We're gonna continue our study
in the book of Galatians, so if you could turn to the book
of Galatians. I'm gonna go through this study
a little slower pace than I have in other books. This book is
so important. It's a defense of the gospel
of God's free and sovereign grace in Christ. And as I said before,
if you read Paul's epistle, in his epistles, he's usually combating
works-based religion. And he's always bringing Christ
to the forefront, always. And as I mentioned, it was two
weeks ago, I think we had the last study, that right here in
these first five verses, Paul masterfully sets Christ before
the Galatians before he does any kind of correction. He sets
Christ forth. We're going to look at that next
week. But this week we're going to be looking at verses 2 and
3 today. So let's read Galatians chapter
1 verses 1 to 5. Paul, an apostle, not of man,
neither by man, but by Jesus Christ. God the Father who raised
him from the dead in all the brethren which are with me unto
the churches of Galatia grace be to you in 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
according to the will of God in our father To whom be glory
forever and ever. Amen. These five verses are just
remarkable. Amazing what's set forth in these
verses. Now in this book, again, as well
as many of the books that Paul wrote, as I said, he's combating
anything that is added to the finished work of Christ. Because
again, if you add just a pinprick, Just a pinprick of works now
and works. Jake my buddy at West called
me one day and he said you know what works is defined as anything
you do mentally or physically. So anything you think you can
do to gain merit and favor with God or anything you physically
do to gain merit and favor with God. Is is false if you're doing
not to gain merit and favor with God. is just like filthy rags in the
eyes of this book is written by the apostle
Paul again under inspiration the Holy Spirit of God so the
real true author of this book as the whole scriptures is God
the Holy Spirit and again we see here we will see as we study
this book that Paul is battling works based salvation now this
works based salvation had crept in It always creeps in subtly. It always creeps in subtly. Little
things that you have to do or not to do. Oh my. Anybody starts setting the standard
that you have to do something, you just say, I trust and rest
in Christ alone plus nothing. He's my only hope. He's my righteousness. He's my peace. I have the only
reason I have peace with God the only reason I can stand before
you and and proclaim that I have Wayne Boyd has peace with God
the only way I can proclaim that is in and through Christ alone
and Every believer can claim that people can say whatever
they want all the this and you do this and do you do that? You
lose your salvation. Oh, you don't know No Nope, I'm
in Christ and and I'm safe and secure and I'm complete in him and I'm saved because of what
he did and I will pronounce right here
that no one in this world can be saved by anything they do not by works of righteousness
which we have done but according to what is mercy Have you tasted
that the Lord is merciful Have you tasted that he's merciful
by his mercy. He has saved us He saved us By
his mercy and by his grace beloved So after Paul and Barnabas left
the area of Southern Galatia, men known as Judaizers had crept
in. These Judaizers had crept into
the churches, the established Christian churches. And again,
these Gentiles, these Gentile churches were new churches, so
these were infant believers, new churches, and these Judaizers. And they're nothing but works
mongers. That's what they are, false religionists. False religionists. That's all they are. They crept
into these established churches and they told these, they whispered
in these Gentiles' ears, you have to be circumcised and trust
Christ to be saved. You have to follow the law of
Moses and trust Christ and be saved. That's what they do. You have
to do this, or you have to do this, or that. I call it checklist
Christianity. And I'll tell you what, there's
a lot of people that have right doctrine that are checklist Christianity
people. It's deadly. It's deadly. If you don't check their boxes,
they say, well, you're not saved, or you're not preaching the gospel. I say this, if God before me,
who can be against me? Right? Oh my. So they insisted that you had
to be circumcised after the manner of Moses. And when these Christian
converts argued that Paul did not teach these things, the Judaizers
said, well, Paul's really not an apostle. He wasn't one of
the 12. He wasn't one of the 12. And then they said they couldn't
be saved unless they kept the law of Moses. My, oh my. So Paul's writing
this letter, and I'll tell you what, we're gonna see later on
in this chapter, he goes right out. he but first we saw in verses
three and four that he set Christ death he's he set forth who Christ
is what he did aren't you glad it says he died for our sins
he's a sinless one he had no sin he knew no sin and yet the
scripture says here says here who gave himself for our sins
Verse four, that he might deliver us from this present evil world,
look at this, according to the will of God and our Father. Sent by God on a mission to fulfill
the will of God, and the will of God, think of this for us,
we had no idea. Before the Lord saved us, we
had no idea we were one of the elected. We didn't have a clue.
