him who called you. I always
get ahead of where I am in the text. I say a bunch of stuff
and there it is. But the calling. What is this
calling? Jesus Christ who calls you. God
who calls you. The Spirit who calls you. Now
if you remember what we, maybe week 50 something, 54, 64, I
can't remember exactly, but we spent many weeks in Romans chapter
8. And I read that and taught that
in a reading pattern, like I'm doing this, contextually, without
systematizing it as the Ordo Salutis, or the Order of Salvation.
Because all of those things are true and absolute in the context
of believers at all times. And the promises are there. So
these qualities are there, these promises are there, and if you
look those whom He foreknew, He predestined, He called, He
justified, He glorified. The call is the work of God the
Spirit with no means What do you mean by no means? The gospel
has to be heard. Absolutely. But I can preach
the gospel to someone today and God may not save them until tomorrow. But He's not going to save them
today and then they hear the gospel for the first time tomorrow.
That's impossible. Faith comes by hearing the words
of Christ. How are they going to know? How
are they going to call out on the one they have not already
believed? This is Romans 10, 7, 10, 10. They cannot call on
the one they have not already believed. What's the calling?
When Rome is taking your head because you proclaim Jesus as
Lord, not Caesar. That's the context. They can't
call out to the one they've never believed, and they cannot believe
on the one that they've never heard, and they cannot hear unless
someone preaches, blessed are the feet of those who preach
the gospel of peace. Faith comes from hearing, hearing
from the word of God, or from the words of Christ. That's the
exact literal translation. So this call. Some of you Christians in Galatia,
Some among you are deserting the gospel, but moreover you
are deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ. The calling of the Lord Jesus
is eternal life. Remember John 10? Goodness, I could go through
John 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 right now and then apexes chapter 11 and
the calling of Lazarus out of the grave. So in John 6, many
hear, they cannot stomach what they hear. Jesus calls them to
eat of His flesh and drink of His blood. Then we get over and skip over
to chapter 8, He calls them to see. And then chapter 9, we understand
that little boogaloo there. Chapter 10, He continues and
He talks about the sheep hearing His voice. And he says that those who are
my sheep hear my voice and they follow after me. They know my
voice and I know them. I love them and they love me
and the Father loves me and so on and so forth. They recognize
my voice and they come and they follow. And when they hear my
voice, I lead them to eat truth. By the way, in John 11, I am
the truth, in case you didn't know what I was talking about.
You're the truth, yes, and the resurrection and the life. And
let me show you what that looks like. Lazarus! This decomposing
body comes to life. Lazarus didn't hear it and contemplate
it and think about it. Just like the old blind man born
blind, he didn't consider, do I want to see? Oh yeah, I think
I want to see. Let me do this. Just like everybody else in the
New Testament. Christ commanded them and they
were. That's the calling of God. It
is eternal life. If God does not call you, you
cannot believe. And if God does call you, you
are believing at the moment. You're called unto eternal life
by faith. Some were turning away from the
truth of this. Some were turning away from grace
that is in Jesus Christ that God the Spirit had called them
to and turning to another gospel. See, I don't believe theology
is in view here. I don't believe this is a doctrinal
problem in Galatia. I think it's the foundation,
let me give you a few more words, the hope of these believers,
the assurance of these believers, here's a better, the loyalty
of these believers. Were they loyal to the message
of Christ or were they loyal to the message of works? It might
seem odd to you, but I'm just using synonyms. The hope that
these people had was not about dividing over theological differences.
It was about believing now they had confidence in the flesh.
Because somebody came along with a very, very rational, reasonable
argument. Do you want to know the argument of works assurance? You wanna know the argument of
what it looks like to add the law back in? You wanna know the
argument of seeing good works as proof of salvation? It's very
simple from the context of a Jew, because salvation is from the
Jews. Jesus is a Jew. Jesus came to
fulfill the law. Therefore, Jesus is Messiah,
and he'll make you do the right thing. That's their logic. And by the way, all that was
an example of their rationale. I'm not saying I agree with that.
For those of you who look confused, wait a minute. He just undid
10 years of preaching. Some were turning away from their
foundation of Christ. They were becoming loyal to their
own flesh. Loyal to Judaism. Loyal to the
law. Loyal to circumcision. Now, the
greatest irony of this is that Paul is a Jew now preaching to
Gentiles because that was his calling and these Galatians are
not Jewish. But yet the Jews have come around
and decided to trouble them. If you are truly a believer,
this is how the argument would go. If you are truly a believer,
you need to understand that we've had the Bible a long time. And we've been religious a lot
longer than you have. And we've been in churches a
long time. And y'all were worshiping goats
just last week. And I know you, Johnny, I mean,
you worship your little statue over there. You pick your nose
with it, nobody's looking, but you worshipped it in public. I saw
you. And we've been worshipping the one true God for centuries.
