Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / September 8, 2024 | Galatians - A False Gospel

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September 8, 2024 | Galatians - A False Gospel · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Good to be with you.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um Hannah and I, when we lived down in Texas for a bit, uh we had a favorite Mexican restaurant down there.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's important to share that this was in Texas because what happened wasn't great.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um so we we went to this restaurant a couple different times.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Particularly I liked it.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we were eating dinner one night and we were in a booth and we were kind of near the end of our meal, and Hannah just saw my eyes go really wide for a second and then kind of go back to normal, and she goes, What?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, nothing.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing at all.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: And she was like, What?
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, seriously.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a cockroach that had crawled out of her booth and walked next to her.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: And um, it's amazing how quickly your esteem for something can fall.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um now, setting aside, did we go back to that restaurant for my birthday?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we did.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because I still I loved, but we got a table instead of a booth.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that was the difference.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: But it is amazing how how quickly our and your esteem for me that I went back to that restaurant, how that can fall so fast.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Uh this morning our our passage is in Galatians, obviously, as we're continuing on in that series, and we're going to be in verses six through nine.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And uh last week we went through the intro and we talked about Paul, uh, that his letter to these churches in the region of Galatia, that it was the most really forceful and kind of blunt message and letter that he has sent, that we have in the Bible.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it is in part because the Galatians are so wrong in what they are doing.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: But what is tricky about it is that maybe unlike the Corinthians, something that we were in the last two falls together as a church, where there were a lot more moral problems going on and ethical issues.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the Corinth, or excuse me, the Galatians, they have taken the foundation of the gospel and they have sort of twisted it and bent it in such a way that they don't realize how far off the mark they truly are.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul needs them to understand the severity of their mistake.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so he comes in pretty hot as we start in uh really the body of the letter.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says, I am amazed that you are so quickly turning away from him who called you by the grace of Christ, and are turning to a different gospel.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: Not that there is another gospel, but there are some who are troubling you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, a curse be on him.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: And we have said before, and I now say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, a curse be on him.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is a whole passage that we're in this morning.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot here.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: So if your boss has ever come to you and sat you down and said, I am amazed at how poorly you are doing this job.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's never a good conversation to have, right?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: The Galatians are not doing awesome.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in fact, they are struggling.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: But as is going to be the case, and we'll sort of go back and forth with throughout the rest of this letter, there's a group of people who have come in.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're most likely Jewish Christians from Jerusalem, and they have convinced the Galatians that they need to still be a part of and in fact adopt parts of the Jewish law in order for them to truly be righteous and truly have security in their salvation.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: And what is going to be so kind of twisted about this message is that if you asked Paul and if you asked this group that has come in of these Jewish Christians, you would say, How are you saved?
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_00: They would both answer affirmatively to Jesus Christ has saved me from my sins.
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: They would both say, It is in Christ alone that I trust for my salvation.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: But the tricky part is what is coming out beyond that.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: And the Galatians have adopted this view of this other group that there are some other hoops they need to jump through in order to really have a full relationship with God.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: We also mentioned last week why the gospel message itself, as you see in this passage, the word gospel is used a number of times.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, why that is so important and why really it's something to fixate on.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's because it is the foundation of our faith.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: When we say we are saved by Jesus Christ, um we are basically summarizing what the gospel message is.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Gospel means good news.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: What is the good news to us?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: It is the life, death, and resurrection of Christ that saves us from our sins, and we accept it by grace through faith.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: And all of that, we talked about this last week in the podcast, but I'll say it here, is that sometimes when you hear the gospel, or even with the letter to the Galatians, we'll be hammering this point.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you need to understand what the gospel is, you need to know what it means, you need to.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: But the gospel is not like three sent or three paragraphs of information that you need to have memorized like you're an actor in a play.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's not exacting language as much as it is core elements that all need to be included, right?
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um you can think of however many different chocolate chip cookie recipes there are in all the cookbooks around the world, right?
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: But if we don't have chocolate chips, we have failed to make a chocolate chip cookie, okay?
