Galatians 1.1-5

Opening Launch Day

November 5, 2006

INTRO

Background to the Galatia Church

Starting a letter….

  • How will you address it?
  • How will you sign it?

READ GALATIANS 1.1-5

AUTHORITY

v. 1 Not from men…

Every other letter starts differently…Paul begins this letter with a defense of who He is. This often happens when someone or some people do not like the message you are proclaiming---they attack the person. So, these Judiaizers attacked his authority—specifically, his authority as an apostle. The term apostle means “one sent on a mission; much like an ambassador. Traditionally, these people were limited to the disciples that Jesus personally selected and sent out. These were the 12 men that Jesus selected and sent out. When one of the original 12, Judas, betrayed Jesus they had to replace him and Peter gave a brief description of the qualifications in Acts 1

21 So one of the men who have accompanied us during [t ]all the time that the Lord Jesus [u ]went in and out among us, 22 [v ]beginning from the baptism of John until the day when [w ]he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us [x ]a witness to his resurrection.”[i]

After reading Acts 9, we know that Paul saw the resurrected Jesus, was personally selected by Jesus, and sent out by Jesus. The Jews, however, telling people thye mAt this point in the early church you have an established apostolic core at Jerusalem. Led by Peter, James, and John, this group of men represented the authoritative core of early Christendom. Paul was not one of them.

When someone doesn’t like the message, the first thing to get attacked is the messenger. If you can find a flaw in someone’s authority, than anything you say will be easily dismissed. In our world today, character assassination is the name of the game. Even in a court of law, the facts and evidence of a case can rise and fall on how the accused is characterized. Paul, therefore, begins his letter with a defense. He wants to remind people WHERE HIS MESSAGE comes from.

I remember experiencing this when I first mentioned planting a church.

  • Where did you go to school?
  • So how do you become a pastor?
  • Why do you want to plant a church?

Jesus told me to. Jesus made me do it! But what gives me the right to sit up here and tell you, just as I tell myself, that you are wicked, lost, and in need of a savior? Who am I? What gives any religion, a movement, a church, a man, or a message authority?

  • Is it pedigree? bloodline? , education?
  • Is eloquence? , experience? popularity?…no, it’s Jesus.

Matthew 28:18

And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Who is our authority…the same answer Paul had, Jesus. As Derek Webb sins, Our first allegiance is not a flag, a country, or aland. Our authority is not to a movement or a church. Our authority is not our feelings. Our authority is not that which we can understand intellectually.

Our first allegiance is to a king and a kingdom. Our authority is the living Word…Jesus. What that means is that our decisions are based on what the Word of God says. What we think is right or wrong in this world, must be tested by Scripture. This might not make us popular. This might not make sense intellectually. It may not even make us happy. But we’re only interested in following our king, our authority.

WHY DO WE HAVE A PROBLEM WITH AUTHORITY

Our culture today does not like so-called authoritiesthat draw lines in the sand or make any kind of absolute declarations of truth. With Jesus, people usually skip over the parts where he talks about being the only way to God, and how many people are going to hell…those things just make people upset. I guess once you say you are for something—you’re usually against something. Once you say something is true—then something is invariably going to be false, right or wrong. We live in a world of pluralism—there are a lot of options. The rubric for determining truth is whatever makes someone happy and doesn’t “hurt” anyone else.

Our authority for truth becomes ourselves. Our world believes, however, that submission to authority means giving up your rights! Submission to an authority is viewed as losing, weakness, conformity, or some sort of abdication of freedom. That was the same problem our first parents had back in the garden of eden. They fell for the lie. That it was better to become your own authority…to determine your own truth apart from God….discover your own meaning and purpose apart from God…to seek out something better than the “restrictive” rules of God…

THE TRUSTWORTHY AUTHORITY OF JESUS

It is hard for people to trust authority. It is difficult to blame people for feeling threatened by authority. I think one of the major reasons why our culture wants authority; usually because they see all the available authorities are not trustworthy. If we’re honest, we’ve failed as a society to be men and women of integrity. Look at our leaders. Pop culture, Athletes, Political, teachers, fathers and mothers? We do not want to submit to our leadership because we’re afraid they’ll abuse our allegiance. Many of our authorities have set terrible examples, especially our men. The problem is we have not submitted ourselves to any authority? Why won’t people submit to authority. THEY DON’T TRUST the character of the authority.

