Galatians 1:1-9 | Delivered or Damned | Alex Culpepper

So, yeah, we're going to just get into the sermon now. I invite you to open up to Galatians 1, if you haven't already.

And I'll ask you a question. What would you do if someone was threatening someone that you love? Like, what lengths would you go to in order to step in and protect them? Just for what it's worth, I mean, this is what parents do for their kids. Kids, we're often stepping in to protect our kids from dangers that they cannot see themselves, right?

The love that we have is so deep that sometimes the protectiveness of our love can seem a little bit intense, right? Can seem a little bit forward, right? So think of a kid who's like, touching an electrical outlet, right? And we're. We.

They don't know what the problem with that is, but we know what the problem with that is. And so we get really serious in that moment. And we want to make sure that they know that they know that you can't, like, you can't go near that. That's not safe for you. But I want you to think even more that someone is threatening your kid.

If you're a parent, or maybe if you're not a parent, you're thinking of somebody in your life that you love very deeply, and someone is a threat to them, their life, their livelihood. I just tell you, like, you're going to be willing to go to some pretty extreme lengths to get your kid as far away from that threat as possible. You're gonna be willing to make sure that your kid knows to stay as far away if it's a person who's threatening them, and you want to make sure that they know to stay as far away from that person as possible. You will do everything to put up every barrier possible to protect the one that you love. And I just say that because that sets the stage to help us understand the heart of the Book of Galatians.

Today we're starting a new series and a new book. We're in the Book of Galatians, and this is called when the Gospel Advances. Now, as we look at the Book of Galatians, I just want you to know the heart of this book is that the Apostle Paul feels the need to address a threat to believers in Galatia. Now, the strongest evidence would seem to indicate that the letter to the Galatians is the first letter that Paul wrote, that it's his earliest letter, the first record that we have of him even writing to churches. And that evidence comes from Paul's concern for a particular issue that seems to fit in a timeline that you can see in the Book of Acts.

Paul seems to be addressing a distortion of the gospel that has crept in amongst non Jewish believers in Jesus and churches. And this is very early on in Paul's ministry. So Paul and his ministry partner Barnabas, they have gone around to churches and invested in them and preached the gospel to them. The Gospel is moving beyond the boundaries of Jerusalem and Judea and out to the ends of the earth. And Paul and Barnabas, they were sent out from a church called Antioch.

The church in Antioch is like a missionary sending church. They're sending people all throughout the known world to proclaim the gospel to people who haven't heard the Gospel. And so Paul and Barnabas, they're going and they're planting churches and they're loving people, they're getting to know people and they're preaching. And these people are coming to faith in Jesus and learning to love and know who Jesus is. And very early in this ministry there began to arise disputes and issues in the places that they had just taken the gospel to.

After they would leave a town, another group would come into that town and roll into there and say, oh, I'm so glad that you believe in the one true God and his Messiah, Jesus Christ. I'm so glad to hear that you believe. One thing though, we know that Paul said you're saved and you are almost, you're about to be saved. Let's say it like that, you're about to be saved. You're really close.

But there's one thing that you need to do, all you men, you need to be circumcised in order for you to come to faith in Jesus, for your faith in Jesus to be true. That's what these people would say. They would go around and they would proclaim, they would sneak in after Paul had preached the gospel and they would put this heavy burden on the people in that place. And so the people who taught this are commonly called Judaizers. Judaizers are false teachers who insisted that following Jewish law and custom was necessary for salvation.

And right at the outset, Paul is telling non Jewish people groups about the beauty and the truth of who Yeshua, the Jewish Messiah is and what he has come to do, not just for Israel, but for the whole world. And so they are believing and they're surrendering their lives to Jesus. And after Paul leaves, these people come down from the city of Jerusalem, from Judea, they come in to distort in these cities what it means for the believers there to follow Jesus and this is what happens. You need to know that this is what happens when the gospel is on the move. Things are messy.

The enemy is angry because his territory is getting disrupted. For thousands of years, he has been able to maintain his territory, but now the gospel is invading his territory. And so he stirs up all sorts of resistance against that. And the opening two chapters of Galatians are dealing with and addressing all of this mess that takes place when the gospel claims new territory or reclaims old territory. So Galatians 1:1:2 says this.

