Pentecost 3
Galatians 1:11-24
138 years ago today marked a key event in our nation’s history. The date was July 1st, 1863. The location was a small town in Pennsylvania, a town at that time not known for much except a shoe factory that was there. Today, the name of this town represents the bloodiest and one of the most important battles ever to take place on American soil. That town was named Gettysburg.
The Civil War had been raging for over 2 years by then. The North had more manpower and was better equipped. The South had excellent generals. For the most part, the South had whipped the North so far. It might have taken only one more victory for them to win the war. And then, on July 1st, the two armies clashed at Gettysburg for a 3-day battle.
Actually the Confederacy did quite well that first day. They crushed the Federal soldiers and sent them scurrying through town to the hills beyond. Toward the evening, General Robert E. Lee sent a messenger to one of his leading commanders, General Ewell. The order was to take a certain, relatively unoccupied hill if practical. In other words, General Lee wanted Ewell to take this strategic hill if it seemed reasonable to do so.
What followed was one of the greatest military blunders in history. General Ewell, when he received the order from the messenger…did nothing. It would have been so easy for him to take this hill, but for whatever reason, he delayed. Ewell did not grasp the urgency of General Lee’s command. He pretty well ignored the message the messenger brought. And that night, and more Northern soldiers arrived, that strategic point, Culp’s Hill, was occupied by many Union soldiers. The Confederates were never able to dislodge the Federal from that hill, and the South lost the Battle of Gettysburg and eventually the war. Had Ewell listened to the messenger Lee sent him on that first day of the battle, we in Florida might well be living in the Confederate States of America.
Our text for today is about the importance of faithful messengers from God. General Ewell’s failing to listen to a messenger completely changed our country’s history. But when people fail to listen to God’s messengers, it has even greater consequences. This morning, we will consider the theme, “Remember, it’s God’s Gospel.” When one of God’s messengers speaks, Remember, it’s God’s Gospel.
Part I
Now if Saint Paul appeared before us today and wanted to give us a message from God, few if any of us would doubt that he was God’s servant. We know that Paul was one of God’s faithful messengers. The Galatian Christians didn’t understand this. There were Christians in Galatia called “Judaizers,” who said that Paul was wrong. The Judaizers said that trusting in Jesus was a pretty good thing for a person to do, but if you wanted to be a real good Christian, you’d also follow all the Jewish ceremonial laws, such as eating kosher, worshipping on Saturday, and everything else that the Jews were supposed to do. These Judaizers were telling the Galatians that Paul was watering down God’s Word; Paul was making it too easy for a person to be saved. The Judaizers thought that simply trusting in Jesus was far to easy of a thing to do. In order to get to heaven, the thought, you also have to do a lot of other things.
In none of his other letters does Paul defend his apostleship more than in the letter to the Galatians. Paul makes very clear whom his message is from. He says, “I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.” Paul goes on to explain to the Galatians that once God turned him around from his life of being a Pharisee, Jesus himself gave him his message. Paul was going to be speaking Jesus’ own words. Since these words came directly from God, Paul knew that they were right, even though some would find them unpopular ideas. Paul Remembered that this was GOD’S Gospel.
One time when I was in high school, one of my classmates, a sort of strange guy, was in his dorm room with a fan, and a humidifier, and a space-heater. He had these three appliances in a circle pointing towards each other. And when he was asked what he was doing, he said he was trying to make a tornado. Now that seems so foolish to us, that’s only something God can do. Universal Studios can make a great illusion of a tornado, but the real thing has to come from God.
We have the real gospel. So many people these days are hostile towards a church like ours that claims to have the truth. It’s a lot nicer to say that we all have the truth…Lutheran, Catholic, Mormon, Moslem, Buddhist. We all have the truth. How can we in the WELS be so sure that we have it right?
Remember, it’s GOD’S Gospel. This isn’t something that I made up. This isn’t something that the WELS forefathers invented. Every single doctrine we teach is based on the pure Word of God. Teaching something other than God’s Word, well, that’s as foolish as trying to make your own tornado. Trying to pass something false off as God’s Word is downright dangerous. But remember, the Gospel that you hear here is God’s Gospel. And don’t take my word, the messenger’s word, for it. Go back to the source yourself. Study the Gospel on your own. Remember, it’s GOD’S Gospel.
Part II
And don’t just remember where it comes from, also remember what it says. The Gospel is the good news that all sins have been forgiven; our lives have been turned around, and we joyfully serve God until the day we are called into his heaven.
Like you and me, St. Paul knew first-hand the power of God’s Gospel. God turned Paul around on that road to Damascus. This previous life that Paul was living, where he was trying to do everything right, trying to do everything that God wanted, trying to do everything he needed to do to secure his place in heaven, Paul says that old way of life is just pure garbage now. The pwer of the Gospel is this: it turned Paul the persecutor into Paul the preacher for that message he used to persecute.
This Gospel hasn’t changed. It’s the same message in our era as it was in Paul’s. It was attacked during Paul’s time, and salvation through Christ alone is still attacked today. And while all these things have remained the same, so has this: its power is still tremendous. Remember, it’s God’s GOSPEL. Remember that the Word that you hold in your hand and study regularly isn’t just a rule book for you, isn’t a map to show you the right things to do to get to heaven, instead it shows you the way to heaven. It’s simply though Jesus Christ, who died that we might live, and then imparted this message to us. Remember, it’s God’s GOSPEL, his Good News.
Conclusion
Yes, you and I are the messengers of today. And you can have every confidence that God’s message is still effective. Remember, it’s from God himself. Remember, it’s the most powerful message ever given to a messenger…free salvation through God’s Son Jesus. Amen.
sdg