We kind of authority is Jesus…

  • I can trust an authority who is wise and knows me better than I know myself
  • I can trust an authority whose is personal who knows what it is like to live my life…all parts of it
  • I can trust an authority who loves me even when he knows all my secrets
  • I can trust an authority that doesn’t put conditions on joining His team
  • I can trust an authority that has a no-cut policy for those who call on His name
  • I can trust an authority who willingly dies for His people, so that we can be with Him

POWER

v.1 …not through me…but through Jesus Christ & God the Father

I can also trust an authority that is powerful. Paul says that he and his message did not come FROM men. See, you can have authority and yet have no power. You can have title and the appearance of strength, but be limp as a noodle. Like the cowardly lion in the Wizard of Oz, the king of the jungle had no backbone. Not only does His authority rest in Jesus, but so does His power. Paul says, that it is not FROM men and it is not THROUGH men that His message comes. Paul himself is a perfect example of what the Power of Jesus is capable of.

What we often fail to realize is how much trouble we’re in. If only we could see the predicament, realize the hopelessness of our situation, recognize the impossibility of our task—we would realize the power needed to fix it. What we fail to understand that we cannot fix ourselves. But we try…consider how many self-help books and courses are out there. Consider how much money is spent on Counselors. Consider how much money is spent on prescription drugs. (EXAMPLES). I don’t want to suggest that there is no value in self-help, or counseling, or the various support groups available. I will however, argue that any book, program, group, or whatever whose power is centered on man is doomed to fail. The one thing I’m sure of is that most everyone will agree we’re broken.

WHY DO WE HAVE A PROBLEM WITH POWER

The question then is, do we have the power to fix ourselves? But even more than that, do we possess the power to fix ourselves and to thrive in this life. No. But that’s not our default mentality. We, for some reason, believe we ca’t admit weakness and still remain strong.

We obviously have a problem. One of the major reasons we try to fix ourselves, is that we don’t understand the nature of the problem. In our evolutionary, capitalist, egotistical world, we like the might makes right mentality. That’s the mentality that most men hold saying I can fix anything and everything. If a dishwasher breaks, a car stops, a wall…DRYWALL STORY.

THE POWER of JESUS IS OUR ONLY HOPE

We are powerless to fix ourselves; the chasm is too far, the hole too deep, the fence too high. But God doesn’t just leave use there. He builds a bridge. He drops a rope. He sets up a ladder…and it is Jesus. Jesus is a Damascus Road God…a God of transformation. If you build your life on something other than Jesus, you will not succeed. Without Jesus, I am a terrible husband, father, friend, lover, teacher, pastor, citizen, etc.?

We don’t often think of Jesus as a powerful person because, well, he died on a tree. But then, we really don’t understand power then. There is a distinct different between the power of men and the power of Jesus. The power of men has very specific values. The Power of Jesus is the adoption of a value system that is completely counter cultural.

  • Gain wealth by giving it all away
  • Gain power by becoming weak
  • Gain life by dying

v. 2 -- And all the brothers who are with me,To the churches of Galatia

Have you ever had to stand alone? You started doubting that what you think is actually true, that what your doing is actually right. You begin to wonder if you are a bit nutso for attempting something that appears to out of swim with the rest of the fish. But then you meet someone else, someone who understands. And then you meet another. And there is nothing like a group of men who get it. Who understand that this life is more than a few silly, meaningless. It is no fun to be free if your free alone. You want to free others.

Not very commending of Paul considering the beginnings of his other letters…

Romans 1

To all those in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints:

1Corinthians

2To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:

2Corinthians

To the church of God that is at Corinth, with all the saints who are in the whole of Achaia:

Ephesians 1
To the saints who are in Ephesus, and are faithful[1] in Christ Jesus:

Philippians 1

To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, with the overseers[2] and deacons:

Colossians 1

2To the saints and faithful brothers[1] in Christ at Colossae:

Messing with the gospel is serious business. Why is he so ticked?

SO WHAT IS THE MESSAGE THAT PAUL IS BRINGING WITH THE AUTHORITY AND POWER OF JESUS?

THE GOSPEL

v. 3 – Grace and Peace from God OUR Father and the Lord Jesus

These two words, grace and peace, explain everything there is to know about Christianity.

