12-11-11 Whose Voice Do You Trust?

We are studying Paul’s letter to the Galatians,

and our study has taken us through the first 10 verses.

But it has done more than just that.

It has also set the stage

for where Paul is going

and what he hopes to accomplish with this letter.

We’ve already heard some strong language from him,

language driven by both his love for the his fellow Christians

and by his anger at those who were robbing them

of the freedom, hope, and security their God wanted them to know.

We have at least 13 books in the New Testament written by Paul,

more than any other contributor of the Biblical documents.

And yet, with all of that content,

the message Paul presented,

and the gospel he preached

was remarkably simple.

In fact, we heard him give it to us in a single sentence

in the opening words of this letter we’re now studying.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen. (Gal. 1:3-5)

Our God,

our Creator gave Himself for us

so that through His death for us

our sins could be removed from our account forever

and He would be able to pour out His grace and peace on all who came to Him.

Amen!

Sounds simple...is simple.

Sounds freeing...and it is, to the extreme.

But that is part of why his message,

or more correctly God’s message

ran into such tremendous resistance from the very beginning.

If it ever was allowed to take root

and spread throughout a group of people

it would forever strip the power, and the prestige, and the control

from those who held positions of leadership within the world of religion.

What would happen

if it was really true

that any person who reached out to God

could be instantly, absolutely loved and accepted and welcomed by God

through simple faith in what Christ had done,

apart from any performance, any works of the law whatsoever?

And what would happen

if it was really true

that the Spirit of God Himself

would take up permanent residence

within every person who came to Christ,

literally given them the mind of Christ,

and the ability to know and understand

the depths of the mind of God Himself?

And what if there was no longer any need

for a priest to stand between man and God to show the way,

or for a prophet to stand between God and man

to communicate the words and will of God to the people?

It would mean the end of religion in the world.

It would mean many within the human race

would begin to discover deep within their spirits

the reality of the love of God for them,

and find that love becoming the driving force of their lives.

And it would certainly mean

that those who held power and control within the world of religion

would lose their power and control forever.

And those who hold such positions

simply will not, do not let go of them without a fight.

And then, with the Galatian Christians

there was the added personal offense

that intensified the battle after Paul left the region.

We saw in our first study of this letter

that, when Paul met resistence to his message of freedom through Christ

from those within the Jewish community in the Galatian region,

he simply walked away from them

and from their spirits of resistence against the truth

and turned to the Gentile, the non-Jewish world

and publicly, freely offered God’s message of grace to any who would respond.

But that transition did not happen

without many within the Jewish community being deeply, personally offended.

Interesting how it is -

they would not trust and embrace God’s offer of freedom for themselves,

but they didn’t want anyone else to have it either.

And the spirit of the elder brother in the parable of the prodigal lived on -

“All these years I have been serving you, and you never threw a party for me. How dare you love and forgive all these sinners who have done nothing to merit your kindness.”

And so it was both personal and doctrinal.

And as we’ve seen in these first 10 verses of Galatians,

Paul begins with a bold affirmation

both of his own personal authority to present the truth of freedom with God through simple faith in Christ,

and of the truth of the message itself.

And then, beginning with verse 11

Paul moves into the body of the letter,

and from 1:11 through the end of chapter 4

he offers his readers a list of 9 proofs,

9 reasons why they should return to the simple, freeing message of faith he’d presented to them.

Now, there is a tremendous amount of great information he’s going to give us in the rest of this letter,

but it will help us to make sense of it

if we keep in mind that behind everything he says

is the underlying message, “Trust what I’ve said to you! You CAN trust it! You can trust me. You can trust my voice, and the truth I’ve given you. Don’t be afraid. And don’t be concerned if all the other voices around you are saying something different. The rules haven’t change between you and your God -

you could offer Him nothing but your simple faith when you first came to Him,

and you can offer Him nothing but your simple faith now, each day as you live with Him.

Now trust me, trust me, trust me...I will not lead you astray.”

