Small change, big consequence

Intro

‘I just want to be effluent Mum, effluent! You are effluent Kim. You are effluent. I mean look at everything you’ve got. You’ve got a hyundai to high tail it around town, you’ve got a half share in a home unit, a DVD player, a mobile, I mean what else is there’

The immortal words of Kath and Kim, demonstrating that sometimes a small change can have huge consequences. One letter, one vowel can completley change the meaning of a sentence.

A small change can have huge consequences.

This morning we’re starting a new series in the book of Galatians. Galatians is the earliest piece of Christian writing we have.

It’s a book all about the gospel, the message of God’s grace given to human beings in the gift of his Son. And how this gift is creating a new community full of people who, despite their different backgrounds, different cultures, languages, stories, all find a home in God’s family. But it’s also a book about how often, we face pressure to change the story.

Now, I’ll admit at the outset, we’re going to find it a bit foreign. I very much doubt that anyone in this room is tempted to change the gospel in the way the Galatian church was tempted. I’d be very surprised if any of you called me this wek and told me you’d decided to go Kosher, keep the Sabbath, or get circumcised - the last ones a bit TMI anyway.

But that doesn’t mean we’re so different from them.

We spent a lot of time yesterday talking about how our culture has shifted away from Christian assumptions. We don’t agree on what right and wrong are anymore, we don’t all believe in an afterlife, we don’t believe that God will judge us according to some objective standard, and there’s lots of different opinions about Jesus.

These are huge changes, and they make Christian seem frankly weird to many of our neighbours. The things we believe are more different to the average Aussie than ever before, and sometimes, they don’t just make us weird, they even put us at odds with our neighbours. And all that can make some of us wonder - do we need to change the gospel?

Do we need to change the message to make it more relevant?

What we’ll see today, and as we work through our series is that, ironically, it’s only as we keep the gospel the same, that it remains good news to all kinds of people - even 21st century, post-christian people.

Medice or poison?

Show

Galatians 1:6 NRSV

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—

These days when I’m writing emails, I have this plugin called Grammarly which gives me advice on spelling, grammar but also style. Often I get the suggestion to make my topic sentence clearer. Apparently I spend too much of my emails talking around the subject.

Paul is not getting that suggestion.

This has all of the subtlety of someone screaming at their toddler as they are about to take a swig from a bottle of paint thinner!

‘hi, you’re about to leave Jesus, STOP’.

Slide - Map of Galatia

These churches, in the region of what we know as central Turkey had orginally been planted by Paul. Some of the places Paul went they started riots, they threw stones at him, ran him out of town. But not these guys. They welcomed his message. Eagerly. They became Christians. Left paganism and started worshipping Jesus. It was a great joy for Paul and he’d left them to go and plant more churches.

But within 12 months, maybe even less than that, Paul had heard that others had come in after him and started telling the Galatian church, you’re missing something.

Paul just describes it as another gospel, verse 6,

But we find out later in the book that these agitators are insisting that the these Gentile Christians become Jews. To really be in with God, they said, you needed to keep the laws of Moses too.

Explain

Now as I said, it’s hard for us to relate to this, I get it, we may not see the appeal. It’s possible that becoming Jewish looked like a way to get a bit more pep out of your spiritual life.

But there’s more than that, because more Jewish was not just something that might boost your spiritual life. Back then, it might also save your physical life.

Everyone in the Roman empire was required to participate in the pagan cults, especially the Imerpial cult. Everyone was expected to worship at the temples, pray to Ceasar and confess that he is Lord.

Everyone except the Jews. The Romans had long since given up trying to get the Jews to participate in the cult of Caesar when they grew tired of all of the insurrections and riots. No matter how many Jews killed, no amount of violence or threats would get them to budge so a general exception was made for the Jews - but only them.

Which meant that if you were a Gentile Christian, someone who had left paganism to follow Jesus, but hadn’t become a Jew, you were in no man’s land.

You can’t participate in the Roman cult - you can’t say Cesar is Lord, you can’t sacrifice to him. But at the same time, you can’t claim that you’re exempt.

See the pressure?

Being a Christian put you in a dangerous position. Becoming more Jewish made you more respectable, gave you an exemption, allowed you to fly under the Roman radar.

Jesus + Kosher, Sabbath and cicumcision.

It’s seems so small. And in context, so understandable right?

