Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / September 1, 2024 | Galatians - God's Path, Purpose and Plan

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September 1, 2024 | Galatians - God's Path, Purpose and Plan · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  unknown: Good morning.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Good to be with you.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: As we kind of I mean the the the fall decor is out, right?
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: It is September 1st.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: The background graphic for Galatians is orange.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is a new season, right?
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: So as we do that, what we've done the last couple years here is we move into a new book of the Bible, and this fall we're going to be looking through the book of Galatians or the letter to the churches in Galatia.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing that is going to become very apparent as we go through this together as a church is the importance of not only understanding but living out the gospel well.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: And the general problem that was going on in the region of Galatia is that the churches there, because it's not just Galatia is not a city, it's a region, it's modern-day Turkey.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: The churches in that area were sort of convinced that the gospel message, which is that Christ has died for our sins, and if we accept it by faith, we will be saved.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: They were sort of putting some hoops before that and putting some hoops after that.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: And they were making it so the gospel message was not leading to freedom in Christ.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was not sort of moving people into a space of peace, but rather that it was burdensome and they were sort of filled with rules and regulations.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, they were living sort of in the Old Testament when it which when instead they should have been in the new.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul would say, that sounds like it's right, but it's the way that they're living out that gospel that reveals that that's not the case, that they are adding things to it that aren't necessary.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: When I'm getting ready to go to bed at night, one of my sort of little routines is I go around and just, you know, make sure all the doors in our house are locked.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I've got this weird, I don't know if you call it a tick or what, but I've got this weird problem where in order for something to be truly locked in my home, I have to touch it.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like I can see the deadbolt in the door.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's not hard, it's not hidden, it's it's turned over and it's in the door, but okay, now it's locked, right?
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Now I have made sure that it was actually nobody's gonna break in tonight.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so there's a way that we can do this with the gospel message where we have everything that we need, but we begin to sort of stack things on it.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: And what is gonna be so good, both if you've been a you know Christian for a long time, or if you don't know Christ at all, if you're skeptical of the faith, Galatians is going to remind us of what the true gospel message is.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, there's a lot of reasons why you should care about this letter to these churches.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you are a Christian, it's because we do this all the time.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: We fall into the same habits that the Galatians do, where the gospel message can become just slightly bent, slightly twisted.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you might go, well, that doesn't seem like a huge issue, but because the gospel is so integral, it's foundational to our relationship with God and in fact our faith itself and what we understand about the world and even eternity.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: If the gospel message is slightly shifted in a way that it shouldn't be, we are heading out on the wrong direction.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, we can begin to magnify those mistakes as we live out the rest of our life.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Having a true understanding of the gospel is not about memorizing facts, but it is about seeing the work of God for what it truly accomplished and not trying to add things to it.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: If you have ever felt like your relationship with God has always been based on performance, okay, the book of Galatians is for you.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're skeptical about the faith, if you are not a Christian, if you're just interested or want to know more, the book of Galatians is actually a really good resource for you too.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd encourage you to walk with us through this because the stereotype of Christianity for many people is that it's a bunch of bunch of rules and regulations, right?
