Galatians 1:1-10

Opening

Where is your happy place? That one corner of the world where, for a moment, it feels like everything is right — like a little slice of heaven breaking into earth.

Maybe for you, it’s a quiet spot on the back porch in the early morning, coffee in hand, when the world hasn’t quite woken up yet. Or maybe it’s the trail through the woods, where the only sound is your footsteps on the leaves and the birds singing overhead — and you can breathe deeper there than anywhere else. Maybe your happy place is curled up in your favorite corner of the couch, wrapped in a blanket, a good book or your favorite show, with no responsibilities pressing in for a while. Maybe it’s gathered around the dinner table, surrounded by people who really know you, where the conversation and laughter just seem to flow. Or maybe it’s out on the water, fishing pole in hand, with the sun setting low and no schedule to keep.

We all have those places — those moments when, even in a world full of chaos, we taste peace. We feel whole. It feels like how life is supposed to be.

But the thing about those places is, as good as they are, they’re often temporary. Life rushes back in. The phone rings. The to-do list calls. The moment slips away.

And if we're honest — it’s not just our schedules that disrupt those moments, it’s the world itself. We live in a world where peace feels fragile. Where people, families, communities, and even nations are constantly at odds. Where anxiety, pressure, conflict, and division feel like the default settings. And honestly — that’s not new.

The world Paul was writing to in Galatia wasn’t much different. It was a world full of competing powers, shifting loyalties, and deep divisions. Jews and Gentiles. Rich and poor. Roman citizens and outsiders. People weighed down by laws and customs, religious expectations, and political oppression. Everyone searching for meaning, identity, belonging, and peace — and trying to find it in a thousand different ways. (does that sound familiar?)

And right in the middle of that world, this new movement called the Way — the followers of Jesus — was starting to spread. And it got messy.

Different groups pulling in different directions.

People bringing in old traditions, new philosophies, cultural pressures.

Some trying to mix Jesus with law-keeping. Others trying to bend the Gospel to fit their lifestyle.

And Paul — this fired-up former Pharisee, now apostle — writes this letter, not just as a theological treatise, but as a passionate, urgent plea to hold on to the only thing that can truly bring peace in a world like this.

TRANSITION

And it all starts with a greeting.

Galatians 1:1–5 NIV

Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead—and all the brothers and sisters with me, To the churches in Galatia: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

So by means of backdrop this book is likely the oldest book in the NT. Which means this is the first letter from Paul we get. So when we begin to read this just like any other book it is important to understand a few things

1st. This was written to a people, and for a purpose.

I have seen many times and often feel a temptation to take what I read in the Bible and copy and paste it into right here an right now. The truth of the matter is there were real people, with real feelings, with real struggles and real life receiveing and sending these letters that make up 21 of the 27 books of the New Testament. That means that there is a reason that the letter was written. It isn’t a sharing of a quick meme on the internet. It took time and effort

2nd. This letter was written in context.

There were actual things happening in these churches, and young churches. Most of Paul’s letters are written to a church he planted. Which you can read those accounts of Paul’s missonary journey in Acts 13-14 and continuing in 16-20. What you will find in reading those chapters is that Paul had a method to his missonary journeys. He would come to a town. He would go to the synagoge and preach the gospel to the Hebrews. The hebrew leaders wouldn’t take kindly to his message, so Paul would preach the good news to the Gentiles. Then people would begin believing and begin to profess Jesus as savior, so then they would start holding seperate worship services.

The hebrew leaders would then get more upset and run Paul out of town with varying degrees of violence, and or malice. Paul would move on to another town and do the same.

So this means there would be churches that would be pretty young. For example Paul was only in Thessolanica for 3 weeks before being ran out of town.

So try to understand that the people who were in these churches and leading we also in the midst of reconstructing their faith, their community, and their worldview all while making a decision that would ostrisize them from their families.

3rd Paul cares deeply.

It is hard to miss this in Paul’s writtings espcailly this book of Galatians that comes out throwing haymakers and doesn’t stop. Paul cares deeply about Jesus, The Gospel and The church. He fights for all of these things with his very life.

He cares so much about those three things that he couldn’t help but write this letter to the churches in Galatia.

Illustration: The Weight of a Real Letter

Think about how easy it is to send a message today. A text. An email. A post on social media. It takes seconds — sometimes without much thought. And because it’s so easy, it’s easy to forget what it meant to write a letter in Paul’s day.

Writing a letter in the ancient world was a big deal. There was no clicking "send" — no overnight delivery. You didn’t just grab a pen and paper. You had to buy expensive parchment or papyrus, hire a scribe if you weren’t trained in writing, and then find a trustworthy messenger to carry your letter, often on foot or by ship, over dangerous roads or seas. And this wasn’t a quick note — it was the product of hours of thought, dictated words, and carefully chosen phrases. When Paul wrote to these churches, it cost him time, money, effort, and sometimes even risked his safety.

And here’s the thing — He did it because he loved them. Because he was desperate for them to stay true to the message of Jesus in a world pulling them in every other direction. Because these were real people, in real cities, with real struggles trying to follow Jesus while everything around them said not to.

So when we open Galatians, we aren’t scrolling through random internet opinions. We are reading the urgent, passionate words of a man fighting for people he loves and a gospel he would die for.

Look at the first 5 verses of this letter. In the first 5 verses we have an introduction as well claim of Paul’s position and qualifications as to why he can write such a letter, a decleration of Jesus being the Christ (messiah) and Jesus’ equatlity with God the Father, and a claim that Jesus rose from the dead. Then he prays for the churches he is writting to.

