Sermon Tone Analysis

Intro:

I read a story this week of a family who were involved in a tragic car accident taking the lives of 3 adults and 4 children in 2008 as they traveled from Dallas to Mexico.

The Associated Press reported,

“A sport utility vehicle carrying eight people from Texas plunged off an unfinished bridge into a river in northern Mexico, causing the death of three adults and four children, officials said Friday.

The group was driving from Dallas to visit family in Mexico when the driver, following a dirt road, tried to cross the bridge before dawn Thursday.

The driver realized too late that the bridge didn't span the Conchos River, and the vehicle fell upside down into the water, said Eduardo Esparza, a spokesman for the prosecutor's office in the state of Chihuahua, where the incident occurred.

Esparza said there were no signs or barriers keeping traffic off the bridge.”

This tragic story serves as a great reminder to us that warnings are necessary to avoid death and destruction.

This sermon series is intended to serve as a set of warnings for us to consider in the church much like signs reading “BRIDGE OUT” would have saved the lives of those family members in Mexico.

Our warning today is in regards to false gospels and we look to Galatians 1 and Acts 15 for our instruction.

Review: the book of Galatians was written by the apostle Paul to the churches located in the region of Galatia.

Galatia was a providence ruled by Rome and in the southern portion, Paul founded many churches.

Some of those churched that were started by Paul are mentioned in Acts 13-14 like Lystra, Iconium, Antioch, and Derbe.

Antioch was a hub of the early church when it was founded by Barnabas after the work of the Lord brought many people to faith in Christ.

As Paul and Barnabas concluded their first missionary journey, seeing the gospel transform the lives of Jews, Samaritans, and Gentiles, there was a notable attack on the gospel.

In Acts 15, we need to understand this story to make sense of our passage today in Galatians.

READ ACTS 15:1-11

As the early church, the Christians who were ethnic Jews by birth had to come to grips with the gospel being available to those non-Jews.

There was clearly a great change taking place and there was opposition that arose.

Paul and Barnabas were witnesses of the gospel being received by Gentiles and Samaritans, the fiath of these people were evident and the seal of the Holy Spirit was given to them as well as Jews who believed.

There were some minority group that were demanding that the Gentile believers in places like Antioch, Lystra etc must “be circumcised and keep the law of Moses…to be saved”(v1, 5).

The debate against this doctrine carried over by Paul to Jerusalem where he submitted that question to the apostles of the church there.

After discussion, Peter concludes,

Acts 15:7–11 (ESV)

7 And after there had been much debate, Peter stood up and said to them, “Brothers, you know that in the early days God made a choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe.

8 And God, who knows the heart, bore witness to them, by giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us, 9 and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith.

10 Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11 But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

The conclusion very simply was that in the New Covenant with the Lord, salvation comes by faith in Christ alone by his grace alone.

This was clearly decided here in the early church at this official council of leaders in Jerusalem that set the tone moving forward as more and more Gentiles came to faith in Christ.

It is believed that shortly after the council in Jersualem made this decision, Paul wrote the letter to the Galatian churches.

We know it was after because Paul recounts that decision in Galatians 2. But what was decided in Jerusalem about the gospel was still an issue in the Galatian churches, so Paul addresses that in our study today.

I cannot understate the importance of this passage as we consider the true gospel in light of distortions to it in our day and age.

As we stated last week, we must be reminded again that Satan is scheming continually to disrupt and distort the word and work of God in this world.

We spent two weeks looking at how false conversions to Christ are a reality in the church and we must be aware.

Today, we will see the reality of false gospels as well that permeated the pulpits, classrooms, and conversations of many who call themselves Christians in places that call their organizations churches.

But we need to see the true gospel and reject false gospels that rise up among us.

Paul will help the church accomplish this from his letter to the Galatians.

What can we learn about the gospel from these passages that will help us discern the true gospel message:

THE TRUE GOSPEL: By Grace, through Faith! 1-3

Paul begins his letter like he usually does, by identifying himself as the author.

But he does not just identify his authorship but immediately he states his apostleship, which has great significance.

Paul’s apostleship declared

The apostle was an office in the early church that no longer exists.

Apostles literally means “sent ones” and it were the leaders in the church who were sent out by the Lord Jesus to take the message to the world.

This term is assigned to the 12 disciples of Jesus, minus Judas who betrayed Jesus, and the Paul who was visited by the Risen Christ and called to salvation in him.

God used the apostles to spread the gospel to the nations.

Some of the apostles were tasked with recording the words of God by inspiration of the Holy Spirit for the New Testament books they wrote.