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the Galatians have insubstituted raisins instead.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so they are not cooking the way that they should be, but they're trying to pass it off as this authentic sort of thing.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so what is critical for you, um, and for in fact all of us, is that we should be able to get to the point where when somebody says, what is the gospel message?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: we know sort of the the elements that need to be included in that, even if we don't all say the exact same thing.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, when you're reading the Bible, it you would be hard-pressed later on in this message, we'll kind of go to one place, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a definition of the gospel.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because as you'd see Paul and the other apostles, and even Jesus himself talking about what it is that he has done and how it saves us and how we are, we can find a renewed relationship with God, they're going to emphasize different things depending on who is in the audience.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: When Paul is talking to people who have a Greek background or have worshipped false idols, it sounds different than when they're in Jerusalem and they're talking to people who have grown up in this faith worshiping Yahweh and yet are struggling with the idea of a Messiah.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so again, it's not specific language as much as it is ideas that need to be present.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we think of the Galatians here, Paul is dismayed, or actually he says amazed, I am shocked, I am stunned, at two problems that they have.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is how quickly they have devolved from the gospel message they heard.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: And the second one is how far they have fallen.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: So much so that Paul would say that the gospel message that they believe now means that they have abandoned their faith.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Which is kind of wild to think about when we consider what does it mean to not follow after God?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: Normally we'd say, well, if you're saying, I love Jesus and he saves me, that that's kind of good enough.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And what Paul is getting at here is he says, yeah, but that means something to you.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: That means it is a broader definition.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: When you say Christ has saved me, what does that mean?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And for Paul, the definition that the Galatians have come to is not only inadequate, but it is leading them down this path that is dangerous, right?
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: When he talks about how quickly they have fallen out of this faith, it is a reminder to us as well of um, frankly, the vulnerability, that'd be a good word, rather than danger, the vulnerability of people who are brand new to the Christian faith and how susceptible they can be.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, any of us, just because we have like gone to church for a long time, doesn't mean we've got everything on lock, right?
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the inability to speak the true gospel, when somebody asks you that question, if we don't have a definition in our mind, a way to describe it, we are also vulnerable to being pulled in these different ways towards these false gospels.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's like skipping driver's ed and then going, that race car sounds really fast, and then hopping in it and crashing into a wall, right?
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like there are elements that we need to understand, and then we build upon them instead of jumping straight into the next thing.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: But the Galatians have also, as you can see here, called you by the grace of Christ, and you are turning to a different gospel, right?
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: You are turning to something that does not look like what we have preached to you.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: It is, may have some similarities, but at its core, it is different.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh just because somebody says something with passion and conviction doesn't mean that it's true, right?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just because somebody is confident about their perspective does not mean that the words coming out of their mouth are accurate.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um The president of Venezuela this past week, Maduro, um, he's going through a whole thing, most likely because of um kind of a sham election this past summer.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: But in order to try and sort of divert attention away from all of that and arresting his political rivals, he moved Christmas this week.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Hey, as a gift to all of you in this season, Christmas is now October 1st, right?
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: So in Venezuela, if you guys are one of those people who keeps your trees up for like six months and you just really want to hit all the seasons of Christmas, go down to Venezuela.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: They're gonna practice it early, and then you can come back up here to Kansas and we'll hit it during the normal period of time, right?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Like just because you say that Christmas has now shifted two months doesn't mean that it really has.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so, just because we have conviction, just because we believe something or saying it out loud doesn't mean that it's true.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so when Paul clearly says, you know, you are turning to a different gospel, but really there isn't another gospel.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like, it's not the gospel is a way or a path, but the gospel is the good news of Christ, that is the path to salvation, and it is an exclusive statement, um, not in who can accept it, that is inclusive.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Anybody can trust in Christ.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: But there are not many ways that people can find heaven.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, there are not many ways that uh people can trust and find salvation.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: It is an exclusive statement.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus died for the sins of the whole world, he did not just die for part of the world, and his death on the cross did not just uh cover some of the sins, right?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: It is an exclusive statement.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul goes, like, look, it was a package deal.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: What I presented to you was not you can pick and choose parts of it, like this is a buffet, but he says it was a meal that I presented to you, and we eat it in all of its courses.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: And that this gospel message is not something that can be just sort of felt or just thought highly of, but it is something that is accepted or rejected.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: Those are the two options that we have.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we go through this letter, the Galatians ultimately they have the responsibility for what has happened, right?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: They are the ones that Paul is ultimately frustrated with and is trying to correct and coerce back into this proper understanding of who Christ is and what he has done.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: But he is also through this letter going to address the people who have come in and are twisting the gospel message.