12-04-11 Another Gospel

This is our 3^rd week in our study of Paul’s letter to the Galatians,

a letter in which Paul goes on the attack

in a way that we do not see in any of the other New Testament letters.

This letter is not a discourse,

it is not an organized statement of doctrine,

it is an explosion from deep within Paul,

an explosion of truth designed to obliterate

an extremely destructive lie

that had taken root within the thinking of many of the young Christians within the Galatian churches.

During the past two weeks

we’ve laid some foundation for the book,

and then moved through Paul’s introductory comments

given to us in Galatians 1:1-5.

But we’ve already seen

that those introductory comments

are far more than just pleasant greetings.

They are, in fact, the beginning of Paul’s attack against the lies.

His first words affirmed that, in a unique way,

Paul had been appointed by God Himself

to reveal to the world the truth about the offer God was making to the world through Jesus Christ.

...Paul, an apostle (not sent from men, nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father)...

It was Paul offering his credentials,

credentials that qualified him to literally speak for God Himself.

And then last week

we looked at the second step in Paul’s defense and proclamation of the truth.

But it was carefully phrased by Paul

so that it communicated the truth his readers has forgotten

in a way that create within them

a hunger for the freedom they had lost through the lies they had believed.

On the surface it was simply a blessing offered by Paul to his readers.

Gal 1:3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ,

Gal 1:4 who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us out of this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,

Gal 1:5 to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen.

But within that blessing

was the glorious truth

that through Jesus Christ our God has given each of those who come to Him

the freedom to live forevermore immersed in the grace and peace that only God can give.

It was Paul’s way of saying to his readers,

“My friends, do you remember what you had? Do you remember what you’ve lost? Your God has not and never will withdraw the great wealth He has poured out on you. So why have you chosen to exchange it for the bondage that now characterizes your life?”

OK, that’s what we’ve seen so far.

But then, beginning with verse 6

Paul charges right into the attack -

not an attack against his readers,

but rather an attack against the lie

that was eroding the foundations of their relationship with God.

And in verses 6-10

he lays out the reason for his letter.

He says,

Gal 1:6 I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel;

Gal 1:7 which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you, and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

Gal 1:8 But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be accursed.

Gal 1:9 As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed.

Gal 1:10 For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.

Now, we’ve already spent a little time with several of the verses in this passage,

noting the strength of the language used by Paul

as he attacks those who are disturbing the Galatian Christians,

but before we visit them in context

I want to point out that opening phrase

because it gives us a wonderful insight

into God’s perspective on the message of legalism.

Paul says, I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ...

OK, now remember what the issue was with these young Christians.

Paul had proclaimed to them the clear, simple, amazing message

that through Christ’s willing death in our place for our sins,

every barrier between us and Him had been forever removed from our account

and placed onto the account of Christ.

Simply put, God Himself has paid our debt of sin in full forever.

And all He asks of us

is that we believe that our debt really is paid

and then choose to accept Him as our God

and receive the endless grace He offers us.

That’s what Paul preached,

and that’s what the Galatians believed and received.

But then a group of teachers

began telling these young Christians

that it wasn’t really that simple.

They began proclaiming a message of Christ +.

Simple faith, trust in Christ alone was just not enough,

and true security with God

required that they also keep the Jewish law.

And this same religious deception has been perpetuated within the Christian community ever since.

And for the past 2000 years

religious folk have been adding their own lists,

their own additions to simple faith in Christ.

OK, the term we use to describe our belief system about God

is the term “doctrine”.

What I’ve just described here

would be called the doctrine of salvation through faith.

And what the false teachers were presenting to the Galatians

was a doctrine of works or a doctrine of faith plus works.

But what I want us to see here

is that with God

it’s not just doctrine, it’s not just His trying to get us to accept the right belief system.

With God it’s always personal.

It’s not about WHAT we choose to believe,

it’s about WHO we choose to believe.

That’s what Paul is telling his readers with that opening phrase in which he says,

I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ...

You see, Paul doesn’t just say, “You are deserting the truth.”

He doesn’t say, “Your doctrine has become muddled and we need to sort it out.”

He doesn’t say, “Some wrong ideas have crept in and we need to talk about them.”

What he says is, “...you are deserting God!”

... you are so quickly deserting Him who called you ...

I find that fascinating.

I find it fascinating in part

because it helps me to realize

that everything is always personal with God.

By that I certainly don’t mean to suggest

that God gets His feelings hurt

or responds to us in some sort of petty human way

when we respond incorrectly to Him.