You need to listen to what we have to say concerning the good
news of eternal life. Jesus is the man, but buddy,
you better learn the ropes. You better sharpen your lives
around the law. Pun intended. And you better
cut out that flesh by cutting off that flesh. And Paul uses
the play on words of being cut away immediately, doesn't he?
Let him be accursed. Let him be cut away from Christ. So here, you're turning to a
different gospel, not that there is another one. Not that there
is another one. In chapter 2 verse 16, we'll
see when Paul finally takes a breath, he says what? Verse 15, we ourselves are Jews
by birth and not Gentile sinners like y'all. Yet we know that
a person is not justified by works of the law, but a person
is justified through faith in Jesus Christ. So we also have believed in Jesus
Christ, we the Jews, have believed in Jesus Christ in order to be
justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law,
because by the works of the law, no one will be justified. Look at verse 17, I'm getting
ahead. But if in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we
too were to be found sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin?
Certainly not. I'm not going to rebuild what
I've torn down. I'm not going to make myself a slave to what
I've been set free from. Do you remember why it's called
Good News? It's because God proclaims His
Good News from His Word concerning His Son who has set His people
free from the law, from the works of the law, from the curse of
the law. We are free. Oh, buddy, for some reason, to
the unconverted man who's uber-religious, when somebody hears that, they
automatically think, licensed to sin, let's just hand out the
devil cards now and get it over with. Here's your free pass to
go pick your nose with your idol this week. Here's your free pass
to cuss at your mama. Here's your free pass to steal
a little bread if you're a little hungry. Nobody does that. Nobody that preaches the gospel
does that. Many people think they preach
the gospel. Just like nobody that preaches the gospel adds
morals to the gospel. They may think they're preaching
the gospel, but they're not. Because someone uses a Bible,
because someone reads it, because someone may even go verse by
verse. Listen to what the Bible says in response to what I say. and vice versa. And if it doesn't
flow with the reading of the scripture, then dismiss it. Especially
concerning the work of Christ. But the problem there again is,
in most Christian homes, we have verses memorized. We do not know
what the Bible is teaching. We do not know what the letter
of Galatians is about, but we all know what 522 says. For the fruit of the Spirit And
then we put people right back under the law and go, you better
be patient. You're not patient, you're not
sane. You better be kind. You better be loving. Remember
John 15, 16? Jesus says in fellowship with
Him, you should love one another. And when you love one another,
you're actually loving Him. And when you obey Him to love
one another, you're actually loving Him. And when you don't,
you're not loving Him, because love is what you do with what
Christ has given you. But love is not a prerequisite
for being saved. Love is an action, a discipline. And God has loved us first. And
Christ shows His love for us in this, that while we were still
sinners, He died for us. I'm astonished. There are some
people, latter part, second part of verse 7, who trouble you and
want to distort the gospel of Jesus Christ. But I want you
to hear it. I want you to hear it. There are always going to be
people who will distort the gospel of Jesus Christ. And let me say this, back in the 90s there was this
little phraseology that people would talk about in conflict
resolution. Quit majoring on the minors. You ever heard that?
You ever heard that? Okay, it's silly, but it makes sense. There are a lot of distortions
of the gospel that are played off as majoring on the minors.
Quit making so much do about that. Quit making so much do
about all this other stuff. Just teach people to love Jesus. I hear it. I've heard it my entire
life. Now, if I were to have an index
card and give you all a card and a pencil and say, would you
write down How someone can love Jesus? Now, by the Lord's mercy,
I pray you'd all get it right. But for most professing Christians,
man, we'd have, if we had a thousand cards, we might have a thousand
different answers. But Jesus gives us one answer. Love my sheep. The primary call of a shepherd
is to love Christ's people. How? Pray for them, love them,
carry their burdens, teach them, counsel them, encourage them,
rebuke them, instruct them in righteousness. Give watch over
their joy and souls, willingly. Anybody can teach, but not everybody
can love. Some want to trouble you. They
want to distort the gospel of Christ. And that's not going
to change for us, beloved. Here's the one way we answer
that. Want to know how to answer distortions of the gospel? Teach
the doctrines of Christ. And when people trouble you with
a distorted gospel, you need to show them Galatians 1-10. You need to say sometimes in
a very loving way, and in a very kind way, and in a very forward
and confronting way, because it's going to be confrontational.