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is where he begins with but there are some who are troubling you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: That word trouble in Greek means literally to like shake something up or to agitate it.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: You can think of like when we shake a snow globe and just and we're just sort of waiting for the snow to settle.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Paul said, This is what this group has made the church like.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: They have come in to this, what we can only assume is a group of people who were all brand new Christians, right?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: And they have been trying to live out the gospel as best that they could and to understand it and to worship and they're meeting in each other's homes.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: And this group has come in, right?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_00: And most we don't know exactly who they were.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we sort of have to read the tea leaves of how Paul described them in his letter, but most likely they were a group of Jewish Christians from Jerusalem.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: And when I say Jewish Christians, I mean like um, like all of Jesus', uh all of the apostles, right?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like they grew up Jewish and then they accepted Christ, and so now we call them Christians, but they had this understanding of the law previously, and the hurdle for that group of people is what does it mean to move from the old covenant into the new covenant, where Jesus has fulfilled the law and set us free rather than still being subject to the law.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's a whole thing, and in fact, is the main problem with Galatians.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: But they have brought that with them, and the difficulty is that they have sort of syncretized, they have brought these ideas together in this weird combination where they would say something like this.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: They'd go, brothers and sisters in Christ, right?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: You have accepted the Messiah, right, who has saved us from our sins.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: He died on the cross, as was prophesied in the Old Testament, and he rose again on the third day.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: So far, so good.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then they'd go, and don't you know that Jesus was Jewish?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he perfectly fulfilled the law.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: He carried out all of the commands of the Old Testament, and so just as he fulfilled the law, so should we.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, if we want to have as close a relationship as we possibly can to the God of the universe, then we need to follow in the exact same steps that Jesus did.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: We need to hold to the Sabbath.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: We need to, if we're men, get circumcised.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: We need to obey some of these food laws.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: We need to, not all of it, but some of it.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you want to grow closer to Christ?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Well then, obedience is how we show that we are a part of God's covenant people, just like they did in the Old Testament.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_00: They wouldn't call it the Old Testament, but that's what we call it, right?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, anyhow, they're like, this is a part of our heritage, and there's elements of this that we keep going.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus practiced the Sabbath with his disciples, and so therefore, we should too.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: But see, that's not the message that Paul presented.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Paul said, Jesus fulfilled the law, so we're set free from it.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Paul said that we are obedient to Christ out of our love for him.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: God has shown us love, and therefore, as a desire to walk more closely with him in knowledge, right, of who he is, we want to live the life that he has set before us.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: He has designed us, and he has given us good works to do, not so that we would be counted as righteous, not so that God would love us more, but so that we might be able to love others and show our love for God, right?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: It is not a salvation based on works.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: Paul would also say that our righteousness only comes from Christ.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing that we can do to make ourselves more righteous.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And then again, you have the other side going, we trust in Christ, we believe in him, but we believe that obedience is part of showing that we're in God's kingdom, but so on and so forth.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so, what I want you to really get here is that it's not like somebody has come in and just is entirely out of left field and has presented a message to these people that is obviously incorrect.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: What they have done is they have taken elements of the gospel, and as I'm sure that they desire to follow after God with their own heart, with their whole heart, they have unknowingly twisted and incorporated elements of a past faith into something that does not resemble the gospel, and then here's why Paul's so upset.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because what they are bringing in undermines the whole thing, right?
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: It ruins everything that the cross stands for when we begin to work for our salvation.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: If Jesus really did come so that we would follow the law, then he wasn't actually the Messiah that he said he was.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: And if he was not the Messiah that he said he was, not rescuing God's people from the law and instead keeping them in it, then he was crazy, then he was a lunatic, then he was a heretic who died for his fake beliefs.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: It meant that he wasn't actually the Messiah, it meant that he was then rightly convicted for heresy by the Jewish council.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: It meant that he then deserved to die under the laws of the land at the time, and therefore it meant that the cross, instead of being a free sacrifice of Christ, who did not deserve to die, was actually the punishment of a criminal and does not save anyone.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's like you have a sweater that has that thread that just keeps pulling and pulling and pulling out.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: You go, well, it's just it's just sticking out this much, and Paul just goes, yank, and pulls the whole thing out, and he's like, Look, the arm just fell off.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Like now the body is gone, like all of this is falling apart because of these beliefs.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And so I want you to have a basic sense of caution, frankly, for how easy it is for the gospel message in our hearts to begin to get twisted and to desire to follow after the true message and to figure that out.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Paul's statement here in the middle, he says, even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, a curse be on him.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: What he's saying there is he goes, and this is true in all of Paul's writings, right?