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: That it's stuffy people doing stuffy things just in an attempt to be sort of moral and good.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: But the gospel, as it's truly presented in the Bible, is not about doing more things, but it's about being set free in Christ and how that is supposed to transform our lives.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so Galatians reveals the fact that Christianity isn't about rules.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's a message that you can find freedom, hope, and peace in a relationship with God and ways that you can't find in any other way in this world.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that if you are going to go ahead and reject something, you know, if you haven't decided where you're at, if you're kind of on the fence, if you're gonna reject something, at least make sure you understand what you're rejecting before you sort of dismiss it out of hand.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: So as we go through this series, uh, we will uncover a number of these ways in which the gospel has been twisted.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: This morning we're just looking at the first five verses of the letter, which really encompass Paul's introduction.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you might go, introductions sound boring?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because even though you and I might write our letters and emails and start them the same way, the beginning of any letter in God's word, um, and especially as Paul is writing, it has significance.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: There are things he says that he didn't say in other places.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to introduce an argument that is basically going to represent the entire playbook or blueprint for the book of Galatians, and it's going to remind us about God's plan, God's pathway, and God's purpose for our life.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: So as we begin, we're in Galatians 1, verses 1 through 2.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: And it says, Paul, an apostle, not from men or by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead, and all the brothers who are with me to the churches of Galatia.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, Galatians is a letter sent by the Apostle Paul to a group of churches in a region that is now modern-day Turkey.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's the region of Galatia.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: And as he's writing to these churches, he references his role or his title as an apostle.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Short rabbit trail, Paul's backstory, because it's relevant here.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: When we find Paul or Saul as he's also known, and when we pick up his story in the Bible, he is killing Christians.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, he is persecuting them, and he is standing around the first martyr, Stephen, of the Christian faith, as he's being stoned.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, Paul grew up as a Pharisee, which is somebody who is very focused on making sure that the Jewish people were following every single law that is in the Old Testament.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, then they're like, that's not enough.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: We need more laws.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so then they add additional books to it.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it's this whole host of rules and regulations that Jesus says is so burdensome to the people who are hearing it that, and Jesus did not pull any punches, that when they do convert somebody to their faith, they make them just as much a son of hell as they are, right?
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: So Pharisees, not a great thing.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: They're often the punching bag in a lot of the ways that we talk about, sort of the enemies in the New Testament, but it's going to become relevant because what Paul is combating here in the book of Galatia, Galatians, is people who are adding rules and restrictions to the gospel message.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so if anybody who's like, I have a background in that, it's this guy.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: But furthermore, when he is going to the city of Damascus, okay, to go and find, root out this early Christian movement, he's going to arrest them, he's going to send them back to Jerusalem, presumably so they would then be killed or persecuted there as well.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: The risen Christ appears to him and blinds him, literally blinds him with his glory, so much so he has to be healed of it three days later.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: But at that moment, we sort of talk about Paul's conversion.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: And instead of being somebody who was persecuting and wanted to see Christians die, he becomes the greatest evangelist and message bearer to the Gentiles or non-Jewish people that the world has ever seen.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul, as he's writing about this now, he uses the word apostle.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Apostle is a specific title.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: There are no apostles today, because apostles needed to do three things.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: They had to have seen the risen Christ, which nobody's done today.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: They needed to be chosen by God, and they needed to be able to perform miracles, and in fact, have evidence of that in their ministry.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in fact, when we talk about like the disciples of Jesus, the twelve, a more appropriate term is they are the apostles of Christ.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Disciple is a much more general term.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus had hundreds of disciples.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: Anyhow, so Paul is using this title, but he wasn't one of the twelve.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he does fit the criteria, but the criticism of Paul is that he's kind of a, you know, Johnny come lately, that he like wasn't really there at the beginning.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: He was, even as Paul says, the least of the apostles.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: He kind of made it in as the garage door was shutting, okay?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so as Paul kind of scoots in and makes it in as an apostle, he is constantly fighting in his ministry to have the same authority that other people sort of are giving to the other apostles, he is deserving and wants the same.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: But it's not a matter of pride, right?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like we would think that.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're going, like, listen, I've got this title.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is, you know, if the people who've like got the doctorate and can only be referred to by doctor and correct you, and you're just like, not that.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, but rather what's happening here is he's saying, Look, I need to correct the gospel message.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to correct the gospel message, you need to understand that I'm coming with authority.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the people in Galatia are, who died and made you an apostle?
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And his answer is Jesus, which is always a very strong trump card, okay?
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: It is very hard to go against the Jesus did it card.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the one that he lays down.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so as Paul is giving this story as an apostle, uh you're gonna notice if you're with us in 2 Corinthians last fall, this was a big deal.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: They had a problem with it too.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be a problem in the churches of Galatia.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't really respect his authority.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so there are gonna be times, especially in the early chapters, where he's sort of recounting why it is God has given him this authority and why he should have the audience to speak into their lives, even though they know him personally, um, because this gospel message needs to be corrected.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when we get to something you might have glanced over, just this phrase to the churches of Galatia.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: We're like, well, that sounds kind of formal, you know, but so is to whom it may concern, right?
