July 28, 2024

Galatians 1:1-10: No Other Gospel

Preacher: Josh Tancordo Series: Galatians Topic: Default Scripture: Galatians 1:1–10

Galatians 1:1-10: No Other Gospel

This morning, we’re beginning a journey working through the book of Galatians passage by passage, and the first passage we come to is Galatians 1:1-10. It says,

1 Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2 and all the brothers who are with me, To the churches of Galatia: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. 6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. 10 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. 

May God bless the reading of his Word.

Let’s pray: Father, we know it’s your will that we be conformed to the image of your Son, Jesus. And we also know that the way that happens is by your Spirit and through your Word. So, please, Holy Spirit, take this passage and use it to accomplish your purposes within each one of us. Lead us to Christ and conform us to his image. And it’s in his name that we pray, amen.Climbing Mt. Everest is a feat that not many people have achieved. And unfortunately, more than a few have died trying. In fact, it’s well documented that the top portion of the mountain is littered with the dead bodies of over 200 climbers. And in case you’re wondering why nobody has ever retrieved the bodies, the answer is that it’s just too dangerous to do so because of how harsh the conditions are at that altitude. One publication describes it in this way: “There, the oxygen levels are only at a third of what they are at sea level, and the barometric pressure causes weight to feel ten times heavier. The combination of the two makes climbers feel sluggish, disoriented and fatigued and can cause extreme distress on organs. For this reason, climbers don’t usually last more than 48 hours in this area.”

So, if you were to climb Mt. Everest and get to that top portion of the mountain—known among climbers as the “death zone”—you’d basically have to walk past the bodies of hundreds of climbers who died doing what you’re trying to do. And I’m obviously not going to show any pictures this morning, but there are plenty of pictures online of the bodies of these climbers, clearly visible and almost perfectly preserved by the extreme subzero temperatures. So, in light of the very real dangers of climbing Mt. Everest, it’s now considered highly advisable for prospective climbers to study the stories of these fallen climbers and take careful note of what led to their demise in order to avoid making any of the same mistakes they made. 

Now, the reason I’m sharing all of this with you isn’t because I’m trying to prepare you for any daring mountain-climbing excursions you might want to undertake in the future but rather because the unfortunate tragedies that have taken place at the top of Mt. Everest are similar to what I believe has happened to many churches. As difficult as it is to think about, the landscape of our society is littered with countless churches—and even entire denominations—that are either dying or dead. 

And just as it’s highly advisable for prospective climbers of Mt. Everest to learn from the mistakes of fallen climbers, it’s likewise important for us to learn from the mistakes of these dying and dead churches. What was it that led to their demise? How did they go from being vibrant centers of Christian formation and thriving engines for evangelistic outreach to now just being shell of what they once were and, in many cases, being forced to close their doors permanently? 

And I realize that there might very well be several factors that have contributed to the decline of these churches. But I’m convinced that the foundational reason these churches are either dying or dead is because, quite simply, they’ve abandoned the gospel. That is, they’ve in some way and to some degree abandoned the core Christian message of who Jesus is and what he’s done to save us. 

And it’s important for us to note that this abandonment of the gospel isn’t something that happened overnight. It took several generations. One author named David Gibson describes the process in the following way: “The first generation believed and proclaimed the gospel and thought that there were certain social entailments. The next generation assumed the gospel and advocated the entailments. The third generation denied the gospel and all that were left were the entailments.” Another scholar named D. A. Carson says it this way: “One generation believes something. The next assumes it. And the third will forget and deny it.” 

So, that’s how it happens. That why the landscape of our society is littered with churches and denominations that have abandoned the gospel and are therefore either dead or dying. Before there was a generation in that church’s history that explicitly denied the gospel, there was a generation that simply assumed the gospel. In other words, they didn’t think it important to continually clarify what the gospel was or guard themselves against teachings that undermined the gospel. And because of that, it was only a matter of time before their churches lost the gospel and therefore lost the spiritual vitality and power found in the gospel alone. One generation believed the gospel, the next assumed it, and the third denied it. 