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: He he doesn't um he comes with the authority of an apostle, but he nor he is very uh humble in the way that he expresses his views.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: Even though he is divinely inspired by the Spirit and what he is writing to the Galatians, he's like, I've been wrong before.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so what he's saying is, when I came to you the first time, that gospel message that you heard, the true gospel, the one handed down to me from Christ himself, the resurrected Lord who appeared to me on the road to Damascus, right?
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, That gospel, he goes, that was the real thing.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if I were to ever come to you again and start saying things that were different from that, or in fact, he goes, even if an angel from heaven came and started presenting a gospel that disagreed with what you heard at first, he goes, A curse be on them.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: And a curse is included here for those in the heavenly realms that would present a fake gospel, if Paul would present a fake gospel, but really what he's getting at is those who are twisting the gospel right now in the churches of Galatia, a curse be on them.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: The word for curse in Greek is anathema, which is a word you might be familiar with because it's been incorporated into the English language.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: But anathema, something that for us normally represents the opposite, something that is terrible, something that is, you know, um, disgusted.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the root of that word is referring to a sacrifice that would be presented to God and devoted for destruction.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: This would be where your Old Testament comes in handy a little bit, because uh this word is used to describe, like, for instance, the Day of Atonement, uh, when the whole nation of Israel, they have some goats that they give up, and this goat is like representative of the sins of the entire people, right?
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: And this goat is taken and it is sacrificed, and it is a symbolic representation of how God is cleansing sin from the community, right?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_00: That goat is anathema.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: That goat is devoted for destruction, that goat is doomed, and Paul says anybody who is presenting a false gospel is like that goat.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: They are anathema.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: They are, this is the same word that was used in the early church when they were fighting heretics of the faith, and they would send them letters and they would be concluded with anathema.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: Like you are you are off the reservation, my friend.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like you have.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: Gone off of what is good and holy and mighty, and you have you are presenting something that is false.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: So when we hear the word curse, this is not, Paul doesn't have some like voodoo doll that he's poking with pens, right?
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: He's does he doesn't have like candles lit and he's burning sage.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: He is saying that those who are presenting a false gospel, despite their best intentions, are deserving of destruction.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: And anybody who would present a false gospel is worthy of the same.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And you go, man, that's that is intense.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: That is really serious what he's doing.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: You go, yeah, and then he says it again.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: He says it a second time.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: He doubles down.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think that in our many other times, the way that we think about the importance of the gospel message and the good news that God has presented, we think of it more often as just a good idea rather than something that saves the souls of those who accept it and hear it.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: Paul, probably more than anybody in the New Testament that we get to read from, had the greatest understanding of what it meant that the gospel could save, or if rejected, it could doom.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: And when we get to that sort of fork in the road about what it means to accept Christ or reject Christ, about to have a relationship with him or to be in rebellion and experience his wrath, Paul says, I'm not I'm not playing games here.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_00: Like this is not a good suggestion.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I hope that those who are this is the same when Jesus is speaking about those who are turning the children away from their faith, and he's like, it would be better if they had a millstone wrapped around their neck and were thrown into the sea.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I could not be more serious about what it means to lead people astray from the gospel message.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is hammering them with this.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: His condemnation of those who are presenting a false gospel is it's not prideful.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's not like he's saying, you know, we signed a non-compete clause, like they came in and they took my clients.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like, this is not a competition.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: He says you are believing something that is going to hurt you and it's going to hurt other people.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: And though at the end of Galatians, he hasn't sort of written them off.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: He says, if you return, right, you you will in fact do great things for God's kingdom.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_00: At this point in time, he's saying, you are heading down the wrong road.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And there's only, there is a very wide road that leads to destruction, and there's a narrow road that leads to salvation.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, I'm really trying hard to get you back onto the other road.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: What I want us to do this morning with the rest of our time is talk just a bit about what false gospels exist in our world today.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: And in order to do that, we do need to briefly look at one definition of the gospel.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because how we're going to identify and how you can identify false gospels is you need to know the authentic thing, but you also need to understand sort of the points on which false gospels divert, where they normally separate from the truth.