The Gospel Of Grace Series

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.