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: We're just addressing the letter.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, okay?
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is where comparing the openings of letters becomes very helpful because let me share with you some of the ways that Paul has opened his other letters to other churches.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: The Corinthians, you are talented and wonderful and beautiful people.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: The Colossians, you are faithful, and everyone knows you for your faith.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: The Philippians, you are partners in the gospel and co-workers in God's kingdom with me.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: To the Thessalonians, you are a model for others to follow in faith, hope, and love.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And to the church in Rome, to the Romans, whom Paul had never met before, they're a bunch of strangers to him.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, I have heard about how strong your faith is because it's the news of it is spreading around the continent.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: To Galatia, they get to the churches, okay?
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is like when your parent used your full Christian name to be like, when I heard Connor James Krause get over, like I knew I had messed up.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: Paul is using their full name.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: And if you have read Paul's letters before, if you're familiar at all with how he speaks, he can be bold to say the least.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: He will tell things as they are.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: But it's uh two things about that.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: One is you're gonna get more of that than you have ever seen in the book of Galatians, uh, because Paul is probably more frustrated here than he has been in any other church context.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, though he will often tell people what they need to do so that they can follow God, you know, how they need to correct themselves.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Many times it has to do with their behavior, the way that they are sort of living out that gospel message.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: But to the Galatians, Paul says the like very foundation of your faith is being misrepresented.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: You are incorrect, you are hurting yourself, and in fact, you're hurting other people, right?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: You are placing burdens on them, you are keeping them in slavery to the law rather than letting them find freedom in Christ.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so, Paul, when we talk about the gospel message, that there is probably nothing more important in this life than what God has done for us and how we are going to respond to that, okay?
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: We have to understand and see that Paul's intensity here is coming because of the intensity and the magnificence of the message.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like we need to understand the gospel.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as we do that, right, um, and as he continues on in this message, we just need to understand that he is coming in with a focus.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we continue on in the passage, verses three through five, which is really where we'll finish today, Paul says to the churches in Galatia, grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, to rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: To him be the glory forever and ever.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if Paul does have a normal phrase that he uses in his letters and his openings, it is grace and peace.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: He has coined it sort of coined that term, and he uses it a lot because for him it is emblematic, it is a representative of what the gospel is and what it produces.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: So the gospel is God's grace and it produces peace.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: It is God's grace, and grace, by the way, is unmerited favor, like we get things, good things that we don't deserve.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we talk about God's grace, any time that you're reading the Bible and God is going, I'm going to be patient with these people and they don't deserve my patience.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to rescue these people and they don't deserve to be rescued.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: Any of these moments, we've got a lot of them in the Old Testament, and they're really easy to see there, but we have them in the new as well.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: God is showing his grace over and over and over again.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: His love, his patience, right?
