When the fullness of time had come

 Read Galatians 4

How many creation stories are there in the Bible?

There is, of course, Genesis 1.  In the beginning, God created… We all know that one.  It describes the creation on a cosmic or universal level.

Genesis 2 is a continuation of that account but at the same time it is an account all its own. This account gives us the order in the world that we know.

The two accounts were not reconciled into one when the oral telling of them was put into writing, probably at the time of the Babylonian Captivity. With a brief segue, one account transitions to the other.

 There is something of a third account in Genesis 5. 

When God created mankind, he made them in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and blessed them. And he named them “Mankind” when they were created.

The purpose of this account seems to be less about creation and more about the continuation of humankind. It’s the first genealogy in the Bible that goes beyond one generation.

There is one more creation story.  Actually, there are several stories about the creation that offer different aspects, but just one more that covers it all.  You know it.  It begins like the first one.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

And of course, we look forward to the New Creation.

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

That’s a look at the creation stories, but how about the Christmas stories?

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke are where we see those that we know best. We need both to get a good picture of what happened, but Luke’s gospel usually gets center stage in the Christmas play.

Mark’s gospel skips the creation entirely. What about John? We find a very succinct Christmas story in verse 14.

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Merry Christmas!

So, there are our Christmas stories, or could there be yet another?

But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

 Merry Christmas!

So why all this business about creation and Christmas?  I thought we were talking about circumcision and feasts and salvation by the law—which is no salvation at all.

Consider these words: But when the fullness of the time had come.

When it was just the right time.  When God’s clock said, now.  When all of the cosmic pieces fell into place…

We are self-aware beings.  That is, we know that we exist and we search for our purpose, at least some do. Because we know we are living creatures, we often examine ourselves.  We have a perspective on our lives. We are in awe of everything when we are young.  We know everything when we are a teenager. Sometimes, we find out that everything hurts when we get old.

For many of us, our minds tell us that we are still in our twenties and thirties.  Our bodies often disagree. One of my grandsons, Levi, likes to remind us that he’s big.

If we can be honest with ourselves, we know that we were totally dependent upon our parents for a long time.  Then we were allowed to do some things on our own.  We got a job.  We got a car.  We got a girlfriend and discovered it’s expensive to have a car and a girlfriend. But one day, we were pretty much making it on our own. Our parents were always there to help, but we wanted to make it on our own.

There came a time for us to leave the nest.

Mankind—humankind has also grown.  We were under the law for a time. The law was like a parent or guardian, but when the time became right, we were ready to live to the full.

The advent of the Messiah marked that time.  It was time for humankind to truly live. It was time to step out from under the law.  The law would no longer be a guardian who made the important decisions for us.  The law became a mentor—a lifelong guide—to help us navigate this world.

There was no longer a subordinate relationship to the law, for where there was such a relationship, we were also governed by sin.  The law is not bad and there is still sin in the world, but neither has power over us now.

I am crucified with Christ.  Christ lives in me.

Paul notes a parallel between Ishmael and Isaac.  Ishmael was Abraham’s son, but not the son of the promise.  That son, came through Sarah.  We know him to be Isaac.

God still took care of Ishmael, but the promise of the Seed that would save humankind came through Isaac. Let’s hear Paul explain it.

Tell me, you who want to be under the law, are you not aware of what the law says? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by the slave woman and the other by the free woman. His son by the slave woman was born according to the flesh, but his son by the free woman was born as the result of a divine promise.

These things are being taken figuratively: The women represent two covenants. One covenant is from Mount Sinai and bears children who are to be slaves: This is Hagar. Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother.  For it is written:

“Be glad, barren woman,

    you who never bore a child;

shout for joy and cry aloud,

    you who were never in labor;

because more are the children of the desolate woman

    than of her who has a husband.”

 Now you, brothers and sisters, like Isaac, are children of promise. At that time the son born according to the flesh persecuted the son born by the power of the Spirit. It is the same now.  But what does Scripture say? “Get rid of the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with the free woman’s son.” Therefore, brothers and sisters, we are not children of the slave woman, but of the free woman.