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: So in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 through 10, I've kind of, there are some places where we're skipping some things here.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Paul writes this, he says, And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ, even though we were dead in our trespasses.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: For you are saved by grace through faith.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: This is not from yourselves, it is God's gift.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: It is not from works, so that no one can boast.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of the places where the gospel is kind of condensed and presented.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_00: Romans 5 has another really good one.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: But there are certain elements that come out.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: When I said there are parts of the gospel that need to be included, what are we saved from?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Our sin in God's wrath, his righteous judgment that is coming because of our sin.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: We are saved because God loves us.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: We are saved because he desires to have a relationship with us.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: How are we saved?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're saved by Christ's sacrifice.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: There's when you get sort of into the weeds, when we're talking about, some people try and find really exact definitions for what the cross accomplished, and we might refer to this as the atonement.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: What was the path of the atonement and how are we saved?
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And the economy, all things, words that you don't need to remember right now.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: Anyhow, it comes down to Christ's sacrifice, his life, death, and then his resurrection.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: We are saved by grace through faith.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: That is where the Galatians have been twisted, and then we are saved for good works that Christ has prepared in advance for us to do.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to share with you just a couple of these false gospels, and there's going to be one kind of for each one of these points.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: My challenge for you is that you would consider whether or not you are beginning to get twisted in any one of these ways, pulled in one of these directions, and where we might need to be recentered so that we can speak and know and share truth.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is I'm going to call the carefree gospel.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_00: It could be summarized by saying God is love and he wouldn't really judge people for their sins.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: The temptation here is that talking about God's judgment is difficult, right?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: And it's much easier to talk about acceptance.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: The carefree gospel is false because it is a lack of understanding about what we have been saved from.
• 28:11
  SPEAKER_00: There's not much of a focus on we are sinners in need of a savior, right?
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: Like we are being redeemed from a pit that we cannot climb out of ourselves.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so because there's a lack of understanding about the depravity of our sin, about our humanity that is so broken, then we have very little care for the gospel, and in fact, don't often want to share it or talk about it or even think about it very much because we go, we don't understand what it is we have been saved from.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: And there are often various things that sort of fill that place in time.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: We might say that we have been saved from, you know, um, depression, we have been saved from a life of difficulty, we have been saved from just bad mistakes, we have been saved from any number of things.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: But it's a lack of understanding.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: God died for a purpose.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_00: Here's the problem with this, and that was to rescue us from his wrath.
• 29:05
  SPEAKER_00: This gospel promotes a belief that nothing is wrong with the world and the gospel message isn't urgent.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, what's the solution?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: We need to remember that we are dead in our sins and will experience the wrath of God without a saving faith in Christ.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you, this is why anytime you are sharing the gospel with somebody who is who is able to have that conversation and desires it in depth, that leaving sin out of the equation is a devastating conclusion to come to.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_00: We have to understand our sin in order to understand the cross.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: Another false gospel.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: This time, misunderstanding what we have or why we have been saved because of God's love.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: The good people gospel says, I'm a sinner, but I think God knows how much good I do.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Like, yes, Jesus has saved me.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, he died on the cross for my sins, but like other people need that gospel a little bit more than I do.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: The temptation is it feels good to pat ourselves on the back for good works, for the things that God has called us to do, and it separates us from people who we feel really needed God's gracious gift, right?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: We go, they're the ones who sort of like made it through by the skin of their teeth, but like me, I was I was in the clear.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: I made it.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: I needed Jesus' death, but I mean, really, doing pretty good myself.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: The problem with this is this false gospel breeds pride and it makes it difficult, it makes difficult moments more shocking because we feel like we deserve better.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: We have a hard time walking through pain points in our life because we think that we have been saved in part because of our good works and God's desire for that.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so the good people gospel misunderstands really that we have been saved simply because God loves us, he wants to have a relationship with us, and we don't deserve his gift.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: The third is the legal gospel, and you say, well, what are the Galatians struggling with?