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: His kindness, his mercies.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: Things that if we just see God as the judge, and he is the perfect judge, we would expect him to condemn for the sin.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: But instead, what he does is God perfectly balances that in the only way that he can, by then saying, I'm still going to be the perfect judge, but to those who are deserving of condemnation, I'm now going to extend grace to them.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that grace is shown perfectly by the Father sending the Son to die on the cross for our sins, so that God's perfect judgment and his gracious action of love are represented, are representative of the cross, right?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: And they are represented by the cross, excuse me.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so in this moment, as Paul is beginning this letter, right, and he says, Grace and peace to you, to a people who kind of struggle to understand the gospel, it is you must see that grace is necessary for you to truly appreciate it.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: As he says in the letter to the church in Ephesus, for you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves, it is God's gift, not from work, so that no one can boast.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: And this is going to end up being a huge conflict with these churches in Galatia, is because they are working towards their salvation, even though they might not realize it.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that is what we need to recognize and look at later on.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Is it's this is not so much a criticism of people who go, like, you know, I have to go to church every single Sunday in order for me to be saved, and telling people that, and believing, you know, and intentionally adding these rules.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: What is happening in Galatia is subversive.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: They have this group who has come in, and Paul is really fighting with the leaders who are preaching a false gospel, and the people don't realize that they're being led astray.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so you're gonna hear a lot of moments where it sounds like he's just hitting the basics, and it's like, yeah, he is, because that's what we need to understand, and that's where the confusion is at, the basics of the gospel.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: But it is not just what the gospel is, an act of grace, but it is also what it produces, peace.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: Romans 5 1 says, Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so what the God a true understanding of the gospel should produce in the lives of those who hear it and follow it, is peace, right?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: And this is primarily peace with our Lord, a peace that is restored, that was once broken because of our sin, a renewed peace in our relationship with Him.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: But then that cup overflows, and it should be a peace within our restless souls, a peace to others, broken relationships with other people, a peace in our communities, in our churches, peace should be something that reigns supreme in gospel places.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so grace and peace become kind of his opening greeting, his like cannon fire, as he is saying, Look, this is basically if I'm waving a flag, this is it.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: It is God's grace and his peace.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: But as we go on, we see that Paul is going to recite something that many people think was one of the first creeds or like liturgies of the early church, meaning, like, if you come from a background where there's a lot of call and response, okay?
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up Methodist, we would have the beginning of the service would normally have a lot of that, and we'd be saying the same things together.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: We might be including some more of that here within our own service.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's part of the reason why we did this time of prayer together this morning.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: But anyhow, this opening part of Paul's letter, many people think it was a phrase that was established or set of phrases in the early church that kind of codified who Jesus is and what the plan of salvation was.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus gave himself for our sins to rescue us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: And as Paul shares that, he reveals God's pathway, God's purpose, and God's plan for the world.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: God's path is presented through the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: When we talk about God's path, we have to understand, and this is where when I say, even if you don't know Jesus as your Savior, if you're not a Christian, if you're skeptical, these are the kind of things that are very helpful for you to know, even if you're You're going to say, that's not for me.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because what the Bible tells us is that there is really only one pathway to a renewed relationship with God.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's one pathway to heaven.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: There are not many ways to get to the end, as sort of our culture would have us believe.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that the Bible is very clear on that point.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why God's path here, the Lord Jesus Christ, is presented as the only way, in fact, to get to heaven, to be forgiven of sins, to have God's grace.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus himself says this in John, right?
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: It is a consistent message of Scripture that there are not multiple pathways, but rather there is just one.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: But this also answers the helpful question, um, for what purpose did Jesus come, right?
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll get to that more in just a moment, but maybe a better way to say it is who was Jesus?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Was he just a good teacher?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: Was he an inspiring leader?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: Was he a moral guide?
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Was he just a really popular Jewish guy?
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what role did Jesus have?
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul puts it just pushes it together here.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: He died for your sins.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: That is his role, right?
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_00: And though he is God, as a second member of the Trinity, there are so many more things to be said about the Son than just He died for your sins.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: But if we are sort of connecting and making the connections between the gospel as short and as obvious as possible, this is the one that we say.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus died for our sins.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: We're reminded of passages like in Isaiah 53 about the suffering servant, or in the New Testament where it says that, like, by his wounds we are healed, right?
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: By his blood we are made clean.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like the ways in which the death of Christ is connected so clearly to our sin.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Another way to say it is our sin put him on the cross.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we talk about God's path and how he is opening this new, rather, it's not a new pathway, he is reopening a previous pathway.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you go to the beginning of the Bible, Adam and Eve doing pretty good, right?
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: First two chapters doing pretty good.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: They had a relationship with God, they had fellowship with him, they were walking with him in the garden.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: They knew what it was to speak with their creator and to experience his love in such a tangible way, in a way that we only really talk about when we discuss heaven, right?
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: To have no shame, no barrier, no breaking in that relationship, to have perfect unity.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then sin does enter the world, and they are kicked out of the garden, and we see that the pathway that was once open was then closed.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the whole Old Testament is about pointing towards a future where that pathway will be opened once again, and then we see when Christ comes and dies for our sins, the pathway is opened.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the pathway is still open to us today.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so, as the Old Testament was looking forward to Jesus, we look back upon Jesus and his death on the cross as the way that we might be saved and the only way that we might be saved.