Consider Paul’s Christmas story once again.

But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons.

God sent forth his Son who was born under the law.  Christ Jesus was born under the law.  The law was guardian over humankind until Christ came.  Christ fulfilled the law just as he said he would.

We are liberated from the guardianship of the law, not to ignore the law but to receive the law as our mentor and friend.  God gave I for our own good and now because of the promise that we see first with Abraham and delivered through Jesus, we are no longer under—subordinate to—the law. 

The law is our mentor.  The law is our friend.  The law shows us where we fall short of the glory of God, but the law is not our governor.

We are made right with God by grace that we have been given by the blood of Jesus.  It is truly a gift that we receive by faith.

Now that we are God’s children, we know that he will not orphan us.  We will not run away and return to the governance of the law—the slavery of the law.

The commands of God are good and for our own good, but not our master.  We should obey them in response to this grace that we have received.  If we live to the full, we will fulfill his commands by loving one another.

The law will show us where we fall short.

The law will guide us in holy living.

The law will never get us to right standing with God.

The law will show us how much we need the grace of God that has been offered freely in the blood of Jesus.

The law is neither master nor governor of our lives.  We have been set free of the law’s mastery over us and now that we have received salvation by grace through faith, the law is our friend and mentor, but not our governor.

We live in an age—a wonderful age—where neither the law, nor sin, nor death, nor anything else on earth can separate us from the love of God that we know in Christ Jesus. I’m wrapping up with Paul’s words to the Romans.

For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

When we get to Ephesians, we will talk more about what we have in him—Christ Jesus our Lord.  For now, start thinking of the law as your mentor or friend, but never your master.

We have not kicked the law to the curb.  The law is in our inner circle with the Spirit of God that lives within us as well as the full biblical witness that we know.

The time became right not only for us, but for the law as well.  The time was right for the law to become our guide to Godly living.

Now that we are set free from sin and death and know that nothing can separate us from the love of God that we know in Christ Jesus, we can seek to bring glory to God with the guidance of the Spirit, the law, wisdom, and with the support of the body of Christ.

The law is not our governor and it is not a burden.  It is our friend and mentor.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

The Righteous will Live by Faith!

 Read Galatians 3

And so we come to Leviticus, Habakkuk, and James as we explore Paul’s letter to the Galatians.

First to Leviticus.

Keep my decrees and laws, for the person who obeys them will live by them. I am the Lord.

The law was given for our own good.  It was a guide, a guardian, an overseer to our human nature.  It showed the people God’s way.

They knew what the Egyptians did.  They knew what their ancestors did when they lived beyond the Euphrates. They would soon know what the people in the Promised Land did before they took possession. The law told God’s people not to do these things. But the law never got them or us all the way to salvation.  Why?

Nobody could or ever did live by the law, at least not by all of it.  Not even the patriarchs. Jesus was the only one who lived fully by the law, but the law did not bring him to righteousness.  He was righteous from the beginning.

James counseled us that if we choose to live by the law, we had better keep the entirety of the law.  Obeying most of the law or all of the law when we can make it fit into our world is not fulfilling the law.

This whole best-effort thing doesn’t cut it as far as righteousness goes.

So, we are toast, right?

The righteous will live by faith.  If you think that this is a New Testament mentality, realize that it was given as one of God’s answers to one of Habakkuk’s complaints about the lawlessness of God’s own people.

The righteous will live by faith.  Jesus did not do away with the law.  The law is still good, but it is faith that gets us to righteousness.

We are children of Abraham by the promise fulfilled in Abraham’s seed—Jesus Christ.  Now consider Paul’s words to the Galatians in this context that we have set.

Is the law, therefore, opposed to the promises of God? Absolutely not! For if a law had been given that could impart life, then righteousness would certainly have come by the law.  But Scripture has locked up everything under the control of sin, so that what was promised, being given through faith in Jesus Christ, might be given to those who believe.

Before the coming of this faith, we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed.  So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith.  Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.

