Well, good morning to everyone. Thank you, Mark, for leading us. What a beautiful morning. Man, one of the finest days of the year. No bugs yet, and beautiful sunshine. We get another one in the fall if we're lucky, so.

Well, we begin our verse-by-verse study of the book of Galatians this morning. And as we discussed in our introductory message, this book brings to the forefront the importance of the truth, particularly the truth of the gospel. There are many challenging aspects to the Christian life in this world. There's the challenge of witnessing to people, many people who do not want to hear the truth. There is a challenge of dealing with the influence and the pressures of this world system. We deal with the presence of indwelling sin, our emotions, our feelings, our experiences. We deal with constant lies coming against the truth, as well as our tendency to believe all these things rather than believing and trusting in Christ alone. 

As I've been thinking about this, I think one of the most challenging aspects of the Christian life in this world of our witness and clarity in the gospel is standing against those who preach another gospel, or being bold to make clear and correct those who preach a cloudy gospel in the church. My brothers and sisters, that's what this epistle is all about. Paul confronts clearly and immediately those who would preach another gospel, mixing works with grace for salvation, requiring something in addition to faith in what Jesus accomplished by himself for our salvation. 

But the heart of the book, in my understanding, is the influence that this kind of false teaching has on the believer's understanding of the gospel and the Christian life. In other words, Paul is most concerned with the believers having an abundantly clear understanding of the gospel and the courage to correct those who may be confused in the church. This is a real danger of false teaching, of ancillary issues becoming the main things in the church. The gospel is the main thing. 

And if the church does not understand this, is confused about this, or influenced by false teaching such that there's not a clear gospel preached, then all is lost, not only in witness and salvation of the lost and glory to God, but also in sanctification and fruit and holiness in our lives as God's means becomes twisted and confused and we go our own way. 

We see right away in chapter 1 at verse 6 that Paul is fired up about the gospel and those false teachers who added works and ritual to faith in Jesus for salvation. There is one gospel, one truth by which we must be saved, and that is that Jesus accomplished our salvation on the cross in his one-time death in our place for our sins. It is finished. Salvation is by God's grace alone and we receive this gift. We are imputed the very righteousness of God through faith and faith alone. 

Paul's point right out of the gate is that if any man, any church, even an angel from heaven, he says, were to add one thing to what Jesus accomplished on the cross in his death, burial, and resurrection, one means to obtain salvation other than faith in Jesus alone, then that is a false gospel. And that man, that church, Paul says twice, should be cursed to hell, should be condemned, should be warned against and noted by name as false. There's no room here for compromise. It's not like a disagreement over some doctrine of the Christian life, something that's a matter of personal conviction or a disputable thing. This is the very heart, the core of Christianity itself. The gospel must be clear and must be guarded at all costs. 

And it's a great challenge for us in my estimation, in my experience, to stand against those who claim the name of Christ but preach another gospel and to warn the church about them. Well, after this initial bold and clear statement in chapter one, we see Paul move on to another very important concern. That is the influence of false teaching on the believers in the church and their understanding of the gospel as well as the Christian life. 

We see that Paul is just as much concerned about clarity of the gospel in the mind and heart of every believer and this because this is the only way for sanctification, for Christlikeness to be a reality in our lives and it's the only way that we can be effective as ambassadors bringing the words of reconciliation to the lost. 

Let's look at chapter two, Galatians 2.11. It says, now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face because he was to be blamed. For before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles. But when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy. 

Now let's stop here for a minute. We know that the Judaizers had come following Paul and had tried to undermine his authority as an apostle, had brought another gospel of grace plus works, faith plus law for salvation. And it appears that many within the body had been influenced with this teaching. Now Peter and Barnabas, it says, were carried away with this, the influence of the false teaching. And even though they had been enjoying fellowship and food with the Gentiles, when the legalistic Jews came, they separated themselves and would not eat with the Gentiles but stood with the legalistic Jews. 

