Wrapping Up Galatians

So, as you hopefully remember, a few weeks ago we finished up a study on the book of Galatians

And I subtitled this series “Getting the Gospel Right”

The reason that I subtitled the series in this way is because getting the gospel right and understanding the heart of the Gospel should be the foundation of our lives

My prayer is that this message really transforms our personal lives and transforms our church

The things that are important to us when we come together

The things that our minds are fixed on

The way that we relate to one another

We are working on some structural things here at church, and it can be difficult, I know.

But as we do, in whatever we do, here are some things that are important

And it’s my desire that these things guide our thoughts, our attitudes, our actions

The Cross is our message

Galatians 6:14“14 But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.

Paul is saying that we can talk about a lot of things, and we can make a lot of plans in our lives and at church, but never forget, the cross of Jesus Christ, in other words, The Gospel, should be at the center of everything that we do

Listen, also to what he says in 1 Corinthians 1:17-18 “17 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. 18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

and then in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5 “1 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.”

This is an amazing passage to me because Paul, in my opinion is an incredibly eloquent man, at least in his writings.

Perhaps he felt differently as he was speaking. Maybe he didn’t feel so confident and wise when he was up front.

And so Paul says, “I don’t feel very confident to speak on various topics. But here’s one thing that I can talk about: The Cross of Jesus Christ. I can preach the Gospel

And folks, Paul’s attitude here is very convicting and instructive for me

Because there are a lot of preachers out there who are incredibly eloquent. And as much good as technology has to offer, the downside is that I can listen to and watch a lot of these guys on line

and these guys speak so well. And they talk so eloquently and teach so well on various subjects.

And I have to watch myself. Because I find myself thinking, “Oh, I wish that I could talk like that”

And when I prepare my sermons, I’m thinking, “Oh, I should say it like that because this preacher over here says it like that and it sounds so…GOOD!”

And, “Oh, I need to teach on that. Oh I need to teach on THAT.”

And I start going around and around

And Paul’s words are convicting to me because I am reminded that my message needs to be continually the cross of Jesus Christ.

Whatever I teach on. Whatever my subject. It must come back to the Gospel of Jesus Christ

And not only in my teaching, but in my life every day. My life must be centered around the Gospel of Jesus Christ

I teaching, my life, must boast in the cross of Jesus Christ and proclaim the Gospel

The central message of the Gospel is that God sent Jesus to this earth to redeem sinful mankind. Those who were bound by sin and the law

To forgive their sin. Our sin

To set us free from sin and death and the law

And to restore the broken relationship between God and mankind

The Gospel is about what God has done for us through Jesus Christ.

this is what our lives must be centered around. This is what you and I must proclaim

Whether you are up front teaching, or whether it be in our everyday lives, this is our mandate

People need this message.

we live in a lost and dying world that needs the message that God has made the way for them to be right with him

We, here at Fairview need the Gospel. Because how quickly we forget it.

How quickly we get sidetracked with our lives and can forget about the great and incredible mercy of God

How quickly we can find ourselves in performance mode, trying to win His affection

How quickly we can find ourselves pointing our fingers or sitting in judgement of those who don’t measure up to standards that WE have put in place

Not only do we tend to forget the heart of the Gospel, but I am emphasizing the Gospel this morning because I believe that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is under attack in our churches

There is heresy creeping into evangelical churches

There are those who deny that we were born into sin…that we have a sin nature, or at least it is ignored

It is becoming common to hear in evangelical churches messages that talk about becoming a better you

They preach messages that are “uplifting” and “practical”. They talk about “how to”.

Portraying sin as “mistakes” made by folks who mean well.

Folks whose heart is in the right place. They just need to try a little harder

Instead of teaching that sin as an offense against our Holy and Just GOD.

And what so many teachers these days are ignoring is that we were born into sin

We were born with a sin nature

And without the grace of God daily in our lives, we find ourselves reverting back to that sin nature.

They ignore the fact that sin doesn’t make us bad, it makes us dead.

Ephesians 2 says that we were dead in our trespasses and sins

And death isn’t something that we can train ourselves out of! It’s a condition that we need a miracle to be rescued from!

It is Jesus who saves us from sin. And it is the Holy Spirit who does His transforming work in our lives.

The Gospel is not some sort of self-help program, that if we practice it long enough, we will gradually become “the person that we are supposed to be”.

Far from it. May we, like Paul, say, “I will boast in the cross of Christ”. and “I am not ashamed of the Gospel. It is the power of God for salvation

And that brings us to the second thing that I want us to remember

Transformed lives are our mission

Remember, Paul says, in Galatians 6:15 “15 For neither circumcision counts for anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation.”

Those who boast in the power of the cross, who live and proclaim the Gospel are those whose lives will be transformed through the power of the Holy Spirit

They will have their hearts and their minds transformed and thus their lives will be transformed, because Jesus said it is out of the heart that we speak.

It is out of the heart that our choices and our priorities come.

And God promised His people in the book of Ezekiel that he would “take out their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh”.

If the Gospel that we profess is not transforming our hearts, transforming our minds, then we have to ask ourselves, are we professing the Gospel? Are we getting the Gospel right?

Is that not a fair question?

I mean, how can we truly believe, and live and proclaim the Gospel, yet remain unchanged and unaffected and not transformed by the Gospel working within us by the power of the Holy Spirit?

The answer is: It is impossible to fully accept the Gospel and yet remain unchanged

It must be changing us constantly.

Again, this is not a self-help program.

It is not God coming along side of us and helping us to be more moral

It’s not the ability to somehow “fulfill your destiny”. That is something that you hear a lot these days

It is the power of the Gospel. It is the Holy Spirit constantly at work in us and through us, changing our hearts, changing our minds and our lives

As Paul describes in 2 Corinthians 3, the Gospel “unveils our faces, and we behold the glory of the Lord, and we are transformed into HIS image from “glory to glory (KJV)”, or from one degree of glory to another.

what an amazing thing! That God takes people like us, and by His Spirit, HE slowly, bit by bit transforms us into His image.