The law is good. It was given for our own good, but it can’t get us home.

The promise to us to be sons of Abraham and children of God comes as a gift of God.

Those who want to receive this gift will live by faith in the one and only Son of God. We believe!

What we are talking about is salvation—coming into right standing with God.  Receiving this gift of right standing through faith.

There is an extensive discourse that follows once you receive the gift.  Once you are in right standing, the law, the Spirit that lives within you, the prophecies and promises of God, the wisdom literature of God, and all of the counsel contained in the Bible become what we will call the full biblical witness.

The law has become a mentor and is no longer a guardian.

You come to right-standing with God by faith.  You receive the gift of salvation by faith.  You live by faith.  When you do that, the full biblical witness becomes visible to you.  This full biblical witness is not a guardian but a friend.

You have eyes to see and ears to ear how to live a godly life.

You will likely find yourself fulfilling the law by living a life of love, but your salvation came through faith.  We live by faith.  We walk by faith

It’s a lot to chew on, but let’s begin with the righteous will live by faith.

The righteous will live by faith!

Amen.

So Easily Fooled?

 Read Galatians 3

Consider reading a letter that you received and the author says, “Hey knuckleheads.  Who tricked you?”

How did you fall for this?

Were you not given the truth?

Was my message to you given in vain?

It’s been said that it is easier to fool someone than to convince them that they have been fooled.  There might just be some truth in that statement.

Paul is writing to believers who have been fooled.  How hard is his job now to convince them that they knew the truth at first but set it aside for a gospel that it not even a gospel?

The Judaizers were insisting that following the law was essential to salvation.  Paul had taught them and continued to teach that we are saved by grace through faith. 

The con men were insisting that the law went back to Moses and could not be ignored.  It was essential to salvation.

Paul noted that the promise that the Galatians received predated the law by 430 years.  The law did not replace the promise given to Abraham that by his seed—through Jesus—their salvation would come.

Paul jumps to the heart of the matter.

I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard?

Paul noted that he was not just talking semantics.  These were not talking points about whether the carpet in the sanctuary would be white or green. This was not whether we say sins, debts, or trespasses in the Lord’s Prayer.

This was about salvation coming from the grace of God himself or from our works.

After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain?  So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard?  So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.”

Paul would go on to note that all who relied on the law for their salvation were under a curse.  In other correspondence, he notes the law is not bad.  We know it was given for our own good, but salvation does not come through the law.  Salvation comes by grace through faith.

Practice the law as you need to but don’t hang your salvation on it.  Thou shalt not murder is solid counsel.  Who can argue with it?

Have no other Gods—NO OTHER GODS!  We get that.

Don’t covet your neighbor’s stuff or his wife or her husband or the Amazon packages that block their front entryway.

God’s directives are for our own good but as far as salvation goes, all they can do is tell us we can’t get there from here by our compliance, obedience, or regularly scheduled observance.

Paul wrote to many churches with many issues, but all should note this.  All come to right standing with God from a condition of disobedience—even the one most obedient to the law.

We are saved by grace through faith!  When we get to the next letter, Paul will note so that nobody can boast about their own works, at least as far as salvation goes.

 Paul says that the law was like a guardian.  It was necessary to get us to the point where we could receive God’s grace.  We are not made to live with a guardian all of our lives.  At some point, we must truly live to the full.

Other translations might use the term tutor instead of guardian. I think in this analogy, at some point the tutor must become a mentor.  The didactic gives way to the guide.

Today, I use the example of training wheels.  They were good to help us learn the mechanics of riding a bicycle without falling over every five seconds.  But at some point, the training wheels are excess weight.  We have our balance and have mastered the idiom of riding our bicycles.

Neither we nor our bicycles were designed to have training wheels throughout our lifecycles. The training wheels were not bad.  They were for our own good.  They helped bring us up in the way we should go or ride.

The law was not bad.  It is given for our own good, but only grace gets us to salvation.  The law could not give us salvation. 

The Spirit of God came in our belief in the Son of God, through whom we know the Father.  Our salvation comes by grace through our faith.