Now let me ask you, how would you characterize this? How would you describe what was going on here in the church in Galatia? I can imagine that many in the church today might say, well, it's an insignificant doctrinal difference. It's not essential doctrine that the Jews don't want to eat with the Gentiles. One might say, well, they can have their understanding and we can have our understanding and we can all just get along and lay aside our doctrinal differences. And in some cases, this can be true, of course, but I want you to see how Paul characterized these things. The fact that Peter stood with the Judaizers and separated himself from the Gentiles. 

It says, but when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel. In Paul's mind, the influence of the Judaizers on the church, those who add works and law to grace for faith, for justification, or for sanctification, as we will see so clearly in the following verses, the effect of this teaching being allowed to stand and given credibility so that some of the believers were carried away with it was indeed not being straightforward about the truth of the gospel. 

Look at verse 14, Galatians 2. Paul says, but when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Peter before them all. So here you have Peter, the great apostle Peter from Jerusalem, and they're in the church there. And Paul stands up to his face in front of everyone and he says, if you being a Jew, live in the manner of Gentiles and not as the Jews, why do you compel Gentiles to live as Jews? 

See, the Judaizers wanted to bind them with these dietary restrictions and circumcision and the law and all these different things. He says, we who are Jews by nature are not sinners of the Gentiles. Look at verse 16, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Christ Jesus that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, for by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified. 

Here we see perhaps the clearest statement anywhere on the doctrine of justification. We are justified, saved by Christ's work on the cross, his death in our place, and it is faith that is the means of apprehending that grace, that righteousness from God, by faith in Christ. But Paul's moving somewhere here. Think about the context here, so important. It's the effect of a false message that clouds the gospel in the minds of the believers so that they do not live by grace through faith, but attempt to sanctify themselves by the works of the law. 

Verse 18, chapter two, for if I build again those things which I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. What did Peter do? He began to build again the law in his life. He was carried away by the false gospel of the Judaizers so that he began to yield to the temptation to establish the law as a rule of life again. He built again those things which were destroyed by the true gospel of grace. 

Verse 19 makes this clear. For I, through the law, died to the law that I might live to God. For, he says, what are you talking about in verse 18, Paul? What are you building again? For I, through the law, died to the law in order that I might live to God. This is the clear teaching of Romans 7, one to six. When we died with Christ, we died to the law as a way, as a rule of life. And we now no longer live by the letter, Paul says, but by the power of the Holy Spirit and Christ's life in us. 

I, through the law, died to the law in order that I might live to God. Paul explains in verse 20 as we keep moving through his thought here. I have been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. In the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. 

Now he's talking about living. How do I live the Christian life? I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness, righteous, holy living, comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. And Paul's flow of his argument is wrapped up in chapter three at verses one to three, where he says, oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? The Judaizers had bewitched them, taken them captive. Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth? Before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified? 

This only I want to learn from you. Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish, having begun in the Spirit, that's justification, are you now being made perfect by the flesh, that's sanctification? I'm afraid that this teaching of sanctification by the law has had such an influence in the church today that many, if not most, Christians believe that having begun being justified, saved by grace through faith, that somehow the law is now playing a part in our sanctification. 

Having begun in the Spirit, we are now being made perfect by the flesh. So I just wanted to establish the intent and flow of this epistle before we dig in verse by verse. Paul is first and foremost in chapter one concerned with confronting false teachers and a false gospel. But the heart of this epistle is for the church, for the believers, and it's about a clear understanding of the gospel in our minds, so that we might be effective witnesses, but also that we might understand how it is that God intends to produce the fruit of holiness in our lives. The just shall live by faith. 

I ask you, as I ask myself as we begin this study, are you up for the challenge? Perhaps the greatest challenge in our lives in the church today, to stand against, to warn against those who teach a false gospel. That is, listen, having the courage to judge a man, to judge a church, to judge a system, by the gospel that they preach. This is first and foremost. 