POWER IN THE TEXT

Galatians 1:1–5 NIV

Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead—and all the brothers and sisters with me, To the churches in Galatia: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Illustration:

You know, words have weight — not just because of what they literally say, but because of everything behind them.

Take this for example: “I have a dream.” Those four words are forever tied to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his vision for equality, justice, and freedom. When you hear it, you don’t just think about a speech — you think about civil rights, courage, and a hope that changed a nation.

Or how about this one: “Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica.” If you’ve ever watched The Office, you already know — that’s not just a list of random words. It’s a hilarious, iconic moment between Dwight and Jim that fans instantly recognize and laugh about. It carries years of quirky humor in just three words.

And finally, “He is risen.” To a Christian, those three words are everything. They’re not just a statement about what happened one Sunday morning. They are the heartbeat of our faith — hope, victory, life defeating death. When the church throughout history has said He is risen, it means the world is forever different.

See — we do this all the time. We take a few words, and because of the story, the history, and the meaning behind them and our experiences around them — they’re more than just phrases.

That’s exactly what Paul is doing when he opens his letter to the Galatians with “Grace and Peace.” To us it might sound like a polite greeting you may in fact skip right over & not thinking much of them — but to Paul, and to the early church, those words were loaded. They carried the whole weight of the gospel.

Grace and peace.

Now — those aren’t just polite church words. Grace and peace is one of my favorite phrases to talk about. I love it so much that I actually called Allison this week to see if I’d already preached on this before. She didn’t remember, so either I haven’t… or it wasn’t memorable enough. Either way — we’re diving back in. I learned this while teaching the small group through the book of Phillipians last year.

To best understand this concept its important to break down these words and then put them together

Grace is a churchy word that you may throw around, But here’s the thing —

Main Point

Grace isn’t just the ticket that gets you into the Christian life. It’s the fuel that keeps you going.

It’s not something you just receive once at the start, it’s something you need constantly.

Dallas Willard puts it like this: “The sinner is not the one who uses a lot of grace; the saint uses more grace. The saint burns grace like a 747 burns fuel on takeoff, because everything they do is a manifestation of grace.”

And I love this because it corrects something a lot of us — especially in evangelical circles — have quietly believed. That grace is what saved me, but now it’s up to me to figure out the rest. Willard calls that out: “Grace is not opposed to effort; it’s opposed to earning. Effort is action; earning is attitude.”

I had this quote printed out and put in my office for years. It is a reminder that everyday is a gift of grace, and that my access to new life each morning, each hour is because of grace. It reminds me that how I live out the life Christ has for me is through the means of Grace.

But Paul doesn’t just say “grace.” He says, “Grace and peace.” And peace — in the biblical sense — is so much bigger than we often think.

When Paul, a Jewish man, uses the word peace here, he’s tapping into the rich Hebrew idea of shalom. And shalom isn’t just the absence of conflict, it’s the presence of wholeness. It’s everything in its right place, everything as it was meant to be.

God is at the top with man under him, then man’s relationships with the world around him, his fellow man (woman) and with himself are all in complete unity and peace. Because things are how they are meant to be, things are how they were intended. The structure to God’s creation is intact.

But here’s the problem. At the fall, when sin entered the world, four major relationships broke — four places where peace, or shalom, was shattered:

Our relationship with God was broken — what was meant to be closeness and intimacy became distance and rebellion.

Our relationship with each other was broken — blame, pride, hatred, and division entered the picture.

Our relationship with ourselves was broken — we now wrestle with shame, fear, anxiety, and insecurity.

Our relationship with the world itself was broken — what was meant to be a place of provision and peace now resists us, with pain, toil, and suffering.

When Paul says “peace,” he’s talking about the restoration of all of that. Not just calm feelings. Not just the absence of war. But the healing of everything that sin fractured — through grace. Remember

Main Point

Grace isn’t just the ticket that gets you into the Christian life. It’s the fuel that keeps you going.

Which is why those two words — grace and peace — are inseparable. Because only grace can restore peace. Only grace can mend what sin has broken.

And so when we view grace as only the ticket to the christian life we are missing out on a large portion of the puzzle that God was creating. God wasn’t creating an escape for man, but instead a reorganization of themselves, and their position, and their role in creation. Bringing them, now part of the Church, the body, with Christ at the head, and then christ and the holy spirit through grace mending those fractures and healing them.

Transition to end.

What this means for us today is that we need to lean into grace. we need to find our way of being as Grace and peace. Christ wants to restore and bring peace to that which is broken and disjointed.

So here’s a practice for this week: A Daily Grace and Peace Check.

Each morning, take five minutes — before the noise, before the to-do list, before the phone starts buzzing — and pray through these four relationships:

God and me — Lord, am I trusting your grace today, or am I trying to earn my place?

Me and others — Where do I need to extend grace? Where is peace missing in my relationships?

Me and myself — Am I living under grace in how I see myself? Am I carrying shame or lies you didn’t give me?

Me and the world — Am I approaching my work, my struggles, my environment today through grace and peace?

End that prayer by simply saying: “Jesus, today let me live by grace, and be an agent of your peace.”

When you make a habit of naming what’s broken, you open the door for grace to heal it.

Closing:

Grace isn’t just the ticket that gets you into the Christian life. It’s the fuel that keeps you going. I was in my office this morning, praying and getting my heart and mind right before the Lord, and I was feeling very scattered and my mind was rushing so I reached for this book, which has a prayer devotion for each day of the year. I opened to today’s date and was suprised to see that it was about Peace. I want to close our time together reading this prayer. Would you all stand as I pray?

254 book of common prayer