We are made right with God by our faith.

Abraham was justified by his faith.

Salvation comes by faith not works.  It is completely the gift of God.

We live by faith!

Our works will be in response to this unfathomable gift of God that we know as grace.  We will do good acts before others so that we may bring glory to God.  We will live by love so that our very lives are our best offerings to God and thereby bring glory to his name.

We are only three chapters into this letter, but we should be certain of this.

There is no other gospel than that of grace.

The Spirit comes to us in our belief in the one and only Son of God.

Works are in response to the gift of salvation, not an added condition.

Let’s go forth with a bit of provocation to ponder.  How are the followers of Jesus to be called?  We are to be known by our love, but let’s talk nomenclature.

Are we law-abiding citizens?

Are we believers?

Neither is a bad thing, but only one leads to salvation.

Thanks be to God that we are saved by his grace through our faith.

Amen.

I am Crucified with Christ. Christ Lives in Me!

 Read Galatians 2

And so, to begin Galatians 2, we go to Genesis 17.

When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless.  Then I will make my covenant between me and you and will greatly increase your numbers.”

Abram fell facedown, and God said to him, “As for me, this is my covenant with you: You will be the father of many nations.  No longer will you be called Abram; your name will be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.  I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you.  I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.  The whole land of Canaan, where you now reside as a foreigner, I will give as an everlasting possession to you and your descendants after you; and I will be their God.”

Then God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your descendants after you for the generations to come.  This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised.  You are to undergo circumcision, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and you.  For the generations to come every male among you who is eight days old must be circumcised, including those born in your household or bought with money from a foreigner—those who are not your offspring.  Whether born in your household or bought with your money, they must be circumcised. My covenant in your flesh is to be an everlasting covenant.  Any uncircumcised male, who has not been circumcised in the flesh, will be cut off from his people; he has broken my covenant.”

This circumcision stuff was not a slight matter for the Hebrew people.  In the past, it wasn’t an issue.  There were no expectations for the Gentiles because they were not God’s people. It’s the not my circus, not my monkey mindset.

Jesus changed the dynamic.  Now God was sending his emissaries out to all the peoples of the world.  God’s love was and is for all.  All can come in good relationship with God through belief in Christ Jesus.

Does that end God’s covenant with Abraham?  No.  God’s Chosen People will bear this sign in the flesh as part of an everlasting covenant.  It is not a condition of salvation for those who come to Christ Jesus and receive him as Lord.

Today, in the modern, western world, circumcision is more a medical choice than a decision of religion or faith.  Two thousand years ago, it was a sign in the flesh of the covenant that God made with Abraham and very important to his chosen people. We can’t fully understand how much this meant to God’s Chosen People.

I’m thinking that I would not have wanted to be the junior rabbi at temple gates during Passover or some other big event.  The Sanhedrin sitting high and mighty would surely assign the most junior rabbi’s circumcision check duty.  Nobody gets in from the Gentile courts without proof of circumcision.

I’m thinking I don’t like the idea of a vaccination passport, but I would have been ok with a circumcision passport. You think getting wanded at airport security is invasive…

The Jews are still God’s Chosen People, but God has extended his unfathomable love to all.  He has chosen us to be a part of his eternal family.

This was a matter of some discussion when Paul met with Peter, James, and John in Jerusalem, as we read in Acts 15. Where does circumcision, and for that matter, other matters of the law fit into the paradigm for these new believers from the Gentile world?

Then some of the believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees stood up and said, “The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.”

The apostles and elders met to consider this question.  After much discussion, Peter got up and addressed them: “Brothers, you know that some time ago God made a choice among you that the Gentiles might hear from my lips the message of the gospel and believe.  God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted them by giving the Holy Spirit to them, just as he did to us.  He did not discriminate between us and them, for he purified their hearts by faith.  Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear?  No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”

And in this first big church meeting, we see grace triumphant over ritual and works and even an everlasting sign inn the flesh.  Later on, Paul would talk about Gentiles being grafted into the line of Abraham and a discussion of circumcision might ensue from there, but surely the purpose of such grafting was for God to include all humankind into his eternal family.

