Other Gospels Got You Down (Final Draft)

Scriptures:

A. Sermon Reading: Matthew 18:23-35

B. Sermon Text: Galatians 1:6-9

Introduction:

A. Revisiting the problem of the Law/Gospel Distinction

In my first sermon in the book of Galatians, I explained that Galatians is a perpetually relevant book because it deals with a perennial problem that plagues the Church — failure to properly distinguish the Law/Gospel.

To help us better understand the distinction I gave us some clear terms:

The Law is what God righteously requires.

The Gospel is what God graciously provides.

And when you collapse the law and the gospel you can find yourself in two errors.

I explained that if proper law/gospel distinction is a road, there are two ditches the Christian can drive into:

On the right — Legalism

Which means in someway you are saved by your works or at the least, your salvation is supplemented by obeying God’s Law.

On the left — Antinomianism (or anti-law)

Which means you don’t care about obeying God’s Law and you can sin as much as you want because Christ has paid for your sins anyway.

My plan today is to maintain this metaphor as we work through this paragraph in Galatians.

B. Road Map

(1) Driving into the ditch

(2) Calling the two truck

(3) Listening to backseat drivers

(4) Staying on the road

Read: Galatians 1:6–9

I. Driving into the ditch

A. The Galatians are crashing into the ditch of legalism

Galatians 1:6 “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—”

“I am astonished” is actually one word in the Greek — and it means “to marvel”

KIDS: I say Marvel and who or what comes to mind? — Superhero movies or comings/ Spider-man, Iron Man

Marvel is a great name for a comic book publisher because heroes astonish us, they cause us to marvel or wonder

You marvel at what your seeing: a man in a red and blue suit swinging through the skylines of New York

You’re eyes are seeing something that your brain is buffering and trying to comprehend.

This is the sentiment that Paul launches with right out of his greeting.

Paul is marvelling at what he’s heard about the Galatians…and it’s not a good kind of marvel.

The Galatians are deserting the Gospel of faith alone for a false Gospel of faith + works.

Why is that so astonishing?

Paul is so astonished because (as he says in verse 9) — He preached the Gospel to them and they received it, they believed it.

Paul is so astonished that they believed in the finished work of Christ but now are they are no longer resting in the finished work of Christ.

Paul is astonished that the Galatian churches have driven straight into the ditch of legalism.

B. Legalism

So what is legalism?

Legalism is when you collapse the Law and the Gospel and lose both.

Legalism is when you believe you must supplement Christ’s perfect obedience with your imperfect obedience.

Legalism is not purely following a set of rules in order to be saved — but rather the belief that your obedience to those rules plays a significant part in your salvation.

To be clear: God’s Law is what He righteously requires.

God requires personal, perfect, and perpetual obedience to His Law — which means that in order to be in right standing with God you must personally uphold God’s law perfectly…forever.

Listener, salvation is necessary because we cannot meet that requirement.

Our first parents, Adam and Eve, had the perfect circumstances to obey God’s Law according to this standard and they could not do it.

And because Adam failed — we are born into sin; with a proclivity to break God’s Law.

Meaning: that with our sinful nature inherited from Adam we are we are unable to obey God’s Law perfectly, from our conception to our caskets.

But the good news of the Gospel is that Christ the Law-giver became the Law-keeper and died for us Law-breakers.

In the Gospel, all of your Law-breaking is put upon Christ and His cross, and when you believe all of His law-keeping is credited to you — making Christ: Your Righteousness.

This means, dear Christian, that when God looks at you — He does not see your law-breaking, but rather Christ’s Law-keeping.

This is what theologians call: Justification.

Yet — the legalist distorts the Gospel by subverting the power of the finished work of Christ.

The legalist says the way of salvation requires both Christ’s obedience and the Christian’s obedience.

The legalist reads Christ’s declaration that “It is finished” as “It is finished for me — but not for you”.

Legalism doesn’t teach faith alone, it teaches “faith + works” and in so doing it transforms Christianity from being a blood bought covenantal relationship into a performance based sport.

And this is exactly what’s happening into Galatia.

False Teachers have infiltrated the churches of Galatia and began preaching a false gospel of legalism.

Scholars agree that these false teachers were Judaizers who were preaching precisely a false gospel of faith + works.

The FT’s came into these Gentile churches preaching that faith was not enough — they must also uphold God’s Law and be circumcised.

Paul makes it very clear in the text that legalism is completely incompatible with the grace of the Gospel.

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ”

The Galatians are abandoning the one who calls them in grace for those forcing them into works.

In the True Gospel — God calls you and Christ comes to seek and save the lost.