When someone begins to distort the gospel, and you have tried
to help them see through the means of teaching, sometimes
you just have to say, you know what scripture says about if
you believe what you believe, which is different than what
I say I believe, then one of us is an unbeliever, or both
of us are unbelievers. One of us is cut off from Christ. And you know, I've said that
to a lot of people. I said that publicly last year in a small
group. And it didn't go well. It didn't
go well. That person doesn't talk to me much anymore. But
everybody heard it. If anyone Preaches! Now get this, but even, verse 8, but even if
we, let's just use we, even if we should preach to you a gospel
contrary to the one we have already preached to you, let him be cut
off from Christ. Let him be condemned, let him
be cursed, let him be damned. That's what Paul is saying there.
So Paul is showing, now he's not saying that the possibility
of the apostles could preach a false gospel one day. The apostles
were saved of the uttermost, just like we who are truly saved
are saved of the uttermost. We're not going to preach a false
gospel one day. It doesn't mean we won't give ear to one and
we won't bog down in it and we won't seek out the truth and
God will show us the truth very quickly. That's why we must read
the Bible. Read, read, read, read, read.
Don't study so much, just read it. God will study you up. And you hear it and you go, hmm,
that don't sound right. Who said that? Satan? Yep. But he wants to emphasize the
severity of it, that even if another apostle were to dare
come back and preach something like this, let them be condemned. Let them be condemned. Even an angel from heaven If
you see a vision from heaven, if you see a bush burning, if
you hear an audible word, if some prophet comes and floats
in the air and bursts into flames and through the flames comes
a face and says, listen to me, and some other gospel comes,
if you see a mountain crumble to a pile of sand, if you see
the ocean parted to its deepest trench, if you see the skies
fall from heaven and the planets dissolve like rain, And they
teach you anything other than what I've already taught you,
Paul says, let them be accursed. So what does that say about signs
and wonders? They have no power over the truth
of Scripture. None. New Year's resolutions
are silly because they've never really been a resolve. They've just sort of been a wish
upon a star. and the star burns out by February. You know, nothing
wrong with having goals. Please have goals. Great. Make
reading the Bible not from front to back, but in diligent and
disciplined sequence. Make it part of your daily routine. But what really bothers me sometimes
this time of year is I see these New Year's resolutions, and worse,
they become New Year's promises by a lot of people who distort
the gospel. This is the year of increase, or this is the year
of power, this is the year for you. To what, die? I would love to be the sideline
commentator, the heckler. It would be such a wasted life,
but it would be so funny, until I realized what a waste it was.
Time wasting, I talked about that last Wednesday night too,
didn't I? This is the time, this is the
year for you. It may be the year God kills me. Glory, hallelujah. I will miss y'all for the second
my breath stops. And then I ain't gonna miss you
no more. And don't cry too bad at my funeral. Keep reminding
my children and my wife that I made it. And I break dancing
for real. And no more sin. That in itself
is worth the trip. Even if I get to heaven and Jesus
says, no more sin, and I go to sleep for the rest of eternity.
Dude, what glory? I don't want to, but I'm just
saying, what if that was just it? Just knowing that it was finished. No one preaches a false gospel
and gets away with it. As we've said before, and now
I say again, verse 9, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel
contrary to the one you received, let him be a curse. Now, here
in verse 10 and 11, or verse 10, is sort of the crux of Paul's
dilemma. And this is where our dilemma
will be, and then we'll be finished for tonight. Paul asks a question. He actually asks two questions
and then an assertion. For am I now seeking the approval
of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man? Now why would he say that? Because
a false gospel, listen to this, is 100% of the time humanistic. It will always pander or patronize
or placate or postulate, or any other P that can come into my
vocabulary right now, it will always point, there it is, I
knew I had one, to the flesh. It will always point to the flesh.
It will always come to the place where the fleshliness, especially,
listen to this, especially the religious fleshliness, The spiritual
side of our fleshliness. I didn't say anything about righteous
or godly or divine or redeemed. I'm talking about unconverted
people. But even the church, it sometimes gives us a little
taste of what we can hold, what we can see, what we can measure.
What we can enjoy, hear, taste, smell, and feel. That's what
we really like. That's why Paul continually asserts
and exhorts and admonishes. There's a warning in these things.
The church to not look at that which can be seen and heard and
touched and tasted. And the glorious thing there
is that John in his first epistle says that which we have seen
and touched with our hands and heard concerning the eternal
life which was manifest to us and now which we declare to you.