  • A message of Grace: Through Grace we have the remission of sins It is a gift of love, completely unmerited, more so, completely underserved, initiated by God and not even completely comprehendable by Man. All that God gives us that we have not earned and cannot possibly repay. If Grace is the cause…peace is the effect
  • A message of Peace: Everyone desire peace, contentment in ones life. Peace means no fear, and no guilt. Peace means enjoying life, feeling “good” about oneself, having purpose in life, not shaken by the worries and powers of this world, will never come unless SINS be first forgiven. Peace in identity. Peace in relationships. Peace with God. Everyone desires peace.

Peace cannot come when we are slaves to sin, hostile and enemies. Ephesians 2, Romans 5

There is no means to take away sin, but grace alone. Sin is not forgiven by the following of established rules of righteousness. Man is not able to satisfy any rules to extent of achieving any level of rightness before God.

There is no peace without grace. People try very hard to find means, methods, religious practices, all to attain peace and quietness of conscience. The only thing they do is pull themselves into more misery as their work continues to not bring satisfaction or live in a world of delusion. John 14.27 27Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

The World’s Grace and peace don’t last. The only peace the world can bring is of our possessions and our physical bodies. Worldly grace (favor) gets us more stuff… more enjoyment out of life. But in affliction and in the hour of death, the grace and favor of the world cannot help us, they cannot deliver us from affliction, despair, and death.

But when the grace and peace of God are in the heart, then is a man strong, so that he can neither be cast down with adversity nor puffed up with prosperity…He lives his life with the view of that

THE MESSAGE MAKES ME GLAD TO BE SINNER and not TRY TO HIDE IT!

v. 4 – From Jesus who gave Himself for our Sins

How great is our debt that it takes God in the form of man to pay for it! How pathetic and arrogant am I to thik that my good works will in some way make me righteous before God. It is declared that our sins are so great, so infinite and invincible, that it is impossible for the whole world to satisfy for one of them. And surely, the greatness of the ransom (Jesus) demonstrates how penniless we truly are to pay such an immeasurable debt. The force and power of the sin is so great, our God must give himself. Therefore the greatness of the price paid speaks to the greatness of the power we are enslaved to.

Christ died for Sinners not Righteous. Christ was delivered to death, not for our righteousness or holiness, but for our sins, which are great, many, infinite, and invincible. WE ARE FULLY WICKED AND ENSLAVED, BUT IN JESUS WE ARE COMPLETELY LOVED AND FREED. Do not think of your sins as small and such as can be done away with by your own works. Do not think of them as too big and despair

Rather rejoice that you are a sinner, for Christ died for you. Christ, the Son of God was given not for the righteous and holy, but for the dirty and the sinful. If I were righteous, if I were clean and had no sin, I should have no need for Christ to be my reconciler. What we fail to remember is that my sins are so weighty, so infinite, so horrible and invincible, that my own righteousness does nothing further for me, but rather hinder me before God: Therefore Christ died….as Paul wrote 1 Timothy 1:15The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.

Christ did not just take away sins, He took away mine! Get personal. Do not let SINS be SINS only, but your sins. Because that Christ has not only given for other men’s sins, but for yours. Jesus is not some tyrant or judge which will condemn us for our sins. He is no caster down of the afflicted, but raiser up of those that are fallen a merciful reliever and comforter of the heavy and broken hearted.

Why did he do this?

To deliver us from Present Evil Age

The world with all its wisdom, power, and righteousness, is in fact, the kingdom of the devil. God alone is able deliver us.

ALL GLORY TO MEN vs. ALL GLORY TO GOD

v. 5 – …to whom be glory forever and ever.

There seems to be two options….

  1. Authority of men or Jesus’ authority
  2. Power of men or Jesus’s power
  3. Grace from men or Jesus
  4. Peace from men or Jesus
  5. Glory to men to men or to Jesus

[t ]t [John 15:27]

[u ]u Num. 27:17; Deut. 31:2; 1 Sam. 18:13

[v ]v ch. 13:24; Mark 1:1-4

[w ]w ver. 2, 9

[x ]x ch. 4:33; [ver. 8; 1 Pet. 1:3]; See Luke 24:48

[i]The Holy Bible : English Standard Version. Wheaton : Standard Bible Society, 2001, S. Ac 1:21