But I do mean

that with God from the very beginning and for all eternity

the center of this whole thing is what is going on at the personal, individual level between Him and us.

I’m not sure I can put this into words

in a way that will make sense,

but I want to try.

You see, from our perspective, as human beings

we tend to separate our ideas about God

from our relationship with Him.

Everyone of us here this morning

have our own personal “doctrinal system of beliefs”.

We probably don’t think of them in those terms,

but we have them - our set of beliefs and assumptions about our God.

Now obviously with all of us

some of those ideas are correct and some of them are not.

You see, no matter what we believe,

there really is only one God who is who He is,

and our beliefs about Him do not, cannot alter that reality in the least.

There are some people who will boldly proclaim

that they don’t even think God exists

and they certainly have every right to choose that belief.

But their belief changes nothing about the God who is.

He is still there,

still their Creator,

still reaching out to them seeking restoration with them,

no matter what they have chosen to believe about Him.

But my point here

is that in our minds

we tend to separate our ideas about God

from our actual relationship with God.

If God has revealed some truth to us that we don’t like

or we don’t agree with

we simply set it aside as a “bad idea”, one that we think is wrong.

But we relate to it on the idea level.

But it is not that way in God’s relationship with us.

With God,

His concern is never about what doctrinal system we choose

or which ideas we accept or reject,

His concern is with how we will choose to respond

to what He has told us is true.

And at those points where we reject something He has said

it isn’t just that we have chosen a different set of ideas,

it’s that we have chosen to reject Him or distrust Him.

When Paul talks with the Galatians about their rejection of God’s grace freely offered through Christ

Paul confronts them with the real heart of the issue -

not just that they had picked up some bad ideas,

but that they are so quickly deserting Him who called them by the grace of Christ.

They are not just rejecting and idea,

they are deserting God Himself.

True doctrine in its purest form

is simply our best, most honest response

to whatever God has chosen to reveal to us about Himself.

Doctrine isn’t just a set of beliefs,

it is our personal response to God Himself

on the basis of what He has chosen to show us about himself.

I don’t know if this will help,

but there are times when it’s helped me

and I’ll share it with you.

When we disagree with something we know God has said,

though we will certainly find it difficult to do this,

the most honest thing we can do is not to say, “I don’t believe that...”, or “I see it differently...”.

The most honest thing we can do is to say, “God, I am choosing not to believe you at this point.”

You see, it’s never just about ideas,

it’s about our never ending interaction with our Creator.

Now certainly our discovery of Him

and His truth

and our understanding of what He is really like

is very much of an ongoing thing,

a fluid, changing, growing thing

as we learn to hear more clearly the sound of His voice

and as our trust in Him increases.

And as such

our “doctrines”,

our set of beliefs about God will be changing our whole life.

But if this process progresses as God intends,

those changes will simply be changes that bring our ideas, our beliefs

more in line with the God who truly is.

OK, Paul goes on to say that they had chosen a different gospel; which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you, and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

And his point here

is that they may have convinced themselves

that this mingling of grace and performance is simply a different good news,

but in truth there is nothing good about it

and it certainly is not the good news of God.

There is only one Gospel...only one Good News,

one message that has the power to free the human spirit

and the ability to allow us to enter into a growth relationship with God

in which He rebuilds our lives from the inside out.

That good news is the one that drives the human spirit into the amazing discovery

of the height and depth and length and breadth of the love of our God for us,

a good news in which our spirit hears the voice of God saying to us,

“I have made you for myself. I have been calling you to myself since the day I created you. I now take you, just as you are, requiring nothing from you except that you receive my love and then trust me to rebuild your life one day, one issue, one sorrow, one wound at a time from the inside out. Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you shall find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy, and My load is light."

You see, that’s good news.

The mingled muddle of grace and works

being peddled to the Galatians,

and being proclaimed by so much of our religious industry

in which God’s grace wipes the slate clean when we come to Him

and offers us a second chance to bring our performance up to an acceptable standard

so that we can then remain with Him is not good news

because we can no more successfully offer him an acceptable level of performance after we come to Him than we could before we came.

Do you know what truly changes a person’s life?

It is our discovering His love for us in the face of our own sin against Him

and finding ourselves saying, “I can’t believe this...I can’t believe He chose me.”

And then it is a heart overflowing with gratitude

when we see what He’s doing inside us,

when we see the way He’s filling us with a hunger and thirst for righteousness

and then giving us the ability to fulfill that hunger at a whole new level.