So, if there’s one thing that we as a church absolutely don’t want to do, it’s to assume the gospel. Because understand that the stakes in all of this couldn’t be higher. If we don’t get the gospel right and if we’re not diligent to guard the gospel, then nothing else matters. 

And this is why, now that we’ve finished our series of sermons going through 1-2 Peter these past few months, I’d like to turn our attention to the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Galatians. This letter is all about clarifying the gospel and confronting professing Christians who were in danger of straying away from the gospel and seeking to turn them back to the gospel. During his first missionary journey, Paul had personally started a number of churches throughout Galatia—which was a region located in modern-day Turkey. And he now writes this letter to those churches. He’s probably writing the letter sometime around 48 AD and is probably writing it from the city of Antioch on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean since the church of Antioch served as something of a “home base” for Paul. 

And the specific passage from Paul’s letter to the Galatians that we’ll be looking at this morning is Galatians 1:1-10. The main idea of this passage is that there is no gospel apart from the gospel of grace. In fact, that’s the main idea not only of this passage but really of the entire letter. There is no gospel apart from the gospel of grace. 

So, let’s dive right in and look at what Paul says, beginning with verses 1-2. He writes, 1 Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2 and all the brothers who are with me, To the churches of Galatia:

So, Paul very clearly and emphatically identifies himself here as an “apostle.” And he’s not bragging about his apostolic status but is instead reminding his readers that he’s an apostle in order to emphasize his authority to clarify what the gospel is. And Paul makes it clear that his authority and status as an apostle have come “not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father.” One commentator writes that “No human means of any sort was involved in [Paul’s] apostolic commissioning….Paul’s authority was not man-given or self-given but God-given, and his right to instruct the Galatians was grounded in that divine prerogative.”

Paul then continues on in verses 3-5 with a fairly customary greeting. He writes, 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. 

So, Paul wishes “grace” and “peace” upon his readers. These words are quite common in Paul’s vocabulary and yet are also quite relevant for the current situation of the Galatians. Since the Galatians were in danger of abandoning an accurate understanding of the “grace” of God in the gospel, they were also in danger of losing any meaningful sense of “peace” within their hearts. That’s because the subjective “peace” that’s so characteristic of Christians is grounded in a belief in the objective “grace” of God in the gospel. Apart from belief in the gospel of “grace,” we can never truly be at “peace” because we’ll be engaged in endless efforts to earn God’s favor through our own moral achievements and religious accomplishments—and we’ll never be able to have any real confidence that we’ve done enough of these things to be accepted by God. So, any departure from “grace” inevitably results in a loss of personal “peace” as well. 

Paul then speaks of Jesus in verse 4 as one “who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age.” So, when Jesus died on the cross, he wasn’t just suffering some sort of unforeseen tragedy but was actually accomplishing something of immense significance. He was giving himself “for our sins.” Our sinful rebellion had created a terrible separation between us and God and resulted in us being alienated from God and destined to face his wrath for all eternity. Yet at the cross, Jesus voluntarily “gave himself for our sins.” He took the penalty for our sins on himself and suffered God the Father’s wrath in our place. 

You know, there are some individuals in this world whom we rightfully view as heroes. Even just recently, I think of the firefighter who died at the Trump rally in Butler protecting his family. As the shots rang out, this man shielded his family with his own body and saved their lives by sacrificing his own. And it’s obviously very appropriate for us to look upon what he did with profound admiration. Yet understand that Jesus has done something even greater than that—something, in fact, that’s nothing short of astonishing. Jesus gave his life not for people who loved him for but people who were defiantly rebelling against him—not for his friends, as it were, but for his enemies. 

Jesus was then raised from the dead so that he’s now able to save us from our sins and, in Paul’s words, “to deliver us from the present evil age.” The word translated “deliver” is more commonly translated “rescue.” It implies that we, in and of ourselves, were in an utterly helpless condition. At yet, when we had absolutely no means whatsoever of doing anything about the wretched state we were in, Jesus came to our rescue. He did for us what we could never do for ourselves and saved us. 