It says, paul, an apostle, not from men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. This is a huge theme of the book. Paul is consistently going to be asserting to these people that. That he did not receive his calling or his message from any man, that he received it directly from Jesus Christ. Jesus appeared to him on a road.

He used to be persecuting Christians. And then Jesus appears to him and says, saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And in that moment of Jesus appearing in that revelation, Paul then understands that Jesus is the one who is to be worshiped. And so, lo and behold, that same Jesus gave a calling and a message to the 12 apostles. And it just so happens that the message that Paul got from Jesus is the same message that the apostles got from Jesus.

And the other thing that this does emphasize is this, that gospel calling and gospel responsibility at the end of the day is about one day. There are a lot of people today who try to use the Gospel to lift up their name, for people, to follow them, and to make much of them. The gospel at the end of the day is about one name. I want you to hear these words from Revelation, chapter one, verses 12 to 18. Just listen.

I'm not going to put it up on the screen. This is the Apostle John. He says, as he was in the spirit on the Lord's day, he hears a voice talking to him. And it says, then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me. And on turning, I saw seven golden lampstands.

And in the midst of the lampstands was one like a son of man, clothed with a long robe and with a golden sash around his chest. The hairs of his head were white like white wool like snow. His eyes were like a flesh flame of fire. His feet were like burnished bronze refined in a furnace. And his voice was like the roar of many waters.

Anybody ever been to Niagara Falls before or something like that? That's what it's talking about when he speaks it vibrates inside of you. You can feel his voice shaking your body as he talks. In his right hand he held seven stars. And from his mouth came a sharp two edged sword.

And his face was like the sun, shining in full strength. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though I were dead.

But he laid his right hand on me saying, fear not, I am the first and the last and the living one. I died. And behold, I am alive forevermore. And I have the keys of death and of Hades. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter who trained you or who your favorite speaker is, or what kind of impressive show they can put on.

It doesn't matter what tradition ordained them or how many years they've been around. It doesn't matter who has laid hands on you or how many miracles you've done. This is what is most important. Does the message you believe and the purpose you've received come from the one who holds the keys? At the end of the day, what matters is are you living the the calling and committed to the message that comes from the only one, son of God?

Because the Pope does not hold the keys. Vishnu does not hold the keys. Krishna does not hold the keys. Allah does not hold the keys. Your political party does not hold the keys to death and hell.

Jesus is the only one with the power over death. He's the only one. He's the only one with power over hell. He's the only one who holds all authority in his hands. And that's why Paul says, it wasn't no man that gave me this calling, it was Jesus.

So he says. Then he goes on to the churches of Galatia. Grace to you and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Galatia is a territory that is primarily occupied by people who had migrated there 300 years earlier. In fact, they had invaded the territory when the territory was under Greek control.

So Gauls, which is why it's called Galatia, Gauls came down from Europe and settled in Galatia. And this is what many people don't realize. The Galatian culture was actually Celtic. You think of Celtic being as like up in Ireland, right? But Celtic culture was thoroughly ingrained into this area of Galatia, which means that Celtic gods were worshipped in this area called Galatia.

Now, as Rome took over, the names of the Celtic gods were replaced with those of the Roman gods. And in many ways, it's where Saint Galatia would have been, a melting pot of religions. There would have been some Jewish influence, some philosophy influence, and overlaying all of this would have been the Roman Emperor cult. But uniquely, there is something that was unique to Galatia. You would have found in Galatia, Druids and Druidic religion, which means that these people would have saw themselves as intricately connected to spiritual power in nature.

They would perform rituals to connect themselves to spirits that are in trees and spirits that are in the ground and in the earth, and spirits that are in the wind and in the air. They would connect themselves to the gods who ruled over nature. And of course, the biblical worldview puts us in a place of acknowledging that such religious activity was not merely a figment of their imagination, that they're connecting with real entities, that the people worshiped these things because they had real experiences with spiritual power that were presented by these things, because there are real spiritual entities called demons contained within these kinds of systems. Demons who have rebelled against the most High God, have gone out into the whole earth to oppose God and wreak havoc amongst those who are his images. At least you think that their connection to nature is like, oh, that's sweet and beautiful.

That's so good that, you know, nature is such a beautiful gift. It is a beautiful gift. But Druidic Celtic religion was very open to things like human sacrifice and sacrifice of firstborn children and blood sacrifices and curses and magic. And this is one of the more interesting things. The way that they would practice divination is that they would murder somebody so that they could watch the way that a person dies.

