Sermon Tone Analysis

Purpose:

Intern Associate Pastor Bill Klapwyk

Purpose:

Subject:

Complement:

Big Idea: Only One Gospel

Introduction:

Are you a religious person?

I want you to think about that for a minute, because I am going to tell you if you are religious then you’re not a Christian!

I want to thank Pastor Kevin, the elders, and Crossroads for giving me the opportunity to intern here.

This is the first message in a series on Galatians will be presenting over time.

Why must they listen to this sermon?

What is so important?

Subject: Christianity is not a religion

Turn your Bibles to:

I.

A. Exposition

Paul wrote this letter in response to false teaching in the churches of Galatia.

In the short time period between Paul and Barnabas’s missionary trip throughout Galatia that took place around A.D. 44 – 46 () and Paul’s writing of this letter around A.D. 48 there were some Judaizers, religious leaders of Judaism, attacking the Gospel that Paul and Barnabas taught them along with attacking Paul’s apostolic authority.

So, Paul starts this letter off asserting his Apostolic Authority in a way that counters the Judaizers that oppose him.

Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead

Paul is stating very clearly here that he was not appointed an apostle by any council of men such as the leaders in Jerusalem “not from men” and not by any one man “Nor through man”, not even Ananias, whom God used to help Paul in Damascus ().

Paul makes claim to his authority that his call to apostleship originated from Jesus Christ and God the Father which, places him on the same level as the twelve.

I like the fact that Paul mentions Jesus being resurrected, and Paul definitely knows this to be true.

We all know the story of Paul’s (Saul’s) salvation and how it is the resurrected Jesus Paul meets on the road to Damascus in ().

and all the brothers who are with me,

To the churches of Galatia:

In verse 2 Paul makes it clear that he isn’t a lone wolf and others stand with him in the teaching of the one true Gospel.

We can’t truly identify what brothers were with Paul when he wrote Galatians, but the probability would be Barnabas and the church in Antioch of Syria.

“To the churches of Galatia” This is the only letter Paul wrote that was not addressed to Christians in a specific town or any one individual, but addresses multiple churches.

Those churches were most likely the churches Paul and Barnabas established in the Southern Roman Province of Galatia like Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe.

I think the fact that this letter went to several locations implies how wide spread the problem was and as we will see later on how serious the situation had become.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 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.

Paul uses this greeting almost like a hello, but it goes much deeper than that.

Paul is saying may the grace of God be upon you and through that grace you shall find peace with God and the people around you that God may be glorified.

We can almost see this played out in the way Paul writes this sentence.

“Grace to you and peace” from who? “from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ”.

Why do we have that grace and peace?

“Christ who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from this present evil age”.

On what authority?

“according to the will of our God and Father”.

For what purpose?

“to whom be glorified forever and ever.

Amen”

IDEA: Greetings to you from me on behalf of God

B. Illustration: When I check my mail every day I look at the return address to see who it’s from and at the package for any indication of what it might be about.

This envelope from the Internal Revenue Service is pretty important and I would say it needs my attention.

The flyer from Dish Network I will just throw away unless I’m seriously looking at changing my cable provider.

The letter from my sister is pretty important to me, but probably needs to wait until I deal with this disconnect notice from the power company.

Let’s say there is this mail scam going on where someone is sending out fake disconnect notices pretending to be the power company.

How can I be sure this disconnect notice is real?

I would have to look at the return address not just on the envelope, but also where I send the payment to on the inside of the letter.

I would also check to make sure the phone numbers are truly the power company’s phone numbers and probably look at the people associated with this letter to validate its originality.

C. Application: Paul validates this letter is written by him on behalf of the resurrected Jesus and all the brothers with him can verify that authority.

If I think that disconnect notice from the power company is important for me to read and respond to how much more important would it be for me to read and respond to a letter written by the authority of Jesus?

We as believers, you and I, come with all the authority that is given to us by Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit and we too have a message that is stamped with God’s approval through our own salvation God has graced us with.

II.

VV

A. Exposition:

In all of his other letters this is the point where Paul would praise his readers, but here we see Paul opening in rebuke of the churches in Galatia.

It has been such a short time since Paul and Barnabas had presented the Gospel to these churches.

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

We see Paul leading with “I am astonished that” which is a direct rebuke and signifies the urgency and seriousness of this letter.

You foolish Galatians!!! Paul gets directly to the point of this letter.

“You are so quickly deserting him who called you into the grace of Christ and are turning to a different Gospel”.

It had only been a short period of time maybe 4 - 6 years since the churches in Galatia had received the Gospel and they were already being disobedient to Christ.

By turning to a false teaching they are turning away from Christ.

This should remind us of how easily Satan can deceive young believers and how much Satan delights in that destruction.

Paul then clarifies that there is only one Gospel and everything else is false teaching “not that there is another one”.

“but there are some who trouble you” we could almost read that as there are some that seek to deceive you.

The enemy will use people and things around us to deceive us.

“and want to distort the gospel of Christ”.

I don’t believe the Judaizers were purposefully trying to deceive or distort the Gospel.

They were still stuck in their religious belief that, in order to be God’s chosen people, you had to convert to Judaism and become a Jew following all the requirements of the Mosaic Laws that came with that.

Paul is dealing with the Judaizers and their false teachings here.

If you remember earlier I stated that Paul’s greeting goes much deeper than just a greeting.

Paul was stating that only by the grace of God are we free and the Judaizers were saying through the grace of God and also these laws we have (mainly circumcision and conversion to become Jews) do you find Salvation.

They were teaching that yes Jesus died for our sins, but that’s not enough.

Judaism their religion says God’s grace isn’t enough we also have to follow these laws and if you do you will be raised to a higher level of spirituality.

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed.

As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

Paul is really pulling out the heavy artillery here.

These religious leaders, the false teachers, the Judaizers were claiming to have the highest level of authority.

After all they were sent from the council in Jerusalem and Paul is only an apostle from Syrian Antioch.

Now that Paul has asserted where his apostolic authority comes from, Jesus Christ and God the Father, he tells the Galatians to reject any gospel outside of the one he brought even to the extent that it is an angel from heaven.

It’s interesting that Paul mentions an angel here.

Remember angels are spiritual beings and the fallen angels will pose as angels from heaven to lead us astray.

Angels don’t fall under God’s grace like we do so it seems that when Paul says accursed here he means God’s judgment and not just excommunicated.

Paul repeats himself immediately, “As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.”,

maybe as a reminder of the warning preached to the Galatians during Paul’s missionary trip there just a few years ago, and to emphasize the severity of their foolishness in this false teaching.

Let’s also take note of the difference between verses 8 and 9.

In verse 8 Paul places himself and even angels within the possibility of false teachings and it is set as a “should preach” so it’s highly unlikely but still a possibility.

In verse 9 Paul seems to be talking about the current situation in Galatia that is happening right now by stating “is preaching”.

Now remember the judaizers were sent with this false message from the leaders of the church in Jerusalem to set the record straight.

They were presenting a much different gospel and claiming Paul’s gospel is wrong and you can’t trust him.

Verse 9 also serves as a reminder to the Galatians that they had received and accepted the one true Gospel which laid the solid foundation which we see in

For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

In verse 10 Paul, finished with his rebuke, takes the spotlight off of his accusers that were preaching a false Gospel and places it directly upon himself.

For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God?