Week 1 (Tainted truth)

Announcements:

intro:

Q: What is one of your Favorite movies? (One) and if you cant Think of one whats your go-to snack or food.

A: One of my favorite movies is the movie inception

How many of us have seen that movie by raise of hands?

In this movie, the main character goes into someone’s dream to change what they’re gonna do with their life

And in the end of the movie, it talks about his wife, and he and his wife became trapped in this dream world, three levels, deep a dream inside a dream inside a dream

And to escape he placed this thought in his wife’s mind that the world wasn’t real so that they would leave

But the problem was when they left this slight doubt this thing that you did this thought that he placed to be began to consume her

And once they were in the real world, she still thought it wasn’t real

And long story short, this wrecked her life and her husband’s life

And today in our passage, we are going to look at just a small deviation, a small change to the gospel

what we believe about, Jesus can drastically change and destroy our faith

With that sad, let’s go ahead and Pray

Pray:

Text:

Galatians 1:1–10 ESV

1 Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2 and all the brothers who are with me, To the churches of Galatia: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. 6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. 10 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Today we’re starting our series in Galatians. What do we know about the book of Galatians?

Galatians is written by Paul and it’s widely considered to be one of the first of his epistles or at least one of his earlier ones

We know that Paul had planted this church in Galacia and we receive this in ACTS chapter 13

Paul was not in prison WHEN HE WROTE THIS EPISTLE

Now with that background in mind, what stands out to you?

Have you spent a lot of time in Galatians before?

Before we Breakdown everything versed by verse is there anything that sticks out to you guys?

What do you see what’s going on? How is this letter different from the rest of Paul’s letters? What is some of the background that we know about?

Galatians 1:1–10 (ESV) 1 Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— 2 and all the brothers who are with me, To the churches of Galatia: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

In this greeting, we see Paul begin with the usual introduction, introducing himself

But I find that this introduction is a little bit different than the other introductions in Ephesians or Colossians

Paul begins with who he is, and then clearly defines who Christ is clearly defines who his master is and clearly defines the gospel truth of God

He talks about Jesus, being raised by the power of God after his death and burial

He extends peace from the same God and father and Jesus Christ

And he makes it clear the purpose of Jesus on the cross, giving himself for sin, and that this is according to God’s eternal and holy will

And then turns all of that to the glory of God and no one else

But I find that there’s something missing what is missing in this introduction?

What don’t we see???

What we don’t see is Paul extending the message of prayer the declaration of his unending concern in prayer for them

He keeps his intro, more, concise, theologically deep and to the point

Why do you think that is?

Have you ever had something urgent come up something distressing time sensitive or just overall life-changing?

And in the rush or urgency of the information you reached out to somebody for help or reach out to somebody to help you skip the pleasant trees instead of saying

Hey I hope you’re doing well. How are the kids? Oh by the way

You say hey I heard this is happening. How can I help?

Or Hey this happen I need you right now!!!

Often times when something is urgent, it becomes more concise

We go straight to the point right to the punch and try to bring clarity, healing, or truth for faster

This is what’s happening with Paul. He’s GETTING right to the point right away Because the gospel is the most important thing in Christianity

The truth of Jesus is the most important foundational truth in Christianity

So it leads me to the question what is the gospel???

Because we’re gonna see Paul talk about it in verse six and throughout the rest of the passage

What is the gospel that Paul is referring to???

6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

What does it mean to be astonished?

To be astonished, is to be an all to be surprised to be overcome with some level of confusion

Often sometimes you’ll see these married couples or dating couples that look so happy and excited and joyful, and then all of a sudden they break up and people are astonished

Often times we even see this in the church we see strong, spiritual leaders, men who preach the word, and then all of a sudden they announce their faith and people are astonished

At church this Sunday, I was talking to one of my student students and They saw that I was with my girlfriend, and they were astonished to see that she was real LOL

When is the time that you have been astonished?

What does it mean to desert something?

Have you ever run from something that you thought you wanted?

Have you ever quickly ran away or seen someone run away from something very very quickly

The desert something is to completely up and move to run away

In the book of Jonah, the prophet was told to go to a city of wickedness and evil and preach Hope and forgiveness

And Jonah quickly deserted his post, deserted his mission and ran away from his calling

Have you ever deserted something? Have you ever run away from something?

Paul is speaking about that. He is surprised he’s taking it back that these people who he poured his life into spoke to preached to and prayed for have turned away from what he wants to.

Have turned away from what?? From Grace

And what did they turn to???? A different gospel

Where are times that we’ve seen people in scripture turn away from truth to a lie???

The Israelites

How many of us remember the Story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt?

In this Old Testament story, we see Moses through the power of God lead the people of Israel out of the slavery of Egypt

And often times it’s repeated the Lord your God who brought you out of Egypt when God speaks…

But when Moses went away from the people for a while, and there is distance, and there is turmoil that people turned away from God and made an idol

They made a dead golden calf to worship and they said this

Exodus 32:4 ESV

4 And he received the gold from their hand and fashioned it with a graving tool and made a golden calf. And they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt!”

You notice that Israel twists the truth of them being rescued from Egypt and replacing it with this dead golden calf

And I know many of us in this room think oh that’s real life they’re stupid they’re idiots. My question is how often do we do this ourselves?

We look at what God has done in our life and then we twist the story instead of giving glory to God “we say

“it was coincidence” “It just worked out that way”

“That wasn’t really God that was me”

The rejection of the gospel the rejection of God doesn’t happen all of a sudden

To abandon to quickly leave, the faith is a slow transition filled with many unanswered questions, twisted thoughts and rewritten truths

We are called to be watchful over what we listen to over who we obey and the ultimate standard is the Bible

Our standard is not our emotions

Our standard is not our experience

Our standard is not what our parents have told us or what social media tells us it is scripture…

And Paul addresses the importance of checking our foundation in first Corinthians

1 Corinthians 10:12 ESV

12 Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.

What this means is if you’re in this room and you think not, that’s not my problem. I’m OK.

I don’t have any areas where I’m off. I know all the scripture. I understand the gospel inside and out. I’m OK I’m not gonna drift. I’m not gonna walk away from the Faith.

Paul says to be careful saying that because you will fall… That’s what pride before the fall means…

We must humbly return to the gospel daily, reminding ourselves of who Jesus is what he has done and what that means for other people

And I don’t think we realize the impact that the gospel has on other people… Are removed are we grieved when we hear about people that fall away?

When we hear about people that have this believe or claim this belief and then they walk away when they become young adult adults are we grieved by that???

Because Paul is grieved that the church in Galacia is turning away from the truth of the gospel

And he makes it clear that this isn’t something new. It’s not another gospel, but it’s something that’s been distorted and twisted by false teachers.

Did God really say?

Did Jesus really do that?

Did Jesus pay for all of your sins?

Don’t you have to do something to?

Don’t you have to earn it?

God can’t really love you

God doesn’t really love you

You weren’t lovable

God didn’t really change your life. That was just coincidence.

So on and so forth, these things erode the foundation of the gospel

These lies will take us down just like it was taking down the church in Galatia

We must have our foundation be rooted in scripture Because It is how we discern what’s true and false about God and that’s what Paul points at in verse 8

8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. 10 For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.