Galatians 1:1-10 - No Other Gospel
Tom Shrader opens his study of Galatians by examining Paul's strong defense of the gospel of grace in verses 1:1-10. He emphasizes that salvation comes through Christ's work alone, not through any human effort or religious performance, warning against false teachers who distort this message by adding requirements to the gospel.
“You are saved by grace through faith, and there's nothing you need to do to be saved, there's nothing to add to that gospel, there's no act for you to perform.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Galatians
Recorded: 2012
Duration: 57 min
Themes: grace, salvation, freedom, gospel, legalism, works, truth, faith, new believer, struggling with legalism, confused about salvation, pastor, bible teacher, recovering from works righteousness, seeking spiritual freedom, dealing with false teaching
Scripture: Galatians 1:1-10, John 8:32, John 8:36, Matthew 11:28-30, Acts 2, Acts 13, Acts 14, Acts 20:27-31, 2 Timothy 4:6-8, Jude 1:3-4, 1 Corinthians 1:1-7, 2 Corinthians 1:1-7, John 10, Ephesians 5:25, Titus 2:14, Matthew 23
Theological Themes: justification, sola gratia, grace alone, soteriology, salvation doctrine, false teaching, biblical authority, reformation theology
Full Transcript
Open your Bibles to the book of Galatians. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand, and the guys will bring you a Bible. When you get a Bible from us, it's page 631.
We start this study today. This study will take us right to Easter. It's week one in the study of the book of Galatians. We're looking at verses one through 10 of chapter one.
Setting the Stage with Scholarly Perspectives
I'm always mindful that my daughter Haley, each of my daughters really, is super critical of my teaching. Haley would always say whenever you have a lot of quotes, whenever you read a lot of quotes, it typically means you haven't prepared or you don't have anything to say. I'm starting today with a lot of quotes, not because I haven't prepared, not because I don't have anything to say, but oftentimes at the beginning of a book, it's helpful to let these things run over you so you get the scope of what several authors say about the book we're getting ready to study.
Let me read you three or four of these. One author writes this: "The book of Galatians has been conferred with such titles as the Magna Carta of Spiritual Liberty, the Battle Cry of the Reformation, the Christian's Declaration of Independence. It is clearly the Holy Spirit's charter of spiritual freedom for those who have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Many church historians maintain that the foundation of the Reformation was laid with the writings of Martin Luther's commentary on Galike. The great German reformer said, 'The epistle to the Galatians is my epistle.'"
Another author writes this: "The message of Galatians is the message of Christian spiritual freedom. You're starting already to get this idea of spiritual freedom. It's His deliverance by Christ from the bondage of sin and of religious legalism. Its message is particularly relevant in our own day as personal freedom has become a dominant emphasis of countless philosophies both within and without of Christendom."
Another author writes: "Not many books have made such a lasting impression on man's minds as the epistle of Paul to the Galatians, nor have many done so much to shape the history of the Western world. For it rightly maintains that only through the grace of God in Jesus Christ is a person able to escape the curse of his sin, of the law, and to a new life to live, not in bondage or license, but in genuine freedom of mind and spirit through the power of God. Because of the powerful truth, Galatians is called the cornerstone of the Protestant Reformation."
A Letter to Recovering Pharisees
Let me read you one just a little bit different flavor: "Galatians is a letter to recovering Pharisees. The Pharisees who lived during and after the time of Christ were very religious. They were regular in their worship, orthodox in their theology, and moral in their conduct. Yet, something was missing. Although God was in their minds and in their actions, He was not in their heart. Therefore, their religion was little more than hypocrisy.
The Pharisees were hypocrites because they thought that what God would do for them depended on what they did for God. So they read their Bibles, and prayed, and tithed, and kept the Sabbath as if their salvation depended upon it. What they failed to understand is that God's grace cannot be earned, it comes free.
The way out of Phariseeism is called the gospel. It is the good news that Jesus Christ has already done everything necessary for our salvation. If we trust in Him, He will make us right with God by giving us the free gift of His grace. When we reject our own righteousness to receive the righteousness of Christ, we become—it's a great phrase—former Pharisees." Thus the title.
Fighting for Grace: The Struggle to Keep Grace as Grace
As you look at the title of the study, Fighting for Grace, it might even seem ironic because grace is that free gift that God gives us. What's the struggle? Well, it's the struggle to find grace and to keep it as grace.
I'll speak autobiographically. I've been teaching for 20 years on the East Valley Bible Church, and now at Redemption, but in the Gilbert campus for 20 years. Rarely is there a topic that generates so much pushback as grace. That seems ironic when we really do comprehend that I'm saved by grace through faith, but then all of a sudden, it becomes, "But that's so simple. There must be something more to it than that."
There seems to be this—and I would say the better the church, the more pronounced this is. My friend Jamie Rasmussen has been teaching about grace for a year up at Scottsdale Bible Church, and he will tell you the pushback is huge. By and large, even those of us who know Christ as Lord and Savior are oftentimes scared of grace when we're confronted by it. Grace is a marvelous thing, amazing grace. Sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. It's an amazing thing, but then we try to deal with it in our life, and it can become scary.