• 25:17
  SPEAKER_00: But then we say, well, what was God's purpose for doing these things?
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is to rescue us from this evil age.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't to put rules on people.
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't to condemn the world.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't to, much like people say again about Jesus, to just present the world with a good teacher, one that should be admired and emulated because he was nice to others.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: But rather that there is a truth about what Jesus accomplished.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't just the death of a heretic, right?
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: Rather, it was the sacrificial, the willing death of one who did not deserve it.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: And through that, real and truthful things were accomplished for the world.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's not a story.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: According to God, when Jesus died, when God Himself reconciled himself to the world through the cross, not only was that pathway opened for anybody who would trust in him by faith, but also those who trust in him and walk down that path are rescued from this evil age.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: What is the evil age?
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: It is not, though we might think it, just what's going on right now.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: The world is evil in many ways.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's not hard to see that.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: But what Paul is saying here is he's grouping us together with the Galatians, right?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: See, our salvation history has a couple tent poles.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: And one of those tent poles, and really the ones that bracket our life, is the death and the resurrection of Christ.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the one that we're waiting on is the return of our Savior, the return of Jesus.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: And as we live in between that space, this time is called that evil age.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's that evil age because sin and death and disease and decay and sadness and despair, all of those things reign, and it's not hard to find them, and we all experience them.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: But it is in contrast to a future age, which the Bible talks about, where those things no longer exist.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in comparison to the two, we exist in the evil age.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: Furthermore, it's an evil age because we know that Satan has power.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: He won't have power in the next age, but he has power in this one.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul says to the churches of Galatia, you live in this evil age, and when you walk through that path of Jesus, you are rescued from this evil age.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: But obviously, it's not like we are picked up like we're some sort of claw machine getting a stuffed animal.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: We're not transported out of this evil age.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: Rather, God says, No, uh, now you are going to get glimpses of that future age where there is glory.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to give you my spirit so you have strength to resist this evil age, and in fact, to not be subdued by it.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then also you have a purpose in this evil age to then tell other people about the pathway.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so God's purpose is that we have this impossibly deep hole that we had dug for ourselves.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: And he's mounting a rescue effort to draw us out of it.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: But his rescue effort for us keeps us in this evil age for a time, but with hope for the future.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the sign of that deliverance, the sign of that hope, the sign of our future, where we are no longer subjected to this evil and this pain, is the Holy Spirit that is given to us when we trust in Christ.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_00: It is God Himself that rests within us.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's this, the Bible even uses the words that it is a down payment, basically.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like that God is doing great things in the future, and that the greatest thing, this great gift of the Spirit, was just a sign of what was to come.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we look in the letter to the Galatians, even later on, spoiler, and we talk about the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: And we go, whenever we're experiencing those things and living out the life that God has for us by the power of the Spirit, we're getting glimpses of this future where there is no longer evil, but yet God says, You also have a purpose here to live in the evil age and be to be a light amidst the darkness.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is both a statement of the future.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: We have been rescued from the fate of those who love this world and are heading towards destruction.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: We've been lifted out of that.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: But God says you still have work to do in this time.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: Third and finally, this has all been part of God's plan from the very beginning.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's according to the will of our God and Father.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: And as He's doing this, maybe more than you realize, this is going to be one of the things that the churches in Galatians struggle with, is that they have a hard time understanding that the gift of salvation that they have received, that has been offered up to them, is something that was decided by God and offered up to them before they were even born or it ever sniffed the air.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: Before they had even sinned once, God knew that they were going to be in need of a savior.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so he sent his son to die on the cross for their sins.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_00: Why this is significant is because the main thing that the churches are struggling with, namely, we're going to add human effort into our ability to understand the gospel, right?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like in order for God to, you know, truly, truly accept us, we need to do these things.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: In order for him to truly, truly love me, I need to do these things.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: What Paul says here is that the plan of salvation, and in fact, God's grace and his gift to you is something you will never deserve.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I will never deserve.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: And therefore, there's nothing that we can do to ever deserve it.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: No good works make it.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: But therein lies the truth of the gospel and why grace and peace is so important, is because when you get that God has provided his gracious plan to you through no effort of your own, all you have to do is accept it by faith and live in freedom in Christ, that is when this sort of cycle of peace and understanding and rest comes upon your soul, and you recognize that he has done these things before you ever even asked for them.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so that is amen.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_00: So God's plan is that this is according to the will, his will, that he would send the Son to die for us.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: Now, as we go back to the text one last time, uh the way that Paul finishes this section is he says that all of these things are bringing God glory forever and ever.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: And one thing that you need to understand is whether or not you trust in Jesus as your Savior, God is going to receive glory because of his plan.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: It is not because we accept it that he receives glory.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, the Bible's very clear that just as his plan, the gracious part of it, is that anybody who trusts in him may have eternal life, forgiveness of sins, salvation, renewed relationship.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Just as that is available to all, what is also available is that people might reject him and will experience judgment for their sin and will not just see death, but will see an eternal death.