And I have to tell you,

when I saw Paul’s first basis for trust that we’re going to look at now

it encouraged me personally in a way I had not expected.

I’ll explain that more before I finish this morning.

But first, let’s see where Paul starts this call for faith in the good news he’s offering.

And to do this

we’ll just walk our way through verses 1:11-24.

OK, he starts in the first 2 verses

by clearly stating the first truth.

Gal 1:11-12 For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

And when Paul begins to reveal his hand

he leads with his biggest trump card.

Part of what he’s saying

is that, if anyone has an issue with this amazing message he’s been preaching

they’ll have to take it up with God

because God Himself is the source, not Paul.

This is Paul saying,

“Look folks, I’m as amazed at what I’m preaching as you are.

But if you’ve got a problem with it

you’ll need to talk with God about it, not me

because I didn’t come with this stuff, God did.”

And this right here is where it starts getting very personal for me,

and very encouraging.

Those of you who have listened to my teaching in past years

have heard me share with you the events that led up to my becoming a Christian.

I was raised in what would certainly be considered a “Christian” home,

a home in which weekly church attendance was a part of our family life together,

a home in which both my parents had at least a cultural allegiance to the Bible and Christianity.

My mom was a Lutheran,

my dad was from a Brethren church background,

and for much of my childhood we attended a large Presbyterian church in Seattle.

My uncle was a Covenant Pastor

so for a time we also tried the Covenant church denomination.

But if either of my parents had a real soul-life daily interaction

taking place within them between themselves and their Lord

I never saw it.

And when I graduated from high school

I had nothing more

than that same cultural allegiance to Christianity that I’d grown up with.

Looking back on it now

I’m certain my parents were more than a little concerned

that I was definitely at high risk of getting really wild once I got out on my own,

and they agreed to pay for my college education

if I would go to a church-related school.

I didn’t care where I went

just so long as I got out of the house

so I agreed,

especially since the alternative was a uniformed tour in Viet Nam.

It wasn’t until the beginning of my Sophomore year

that my Lord barged into my life,

and He did it by creating within me

this absolutely inexplicable desire to read the Gospels.

I couldn’t stay away from them,

and over the course of several weeks

I read through the first three gospels

and ultimately submitted to Lord because of what I read.

But I mention this again this morning

because, from the beginning of my own walk with the King,

the absolute authority and reliability of the Bible was a given.

And even that doesn’t say it well

because it sounds like it was some sort of a conscious doctrinal choice.

The truth is, from day one it was the solid ground under my feet,

the one thing I knew I could always trust.

It is what brought me into the reality of my God -

how could it be otherwise?

I frequently didn’t understand what I was reading,

but I always knew it was the one certain thing in life.

And none of that has ever changed,

which has become the defining issue of my life

and certainly the defining issue of my life as a Pastor and a Bible teacher.

I was in my early 20's

when I realized that I could teach Scripture

and ever since then

all I’ve done when it comes to my teaching

is to wrestle with a passage until I see what it’s saying

and then do the best I can to share what its saying

with those who listen to my teaching.

And when I hear Paul saying,

For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ...,

that makes perfect sense to me.

I certainly make no claim that I have correctly understood every passage I’ve taught,

because I bring my own set of assumptions and presuppositions to my teaching

that sometimes distort my perspective on what I read.

And whenever a fellow Christian says to me, “Larry, I don’t think that’s what the passage is saying.”,

I listen closely and hopefully openly to what they have to say.

But if I have a person respond to my teaching

by saying, “I don’t agree with what you said!”,

the truth is that I don’t care

because if I’ve done my work well, what I’ve shared are not my ideas, they’re God’s.

And if they don’t agree with what I’ve said

I don’t take it personally.

Well, as Paul begins his campaign to return his readers to their pure and simple trust

in the redemptive work of Christ for them

he begins that campaign by assuring them

that the message he shared with them

didn’t come from his own mind,

it came straight from the mind and heart of God Himself.