This is what we mean when we speak of being saved by grace. It’s by grace that we’re saved rather than by any kind of human merit. I once heard us compared to someone who’s drowning. When someone’s drowning, you don’t just throw them a handbook that explains how to swim. Instead, you throw them a flotation device or, if necessary, jump into the water yourself in order to rescue them. That’s what they need in that situation. They don’t need instruction—they need rescue. And that was our situation spiritually before Jesus rescued us. We didn’t need rules for morality—we needed rescue. And that’s essentially what Paul’s communicating in verses 3-5. 

Now, at this point in the letter, Paul would typically proceed to say something encouraging to his readers and tell them how grateful he is for them and how he thanks God for the various manifestations of God’s grace evident in their lives. This is what Paul does in Romans 1:8, Ephesians 1:15-16, Philippians 1:3-8, Colossians 1:3-8, 1 Thessalonians 1:2-10, and 2 Thessalonians 1:3-4. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 1:4-8, Paul even manages to find a few things to express thankfulness for about the Christians of Corinth—which, as you know if you’ve read the rest of the letter, is no small feat. 

Yet here, as Paul’s writing to the Galatians, any such mention of things about them that he’s thankful for is conspicuously absent. One commentator calls it a “deafening silence.” Instead of expressing thankfulness to God for various aspects of God’s grace among the Christians of Galatia, Paul very suddenly and abruptly launches into an open rebuke and denunciation of what was happening in the Galatian churches. If you’re not careful, you might even get whiplash as you move from verse 5 to verses 6-7. Look what Paul writes in those verses: 6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 

So, to put it mildly, Paul’s not very happy about what’s been going on in the churches of Galatia. In fact, he’s “astonished.” And what is it that’s caused him to be so “astonished”? Not the fact that false teachers are seeking to undermine the gospel but rather the fact that the Galatians are so readily embracing what the false teachers are saying. Paul says he’s “astonished that [the Galatians] are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.” The Greek word translated “deserting” was commonly used to speak of a soldier who deserted his unit during a time of war—a very serious offense that carried the death penalty. And Paul says that’s essentially what the self-professing Christians of Galatia are in the process of doing. 

They’re “deserting him who called [them] in the grace of Christ,” Paul says, and are turning instead “to a different gospel.” So, the Galatians are in the process of embracing not just a diminished gospel or a weakened gospel but an entirely “different” gospel—a gospel that stands in direct contradiction to and is an explicit departure from the true gospel that Paul and the other apostles proclaim. Paul then says in verse 7 that this “different gospel” is, of course, no real gospel at all. 

He then states that “there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.” So, that’s the background of what was happening in the churches of Galatia. False teachers were troubling the hearts of the Galatian Christians by telling them—as we’ll see later in the letter—that they had to undergo the Jewish ritual of circumcision in order to truly be saved. These false teachers are commonly known as Judaizers since they were essentially telling the Gentile—or non-Jewish—Christians that they had to convert to Judaism in order for their Christian faith to be valid. 

And according to Paul, this amounts to nothing less than a denial of the gospel. Because the gospel teaches that we’re saved by grace alone and through faith alone—not through some mixture of faith plus good moral behavior or faith plus the right religious observances but rather through faith alone—trusting in Jesus to do for us what we could never do for ourselves. It’s in this way that we’re saved not by any kind of human merit but entirely by God’s grace—his undeserved favor freely given to us in Christ. So, by adding the Jewish ritual of circumcision to faith as a requirement for salvation, the Judaizers had departed from grace and therefore departed from the gospel. 

One illustration I like to use is of a mathematical formula. Going back to high school math here, one of the most famous mathematical formulas is the Pythagorean Theorem that’s used to determine the length of the longest side of a right triangle. The theorem states that a2 + b2 = c2. See, you guys didn’t even know you were going to learn math this morning, did you? a2 + b2 = c2 –where “a” is one of the shorter sides of the triangle, “b” is the other short side, and “c” is the longest side. Now, if you add something to that formula, what happens? It ruins everything, right? Like if you inserted the number 3 right before the “c” or inserted a 4 right after one of the exponents, the whole formula would become totally worthless. If you add anything to the Pythagorean Theorem, you lose the Pythagorean Theorem. 

