Sermon Tone Analysis

Present the series as walking a narrow path, attractive to fall off; path through a swamp?

along a mountain ridge?

make “who are you following” rather than “what is the path” the centre of the image.

maps with incorrect route option?

satnav going wrong, avoid the attractive looking alternative.

BIG IDEA: it’s all grace or no gospel

Intro me

We’ve spent a long time working through Acts - so long I can’t actually remember when we started.

Anyone?

Time for a quick slido poll!

Acts has told us the story of the very first churches, of how this movement, Christianity, got started.

We’ve read about amazing miracles, thousands of lives changed, about a new and radically different community being formed - and for the last while in Acts we’ve been following a guy Paul around.

We’ve watched him and his team on a thousand mile mission trip starting a bunch of churches in an area called Galatia - modern day Turkey.

We read on just a little further in Acts past that trip, looking at a big, important meeting in Jerusalem, and how the movement continued through conflict and division - but back on that mission trip, Paul and his team’s parting shot as they pass back through the various cities and visit one last time the various churches they had started is set out for us:

Acts 14:21–22 (NIV)

Then they returned to Lystra, Iconium and Antioch, strengthening the disciples and encouraging them to remain true to the faith.

“We must go through many hardships to enter the kingdom of God,” they said.

So what do you think came next?

“.., and they all lived happily after?”

No - sadly not.

Things went wrong - really quite quickly.

Those small start up churches got into some big hairy trouble.

So we’re going to press “pause” on Acts, and take a look at what happened.

We’re going to do a biopsy, a postmortem, and see what we learn - because there’s critically important stuff for us as a church here still today, and there’s critically important stuff here for you today too even if you’re just exploring faith - because we’re looking at the very heart of the message of Christianity, the critical piece that, if you take it out, the whole thing falls.

The keystone, the cornerstone.

We can do this biopsy thing here because our bibles have a letter written by that guy Paul to those new churches, a letter which came their way not long after Paul left.

Why do we make such a big deal about the bible?

At Hope City we believe this bible, these ancient letters and everything else in here, have been preserved for us because in them we learn God’s truth about him and his world, about us and our brokenness, about how he’s fixing it, and about how we can be a part of that.

This is God’s message to his world, to us.

That’s why sometimes we call the bible the “word of God” - it’s what he has to say to us; it’s like him speaking to us.

But before we dive into that letter, though, you’re going to need just a little back story: so, “in last week’s episode” as they might say in a TV series...

You know how your phone and your computer - and soon your car! - needs a major update every two days now just to keep working?

At the most inconvenient moment, right?

Well, some visitors arrive in these new churches with what they claim is a critical update, a “patch” for Paul’s teaching.

We don’t get told precisely what’s in this patch here, but we get a pretty good idea from the way Paul responds to it - and it seems very connected to what we were looking at a few weeks back with that blow-up in Antioch leading to a big hoo-hah in Jerusalem:

Acts 15:5 (NIV)

“The Gentiles must be circumcised and required to keep the law of Moses.”

Circumcision, if you’ve not heard the term before, is a permanent body-marking ritual required for all male Jews; the practice comes from an ancient command of God.

And it seems someone has shown up in these Galatian churches trying to persuade people to be circumcised:

Galatians 6:12 (NIV)

Those who want to impress people by means of the flesh are trying to compel you to be circumcised.

Well, ok, it’s a bit generous to say they’re trying to persuade people.

They’re trying to compel them.

Press.

Push.

Force.

And the issue seems wider than just circumcision - it seems the new guys on the block are pushing people to take on the whole Jewish way of life, their customs, their rules.

Here’s Paul’s beef in another place in the letter:

Gal 2:14 “you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs” - literally to Judaize - to live like a Jew.

Before that big Jerusalem show-down, before that main event we looked at in Acts 15, people with a very similar view, perhaps even the same people, had been stalking Paul, going back through the churches he’d started in Galatia, trying to push an update with very similar content.

So these guys show up, trying to “fix” Paul’s message - but Paul’s having none of it.

That’s no fix, he says - they are distorting, corrupting, breaking God’s one true message - the message which Jesus sent through his key followers, the twelve apostles as we call them, and through Paul.

Let’s read the start of his letter to these churches together: Galatians.

Come with me to page 1168 and we’ll read just the first bit today.

1168 - but, of course, since it’s the start of a new book in the bible, there’s actually no number of this particular page - so 1169 and back one!

why do they do that?

Anyway, Jemimah’s going to read for us this morning.

Page 1168.

Thanks Jemimah.

Well let’s start with the good news!

In those few verses we’ve just read we get a super-compact presentation of the good news at the heart of Christianity:

Galatians 1:4 (NIV)

[Jesus] gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father

Jesus gave himself for our sins to rescue us - and that was God’s plan, his will worked out.

And just to unpack this a little more, when this passage talks about “sins”, that’s a word that can seem pretty old-fashioned, and one that means different things to different people.

What Paul means here, when he uses it in his letter, is all the wrong things that we do, and all the right things that we don’t do - every single little one, not just the big hitters.

And he talks about “our sins” because he sees himself in the wrong along with everyone else.

Because all of us get it wrong.

Because none of us get it all right.

He tells us Jesus gave himself for our sins - that means he took the penalty, the punishment, the just judgement that all those wrong things deserve.

He wiped the slate clean.

Grace is the bible word for that.

Getting what we absolutely don’t deserve.

And in this grace, Jesus, giving himself for our sins, rescues us - he lifts us up out of the fix we were in, he grabs us by the lifejacket and haul us out of the water, and rescues us from this present evil age.

This present evil age.. that’s an interesting phrase, right?

This present evil age.

I don’t know whether you see it that way - but this is no golden age we’re living in.

Sure, technology has made somethings better, and there’s been some progress in our world through education, through art, through government, through charity.

But this is no golden age, no perfect world - I think Paul’s right when he calls it our present evil age.

The truth is, if we care to notice for just a moment, that we live in a broken world filled with injustice and evil.

Maybe not that much right in your face - maybe you get to live in a privileged enclave where things are better - but maybe you’ve seen your fair share of evil - I know many of you have, and certainly our world has.

Really I think it’s fair to call the present an evil age.

What makes it that way?

The bible’s answer is us.

You and me.

Everyone.

We’re broken, twisted, corrupted inside and that comes out as we rub up against one another.

Grasping for power.

Putting ourselves first.

Ignoring the needs of others.

And we can’t fix it, try as we might: no technology, no science, no government, no law can fix this.

Because it’s inside every one of us.

So what hope is there?

Rescue.

That’s the hope.

Rescue out of this evil age and, one day, a new age: a renewed world flowing out of renewed people.

All this is God’s plan, accomplished through Jesus, giving himself for our sins.

This morning, if you’ve never heard that call before, or if you’ve never responded to that call before, let me invite you right now to hear the call: God calls you to live in the grace of Christ.

He invites you to accept this grace, Jesus giving himself in your place.

He invites you to embrace this rescue.