And by watching the way that they die, they would be able to somehow tell the future. All of that is uniquely in the religious background and context of the Galatians. So I want to give you a list of events that took place in this territory called Galatia, as Paul and Barnabas took the Gospel there. Galatia is not a city. It's a region that has many cities in it.

All of this, if you want to read sometime this week, is in Acts 13 and 14, but I'm going to give us just a brief timeline here. Paul and Barnabas and the Gospel in Galatia. First, they go to a place called Antioch. This is not the first Antioch that I mentioned. It's a different one called Antioch in Pisidia.

So Antioch here, what they do, they show up in this place that Peter or Paul preaches a powerful sermon and many people believe it says that the Gentiles in that place heard the Word and they glorified God. They were filled with joy at the hearing of the message. The next thing that happens is that they go to Iconium. And all that it says in Acts is that Paul and Barnabas performed many signs and wonders there. And as they performed many signs and wonders, people were intrigued by this gospel that they proclaimed.

Then they went to this place called Lystra. At Lystra, there was a man who had been crippled from birth. And so Paul goes up to that man and he says, in the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk. And the man is healed. His feet that he has not been able to use his whole life.

He's able to now stand and rise and walk. And that is amazing. And so then the next thing that happens in Lystra is that the people in Lystra think that Paul and Barnabas are gods walking among them. They think they're Zeus and Hermes. In fact, the priest at the temple in Lystra, who would have been a Druidic priest in the temple of Lystra, comes out and says, oh, we need to make sacrifices to you guys, right?

We need. And so you have one spiritual power that has been established in that town, recognizing in Paul and Barnabas a higher spiritual power that has come in among them. Now, Paul and Barnabas are like, hey, stop this. This is not good. They rent, they tear their clothes.

They're like, you can't worship us. That's not what this is about. And so the other interesting thing that happens in Lystra is that afterwards, Paul is stoned outside the city. But then it says the disciples gathered around him and then he rose. The implication being, if you can read in the details, Paul actually died when he was stoned, and he rose from the dead when the disciples gathered around him to pray.

All of that happens in this Druidic, this place of Druidic, Celtic religion. And God shows himself to be a higher spiritual authority than all of the spiritual authorities in that place. And then they go on to Derbe, they preach the Gospel of Derby. And it just says that many believe. Many believe in Derbee.

And then what happens after that is after they make that round, they then backtrack through each of those cities and they spend time there, and they establish churches there. They establish elders to oversee those churches. So they go Paul and Barnabas equipped in the power of the Holy Spirit, and they are invading the territory of demonic religion. And as they bring the gospel and the power of the Spirit, it causes massive disruption, and souls get set free and saved by the power of Jesus. And that really helps you to understand the next words that Paul writes.

So this is Jesus, who gave himself for our sins to Deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of our God and Father, to Whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. That word literally means. That word delivered us literally means he has pulled us out and set us free, Right? We live in a time that desires to consume us and destroy us.

We live in an age of evil. And no matter how many positive things may happen and how positive things may appear until Christ's returns, we are living in an evil age that has the world in its grip. But according to God's desires, He has seen fit to pull us out and set us free from the demonic agendas that are at play, from the power of sin ruling over us, from the wrath that we invite on ourselves in opposition to God. And all of this is true because Jesus, who remember, holds the keys, saw fit to come to earth as a servant and to give up his life and to take on his body the marks that we deserve to suffer and die for our sin, so that in absorbing God's wrath on himself, he might give to us his righteousness, which is powerful, to rescue us from the power of evil. And because of this, everyone who believes in him can take that message into places that are in the grip of evil.

And by taking that message into enemy territory, we can in the message, give people a pathway into trusting Jesus so that they too can be pulled out and set free from the present evil age. That is the power of the gospel. That is the purpose in advancing the gospel. So then verse six. It's a bit of a reality check for what happens when you take the gospel into places and when you hope to see the kingdom of God advance.

He says, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ.

Now Paul's essentially right here laying out his prime reason for his letter. There's a problem, and the problem is severe, right? It's an open bleeding wound, like blood loss is happening at a rapid rate. It's so bad that Paul says that what they're actually doing right now is they are actively turning their backs on God. And Paul says, I'm shocked, right?

