What if its not true? What if everything that you have learned about the Lord Jesus and the Salvation he provides is a combination of wishful thinking and fantasy? What if you have been programmed, duped, hoodwinked, and otherwise misguided? This thought has most certainly crossed your mind from time to time, hasn’t it? You wish that it didn’t; but it does.
It may cross your mind when you notice how bad things seem to be in the world: it leads you to wonder if there is really truly a God who cares.
It may cross your mind when you notice the sincerity of those who practice religions that do not confess Christ. “How can I say that my belief is right and theirs is wrong?” You wonder.
It may cross your mind when you’re watching a nature show on TV, when the subject of evolution is brought up.
So... what if our message, our belief and the basis for our hope is not from God, but rather from man? It is this challenge that Paul, the Lord’s apostle is seeking to address in his letter to the Galatians.
The situation was different: Galatian Christians had been afflicted not by some nature show on the Television, but by an activist group of people known as the Judiazers. These guys came and basically said, “Faith in Jesus who died and rose again for you is not enough...you need more, you need to also observe the traditions of the jews.” They diminished the Gospel by saying it was not adequate in matters of salvation.
They also went after Paul who was the messenger of the Gospel. They said he wasn’t a real apostle because he wasn’t part of the original twelve. They said he made up the Gospel message because he wanted to please people and gather a large following..... They attacked his message, they attacked his motivation, they attacked his position as an apostle and messenger of the Gospel.
Indeed, his situation was different than ours, but the effect was the same: The saving Gospel which is the good news that God saves people by grace through faith in Christ Jesus was being diminished.
It would seem that every attack, no matter which aspect of the truth it is aimed at, ultimately attacks the Gospel. When some point at the bad things world and use that as evidence that God is not merciful they diminish the gospel because they are discrediting God’s grace, his mercy, and his willingness to save.
When others insist that God did not possibly create us, they call into question that he will recreate us and to remake the world through his Son, and therefore they diminish the Gospel.
When people insist that all the religions of the world are the same, they discredit Jesus who said “I am the way the truth and the Life, no one comes to the father except by me.” . If they discredit Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith, they, once again, diminish the Gospel.
When attacks are made in any area of the Christian faith, it is ultimately the Gospel that is attacked. Our faith is not merely an assemblage of unrelated beliefs, stitched together like some crazy quilt with no rhyme or reason, it is more like a whole-cloth. You simply can’t remove pieces from it without tearing at and diminishing the whole.
So how did Paul respond to these attacks? He said “I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man nor was I taught it; rather I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.” He asserts that it was not made up. He asserts that it was a revelation from Jesus Christ.
Now, for us Christians who already believe that God’s word is inspired and that Paul is indeed an apostle of Christ Jesus, this is enough. But those who do not believe like we do or perhaps might be struggling in their belief might respond to Paul by saying: “Dude, is that all you got ” “Joseph Smith, the founder of the Mormon church also claims to have had a revelation.” “The Watchtower, that mysterious group that writes for the Jehovah’s witness also claim to have revelations of the truth. Mohammed, too, claimed to be on the receiving end of Revelation How is the Revelation the Gospel that we have received from the Apostle Paul any different?”
Because it is the GOOD news. That’s what makes it different. To explain this, I’m going to back up just a little bit and allude to something that was said earlier: many people in this generation are saying that all religions are the same. It might surprise you to know that when they say this, they are not completely off the mark. For the people who follow any religion out there are all responding to the same thing. They have noticed that not everything is right with the world. They have also noticed that not everything is right with themselves. They see that something’s broken, and they aim to fix it; to make things better. And those who practice these other religions, most often, do so in sincerity and with good intentions. Most of them truly believe that what they are doing is right.
But there’s a difference between these other religions and Christianity, and it is most significant: All of the other religions of the world put man himself at the center of the salvation equation. Though they do pay homage to whatever gods they might adhere too, Man is invariably cast in the role of saving himself.
Indeed, the activities and expectations in these other religions might vary widely from religion to religion. Their various methods and forms might differ as well, but the news is always the same, If man is going to be saved (no matter how they might define salvation), he must save himself by following the rules (whatever those rules might be). And since none of them keep all the rules perfectly, guilt often looms large.
In certain cases, when this guilt grows to extremes, it will cause the practitioners to do things like fly planes into buildings, strap bombs to their chests and blow up themselves and others in a public place, douse themselves in gasoline and set themselves ablaze, pierce themselves with five inch steel hooks and suspend themselves about the ground, or crawl on their hands and knees for many miles to some shrine....they honestly realize that something must be done to atone for their sins. They know this and they make the personal sacrifice.
Christianity, on the other hand, has the wonderfully distinct and different GOOD News that God is Gracious and that God actually saves Man. Christianity stands alone among all the religions of the world in this. Christianity sees God as the cause of our salvation, even as he was the cause of our creation. We do not save ourselves any more than we create ourselves. We do not presume to think that sinful mortals can ever fulfill the divine laws, nor do we presume to think that we can ever atone for our sins by the sacrifices we make.
We acknowledge that we are sinful. We are free to do this because the GOOD news is this: GOD is merciful; GOD forgives; GOD saves. The Good news is this: Salvation and eternity is a gift that God wants to give to everybody and that it is received by faith. It was HE HIMSELF who atoned for our sins by HIS sacrifice. This is the good news.
In the last hymn we sang it says in stanza three:
“It was a false misleading dream
That God his law had given
That sinners could themselves redeem
And by their works gain heaven.
The Law is but a mirror bright
To bring the inbred sin to light
That lurks within our nature.
Then verse four
Since Christ has full atonement made
And brought to us Salvation,
Each Christian therefore may be glad
And build on this foundation
Your grace alone, dear Lord, I plead,
Your death is now my life indeed,
For you have paid my Ransom.
This is the Good news. Man is guilty of Sin, But the perfect God, will save the man, not according to the man’s deeds, but according to his mercy. This Good News is so very distinct; so utterly sublime; so unique and so complete; so completely unexpected; so completely unimagined that there’s no way that anyone could have or would have ever thought of it. No one thought of it before Christ in any of the ancient religions, no one thought of it after Christ in the more recent religions that have been popping up. Paul says “I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up.” This is the GOOD news in a world that so desperately needs good news. We can believe it, We can depend on it, we can proclaim it with confidence for all who would listen.
So do we make sacrifices? Indeed we do, But this same apostle, the apostle Paul makes it clear that we offer ourselves as “living sacrifices” . We do not seek to atone for our sins, because we know that Jesus has done that for us. Our sacrifices are made not to save ourselves, but because we are saved and made alive in Christ. Our sacrifices do not originate from guilt or fear, but rather from the joy of hearing the good news. For Paul, this meant the radical change from chief persecutor of the church to chief missionary and Apostle.
We are made better and the world is made better by the Gospel taking hold in our hearts. We do not force a system of laws or a particular philosophy or form of government as so many others religions and movement do, we simply share the Good News, that God loves us with a perfect love in his Son, And this is what brings about changes in broken hearts and will ultimately bring about changes in this broken world. Jesus will return and when he does, he will make all things new.
Even now he is making us new. You yourself have sensed the positive changes in yourself as a result of hearing the good news. You yourself have felt the blessed urgings of God’s Holy Spirit to grow in love. So the proof that you seek for the validity of what you believe is right here (point to heart) The proof is in you. The evidence is the joy you feel and the good that you have been enabled to do. AMEN