Paul's Standard Greeting with an Edge
I'm going to read these ten verses and make one observation as we do:
"Paul, an apostle (not sent from men, nor through the agency of men, 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 our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen."
Those are His first five verses. Those of you that have been around, or if you just flip and start to look at Paul's letters, epistles that He writes, that's kind of a standard greeting. He identifies Himself, oftentimes mentions others that are with Him, oftentimes extends a greeting of peace—grace and peace, always in that order. He adds a bit of a doxology here.
Paul also adds a little definition of the gospel, which we'll come back and break down. But here's what's missing. Look at verse six: "I'm amazed that you so quickly deserted him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel."
The Missing Commendation
Essentially, every other epistle that Paul writes has a section of commendation. If you turn to the left, the next book is 2 Corinthians, and the book after that is 1 Corinthians. Paul is writing to this church at Corinth, and this church at Corinth is all screwed up. It's got so much sin, so many problems, including the fact that Paul says there's a guy in the church who's sleeping with his mother—most likely his stepmother—and the guys in the church aren't dealing with it at all.
Even to this church, look at the beginning: "Paul called as an apostle, verse two, to the church of God which is at Corinth, verse three, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." So everything we saw in the book of Galatians is there, except he goes on: "I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you in Christ Jesus, that in everything you were enriched in Him, in all speech and knowledge, even as the testimony concerning Christ was confirmed in you, so that you are not lacking in any gift, awaiting eagerly the revelation of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Here's this church that's an absolute mess, and there's a section at the beginning and periodically throughout the book of commendation. Now go back to the book of Galatians—there's that standard greeting, and there's no commendation at all. Paul goes right after it.
Paul's Urgent Response
He gets to verse six: "I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another; only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed. As we have said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed."
Literally, he's saying "Go to hell with that other gospel." That's what he's saying. "For am I now seeking the favor of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ."
I want to make this huge point: What's at stake here? The reason Paul responds so strongly is not that he's dealing with some unholy living. He's dealing with the most important issue, the supreme issue, the vital issue—it's the gospel. It's "What is the gospel?" So it trumps all the other discussions.
The Core Question About Judaism and the Gospel
Sometimes we don't think of it this way. When the church began, it was primarily Jews reaching out to Jews. Now the gospel has spread, and now the Jews are reaching the Gentiles. As the Jews reach the Gentiles with the gospel, it raises some questions. The biggest question is: What's the role of Judaism or the law of Moses as it relates to the Christian faith?
Is it necessary for a Gentile to convert to Judaism and then from that to the Christian faith? Is there a part of Judaism that needs to be fulfilled in terms of the observance of the law for a Gentile to become a Christian? From a practical perspective: circumcision—is it necessary for an adult male Gentile to be circumcised in order to be saved? This obviously has huge theological implications but practical implications too. It's going to make evangelism among adult men a little tougher than we would have hoped. A little price to pay there, but you get it.
So that's the issue. The issue is the gospel. What is the gospel? Is there anything that needs to be added to this gospel? Primarily, this gospel of grace.
The Human Tendency Toward Religion
This smacks against—and it wasn't just in Paul's time—it smacks against human nature. People love religion. They love rules and regulations, especially as it deals with God. They want to come before God and somehow find a way to please a holy God through their own effort.
We've already talked about Martin Luther three or four times. Luther wrote this: "I was a monk and kept my order so strictly that I could claim that if ever a monk was able to reach heaven by monkish discipline, I should have found my way there. All my fellows in my house who knew me would bear this out." So he says, "I'm like the super monk, and all the guys who were in there with me, they would affirm that. All my fellows would affirm this. For if I had continued much longer, I would, what with vigils and prayers and readings and other works, have done myself to death."
Biblical Christianity Versus Everything Else
This is biblical Christianity as compared to everything else—all other religions, including those religions that might have with them the idea that Jesus lived and died and He died for your sins. What Luther is saying is, "I was the super supreme monk. I was doing everything that you were supposed to do."
They said Luther was going to confession—obviously Catholic—Luther was going to confession literally every other hour. As he's leaving the confessional, he's thinking of more sins that he's committed. And he's saying, "Listen, if anybody could have earned their way in this, let me tell you, I was serious." But there isn't freedom in that.
In John chapter 8, verse 32, Jesus says, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." Does Luther sound free? John chapter 8, verse 36: Jesus said, "So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." Matthew chapter 11, verses 28-30: Jesus says, "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light."
See, that's the issue that He's fighting for—the gospel itself. When I understand the truth and I understand biblical...
Christianity in terms of pleasing God, all of a sudden it's not my efforts that are winsome to God, it's the work of Christ that He sees. I was born and raised Catholic, grade school, high school, college. I can only give you my testimony. I heard over and over again, Jesus died for your sin. But there is a but that is in there. There is this truth, Jesus died for your sin, but there's now stuff you need to do. There's behavior that you need to perform. There's acts that you need to do.