But in this false Gospel, Jesus only meets you halfway. The rest is up to you — the rest is up to how hard your willing to work.

Church — how on God’s footstool is that GOOD NEWS?

How can it possibly be Good News that my obedience is to save me from my disobedience?

It’s not.

That is why legalism is a false gospel and that makes it disastrous for the Galatians and disastrous for us.

Why? Because legalism makes your obedience the metric upon which you measure salvation and not the obedience of Christ.

C. Fallout from disaster

The fallout of crashing into the ditch of legalism is that you become just like the forgiven servant — you just have two victims instead of just one.

In our sermon reading we heard Jesus’s parable about a servant who owed an debt to the King and the King forgives that debt.

Yet — upon release the servant finds a fellow servant and chokes him out demanding payment.

The legalist acts like the forgiven servant but his first victim is himself.

He ignores the fact that his debt has been paid and when you crash into the ditch of legalism you ignore the fact that your debt has been paid in full — Christ has cancelled it.

But you choke yourself out trying to pay up.

Your second victim is everyone else.

Instead extending the gospel given to you, you give everyone else Law.

I would submit to you that maybe the reason your marriage has so much tension all the time is because you’re both acting like the unforgiven servant.

Ephesians 5 says Wives must submit to their husbands, and husbands must love their wives.

And this God’s good Law for married couples — it is the biblical standard.

But the Good news of the Gospel is that Christ submitted Himself to the Father and was obedient to to the point of death.

The Good News of the Gospel is that Christ loves the church and gave Himself up for her.

Husbands and wives would do well to stop choking each other out and resting in the fact that both of your debts have been cancelled by your king.

I implore you to give each other the Gospel every single day.

Obviously, we should seek to obey God’s Law out of gratitude — but the measure of salvation is not your submission to your Husband, but it’s in Christ’s submission to His father.

Husbands, the measure of your salvation isn’t in how manly you are or how much you love your wife — it’s in Christ giving Himself for His bride.

Maybe the reason your both so exhausted is that you’ve both driven into the ditch of legalism and you’ve deserted the one who’s grace is sufficient for you.

If that’s the case I have great news for you.

E. The car isn’t totaled you’re just stuck

The bad news is that you’ve driven into the ditch of legalism, but the good news is: your car isn’t totaled.

Ironically, legalism would try to convince you that the only way out would be to do it yourself to try and pull your own car out of this ditch on your own.

But really — what you need to do is call a tow truck.

II. Calling the Tow Truck

A. Galatians 1:7 - There is only one Gospel

The Apostle Paul is very clear: There is only one Gospel.

And what is the Gospel? The Gospel is what God graciously provides.

The Gospel is that the Lord Jesus Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, was dead and buried, and rose again on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures.

The Gospel is that all of your failures as man or a woman, as a husband and a father, as a wife and a mother, as a son and a daughter are put upon Christ and all of His perfection is applied to you.

In the false gospel of legalism not only is all the goodness of God’s Law lost, but so are all of the benefits of Christ and His true Gospel.

And the cure to this isn’t more Law — it’s the Gospel.

The cure to getting out the ditch isn’t trying to pull your car out with your bear hands — it’s calling the tow truck to get you back on the road.

B. The Gospel Cure

The Gospel is the cure to legalism.

The Gospel of Jesus brings freedom:

Galatians 5:1 “For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.”

Christ has the Galatians free — and yet that have submitted again to a yoke of slavery.

I implore you to not do the same.

Christ has set you free — so don’t submit yourself again to a yoke a slavery.

Romans 3:20 “For by works of the law no human being will be justified in his sight,”

The Law cannot save you, only Christ can.

This Gospel cure is what your family needs.

If your home is ruled by legalism — give each other the Gospel as much as possible.

Don’t be forgiven servants choking each other out.

Instead — rest in Christ and forgive one another because you have been forgiven.

C. Sounds like antinomianism to me

Now maybe you’re hearing this and saying to yourself: “this sounds like antinomianism to me” or “this sounds pretty ‘anti-law’”.

It’s actually the opposite.

Galatians 5:13 “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”

You’re freedom in Christ is sure — but do not use that freedom to gratify the flesh.

Don’t use that freedom to ignore God’s Law.

Rather, use your freedom to obey God’s Law.

Proper Law/Gospel distinction helps you to use God’s Law lawfully (1 Timothy 1:8).

In fact — one of the gifts of the New Covenant is a renewal of the Law being written upon your hearts.

Jeremiah 31:31–34 ““Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.””

The New Covenant is proper Law/Gospel distinction.

The NC promise is that God will write anew His Law upon the hearts of believers AND that He forgives and forgets your sin.

