Sermon Tone Analysis

Greeting

Let us begin our time together this morning with a reading of God’s Word.

Please open your Bible’s to the third Psalm.

1 LORD, how are they increased that trouble me! many are they that rise up against me. 2 Many there be which say of my soul, There is no help for him in God.

Selah. 3 But thou, O LORD, art a shield for me; my glory, and the lifter up of mine head.

4 I cried unto the LORD with my voice, and he heard me out of his holy hill.

Selah.

5 I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the LORD sustained me.

6 I will not be afraid of ten thousands of people, that have set themselves against me round about.

7 Arise, O LORD; save me, O my God: for thou hast smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone; thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly.

8 Salvation belongeth unto the LORD: thy blessing is upon thy people.

Selah.

Pray

Well it is good to be with you all this morning to say the least.

This last week has been a blessing and I am looking forward to the days to come when some of the things that come with moving are done and we can sit back and really begin to enjoy being here.

I forgot last week with everything that was going on to say thank you to every one for your care towards my family during our transition time.

It really meant a lot for us to be so cared after and I’m confident that we have never eaten so good in my life.

It really was nice to know that while I was back in Kansas City for those two weeks that my family was well taken care of.

So that was my little note of appreciation and there’s plenty more I could say but I’m gonna be talking a lot today anyway so I hold my voice.

We have many announcements today, some of which were things that from a practical standpoint just make sense and others that might not but rest assured, if you have any questions please feel free to ask about them.

I talked a lot with the leadership about the idea of firming up some things in the area of accountability.

Several changes are taking place and others will be taking place in the future.

Talk about financial accountability and the need for a CPA.

Talk about the need for accountability within the body for Children and Teenagers.

Talk about the need for accountability within the body f or Children and Teenagers.

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Church cleaning position/two fold

Memorial Day stuff Men here at 7, stop working around 12 for family cookout.

Sign up sheet

I would like for you to invite some of the people who no longer come here as well.

If there are no other announcements, let’s go to the Lord in Worship.

Introduction

As we were going through some of the initial getting settled phases of moving down here and pondering over what books of the Bible might best serve the Church at the very start I had originally thought that maybe 2 Corinthians might make for a good place to begin.

However, as time moved on and more and more details of who Kirkwood Baptist Church is as a body of God’s set apart people is, I began thinking that maybe 2 Corinthians might not be the right place to begin.

Maybe as a Church we could all be most edified by looking at Paul’s letter to the Church in Galatia.

So with that in mind I approached the leadership here to see what their thoughts might be and it seemed as though we all stood in agreement that this letter could greatly benefit us as a body of believers.

As we begin our study, we have several questions we always need to keep in the forefronts of our minds and though they may seem basic, they help us to really grab ahold of what and who is being addressed in this passage and in light of that we then gain the ability to see how a particular passage of Scripture applies to our own lives.

Now I haven’t found an easier way to lay this out so that a person doesn’t feel as if they’re being talked down to but rest assured that is not my intention and you’ll understand that statement more here in a second.

When we read our Bible’s it is always important to ask 5 questions before grabbing application.

This is going to sound child like but it’s “Who, What, Where, When and Why.”

Now trust me, I’m sure all of you already know this and I’m not going to personally ask those questions from up here at all.

But it might surprise you to know that most of the time, since we are reading the Word of God, we fail to ask those questions.

We get it into our minds that since this Word is living and active and sharper than any two edge sword, we fail to recognize some of the basics of literature when we read our Bibles.

So once again, trust me when I say that is not meant negative.

I personally have done this and occasionally still do it.

When something seems to get to be too much for me I would quote “I can do all things through Christ Jesus whom strengthens me.”

Although I’m positive in most cases it doesn’t apply to that instance, I still find myself doing this.

So prayerfully with a little gentle guidance and love we can work through that with one another to keep each other from misapplying Scripture to our lives.

I also know we talked at one point early on about always needing to grab and understand the historical context of the Scripture we’re reading and going through this is one thing that will help us to do that.

So with that in mind as we begin our series through Galatians, I want to ask and answer three questions for us to begin with.