I will have this discussion frequently in terms of people from a Catholic background. I don't want to argue this stuff. I'll simply say, let me just tell you, I never heard salvation by grace through faith. Yes, I heard Jesus died for my sin, but I heard there was a whole bunch of stuff I needed to do, too. I would go so far as to say, when you have a whole system of indulgences, and now you got people in limbo, and you're trying to do—you've got a works-based salvation there, no matter what you call it.
So that's what's at stake here. What happens in this is Paul's in the process of coming to Galatia, and he's under attack. In chapters one and two, it's very personal. Paul's defending the attack on the fact that he was an apostle. In chapters three and four, it's doctrinal, because the challenge, here's what they do—they attack Paul as the messenger, and therefore discredit the message. That's what's happening there.
Paul's Defense Strategy
So it's doctrinal, justification by faith. Then in chapters five and six is application. One of the charges against Paul is that this teaching of grace leads not just to freedom, but it leads to loose living. So Paul's dealing with all of that. Paul's taking all of that, and here comes his defense of that.
So that's the background. That's the big idea. We got one idea today, and that's here's the gospel. It's a gospel of grace, so we're going to take that, if you will, as a prism, and we're just going to go ding, ding, ding, ding, and hopefully see things, same thing, nuanced, a little bit differently.
But the point is this, that the gospel is that Christ died for our sin, and in Him and Him alone, we find eternal life. There's nothing you need to do to be saved. There's nothing to add to that gospel. There's no act for you to perform. There's no good deed you need to do. You are saved by grace through faith.
Paul's Apostolic Authority
So let's kind of attack these 10 verses. Paul identifies himself, and then he adds quickly his title. He says, I'm an apostle, but I'm an apostle not by agency of men. I wasn't elected to this. It wasn't that I desired this or self-proclaimed. He didn't say, call me Apostle Paul. No, I am there through the agency not of man, but through Jesus Christ and of God the Father who raised Him from the dead. I was appointed to this. God is the one who selected me.
So as Christ selects those original 12, Judas leaves, he is replaced, and now Paul is added to this, Paul the apostle. We'll look at it next week, because next week we're going to look at Paul's resume, his biography. We're going to look at Acts chapter nine and following. But God selects Paul. Christ comes to him on the road to Damascus, and he's called out, and he's apostle. He meets the criteria also at that point of having seen the risen Christ.
So Paul goes, as you challenge my authority, I want you to understand that indeed, I meet this criteria. It wasn't something that self-proclaimed. So it's me, the apostle, so he's establishing, very important here, almost always, when Paul goes and talks about his apostleship, he's establishing authority, either because he's about to say something very difficult, and he wants you to understand it's coming from God, or he's been under attack. That's the case here. He's been under attack, and he's defending that, and he's proclaiming his apostleship based on the fact that God has chosen him.
The Churches of Galatia
So Paul's writing the letter, and all the brethren who are with him, so he's got these other guys who are with him as well, and he's writing to the churches at Galatia. Now, we're not exactly sure, there's some disagreement, about what these churches, or which are these churches at Galatia. If you want to keep your finger marked there, Galatians chapter one, and turn to the left, page 599, it's the book of Acts, and it might be interesting, just by way of background for you, and if you want to go and do a little bit of study on it as well, Acts chapter 13, we are introduced to what I think make up these churches of Galatia. There's four of them: Antioch, Iconium, Leicester, and Derbe.
So that's the beginning in Acts chapter 13, verse one, it's the beginning of Paul's missionary journey. So you'll see Paul starts on this journey, he is a Jew, teaching to Jews, so his customary procedure is to go to the synagogue, to preach in the synagogue, and praying that God would save people, a church would be established out of that.
Paul's Missionary Pattern
So he goes, he teaches, look at chapter 13, verse 42, Paul and Barnabas going out. The people are begging them to stay, so they decide to stay a little bit. They stay the next Sabbath. The Jews come against them in verse 45, and they begin to contradict them. So Paul and Barnabas are kind of run out of town. They shake the dust off their feet in verse 51.
They head to Iconium, and what do they do? Same thing. They go to the synagogue. There's a number of Jews there. There's Greeks as well. They begin to teach, and people begin to respond, but it's a mixed response in verse 4. They're divided, some side with the Jews, some side with the apostles.
Paul goes to Lystra, and he's teaching there. As Paul's teaching there, the Jews from the previous two locations, from Antioch and Iconium, they have won the crowd over, so chapter 14, verse 19. They won the...
The crowd turned against Paul, and they stoned him, dragged him out to the city, and supposed him to be dead. So the Jews from Iconium and Antioch had come to Lystra. They rallied the people. They stoned Paul. That's a form of capital punishment. They looked at him, and their assessment was, as they dragged him out of town, that he was dead. He wasn't. The disciples stood around him, and he got up, and he entered the city. This guy just doesn't stop. He goes on, and he preaches, and he goes then to Derbe as well.
This is the backdrop. That's the history. Paul had gone to these towns. Obviously, his popularity, or at least his recognition, his reputation, was big in the community. Some liked him. Some didn't. Certainly the story had to be circulating. We don't know how to stop this guy. We thought we killed this guy, but he's back for more. So it's that backdrop that you have as you look back to the book of Galatians.