I'm shocked because of how you responded. Like you witnessed the power of God. You witnessed healings, you witnessed things that your false gods were never able to perform before. And you heard a message about a king who gave up his life for us to be forgiven and who was raised from the dead and gives us the promised blessed hope of resurrection as a gift if we will believe in him. And Paul is saying with clarity, you're actually turning away from the God that you trusted, and you're turning away from him to some other being.

In fact, it goes on in Galatians in verse 6, and it says this. You are turning to a different gospel. Now, this word gospel, it's crucial in the New Testament. It's super important for understanding how the New Testament writers think. But in particular in the book of Galatians, you just got to know we're going to keep coming back to this word time and time and time again.

So what does the word gospel mean? The gospel is this. The gospel is the good news. That's literally what the word gospel means. Euangelion.

It means good news. The good news that faith in Jesus is powerful to save us from the evil age.

What do we need saving from in this evil age? I just invite you to think of anything broken that you've done, anything sinful that you've engaged in, Right? Any broken thing that you see happening in the world around you. This evil opens the door to demonic hold on our lives. Thank you, Alicia.

This evil opens the door to demonic hold on our lives.

That evil keeps people chained and carries out oppression.

This evil that's in you and in me and in the world around us has been wreaking havoc on this world since the beginning. That evil is so insidious, right? Because you think like, oh, we got to see it blatantly on the surface. No, you don't have to see it blatantly on the surface. It is hidden underneath things that it can be located in something as simple as a phrase like, you know, you just got to do what makes you happy.

I tell you, that evil is located in that phrase for some people. Newsflash, like the Ayatollah, I just want to let you know, I'm pretty sure the Ayatollah was doing just what made him happy, you know? And God is so just that he is determined to not let evil run on like this forever.

But it means that he's coming with judgment and to be saved means that God has provided us a way to find ourselves on his side of the equation and to escape our association with evil.

This is fantastic news.

Like, there was no hope for us before this point. We had no way of not being associated with evil. We were stuck and thrown in with the evil. We were in the kingdom of darkness. But God has now saw fit to make a way that we can be delivered out of evil and into his kingdom.

Like, whatever I've got to do to get that, I want to do it. Like, tell me what I have got to do to be on his side, the side of the guy who holds the keys to death and hell with the sword in his mouth. I want to be on his side. So Paul says, but you're turning to a different good news. You're turning to a different gospel.

You've treated something else as good and hopeful for you. So verse 7.

Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. I mean, boom, there he says, there's only one gospel. There's no other hope. There's no other means of deliverance. Said a different way.

There is no other way to escape your association with. With evil. Faith in Jesus alone is the only way that we can be saved.

But here's what's. Here's what takes place. You know, when the gospel starts taking ground and it moves and it begins to be active and we see it disrupting evil, some people will come along and try to change the message, and they'll cheer and they'll say, yeah, you've come to faith in Jesus. That's great. But wait, there's more.

They'll tell you that something needs to be added to your faith in Jesus to save you. That faith in Jesus alone only gets you so far. But there's. You need to get a little bit farther beyond that. And that is an absolute lie.

It is not true. Faith in Jesus alone doesn't get you part of the way. Faith, faith in Jesus alone takes you the whole way on the entirety of the journey. So the Judaizers said, this is what they said. They said it's faith in Jesus plus circumcision, plus keeping the feasts and the sabbaths.

Now, we're going to dig into this more in the coming weeks and months and try to pull this idea apart. But the idea is that it was something more than simply faith in Jesus alone. So verse 8. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed. This is what Paul is saying.

He's saying, even if we come back to you, even if we, the ones who came to you at first, the ones who performed miracles in your presence, even if we come back to you, if the gospel that we have is different from the first one that you hear, you reject us and you hold on to that gospel because the gospel of faith in Jesus alone, providing salvation, is the only gospel that can save. And then he says this part, this whole Part about the angel from heaven. And you have to see that Paul kind of understands how the demonic game works, right? You disrupt spiritual territory, you encounter spiritual resistance. And here Paul is kind of anticipating what might happen as he brings the gospel into new places, places like to this land even, that's engaged in deep Celtic magic and religion.

And their exposure to spiritual things you just need to know, will make them ripe candidates for a demon who is masquerading as an angel of light to appear to them.

You know that Mormonism is a false gospel masquerading as Christianity.

Did you know that Joseph Smith's family, before he started the Mormon religion, was deeply involved in folk magic and the occult?

