“Getting the Gospel Right!”
(or, "We must never forget!")
(or, "We must never forget!")
Galatians 1:6-10
Introduction: Memorial
Day is a time to remember those who paid the ultimate price, and laid down
their lives to preserve our freedoms. We must never forget! Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this: than he
lay down his life for his friends.” We
can apply Jesus’ words to those who stood against foreign enemies and gave
their lives for their country. That verse, of course, has its ultimate
fulfillment in the event alluded to in the opening of this letter to the
Galatians, specifically in Galatians 1:4, speaking of the One who gave himself for our sins, to rescue us
from this present evil age… We must never forget! That message, the
Gospel, is the foundation and the fuel of our faith, yet, amazingly, we can so
easily begin to take for granted our salvation, forgetting the blood that was
shed to make us free. The Galatian believers were losing their astonishment in
the Cross of Christ, and were in danger of becoming spiritual deserters. They
were being influenced by false teachers who were undermining the gospel
message, and in the process, they were turning from the God in who alone was
their hope of salvation.
The Bible claims to be the inspired Word
of the living God. The central figure of the Bible is Jesus, the central
message of the Bible is the Gospel. A preacher said,
“Many today dilute or pollute the Gospel. They
dilute it by downplaying the fact that all humans are sinners desperately in
need of a supernatural rescue. They pollute [it] by adding to it human effort or good works as a necessary element of
our salvation. Both are a… perversion of the truth.”
There are some who today profess Christianity,
but they deny the core truths of the Bible. The miracles are explained away,
even the historicity of the resurrection is denied. The necessity and the
efficacy of the Cross is minimized. Some
would urge an ecumenical spirit of tolerance and inclusion, and want to affirm that
Christianity is just one path among many that lead to God – in other words, it
really doesn’t matter what you believe, as long as you really believe it. Have you heard that? Most of us are wary of the slippery
slope of compromising the truth through “dilution.” We may be even more
susceptible to spiritual pollution. In
Galatians we see a form of that more subtle threat, a danger that any of us can
easily fall into, even out of a desire to protect the truth. That
danger is legalism. We’ll see in
this letter that even the Apostle Peter was not immune and, at least in terms
of his practice, he had to be confronted and corrected by Paul. Does the Gospel mean that we have license to
sin? God forbid! Can we then add to or complete our salvation by our own
effort? No way! Jesus paid it all! C.H. Spurgeon said it well, “If we try to add one stitch to the garment
of our salvation, we’ll ruin the whole thing!” Let’s be sure we get the
Gospel right!
The Maine*
Idea: God is glorified when we steadfastly hold to His Word and
do not compromise the Gospel of Christ.
I. Be determined! The
Gospel of Christ is a firm foundation that must not be compromised (1:6-7). I am not a builder, but some of you are. This
I know, before you construct a building, you had better have a good foundation!
I remember once on one of our trips down to the coast of Sao Paulo, near the
city of Santos, there were two apartment buildings, maybe 10 or 15 stories
tall, standing side-by-side. They should have been parallel to each other,
straight up, but one was tilting about 15 degrees away from the other! Clearly
something went wrong, there was not a proper foundation! Our faith must be
grounded in the Gospel, that alone is God’s rescue plan for humanity! Paul is amazed that they are so quickly being
turned from the Gospel they had believed, by which they were saved!
I am astonished that you are so
quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to
a different gospel- 7not that there is another one, but there are
some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.
We were already alerted in the opening
of this letter, in verses 1:1-5, that Paul was writing with urgency. He affirms
his apostolic authority, and summarizes the Gospel that he preached in those
few verses. That urgency continues here, and is evident in what is said, and in
what is not said. This epistle is striking in what it does not say at
this point: almost without exception Paul follows his initial words of greeting
with thanksgiving to God for some aspect(s) of the recipients’ life and
faith. Even the carnally minded
Corinthians received such a word (1:4)! In
this case it is as though Paul has no time for such pleasantries, he is
compelled by the urgency of the situation to come straight to the point. It was not simply a matter of practice, but
it was the heart of faith, the foundation was being undermined, the Gospel was
under attack, and Paul’s response is emphatic, “I am astonished…!”
These false teachers were turning
(a process) Galatian believers from the truth (they were being turned from God
Himself). Compromise is like that—most
people who abandon orthodox Christianity don’t do it all at once. They begin “snipping out” a verse here or
there, questioning the historicity of one narrative, then another. Soon they
are denying anything “supernatural.” Miracles don’t happen, God doesn’t speak,
he doesn’t act in human history. Or, “This is only cultural; Paul would never
say that today!” The “Gospel” in view here is the central message of the Bible,
the truth of salvation by grace through faith, apart from works.