• 32:50
  SPEAKER_00: They will see eternal judgment in hell.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: And that both of those options, as hard as it is to sometimes feel this way, are going to bring God glory, because in one he is acting as perfect judge, and as the other he is acting as our gracious and loving God.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: And both of those things are part of who he is, and it is his character, and it is not one God who's doing one and another God who's doing the other.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: It is the same God who is doing both at the same time.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he just says, I want you to follow the path.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: But if you choose not to follow the path, he will receive glory from your decision either way.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: But as Paul goes on to say, the proper response, what we should be doing, is that when we hear Jesus died on the cross for your sins, so that you may be rescued from this evil age according to the will of God our Father, that the proper response is that you would go, Glory be to God.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: May He be praised and worshipped forever, because I do not deserve this gift, and yet I have received it anyway.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_00: Glory be to him forever and ever.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, when we look at the very end of the Bible, which speaks of the end times, we see that every knee bows to him.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: Every knee hits the ground in worship of him, whether they've trusted in Christ or not, because everybody recognizes at the end that he is the king.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: So three things I want to leave you with this morning, and really they're more challenges as we go through the book of Galatians, because we are going to hit some familiar themes, and I don't want you to sort of like glaze over.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because the challenge for you, particularly those who have been in the church for a while, is you're going to go, I know the gospel.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_00: And yet the problem with the Galatian churches is that they thought they knew the gospel message too.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, all of us are vulnerable to having the gospel that we know and love twisted and bent in a way that changes the trajectory of our faith.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: So my first challenge is that you would examine the path of God for yourself.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: And what I mean by that is as we go through this book, that you would look with fresh eyes at the truth of God's word and what he has done for you.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, if you are somebody who is here, maybe a friend brought you, maybe your spouse dragged you here, maybe your parents said you need to wake up and go to church, whatever it is, but if you are less than enthused about being here right now at church, first of all, I'm glad you're here.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: But second of all, that you would understand that every person individually needs to make decisions about their relationship with God.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's a blessing and beauty in the body of Christ, but there's not safety by numbers, if that makes sense.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so the need for every single person to consider individually what God has done is my encouragement for you as we walk through this book.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't believe in Jesus, I would again encourage you, like I said at the beginning, to at least make sure that you understand rightly what is being said if you're going to reject it.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think that there are many people who I talk to and read their comments or just hear about where their rejection of God is not based on what the Bible says, God who he is and what he has done.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that troubles me because I at least want people to know the gospel.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: Number two is that you would live with purpose in this evil age.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: There is a temptation for all of us who've trusted in Christ to do as the Thessalonians did.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: You might remember a couple weeks ago, and just go, all right, I'm gonna just wait for him to come, right?