Finally, we see the apostles were leaders of the early church in teaching and preaching, organization, expansion, and discipline.

Paul tells the Galatians,

This is important because these sect of Jews who came in to the Galatian churches to teach a different gospel, also undermined and discredited Paul’s ministry and reputation.

While it is clear that these false teachers stated Paul preached a message derived from men, Paul states otherwise in v 12,

The gospel message therefore that was given to the apostles come to them by the mouth of God.

Therefore, while people have tried to discredit the message and the messenger, Paul gives us the reason that we can trust his message is authentic, because it came by revelation from God.

His authority is not diminished or lessened in his words that he spoke through the apostles.

Instead, these words contain the words of God for men.

Peter calls the commands of the Lord and Savior that came through the apostles therefore they delivered for us an accurate word from the Lord to us.

Therefore, what they say about the gospel correctly interprets the gospel message and what they do not say about the gospel, should be avoided.

Application

In our day, the gospel and all of the word of God has come under attack.

Some critics state that Jesus never spoke out against homosexuality and Paul’s message about them should be rejected since it did not come from Jesus himself.

These statements are not rooted in honest exegesis of the Scriptures but instead, they twist the Scriptures to try and fit their beliefs and sins.

Literally, Paul makes the case that he clearly shared with others what he received from the Lord and therefore, his authority is actually God’s authoritative word to man.

His opponents wanted to say that Paul was not truly an apostle since he never followed Jesus before his death and resurrection.

But Paul testified of his salvific interaction with Jesus.

Also, the witnesses in the early church saw that Saul had changed from his former self.

The disciples in Damascus and the church in Jerusalem all testified that this Paul was a transformed man by Christ This is why in Galatians 1, Paul states his apostleship was not

given by men v1 (awarded)

given through men v1

done to please men v 10

Paul’s authority is validated

Paul’s authority given: v 1, that his commission comes through the “Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead.”

Paul is stating that he has a right to speak a true word on the gospel because the Lord himself called him to be an apostle and also the Father validated the authority of the Son by raising him from death as the Messianic fulfillment foretold.

You can understand the links of the chain, Father’s authority- passed to the resurrected Son- passed to apostles called out by Son and empowered by Spirit.

The True Gospel:

What does Paul tell us about the gospel?

In his opening salutation, these introductory comments are not wasted words, their are theologically rich morsels of gospel meat to chew on.

This is not your everyday, “whats up” “howrya” or “howdy.”

Instead, we see that GRACE and PEACE are the fabric of the gospel tapestry of salvation that comes through Jesus Christ.

Grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Salvation by grace is the theme of Galatians.

This means salvation is a gift from God, not of works of merit of men.

While the opponents of Paul were telling the church something different about the way a person receives the blessings of eternal life, Paul’s message about the gospel was purely driven by grace.

This means that salvation is God’s choice to save you not your choice to be saved.

Paul was content in living his life as a Pharisee hunting down the Christians.

He enjoyed the killing of Stephen and the incarcerating believers.

But God, by his great mercy, caused Saul to be born again to a living hope, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

(1 Peter 1:3) He was called by the will of God to be an apostle(1 Cor 1:1) a chosen instrument of the Lord’s to carry his name before the Gentiles (Acts 9:15), even when he was dead in his trespasses, was made alive together with Christ (Eph.

2:5) by grace he has been saved.

Salvation is all of grace!

So also in your own life follower of Jesus and understand that God richly and graciously set his eye on you to save you before you were ever born into this world, not because he looked forward to something good you would do for him.

Instead, he chose to save you merely to glorify himself in saving sinners through his Son.

Therefore, you can more greatly cherish the beauty of God’s saving grace in your life.

Peace also is the foundational component of the gospel because as Paul makes clear in his writings, sinners stand in opposition to God.

He refers to unbelievers as spiritually dead, unrighteous, sinners, enemies and hostile to God, and slaves to the devil.

Therefore, in Galatians, Paul makes his argument that peace comes through justification, a legal term that means a person is in right standing before the Judge.

Therefore, Paul makes the argument that the law of Moses, could not free a man and justify him, but grace in Christ can.

Therefore, a follower of Jesus who accepts the reality that man in himself is helpless spiritually and needy of even a faith to believe and who trusts fully in the work of Christ to save him, therefore is transformed personally and positionally.

Personally a new man is born of spirit and not of flesh.

A new man is a babe in Christ who must learn and grow to know more about what God has done in Christ for his or her salvation.

But also a change of position occurs whereby once a person is a slave to Satan and now a slave to God.