The word “turning” here is interesting, some translations say “deserting.” According
to John Stott it was a term used of transferring allegiance, of soldiers
deserting or revolting, of someone abandoning one political or philosophical
school for another, a “turncoat.” These traitors compromised the truth of the
Gospel and in so doing were “…turning
from the One who called them…” They weren’t just turning from right
doctrine, in doing that, in compromising God’s message of grace, in turning
from the Gospel of God, they were turning from God Himself!
We’ll
see as we get into this letter that the specific compromise that was polluting
the Galatian churches was a form of legalism, that is making rule-keeping a
requirement of salvation. This is a danger to which we Baptists can be particularly
susceptible. We rightly recognize that holiness, a transformed life, is a
normal part of Christian living. We go wrong when we start defining
spirituality by what we don’t do.
We essentially add our “rules” to the gospel and say this is what real Christians should look like. The
problem is when we look for things that are not specified in the Bible and make
them an essential criterion, in our view, of authentic faith. Is a movie
theatre essentially immoral? Some professing Christians, at certain times and
in certain places, have said so – and they wouldn’t care if there was a Billy
Graham movie playing, a Christian shouldn’t go in there! That thinking probably
started with good intentions, but something went wrong along the way. Salvation
is not based on us being good enough. It is based on putting our trust in the
only One who was good and is good, Jesus Christ. He was without sin, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all… (Isa 53:6). God
is glorified when we steadfastly hold to His Word and do not compromise the
Gospel of Christ.
II. Be discerning! We
must reject any teacher whose message is contrary to God’s revealed truth (8-9).
God does not contradict Himself!
8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to
you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 9 As we have said before, so now I
say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you
received, let him be accursed.
Paul uses the strongest language
imaginable to make his point here: “Even
if we…” He is saying that even if he, the apostle Paul, began to contradict
the Gospel he had preached to them, which they had received, “…or an
Angel from Heaven…” He is using hyperbole to emphasize the point: Even if
an Angel came down from Heaven and began to preach a contradictory message, “let him be anathema, accursed…” (vv.
8-9). That word has the sense, “be damned
to hell”! By repeating it Paul is making sure they got the urgency of what
he was saying.
We must be diligent, vigilant, and have zero
tolerance for preaching or teaching that is not true to the Bible. Now I am not
saying that you should immediately call for a special business meeting if you
hear me say something that seems a little off!
But don’t just let it slide either – make a note of it, and ask me about
it. I am responsible to teach the truth, and you are responsible to be a
Berean, and to go home and search the Scriptures to see whether or not those
things are so! I make it a habit to
listen to my sermon recordings before I put it on the church website. Occasionally
I’ll hit the pause button and ask myself, “What did I just say? That’s not what
I meant to say!” And I probably don’t
catch everything, because I know what I meant to say! So, be a Berean. The
Scripture is our authority.
Paul then moves from the hypothetical to
the actual, repeating the anathema: “…if any man is preaching to you a gospel
contrary to that which you received, let him be accursed…” He is not
talking here about disagreeing on some fine points of theology—there are some
things about which godly, sincere Christians disagree. We need to humbly seek
the truth together. But if we are compromising the Gospel, the heart of the Christian
message, that is a problem that can’t be ignored!
Does the language Paul used sound strong
to you? It is, and Paul intended it to be! The very heart of the Gospel
message was at issue, human souls were at stake. Paul is saying this is not
open to debate, it is not something about which we can agree to disagree. We
need to get the Gospel right! Either we are saved by grace through faith
alone, or by grace plus works, but it cannot be both. Spurgeon rightly warned,
“If we try to add one stitch to the
garment of our salvation, we’ll ruin the whole thing.” There is only one “Gospel,”
the Good News that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself. We are
saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Plus nothing. God is glorified when we steadfastly
hold to His Word and do not compromise the Gospel of Christ.
III. Be devoted: Though
compromise might win the favor of men, we hold fast to the truth because that
is pleasing to God (v.10).
For
am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man?
If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
Finally, since the Gospel is God’s
truth, and faith in Jesus is the only way to God, we can’t allow ourselves to
be pressured into telling people what they want to hear. Our highest goal is to
seek to please God. Paul writes in Galatians 1:10: "Am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please
men? If I were still pleasing men, I should not be a servant of Christ."
In verses 8 and 9 Paul had just said something that will not win him many
friends. It doesn't please most people to hear someone talk about judgment and
Hell! People need to know that God is holy and just and that He must punish sin.