So the only thing that we're supposed to consider is that
which is now not seeable, not touchable. who is Jesus Christ,
but He is eternal. That which we can see and touch
and smell and deal with today is passing away. It is of the
world. It is not of God. And the Gospels that seemingly
are better in their measuring of our hope are always fleshly. There's always something. There's
always something that man has done or needs to do or is doing
that he can feel a little bit more confident about the work
of Jesus. Now what does that sound like? Genesis 3. innocent human beings, one of
which talked with God the Son in the garden, who just breathed
the breath of life into him, put him to sleep, took out a
rib, took the dirt in the rib, made another out of man, thus
she was called woman, and God gave him a direct blessing,
the world is yours, subdue it, take it over, rule it, Everything
in it is yours, eat it all but that. Don't eat that. If you do, you die. And I'm sure that Adam, when
Eve's there, she's like, this is beautiful, where are we? This
is earth and God just created us and it's all ours, just don't
touch that or you'll die. Sort of like a man's garage,
don't go into the ratchet drawer and get anything out if you need
it, just ask. Don't touch it. The serpent comes
along, hey, look at this fruit over here. Eve's like, yep, if
I touch it, I'll die. Nope, God didn't say that. If
you eat of it, you'll be like God. It's very tasty and it's
going to give you smarts. You're going to know something
that God is withholding from you. Do you know that was the
truth? He deceived Eve with the truth, and she ate of it, and
Adam, who had his arm around her at the time, ate of it. It
wasn't like Adam going, no, running across the garden, no, falling
going, ah, and it falls in his mouth. He was with her. It's
humanism. That's the demonic gospel. It
adds to the flavor of how we know we can know something about
God. And God has made Himself known
to His people only through the call of the Spirit to the truth
of Christ, who finished the work of redemption for His people.
So if we are going to preach a false gospel, it is always
going to be tainted, in the Christian view of things, with the approval
of man. Do my pastor friends approve
of my message? No, but I got a lot of people over here who
do. I'm in good company. Who approved of Jeremiah? Nobody. And I believe that if you really
were able to tally up the intimate relationships of the apostles,
they were hard to find a posse to go with them. They didn't
have an entourage. I mean, Jesus is God the Son
and He had 12. Friends, the message of the cross
is not going to be appealing to unconverted people, but when
we see it, it is the tree of life. It is the greatest aroma
that we've ever smelled. Am I trying to please man? And he answers the question,
and then I'm through. If I were still trying to please man, I
would not be a slave of Christ. Now what does it mean for Paul
to be a slave of Christ? That means that he has I almost tricked you. God has
taken Paul's life from him. And God has given Paul Christ. And God has given Paul to Christ. And Paul says, this life that
I live is not mine. This life that I live is not
mine. Everything that I had I counted as worthless, as nothing, as
lost. This world is passing away. If
I can just preach Christ and be crucified, it's the only words
I need. God took Paul's life from him
and gave him the life of Christ. So if Paul were to patronize
the fleshliness of religious people, He would no longer be
a slave to Christ. He would be a slave to man. And
men would have followed Him to the four corners of the world.
That's round. Because of the call of God, in
the grace of Jesus Christ, Paul would not, would not give up
the gospel. And beloved, we're not going
to give up the gospel either. No matter how hard it is, no
matter how frustrating it is, no matter how popular it would
be to just back up a little bit. It's easy. You might say, well,
what's another example? Let me think of another example
of how we twist the gospel without changing the doctrine. We may
hold to the gospel, but we're quiet about it. And a lot of
congregations who might have the gospel, but they don't want
the press, they just deal with changing lives. We're going to
have a 10-week series on how to have a better marriage. I
mean, who doesn't want that? We all want that. And we're going
to take notes, we're going to get outlines, we're going to
give away door prizes. It's going to be packed out and
everybody's going to have a real good marriage for that 45 minutes
in service and they're going to fight about it when they get
in the car. That's how it's going to work. Or how to guarantee success for
your children. How to be a spiritual father instead of preaching the doctrine
of Christ. Instead of exalting the finished work of Jesus, which
every, even the instruction, now get me, you know me, you
teach the whole counsel of God's word. You don't forsake the instruction,
but even when you give the instruction, you don't forsake the gospel
either. It's all there. This letter's about instruction,
about the gospel, and then some other stuff too, because of the
gospel. So we know that God has called
us. with the one true gospel. And because of that, we have
an eternal hope. Let's stop there. Let's pray.
We thank you, Father, for your gospel of free and sovereign
grace, for the work of Jesus throughout all the ages eternally.
When he died on that cross, God, he satisfied the wrath you have
for your people. Lord, call your people to salvation.
Call them and grant them faith. Give them the eyes to see and
the ears to hear the truth of Christ. Lord, embolden us through
the power of your word by your spirit to see and believe the
truth every single moment of our day, even when we're inundated
with false gospels galore and help us to have wisdom and discernment
and even kindness in our righteous anger. When we see brothers and
sisters or professing Christians who twist it, help us to correct
them gently. But then, Father, there comes
a time where gentleness is over and separation must come. Lord,
we know that those who separate themselves from the truth of
Christ have never been born of You. But we do not give up. We continue to pray. And Lord,
you will see your children home. We pray these things in the name
of Christ. Amen.