I remember years and years ago, one of the first, I think maybe the first message I preached here on Galatians one, on non-compromise, and I preached this message and went for lunch on Wednesday at Pastor and Mary Ann's, and Mary Ann said to me, because people were a little bit upset with some of the things I said, said to me, finally someone else is saying those things, because they had mostly been upset at Pastor Krenz for all those years. But it's not popular. It's simple in one sense. What do they teach about salvation? Do they add ritual or works or law-keeping or sacraments, any work to grace for salvation? Is Christ insufficient? Must we add to what Jesus did on the cross in order to obtain our salvation? Then it's a false gospel. 

But there are consequences for being clear about these things in our world, and even in the church. And we also must be bold and clear in correcting a cloudy gospel in the church for witness and sanctification, because these false teachers have infiltrated so much of the church today with their doctrines and philosophies according to the tradition of men, the ways of the world, and not according to Christ. This is no small thing, my friend. But it is the truth, the gospel that's at stake, and it is our effectiveness as witnesses, our holiness and sanctification, and the glory and intent of our God that is in peril if we fail to keep another gospel out of the church. 

Let's look at our text, Galatians 1, verse 1. 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 brethren who are with me, to the churches of Galatia. Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. 

Well, I've given you five points on your outline. First, Paul's authority. Second, Jesus rescues us from our sins. Third, Jesus rescues us from our sin. Fourth, the gospel brings glory to God. And fifth, a need for truth. 

Well, the issue at this time and this place where Paul is ministering is specific to a sect of false teachers who professed faith in Jesus Christ. Paul had established the churches in Galatia by preaching the clear gospel of Christ, and the people there had received this truth, this message, placing their faith in Christ alone and were saved by God's grace through faith. 

But later, these legalistic Jewish men had come behind Paul, come from Jerusalem, and were preaching another message, a different gospel. That of faith in Christ, yes, but added to this a system of law and works and religious ritual that were necessary for salvation. We see this very same thing in our communities and our world today. There are true Bible-believing churches where the gospel is preached, but there are many who claim the name of Christ but teach another gospel. 

And I find that many, many believers are confused about these things. One of the methods that the false teachers used to worm their way into the church and have their false gospel carry the believers away was to undermine the authority as well as the message of Paul. So that's a first issue he addresses here. And they did this by accusing him of not being a real apostle and only having been sent by men. They said they were the true authority from Jerusalem, from James, and that Paul had sort of just come up with his own thing and went out on his own, and he was not a true apostle. He did not have authority from God. 

This matter of authority is vital in our lives and especially in our faith. It's become evident, I think, over the past several years that everyone in positions of authority does not have our best interest at heart and does not always tell us the truth. And this sometimes results in great harm to others for their own selfish interests. And my friends, this is nowhere more true than in the world of religion and Christianity. 

How is it that a man can get to heaven? How can a man be saved? How is it that we can be fruitful followers of Jesus Christ, bringing glory to God in all that we do? Who is our authority? That's a really important question for us to ask. Is it the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith? Is it Ellen G. White? Is it the magisterium of the Roman Catholic Church and all of its dogma and tradition? Or maybe the Westminster Confession is the authoritative voice in matters of doctrine. These things are all true for people who claim the name of Christ in our communities. 

Is our authority found in the wisdom of men and psychology and marketing techniques and the ways of the world? My wife's in Minneapolis babysitting our grandchildren and helping my daughter with some projects. And she texted me on the way here a picture. She's at church in Minneapolis with my daughter. And it looks like a Motley Crue concert in the deck in 1985 to me, but purple lights and smoke coming up and a rock band and they've got hearing protection on the children. Perhaps I'm my own authority. Only what I say and what I think goes. I am the decider of truth. That's a popular one today. 

My friends, the issue of who is in authority, who speaks for God, is a matter of first importance in our spiritual life for our eternity. We believe that it is the word of God that is our sole authority for life and practice at Living Hope Church, that it is the gospel of grace through faith in Jesus alone that is the only true message from God about how a man can be saved. 

Paul wants to establish immediately in this epistle that it is Jesus who chose him. It is Jesus who sent him. It is Jesus who gave him the gospel he preached and the believers in Galatia received. He confronts the Judaizers head on over this issue of authority in verse 1. Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. 