And then you know Joseph Smith, when the supposed archangel Moroni appears to him having golden tablets to give to Joseph, Joseph Smith used an occultic object to translate those tablets and write them down into what is now known as the Book of Mormon.

So through occultic practice, a demon got a foothold in Joseph Smith to appear to him as an angel and use that foothold to present a false gospel to Joseph Smith that on the surface looks like Christianity, but underneath preaches a false Jesus who is not fully God and fully man, and teaches a system of ranks of salvation that you rise to based on your own good works. So Paul is not just using overloaded rhetoric to make a point. He's saying that the gospel is meant to take spiritual ground and Jesus is on the move. He's liberating people from evil. And as a result, distortions of the gospel happen to now be one of the primary attacks our spiritual enemy.

So verse nine, as we have said before. And so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. This is the second time that Paul has used this word, accursed. And he specifically uses the word to apply to those who would preach a different gospel, to mislead those who have already believed. Literally, this word means accursed, means to devote something to the eternal wrath of God.

Let them be devoted to the eternal wrath of God. These are probably Paul's strongest words in the entire New Testament because he knows that there is only one way for people to be freed from evil. And evil will masquerade as a false freedom. And if people believe the lie, they will die free, thinking that they have life. And Paul is passionate.

He loves the people that he brought the gospel to. He cherishes them, they're so precious to them. And so he says, damn them to hell if they Ever mislead any of God's people into believing something that is false.

So what have you believed? The one true gospel.

Let me just give it to you very simply. This is it. Jesus died for your sins, meaning his life was the payment for your sins. Your sins, the wages of them is death, right? Wrath from God.

Right. You, you are part of the evil age, right? Jesus died for you, though, and died as payment for your sins. And then he rose from the dead on the third day.

And now, as a result, he calls everyone to trust him as Lord and Savior. And that word, trust is the recognition of. Of the need of a new way of life.

So how do you express that trust? The way you can start expressing that trust today? You don't have to wait. Like, if you don't have this kind of trust in Jesus or you want to know what that is, you can have it. You don't have to delay any longer.

You don't have to wait to somehow find it. You don't have to do a few good things to maybe figure out if this is for you. You can have it right now. There's a way to do it. It's simple.

Start with apologizing to God, right? You confess your sins. Right? God, I am a sinner, and I am sorry that I have opposed you, and I am deeply, desperately in need. I know my own heart, and I know that my heart is opposed to you.

And you give him your sins. You just say, this is God. This is what I've done. This is what's in my mind, and this is how I know that I'm opposed to you. And then from there, you believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior.

To make him Lord is to say, okay, Jesus, my life belongs to you now. You get to determine the way for my life and to be your savior is to say, you cannot do anything to save yourself. He will rescue you from the pit. And so then finally ask God to forgive and save you. That's it.

You don't have to do a ritual. You don't have to make a mark on anything. You don't have to. We don't have to, like, get a bunch of people around in a seance to chant some words. No, you do this.

This is simple. This is how you respond to Jesus. That is the beginning of a journey of following him into a new kingdom and a new way. And so if you have not trusted in Jesus, I would just ask, would you consider placing your trust in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? I'm going to ask you to pray with me, please.

Father, we thank you for the beauty of what you accomplish in the gospel and the power of the gospel to set us free from evil.

So, God, this morning, as we wonder at the power of that gospel, God, would you equip our hearts? Would you make our hearts expectant for everything that you can do? And God, would you cause us to rejoice in what you have already done?

Be with us now. Bless us with an awareness of your presence as we head into a baptism. God, we ask this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.

Could somebody go and get the kids? You got it. All right. Very good. So we're going to move into a time of baptism.

I'm just going to. Briefly, before I invite Karen up, I'm going to. I'm going to just talk about baptism and what it is here. So for us, baptism is an act of obedience, right? Jesus commanded that we should be baptized, that those who believe, those who are disciples of Jesus, would be baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Baptism, secondly, is. Is an act of public declaration. It's a way of us saying that our lives belong to Jesus. We're making clear to our family and our friends and everybody who knows us and loves us that our lives are set apart and belong to Jesus. And so Karen in just a bit is going to come up here and she is following Jesus into this step of obedience today.

And it is not the baptism that saves her. It is Jesus who has saved her. And her faith in him has brought her to this point of obedience today. And so, Karen, I'm going to invite you up for baptism.