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's this one.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a righteous person because of Jesus and my good actions.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: The temptation is, and why this is captivating, is God desires for us to live holy lives, and this is normally a way for us to make sense of his gracious gift.
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_00: We are paying him back.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: We go like, well, I mean, this is the way that I prove, this is the way that I'm guaranteed, this is the way that I find security in my salvation by doing the good works.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_00: And it is similar to the good people gospel, but the difference is that the legal gospel understands very clearly the depth of our sin.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the way that you're trying to pay it back is different.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: We go, I know that I need Jesus to save me, but it is it is a misunderstanding of how we have been saved.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: And this is where that thread on the sweater gets pulled and pulled and pulled.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if you begin to include elements of effort and what it means to be saved by Christ, this is when it starts to unravel.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't think too deeply about it, it can almost sound better because you go, well, yeah, there should probably be a part of my sort of my good works, my effort that is brought into this to sort of make up for, and you go, well, there's nothing that the cross of Christ didn't accomplish.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so therefore, when we begin to interject ourselves into that equation and go, I think I fit in right here to my salvation, what it does is it just removes what we are saying that Jesus has accomplished.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you go, like, my sin is so bad that Jesus probably didn't cover all of it, and I need to make up for it in some other ways, we go, and that is not understanding what the cross has done for you.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: No matter how far you have fallen, no matter the depth of your mistakes, Jesus has covered it all.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the problem is it takes away the grace of the gospel because we're essentially saying that our sin could not be covered exclusively by Jesus, and we need our good works as well.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: Solution, read the book of Galatians.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: Stay with us through the sermon series.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: Also remember that it is God's gracious gift.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: You couldn't pay him back even if you tried.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: For some of you, that is probably a devastating statement because you've been like, I was sort of working through it.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: I was, not by now, but by a couple years, I was thinking I was going to get those gold stars.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer of the cross is that you'll never be able to.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: And yet Jesus has done all of it.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth is the optional gospel.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: This one contrasts with when we say we have been saved by grace through faith, right?
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: The optional gospel says there are many ways to heaven.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: I trust in Jesus, but that's not the only way to be saved.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: The temptation is we want as many people saved as possible, and this opens the widest road, right?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: You just go, this is what I believe, this is my truth, this is how I believe that I'm going to heaven, but you have a different version, and that's good for you.
• 34:31
  SPEAKER_00: The problem is this is not who Jesus said he was, it makes his death unnecessary, and it affirms other views of salvation which directly contradict Christianity.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: The optional gospel, all of these are logical fallacies.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: They don't accord with the internal logic of what the cross has accomplished for us in salvation.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: But more than all of the others, the optional gospel is the one that is just not thinking clearly.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: Because the optional gospel is saying that Jesus' death was unnecessary because there are other pathways.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: And when you go that his death was unnecessary, we continue to go back through those statements that I was making earlier about then, okay, so then who was he?
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: Was he really God's son?
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: Did he do what he said he did?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: If he didn't, was he crazy?
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: What I mean, all of the people who have trusted in him, was there an easier way?
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, did he You get the picture.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: This one does not hold up well to scrutiny.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: The solution is a faithful study of Jesus' ministry, and the gospel reveals that it is a mutually exclusive message.
• 35:43
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel is either true or not, but it cannot exist beside other options.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: Fifth and finally is the prosperity gospel.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: The prosperity gospel says, Jesus saves me and my faith brings me success.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: The prosperity gospel is a false gospel because it twists the idea that we have been saved for good works in God's kingdom.
• 36:08
  SPEAKER_00: And good works in God's kingdom would be the expectation that as we have trusted in Christ and now receive not only salvation, but adoption into God's kingdom as his sons and daughters, that we would be living the life that God originally planned for us.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: Not obedience for the sake of obedience, not obedience because it makes us more righteous or secures our faith, but obedience because we love and desire to grow closer to Christ and to know him more personally, right?