And as such,

they can trust what he said.

From there

Paul then goes on to do for us

what I just did for you a few minutes ago -

he traces through his own personal history

to better help them understand

both where he got this amazing message,

and how it did not and could not have come to him through some other man.

He begins by telling them

that, left to himself,

given his own personal heritage,

he would have come up with a very different message.

He says,

Gal 1:13-14 For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it; and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions.

Basically he tells them

that apart from the direct intervention of God Himself

Paul would have ended up exactly where all those false teachers around them had ended up -

pushing some form of the Jewish religious system.

In fact,

Paul’s whole personal fast-track to success

depended upon him remaining loyal to that message,

and everything within his own flesh

was driving him that direction.

But then came the one factor

that changed it all forever - the intrusion of God Himself into Paul’s life.

He says, But when God...Gal 1:15

And that is always the turning point, isn’t it?

But when God...

But when God stepped into my life...

But when God brought me peace...

gave me hope...

freed me from my bitterness...

gave me His ability to love where my ability had failed me utterly...

But when God gave me eyes to see myself...

But when God pulled my feet free from the muck

and raised me up

and set me on His solid rock

and filled my heart with gratitude

and my mouth with praise to Him...

But when God...

No religion in the world can do that for us, you know.

No religion can give us hope.

No religion can heal the human heart.

No religion can love us, and hold us, and bind our wounds, and be our friend.

But then our God is not a religion, is He,

our God is...well, our God is our GOD

and that’s all we need, both now and for all eternity.

Well, Paul goes on to say,

But when God who had set me apart even from my mother's womb and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles...

And what he wants us to know here, of course,

is that from the very beginning

the message that Paul preached to the Galatians,

the message of a God who loves us,

and removes our sin,

and holds us close to Himself apart from any works we could ever offer Him,

that message did not originate with Paul,

it originated with God Himself.

It was all His idea,

all His doing,

and even Paul’s involvement as a spokesman of that message

was part of God’s plan while Paul was still in his mother’s womb.

But then that isn’t where Paul stops.

He then goes on to assure his readers

that not only was Paul’s message given to him by God Himself,

but, for more than three years, God then kept Paul in nearly complete isolation from the other Apostles

until the message He wanted to preach through Paul

had been perfected and clarified and confirmed in His messenger.

Paul says in 16-24,

I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went away to Arabia, and returned once more to Damascus. Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem to become acquainted with Cephas, and stayed with him fifteen days. But I did not see any other of the apostles except James, the Lord's brother. (Now in what I am writing to you, I assure you before God that I am not lying.) Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea which were in Christ; but only, they kept hearing, "He who once persecuted us is now preaching the faith which he once tried to destroy." And they were glorifying God because of me.

You remember where Paul started this, don’t you?

You remember his opening statement,

his first proof of the validity of the incredible good news he’d shared with his readers...

He shares that overview of his early history with the Lord

because he wants the Galatians to know that they can have absolute trust

in the source of the message they heard Paul speak.

The source of the message was God,

and the messenger didn’t corrupt that message

because he wasn’t playing to any audience but God Himself.

And nothing has really changed in the past 2000 years

when it comes to our own protection as God’s people.

There are lots and lots of ideas floating around the church world.

Lots of books,

lots of skillfully crafted systems,

lots of gifted and effective speakers.

And to the human mind

many of those ideas seem so reasonable,

so logical,

so right.

But what we really need

is not the voice of man,

what we need

and what our spirits hunger for is the voice of God.

And fortunately we have His voice written out for us,

sure and certain.

And when we hear it correctly

it will feed our spirits,

bathing our souls with His grace,

and filling us with hope.

Well, Paul begins his attack against those who are filling the minds of the Galatians with lies

by assuring them

that they need have not fears of trusting the good news he’d preached to them

because it wasn’t good news manufactured in his own mind,

it was good news from the mind and heart of God Himself.

It was in every way good news

they could trust, and build their lives

and their eternities upon.