Who were the Galatians?

When did Paul write to them?

And why did he write to them?

Now I would like for you to rest assured that I am not trying to ask academic minded questions when I bring these up, my goal is merely to faithfully preach the Bible and understand it properly within it’s right context and application for us today.

Often times when we don’t do this we find ourselves maybe not necessarily twisting Scripture but misapplying it to our own lives for sure.

Well with all this in mind, let’s open up our copy of God’s Word and turn to .

Now I make no promises of getting through this introduction here this morning but I wouldn’t feel in bad company as MacArthur took 45 minutes to just begin talking about Galatians so I wouldn’t feel bad being in good company.

Well let’s read the Word here and go to the Lord in Prayer.

Read and Pray.

So as we begin this study of Paul’s letter to the Galatians, the first thing I would like to do is establish a timeline of when it was written.

There are multitudes of Scholars who place the letter as being a late letter.

What I mean by that is that they would place this letter in the late 60’s of the first century.

There are also other scholars who would place Galatians in the early 40’s of the first century.

Now I hold to an early view on when it was written and that is for several reasons.

One of which concerns Paul’s lack of using the Jerusalem Council to defend his position on salvation by grace and faith alone.

Now just as a reminder of what I’m talking about on the Jerusalem council.

This is that section in where certain men had crept in to the Church and they attested to the work that God had done in their lives in the way of salvation.

The Church and the Elders received them into the body, yet there had arose among them some Pharisees who claimed that it was needful for a man to be circumcised and also to keep the entirety of the Law of Moses.

When the Elders found about this, they and the Apostles got together to see what it is that they should say to them and the end result was a little set of commands and it surely did not include circumcision.

It actually only included a few things that would keep Jews and Gentiles from being offended with each other.

We will get into more of those details later on through this letter but for the moment, I just want to cover some of the reasoning for dating this letter early and not late.

The Jerusalem council is thought to have taken place right around 50 A.D.

With that in mind, it is my thought that Galatians was written around 48 A.D.

My reasoning for that is that Paul gives no mention of the decision made at the Jerusalem Council.

All throughout the letter to the Galatians, we find not one mention of the Jerusalem Council which would have affirmed everything Paul was addressing here.

Not only would it affirm what Paul was saying but it would hold the weight of everyone who was there.

Which in this situation concerning the Pharisees would have truly established Paul’s Gospel.

Now normally I would be against an argument made from silence.

Because that’s what this is here that is an argument made from silence.

Just because something isn’t mentioned doesn’t necessarily mean that you can make the case for that position.

If we took an argument based upon silence this would be Kirkwood Presbyterian Church and not Kirkwood Baptist Church....

Oh come on that was meant to be funny because of infant baptism…lol

Now I say that jokingly as I have a great love for my Presbyterian brothers.

Throughout the ages they have been the ones that held to core Biblical truth while most others were abandoning it.

I am however serious when it comes to arguments made from silence.

Generally the case that is made doesn’t actually hold water.

It’s like the liberal argument stating that Jesus didn’t say anything concerning homosexuality so therefore He didn’t address it.

However we know that this just isn’t he case.

The Apostle Paul very clearly addressed human sexuality and the natural order of God’s design in .

But I do think that we can rationally deduce an argument from Scripture in this situation because of the magnitude in which it would have been useful for Paul, which we will cover more here in just a few minutes.

You see the Pharisees that had crept in were claiming things such as Pa

With that in mind, we need to try and figure out exactly who it is that Paul is writing to.

However, in this situation, the magnitude of the situation of what Paul was dealing with in Galatia

On the surface we would answer that it was to the Galatian Churches and while that would be correct, there’s a little bit more to it than that.

You see there was a physical location that was Galatian not only in name but also in heritage.

And there was an area of Galatia that was crossed with a variety of ethnicities.

If we look back to Paul’s missionary journey’s in and 14,

The deeper part of that is that there is not a definite indication as to the geography

This is known as South Galatia and North Galatia, with the northern area being closer to the Province of Asia and the south being found with the Roman Province.

While this might not seem like much of an issue for us today, believe me when I say that in the first century, this information is vital.