He is also a jealous God, deserving of our whole-hearted worship, and He will
not tolerate false religion. Our goal, always, is to make choices that please
Him. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 4:1-4,
Let a man so consider us, as servants
of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.
2 Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found
faithful. 3 But with me it is
a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by a human court. In fact,
I do not even judge myself. 4
For I know nothing against myself, yet I am not justified by this; but He who
judges me is the Lord.”
At least two things are at stake when the
gospel is perverted: one is the glory of Christ; the other is the salvation of
sinners. If the gospel is twisted, the all-sufficiency of Christ's work is
dishonored, and the way to salvation for sinners is blocked. Faith comes by hearing… God is pleased, through the foolishness of
the message preached, to save those who believe. There is no “plan B”! Therefore,
in order to serve Christ—to advance his glory and achieve his saving purpose—We
must oppose the perversion of the gospel, whether it pleases people or not. For
the glory of Christ (Gal 6:14) and for the good of those who may yet believe
the gospel (Gal 2:5), Paul is willing to speak the truth, even when it hurts.
The lesson to learn from verse 10 is not
that the more people you can displease the more spiritual you are! It wasn’t
Paul's aim to alienate people. On the contrary, in I Corinthians 10:31 he says, "Do all to the glory of God. Give no offence
to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please all men
in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage but that of many, that they
may be saved." And in Romans 15 he says, "Let each of us please his neighbor for his
good to edify him…” Commenting on this, John Piper said, “…it is good to please people provided that
pleasing them is a means to their salvation and their edification and to God's
glory.” We should speak up for righteousness, but we speak out of love,
desiring that people recognize and respond to the truth of the Gospel. We urge men on behalf of Christ to be
reconciled to God! Whatever we do, whatever choice we make, our desire
should always be to please God, to do all
to the glory of God. Sometimes the choices we make will please God and
please other people. Its nice when that happens. Sometimes making choices that
we know will please God, will anger someone. We can be crippled in terms of
living out our faith if we tiptoe around people, always striving for their
approval. We need to ask, “What would Jesus do? What would He have me to do in
the situation in front of me?” That is what matters. We love Him, and want to please Him, because
He first loved us.
What is God saying to me in this
passage? God is glorified when we steadfastly hold to His Word
and do not compromise the Gospel of Christ.
The fundamental truth of the gospel is that we are saved by the Grace of
God, that is, by His unmerited, undeserved favor. Grace alone. Nothing we do can add to
our salvation – and as we’ll see in this letter over the next few months, we can’t
do anything to earn it, perfect it, or to keep it. Unmerited favor, the free
gift of God. Tim Keller said, “…the
biblical gospel—Paul’s gospel—is clear that salvation, from first to last, is
God’s doing. It is His calling; His plan; His action; His work. And so it is He
who deserves all the glory, for all time.”
As Americans, we should always remember the
price that was paid, the blood that was shed, to preserve our freedoms. We
should honor the fallen. As Christians, let’s always remember that Christ gave Himself for our sins, to rescue
us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.
To Him be the glory. Nothing in my hands I bring. By His doing you are
in Christ. And yes, we are saved “unto good works.” In Galatians Paul calls it
the “fruit of the Spirit.” We’ll see
in this letter that we are not under the Law, we are free in Christ, free indeed.
What would God have me to do in
response to this passage?
Where do good works come in then?
Faith works through love.
Because God has loved us, we love Him in return. And that love will
overflow in our relationships, we love one another. And we love our neighbors,
seeking their good, conducting ourselves in a way that won’t cause another to
stumble. That is good works, and the result
of Christ working in us (Eph 2:8-10). It
comes in the form of the “fruit of the Spirit.”
We believe God. And God in us, changes us, transforms us, from the
inside out.
It is easy to become prideful, even to
judge another because their life does not conform to our idea of what Christianity
should look like. Are there clear
biblical admonitions that deal with the subject, or, is it an area where godly,
sincere, believers disagree? Jesus was
rejected by some for being a friend of sinners.
When it comes to the Gospel, let’s not
be guilty of spiritual dilution or pollution. There is a tendency today to twist
biblical doctrine, to deny absolute truth. It
doesn’t matter what you believe, as long as you really believe it. Have you
heard that? That is clearly wrong!
That is diluting the Gospel. But we also need to be on guard
against spiritual pollution: Legalism amounts to grace plus works,
that too is wrong. Remember: "The secret of the Lord is with those who
have been broken by his cross and healed by his Spirit." Galatians holds
forth these two things: “…the cross of
Christ as the only way a person can get right with God, and the Spirit of
Christ as the only way a person can obey God.” Rejoice in His grace! AMEN.
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