A Standard Greeting with Powerful Meaning
He's writing to these churches, and he gives them in verse 3, Galatians 1:3, this standard greeting: "grace to you and peace," and what's the source of that? God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So he's talking about grace. Now, this would be powerful. It's a standard greeting, but especially powerful as he's writing to this group of people who have had Judaizers and others come in and present a gospel Paul's going to declare different than the true gospel. It's a gospel that rather than generate freedom and grace, has generated legalism and oppression.
So he says, "grace to you," and we always see these together. Grace always precedes peace. Grace to you and peace. And where do I find that? From God the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ. Religiously, if I'm trying to find this idea of grace and peace, ultimately peace with God and the peace of God, if I'm trying to find it, the place to find it is in Christ, in Christ alone.
Some of you come, maybe with a religious background, and you're working, maybe even have a little Jesus in there. You may have come from a faith that even has Jesus in the name of the church. You may come from something similar to my background. You come from that, and you've got religion, and you are exhausted. You've tried everything: rosaries, giving, serving in children's ministry. You've been in Bible studies. You're one of these gals that goes to the Bible study, and you got all the different colored pens, and you've marked all this stuff. You've done everything you can do, and you're exhausted. These ought to be sweet words: grace, peace.
The World Can't Provide What You Seek
Or maybe you're here today, and it hasn't been religious. You're just trying to find grace and peace. You're trying to find some level of satisfaction in the world system, and you're never going to find it, no matter how much you accomplish. So let's say you're Nick Saban and the Alabama Crimson Tide. Your joy is going to be found a week ago in the national title. That's terrific. Win a national championship, got to be very satisfied. But if I'm trying to find grace, peace, satisfaction in that, it'll never do it. It'll never produce it.
When the Cowboys won their first Super Bowl, Cliff Harris looked over at Charlie Waters, because they'd been striving for this for a long time. They'd been to the big dance but hadn't won. Either Harris says to Waters, or Waters says to Harris, doesn't matter. Still in the locker room, still sweaty, haven't even showered yet. "Who do we play next?" And the implication is, okay, we got that. I was reading something about Bob Lilly talking about after one of the Super Bowls, the next morning going out and looking at all the party tents and all the empty things and going, "We won this thing, but there's just something, it just isn't what I thought it was going to be."
Where do I find this peace, this shalom? Cut me some slack on the term, because it's kind of become bad in our country. This holistic sense of satisfaction, where do I find it? In God, in Christ. "My yoke is easy, my burden is light. Come to me." This could be to you today, "all who are weary." You're just exhausted. You're exhausted from trying to be good. You've done everything you know how to do to please God, and you don't measure up. Let me just tell you, you never will measure up. You can't do it. Quit. I love quitters. Be a quitter. Quit. Give up. You'll never satisfy a holy God.
The True Gospel of Grace and Peace
Here's the gospel. John MacArthur writes this: In verse four, Paul gives us a succinct summary of the true gospel of grace and peace. Our peace is from God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, talking about Christ now, "who gave Himself for our sins so that He might rescue us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father."
There's this voluntary nature here. Here's how Jesus says it in John chapter 10. He said, "I lay down my life, then I may take it up again. No one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own accord." Galatians 1:4, He gave Himself up. Ephesians 5:25, He gave Himself up. Titus 2:14, He gave Himself up for us.
That's the beginning of the gospel: that Jesus came voluntarily. Man's sin had separated him from God, and there was nothing man could do to make that right. No sacrifice could be performed. But God, that's what we just talked about at Christmas, but God became man, lived a perfect life, and then, see what He says? He gave Himself up. Why? For our sin. That's why He died on the cross. God made Him, Jesus, who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf.
The Sacred Transaction
When Jesus died on the cross, there was this transaction that took place. All the guilt and punishment and wrath that was due you and me and all of us that would ever believe, at that moment in time, all of that was thrust upon Christ so that He can say, "It is finished," that sacred transaction. Jesus paid the price. And now somewhere, our sin forgiven, somewhere in our life, there'll be that moment when we come to Him in repentance and faith. That's the gospel.
It begins with Christ, it ends with Christ. He rescued us. The idea there is He delivered us. One author writes this: Jesus' death was a rescue operation, the only possible means of saving men from the doomed world and from eternal death by providing them eternal life. Tim Keller writes: Christ's death was not just a general sacrifice, but a substitutionary one. This means that He did not merely buy us a second chance, but that He did all we needed to do. If Jesus' death really paid for our sins on our behalf, then we can never fall back into condemnation. Why? Because God would then be getting two payments for the same sin. That's unjust.
Christ died. That's the gospel. Christ died. And you believe that. You believe that He died for your sins. You confess that God raised Him from the dead. And the result is, you will be rescued, delivered. I come into the world alienated from God, and I will stay in that condition, except I encounter a risen Christ who delivers me from this present age. He delivers me from the sin in my life and in the world around me, from the domination of my life by sin and by Satan and by the world system and by my flesh. And all of that was accomplished on the cross.