So, if the Gentile believers were not required to be circumcised, how would they be known as followers of Jesus?

Jesus commanded us to be known by our love.  Our baptism is considered our modern-day sign.  It’s a sign in the spirit not the flesh, but that’s part of how we are to be known and how we are to live.

Paul presented it this way.

For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God.  I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.  I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!

The law which could only show me that I had fallen short of the glory of God offered little in the way of atonement.  Again and again, I was led to make recurring atonement for my sin.

I am dead to that way now.  The law was not bad.  God gave it for our own good, but now we receive the ultimate good of the law.  We have come to know grace.

We come to know God through his Son and his atoning sacrifice—a once and for all sacrifice.

Where does that leave me? Where does that leave any of us who have come to know Christ in this modern century?

I am crucified with Christ.  Christ lives in me.

Our sin, our debt, our old self was nailed to the cross with Christ.  And that old self that was so egregious as far as the law goes, is now dead. There was no resurrection for that old self. There will be more to follow along these lines.

But through God’s grace, his Son lives in me.  We have received the deposit of the Holy Spirit and we know that life eternal is real and that God has chosen us.

Christ lives in me!

Paul will address this concept in different ways in many letters, but we need to get our hearts and our heads around this idea that God himself is living within us.

The old sinful self is dead.  It is Christ himself who lives in me.

I am crucified with Christ.  Christ lives in me.

Yes, we have some wrestling to do along the way, but we need to be fully convinced in our own minds that Christ Jesus lives within us.

I suggest that we get so accustomed to this quip of theology, that our minds become more and more accepting of what it means.

I am crucified with Christ.  Christ lives in me.

Amen.

Sharpening One Another

 Read Galatians 2

And so this second chapter brings us to the Proverbs, at least to one with which you are familiar.

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

So what we look at today is not so much the theology that Paul gave to the Galatians and to us but the mechanics of Christian life.  We don’t always agree.  We don’t walk on the Primrose Path.  Christian life is not all roses, sometimes it’s more like thorns.

Paul noted that he eventually went to Jerusalem to confer with the principals of the Jerusalem church and those who were leading other to Jesus.  Paul said that he knew that what he received from God was the truth.  It was the gospel.  It was his life mission.

But still, had he missed something, anything?  Peter and John had walked with Jesus for 3 years.  Did they have some insight that he missed?

Paul was certain of what Jesus commanded him to do, but still it was good to confer with other believers.

As it turned out, all were in accord as to salvation.  It is a gift of God.  The Pharisees were raising objections to the Gentile believers not following the law.  They weren’t even circumcised!

But the demands of the infiltrators were stifled, at least as far as the leadership was concerned.  It was grace and only grace that led to salvation.  It was the unfathomable love of God that took away our sin in the blood of Jesus.

Listen to what Peter had to say in this Acts 15 account.

Now then, why do you try to test God by putting on the necks of Gentiles a yoke that neither we nor our ancestors have been able to bear? No! We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are.”

It’s not only grace for the Gentiles but grace for the Jew as well.  Nobody has ever attained righteousness through the law.  Jesus was the only one to ever fulfill the law and he was righteous to begin with. It’s an impossible journey.  It’s noble in effort but fruitless in results.

It’s grace, grace, and only grace by which we come to salvation.

Remember where I began.

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

Sometimes that means that we butt heads on occasion, not to justify ourselves, but to live a more godly life.  Paul noted that when Peter came to Antioch, he was socializing with the Jew and Gentile alike, but when some men from James joined them, Peter withdrew from associating with the Gentiles.

Do you know the term for this?  High School.

This is the nature of people to close ranks with those whom they think they are most like.  Paul noted that he told Peter, “That dog don’t hunt!”

Most likely this meant that Peter was observing only Jewish customs and not eating or socializing with the Gentile believers.

Paul proffers to Peter and to us, that we are hypocrites if we can’t live by grace in the light.  Are we ashamed of living by grace?