That's why the gospel has to be preached to everyone, because
we don't know who the elect are. And that's why every gospel message
is a call to flee to Christ. I don't know who the elect are. I don't know who the lost sheep
are. But I'll tell you why. You put
100 people in front of me, and I'm going to preach the gospel.
And I'm going to leave the rest up to the Lord. And that's what
we should do. Leave the results up to the Lord. And it says here, though, He
gave Himself for our sins. He's sinless. That He might deliver
us. Oh, we needed to be delivered,
didn't we? We were in bondage to sin and to this world. But He delivered us. He died
for us and delivered us. Let this warm your heart this
week. according to the will of God and our Father. If you're saved, if you're sitting
here right now today and the Lord has saved you, it is according
to the will of the Father. That's amazing grace, isn't it?
The fact that He didn't cast us into hell. He didn't let us
die in our sins. My, oh, my. Because the only
one who's made us to differ is God, right? He's the only one. My, oh, my. So Paul defends his
apostolic authority in verse 1. Let's now read verses 1 to
4 here. grace be to you in peace from
god our father dot the father and from our lord jesus christ
who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from
this president world according to the will of god and our father
my prayers that as we study this book that god would just ground
us in christ no matter how mature we are in our walk we always
we're always going to be learning People get themselves in trouble
when they think they've arrived and they can't be taught. Lord,
my prayer for us as a church, and this is my prayer for myself,
Lord, give us teachable spirits. Give us teachable spirits. Help
us to always come and be ready to hear the word preached and
proclaim and hear from the Lord. Hear from the Lord. Hear what
he sells us in his word. Oh my, what wonderful news this
is. He gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from
this present evil world. Oh, may God keep us as a church,
looking to Christ. Through all the turmoil going
on in this world, may the Lord keep us looking to Christ, who
is the author and finisher of our salvation. And so we see
by inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God that Paul brings forth
how he became an apostle in verse one. He said, this is not by
man. not by man at all, not of man, neither by man, but by Jesus
Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead." So
right away he's setting forth his apostolic authority, which
comes from the Lord. There wasn't a group of men that
consented to have him come and be an apostle. No, he was made
an apostle by God. And I'm going to say this too,
there's no more apostles. You hear somebody, I've heard,
oh, these just lying folks out there, and they say, well, I'm
an apostle. No, you're not. You're a liar. Because there are no more apostles.
No more at all. And the apostle Paul was endowed
with power from God, proving that he was one of Christ's apostles.
And if it had not been for the grace of God, and the divine
revelation of Jesus Christ and his Damascus Road conversion,
if the Lord hadn't intervened there in Paul's life, Paul would
have just kept on persecuting Christians. We would have kept hating God if he hadn't intervened in our
lives. Scripture says, I remember saying
to one person that, One time I had preached on that we have
enmity with God in our hearts. That's scripture. And the person
said, I never had enmity with God. I'll tell you what, you
don't know the Lord then. And that was a supposed grace
believer. I'll tell you what. I might not have outwardly said
that I hated God before the Lord saved me, but my actions, my
words, my sin screamed that I hated Him. Because all my sin and all your
sin was against God. Now think of this, though. Think
of this. Who gave Himself for our sins. What love What love, the very one who we
offended as justice, the very one who we sinned against, comes
and dies for us, beloved. Gives himself a ransom for our
souls. And we think back in our lives
and we look back on our lives and how we were and who we were,
and you know that was all according to the will of God to bring us
to the point where the Lord intervened in our lives. Now what did he have to do for
us to be sinners? Just leave us alone, right? And if he had
left us alone, we'd have been headlong going to hell. What does God have to do for
a man to go to hell? Nothing. What does God have to do for
a man or woman to be saved? Everything. I know you've heard
me say that a hundred times. I'm going to keep saying it,
because it's true, isn't it? Everything. Everything. Oh, boy. Beloved, He works all
things after the counsel of His will. And we look back at things
and we think, boy, it's a mystery. How did that work for the will
of God? It did somehow. For His glory. You know, having
COVID and laying in bed there, you can't do nothing. Just laying
in bed, helpless. And I just kept casting myself
at the Lord's feet. Lord, just give me strength,
give me grace. If you're gonna take me home, take me home. But if you have mercy on me and
spare me, so be it, Lord, I'm gonna preach your gospel. He's so wonderful. So we see in verse 1 that it
was the will and eternal purpose of God, the Father, Son, and
the Holy Spirit, that Paul would be an apostle to the Gentiles. This is true of all God's ordained
preachers. We don't take this office upon
ourselves. God puts us in this position. It's God who does that. And then,
I like what Henry said, God makes the preacher. Any growth you
see in me, I don't see any growth in myself, I'll be honest with
you. We don't ever see any growth in ourselves. But any growth
you see in me comes from God. Comes from Him. And like I said, there's no more
apostles. Signs and miracles ceased after
the apostolic age. Now, can God still do miracles?