Paul seems so picky. Worse than that, he seems so judgemental, look at verse 9

Galatians 1:9 NRSV

As we have said before, so now I repeat, if anyone proclaims to you a gospel contrary to what you received, let that one be accursed!

Such a small change,

And yet, sometimes, small changes have big consequences, don’t they.

Adding anything to grace makes it toxic.

As Paul is going to explain throught this letter, there is only one way to cook this, one recipe, one combination of ingredients that ends up with good medicine of the gospel.

Transition

So what’s the recipe?

The recipe for success

1.1 Revelation, not speculation

State

Look at what Paul says in verse 1

Show:

Galatians 1:1 NRSV

Paul an apostle—sent neither by human commission nor from human authorities, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead—

Explain

This message of grace, the gospel is not something dreamt up, anticipated or deduced by human beings.

Occasionally you’ll hear people say, the bible is the sum total of human beings reflecting on what it is to be human in this world - which is like saying it’s wikipedia. Or, religion is man’s best attempt to understand the spiritual realm.

It’s good, it’s valuable, it’s a great collection of wisdom that can help us live wisely. But like wikipedia, it has to change as we gain new information.

Our understanding of the world all the time. We now know we’re not the centre of the solar system, we now know that Newtonian physics is wrong - time is relative - , we now understand genetics.

But it’s not just our scientific understanding. The world we live in is changing all the time and we’re faced with brand new questions that people 2000 years ago never could have anticipated.

How do you find a partner in the age of dating apps? Where do we draw the line between humans and machines?

And if the gospel is just another example of human wisdom, then, to quote a rather infamous bishop, it must change or die.

Apply

Some of us feel that pressure don’t we? The bible is an old book. It’s 2024 for goodness sake!

Now, sometimes we do have to change our message because we realise we’ve misunderstood what God is saying. Often this is a brother or sister from another part of the church has graciously pointed out our blind spots.

There’s a book on my reading list called ‘misreading scripture with western eyes’. I haven’t read it yet, but the title alone says it all doens’t it? We white, middle class, westerners have a particular bias, a way of seeing the world, and often we bring that to the bible and it leads us to miss really important things or to twist the story.

Like in the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, African American Christians, Christians in the #ChurchToo movement pointed out it’s not a story of temptation, it’s a story of harassment. Sometimes we need to change our understanding of the bible because we’ve got the bible wrong.

And yesterday, we talked about the fact that sometimes we need to change the way we explain the gospel, because our culture is asking different questions - we need to make sure we’re showing how the gospel answers the questions of the 21st century, not the 20th.

But we can’t ignore the fact that we are under enormous pressure to change not just our understanding, or our presenation, but the story itself - to conform more to the culture of our day.

We’re not that different to the Galatians in this respect.

But, Paul says, the gospel isn’t wikipedia, it’s the Blues Brothers. He’s on a mission from God. With a message from God.

If God is capable of revealing the Truth about himself, then changing it, adding something to it, even just a little bit destroys it.

To treat it as just another human philosophy. Worse, just another example of the will to power.

Which brings us to the second ingredient.

1.2 THE gospel, not Paul’s gospel

Show

In verse 2, Paul mentions others that are with him, and in verse 7 and 8 as we read, he says clearly - there’s no other gospel. If anyone says otherwise let them be accursed.

Sounds hash, as we noted. But notice that he includes himself in this. If I tell you something else, let me be anthema - cut off.

Explain

See this is not some ego trip, some attempt to control everyone. Because while Paul is claiming that he is on a mission from God, with a message from God. He readily acknowledges that plenty of others are on this same mission.

When we talk about the gospel, I’m not talking about Matthew, Mark, Luke and John because they aren’t written yet. Paul is writing much earlier than that. When I say gospel, I dont’ mean the biographies of Jesus, I mean the actual content, the news of what God has done in Jesus. The big story.

But although the Gospels weren’t written yet, they do help us see that Paul is not ruling out different perspectives on what God has done in Jesus death for us.

If you read through all 4 gospels, you’ll notice they all emphasise different things. Mark writes mostly to Gentiles and so he doesn’t spend much time answering questions that Jews are interested in. Matthew on the other hand spends lots of time drawing connections to the Old Testament.

But also, if you read through the book of Acts, you’ll notice that when the apostles get up and preach the gospel, they say different things in different cities.

