Galatians 1

Welcome/Series Intro

Hello my friends! Welcome to Prairie Lakes. So glad that you’re here—especially on this weekend, because:

We’re kicking off a new series, walking through Galatians.

And lots of us have jumped into small groups to carry the conversations further each week.

And we’ve produced a series of videos for you to help guide those conversations…

And I’ve written/our team has produced this book as a companion study for you…

And I’m just genuinely excited for you to take this journey with us over these next several weeks.

Now this is just how my brain works, but…

Here we are at the end of September,

Leaves still on the trees,

Temps still in the 70s and 80s,

Crops still up.

But by the time we’re done in Galatians, it’ll be the first week of November,

And most of the leaves will have fallen,

Along with the temps outside.

And that’s something that is beautiful about this part of the world and this part of our country:

We get to see the seasons change—dramatically—right before our very eyes.

And whether you’re someone who just can’t wait for the fall,

Or you’re someone who is already missing the long, warm days of summer (and I’ve got both types living in my house):

Don’t miss this reminder that God gives us every 3 months or so around here as these seasons change:

He created this world.

It spins according to his design.

Spring turns to summer, turns to fall, turns to winter, then back to spring, every year.

He’s got it. He’s in charge.

And we can just sit back and rest in that knowledge. That’s not lazy or ignorant. That’s reality and humility.

So I hope you give yourself permission to do just that as we walk through Galatians over these next several weeks together. Because while it’s a pretty challenging book, it’s challenging in a really hopeful, the-seasons-change-but-God’s-still-God kind of way.

Weekend Intro: Paul’s (Non)Standard Opening

I made this joke to our staff Executive Team this week, but what I said was that technically I am a “#1 best-selling author” (technically)—

If we’re talking about Prairie Lakes authors who have sold their books to Prairie Lakes people.

No Prairie Lakes authors have sold more books to Prairie Lakes people than me. That’s true.

In fact, now that I think about it, by those same parameters, I’m actually the #1 best selling author of all time.

And you can’t take that away from me. (Please don’t.)

With way more sincerity:

I am so grateful to have a job that allowed me the opportunity to write that book. And have been moved by some of the stories I’ve already heard as I’ve heard from some of you who have been gracious enough to crack it open and start reading.

But I got a text message from some guy at our New Hampton campus who was reading the book. And actually, this guy sent me some pictures from a couple of different parks up there. Here’s what he sent:

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Show (2) pictures of metal merry-go-rounds

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If you’re from our New Hampton campus, you won’t be surprised when I tell you that the person who sent me those images was none other than our favorite grain bin salesman, Mr. Joe Holschlag.

And if you’ve jumped into the book, you’ll know why he did:

I tell a story in there of trying to jump on one of these things as a kid when it was spinning just way too fast.

And that’s kinda what it feels like when you jump into Galatians and start reading the first few verses. It feels like jumping on a metal merry-go-round spinning at 100 miles per hour.

The guy that wrote it was a guy named Paul—and he wrote it as a letter to the churches he planted in the region of Galatia, which is modern-day Turkey.

We’ve got a number of Paul’s letters; they make up the majority of our New Testament.

And because we have so many, we can kind of see that Paul often follows a predictable outline at the top of each letter. He’s got a standard opening. It usually goes something like this:

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Paul’s standard opening:

From _____

To _____

Pastoral Greeting

Thanksgiving/Blessing

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(Explain.)

For example, look at how he opens up in his letter to the Roman churches:

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Romans 1:1 “Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God—”

Romans 1:7 “To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be his holy people: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Romans 1:8 “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world.”

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So that’s Rome. And the letter to the Romans is where we get some of Paul’s deepest theology but also practical ways to live that theology out as Jesus’ church—

Which is very different from why he wrote another one of his letters (several letters, as a matter of fact) to the churches in Corinth.

If you read 1 or 2 Corinthians, you’ll see that they were screwing it up in just about every way. They were doing some really bad, really dark stuff that he needed to confront.

But even in what ends up being a mostly disciplinary letter, they would have opened it up and began reading it with the same pastoral approach and tone:

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1 Corinthians 1:1–4 “Paul, called to be an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and our brother Sosthenes, To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be his holy people, together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.”

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So there it is. There’s the standard. Regardless of the content of the rest of the letter, he opens it up in the same way—

Except for the fast-spinning metal merry-go-round opening of Galatians.

To them, he starts his letter like this:

An Aggressive, Defensive “From”

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Galatians 1:1 “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—”

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So in his “from” part of this opening, he introduces himself in a way that is somewhere between aggressive and defensive. It’s aggressive defense. Full court press.

And what he’s referring to in this “from” part of his opening here is the story of his conversion. It’s how he came to follow Christ. Which we get in the book of Acts.