Yeah, he still does miracles. Every time a person's saved,
it's a miracle. It's a miracle. Can God heal people if he chooses
to heal people? Absolutely. Absolutely. But as far as the apostolic age,
that ended with Paul. But each preacher's ministry
is confirmed by the gospel we preach. God sent us to preach
the gospel. To preach the one true gospel,
which is salvation in and through Christ alone. Now let's look
at verse 2. It says, In all the brethren
which are with me unto the churches of Galatia. Now the word brethren
there in Greek means a brother. Generally, it denotes a fellowship
of life based on the identity of origin or members of the same
family. That's the Greek meaning for
this word. Beloved, we're all brothers and
sisters in Christ. We're in the same family. Now, we have family that are
flesh family, don't we? But we're all spiritual brothers
and sisters in Christ. We have an eternal bond. We have an eternal bond, because
our God is eternal, right? And our bond is in Christ. My,
oh, my. So all the born-again, blood-washed
saints of God have the same Father. They're born again by the same
Spirit, the Holy Spirit of God. And they have the same Redeemer,
the Lord Jesus Christ. Same Savior, the one Savior. Neither is there salvation in
any other, no other, other than Christ. And it's Lord Jesus Christ who
is the object of our faith. And that faith is given to us
by God. It's incredible. It's just incredible. So Paul brings forth here that
the brethren who are with him greet this church, or these churches
in Galatia, not just one church, greet the Galatian churches. And they send a greeting along
with Paul. And note how Paul says he's,
I love how Paul does this. I've seen this through his epistles.
He makes himself no better than anyone else. I love what Scott
said. That's stuck with me now. I don't
think I'm ever going to forget that, that the ground at the
foot of the cross is level. And Paul brings that forth. He
says, the brethren greet you too. Now he's already set up
his apostolic authority, but now he's just saying, the brethren
who are with me greet you. Me and my brothers, we greet
you, we love you. It's awesome. He hasn't bought
himself up. No, he calls those spoken of
in verse two brethren. They're brothers and sisters
in Christ. All of God's people are brethren in Christ. We're
family, beloved. We're family. We have a bond.
I'll tell you what, we have a bond that's an eternal bond. We were chosen in Christ before
the foundation of the world. Did we know that? No, we had
no clue, right? Until the Lord revealed that
to us. But you ever notice the kinship you have with your brothers
and sisters in Christ. Now you're blessed, you got two
sisters who love the Lord and you're a good family. But when you don't have that, it's
like I tell you guys, you guys are my family. I'm closer to you than I am to
my own brothers. And that only comes through Christ. And what do we all share? The
same Savior, the same love for the gospel, the same love for
the scriptures. And don't worry if it's just
a little bit here, a little bit there. We have it, by God's grace. We now love the God of the Bible.
That's a miracle in itself. That we who were rebels shaking
our fists at God now love the Savior. That lips that once said
words that we shouldn't have uttered now praise His mighty
name. That's a miracle, beloved. That's
a miracle of grace. So Paul puts himself on the same
level. It's showing that we're all one
in Christ. That's what he's bringing forth
here. We're all one in Christ. We're one in the Redeemer of
our souls. And remember, his authority had
been challenged as well by the Judaizers. And here he brings
forth that he's not alone. That's something I told the folks
that left when they left. I said, I've got all these gospel
preachers behind me. behind the church in agreement
that we're preaching the gospel my oh my I'll tell you what and Paul's
doing a similar thing here he's saying all the brethren which
are with me greet you too brothers and sisters you never
met great you reach It's wonderful. Calvin brings forth that the
concurrence of so many godly persons must have had some degree
of influence in softening the minds of the Galatians and preparing
them to receive instruction. I like that. I wanted to include
that because what he's bringing forth is that Paul, by saying
he had all these folks with him, are actually preparing them to
receive the word, going, he's not on his own. He's got all these men behind
him. My, oh, my. When I saw that,
I was just amazed, because that's so true. It would soften up what's
going to come forth, soften them up for what's going to come forth.