Paul proclaims that he is an apostle, a sent one, not from men. Men were not the source of his apostleship nor through man. Man was not even the intermediate agent that God used to call and send him, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father. Jesus appeared to Paul personally, personally revealed the truth to Paul, gave him the gospel message, and sent him to the Gentiles. Paul described this in his testimony before Agrippa in Acts 26. He said, Jesus said to him, rise and stand on your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to make you a minister and a witness, both of the things which you have seen and of the things which I will yet reveal to you. 

I will deliver you from the Jewish people as well as from the Gentiles to whom I now send you to open their eyes in order to turn them from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me. 

Listen to Weiss' comments on this verse. He said, Paul is most discriminating in the use of his prepositions in this verse. Of is the translation of apo, which means from, and which speaks of ultimate source. His apostleship did not come from men as its ultimate source. By the use of this preposition, he distinguishes himself from the false apostles who did not derive their commissions from God. He denies that his apostleship had a human source. And he says it's neither by man. Not only does Paul say that his apostleship did not find its source in man, but it did not find its intermediate source in man. Man was not even the agent of God conferring that apostleship. 

Paul not only denies that he was made an apostle by men, but also that God used the intermediate agency of a man to constitute him as an apostle. His apostleship was not derived from a human source or given through a human channel, but directly from God and our Lord Jesus Christ. The authority of Paul and his apostleship and his gospel was Jesus himself. 

And next we see that the gospel is a rescue mission by the will of God. Look at verse 2 in our text. Now all the brethren here with me to the churches in Galatia, grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. And look at verse 4. Who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. 

It's so impactful to see the will of our God and Father in salvation. Mark talked a little bit about that this morning. The reason he gave his only begotten son and that to do two things. To deliver us from our sins, that is to rescue us from the penalty for our sins, the wrath of God to come, and to deliver us from this present evil age. That is the effects of this world system and the sin that still dwells in us. God sent his son according to his will. It was his desire to save you. And he loved you so much that he gave his only begotten son for his express purpose to redeem us, to save us, to rescue us. 

Trench comments, deliver is the translation of exario, which means to pluck out, to draw out, to rescue, or to deliver. The word strikes the keynote of the letter, he says. This is the main point of the letter. The gospel is a rescue, an emancipation from a state of bondage. And the word here denotes not a removal from, but a rescue from the power of the ethical characteristics of the present age. 

In Adam, we were in bondage in several ways. We were in bondage to the fear of death, to the wrath of God for our sins. We were in bondage to the power of indwelling sin. We were in bondage to the law. We were in bondage to the elements of this world. Jesus came, God gave his son for the express purpose of delivering us from this bondage. The gospel is a rescue mission. In Jesus' one time death on the cross in our place for our sins, he took the wrath of God that I deserved. Our sins were imputed to him, his righteousness was imputed to me when I believed Jesus. Jesus rescued us from the wrath of God—eternal separation from God in the lake of fire for our sins. 

But when we believe Jesus, we were also rescued from the bondage of indwelling sin, of the law, and of the power of this world, this evil age. Through our death, burial, and resurrection with Jesus, we died. We were buried with Jesus. We were raised to newness of life. We have died to sin. We have died to the law. We have died to the bondage of the fear of death. We see this clearly in Romans 6, 7, and 8. And we see that this death, this recreation, this regeneration, and the salvation that God provides through Christ alone is the grounds for our new life in Christ. 

Let's look at a couple of verses there in Romans 6, 7, and 8. Romans 6, 2, such tremendous truth, what God did by his will through Christ. Romans 6, 2, how shall we who died to sin live any longer in it? The lost man, the antagonist, might say to you when you say you're saved by believing, by grace, through faith alone, they'll say, well, then you can just do anything you want, right? I mean, it's free grace. Just be believed. Just sin all you want. Adrian Rogers used to say, I sin all I want. I sin more than I want because I got my want fixed. 

Before I wanted to sin, God fixed my want, right? And Paul says, you can't live like you did in Adam anymore because you died. And God completely transformed who you are in Christ. He says, don't you know that as many of us as were baptized, and that word there is a dry word. It means to place into, has nothing to do with water. As many of us that were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. 

