Galatians 1:6-10

Introduction:

In Newton, NC Kenneth Charles Barger, 47, accidentally shot himself to death during the night. Awakening to the sudden sound of a ringing telephone beside his bed, he reached for the phone but grabbed instead his Smith & Wesson .38 Special which he kept on the bedside table next to the phone. The gun apparently discharged as he drew it to his ear thinking it was the phone.

-And while this is a bizarre story, it shows the importance of getting it right and not being mistaken, because it could cost you your life

-Paul, in this rather weighty section of Galatians, presses upon the Galatians the importance of getting the Gospel right, or else it will cost you everything

Textual Background:

Paul probably planted these churches in Galatia during his first missionary journey

-However, upon either visiting or receiving a report from them, he is alarmed to find that a group of Judaizers had arisen from outside the church, or possibly within it.

-These people were teaching people that they needed to be circumcised and keep the Mosaic Law in order to attain (or maintain) their right standing with God

-In other words, they were adding their good works to the Gospel

Galatians 5:1–3 NKJV

Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage. Indeed I, Paul, say to you that if you become circumcised, Christ will profit you nothing. And I testify again to every man who becomes circumcised that he is a debtor to keep the whole law.

Last week, we looked at Paul’s greeting, and how he embeds the Gospel message in it

-He reminds the Galatians that salvation comes through God the Father sending Christ to die for us to rescue us

The point of the message this week is this:

Proposition: Because of the dire consequence of adding to or changing the Gospel, you must hold fast to the true Gospel

1. When you add to the Gospel, you reject the God who called you in grace (vs. 6)

Now, what is unusual about this letter from Paul is the lack of either a thanksgiving section or a prayer section after his greeting

-In most of Paul’s letters, he immediately launches into a section of thanksgiving where he thanks God for the people he is writing to

Take for instance, the first 3 verses of Philippians

Philippians 1:1–3 NKJV

Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you,

But here, in Galatians, notice there is no section like this.

Instead, Paul is distressed

Listen to the shocked tone from the pen of the Apostle Paul:

-He’s shocked at what has transpired with these Galatian Christians

-Notice who it is he says that they’re turning away from

-They’re not just turning their back on some abstract doctrine, as if they merely forgot to check their systematic theology and accidentally overlooked something in it

-No, they’ve turned away from Him who called them!

-Who is that??

-God Himself

In other words, to add our works to the Gospel, to add our efforts, to add anything to the finished work of Christ, is to turn away from God Himself

-Why is that?

In studying this passage, I think it’s just possible that Paul has a famous OT passage in mind when he says that the Galatians have “turned away”, and I think it’s worth considering that passage

Turn with me briefly to Exodus 32.

God had rescued the Israelites from their lives of slavery in Egypt by His grace

-He had brought them salvation because of His faithfulness and compassion

-But when they get to Mount Sinai and Moses goes up the mountain to speak with God and receive His Law, what do the people do?

Exodus 32:1–8 (NKJV)

Now when the people saw that Moses delayed coming down from the mountain, the people gathered together to Aaron, and said to him, “Come, make us gods that shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”

And Aaron said to them, “Break off the golden earrings which are in the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring them to me.” So all the people broke off the golden earrings which were in their ears, and brought them to Aaron. And he received the gold from their hand, and he fashioned it with an engraving tool, and made a molded calf.

Then they said, “This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!”

So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it. And Aaron made a proclamation and said, “Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.” Then they rose early on the next day, offered burnt offerings, and brought peace offerings; and the people sat down to eat and drink, and rose up to play.

And the Lord said to Moses, “Go, get down! For your people whom you brought out of the land of Egypt have corrupted themselves. They have turned aside quickly out of the way which I commanded them. They have made themselves a molded calf, and worshiped it and sacrificed to it, and said, ‘This is your god, O Israel, that brought you out of the land of Egypt!’ ”

What was Israel doing?

-They had recently been delivered by God’s grace, and yet here, they decide that they want to come to God on their own terms

-They wanted to worship in their own way, and so they craft an image and say, “this is how we will worship God! This is how we will relate to God! It will be on my terms and not on His.”