We could never live fully by the law in the first place, so why pretend that the part of the law we can uphold gets us to righteousness?

We should desire to live holy and righteous lives in response to grace.  But couldn’t it be some law and some grace, ok, mostly grace?

Let’s say it was ten percent living by the law and ninety percent salvation through grace, how would we handle that?

We would start by saying that I did my small part and God did the rest.  After a few years we would say it’s more like a fifty-fifty deal.  I do my part and God matches that with grace. It’s a matching 401K for salvation.

Give it a little more time and our human nature will have us saying, I did most of what was needed to get to righteousness.  God threw in a little at the end.

We will get to this statement in Paul’s letter to Ephesus, but let’s think on it now.

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

Salvation is a gift of God.  Period! Or exclamation mark!  It is a gift.  Our human nature would be to boast in our righteousness, but we must always remember that salvation is a gift from God.

Why do I need to remember this?

That man who used and maybe even sold drugs or stole to get them, once he receives the gift of God, he is my brother.  She is my sister in Christ Jesus.

Even the murderer who receives Jesus as Lord is my brother or sister in Christ.  His or her salvation came from God, not from their righteousness or lack thereof.

We like to look at everyone’s sins as a lifelong resume that they carry with them.  Now our sins have been washed away in the blood of Jesus, but some people can never be as good as we are now that we are saved.

That dog—that thinking—don’t hunt.  Salvation for you, for me, for anyone who repents and believes is from God. 

This is just Tom Theology here, but I think the person who was so far from God and comes to believe, actually understands God’s love better than I do.  God’s grace reached out so far to save them that they understand grace better than many of us who were brought up in the way we should go do.

Back to where I started.

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

The standard mentoring model balances challenge and support.  If there is too much challenge, people often back away.  If there is support without challenge, people just don’t grow.

The balance of challenge and support produces growth.  I like to say that we are challenged to get out of our comfort zones on a regular basis.  There is only one comfort zone appropriate to the believer and it is called GROWTH.

Think on this week’s chapter in terms of the proverb.

As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

Amen.

Rat Poop Cookies

 Read Galatians 1

Who likes cookies? Who likes homemade cookies? Who wants a cookie?

Here’s the recipe for chocolate chip cookies.  If you don’t get it all down, don’t worry there are one or two million recipes on the internet. Let’s go.

1 1/2 sticks         Butter, unsalted

1/3 cup      Granulated Sugar

2/3 cup      Brown Sugar

1       Egg

1       Egg Yolk

1 1/2 tsp    Vanilla Extract

2 cups        All-purpose Flour

1/2 teaspoon      Baking Soda

1/2 teaspoon      Kosher Salt

1 11 Oz bag of chocolate chips

I had all of the ingredients except that I could only find an 8 oz bag of chocolate chips.  You can’t short the chocolate chips in chocolate chip cookies.  What to do?

So, I’m 3 oz short, but I was cleaning up behind the stove and found 3 oz of rat poop.  So, 8 oz of chocolate chips and 3 oz of rat poop equals 11 oz.  All is good.

How are your cookies now?

Seriously, I didn’t put 3 oz of rat poop in your cookies.  It was only 2 oz, maybe 1 oz.  Are they still tasting good?

OK.  There is no rat poop in the cookies that I gave you.

What if you needed to borrow a gallon of gasoline because your car was a few miles down the road?  I have about a half-gallon in my gas can.  I’m not sure if that will get you to the gas station or not.

So, before I give you the gas, I go out behind my house and run some water into my gas can and make it nearly a little fuller.  I can’t put too much in there.  Your car won’t run on water, but what would a little hurt?

We don’t want anyone messing with our cookies.  We don’t want someone watering down our gas.  Paul says don’t let anyone corrupt the gospel.

God loved you so much that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  God did not send his Son to condemn the world but to save the world through him.

Salvation comes from Christ alone.

Your salvation is a gift of God that you receive by faith.  You believe in Jesus.  He is Lord. He is the Son of God.  God raised him from the dead.

