Harbor of Hope

Galatians
Week 1: One Gospel
 
Summary – Like a bouncing ball, you and I exist to be free as Paul explains in depth through his letter to the Galations.  Introducing Paul, Galatia, and our tendency to define ourselves by customs and traditions rather than God.

 
Introduction … 
 
Do you remember playing with these as a child? 
 
Illustration – My kids love bouncy balls…and I can understand why…bouncy balls are free-spirited little objects, aren’t they.  They’re a lot of fun to throw because you never know where they’re going to go…whether they’re going to return.  It’s not uncommon for these to be flying around our house, literally…
 
(Let’s try it this morning… – you’ll want to watch out.  I’m not always the greatest aim.  Throw balls down the aisle). 
 
Bouncy balls were designed to be bounced, not held.  They’re meant to be free, uncontained, and unpredictable. And children fully understand this, which is why they have no regard for the furnishings or breakables in your home.  They just seem to have an intrinsic awareness that bouncy balls exist to bounce.   
 
Which is why, if I had to sum up the book of Galatians with a picture, an image, a toy (which I understand that no one has asked me to do)…this is what I would choose (bouncy ball). 
 
The overarching message of Galatians is that you and I exist to be free…
 
Galatians 5:1 says… “So Christ has truly set us free.  Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law.” 
             
The book of Galatians reveals God’s heart for his people, his desire for us to live free and full lives…and it was written to preserve the message about the freedom that God has provided for us and offers to us through His Son, Jesus Christ.

We’re going to spend the next five weeks traveling through this book.  As we do, I want to encourage you to read through Galatians a few times, maybe once a week…absorb it, journal it, reflect on it.  If you don’t have a Bible, we’d love to offer one to you as a gift.  You will also find some online Scripture reading tools on our website. 
 
If you have your Bible, open up to the book of Galatians…
 
Context…When you approach a book of Scripture to study it for the first time…let’s say a Gospel, or in this case, an Epistle (letter written to a group of people) it’s important to start with context. 
 
In the same way that you don’t (or probably shouldn’t) pick up a Novel by Dickens and dive right into chapter 32, it’s not always beneficial to pick up Scripture and start with verse 32 of chapter three…At times, it’s best to get a perspective on the text as a whole.  
 
NYC - Beth and I were in NYC in January, and our hotel room was right above Grand Central station 32 floors up.  From the 32^nd floor, you get a good perspective for how big Manhattan is…in the same way, context provides us with wide-angle perspective of why the biblical authors are writing and where they intend to take us, the listeners as they write. 
 
So…as you turn to the book of Galatians…I want to spend a few moments weaving together the major players in this book…
 
Galatians 1:1-2
 
God the Father, and Jesus Christ are the central characters of Galatians – They are mentioned 8 times in the first five verses.  This should not surprise us since the book of Galatians is simply a chapter in the larger narrative of Scripture in which God is both the Author and Central character of the story…Scripture begins with God and ends with God…In the middle of Scripture is God…on every page, God…around each corner…God.   Take away any character and you still have Scripture.  Take away God, and Scripture completely loses its meaning.
 
Now, the apostle Paul wrote this letter to Christians in Galatia…After the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Jesus-message began spreading out from Jerusalem.  As it advanced, the Jewish religious leaders who were the bull dogs behind Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion continued their attempts to stamp out what was fast becoming a growing movement known as, ‘The Way.’ 
 
The Pharisees were one of these groups of religious leaders, and they believed that the Hebrew people should remain steadfast in their devotion to the ways of God.  So they built intricate systems of man-made traditions and laws around the law that God had provided for the Hebrew people.  They did this to ensure that the Hebrew people remained separate from the cultures, practices, and customs of the surrounding nations. 
 
One of the leaders among the Pharisees was Saul. We read about Saul in the book of Acts. 
 
Luke writes in Acts 8:1,3 – “Saul was one of the witnesses, and he agreed completely with the killing of Stephen.  A great wave of persecution began that day, sweeping over the church in Jerusalem; and all the believers except the apostles were scattered through the regions of Judea and Samaria…But Saul was going everywhere to destroy the church.  He went from house to house, dragging out both men and women to throw them into prison.” 
 
In Acts 9, we read about Saul’s life being dramatically changed when he encountered Jesus on his way to Damascus where he was going to arrest Christ-followers to bring them back to Jerusalem for trial. 
 
Saul encountered the risen Jesus; as a result of that encounter, he believed that Jesus was the Son of God, and was baptized into His name.  Immediately, Saul began preaching about Jesus, the One who he had formerly hated and opposed (temporarily presents some major issues for the local churches because of Saul’s reputation.)
Imagine if Hitler or Bin Laden bowed their knee to Christ as Savior and Lord, repented of their evil behavior, and experienced a genuine heart transformation and then came to a church like Harbor to preach on a Sunday.  Do you understand the issue here? 
Later Saul became known as Paul, and is recognized as the greatest missionary in all of history.  He wrote thirteen books of the Bible, took the Gospel and started churches throughout the Middle East and Europe.  Some of the churches that he started were in Galatia, modern day Turkey.
 
Galatians 1:3-5:
 
In these first five verses, Paul is simply saying…God appointed me…he called me…he gave me a message.  What I am about to communicate is part of God’s unfolding story…Then, Paul states the foundational message of the book of Galatians.  
 