In fact, you can hear Paul tell his story in his own words, because someone had the foresight to grab the court-recorded defense Paul himself made at his trial.

Listen to Paul’s own account of his conversion. Here’s his story that he’s reminding the Galatians of:

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Acts 22:1–3 “Brothers and fathers, listen now to my defense.” When they heard him speak to them in Aramaic, they became very quiet. Then Paul said: “I am a Jew, born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this city. I studied under Gamaliel and was thoroughly trained in the law of our ancestors. I was just as zealous for God as any of you are today.”

Acts 22:4–5 “I persecuted the followers of this Way to their death, arresting both men and women and throwing them into prison, as the high priest and all the Council can themselves testify. I even obtained letters from them to their associates in Damascus, and went there to bring these people as prisoners to Jerusalem to be punished.”

Acts 22:6–8 “About noon as I came near Damascus, suddenly a bright light from heaven flashed around me. I fell to the ground and heard a voice say to me, ‘Saul! Saul! Why do you persecute me?’ “ ‘Who are you, Lord?’ I asked. “ ‘I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied.”

Acts 22:9–10 “My companions saw the light, but they did not understand the voice of him who was speaking to me. “ ‘What shall I do, Lord?’ I asked. “ ‘Get up,’ the Lord said, ‘and go into Damascus. There you will be told all that you have been assigned to do.’

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So Paul opens up his letter to the Galatians by essentially reminding them:

I’m a Christian not because of what some other Christian told me about Christ. I’m a Christian because Christ himself appeared to me and then commissioned me in a very different direction.

I wasn’t sent to you by some guy, but by the Son of God himself.

Paul’s using “dad voice” here in verse 1. Hey! Listen!

A Short “To”

So that’s his “from.”

And then he goes on to the next part of his standard opening—which we’ll remember is the “to” part, in verse 2:

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Galatians 1:2 “…To the churches in Galatia:”

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That’s it.

That’s all they get in his “to” section. I’m talking to you.

Not “to those of you who are loved by God” like he said to the Romans.

Not “to those of you who are sanctified in Christ” like he said to the Corinthians.

No. Just… you.

Still Your Pastor

But then interestingly, he moves into the next part of his opening, which is his pastoral greeting, in a more normal, familiar way—which I think is purposeful. Verse 3:

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Galatians 1:3 “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ…”

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We’re gonna talk more about this in the coming weeks, but that word “grace” isn’t going to just appear here in the greeting; that word is actually the theme of the whole letter. It comes up time and time again.

And we’ll unpack it more in the next few chapters. But let me just give you a simple definition of that word, “grace,” here:

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God’s Grace: a gift given to you that you are unable to ever give yourself.

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As a kid, when I was taught what grace means in the Bible, it was defined to me as “undeserved, unearned kindness.” And that’s true.

But I think a more biblical definition of grace that is closer to what God’s grace is to us is this:

It’s not just a gift that is undeserved and unearned.

It’s a gift that we could never deserve or earn.

Even if we spent the rest of our lives; we couldn’t.

In fact (and this is what the whole book of Galatians is about):

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God’s Grace: a gift given to you that you are unable to ever give yourself.

The more we try to deserve it,

And the more we try to earn it,

The further away we are from receiving it.

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Have you ever had someone in your life that just so desperately wanted to be your friend or to be in your circle that it made you unable to actually be their friend? Someone who is so deeply insecure about their status with you that they constantly check-in with you or flatter you or kinda passively and even manipulatively try to solicit your approval?

True friendship—authentic friendship—is an act of grace. It’s a gift.

It can’t be earned. And it’s built only as it’s freely given and just as freely received.

And that’s what Paul is reminding them of here in his pastoral greeting—which he expounds further upon in verse 4. Here’s how God’s gracious gift to us looks in Jesus:

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Galatians 1:4 “who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father…”

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So, just track along with me here. In the opening of his letter, Paul’s actually building a case:

He starts in with “Remember how I introduced myself to you. Remember my story; remember who I am:

I am someone who was going 180 degrees in the opposite direction of where God wanted me to go.

But God himself—God in the flesh—while I was going in the wrong direction, turned me around. I am who I am because of God’s direct intervention… which is a gift of grace.

I was doing everything wrong. I was a murderer. But in a moment, God made me a missionary.

I didn’t turn myself around and then experience God. I experienced God, then got turned around.

And, remember, my Galatians friends: that’s what grace is. God didn’t save me because I was heading in his direction. He saved me as I was heading in the wrong direction. Jesus, first on the cross, and then on that road, did for me what I was never going to be able to do for myself.

Just like a dirty washcloth can’t clean itself, you and I can’t clean ourselves up.