And brothers and sisters, when someone adds to the Gospel, what they are saying is, “this is how I will relate to God! I want to be reconciled with God, but I want that reconciliation based on my terms and my efforts.”

And so adding our works to the Gospel is actually a turning from God

Notice how God is described:

“Him who called you in the grace of Christ”

What is grace?

-Simply put, grace is God’s kindness or favor

-And when it comes to God’s grace towards us, it is always undeserved

This is why adding to the Gospel distorts it so badly

Paul is going to argue at length in this book that when we add our works to the Gospel, it is no longer by grace

-It’s no longer a gracious act of God, God’s kind and compassionate gift, but something that we have earned

-You can believe that we are saved completely by God’s grace through faith, or you can believe that you are saved by your efforts, but you cannot have it both ways

**We run into situations like this with children

-They want their shoes tied, but they can’t tie it themselves, but they don’t want your help, but they do want their shoes tied . . .

-And you kind of tell them: you can’t have it both ways! You can either go on without your shoes tied, or you can let me help you!

-And brothers and sisters, you can’t be saved as a free gift by God’s grace alone where He receives all the glory, and yet be saved by your own efforts as well

Brothers and sisters, Paul is saying that it is a big deal when someone adds their works to the Gospel

-It is nothing less than a rejection of God Himself

-We often don’t struggle with understanding the seriousness of someone being a Mormon or a Muslim or a Hindu

-People in these faiths believe radically different things than us concerning God than we do

-Mormons believe there may be many gods

-Muslims don’t believe that Jesus is God or that He died on the cross

-Hindus too believe in many gods

-The Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that Jesus is a created being

-We get that these people are not true Christians and don’t believe that Gospel

-But what about Catholics?

-What about your friend who believes that you need to accept Jesus, plus do your best to be a good person, and that the combination of these things gets you into heaven?

-Maybe you’re tempted to think, “It’s not really that big of a deal. I don’t need to be so unbending on this thing. They believe 99% of the things that I believe. Surely they’re going to heaven too right?”

Brothers and sisters, to add anything to the Gospel message, actually is a turning away from God Himself by rejecting the means that He has provided for salvation

-In a culture where the pressure is mounting to agree with people, to find common ground, to downplay differences and make sure that we don’t say that anyone is wrong

-You must hold fast to the true Gospel

So first, we see that you must hold fast to the true Gospel, because to add to the Gospel is to turn from God Himself

But notice secondly

2. That to add to the Gospel is to substitute it for a distorted Gospel (vs. 6b-7)

-Notice how Paul says that you are turning away from “Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different Gospel”

-Brothers and sisters, when you add to the Gospel, you change it to the point that it is no longer the Gospel

**illustration about my house add-on

I own a house 5 minutes up the road off of Rufus Ratchford Rd. that I bought a little over 2 years ago . . .

-When you add onto your house, you still have a house! As a matter of fact, it’s often a better house, a more valuable house

-And that’s how some people view the Gospel

“you know, this Gospel plan is a little too plain, too simple, too easy”

“Just crying out to God and trusting Christ’s death and resurrection to make me right with God just doesn’t seem quite right”

“Maybe I should spruce it up a little bit! I don’t wanna change it, I just want to add in my own efforts. Let’s add in the need to get baptized to get saved.

Or, “Let’s add in praying to Mary, or going to confession, or being confirmed.”

Or, “surely God needs me to be a good Christian who goes to church, reads my Bible, and witnesses in order to make this a done deal.”

And you can say: “Look! I didn’t change anything about the Gospel! It’s all still there! I’ve just added some extra things to it to make it even better!”

Brothers and sisters, you haven’t just added to the Gospel according to Paul. You’ve now changed the Gospel entirely and substituted it with a different Gospel.

**Let’s say that you were thirsty and asked me for a glass of water

-So bring up a glass of water

-But then, before handing it to you, I put 2 grams of cyanide in the water

-Now cyanide, as many of you know, is a deadly poison

-1 gram of it can kill an 160lb adult

-And I pour a couple of grams of it into a glass of water

-And all of a sudden, you’re not thirsty anymore

-And you ask, “why did you do that?”