Likewise, the moment you add anything to faith as a requirement for salvation, you lose grace and therefore lose the gospel. It doesn’t matter if it’s just one tiny thing that you’re adding such as, for the Galatians, being circumstanced or, for us today, being baptized or performing this or that good work. If you try to add anything to faith and say that you have to do that thing in order to be saved, you’ve now crossed over into teaching “a different gospel.” And that’s Paul’s central argument throughout his letter to the Galatians. That’s what this letter is all about. 

Now, I want to be clear that not every doctrinal debate rises to this level. There are many doctrinal disagreements that Christians should be able to have with each other and still view each other as Christians and respect each other and have good fellowship with each other even within the same church. 

Those of you who have been through the Membership Information Class here at Redeeming Grace have undoubtedly heard about the concept we believe is helpful to employ that’s often called “theological triage.” It’s kind of like what you’d find at the emergency room of a hospital. If you go to the emergency room with a broken pinky and someone else comes in after you with a gunshot wound to the chest, I’m pretty sure the person with the gunshot wound is going to be seen before you are. That’s because emergency rooms employ triage. They prioritize people based on the seriousness and urgency of their injuries. 

Similarly, we believe it’s prudent to employ a form of theological triage as well. And there are three levels or categories. The first and most important category is what we might call “gospel issues.” These are issues that are necessary for us to agree on in order to view each other as true brothers and sisters in the Christian faith. These include issues like the Trinity, the substitutionary death and bodily resurrection of Jesus, and being saved by grace alone and through faith alone. And if anybody has an unbiblical view on one of these gospel issues, we can’t really consider that person to be a Christian. 

Then, after that, we might call the second category “membership issues.” These are issues that we require agreement on in order for someone to become a member of our church—things like believers’ baptism rather than infant baptism, the role of women in ministry, and not being able to lose our salvation. Now, unlike the first category, we’re not saying that people who disagree with us about these things aren’t Christians. They may love the Lord every bit as much as we do. But we require that everyone in the church hold the same view on these issues—or at least agree to support the teaching of our church on these issues—so that our church can move forward in a healthy and unified manner and also, in certain instances, be protected from certain beliefs that we view as exceptionally harmful. 

Then finally, after gospel issues and membership issues, we’ve pooled our creative genius here at Redeeming Grace and come up with a very innovative label for the third category of issues. We call them “other issues.” The trademark is still pending on that one. And those issues would be…well…everything else. If it’s not a gospel issue or a membership issue, then by default it’s in this third category of “other issues.” Examples include issues related to an exact chronology of the end times, speaking in tongues, Calvinism vs. Arminianism, and various ethical issues such as the consumption of alcohol and how to observe the Lord’s Day properly and whether parents should homeschool their kids. None of these kinds of issues should divide our church. Of course, that’s not to say they’re not important, it’s just to say that we shouldn’t let these kinds of things disrupt our unity or fellowship. 

Now, just to be clear, it’s okay to politely try to convince others in the church to adopt our own views about these “other issues” and even to have robust discussions about these things at times, but it’s not okay for us to imply that those who don’t end up adopting our views on these things are somehow less Christian or less devoted as Christians. So that’s our system of theological triage: gospel issues, membership issues, and other issues.

And going back to the situation Paul’s addressing in his letter to the Galatians, the Judaizers had unfortunately deviated on a “gospel issue.” And that’s why Paul is so alarmed and says that they’re teaching “a different gospel.” 

He then states emphatically in verses 8-9, 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. Obviously, Paul’s words here are hypothetical. Neither Paul himself nor an angel that was truly from heaven would ever actually preach a different gospel. But even if that were to somehow happen, Paul says, “let him be accursed.” In other words, let him be condemned to hell. Paul’s point is that it doesn’t matter who the teacher is or what kind of status or credentials the teacher has. If they’re teaching anything contrary to the true and established gospel of Christ, let them be accursed. 