And it was all done according to the will of God. In Acts chapter 2, Peter delivers this first sermon, powerful sermon, again primarily to a Jewish audience. And He begins by talking about Christ and Christ's death. He talks about it in the phrase in chapter 2: the predetermined plan of God. This was God's plan from the very beginning. It's not as though God sent Jesus on some sort of mission here to be a political or economic messiah, and the plans went awry, and all of a sudden He was swept away in some political revolution and consequently was killed. No. He died according to the predetermined plan of God for a specific reason: to save His people—you, me, us—from our sin.
Glory Belongs to God Alone
When Paul contemplates this, there's only one thought process that he can possibly have, and that is: God is an awesome God, and the glory is not to me. It's not because Jesus died and I did something. It's not because I was a good person. It's not because somehow I found favor with God because of anything that was good in me. Jesus died for me, and I have salvation in spite of me, not because of me. When Paul contemplates that, all he can say is: glory be to God. He's the one who deserves it.
Paul's Stunning Amazement
So that's Paul's introduction, somewhat of a standard introduction, though he puts the gospel in there in one verse. He goes from there like a rocket ship: "I am amazed that you're so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is not really another gospel."
I can't believe that you tap out so fast. Like when I see that cage fighting, you have your name—it would be my name—tap out Tom. The minute they said, "Do," I go, "I'm done. Don't even come near me. No, no, no, no." Well, there's a little bit of that in here. He's going, "I don't get this. I am astounded. I am stunned that you so quickly"—and that could be either easily or so quickly in terms of time or both—"I cannot believe it. I can't believe how fast you've deserted." As you would expect, it's a term used in military context as well. You just walked away from your assignment. You walked away from your assignment for another gospel, for people that have come to you, and not with freedom, but with bondage, who come to you with another gospel.
The Real Enemy Is Internal, Not External
Now, there's a point here that's a huge point, and I want to make it. So we're going to flip through a couple of passages. Mark Galatians, go to the left, to the book of Acts and the 20th chapter to make a giant point that I think is really important to believers in all times and all places, but especially us today. Because Paul's going to talk about the supreme challenge to the church and to the gospel itself, and the point he's going to make is this: it's internal, not external.
So he's saying goodbye. It's Acts chapter 20, let's do verse 27. Paul is saying goodbye to the elders at Ephesus, and he said, "I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole purpose of God. Now, here's his warning: Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock, among which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to the shepherds of the church of God, which He purchased with His own blood. I know that after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves, men will arise, speaking perverse things to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be on the alert."
So what's Paul saying? He's saying goodbye to the elders at Ephesus, and he's saying, "Watch out." He's not saying it's going to be persecution from the Romans. He's saying it's going to be the dangers within the church. He's not saying it's the attack out there.
If you read my emails and the stuff that people send to me and all this, you would think that the enemy of the church is the ACLU, the liberal left, the media, all of that. That's not what he says in here. The enemy of the church, he said, the thing you want to be careful about and afraid of are the people inside the church, not outside the church.
The Most Dangerous Deceptions Sound Almost Right
John MacArthur writes this: "The most destructive dangers to the church have never been atheism, pagan religions, or cults that openly deny scripture, but rather supposedly Christian movements that accept so much biblical truth that their unscriptural doctrines seem relatively insignificant and harmless."
I'm talking one day to a bishop of a Mormon church, and at the end of a three-hour discussion, he says to me, "We're saying the same thing, just slightly different." And I said, "No, what's scary is we're saying radically different things, and they sound the same. That's the difference." So it's the same thing in all of those discussions. You have to be very, very careful.
Here. Let's stay on this journey just a bit so we can make this point. Second Timothy, page 646. Second Timothy chapter four. Love this passage, love this book.
Second Timothy chapter four, verse six and seven, and eight. We'll look at those first two. In verse six, Paul gives us the context here, and he says this: "For the time of my departure has come. I am already being poured out as a drink offering." So what Paul's saying is he's writing to Timothy, the cat he loves more than anybody else in the world, and he's saying, "Listen, I'm about to die. The time of my departure has come."
Now, verse seven, and what I love about verse seven is it's Paul's assessment of his own life. So we hear all the time, "I want to hear at the end of my life, 'Well done, good and faithful servant.'" Well, that's Jesus' assessment and commendation, and we want that. Here's Paul, and to me there's something really powerful about his ability to say this. It's his own assessment. He said, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith."
He said, "I've been in this thing the whole way. I fought the fight. I finished the course. I kept," and now that's what we focus on, "the faith." It's a definite article. He doesn't say, "I kept my faith." He said there was a body of truth that was passed on to me, and I didn't change it or alter it, and I passed it on. I didn't add to that gospel, I didn't take away from that gospel.
Contending for the Faith
Let's do one more. It's page, it's the back of the book. Page 663, Jude. So if someday you get ambitious and you're going to read a whole book of the Bible in a day, Jude's a good one, one chapter.
"Jude, a bondservant of Jesus, brother of James, to those who are called," verse three. "While I was making every effort to write to you about our salvation, I felt necessary to write to you, appealing to you to contend." That word that's translated "contend," it's actually hand-to-hand combat, it's wrestling. In Ephesians chapter six, it's talking about struggle that we have, not against flesh and blood. "To contend earnestly for the faith, which was once and for all handed down to the saints."