-And I say, “what’s the big deal? It’s just water! I only added a little bit of cyanide to it. It’s still 99% water!”

-You and I both know that it’s not just water anymore

-It’s actually something that can kill you

-By adding just that little bit of cyanide, I’ve changed entirely what’s in that glass

-It’s something entirely different now

Brothers and sisters, when you add anything to the Gospel, you change it entirely

Notice, how Paul clarifies what he means by “a different Gospel” in verse 7

“which is not another”

-Paul is saying here, “Just to be clear: there is no other Gospel”

-The Gospel is the good news of the finished work of Christ

-How Christ, being truly God and truly man took on flesh

-How He lived a sinless life

-How He died in our place, taking the punishment and wrath of God for our sins

-How He rose again the third day and ascended to the Father

-Brothers and sisters, this is the good news, and if anything is added to this, it’s no longer good news

-And this is why it’s a big deal that we hold onto the Gospel and guard the Gospel

-I hear sometimes today people saying things like, “you need to live the Gospel”

or

“whenever you help someone, you’re doing the Gospel”

And maybe people have good intentions when they say those things, but we need to be very clear:

As one pastor put it: “you don’t do the Gospel, you don’t live the Gospel, you receive the Gospel by faith”

Brothers and sisters, the Gospel is good news that we receive, that we obey, not something we do

And those who add works and extra steps to the Gospel trouble people, and they pervert the Gospel

-They change it

-They distort it into something that it is not

I’m borrowing this illustration from a speaker I once heard, but imagine you go to the Louvre in Paris

-I teach in SS right now the 3-4 year olds

-Let’s imagine that I take them to go visit the Mona Lisa

-Imagine that I get them past the security and ropes, and come up close to the Mona Lisa, probably the most expensive and famous painting in the entire world

-And I take them up there, but Miles and Brooks and Harper and Kadence and the others think that this painting can be improved upon

-So they take some purple spray paint, and they decide to add glasses to the Mona Lisa

-As well as a goattee and a handle-bar mustache

-And they also give her devil’s horns and a pitchfork to hold

Now, they might just say, “we’ve just changed it a little!”

-but they’ve actually really distorted the intention of the Da Vinci

An in the same way, whenever someone changes the Gospel by adding their own works, their effort, by adding their extra steps in, they are distorting the beauty of the Gospel as God has given it

And these people are people who trouble others

-These people who peddle their different Gospel bring hurt and ruin on those that they try to evangelize

So brothers and sisters, maybe you see on TV or in your neighborhood or at your work place those who are spreading a different Gospel

-They’re convincing people that if they follow the book of mormon, or come to their Jehovah’s Witness meeting, or come to Mass that you can have a relationship with God

-You can be made right with Him through Jesus, plus your efforts

-It’s an entirely different Gospel

-And you must hold fast to the true Gospel

-You must contend for the faith that was once for all handed down to the saints

-It doesn’t mean that we do violence or harm to such people obviously

-It doesn’t mean that we are unkind or pugnacious

-But we must hold fast to the Gospel and seek to win these people for Christ

-They are turning people aside from God and the Good News of how we can be reconciled to Him

-We can’t simply look at a Mormon friend or a Catholic friend, be happy that they share conservative values like us, vote like us, protest abortion like us, and simply agree to disagree

But there is also a danger in our own lives to subtly add our own efforts to the finished work of Christ

-We think that in order for us to maintain our standing before God, we must carry our weight

-make sure we witness enough

-go to enough church meetings

-get further in our read through the Bible plan than we did last year

And if we’re not careful, the Gospel gets distorted in our own hearts and minds

-Instead of resting wholly in the finished work of Christ, we are riding the roller coaster of our own performance

-And brothers and sisters, while we are not in danger of somehow losing our salvation, we are failing to experience the rest and joy that Christ intends for us that only comes through drinking deeply of the never-ending stream of the true Gospel

-Please don’t fall into this trap, but you must hold fast to the true Gospel in your own life

So first, we see that adding to the Gospel is a rejection of God Himself

Second, we see that adding to the Gospel is actually a rejection of the Gospel for a distorted Gospel,

but finally, we see that

3. When you add to the Gospel, you reject the hope of life (vs. 8-9)

Notice Paul’s strong words in verses 8-9

**read 8-9**

-This is an astonishing declaration!