Remember, they're a young church, young churches. But they love
Paul. And this letter and greeting
are not only from Paul, but from all the brethren we see here
too. All who assisted with Paul in
the ministry. Now this epistle is written to
the churches in Galatia. Let's read verse 2 again. And
all the brethren which are with me unto the churches of Galatia. So it's written to local assemblies
in Galicia. These churches were not national
organizations. They were congregational, like
we are. They didn't belong to a huge
group of churches all over the country. No. They were autonomous. functioning
independently, without control by others, just like what we
are here. And just like what each Grace Church is. Now we're
affiliated with Grace Churches, right? We have fellowship with
Grace Churches. But each one of us is an autonomous church. And these are the same congregational
autonomous church. And this is who Paul's writing
to. these different churches. And these churches were established
during Paul's first missionary journey. There were some located
in Sidon, some in Antioch, some in Iroquois, some in Lystra,
some in Derbe. But they were churches that were
established. And who knows other places, too, within Galatia? It's a big area. We're not told
how many churches there are, but we do know that in those
cities that there were churches established. And this epistle
was written after the council at Jerusalem, which is recorded
in Acts chapter 13 to 16. It must not have been very long
after this because Paul speaks of the conversion of the people. There is a recent thing. Look
at verses six and seven here. He's speaking of this as a recent
conversion for these churches. He says, I marvel that ye are
so soon removed You see, so that speaks in verse six, that speaks
of this church hadn't been established very long, these churches. So
soon removed. From what? From him that called
you unto the grace of Christ unto another gospel. Look at
that. And then look what Paul says,
which is not. Which is not another. It's not good news. I'll tell you what's good news
for sinners. Salvation's in Christ alone plus nothing. And we just
rest and trust in Him. That's good news! This was not
good news. Because it added to the finished
work of Christ. It added something man has to
do. Oh my. Paul says, which is not
another but there be some that trouble you and would pervert
the gospel of Christ. It's a perversion. See, think
of that. All the false religions in this
world that are based on Christianity, right, any Church of Christ,
Church of Christ says you have to be baptized to be saved. Seventh-day
Adventists, they say if you don't worship on Saturday, they're
Sabbatarians. They say if you don't worship
on Saturday, you worship the mark of the beast. You got the
mark of the beast. It's just foolishness. And the
list goes on, right? Mormons, Catholics, Lutherans. It just keeps going
on. Anything, anything, added to
the finished work of Christ is a perversion of the gospel now I can speak at the Catholic
Church because I came out of her and I'll tell you what it
was all works it was all works was all based
upon what I had to do and if you read church history
you read start reading some of the stuff they've always been
like that There's a good book called The
Bondage of the Will by Luther. And he's actually writing Erasmus,
who is pro-free will. And the whole thing of the bondage
to the will is that our wills are in bondage to our nature. That's why we're sinners. Because
we come into this world dead in trespasses and sins with a
dead nature. Sinners to the core from the
top of our head to the bottom of our feet That's why we need
to be saved My So Paul says anybody who adds works to to the gospel
of Christ they pervert the gospel And Paul was prompted by the
Holy Spirit of God to write this letter and due to the sinister
influence of the Judaizers, they crept in again, they crept in
unawares. And that's what error does, creeps
in. And it was his purpose to counteract this dangerous error
by re-emphasizing, and that's what he's doing. In verse four
there, he's re-emphasizing the gospel, that Christ died for
sinners. according to the will of God. He's re-emphasizing the gospel
again before he does any correction, and urging believers to adorn
their faith and prove it genuine by loving and caring for one
another. Now one might ask, who are the Judaizers? Well, they're
people that teach that believers are still under the law of Moses
as a rule of life, even though they profess to Christ we still
have among us we still have among us today inspired our liberty
beloved that's why there's warnings in the scripture about this stuff
they spy our liberty our freedom and seek the yoke us under bondage
again that's what Paul says it look over look over in chapter
5 this is this will tie right in with that look at this chapter
5 verses verse 1 look at this stand fast therefore
in the liberty freedom where with christ hath made us free
in be not entangled again with the yoke bondage don't be entangled
by works based salvation rest in christ in him alone trust in christ in him alone
all mine So the gradients from Paul and the brethren who were
with him was not addressed to just one of the local assemblies,
but to many. Could you imagine receiving a
letter from Paul? Especially since he established
those churches, he was used by God to establish those churches.