So you get the backdrop there. "I want you to contend for the faith." Who's the enemy? "For certain people have crept in unnoticed. Those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation. Ungodly persons who turn," and he says there's two things this group does. They turn the grace of our God into license, and they deny our master and Lord Jesus Christ.
So from the beginning, the concern we ought to have is not what's outside, but what's inside. It's not those who just blatantly attack us, but those who come as Satan himself, not as a roaring lion, but as an angel of light, or a subtle serpent.
False Gospels Facing the Church
This morning, I was almost, I was at 8:15, and Tim Long came through and he said, "I just came across this today, something on a phone, an email or something, danger's facing the church." And it was actually, it was false gospels. Let me just give them to you quick.
It was the feel good gospel, kind of different things we deal with. "God wants you happy." I always thought Larry Wright made this stuff up until it happened to me, but I've had the same thing happen to me. "God wants me happy, my spouse makes me unhappy, God wants me divorced." So you hear that, "God wants me happy."
Here's the me gospel: "What about me? This is all about me." So I like Jesus because it's like three wishes.
It's the greed gospel, health one. This one sets me off, and this is my one that just sets me off. These are the guys, and it was one of them was on this week. I'm not going to name his name, and he's awful. He's not the worst, he's not the worst of them, but he flies his jet competitively with the one who does, and the fact they both have jets should make you puke.
So it's this guy, and he's saying today, "God's got a lot of work to do, and He's not going to be able to do it through sick people and poor people." And so this is dangerous. Talk about putting people in bondage. So you come to me, and you have a sickness, and I say it's because you don't have enough faith, or if you have enough. And this breaks down so quickly. It says, if you have enough faith, you'll be healed. Obviously, that must fail somewhere, right? Everybody's dying of something somewhere.
And the theology of it, and this is why it's so wrong, is they'll go, "By His stripes, you were healed." So now they're messing around with the gospel, and the atonement itself. So we would say in the atonement, Christ purchased for us our salvation. They would say, "But He purchased your healing. He purchased your wealth. He purchased your bank account, all this stuff." This stuff is so bad, so evil, so rotten, so it puts people into bondage, delivers nobody from anything.
More False Gospels
So that's one of those. A cheap gospel: "Just believe, all you have to do is believe." Well it is that, is that easy? Well, there's sin and forgiveness.
A shallow gospel, it's watered down. There are many ways gospel. I watched Oprah, Oprah on cable, on Cox's Channel 100, and Oprah's got a new show she's doing now called "The Next Chapter," and she's doing some really good stuff. She interviewed Joel Osteen, Joel and Victoria in their house the other day, and so you could raise all sorts of issues, but she asked him about homosexuality as sin. And this is very similar, all these interviews with him are about the same, and he's very, it's very good, and you can, he, by the way, just stipulate, he seems like a very, very nice man. But he said, "Yeah, homosexuality's a sin," so that's good.
Then she said, "Is Jesus the only way to God?" So now we're, now we're there. And his answer is really an interesting answer. His answer was, "Jesus is the only way to God, but there's many ways to Jesus." What? There's got to be an easier way to say that. I mean, like a yes or a no would have helped. So there's that idea, and again, not a shot at Joel. I mean, he's doing his best, right?
The Exclusivity of the Gospel
So in the midst of all this, here's what Paul said: is there another way to salvation? No, there's no other way. So when a Buddhist and a Hindu and whoever else is praying, are we all praying to the same God? No. I don't even know how you get there.
Newt was rambling about this the other night. Every time these politicians get into theology, they're just foolish. Newt was essentially saying the same thing - how can you be so dogmatic? Here's a guy who thinks Jesus is a good teacher but not God, here's a guy who thinks Jesus is God, and they both somehow have truth? That's just impossible. That's saying two plus two is five, two plus two is three, two plus two is four - does it really matter? See, this is big stuff. That's why Paul goes right after it. He's not dealing with some kind of superficial issue.
The Speed of Spiritual Drift
Here's what Paul says: I'm stunned at how fast you fell away. We had this moment in a pastoral staff meeting five years ago, and one of the guys said we're talking about the doctrines of grace. He said that's just a given here at East Valley Bible Church - that's a given that'll always be that way.
I'm a very non-confrontational person. Much more confrontational from the front, but one-on-one I'm a little weenie. I'm easy. I give in and let someone else deal with it, or Neil or whoever. But I said, I feel like I need to speak to this. I think as long as I'm teaching, the doctrines of grace will be here. I've got that. But I don't for a second assume automatically that because we teach what I believe the Bible teaches is true now, I don't for a second believe that 20 years from now, we're guaranteed it'll be taught here either.
But these guys weren't just learning from Tom or Larry Wright or Chuck Swindoll or John MacArthur. Paul was teaching them. It's not just Paul's teaching them with words. They've seen - think about this now - they've seen Paul stoned, dragged out to the city limits, left for dead, then he gets back up again. I mean, this is not just words, this is word and deed. This is Paul coming at this. And yet, they've walked away.