That’s grace—and Paul says God’s grace is our only true source of peace. When we accept that we can’t, but that Jesus did, there’s peace. There’s peace in that surrender.

I don’t need to be insecure about my relationship with God—because I can’t do anything to make my relationship with him more or less secure. I can’t curry God’s favor. Grace can’t be earned; it can only be given.

No Thanks For A Different Gospel

Now remember: there’s usually a fourth part of Paul’s standard opening—which is thanksgiving.

But that simply doesn’t exist in his opening to the Galatians. In fact, thanksgiving gets overwritten gets entirely.

Rather than a “thanksgiving” for them, here’s what he says about them—verse 6:

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Galatians 1:6–7 “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.”

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(The “one” they are deserting is Paul—because he was the one who called them to live in that grace.”)

I gave you a definition of grace; now let me give you a definition of that word “gospel”—because that is also going to be a theme in this letter:

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Gospel = Good News

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And I’ll unpack exactly what kind of good news we’re talking about in a second. But just hang with me here—because this word gospel didn’t start out as a churchy word at all.

80 years and just a few months ago, every single newspaper headline in America and across the globe read exactly the same:

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That’s an iconic image now. V-E day. Victory in Europe day. The day was May 8, 1945—the day the German forces formally surrendered to the Allies, ending what we now know as World War II.

The tyranny and terror that first a region, than an entire continent, and then the entire world lived under for years…

The reality of bombs dropping from the sky at any point,

Submarines attacking cities,

Mustard gas,

Whole races and people groups being potentially wiped out under the false righteousness of fascism,

The sleepless nights wondering if your son or your husband was going to come home or be lying dead or missing at the bottom of the ocean or on foreign soil—

Good news! Those days are over.

That’s this word, gospel. Good news. Like, “V-E”-level good news.

In fact, it was used in exactly the same way back then; back in Paul’s day:

A soldier would bring “good news” back home about battles won abroad. Or your Senator would bring back “good news” from new legislation they got passed to help your part of the empire.

Remember back in the days of the pandemic, when it was only bad news all the time? Just 24/7 the world is ending? Some of you might remember during that time that the actor, John Krasinski, of TV’s “The Office” fame, started his own little YouTube show called “Some Good News.” It got so popular that he eventually sold it to CBS for an undisclosed but significant amount of money.

It was like an oasis of good news in a desert of bad.

That’s the gospel. That’s the Good News.

It’s “no more fear of being bombed.”

It’s “we won.”

It’s “there’s something actually going right” when it seems like everything else is going wrong.

It’s good news.

And it’s a word Paul commandeers to describe…

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Gospel = Good News

The news of what Jesus said to us and did for us.

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That’s the gospel.

It’s what Jesus said when he said “the kingdom is near.” Let me show you what life is like when all of life submits to the rule of God.

It’s what Jesus said when he said “I am the Good Shepherd.”

It’s what Jesus said when he said “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

It’s what Jesus said when he said “I am going to prepare a place for you—but I’m coming back for you.”

It’s what he said to his Father in heaven about those who were crucifying him: “Father, forgive them—for they know not what they are doing.”

It’s what he said to the criminal hanging next to him when he said, “Truly I tell you: today you will be with me in paradise.”

All of that is the gospel. All of those words that Jesus spoke that are such good pieces of news for us.

But the gospel is also what Jesus did. Everything that he said that was good news for us became good news for us when he died on the cross for us. When God placed the penalty of all of our sin on the purity of his own Son.

When Jesus took those sins with him to the grave, depositing them in hell forever, sealed by the just and perfect sacrifice of his own blood and not ours.

And when God raised him from the dead, pointing to an eternity where death no longer has to be the end of our story.

That’s also the gospel. Not just what Jesus said to us, but what he did for us.

And it’s all Jesus. All of it.

The gospel isn’t about you.

It’s for you. But it’s not about you—what you’ve done that you shouldn’t have, or what haven’t done that you should.

The gospel is about Jesus. What he did. For you.

Eighty years ago, millions of people across the world read that headline—and believed it. And rejoiced because of it.

They weren’t the ones who secured the victory. But they believed that victory had been secured for them. They believed the gospel that emblazoned the headlines that day.

And this is what the Galatians did, and how they responded to Paul’s gospel about Jesus initially—at least when he first came to their towns and synagogues.

But now…

Now:

Paul stands in accusation over them.

Because they’ve stopped reading his headline,

And are in the process of reading a different headline entirely—

A headline that Paul says isn’t good news at all.

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And so for the next 5 weeks, we’re going to be looking at this:

What is this true gospel?

What is this “different” gospel that really isn’t good news at all?

Who was promoting that, and why was it so easy to start reading a different headline?

I hope you are able to take this journey with us. Let me pray over it right now.