And friends, this is just as much a danger for us today as it’s ever been in church history. There are many people and many groups that say many things that contradict the gospel. So, we have to be very deliberate in our efforts to protect the gospel and always on our guard against any teachings that might serve to undermine the gospel—regardless of where those teachings are coming from. There’s never a time when we can afford not to be vigilant. Remember, one generation believes the gospel, then the next assumes the gospel, and then the next one after that will inevitably forget or deny the gospel. So, let’s make sure we never allow ourselves to be that second generation that simply assumes the gospel. 

Then, after Paul calls for God to curse all who seek to undermine the gospel, he concludes this section of the letter in verse 10: “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” So, we see here that there are two absolutely incompatible goals: seeking to please man and seeking to please God. And anyone, Paul says, who’s trying to please man reveals that he’s the furthest thing from a true “a servant of Christ.” 

One author named Todd Wilson describes these two mutually exclusive mentalities in the following way: “People-pleasers have an inordinate desire to please other people; servants of Christ have an all-consuming passion to please God. People-pleasers are motivated by the fear of man; servants of Christ are inspired by the fear of God. People-pleasers pretend to serve God when they really intend to serve themselves; servants of Christ actually intend to serve God by meeting the needs of other people. People-pleasers are anxious for approval from others and distraught when they don’t get it; servants of Christ simply love others and leave approval or disapproval to the judgment of God.”

So, what kind of person are you? What mentality do you have in your life day by day? Are you driven by a desire to be popular and socially accepted or are you committed to glorifying God and remaining faithful to God regardless of what people think of you? To state it another way, is God your God, or have people become your god? 

And I believe a key aspect of our lives that reveals which mentality we have is how faithful or potentially unfaithful we are in sharing the gospel with people. That’s the clear implication of Paul’s words in verse 10. Now, obviously, we want to be thoughtful in how we go about sharing the gospel. I’m not suggesting we should share the gospel with people in a way that makes them feel like they’ve just been the victim of a spiritual mugging. So, it’s very appropriate, I believe, to build a genuine friendship with those who are far from God and be sensitive to the dynamics of that relationship and seek to communicate the gospel in a way that the person finds understandable and hopefully persuasive and desirable. 

Yet, if we’re going to share the gospel with someone faithfully, there's simply no getting around the fact that there will be, at the very least, a point in our conversation with them that’s uncomfortable. One author named Rico Tice calls it the “pain line.” It's that point in a conversation when we have a clear opportunity to share the gospel with someone, and yet we're not quite sure how they'll respond. And pressing forward with the gospel in that moment feels very uncomfortable and like we’re taking a huge risk. Yet it's in that moment when our true mentality and our true commitments are revealed. Do we care more about what that person thinks of us or what God thinks of us? In Paul’s words, is it our primary desire to please man or to please God?

By the way, I believe it’s also worth asking whether we truly love that person enough to share the gospel with them even though we’re not sure how they'll respond or what our relationship with them will be like afterwards. Do we care more about the person's soul than we do about their opinion of us? Do we care more about where they’ll spend eternity than we do about how comfortable we are in our conversation with them? I suspect that, if most of us were to go home today and really examine our own hearts when it comes to this, we’d discover that we need to love people a lot more and care about their opinions of us a lot less.

And of course, all of this also applies to our church as a whole as well. Our vision for this church is to faithfully teach the gospel both from this pulpit and in all of our other church programs and activities regardless of any cultural pressures or outside forces that would seek to keep us from doing so. And there may come a day when that really costs us something. Losing our tax-exempt status might only be the beginning of the price we’re eventually forced to pay. But we plan, by God’s grace, to continue proclaiming the gospel with all boldness and without hesitation or apology because that’s what Jesus has left us here to do—and because we know that it’s impossible to be driven by a desire to please man while at the same time truly being servants of Christ. 

 

other sermons in this series

Nov 10

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Galatians 5:16-26: Walking by the Spirit

Preacher: Josh Tancordo Scripture: Galatians 5:16–26 Series: Galatians

Nov 3

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Galatians 5:1-15: Faith Working through Love

Preacher: Josh Tancordo Scripture: Galatians 5:1–15 Series: Galatians

Oct 27

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Galatians 4:21-31: The Freedom Found in Christ

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