Those are the spirit responses

that have the ability to remake our lives.

And those responses come

only when we hear and believe the only true gospel,

the only true good news in existence.

There is no “other gospel”.

There are no degrees to the gospel of God.

There is no blending, no mingling, no integrating of grace and works allowed.

And to attempt to do so

for any reason,

even when it may seem so much more reasonable,

so much more logical to the religious mind of man,

is to deny the very heart of the most critical message our God has ever given us,

the only message that He chose to label as GOOD NEWS,

the only message that has the ability to bring the human spirit into the discovery of the love of our God for us,

and the only message that has the power to transform a life from the inside out.

When Paul confronts the Galatians with their rejection of the message of absolute salvation on the basis of the grace of God alone,

he tells them right from the beginning

what’s really going on.

To corrupt this message,

to mingle grace and performance

is not just to dabble with our doctrinal system,

it is to call God a liar

and, well... in Paul’s own words, to desert Him who called you by the grace of Christ,

to desert God Himself.

Which will explain, then, why Paul goes on to give

such a powerful response to what he sees the Galatians doing

and why he blasts them with next two statements we find in this letter.

Gal 1:8 But even though we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that which we have preached to you, let him be damned.

Gal 1:9 As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to that which you received, let him be damned.

We saw in our first lesson two weeks ago

that the translators chose to translate those last phrases as “let him be accursed”

so that it didn’t sound as if Paul was simply spewing out profanity,

but with either translation

it is simply impossible to miss the strength of Paul’s response

to those who seek to compromise this one truth.

There is no room for compromise,

there is no room for debate or discussion.

To fiddle with the message of the death of Christ

providing absolute and eternal payment for all of our sins,

allowing us to then stand justified, holy and pure before God forever,

to fiddle with that simple truth in any way

is to call Christ a liar

and to declare His death a failure

and His sacrifice of Himself inadequate...not enough.

And that is a message Paul will not and should not tolerate.

Interesting, isn’t it,

the difference between the way Paul responded to this corruption of the truth about the grace of God

and the way we so often respond to that same corruption in the world of religion today.

When we see grace and performance being mingled and intertwined

in so many of our religious systems today

not only do we not wish for the proclaimers of such a message to be accursed,

but we may even view their message

as a reasonable alternative to the true Good News of God.

To our naturally religious minds

it seems reasonable that some performance requirements

should be injected into the message of the Grace of God.

A little fear,

a little guilt,

a little anxiety over the possible rejection of God if we fail to grow fast enough

or change quickly enough

seems like a healthy, reasonable, valuable thing.

Surly it can’t hurt,

and maybe it will even help some of the more corrupt converts

to get their act together

and get their life on more solid footing.

And the reality is that such a mingled message

truly does make us more reasonable, more acceptable to those in the religious world around us.

We are viewed as wise,

and tolerant,

and reasonable.

We fit far better in the church community as a whole.

And it was no different in Paul’s time.

He knew the way in which God’s message of Grace

would forever set him at odds

with everything else being proclaimed in the world,

and all of those religious leaders who had achieved prominence in his time.

Which is why Paul adds that one final statement

before he begins to offer his list of proofs of the truth of the message of Grace.

In verse 10 he concludes this opening section by saying,

“For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond-servant of Christ.”

Do you want great success in the world of religion?

Do you want to be praised and honored for your wisdom, your tolerance,

your reasonableness?

Then you’ll most likely have to compromise the truth

for the sake of success.

Most church systems simply cannot survive

and certainly will not thrive on the message of grace.

There are too many things that people need to do,

too many obligations to fulfill,

to many roles that only guilt, or fear, or ego gratification can push them into.

But through the example of his own life

Paul tells us that everyone of us must choose our audience.

Who are we going to play to,

who will we seek to please?

Either we choose the crowd around us,

or we choose our God.

And that choice will determine the ultimate course of our lives.

But I can’t stop here without adding one additional thought.

You see, even though the message of the Grace of God

my not give us wide-spread popularity within the world of religion as a whole,

there will be those who will hear that truth

and cling to it as the great hope of their existence,

those who know the truth within their spirits,

the truth that only the grace of God can ever give them hope, and healing, and transformation.

Those who know that they can offer nothing to their God,

and their only hope is that He truly does love,

and cleanse,

and forgive,

and redeem.

It is a painful place to reach,

and there are few who find it,

but for them you will become their great hero,

and their light that leads them into freedom.