The Gospel of Grace
Galatians 1:1-24
A Message of Grace (Galatians 1:3-10)
Grace is Good News
Grace plus is Bad News
A Messenger of Grace (Galatians 1:1-2, 11-12)
A Messenger Delivers
The Messenger Matters
The Manifestation of Grace (Galatians 1:13-24)
Grace changes a person
Slide 1
Imagine for a moment.
A man and his wife are out doing some hiking and they get lost.
Darkness is coming soon and there is a bad storm approaching.
You are part of a rescue team that is sent out and as night falls and the temperature drops, you find them and begin to lead them out.
Slide 1 As you come upon one of the last legs of your journey out, you tell the man and his wife that there is a cabin and fire and food just up ahead.
But instead of going in that direction, they begin heading the other way.
What are you thinking and doing at this point?
1. Wondering what they are thinking
2. Asking them what they are doing.
3. Urging them to continue to follow you to safety.
You know that you know the only way to safety and they are not following you. The way they are heading is straight to their destruction.
This happens to be the situation in Galatia, (Now modern Turkey)
Paul had gone to Galatia and set up churches there on his first missionary journey (Acts 13-14). He told them that salvation was by grace and that there was no other way.
We see that there were some who came in after Paul and were confusing the Galatians by preaching something different than Paul.
From later on in Galatians (5:1-4) and from Acts 15, we see that the people who were confusing others were Judaizers. They were claiming that you had to become a Jew first to become a Christian.
These people were doing the same thing in Antioch. We see in Acts 15 what they were doing.
Acts 15:1
1 Some men came down from Judea to Antioch and were teaching the brothers: "Unless you are circumcised, according to the custom taught by Moses, you cannot be saved."
So Paul writes this letter to the churches in Galatia because many there are starting to believe these false teachers and question what Paul was teaching.
I want us to look today at the beginning of His letter to the Galatians and see what was going on there and draw some implications for each of us today.
Slide 2
Galatians 1 (p. 823)
1 Paul, an apostle-sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead- 2 and all the brothers with me,
To the churches in Galatia:
Slide 2 3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel- 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!
10 Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.
11 I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. 12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.
13 For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. 14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. 15 But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man, 17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus.
18 Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days. 19 I saw none of the other apostles-only James, the Lord’s brother. 20 I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie. 21 Later I went to Syria and Cilicia. 22 I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 23 They only heard the report: "The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy." 24 And they praised God because of me.
First, I want to look at what Paul was preaching. We see right from the beginning that he was preaching
A Message of Grace
Slide 3
Galatians 1:3-9
3 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.
Slide 3 6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel- 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!
Paul, when he established these churches preached that salvation is by grace and grace alone. That is the good news.
And that is the first thing we need to realize about the message of grace. That
Grace is Good News (Galatians 1:6)
Slide 4
6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel-
Slide 4 Paul’s saying that they are turning to a different gospel means they are turning from the true gospel which is the Grace of Christ.
The Gospel message is a message of grace.
Jesus Christ paid for your sins. He died and 3 days later rose again.
He took your punishment and He gave you His righteousness.
You didn’t deserve it.
I don’t deserve it.
That is grace. He has blessed us with what we do not deserve.
That is the good news.
This is what Paul was preaching to the Galatians.
Then some others came and were saying that Jesus’ death and resurrection made it possible to have salvation but first you had to become a Jew and be circumcised.
Paul is saying wait just a minute. That is not good news. That is not the gospel I preached.
Paul is saying that this is bad news.
Grace plus is Bad News
Slide 5
(Galatians 1:6-7a)
He says the gospel you are turning to is no gospel (good news) at all
Slide 5
When we add something to the work of Christ to receive salvation, we are saying that Christ’s work on the cross is not good enough.
All we do is receive the grace of Christ
by believing in Him as our Savior and in His work on the cross.
John 1:12
12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-
Ephesians 2:8-9
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith-and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God- 9 not by works, so that no one can boast.
We Christians need to be careful not to get caught up in the legalism of works.
Believing in Christ and receiving Him as Savior is what gets us into heaven.
Not going to church
Not reading the Bible
Not doing good things.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I think we should all be doing those things. And as we do them, we grow stronger and glorify God more.
But, they will never get us into heaven.
When we talk to those who are not in relationship with Christ, we need to stick to the message of Good News of Grace through Jesus Christ.
The second thing we see is that Paul was a
A Messenger of Grace
Slide 6
(Galatians 1:1-2, 10-12)
1 Paul, an apostle-sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead- 2 and all the brothers with me,
Slide 6
To the churches in Galatia:
10 Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. 11 I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. 12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.
Now there are a couple things we need to understand about Messengers.
First,
The Messenger Delivers
Slide 7
A messenger delivers something from someone to someone else.
Paul is delivering the message of grace that He received from Jesus to the Galatians.
Slide 7
Who a message comes from is important.
Melanie to Adam Illustration
If I tell Melanie to tell Adam to come downstairs, she needs to say Dad told me to tell you to come downstairs.
If she just says, “Adam, come downstairs.” He is less likely to respond because Melanie is not the authority that I am in our home.
Paul is reminding the Galatians that this message is from the Lord. He did not get it from any man. He got it from Jesus Himself and that message was authenticated by many miracles.
You can read in
Acts 14:1-3
1 At Iconium Paul and Barnabas went as usual into the Jewish synagogue. There they spoke so effectively that a great number of Jews and Gentiles believed. 2 But the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. 3 So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there, speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of his grace by enabling them to do miraculous signs and wonders.
The Lord confirmed that the message they spoke was from Him.
