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Introduction
I originally was planning on teaching today on the Church and Israel.
However, I think that conversation would better suit our congregation for another time.
Please not that I do not intend to completely overlook verse 16 but will instead at some later date, come back to it when I think its time.
Sometimes in this life there are battles we should pursue and others we should not and at the moment, I feel like that’s one we’ll avoid for a moment.
With that off the table for this morning, would you please turn with me to .
I’d like to read this whole section to get us a little context to the Apostle Paul’s closing remarks here.
Read
Pray
Because we have been looking at Galatians for just a touch over a year, I thought as we end this epistle that it might be good to end with a brief review before we close.
We have seen that the issue of False Teachers were a major issue in the 1st century.
During this time, the false teachers were more obvious as they would literally trouble the Church as Paul states in 1:7 and 5:10.
They threw all sorts of confusion into the mix that would try to muddy the waters of the Gospel.
In our day, we have much of the same problem with one exception.
The false teachers today come in disguised as the good guys.
Think about how much today falls under the name of Christian.
T.D. Jakes, Creflo Dollar, Mormonism, Jehovahs Witnesses.
All of these are disguised as Christianity.
Each of them perverts the Gospel, yet they do so in ways that are not as obvious to most Christians.
In fact, since the very foundation of God’s covenant with Israel, there has been those who would distort the message of God.
Think about Zedekiah and his 400 prophets.
These men claimed to speak for God when they assured Ahab and Jehoshaphat that God would give Israel the victory over Syria’s army.
Yet this man was not speaking for God.
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Do you see the contrast here?
All the way back to the early days prior to the fall, men claimed to speak for God and yet had no authority.
Think about the Serpent in the Garden.
Throughout all of history there have been men who had a desire to tickle the ears of those around them without a care of what the Lord was saying in the moment.
Isn’t this what the King of Israel said to Jehosaphat? “There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord, Micaiah the son of Imlah, but I hate him, for he never prophesies good concerning me, but evil.”
He never prophecies good concerning me, but evil!
I hate the man because he never tickles my fancy but is instead always telling me what goes against my views.
We could say it another way that would fit our culture of the Church in the West to the T and that would be this, “I don’t like that preacher because he always tells me of all the wrong I do in my life.
He never makes me feel good but instead, I always walk away convicted about how I’m living my life.”
See false teachers have always been around and sadly, they’ll never go away until the Lord returns.
But the Lord also sends those who may be few among the hundreds who will preach truth.
And that’s what you had in Galatia.
2. And this works itself into the second issue that showed up in this letter, namely the issue of authority.
Address the issue of Authority and how we often view it as a bad thing.
The Elder of the Church has no authority outside of the Word of God and should stand firm upon that authority.
How do we know whom to believe and who not to believe?
Remember, these Judiazers that showed up, they claimed to have the authority and the backing of the Jerusalem Church.
Yet as soon as they arrived on the scene in Galatia, they began undermining the authority of the Apostle Paul.
What you find is two sets of teachers, both supposedly carrying authority and yet they both drastically contradict one another.
What were the Galatians supposed to believe?
This is no different in our own time except that today, we are bombarded with countless many people claiming to teach with authority.
In Paul’s time, he asserted his authority as an Apostle with a true endorsement which we found in .
What Paul was saying is that regardless of what someone else might say, he held the authority as an Apostle.
In our day, we have to check those whom teach through the teachings of those very same Apostles.
The Word of God and the teachings of the Apostles is preserved for us as a Church to reside over us as an authority which shows us what to believe.
Not the other way around.
This is why Scripture and not the Church is the authority in all matters of faith and practice.
There are many more issues which we could focus on and find ourselves digging back through the entire letter one more time.
Instead though, I want to focus on our passage for today.
3. I want to look at what Paul wrote in verse 17. “From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus.”
Let me ask you a question; Do you realize that if you live a life pursuing after Christ, you will end up one day bearing the marks on your body which show your pursuit of Christ?
Now I don’t necessarily mean that in a literal sense although for some that is probably a very true statement.
Instead I mean that in a spiritual sense and also in an experiential sense.
To be a Christian means that your life is going to be marked.
Persecution in the work place, persecution from family at times.
(Possible example from uncle Kenny)
Your life as a Christian will bear the marks of a true desire and a true pursuit of Christ.
And those marks will be revealed in how the world looked at you.
Think about this rationally for just a second.
Do you realize how crazy the Christian faith sounds and how it defies the supposed wisdom of the day?
Science tells us that the earth is billions of years old and that man evolved into what we see today.
That at some point there was literally nothing in existence and that nothingness slammed into itself and out of this, came all of creation.
Scripture tells us that God, who has existed throughout all of eternity, outside of any limitations of time or even the existence of time formed the universe and all that is in it.
That God made man in His image and breathed the very breath of life into his soul.
That God took and formed dirt into the Image of Himself and made alive that which had never existed.
Science teaches that all of humanity is neither good nor bad but is instead a by-product of their socio-economic upbringing where right and wrong is taught to them but is ultimately left up to the person and society.
Scripture teaches that man was created good with a libertarian free will but fell into sin which has since held all of mankind in bondage.
That there is an ultimate right and wrong.
Science tells us that each and every single one of us will one day go into the ground and dissolve into nothing returning to the ground which we evolved out of.
Scripture tells us that because of our sin, each and every single one of us are bound for an eternity in hell, removed from the common grace of God forever.
Science tells us that there is no hope for man, apart from what they can offer in this momentary fleeting glimpse of time.
Scripture tells us that there is hope for fallen humanity.
That God, though one in essence is also three in persons and He sent the Son to become a man.
And that man would live a righteous life on this earth where He would one day take the wrath that was due us on the cross of calvary.
That this God-man, who died upon a tree was placed into a grave where three days later He arose from the dead in triumph over both sin and death.
That Jesus is now seated on the right hand of God pleading your case before a holy and righteous God.
See Scripture says that the Gospel is foolishness to those who are perishing.
And because it is foolishness to those who are perishing, they will mock and scorn you for your belief in this whole idea of redemption.
That mocking and scorning is nothing more than bearing the marks on our bodies for the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that is only one form of these marks, there are many more!
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There are those marks which are very literal on our bodies and on our lives.
True Biblical Christianity infuriates the world.
And it infuriates those who would desire to lead people astray.
Think about what Paul said in .
Not only was his life marked by the Gospel and what it would cost him, but so was his body in a very literal way!
Could you imagine this for just a minute and how we would react?
Most of us have a hard enough time giving up 15 minutes of our “precious time” for the Lord.
Could you imagine what we would do if we found ourselves under literal persecution for our faith?
I think it’d be one of the greatest things to happen to the Church today but I also think we’d be surprised by who remained and who revealed themselves to be unconverted.
Think of men like John Bunyan who gave up 12 years of his own life sitting in a jail cell for the proclamation of the Gospel.
Think about everything he missed with his children and his friends.
Time that he would never get back in this life.
Think back to those people who were burned at the stake for holding fast to Biblical Christianity.
They all bore on their body the marks of Jesus and it cost them everything to follow Christ.
They all bore on their body and gave of their life willingly for Christ and without complaint!
Yet if we here in the West were to undergo the same thing, we’d see a lot of Christians complaining that they’re not comfortable.
You know I have never read anywhere about Bunyan complaining about all of those years he wasted being a prisoner.
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