In that simple belief is life and life everlasting with your loving Father and with Jesus and you have the deposit of the Holy Spirit with you now, so you know the promise is real.

It’s not, I believe in Jesus and circumcision for my salvation.

It’s not, I believe in Jesus and total obedience to the Law of Moses for my salvation.

It’s not, I believe in Jesus and will attend all feasts and festivals of the Lord for my salvation.

There is no Jesus Plus Gospel.  It’s all Jesus when it comes to salvation.

So, we can keep on sinning and just get more grace? That’s not the deal.

In response to grace—mercy, forgiveness, and favor that we didn’t deserve, we live as Christ’s disciples.  This is our response.  This is our act of worship.  This is our act of service, but it is in response to God’s saving grace.

Salvation comes in Christ alone.

Probably 90% of what I preach to you on a regular basis is discipleship.  I’m preaching to the saints, those who have received Jesus as Lord and Savior.

But on occasion, we need to be reminded that salvation is a gift of God that we receive by faith in Christ Jesus.  There is no other gospel than that of life in Christ Jesus.

My knee has already bowed and my tongue confessed that Jesus is Lord.  I am certain of my salvation.  Don’t come at me with another gospel.

Enjoy your cookies.

Amen.

No Other Gospel

 Read Galatians 1

Where is Galatia?  It’s generally modern-day Turkey.

Where are the churches to whom Paul wrote?  That’s still being debated.  Some think they are in northern Galatia and some more to the south.

If he was writing to the southern churches, it might have been before the Jerusalem council that we read about in Acts 15.  If he was writing to the northern churches, it was a few years later.

In either case, many from these churches had been influenced to abandon the gospel that Paul preached to them in favor of one that we might call Jesus Plus.

Who were the Galatians?  Most history points us to Celtic mercenaries from Gaul. They remained in Asia Minor and settled and were known as good warriors.

The Romans gave them special status for a while, then when a few personalities changed in the political arena, Galatia became a Roman client state with a Roman governor.  That’s the political side in a nutshell.

As far as faith goes, they were mostly pagans.  There was some Jewish influence, but many had converted from pagan worship to the worship of the one true God and they came to their salvation by way of Christ Jesus.

They were truly strangers in their own land.  They couldn’t go back to pagan worship and they were not welcomed in the synagogues, unless they professed the Jesus Plus gospel, which Paul noted was no gospel at all.

Realize that from the beginning, Paul is writing to a hornet’s nest of problems.  Paul is not happy that the Galatians have given up what was given so freely to them.  Salvation lies in Christ alone.

To discredit the gospel of truth, those who we will call the Judaizers sought to discredit the one who delivered the gospel.  Paul begins this letter noting that the gospel he gave them came from God through Christ Jesus.

It was not from man or of man. It was the true gospel and it was not to be altered.  Paul noted that even if an angel showed up on their doorstep with a different gospel, they were to kick him to the curb.  Actually, tell him to go to hell would be more accurate.

Paul said that if he showed up with a different gospel, to tell him to go to hell. 

There is no other gospel except that salvation comes through Christ alone.  Let no one mislead you or pervert the truth.  Stay the course!

We will get into Paul’s direction as to the law and feasts and festivals and even circumcision, but the message in this first chapter is clear.  There is no other gospel.

Paul was somewhat terse in his letter.  Normally, after his salutation and greeting, Paul offered some degree of thanksgiving for the work of the church to whom he was writing.  Not here.

Paul jumps directly into his admonishment—his chewing out of the Galatian believers.

Paul personalizes his appeal that is sandwiched into his admonishment. I’ll paraphrase.

If I was in this just for me, I would not preach the gospel of truth but I would have stuck to being a Pharisee of Pharisees.  I was on the fast track.  I was rising to the top, thinking that I was doing God’s will.  I was so going to be the number one pharisee of all time.

I was going to be the GOAT—the Greatest of All Time—at least as far as those who uphold and enforce the law go.