Application
We speak this same message today. Each one of you are messengers of the gospel of grace. Your message today is confirmed by God through His word. That is how God authenticates His message today.
When I speak you need to check out what I am saying against the word of God. This is why I use Scripture throughout the messages that I give.
You don’t want to hear what Scott has to say. What makes what I have to say any more valuable than what you have to say. You want to hear what God has to say. He is, however, going to use individuals to convey his message.
Romans 10:14
14 How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?
We need to be faithful in delivering the message that the Lord has given to us, the message of salvation through Grace.
The second thing we need to understand is that
The Messenger Matters
Slide 8
The Messenger matters.
It matters who is telling me something.
It matters to whether I believe them or not.
Slide 8
This is not some package that is being delivered from point A to point B.
This is not a job that FedEx could do.
This message has to be delivered from person to person.
Paul is someone who the Galatians have known.
They know how he lived.
They know what kind of person He was.
They know if he was a man of integrity or not.
He lives his life in accord with what he speaks.
He is not trying to win the favor of man, but of God.
He is certainly not winning the favor of the Jews. And yet as we shall see, He was a Jew of Jews before He met Christ on the road to Damascus.
Question
I have a question for you. What kind of messenger are you?
Maybe you are saying, well Scott, I am not a messenger.
Well, I would disagree with you if you are a Christian.
If you are a Christian you are delivering a message to those who know you and are around you.
Even if it isn’t with words.
Francis of Assisi said
“Preach the Gospel at all times. If necessary, use words.
The question is what message are you delivering with your actions?
Are you delivering a message that people will respond to by saying, this person really believes what they say because their life shows it.
Or
Are you delivering a message that people will respond to by saying, they talk about Christianity, but their life doesn’t match what they say.
This is a question that is important for every Christian but especially those who have been called to preach the Word.
This is something I take very seriously as a pastor.
Does my life match what comes out of my mouth?
Now this does not mean am I perfect.
But it does mean that if I blow it,
I own up to it,
confess it and
seek forgiveness for it.
I don’t try to hide it or just forget about it or think it is no big deal.
How we live our lives matters.
The life of the messenger matters in how well the message gets received.
Finally, the last thing we see is how Paul’s life showed
The Manifestation of Grace
Slide 9
(Galatians 1:13-14, 22-24)
Slide 9 13 For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. 14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.…
Then Paul felt God’s call to preach
And he goes on saying
22 I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 23 They only heard the report: "The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy." 24 And they praised God because of me.
Grace manifested itself in Paul’s life by changing Him.
Grace changes a person
Slide 10
2 Corinthians 5:17
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
Slide 10
Paul persecuted the church and tried to destroy it
But when He experienced God’s grace, He was changed by it.
Paul tells us in
1 Corinthians 15:9-10
9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. 10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them-yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me.
God’s grace had great effect in Paul’s life.
He was changed to the point where people were reporting that “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy”
That is a pretty remarkable change.
I have had some remarkable changes in my life.
Many of you have had remarkable changes in your life too.
Questions
But my question for you is this.
Why do those changes seem to stop in some of us?
Why does life seem to get harder sometimes?
If God’s grace is sufficient for us, why does it seem to lose its effect after a while?
Why do we fail to sometimes fail to experience the power that God’s grace promises to us as Christians?
After all, Paul tells that the Lord told Him that
2 Corinthians 12:9
9 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
Why is it that some of us just experience the weakness of ourselves and not the power of God?
When we first believed, we are often filled with such joy and wonderment and everything is new to us and there is an excitement that is contagious.
Then, things seem to settle down and just plod along.
I think part of it has to do with the fact that when we first accept Jesus as Savior, we understand that we are in desperate need of a Savior.
But as we continue on and understand more of how the Lord would have us live, we begin relying on our own strength instead of on the grace of God.
We are saved by the grace of God. That grace is good for all eternity to save us and keep us saved.
However, in terms of our growth in the Lord while we are here, we require continued reliance on God’s grace.
Acts 13:43
43 When the congregation was dismissed, many of the Jews and devout converts to Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who talked with them and urged them to continue in the grace of God.
Those times of weakness in our lives, are times when we have begun to rely on ourselves or are in danger of it, and God uses that to help us to rely on Him and not on ourselves.
What happens in our lives often is that things get going well, and we take over.
We turn to God when the going is tough, but once we get past the rough spots, we say thanks God, but I’ve got it from here.
And then we find ourselves right back in one of the ruts of life.
How can you stay out of the ruts while continuing on with the Lord?
By receiving His Grace everyday.
We need to fill up on His grace each and every day.
When we don’t, we start working in our own strength, we start thinking we know what God wants us to do so we just need to follow His rules, and that’s when we start becoming legalistic in our ways, we lose the joy of living the Christian life, because we aren’t growing in our relationship with the Lord but are only doing our duty.
That is when the Christian life, at least as we are living it, becomes
stagnant,
boring,
burdensome.
We become like the Pharisees.
Rule followers who miss the presence and grace of Christ because we are so concerned about following the rules instead of being strengthened to walk in relationship with the Lord.
When we receive God’s grace for living each day by meeting with Him and being with Him in prayer and meditation and through His word,
The rules take care of themselves.
We will have our focus on the Lord
We will have the strength to live each day joyfully in spite of
A bad day at the office or
Bad news from the Doctor or
A bad hair day or
A bad marriage day
It is then that we will be able to continue to experience the Grace that has saved us and made us a new creation.
Receiving God’s grace will not be only an event that changed us,
but it will be a daily Presence that continues to change us.
Fill up each day at the spring of living water and receive the Grace for living that God wants to rain down in your life.
Let’s pray.