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so the idea that Ephesians presents that Paul shares is he says, look, you have been saved to go out and do good things for God's kingdom, but the prosperity gospel says, well, really, you have been saved so that your life will become better.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, that if you have greater faith, if you sometimes give more money, like you will receive these blessings back upon yourself.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: The problem here is that believing this false gospel leads to a self-centered or transactional faith that is focused on receiving blessings rather than being a blessing.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the solution to this is actually one of the more difficult ones because the gospel message by necessity is about our Savior who died on the cross for our sins.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: He gave himself up for other people.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so, therefore, following in that path means we have to recognize that the one who was the most righteous, the one who never sinned, was also the one who experienced the greatest loss.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so, therefore, it does not, we go back to this logic thing, which I'm not just trying to be that guy, but all of these do not bear water.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: They cannot hold water under a microscope because the prosperity gospel says, Jesus died for your sins, but if you have a great faith, you will experience great success.
• 38:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like that is not, we can define success through the gospel in terms of him saving the world, but we go, he experienced a lot of persecution.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: He was whipped and tortured, and ultimately he died a death that he did not deserve.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so we cannot model our faith after something that is based around sacrifice and say, God does not require sacrifice of me.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, God just wants me to live a healthy, wealthy lifestyle.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: Those things don't make sense.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: Many of the greatest Christians suffered greatly for it, and it doesn't mean that they lacked faith.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: Many of you go through unbelievably intense periods of pain and loss, and there is a temptation to believe the false gospel that you have received that pain because you have not had enough faith in God.
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_00: And that is not the gospel message either.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel message is that we trust in Christ and yet we live in a broken world.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is last week when Paul said this is to rescue, rescue you from this evil age, that's exactly what we're talking about.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: We live in an evil age, and Christ has redeemed us and plucked us out of it, yet he has not brought us home just yet.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're waiting for him to return.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, what do we make of all of these things?
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: What I want you to hear from me this morning, and really the biggest takeaway here, is that it is possible to believe a false gospel while also saying that you trust in Christ.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to scare you with that.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's not my point.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: But obviously, the Galatians had a misunderstanding of the truth of Christ.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: And what I want you to see is not that somehow you are too far gone, but rather to like bear with scrutiny upon your salvation and say, why is it that I believe I am saved?
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_00: If I've trusted in Christ?
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why do I think that that is true?
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: And furthermore, why do I think that it is effective?
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: Is it effective because of my works?
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: Is it effective because I'm a good person?
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: Is it effective because it's one way?
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_00: Is it effective because, like, whatever it is that we have brought into this situation, or is it effective because Jesus died for me on the cross?
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_00: He says that I must trust in him for salvation.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: And when he said, while he was hanging, it is finished, that he meant it, that there weren't other hoops I needed to add on and sort of place upon this, but also that the gospel could not be reduced to something less than what it already is, as if it's just a good idea that we should consider.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel must be accepted or rejected.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: If you have not accepted the gospel message or want to learn more about it, come and talk with me.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_00: Talk with anybody who's on staff here, talk with your neighbor.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: They hopefully can understand.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_00: We just did like 40 minutes on what the gospel is.
• 41:02
  SPEAKER_00: I really hope we are ready to answer some questions about what does it mean to trust in Christ for our salvation?
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: By grace through faith, we have been saved from God's wrath.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: And it is not a work of our own doing, is because Jesus died on the cross, gave himself, shed his blood, and has now covered us with it.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you today.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: God, I desire by your spirit that we would understand rightly what it means to trust in the gospel message.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, it is not anything we want it to be, but it is also not a memorized three-paragraph list of words.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: It is the story of what you have done and accomplished on Calvary.
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we thank you for that gift because it has saved souls and it continues to save souls.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, Lord, your word says, as it goes out, it does not return void.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_00: I pray that anybody who is hearing this message today, they would understand what it means and how it is possible that they might have a renewed relationship with you.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, you would shove off of their shoulders the burdens that they have carried about trying to work towards righteousness.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_00: God, it is only because of your son that we are declared righteous for what he accomplished, not us.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: I thank you, Lord, for these things.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, as we walk through this, not just the book of Galatians, Lord, but understanding your gospel and appreciating it and living it out for the rest of our life.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: Clear the scales from our eyes and help us to see things more clearly than we ever have before.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: For it is a beautiful sight.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 42:55
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.