Put Jeremiah 31 together with Ezekiel 36:27 which says, “And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules” and you’ve got the New Covenant promise that the Spirit that saves you and indwells you will teach you and empower you to obey God’s Law.

Practically this looks like reading 1 Corinthians 16:13 “Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.”

And see this is as God’s Good Law.

We men ought to act like men — and we are empowered by the Holy Spirit to do so out of gratitude and forgiven by Christ for when we fail to obey this command.

III. Listening to backseat drivers

Now we have to ask — how exactly did the Galatians end up in the ditch of legalism in the first place?

We know the answer: they started listening to backseat drivers — they started listening to false teachers.

A. Galatians 1:7-9 — Troublesome Distorters

Galatians 1:7 “but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.”

Is there anything that can grate on your nerves like a backseat driver?

The number one distraction for drivers is probably their cell phones — and the second distraction is your backseat drivers.

Backseat drivers are constantly trying to give you better directions and tell you how to drive.

And I think we can all agree — backseat drivers don’t help, they cause issues.

And precisely what happened to the Galatians is that they were driving on the road of Law/Gospel distinction and they started listening to the direction and input of backseat drivers and drove straight into the ditch of legalism.

The difference between our real backseat drivers is they are not trying to cause trouble, they don’t wan to cause harm.

But these false teachers do.

Paul writes that those troubling the Galatians WANT to distort the Gospel.

They want to take the clear Gospel of Grace and distort it into a gospel of legalism.

Want — Greek: WISH; to desire strongly

This is no accident — they WANT to distort the gospel — it’s their wish.

Distort — Greek: alter, or change; the sense for something to take on new characteristics.

Guitar pedal analogy — the Distortion Pedal

The False Teachers have distorted God’s gospel and collapsed the Law (what God requires) and the Gospel (what God provides) and created something that doesn’t sound like the original.

These back seat drivers, these false teachers are adding new characteristics to the Gospel that aren’t consistent with what Paul preached and what the Galatians received.

And because they are preaching this false Gospel — they are accursed or anathema.

B. Be careful with who you let give you directions

Galatians 1:8–9 “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. 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.”

This matter is so serious — Paul says it twice.

Martin Luther: “Here, Paul ignites flames with his words, and his zeal burns so intensely that he almost curses the angels themselves. He says, ‘Even if we ourselves, my brothers Timothy, Titus, and I, and all who preach Christ in His purity together with me or an angel from heaven announces another good news, then let all of us, beginning with me, my colleagues, and even the heavenly angels, be cursed by God! Let all of us be under God’s curse, but let not my good news be overthrown!”

Paul doesn’t care who it is or what they are — if they preach a different Gospel, they are accursed.

It could be them, or even an angel (a divine messenger) — but if they preach a different Gospel, they are anathema.

Anathema — the Greek word for accursed is a deadly serious word (it’s not a junk-drawer word you just throw around).

Anathema is such a serious word we must be careful who we listen to and who we anathematize.

Careful with who you listen to:

Church be cautious with who you let pour into your life — this is probably a greater threat than it has ever been.

With the advent of youtube and podcasts (and I guess that just anyone can start their own publishing company) we are letting a multitude of potentially anathematized voices into our lives.

This means we must be careful with who we take directions from — be watchful with who you let in your backseat.

Listen to everything and everyone critically and ask yourself does this sound like good directions?

This is why its so important to know your bible well and to read with the clear lenses of the proper Law and the Gospel distinction.

Practically speaking — the easiest way to do this is: read dead people and old books.

CS Lewis points out in his forward to “On the Incarnation” by Athanasius (a book sourced to around 328 AD) that the benefit of old books is that they’ve had time to be sourced out and investigated by generations and if it’s still standing the test of time — that’s a good indicator.

Doesn’t mean every book is perfect — i’ve never read a single book in all my years where I have agreed with every word by the author.

Careful with who you anathematize

In your zeal, don’t forget that anathema isn’t a junk-drawer word — don’t anathematize everyone who disagrees with you on non-gospel issues.

Do we anathematize Arminians? Presbyterians? Non-reformed baptists? People who vote differently? People who make different medical-related choices?

The irony is if you say yes — then you’re actually slipping into legalism.

You are subliminally distorting the gospel!

IV. Staying on the Road

I have one final application for you today: Look to Jesus.

If you want to stay on the road — keep your eyes on Christ.

Look to Jesus when you’ve failed to uphold His Law again.

Look to Jesus when you’ve failed as a wife or a husband.

Look to Jesus when you’re husband or wife has failed you.

All have fallen short of the glory of God except one man and He gave Himself for you and He gives you His righteousness.