Sermon Tone Analysis

Spirit fill me with YOUR power...

INTRODUCTION

I’m Tom…

We’ve been sick…

Couldn’t sleep, girls were up coughing…

Most important thing when you have flu is rest.

Frustrating not being able to focus on most important thing...

New Series… Grace Alone… Why?

Planting a church…

If we are going to be healthy...

We need to be aware of what our most important thing is…

We started off defining the church...

Clarity on what is being built

Season of foundation laying… what to build on…

The foundation... is the Gospel

Gospel = good news…

God came

Lived

Died

In our place

Did what we could not do

To save us from wrath

To reconcile us to him

Most important thing in the entire universe…

It’s what the christian builds their life on…

Not the front door you enter, it’s the foundation you live on…

If you aren’t on the foundation of the gospel you have left the building…

The gospel isn’t the diving board… its the pool…

Going thru Galatians... because it unapologetically promotes the supremacy of the Gospel

And NEVER moving on from it...

My prayer is that:

Restored Temecula will be a built on foundation of Gospel and nothing else…

NEVER move on from it…

Hopefully you have your bible… .

BACKGROUND & CONTEXT

Apostle Paul

Apostle… greek word “apostolos” = to be “sent”

2 types: “A” & “a”

Capital A

Taught by Jesus himself in the flesh…

Sent from Jesus himself… with a message… the gospel.

Lowercase a

Every other “sent one” since…

Weren’t taught the message directly from Jesus…

nor sent by Jesus himself…

But modern day apostles are really important...

they carry on the task of GUARDING and ADVANCING the gospel…

So Paul has the authority of being taught and sent by Jesus himself...

Church planting missionary

After he left a region he would supervise via letters until he could come visit again in person

That’s what the letter to the Galatians is…

Galatia is a region located in modern day Turkey…

So Paul writes this letter to the churches in that region

Timing = 15-20 years after Jesus was resurrected.

Pray

SCRIPTURE

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

Paul starts letter by saying who its from…

And gives his credentials as an Apostle…

sent from God himself…

Notice… Paul’s calling as an Apostle came from God not from man…

God’s calling for your life is always better that any calling you or anyone else can come up with…

Are you living out God’s call on your life?

If not why not?

2 and all the brothers who are with me, To the churches of Galatia:

3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, 5 to whom be the glory forever and ever.

Amen.

Paul gives a nice salutation…

Grace and peace to you…

Here comes the heat...

6 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— 7 not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

8 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.

Really quick… In v.8 Paul pretty much dismantles mormonism…

Joseph Smith (founder of Mormonism) claims an angel appeared to him and told him what needed to be added to the Gospel.

8 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.

9 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.

This is really confrontational...

Paul is angry...

He is basically saying…

You think you understand the Gospel but you don’t…

You think you understand what it means to follow God but you are completely wrong…

remember…

Paul is writing this to professing Christians…

To baptized believers…

How much do you enjoy it when people tell you you’re wrong?

Some more context… understand why he’s so angry

The first Christians were Jewish…

As the Gospel of Jesus spread non-jews (gentiles) started to receive and follow Jesus…

So the churches in Galatia were made up of Jews AND gentiles…

There were a group of teachers in Galatia that were insisting that…

In order to truly be accepted by God…

The gentiles needed to observe all the traditional Jewish laws…

dietary laws

Ceremonial law

And the mack daddy of them all… circumcision

Gospel means good news right…

Circumcision is NOT good news…

Those two things should never be associated

The false teachers were teaching The Gospel + Jewish tradition = salvation...

Paul is angry for two reasons: