Galatians Chapter 1:1-5

Galatians Chapter 1:1-5

Sermon #1 ~ A Father Speaks Out

Introduction

This morning let us turn our attention towards the book of Galatians.
For the next several weeks we will explorer together what I have always considered one of my favorite New Testament books.
Of course the book of Galatians was written by the great apostle, the apostle Paul.
Galatians is one of Paul’s earlier letters, it is even likely it is his first divinely inspired writing and predates all of his other New Testament epistles.
As we work our way through this book I will point out to you along the way the passion that Paul puts into his writing.
Paul founded these churches and feels as if he is a spiritual father to these believers.
For those of you who are parents is it not difficult to watch your children make poor choices and have to suffer for those mistakes?
How about those things that children do even after being repeatedly warned not to do them and then they come to you crying because they foolishly ignored the warning.
Maybe it is a 3 year old running on some slick pavement and they slip and scratch their knee just like you predicted
Maybe it is that middle-school student who wouldn’t study for the science test after you pleaded with them to re-read some material and now they didn’t make the grade on the test
Or perhaps it is the high-school or college student who wants to experiment with some controlled substances and now they find they are addicted to them and the substance now controls their life
But as parents and grandparents all we can do his admonish, remind and instruct; we can’t prevent all foolish mistakes from happening can we?
Paul finds himself in this very predicament, his spiritual children are being led astray by false teachers who are trying to rob the Galatians’ of the joy of their salvation by robbing them of their freedom in Christ.
As parents we try and teach our children about choosing good friends and with younger children and adolescents we sometimes make adjustments for them in their choice of friends but there comes a time when all we can do is be a coach and remind them of what we have taught them

Verse 1 & 2

Paul, an apostle--not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead-- and all the brothers who are with me,
Compare Paul’s introduction in this letter to the introduction we find in James, 1^st and 2^nd Peter, 2^nd and 3^rd John and Jude
The writers of these books do not find it necessary to defend their apostleship or authority but rather simply state that they are servants of Christ.
Paul finds it necessary to defend his credentials as an apostle.
Why? Because heresy had crept into the church; and such was the nature of the heresy that it called into question all of Paul’s teachings and ultimately the source of his authority to teach.
As I pointed out a moment ago Paul had quite likely founded the churches of Galatia along with Timothy on his first missionary journey
Now think about this for a moment, would you tend to conclude that the church in the 1^st century was more pure than the church is today, right?
If you realize that Christ had lived, died, and been resurrected a little less than 20 years before this book was written and that the apostolic age hadn’t yet ended it would seem that we would be the closest to a pure church, wouldn’t it?
But when we look at the writings of the New Testament and we look at what James wrote about, what Paul and others were forced to write about we see that the church was full of error and heresy even in its infancy
This should automatically cause us to pause and consider that if with the apostles of Christ still alive and still writing letters to the original churches they founded and heresy can creep into that environment no environment is safe from false teachers!
So my challenge to all of us (including myself) is: as we make our way through the book of Galatians, as we cross reference other passages of Scripture, make yourself vulnerable to the Holy Spirit, be teachable, and listen to his voice
Paul tips his hand early in the book about the content, you see Paul had heard of three distinct charges made by his Jewish opponents and he highlights those in the opening verses.

Everything we find later in the book is present in its seed form right here in the opening verses
#1, Paul begins with a defense. Enemies were saying that he was not an apostle and that the gospel he preached had not been revealed to him by God.
It is difficult for me to image anyone calling into questions Paul’s authority but that is exactly what had happened and was still happening and would happen again
1^st & 2^nd Corinthians, which was written later, Paul again had to defend his credentials as an apostle
Writing in 1Corinthians 9:1 Paul writes: Am I not free? Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord? Are not you my workmanship in the Lord?
Later in 1 Corinthians 15 and verse 5 and following relates this to us: He appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me.
Paul follows this up in 2^nd Corinthians 11:5 by saying: “I consider that I am not in the least inferior to these super-apostles.”
Paul isn’t boasting here; if you are familiar with Paul’s writings at all anytime he says anything that remotely sounds like a boast he begins to apologize profusely.
However the reason this was so important to Paul is because if false teachers could convince others that Paul’s gospel was not directly from God then all of Paul’s teaching would eventually crumble and with it the gospel would fail among the gentiles.
The reason these false teachers claimed that Paul wasn’t a real apostle is because Paul had not lived with Jesus when Jesus was here on earth, as had the "true" apostles, meaning the twelve.
These false teachers had actually asserted, he was merely an evangelist who taught an easy gospel that was opposed to that of the other apostles such as Peter and James the Lord’s brother.
But as we have seen and Paul continually maintains that he is equal to the other apostles because he had seen the risen Lord and been trained by him as we will examine next week
Paul specifically answers the accusations that had been made by retelling the story of his life in chapters 1 & 2 of Galatians. This can be summarized in 3 points:

His teaching was not dependent on other human authorities; for his teaching came directly from God
His authority had been acknowledged by the other apostles
He had proved his worth by remaining firm at Antioch when others, including even Peter and Barnabas, had wavered.

Twice in the New Testament Paul calls himself and ambassador; once in 2 Corinthians 5:20 and also in Ephesians 6:20 he makes this claim.
Now think about a US ambassador, it is their job to represent the United States abroad. Ambassadors routinely meet with the President or receive correspondence from the White House explaining what position the ambassador should take in a given circumstance, right?
It doesn’t matter whether you are the most recently commissioned ambassador or the longest standing ambassador in the State Department, either way you still represent the interests of the United States and speak on behalf of the president as you meet with foreign heads of state.
This is precisely Paul’s point; while he may have been the last apostle called by Christ and the last apostle trained by Christ that does not make him inferior in what he says on behalf of Christ when he speaks to the churches
Now it is important to note here that has Paul defends himself he is not violating the rule given by Jesus in Matthew 5:39 which says: Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well
The rule given in Matthew 5 simply teaches that we are not to look out for ol’ number 1, not to defend our own reputation, but rather we are to be humble and forgiving not angry and vengeful.
So you ask “Isn’t that what Paul is doing here in these opening verses, isn’t he defending his honor for the sake of his pride?”
The answer is no, what Paul is in fact doing his defending not his honor but the purity of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
I have no doubt that if teachers had come in and had told the Galatians that Paul taught you all wrong and the offering plate should be passed after the fourth verse of third song in the worship set or some such petty difference Paul would have gladly held his tongue.
However what is going on here in Galatia is anything but petty differences about style; the very heart of the gospel is at stake!
God says more than 5 times in the first 5 books of the Old Testament that he is a jealous God and in Deuteronomy 4:24 he states that he is a consuming fire.
The context of Deuteronomy 24 is Moses reminding the children of Israel to keep the law as they cross over the Jordan; he reminds them of how God destroyed those who worshiped Baal-Peor and how God spoke to them out of the fire at Mount Horeb.
He reminds them that if they keep the commandments they shall live but if they don’t that God is not only jealous but he is also a consuming fire.
Neither I nor Paul are overreacting when we state that the gospel was danger of being completely obscured by the lies that were spewing out of these false teachers mouths and Paul was only doing what was appropriate to protect the purity of the gospel
As Jesus said in Matthew 16:19 Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven
This verse doesn’t mean that as believers we can make things so in heaven but rather when we respond as the Spirit leads us to and act according the revealed word of God we can be assured that what we are doing here on earth is the same as what is going on in heaven
What Paul does here in Galatians with his pen perfectly illustrates what Jesus spoke of in Matthew 16.
Let’s re-read verse 1 again. Paul, an apostle – not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead
If you will allow me to jump ahead here a bit, you will see at the beginning of chapter 2 that Paul goes up to Jerusalem for the first time at least 14 years after his conversion.
This is an amazing credential that Paul has here; do you see it?
He is affirmed by the other apostles, namely Peter, James and John but notice verse 6 where Paul speaking of the other apostles he says they added nothing to him.
You see here is the amazing credential; even though Paul didn’t walk around Palestine with Christ and even though he hasn’t hung out with the other apostles he is preaching the same message they are and they affirm him.
Now let me take you back to a statement I made earlier today about how we would need to become teachable and allow the Holy Spirit to train our hearts. The reality is many of us today are like the false teachers, we want to discount the apostle Paul’s authority and we behave as if he spoke out of his own personal preference.
Books and even whole denominations have sprung up attempting to refute what Paul wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit on a woman’s role both in relationship to her husband and to the church.
And it isn’t just women, men how many of you are personally seeing to it that you are washing your wife with the water of the word as we are commanded to Ephesians 5?
How many of us live our lives as if we are an island unto ourselves and completely ignore Paul’s words to us in 1 Corinthians 8 verses 4-13 where he speaks of abusing our freedom to cause someone of weaker conscience to stumble
Haven’t we all at some juncture of our lives done something or been involved in something that perhaps we have freedom before God to do but we didn’t take pause to consider how it would be perceived by those around us, those weaker than us.

Verse 3 & 4

#2, Paul issues a declaration

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father
Paul begins this similar to many of his other letters with his standard greeting of “grace and peace” but notice he doesn’t give a warm greeting as he does in every one of his other letters.
There isn’t a single word of praise or word of thanks for their faithfulness or some other compliment.
The Corinthians were complimented, the Thessalonians were complimented, the Philippians were complimented but not the Galatians.
In fact as you work through the entire book of Galatians you never once find a word of praise for these people
Paul had nothing to commend them for instead you find Paul extolling the virtue of the gospel
The gospel clearly was under severe and direct attack. In Paul’s own mind he certainly saw a clear and present danger
These false teachers had made their way all over the region of Galatia and were teaching that the gospel delivered by Paul was an incomplete gospel
This was a creative way of discounting Paul. They didn’t directly disagree with Paul but they did teach that these gentile believers would need one additional thing in order to be saved
They stated that circumcision was required to be justified, that is to be saved they must be circumcised.
Essentially what they were doing was teaching gentiles that they must become Jews in order to be saved.
Paul clearly saw the danger here but apparently the elders and the flock of the Galatian churches did not see this danger
You see here is the issue and we need to be on guard for this very thing today as well: If you add even a single work to the gospel you have now diluted the nature of saving grace and the gospel is no longer the gospel at all.
Paul, later in his life, writing in Romans 11:6 writes this: But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.
You see salvation is not Christ’s death on the cross plus anything; if you add baptism or circumcision, or any other requirement to receiving God’s grace through any other means other than faith you have undermined the gospel.
This is a hard word for our day and age isn’t it?
We live in a society that is what is called pluralistic society which means as a culture our leaders have advocated a civilization in which diverse ethnic, racial, religious and/or social groups maintain separate participation in society.
That is a mouthful of a sentence isn’t it? Let me make it more simple, have you ever heard someone say well that is your reality or your truth but I don’t believe that?
That is pluralism right before your eyes; it is the notion that we can all believe what ever we want to believe because there is no absolute right and wrong.
Well my guess is it wasn’t much different in Paul’s day either. My guess is the Galatians had heard plenty of people who had a different value system and a different standard for how they approached the world.
When Paul states that you can’t mix anything with grace or you have denied grace that is a hard word.
Think about it; most of us don’t go around looking for a fight, we all want to be loved, accepted and respected by those around us whether family, friends or co-workers.
When one of these people share an alternate world-view to what we believe it is often times easier to attach or mingle their world-view to our Christian world-view to avoid rocking the boat and making waves.
We are taught this in school and in the work place that if we compromise and give up a little ground we can find peace and avoid conflict, so we do it, we hear a world-view then we share ours and as soon as it appears that there is a conflict we begin looking for middle ground.
We seek to harmonize two world-views that are opposites, views that can’t be harmonized without invaliding the truth of the gospel.
Does any of this sound familiar? Does this sound like your life?
So Paul makes a declaration, he tackles the issue head on, he bucks the trends of the culture that call for him to seek middle ground and instead he takes the difficult path of stating there is but one gospel and one way to be reconciled to God and that is faith in Jesus Christ plus nothing else.
Folks, that is the heart of the gospel message.
That message has been under attack since shortly after Peter preached at Pentecost and will remain under attack until Christ comes.
As Martin Luther the sixteenth century reformer put it: “Justification by faith alone is the doctrine on which the church stands or falls.”
This wasn’t a new concept when he said it; Paul clearly grasped the significance of what these false teachers were doing to the message of the gospel.

Conclusion

So I ask you today, what is your good work that you continue to do because you believe God will accept you if you just keeping doing this one thing?
Paul is prepared to labor the point that justification comes through faith in Jesus Christ and him alone.
I used to work with a gentleman who told me he wanted to get saved but he needed to clean his life up first so God could accept him.
Do you know what my response was to that? I asked him if he has to get cleaned up before he takes a bath every day.
While we all understand that a bath is designed to clean the dirt from us we somehow believe that we need to do something to make us worthy in God’s eyes.
The truth is God sent his son to die for us while we were still sinners, which is when Christ first loved us. Not after we attempted to fix our lives.
Isaiah 64:6 tells us that our attempts to be righteous before God are but filthy rags and we are all unclean.