But it’s still the same gospel.

Paul doesn’t think he has a monopoly on the truth, or that he has personally figured it out - recall his own conversion - God had to knock him off his horse before he would hear the truth.

The point is that there is one gospel, but that gospel has enough facets, enough power, enough flexibility to speak to all kinds of people - and this will be a key theme in Galatians.

Illustration

Some of you may know the story of John Newton, the writer of the hymn amazing grace. Newton was an enslaver, a slave trader in fact. By his own accounts a horrible man. He was cut-throat, greedy. Often ripped people off. He could be violent. Even by the standards of his day, he was dodgy.

But when he heard someone tell him that Jesus died for sinners, that God loved the undeserving, the very worst of people, that in Jesus he was offering everyone no matter how chequered their past a fresh start and a new life of joy, it completely changed his life. The news that even when we have done shameful, evil things, that Jesus death cleanses us from them, and that we can be welcomed by God, forgiven, straightened out, given a fresh start, is beautiful. It is powerful. It led Newton to write Amazing Grace, it’s led some of us to upend our lives, change careers, give away our ill-gotten cash, and more.

And if you are wondering, how could God ever love me, or accept me? Given what I’ve done?

The answer is, it’s not about you, it’s about him.

Transition

This is the 3rd ingredient:

1.3 Gift, not merit

State

The flexibility of the gosple to speak to all kinds of people comes from the fact that it’s a gift!

Show

Galatians 1:3–4 (NRSV)

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,

Explain

Whether we feel guilty about our pasts or not, whether we have very obvious sins or hidden ones, the gospel is the news God has chosen to give us a gift - regardless of who we were.

Illustration - Grace to the ‘good’ people like Paul

Paul was a law abiding, moral, faithful Jew. He didn’t cheat people. He didn’t lie about them. He didn’t enslave people. He loved God, followed all the commandments, knew his bible, and was zealous God’s honour. In one sense, Paul is very opposite of John Newton.

The startling, scandalous thing is that Paul learned when Jesus knocked him off his horse, is that God gave the same gift of forgiveness of sins, and rescue to good Jews like Paul, and filthy pagans like the Galatians.

And if that’s true, it means that whatever pecking orders, whatever achievements we might have gained, however far we had climbed up the greasy pole in life, all of it is upended by the gospel.

This is what we were talking about last week with God reordering the world.

The one Gospel is good news to all types of people and as Paul will famously go on to say later in chapter 3, Jew or Gentile, men and women, slave or free. And we might add - ancient or modern.

That’s why he is so fierce in telling the Galatians that they must not become Jews.

And it’s also why we’ve got to resist bringing back the old pecking orders.

Apply - respectability

I wonder who you think is the least likely person to become a Christian.

We’ve been talking a lot about mission these past few months, we spent yesterday thinking about how we can create pathways for people out there in the community to come and encounter Jesus and come to faith. I wonder who you think is the least likely person to end up here, following Jesus with us? Who would surprise you most if they started coming to church and said, I want to become a Christian?

Whoever that person is, that’ you’ve got in mind. Ask yourself why? What makes it unlikely that God would call them?

On the other hand, who is the most likely person to end up here? Who do you think, ‘oh that person would definitely come to church if they knew we were here’?

Why?

What makes it more or less likely that someone would come to faith in Jesus? Is it something to do with how similar they are to us?

It’s revealing isn’t it?

Do we have heirarchy in our minds of who is closer or further from God.

What about this question: what makes it more or less likely that God would give someone a gift?

When he has said loudly, clearly in Jesus giving himself for our sins, gift not merit.

transition

1.4 Rescue, not enlightenment

Illustration

A few years after I got married I went sailing. I’d never done it before before but Laura’s Dad had this little 2 person lasser and I thought, ok, how bad could it be. Fast forward to me falling overboard and him having to kyack out to rescue me and safe to say I haven’t been sailing since.

I don’t tell that story often because it’s not really something I’m proud of.

And that’s the thing about needing rescue, it’s not something that looks good on your CV.

But look again at verse 4:

Show

Galatians 1:4 NRSV

who gave himself for our sins to set us free from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,

Explain

Plenty of people who think they’re enlightened look down on the unenlightened. But no one who has been rescued thinks they belong to some special club. They’re just grateful to the one who rescued them.