Paul's Loving Confrontation
He calls them in chapter 1 verse 11, chapter 3 verse 15, chapter 4 verse 12 - he calls them brothers. He's saying they're believers. He's saying, "How have you deserted the one who has called you?" It's in the aorist participle. It means He's called you once and for all. How can this happen to you? It happens so quickly.
You deserted for a different gospel, which is really not another. The word that's translated "another" is like what we saw in John chapters 14, 15, 16, 17, when Jesus is saying, "I will send you another," meaning the Holy Spirit. It means exact and the same. You walked away not for another gospel. It wasn't just the same thing said differently. You walked away for a completely different gospel.
"Only there are some who are disturbing you and wanting to distort the gospel." Disturbing means to shake you up, to agitate you, to stir you up. It implies they're emotionally disturbing you. They're unsettling you. They want to distort - literally turning an idea into something the exact opposite. The gospel comes along and says it's grace. People come along and say it's grace plus. It's not grace, it's the law. It's not grace, it's what you need to do. And that always will have an appeal.
The True Test of Gospel Understanding
When you present the gospel, here's how you know if you've communicated it correctly. I'm walking along, taking a long walk one day with somebody I love dearly. We're walking along and I'm presenting the gospel. This person says to me, "I want to make sure I get this straight. If I believe in Jesus right now, but I kill somebody tonight and I die tomorrow, I'll go to heaven. Is that right?"
I'll always say the same thing: yes, we don't recommend that. I mean, it's not something we sit there and say, "Oh, you're saved, go kill people." We don't say that. But what I knew - here's what I liked - is I knew I'd communicated God's grace.
The Scandal of Grace
So when I talk about Mother Teresa and Jeffrey Dahmer - Gandhi's easier than Mother Teresa, so let's use Gandhi because it's easy. Based on Gandhi's own testimony, where he denies the substitutionary death of Christ, we know that Gandhi's probably one of the nicest men in hell, based on his testimony. Either his gospel's true or it's not, right?
Jeffrey Dahmer, on the other hand, who was a hideous person, cutting up people and eating them and all sorts of different stuff, supposedly became a follower of Christ in prison and was baptized. I don't know, can't look in his heart. So here you go: Gandhi's in hell, Jeffrey Dahmer's in heaven. I always add now, so you get a mansion in heaven, but you may want to lock your doors just to be safe. Be careful. You never know.
Wait a minute, because you all laugh about this, but I guarantee there's a whole bunch of people right now who are just going, "I want to get hold of that short, fat guy right by the throat right now." That can't be right. It can't be right in religious terms. It's absolutely right when it comes to grace, because it's not based on how much sin they committed or how much good they did, but did they deal with the person of Christ?
More Sinful, More Loved
When I come to grips with this - this is so cool, this is why it's so freeing - the closer I come to see myself through the scripture, all of a sudden what I see is I'm more sinful than I ever imagined, but more loved than I ever dreamed. I'm more sinful than I ever - I'm despicable in my sin, because it's not even the sins of omission, it's the sins of commission. It's even doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.
When God saved me, right at the same time, God saved a guy by the name of Tom Woods. Tommy is a very nice guy, just a nice guy, and I wasn't. So we had been saved about a year. We went to a place called Chubb's - it used to be a great place to go get cheaper, great food. So we're there, and Tommy and I are reviewing our year, and I'm talking about my life and
changes that I've seen, and I'm saying, you know, Tommy, it's kind of interesting because there's not much change in you. I don't mean that argumentatively. I'm just saying, you know, Tommy. So here's what Tommy said. Tommy said, I'm doing much the same thing I always did. I'm just doing it now for the right reason. So I was a good person, so you'd think I was a good person. I went to this school to please my mom and dad. I got this, see that? That's how sinful we are. That's what Jesus deals with.
So again, the counterpart of this, when Jesus deals with those Pharisees, they set him off like a rocket ship. When you get to Matthew chapter 23, woe to you, scribes and Pharisees. You go around the world, all you do, and paraphrasing now, all you do is screw people up. You don't fix anybody, and you follow the law. So when Jesus comes to the Sermon on the Mount, He says, okay, here are the Pharisees, and they pray and fast and give. I want you to pray and fast and give, but don't do it like they do. He's not condemning the action. He's saying, this is your heart.
A Gospel That Brings Curses, Not Blessing
Along come these guys, and they come along with this false gospel, and it doesn't bring peace. And then He speaks in these glowing terms here. Verse eight, even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to that that we've been preaching, let him be accursed. So if you're Joseph Smith, and some angel comes to you, and he preaches a gospel, other than this, it ain't right.
You know, mormon.org, here you go, simple sentence. We believe that, now think about the subtlety that we've talked about. We believe that through the atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved by the obedience to the law and ordinance of the gospel. Sounds really good. Boy, the atonement of Christ. Yeah, He's the general partner, but you're the limited. He did His part, now you do yours. See how subtle all this is?
Degrees Don't Determine Gospel Truth
Verse nine, we've said it to you before, we say it again. If a man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you receive, let him be accursed. So if this guy comes along and he's got degree after degree after degree, and I'm totally open to this. Almost, I would say at least every other time in the Connect class, there'll be a question that goes like this, Tom, where did you go to seminary? Tom, where did you go to school? And I'm not proud of it, but the reality is I didn't even take a class. I didn't go to school, okay? And so over the time, that's probably presented, and I know for some people, it's presented a problem for me. I totally get that, I get it.