-Paul says that no matter what, you are never to preach, and by extension, even to believe, any other gospel

He’s saying:

-Even if an angel were to appear in all its power and glory and give you a different gospel, it’s not true!

-Even if I, the Apostle Paul, were to show up to your church and have changed my mind about the Gospel and wanted to make some changes to it, don’t believe it!

The Gospel is settled

-There’s no new model coming out

-There’s no updates on the horizon to fix the bugs in it

-There’s no merger coming with another big religion

No, Jude calls it . . . (Jude 1:3)

Jude 3 (NKJV)

the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints.

And Paul says that anyone who preaches another gospel is accursed

-It’s a very strong word

Tom Schreiner says that it “refers here to final destruction and condemnation”

-It would be like Paul saying, “the person who preaches a different Gospel, let him be damned to hell.”

When Christians quote these verses, they often immediately think of Mormonism

The doctrines of Mormonism began with the farmboy Joseph Smith in the 1820s in Western New York during a period of religious excitement known as the Second Great Awakening. Smith, at 14 years old, was determined to find out which church taught the "true" doctrine of God. He believed that God existed, but was confused by what he believed to be contradictions in the beliefs of churches available to him. In Joseph Smith-History, he wrote: "While I was laboring under the extreme difficulties caused by the contests of these parties of religionists, I was one day reading the Epistle of James, first chapter and fifth verse, which reads: 'If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.'" After praying about which denomination he should join, Smith said he received a vision in the spring of 1820. Called the "First Vision", Smith said that God the Father and his son, Jesus Christ, appeared to him and instructed him to join none of the existing churches because they were all wrong. During the 1820s, Smith chronicled several angelic visitations, and was eventually told (by the angels) that God would use him to re-establish the "true Christian church.”

And I think this is a great verse for combatting the lies of Mormonism.

-But Paul does not have Mormonism in mind here

-Paul has in mind these false teachers who are simply wanting to add circumcision and keep the Mosaic Law to the Gospel

-That seems relatively minor, doesn’t it?

-I mean, what’s wrong with wanting to keep the OT?

-And yet to Paul, teaching this kind of is would condemn one to eternal hell if it is not repented of

Brothers and sisters, you must hold fast to the true Gospel

-I know that this kind of sermon may seem heavy, but this is exactly the tone that Paul has taken in this passage

-There is a lot of false teaching that you encounter online, on TV, and on social media

-There are a lot of false teachers on these platforms too

-There are thousands of false religions that propagate a way to get right with God that goes against Scripture

-There are many people you interact with who believe in a false Gospel

-There is the tendency within each of you to trust in your works and not trust in the finished work of Christ

-Yet God has called you to hold fast to the Gospel

-God has called you to . . . 1 Peter 1:13

1 Peter 1:13 (NKJV)

rest your hope fully upon the grace that is to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ;

This may be unpopular to be so firm on the Gospel, unwilling to yield any ground

-But that didn’t matter to Paul

Galatians 1:10 NKJV

For do I now persuade men, or God? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.

Paul wasn’t concerned about pleasing people

-He was a slave of Christ, and obedience to Christ and faithfulness to His Gospel is all that mattered to Paul

Brothers and sisters, Because of the dire consequence of adding to or changing the Gospel, you must hold fast to the true Gospel

-The Gospel of us God sending His Son to die in the place of sinners like us

-The Gospel that says there is nothing you or I can do to earn or maintain a right standing before God

-The Gospel that says that Christ has earned that right standing for us, and is willing to give that to us as a gift if we repent and believe this glorious gospel