“Jesus gave his life for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live.” 
 
That’s the Gospel (good news) in a nutshell…that’s where our focus is going to be for the next five weeks…that’s the heart of the book of Galatians.
 
1:6-7 –
 
Soon after Paul established the churches in Galatia on his first missionary journey (Acts 13), some false teachers busted on the scene and started preaching a different message…a message that Paul refers to as a ‘false good news…an imitation.’  And in doing so, they were leading the believers in Galatia to not only turn from the Good News of God’s mercy, but in the process, to turn away from God…
 
What is this Good News? 
 
Let’s go to 1 Corinthians 15:1-9…
 
The Good News is that God sent His Son to die in our place.  Paul says that Christ became our sin so that we could be made right with God.  Through the resurrection of Christ, God breaks the chains of sin and death and evil and wickedness…and through Christ, God’s redemptive history is set into motion…He is making all things new…the poor are given bread to eat, the thirsty water to drink, the blind see, the oppressed are freed…those tattered by sin and addiction are healed.
 
This is the Good News that the false teachers are contradicting…by exchanging the Gospel of the grace of God in Christ Jesus with a law-based spirituality. 
 
Let me set the stage for the next several weeks…
 
The Judaizers were pressing these Greek Christ-followers to define themselves by Jewish customs and traditions…by what they did, how they looked…the externals.  We know by reading further into Galatians that the Jews are demanding that they be circumcised to show that they were saved by God. 
 
(Reveals the age-old problem of our tendency as a people to build our identity on anything and everything but God…to erect our self-worth and purpose on what we drive…on where we live...on how we behave… on our accomplishments…what religion we belong to…we have a tendency to define ourselves by these things so much that we become them. 
 
Example: Tell me about yourself.  ‘well, I work at so and so place…I live in this town…I drive a 97 Honda Civic (don’t share that)…I was born in Hawaii (that’s interesting)…I graduated from that school…  We define ourselves by externals…)
 
We have a tendency to do this as Christians to…Are you a Christian?  Yes…I go to this church…I was raised in a religious home…I have a Bible…several Bibles…I give, I pray… 
 
Being raised in a Christian family, going to church on a Sunday morning, have the right spiritual lingo, tithing…those things don’t define you as a Christ-follower. 
The religious leaders were selling religion...  And their big-ticket items were the Jewish customs of circumcision, festivals, ceremonies, and dietary restrictions.  These things define you…
 
Paul says…no, no, no…The Gospel is built on a different truth. 
 
Galatians 6:15 – “It doesn’t matter whether we have been circumcised or not.  What counts is whether we have been transformed into a new creation.” 
 
As we walk through the book of Galatians, you’re going to see Paul frame up and contrast two very distinct ways to live…two very different ways to approach God. 
 
Judaizers saying to these believers…it’s fine if you have Jesus, worship Jesus, but you need Jesus plus…(identify some Jesus plus sayings)…
 
Paul is saying…no, that’s not the Gospel.  The Gospel is that you need Jesus period…no plus, no minus, just Jesus.
 
The Judaizers message is…you are accepted if (this is the way to endear yourself to God). 
 
Illustration – Madelena – Conversation with a neighbor friend.  I left the church because I couldn’t walk straight. 
 
The Gospel doesn’t say, you are accepted if, it says you are accepted because you can’t walk straight, end of story…God’s love and his life are available to anyone who will embrace the unmerited acceptance of God in Christ. 
 
The Gospel says that all that you need is Jesus, and you’re lost without him.  The power that God used to raise Jesus from the dead is available to you and me, and it’s our only hope of having our heart transformed.  The Bible calls it Grace. 
 
The Gospel isn’t about what you or I look like out here…the Gospel is about what’s going on in here (heart); whether you’ve embraced Jesus, surrendered to Jesus, and how that will display itself in the way that we live. 
 
The minute you begin to follow something or someone besides Jesus, you lose the Gospel…if you begin to develop your ideas about God and what it means to know Him apart from Jesus and the Scriptures…from another source, another teacher, another ism, another set of traditions, you’ll no longer have the Gospel, you’ll no longer have Jesus, you’ll have a religion or man-made movement in some form or fashion. 
 
This is why Paul is addressing the churches in Galatia in such a serious tone…
 
Galatians 1:8-10
 
The book of Galatians is God calling out his people…His church, come back to me. 
 
You see, I think that so many believers begin their journey with God by grace, but somewhere along the way begin to relate to him in very much of a law-based approach.  If that’s you, it’s possible that you wear this burden of approaching God depending on how you feel, or how well you’re doing at following God, or in adhering to spiritual practices or habits…or you’re depending on yourself, your power to live a life of love for God, and Christ-likeness.  Your experience following Jesus has become burdensome. 
 
Then there are so many who stay away from God completely because they see God as someone who demands that they walk straight in order to come to Him…perfection, a certain lifestyle, adherence to culture and customs and traditions.
 
Galatians is about freedom…the opportunity to encounter the Designer behind the design, the Artist of our lives, Love of our souls…
 
My prayer is that our eyes are opened to see Jesus and the Gospel in a fresh, new way. 

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