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to sort of think of it like a float trip down the river.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've got my drink, I've got my tube, and I'm just gonna kind of like head down, you know, follow the stream as it's going, and just wait until the end comes.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um but you have a purpose.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: And not only do you have a purpose for your life that God has designed you for, um, and that which has meaning and is part of being made in his image, but furthermore, you have a purpose once you have trusted in Christ, and that purpose is to then be a light in the darkness and to share that gospel message with others.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you do feel like you've got the gospel on lock and you understand this, then also realize that part of that duty is sharing the correct gospel with those who at the current moment are doomed with the fate of this evil age.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_00: That you have a responsibility to live with purpose.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: And my final sort of appeal to those who maybe are skeptical of the Christian faith, as we talk about this evil age, there are probably many things that you and I would agree on.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: But one of them is that this world should be a lot better than it currently is.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: We would probably both agree that there are a lot of things that we would like this world to be that it is not.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: And the Bible has the exact same message.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: The Bible has the message that God does not like this evil age, and in fact, he's trying to rescue people from it.
• 38:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so, if you, like I, feel that this world is not as it should be, keep in mind that the Bible says the same thing.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: Third and finally, that you would trust in the will of God.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: Here in a moment, we're going to take the Lord's table together, and it is going to be a reminder of this very thing.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, it's easy for us to sort of look back at all the good that God has done and go, Yes, I trust in the will of God.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: Very thankful that the will of God included Jesus dying on the cross for my sins.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we look back and we see all the good that God has done, but sometimes that doesn't translate into looking forward and believing that God is going to continue to do good.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_00: God is good, He has done good, he will continue to do good things for us.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to trust in the will of God.
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_00: The same will that has extended the gift of salvation to you is the same will that is carrying out the path of your life.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: Trust in God's will.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: If this sounds kind of trite, but God deserves the benefit of the doubt.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: He's got a good track record.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um I'm gonna go ahead and pray for us as we close, and then we're going to go ahead and take the Lord's table together and reflect on some of these things.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we come before you, and God, I'm thankful that you have opened up a pathway for us through Jesus, that you are saving us from this evil age, and Lord, that uh it is all part of your plan before we are ever born.
• 39:57
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, that you from eternity past have decided that we were going to mess up and you wanted to have a relationship with us, and that this world was going to be just sort of going into madness, and that God, you would be the one who saves it, even though we were the ones ruining it.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: God, I thank you for the plan of the cross and what it means for us today.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_00: I pray that as we go through this book of Galatians, Lord, that we would with fresh eyes look upon the gospel that rests on our lives, and that we have based our found the foundation of our faith on and see, Lord, does it have cracks?
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: By your spirit, help us to see those things, Lord.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: Where does our faith have cracks?
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: Where has our gospel message been bent and twisted?
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, let us set it straight again by your mercy.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: God, we pray all of these things in Jesus' name.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: As we go to the Lord's table, which is something that is for those who have trusted in Christ, we are reminded perfectly of how God brings his gospel to bear in our lives today.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: For what Jesus did on the cross, which is represented by his body and his blood, that is something that we are called to remember over and over and over again.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: God did not just leave us with information 2,000 years ago, but he gave us his word so that we could know it, trust in it, and share it today.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the ways that we do that even for ourselves is by taking the Lord's table as a reminder of what he's done, so that we can use it in our lives.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: As Paul says, For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: On the night when he was betrayed, the Lord Jesus took bread, and when he had given thanks, broke it, and said, This is my body which is for you.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: Do this in remembrance of me.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_00: For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we proclaim your death until you come.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're waiting for it.
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_00: We are eager to not be a part of this evil age any longer.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: But God, we also know that you have given us a purpose to carry out in this world.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, I pray that we would just find confidence in that.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: And that as we go through this book, Lord, we would be reminded over and over again of what it means to live every day by looking back to the cross as a way to look forward.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, you have died for our sins so that we may be saved.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I pray for anybody who is here, Lord, who is maybe unsure of that, that they would consider with fresh eyes what it means that you are the only way to salvation.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, Lord, that you have given us freedom, you have given us hope, you've given us grace and mercy in abundance just because you love us.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, God, for that.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_00: We pray all these things in Jesus' name.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.