We were placed into his death. Therefore, we were buried with him through baptism into death that just, look at this, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. For if we've been united together in the likeness of his death, look at this word, certainly we also shall be in the likeness of his resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man, that man in Adam, was crucified with him, that the body of sin, this physical body controlled by indwelling sin would be done away with or rendered powerless so that we should no longer be slaves of sin, for he who has died has been freed from sin. 

Now, if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more, look at this, death no longer has dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life that he lives, he lives to God. Likewise, you also reckon yourselves to be dead indeed to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Now go over to Romans 7.5. We died to sin, we no longer fear death, death no longer has dominion over us. Romans 7.5, for when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work in our members to bear fruit to death. This was our life in Adam, law, sin, and death. 

But now we have been delivered, there's that word delivered, rescued from the law, having died to what we were held by so that we should serve in the newness of the spirit and not in the oldness of the letter. Romans 8.1, he picks it up from 7.6 and 8.1, he says, there's therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do and that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh. On account of sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. 

So Jesus dealt with the sin that dwells in me. Why? Verse four, so that the righteous requirement of the law, that's love, might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit. God sent Jesus to rescue us from the bondage we experienced in Adam under law, sin, and death. So that he might transform us and make us like Christ for his glory. 

And in this way, by grace through faith alone, and Jesus alone, the church brings glory to God. We see in Ephesians 3.14 and following that it is God's plan to produce this holiness through us to bring glory to himself in the church by the power of the Holy Spirit and the life of Christ in us. It says, now to him who is able. It doesn't say now to him who is able. It says, now to him who is able.  to Mark who is able, or to John who is able, or to Gary who is able, praise the Lord. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us. 

What power is it that works in us? Ephesians 1.19, the very power that raised Jesus from the dead. That power works in us, the Holy Spirit works in us. In 21 it says, to Him be glory in the church, by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever, amen. This is a summary statement of Paul in Galatians 2.20 we read before, here's the Christian life. I have been crucified with Christ, I died. It's no longer I who live but Christ lives in me. How? How do I live this life? The life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me. 

This is the essence of the Christian life, a life looking unto Jesus, abiding in Him, trusting in Him, He is my authority, He is my Lord. And His command in the new covenant is found in 1 John 3.23, this is His commandment that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another as He gave us commandment. Only Jesus can live the Christian life. And He lives His life through us as we abide in Him by faith. 

And this is how God is glorified by our life and witnessed in this world. And so we see at the very beginning of this letter, this vitally important epistle to the churches in Galatia, the need for truth, the need for a clear gospel, the need to understand those who teach a false gospel and not to be influenced by that. Jesus said in John 17, sanctify them by your truth. Your word is truth. Jesus said, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. 

Paul knows that only the truth, the clear truth of the gospel can rescue men from sin and law and death and from eternal death in the lake of fire. And he also knows that only truth can sanctify, can produce holiness in our lives by grace through faith. And so Paul is willing to tell it like it is. He's willing to stand up in front of the whole church and withstand Peter to his face because he was not clear about the truth of the gospel. And this has great implications in our understanding of the Christian life. 

It's not an easy thing to do. It's not a popular thing to do, but it's a necessary thing to contend for the gospel as an ambassador for Jesus Christ. Let's close in prayer. 

Father, we're so thankful, thankful for the clear gospel, for the simplicity that is in Christ, that salvation is by grace, not by works. For it's of works, it's no longer grace. We thank you for that gift. We thank you for sending your son to take the punishment we deserve to die in our place. And we know from your word that we can trust and believe that if we will place our faith in him alone, you will give to us your righteousness and make us fit for heaven. 

And not only that, but you will transform us inwardly, dealing with the sin that dwells in us, releasing us from the bondage of the law to the fear of death and allowing us, empowering us to live now a holy life that brings glory to you and is a witness to men. Thank you for that promise, that privilege to be your witnesses, your ambassadors to the ends of the earth. And thank you for the message, the good news of Jesus Christ. In his name we pray.