I was so zealous that I persecuted the church that I now serve.  Only after receiving the truth from Christ Jesus, did I realize that I was making incredible progress but headed the wrong direction.

There were so many things in God’s directives and his law that I had not understood.  It took some time in the wilderness to get my head around grace, but when I did, I shared it with you.

I came before you on behalf of Christ Jesus even after persecuting his church.  There are a whole bunch of people who hate me.  It would have been easier to stay the course of being a pharisee and persecuting the church.

I was blind, but now I see and what I see and have shared with you is that there is no other gospel than salvation in Christ Jesus.

Understand that I am the apostle that persecuted the church and now I proclaim the truth—that Jesus is Lord and the only way to salvation.  I do this to the glory of God.

Paul will consistently send a message to many churches that we are no longer a slave to sin or to the law or governed by death.  If we are to be a slave, it is to Christ Jesus, to righteousness, and we are to live fully in the light and by love.

Paul will describe how he met with church leaders, sometimes butted heads, but that the gospel remained unchanged.

How is this relevant to us?  C’mon, these were a bunch of pagans who came to salvation in Christ Jesus and now are being tempted to add some things to the gospel that saved them.

We are Americans.  We all have at least three Bibles.  If you live in Burns Flat, you have several copies of the Gospel of John.  If you don’t, you will!

How many times do we look at others and condemn them?  They can’t be saved.  They wouldn’t be doing that if they were really saved.  They had better produce some good fruit if they want their baptism to count for anything.

They are smoking and drinking and having sex before marriage.  He’s got two sister wives. She’s peddling dope when she’s not using. And the language that he uses is atrocious.  They can’t be saved unless they start changing their ways.

How often do our minds put conditions on what Christ has made absolute and unconditional?  We are saved through Christ alone.

Does that mean that it’s ok to go on sinning?  By no means.  Our response to our salvation that came completely from the love of God through Christ Jesus should be holy and righteous.

Only God knows if we have truly professed Jesus as Lord.  We see things that we might take as evidence of salvation, but we also miss things that professed Christians wrestle with every day.

Coveting, lust in one’s heart, desires for carnal things may never manifest themselves in visible actions, but we are blessed that we have a Savior who knows the human condition and our struggles.  His salvation is not contingent upon our performance but our belief.

Our salvation lies in Christ alone, not Christ plus circumcision or Christ plus the Festival of Weeks. There is no other gospel.

As we navigate these letters, we will see that the law was not abolished.  We need to understand our relationship to the law and to customs and sin.

It will be hard for most of us to empathize with the participants.  Most of us never worshiped idols.  Most of us didn’t grow up with mom sending us to the corner store to get a god for the harvest and get a bubble gum for ourselves.

We also didn’t grow up memorizing much of the Torah as the guide for good living, perhaps the only guide we thought we would ever need.  We might have thought of Messiah from time to time, but we formed him in our own image.

And there are the new Christians who had Paul’s teachings but Paul was off to share this gospel with other parts of the world. And Paul didn’t leave them with a whole Bible, not even a Gospel of John.

We will attempt to understand different perspectives here, but we must focus on the central message.  There is only one gospel and it is salvation in Christ alone.

Understand that there is a whole bunch more to discipleship, but we must never permit the gospel that we know to be corrupted.  You are saved by the love of God that we know in Christ Jesus.

Jesus is Lord.

I believe in him.

I believe God raised him from the dead.

I have passed from death to life. This body may perish but you will live because of the one who said, “I am the resurrection and the life.  The one who believes in me will live even though he dies.”

We must know that we are saved in belief in Jesus Christ our Lord. There are a whole bunch of things that we should do in response to this great love, but we must know that we are saved by grace through faith.  There is no other gospel.

Paul’s letters present a different model than we found in the Proverbs.  There are not a dozen or so different quips of wisdom to consider.

As we proceed through these four letters, we will see churches with different circumstances, different challenges, different attitudes, as well as different geographies.  What we must bring to each part of these letters is the understanding that salvation comes only in the grace of God that we know in Christ Jesus.

There is no other gospel.

Amen.