But here's what He's saying. You get somebody that comes along and like they've been to Oxford and Cambridge, and they've been to Westminster, and they've been to Fuller, and they've been to all these seminaries. More degrees than a thermometer they got. But at the end of the day, they preach a gospel other than this, they should be to hell with you and your gospel, that's what he's saying. This is a big deal. That's why he's so riled about this. This isn't some ancillary thing. This is about the gospel itself. This is about Jesus Christ Himself. This is about what He did and what He accomplished on the cross.
Paul's Response to the Populist Charge
Now, to the charge, and we'll just touch on it in verse 10, to the charge that Paul is a populist and he's just there an apostle because of the people, he writes in verse 10, for am I now seeking the favor of men or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, would I not be a bondservant of Christ? I wouldn't be. He said, do you think this is a popular message? This is gonna win people over? He said, all these accusations that somehow I'm just one of the people's guys and all I want to do is please people. No, here's what Paul said is, I want to communicate the truth.
The Simple Response to False Gospels
So what do you do? It's really simple. You believe this gospel, you rejoice in this gospel, you become familiar with this gospel, you understand the gospel. So then when a, and it should be frankly pretty easy, so when a false gospel comes along, so if anybody's saying, yes, I believe Jesus died for my sin, but. Now, this doesn't mean, here's what this doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that you come and believe and then live any way you want if God hasn't changed your wanter. So it doesn't just mean that works and what we do are not important. They are very important, not to produce salvation, but as a result of salvation. If I have an encounter with the one through God, if I have that encounter, my life should be transformed. My life will be changed.
How Religion Keeps Moving the Finish Line
Now, here's been my experience, maybe it's yours too, is that there's all sorts of people who want to come along and once you start talking grace, they want to add to it. And it's vicious. It's like, I know, it feels like I know a bunch of people who are running in P.F. Chang today, the half marathon and the marathon. So Frank Switzer, Frank will start in February teaching at our Acadia campus. So Frank's running the marathon. Frank gets up every Thursday morning and Sunday before he teaches at two o'clock and runs somewhere between 15 and 20 miles. Yeah, it's stupid. I mean, it's just, it's really dumb. Three weeks ago, I got up at like seven and drove to Eggington's and I was exhausted. I was exhausted. I had to eat, I had to eat more and rest. Got a room there at the hill just to rest.
Here's how insidious religion is. So they're running along and they're marking these times and those guys that are serious about it, they've got their split fractions figured out, they know where they are, they see the 10 mile mark, they know the number they're supposed to be. Here's what religion does. Religion, as you're running up to that finish line, they just keep moving it. It just keeps going further away. The closer you get, the more they move it away. You give them that supreme effort. You hit that wall, you break through that wall, you're going and going and going and going and they move it away and they move it away. That's
What religion does. Religion never produces satisfaction or a win because religion will never please God. Only the finished work of Christ pleases Him.
So now, are you a sinner? Yes, but I'm not paralyzed by my sin because when Jesus died, He died for me. When the Father looks at me, He accepts me.
Living in God's Unchanging Love
Take all of that and contemplate the phrase that we keep in front of you all the time: There's nothing you can do to make God love you more, and nothing you can do to make Him love you less. Maybe you have a spouse that if everything's going well, they love you. If not, it's totally based on performance. Now we come to God and we assume the same thing, and He's going, "Tom, Tom, Tom, relax, my man. I don't need your performance."
It's because you love Me that you obey My commandments. That's why He says this burden is not heavy. You're not running a race where they're moving the finish line. You've already won. You've finished the race. He's declared you the winner. You have the victory, all that goes with it. You're accepted by Him.
Now, because He loves you. Why? For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son. We love Him. Why? Because He first loved us. Now, out of a response to the love that He's demonstrated in Christ, now we want to live this way.
Living Out Our Response to Grace
All of a sudden now, it's a Sunday morning. There's stuff to do. Maybe it's your only day of rest, and you come to a place like this. You give generously. You serve - hundreds of you. Why? To earn God's acceptance? No, but because He's already accepted you. You're His kid, and you're going, "God, I'm not trying to repay You. I'm just responding to the grace and mercy You've given me." How cool is that? It all goes back to the cross.
Here's what's going to happen. If you're in the conference center, Matthew will be there in a minute to close your time. Here in the chapel now, Matt Dresbach will come lead us in communion, our time of worship. Next week, we're going to look at the balance of chapter one, and we really see what I would call Paul's resume. He's very autobiographical, and he'll talk a little bit about who he was and the type of person he was, and start to fill in some of the blanks you might have right now.
Let me pray as Matt comes. Father, thank You for this amazing truth. Thank You for the gospel that sets us free, not puts us in bondage. Thank You for the love and grace and mercy that we find in Jesus. God, I pray that You would keep us free from legalism and bondage and free to live in grace. We pray that in Christ's name, amen.