So what does a transformed person look like? what are some of the marks of a transformed life?

A transformed person understands freedom

This is one of Paul’s big concerns in writing Galatians.

Galatians 5:1 “1 For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

As we are transformed, more and more we understand what it is like to be free and live free

Transformation means that we understand the depths of sin from where we came, and would return if not for the cross of Jesus

Understanding freedom means that we know that we have been set free and we continue to live free

Transformation means that we are not worried about the word freedom

I want to say this in the most gentle way possible, but I want to be truthful.

One of the concerns that I have is that many Believers don’t understand what it means to truly live free

Especially those of us who have grown up in conservative settings

It’s not something that we have spent a lot of time talking about, even though, clearly freedom is something that is important to Jesus

And I wonder if we can grasp what freedom looks like on a practical every day kind of level.

Paul said something really interesting about freedom

1 Corinthians 9:19-23 “19 For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. 20 To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. 21 To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. 22 To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. 23 I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.”

What did Paul mean by this? As we think about our mission and future as a church, I think that these thoughts and Scriptures need to be seriously considered

This is something that I don’t have time to go into very deeply this morning, but I would like to explore it more deeply at some point.

But just to touch on in briefly, as we know, there are things that the sciptures expressly forbid

Immorality

Drunkenness

Excessive living

We know that even in our freedom, these things are not to be found among us

We know that

But are we ever free to do things that Scripture does not forbid, but maybe has been agreed upon by our church that we will not do?

If by doing these things we have the potential to reach someone for Christ

Again, I’m not talking about the things expressly forbid by Scripture.

I’m talking about the “unaddressed things” in Scripture

But things that we may as a church have drawn a line against and said we will not cross this line

These are things which I think would be good to talk about more sometime

but I think that Paul understood what it means to be set free by the Gospel.

A transformed person displays in increasing measure the fruit of the Holy Spirit

I know that we talked about this when we studied Galatians

But I think that it would be impossible to talk about this too much as we think about the transformation of the Gospel and how that looks in our church

In Galatians 5, we read, that these sort of things mark the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control

This is not an exhaustive list!

One of the biggest marks of a transformed person is humility

Not taking credit for ourselves and lifting ourselves up

Being eager both to forgive and ask for forgiveness.

Colossians 3:12-15 “12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. 15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.”

Folks, last Sunday we had a man in this congregation model this humble spirit in such a beautiful way for us

By taking on a burden that wasn’t his alone to carry

And he did it in a public way, and I would ask that we respond publicly to him

what we saw was the fruit of the Holy Spirit blossoming in his life

Scripture is our guide. And this goes hand in hand with living transformed lives

My church experience has been..all over the place

Born, attending an “outreach church” in Delaware: Yoders and Millers worshiping alongside Burlingames, Felty’s, Lynch’s

Crazy, wild VBS in the summer

Then moved to Canada

My church experience wasn’t traditional—it was a mission fellowship which looked different every year

Back to Delaware

Ohio, Chicago—Moody Church and Armitage Baptist, TN—attending a CMA church

Back to Ohio,

Over to Portugal in a MB church, worshiping with Brazilians, Portuguese, Africans, Americans

To Africa, again worshiping with a mission community made up of Europeans and Africans and Americans

Back to Iowa again

And I value these experiences.

We have made deep and lasting relationships with folks from so many church traditions and backgrounds

And they have shaped me into who I am today

But one thing that is becoming acutely clear to me, especially in the position of pastor is that I have very few pegs to hang my understanding of what a traditional or established church is:

The way it is structured, the way it operates,

What things are important to a certain community and what is not that important

And folks here have told me, “If you don’t know something, just ask”

which i try to do. But that problem is, sometimes you simply don’t know what you don’t know.

Sometimes you just aren’t aware that you need to ask something when it might seem more obvious to those who have been around a little longer

And so, in my learning process, seeing as I don’t know a lot about what has always been done, I have to lean more and more on Scripture.

Which is good, right?

I mean, I find myself with a group of people who love and value Scripture, right?

I know that we do. We love the Word of God. We are like Peter who said, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

I’m glad that we love Scripture

But my prayer is that learn to love even more the Jesus that we find in Scripture

And (and here’s the challenging part) that we are courageous enough to hold all of our beliefs and our practices up to the Light of God’s Word

And ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to us if there is anything that he wants to change in us and the way that we live

Because, as you know, at least I think we know, that we are still human. And even as much as we love Jesus and want to be obedient, we still fall short

We still feel the effects of sin. And truthfully, every day in my quiet moments, the Holy Spirit reveals sin in my heart

And, honestly, sin: sinful motives, sinful plans, affect the way that we do church

And I think it’s good and honest of us to come back, examine our beliefs, look into the perfect law of liberty, as James says

both as individuals and together as a church

And say, “Holy Spirit, forgive us where we have sinfully gone our own way, and please purify us!”

I know that these can be hard questions.

And what the Holy Spirit reveals to us can be humbling. It’s possible that he will reveal things that we have thought werer right, yet were not what He wants from us

It might feel sort of like driving along the interstate, and you look down and realize that your turn signal has been on for the last half an hour.

I say that kind of jokingly, but these are the kind of things that the Holy Spirit would like to do in us

And a mark of transformed living is to ask him to do these things in us and to welcome it.

So, I know I’ve been going on for a while

But here again is my overall desire for us as a congregation

That as we go forward, we remember

1. That The cross is our message. The Gospel is our message

2. That transformed lives are our mission

3. That Scripture is our guide.