Sermon Tone Analysis

Galatians 1 & 2

Good morning church, open your Bible’s with me to Philippians 1, no, I’m kidding, you guys finished chapter one didn’t you?

Open with me to Galatians, small little book right after 2 Corinthians.

Very excited to be starting another book with you this morning church.

If you don’t normally attend here, it is our practice to teach through this book, cover to cover, verse by verse, as we believe it is the source of all wisdom and truth.

Pastor Jim, the guy with the matching forehead to me is teaching through Philippians as he has opportunity to teach, and we just finished 2 Corinthians, so as we turn the age from that book, we begin Galatians.

We have a couple more weeks of Growth Groups as Nicole explained in announcements and then we will resume our midweek study on Wednesday evenings with a fellowship supper at 6 pm, on July 6th, our service will begin promptly at 6:30 pm, and we will begin the Old Testament prophetic book of Isaiah.

If you want to do some preparation for that study to help you understand the context of these writings.

Isaiah ministered from roughly 740-680 B.C.

This period of Israel’s history is told in 2 Kings 15-21 and 2 Chronicles 26-33.

Let’s pray...

The letter we have this morning is a little different than the other letters of Paul.

There is not a warm greeting, not an introduction of all those that are with him, not even a prayer for the recipient's well being.

In a sense this is an angry little letter, and for good cause.

Paul doesn’t give much of an introduction, so neither will I, maybe just a little bit of history...

Well, at risk of stirring up anger and wrath this morning, have any of you found yourselves getting frustrated at all, or maybe you’ve sensed frustration kind of building since early in 2020?

I’m not getting political here, or opening doors to throw pandemic darts.

Perhaps you own a vehicle and have had to fill up your tank recently, or buy baby formula,... maybe you’ve checked the status of your 401K and realized it’s now a 201K.

Many people today are finding that what used to just role off their backs, is starting to dig in.

They find themselves questioning with each new thing, is it time to fight, time to stop submitting to the governing authorities, time to throw some blows, and stand for what is right.

The list of things that Paul endured for the sake of the gospel is humbling when we consider some of the things that we whine about.

Shipwrecked, hit with whips, stoned with rocks, the list is extensive and sounds painful, discouraging, and enough to make most of us quit, but not Paul.

He was thankful to be able to suffer for the sake of Christ....but here, now, Paul draws a line and says there are some things worth fighting for.

Do you know what that was?

Grace.

Paul, formerly Saul, a legalistic Pharaohs, and teacher of the law, Was not longer under the law, he was saved and free in Christ, in the simplicity of Jesus and he preached.

Paul knew that you weren’t saved by doing all of the right things and avoiding enough of the bad things.

He wrote to the Ephesian church.

Eph 2:8-9

Saved by grace through faith.

Paul was frustrated here.

Churches were being planted, Both Jews and Gentiles were being saved, but there was a problem in several of these young churches, we saw it in the Corinthian church as well.

Men would come in who were known as the Judaizers, their offense is found in the name that they were called.

They were a group of Jewish men, professing Christians, who did not deny salvation to the Gentiles, they just said that before they could be saved, they first had to become Jews, follow Jewish law, eat kosher, and do what Jewish men did on the 8th day after they were born, be circumcised.

Circumcision was fairly unique to the Jews, it was the mark that identified them as God’s chosen people all the way back in Genesis 17, the first book in the Bible.

Paul had a problem with this, because Jesus fulfilled the law.

Paul knew we were saved by grace, not by works, including circumcision, and he had had enough.

So he begins this letter.

Those are pretty good credentials!

Most often, if someone wants to go into ministry, just ministry, not to declare themselves an apostle, but they have aspirations to become a pastor or a priest, they are instructed to go to seminary.

Go and study, and get a group of men to certify that you have met their criteria.

Then meet with your denominational board, your Bishop, or the cardinal, and get their approval.

Go then to a local church or parish and see if the group of people their will recognize you as their leader or minister, and then men will lay their hands on you…giving you an apostolic endorsement or their ordination, presuming that Peter laid hands on young pastors, and that line of succession has continued to be passed on to today.

There are different weird variations of that, and their is some good reason to have some oversight, to be a man under authority.

But we believe, like Paul, that if God has not ordained you to the ministry, you can meet any criteria that man may require, but there won’t be fruit in your ministry.

But with Paul it was different, he was made an apostle directly by the Lord.

He was not seeking it, he was a Jew, a Pharisee, a highly respected teacher of the law, Saul of Tarsus.

He was a persecutor of Christians.

A couple of quick passages from the book of Acts, we read that Saul was present and consenting to the death of Stephen, the very first Christian put to death for their faith in Jesus, the Messiah.

Then we see Acts 8:3

Why?

Because they were Christians, people that believed that Jesus was the Messiah the Jews were still looking for.

In Acts 9:1-3

That light was Jesus, that light blinded Paul temporarily and Jesus identifies Himself and asks Saul why he is persecuting Him!

The Lord then appears in a vision to a man in Damascus named Ananias God tells Ananias that Saul of Tarsus has been praying and is coming, and he should go look for him.

Ananias is like, thanks for the warning, Saul is a scary dude…wait what?

You want me to do what?

Acts 9:13-16

So Paul could rightly say, I am an Apostle not of men, but through Jesus Christ.

Gal 1:2-5

Paul who used to be all about the law, knew that the good news of Christ was grace, in fact later in the book of Acts Paul wrote, Acts 20:24

Paul is willing to fight to keep anybody from robbing the church of grace.

Putting Christians under bondage of anything beyond the gospel of Jesus.

Paul says, I don’t care who it is…Gal 1:8-10

You simply can’t be both.

Gal 1:11-14

All the the Old Testament passages about Jesus were reveal to him.

When I said Paul was a teacher of the law, understand that a Pharisee was to memorize the books of the law, the first five books in your bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy commited to memory!

Gal 1:21-24

So this was I believe before the Jerusalem counsel that we see near the end of Acts 15 where Paul and others gathered to discuss what to do with all the gentiles converting to Christ and they then officially decided..."28 For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: 29 that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality.

If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.

Farewell."

- Acts 15:28-29 NKJV

So Titus who was a Greek Christian felt no compulsion under grace to be circumcised, and certainly wasn’t going to do that just because some legalist was demanding it of him.

Gal 2:4-6

Just because we are under grace and still at times fall into sin, that does not make Christ a minister of sin.

Gal 2:18-21