Galatians: A Gospel of Grace

Intro

One of my favorite movies of all time is Hook. Its a classic, Robin Williams plays Peter Pan but he is all grown up and he has forgotten that he is Peter pan. His kids get kidnapped by captain hook and tinker bell comes and gets him to save his kids. Most of the movie is Tinker bell trying to remind him of who he is and it all culminates when the lost boys are faced with a decision, do they follow Peter or do they follow Rufio, the new leader. You know its that classic line in the sand routine, Peter says something and everybody runs over the line, Rufio says something and everybody runs back. They had to make a decision, they had to choose who they were going to believe, who they were going to follow. We have to make this same decision every day, who will we follow, what will we give our time to. Will we hold fast to the gospel, or will we allow our own agendas to influence how we live our lives. Will we remember who called us by grace, or will we let ourselves be slaves to our own passions, to our own desires, to ourselves. Will we allow God to rule in our lives, or will we play god?

Paul adresses this issue in the book of Galatians. they people of Galatia had given themselves to something other than the gospel. When Paul found out about it he drew his own line in the sand. Galatians is a unique book. It is a little different than the rest of Paul’s letters and this is most clearly seen in the structure of the book. Paul typically follows a standard pattern in his writing where he starts off with introduction, a blessing and then a greeting. Then he usually jumps into exhortation and correction. Not so for Galatians, he jumps straight into the correction.

History of Galatia:

History of Galatia:

Paul had planted the church in Galatia on one of his missionary journey’s. They Galatians were gentile believers who had come to faith through the knowledge of what Christ did for them on the cross. They were previously pagans and had no other reference for who God was other than their Christianity.

The protagonists in the story are judizers. These were teachers who came in and basically said, yes you are right in believing that Jesus is the Savior but you also have to do all of these good things. Basically, saying that the Gospel that Paul preached was not good enough, that Christ was not enough. What we will see is that Paul did not look lighty on what happened.

What we will see is that the one true Gospel is a Gospel that is not earned but given.

So with this in the background lets jump into the passage. Paul writes....

We Must Guard Our Hearts (V. 6-7)

English Standard Version Chapter 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— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

There are several things to note right off bat. The greek word for astonished is “Thaumazo”. It can mean anything from “astonished” to “ marveled” to “amazed” to Astounded or surprised. In ancient times it was a common literary devise that was often used to express irritation or surprise.

But in this case, it seems as if Paul is genuinely shocked at what has happened. He is completely dumfounded that the Galatians have turned away.

This is only exasperated by the phrase “so quickly” which leads us to believe that they deserted very quickly after they first believed.

If we read back over the account in we see that God had richly blessed Paul in his missionary efforts despite the fact that they faced a lot of opposition, and now these people whom he loved were on the verge of completely abandoning the gospel.

We see this clearly at the end of verse 6. Here Paul says that they were “deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel”

The language that Paul uses carry’s the meaning that the Galatians were still in the process of leaving. They were deserting God, but they were not totally gone yet.

The next phrase begins to give us clarity on how the people were deserting. Paul accuses them of deserting the one who called them trough the grace of Christ. They were turning their backs not just on Paul but on God himself. God was the one who had called them out of their darkness, God was the one who had turned their hearts of stone into hearts of flesh, God is the one who chose to show them grace and call them to himself. And now they were giving themselves to a “different gospel”

Paul uses the phrase “different gospel” not in the sense that he thought there was a different gospel, but more so to convey the idea that they thought there was another way when the reality was there was only one way and that was through the grace of God through Christ.

It is good to note here that this is the first time we see mention of a third party in the letter. A group of people who are spinning a web of lies that are leading the Galatian people astray.

The Galatians had allowed their hearts to be deceived. They had allowed a false gospel to infiltrate their lives and draw them away from their savior.

Example:

Example:

You know when we look at the culture around us and think back over the last 10 years, 20 years, 30 years, and really think about how much culture has changed it is pretty astounding. Fads change weekly and allegiance change at the drop of a hat. The cultural landscape of America is ever changing. Most are looking for the next best workout method, self help book, or political agenda that they can push. All because they want to be unique, they want to be popular, they want to be seen, they want to be part of the “in” crowd.

Application:

As christians I think we fall into these traps. I think sometimes in our attempt to keep ourselves “holy” we alienate ourselves from the people who need us the most. We forget the reality that lost people are going to act lost.

We forget that we too were once in their shoes, we were alienated from our God, we were deceiving our selves, we like Paul says in Titus, hated ourselves and each other.

And instead of loving people and understanding that it is only Christ who can change their hearts, we cast judgment, we compare our lives to theirs, we become the pharisees and fall into the same situation that the Galatians found themselves in.

We forget that it is only because of God grace to us that we were saved. It wasn’t because he found us and being worthy or righteous, it was because of His own goodness.

We Must Guard the Gospel

English Standard Version Chapter 1

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.

Paul dishes out a pretty strong warning in these next verses. He had gotten fed up with the fact that people were preaching a message that they were claiming was the gospel but was in fact contrary and opposite of the Gospel.

Paul lays out one of the harshest statements in the entire New Testament. And to emphasize how important he saw this to be he included himself in the warning, he says even if you hear me preach a different gospel.

Paul here makes clear that it is not about the messenger but about the message. He does not care if the Galatians prefer a different teacher over him, but he will not tolerate a message that is contrary to the gospel. He will not tolerate a false gospel. A commentator writes, “Paul did not ask the Galatians to be loyal to him, bur rather to the unchanging message of Christ, Christ alone, that he hd preached to them.”

An important word to note here is the word for accursed. The greek word is “anathema” which carries with it very strong implications. This was not just an excommunication from the church or church discipline. This was to suffer the eternal retribution and judgement of God. Paul wasn’t playing games when it comes to the authority and correctness of the gospel.

Application:

Paul’s concern for the gospel does not stop in Galatia, we too should feel that same concern, We to should be constantly on guard in our own lives that we are not distorting the gospel in our own lives.

But more than that we should be on guard in our public lives as well to combat distortions of the gospel. Now more than ever we are seeing the gospel twisted into something that it was never meant to be.

But this requires us to be knowledge about the gospel, we must know its intricacies, we must know how to explain it, how to defend it. We must study it. We must let it impact our lives on a daily basis, we must allow it to dictate our decisions, our actions, our emotions. The gospel must be the center of our lives.

Conclusion:

The gospel is the center of Christian belief, God grace through Jesus Christ is the only way to God. God did not choose to save sinners because of their merit, God chose to save sinners because he is good. We deserve death, but God, what a line, but God. Just as says,

But God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

We have been saved by an incredible awesome and gracious God. We now have a responsibility to faithfully proclaim and guard His gospel. God has chosen his people as the vehicle to proclaim his gospel to the nations, to the communities, to the lost. So we must ask ourselves, will we make excuses, or will we answer the call?