Could you imagine the joy that those believers, we got a letter
from Paul. My oh my. And notice this too. It's written to the churches
in Galatia. So this error had crept into many churches. And
Paul, he's going to hit it head-on. He's going to hit it head-on.
Look at verse 3. It says, Grace be to you, and
peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. And remember
this, the Scriptures are written to God's elect, right? So if
you're one of God's people, this letter's written to you. It's
written to me. When I found that out, after
the Lord showed me grace and I found out that the scriptures
were written to God's people, and I was one of them, I was
amazed. It fills your heart with joy. You read the scriptures
a whole different way. It's a love letter from our king. Oh my! So it says, Grace be to
you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
Every blessing that comes to us comes to us in and through
Christ. Only through Him. And Christ
was ordained by God our Father to be the object of all worship. All praise. Therefore every blessing
comes through Him. Comes through Him. To us. why that we might give him the
praise that we might give him all the glory and We praise our
Heavenly Father for sending our King don't we? We praise his
name. Thank you Lord for saving my
soul. Thank you father for choosing me in Christ a hell-deserving
sinner Thank you that you saved me by your grace. Thank you that
Christ is the one mediator between God man, and he's my Savior Thank
you Lord Thank you. And notice here too, notice here,
it says, grace be to you and peace from God the Father and
from our Lord Jesus Christ. Grace and peace are two of the
very precious blessings that comes from our God, the Father,
through Christ to us. Grace and peace. Christ is full
of all grace. We have peace with God only through
the Lord Jesus Christ. And notice the order. Notice
the order here, too. This is important. Notice the
order. Grace first, then peace. Grace always comes first, then
peace with God. Yeah. There is no peace, saith
my God, to the wicked. No peace to the wicked. with
all God's gracious to his people he has mercy on whom we are mercy
and think of this to only the Lord Jesus Christ met all the
covenant conditions all the conditions of the covenant of grace only
Christ meant those only him our holy God can bestow his sovereign
grace upon us because of what Christ has done That's the only
reason. So God can be just and the justifier
of his people then, right? Yeah, just like Scripture says.
To all who believe, there's only one justifier. That's the Lord
Jesus Christ. And when the gospel of God's
saving grace is revealed to us, when we're enlightened by God
the Holy Spirit to know that Jesus Christ has honored God's
law in our room and place, satisfied God's justice in our room and
place, then what happens? Peace floods our souls. Tell you what, you start getting
rocked by the world, things in the world, just remember. I have
peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. I just need to
keep my eyes on Him. I just need to keep my eyes on
Him. Our peace with God causes us to be at peace with one another,
too. Oh, it is. As much as it's possible, our
peace with God causes us to be at peace even with our enemies.
And we're seeing in our study of this book that Paul calls
for a return to the gospel. That's what he's calling them
to, to return to the gospel. We're going to see that in the
next few weeks. And he denounces all human effort, as we saw. Anything, any human effort is
a perversion of the gospel. I ask you this. I was listening
to the Spurgeon this morning before I came. He said something. He said, if man could do something,
why did Christ come to this world to die? If we could possibly
save ourselves, why did the Savior, why did the King of Glory leave
heaven? Well, he left heaven for us because
there was no way for us to save ourselves. And then he said this,
it is an affront to God. for anyone who says that they
can be saved by something they do. It's like spitting in God's
face. That's serious business, isn't
it? That's why Paul said that gospel, that false gospel's not
good news. But praise be to God. We've heard,
we've been endowed with hearing ears, beloved, to hear the wonderful
gospel of salvation in Christ alone. And what do we say? Praise
his mighty name.