An Issue of Authority.

Steve Gentry

[0:01] I just want to take this opportunity to welcome you to the village. [0:05] My name is Steve. [0:05] I’m one of the pastors here. [0:07] I’m glad to see you guys here this morning. [0:10] Before I get started, there’s one thing I want to tell you about. [0:12] It’s a little thing that a couple of us started doing a couple of years ago.

[0:16] Not here, but somewhere else we used to live. [0:20] We’ve dubiously titled it, The One Thing We Do on Halloween, because we can’t come up [0:24] with anything else better to call it. [0:26] Let me explain to you what it is. [0:27] The reason we call it this is because it’s not really an event that we put on. [0:32] It’s something that you do at your home, and we do at our home.

[0:38] A lot of churches plan these things called harvest festivals, and fall festivals, and [0:45] harvest parties, and anything but Halloween.

[0:49] Not that I have anything against that. [0:51] Not that there’s anything wrong with that. [0:53] But we do things a little bit different around here. [0:55] We are far more concerned with you meeting your neighbors, and you building relationships [1:00] with the people on your street, rather than us throwing an event that will actually draw [1:05] you out of your neighborhood, and away from your neighbor.

[1:09] What we do on Halloween is we do this. [1:11] I got this idea from a mentor of mine a long time ago. [1:15] Some of us will set up a grill at the end of our driveway. [1:18] Some of us will set up a bonfire in our backyard, or our front yard, or we’ll buy one of those [1:22] things from Lowe’s, where you can have a little makeshift campfire. [1:26] We’ll make s’mores, or we’ll roast some hot dogs, make some hamburgers for our neighbors.

[1:31] We’ll actually have candy to give out to the neighborhood kids. [1:34] We do this in an attempt to really show our neighbors, and show those people that are [1:39] around us, that we actually care about them, and that we actually love them, and we actually [1:43] want to build relationships with their lives. [1:46] Because we here at the Village feel that that is one of the calls that God has put on our [1:50] lives.

[1:51] He said that the two greatest commandments are to love the Lord your God with all your [1:55] heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. [1:58] He says the second is like it. [2:00] Love your neighbor as yourself. [2:04] One thing that’s a little counter-cultural in this society is for us to actually go out [2:09] of our way to meet our neighbors.

[2:11] To go out of our way to talk to our neighbors, or to even give of ourselves to our neighbors, [2:17] or even show a little bit of service towards them. [2:20] So we ask that you join with us in doing this. [2:23] Like it says right here, you can make s’mores around a campfire, you can give candy to kids. [2:26] But most importantly, we want you to meet your neighbors. [2:29] I’m going to be doing this at my house in Smoke Tree, and we’ve got a lot of other

[2:33] people on our team that are going to be doing it at their houses all over the Midlothian [2:37] area. [2:37] If you want any information on that, go to our website, or you can email nate at villagemidlothian.org. [2:44] Nate Schloman, another one of the pastors, he’s going to be helping to give information. [2:48] If you need candy, if you need help getting some food, we will help you do that if you [2:54] will join us in serving the people in your neighborhood.

[2:58] So that’s that one thing that we do on Halloween. [3:01] Now go ahead and open in your Bibles to the book of Galatians. [3:05] We’re going to be starting in Galatians chapter 1 today.

[3:09] We’re beginning a new series, and what we’re going to be doing in this series is we’re [3:12] going to be going verse by verse through the book of Galatians. [3:16] We’re going to go through every verse in the Scriptures. [3:19] And I’ll tell you, the reason that we’re doing that is because as you saw in that video, [3:22] we do believe that the Bible is the Word of God. [3:26] One thing that we believe here at the Village is that the Scripture is our authority.

[3:32] This is something that almost all followers of Jesus would attest to, especially in this [3:38] type of area. [3:38] We’re still close enough to the Bible Belt, to where it’s almost a cultural thing that [3:44] if you consider yourself a Christian, then you would necessarily say, well, yes, the [3:48] Bible is God’s Word. [3:50] The Scripture is our authority.

[3:52] But there’s only one problem with saying that. [3:55] If you say that, then there is kind of a demand on your life that you actually know the source [4:02] of the Bible and you actually know the contents of the Bible. [4:08] And this is kind of gets sort of difficult with the way sometimes we preach the Bible [4:12] in churches or even the way that we study the Bible in our own time. [4:17] One method that sometimes we use is we just kind of find these verses.

[4:21] They kind of speak to us. [4:23] And they’re kind of like our life verses. [4:25] And most of us, you know, if you’re going to follow Jesus for any time, if you spent [4:28] any time in church, you know that you’re supposed to do this. [4:31] So you find this life verse and that is a verse that defines you. [4:34] That is a verse that says what you do with your life, that is who you are.

[4:38] But the only problem is that sometimes if somebody actually says, well, can you tell [4:41] me what that verse means? [4:44] Sometimes we’re kind of left bankrupt there and we’re like, well, it makes me feel good [4:48] though. [4:49] You know, that’s a great verse. [4:51] We all know, you know, John three, 16 for God loved the world so much he sent his son

[4:54] to die so that we wouldn’t perish, but we’ll have eternal life. [4:58] And we’re like, man, that sounds great. [4:59] That’s fantastic. [5:01] But who’s he actually saying this to? [5:04] Because the thing is, Jesus is actually having a conversation with a man about something [5:07] greater than just what he’s saying in this verse.

[5:11] He’s actually talking about the fact that this man has been trying to earn his salvation [5:16] through all of his hard works, through all of his entire life. [5:19] So for him to hear that salvation was to come from something other than his life was totally [5:26] outside of himself. [5:28] And you can only understand these types of things by studying the Bible verse by verse. [5:34] So what we’re going to do is we’re going to join together over the next couple of months,

[5:38] probably, and we’re going to go through a book of the Bible together. [5:42] We’re going to study it verse by verse. [5:44] We’re going to see what the message of an entire book of the Bible is. [5:48] Believe it or not, when the Bible was originally written, it was not divided into chapters [5:52] and verses. [5:54] And this is kind of shocking to some people because this is the way that we’ve always

[5:57] had it. [5:57] What these were, like, let’s take the book of Galatians, for instance. [6:00] This was one letter that was written in long form from Paul to the churches in the area [6:10] of Galatia, which was a province, which was a makeup of a bunch of cities in the Roman [6:16] Empire. [6:16] And Paul is writing this letter, and it’s one long letter.

[6:19] You could have never gone into the church of Galatia and said, hey, what does chapter [6:23] 2 verse 20 say? [6:24] They would have had no idea what you said. [6:26] They would have had to say, hey, remember midway through that letter what Paul was talking [6:30] about? [6:30] All right, we’re going to have to read the whole thing again to figure out what he was

[6:33] saying right there. [6:34] And this is something that’s kind of becoming foreign to followers of Jesus. [6:39] This is something that not a lot of followers of Jesus are practicing anymore, to actually [6:42] look at a verse in the Bible and then say, well, where does that fit inside of the context? [6:49] And this isn’t so hurtful in us, and we’re reading the New Testament, because you can [6:54] kind of take a verse and get a great deal of meaning out of one verse.

[6:57] But we start having our problems when we go back to the Old Testament, read a book like [7:01] Leviticus, because then it’s just like you get about halfway through and it’s like, [7:05] I am done with this Bible reading business. [7:08] This makes no sense. [7:09] Why is he killing so many animals? [7:10] This sounds like a horror movie.

[7:12] They’re spattering blood everywhere. [7:15] Well, if you take one verse inside of the book of Leviticus and read it that way, yeah, [7:20] it does seem pretty weird. [7:22] But when you take it and the message of the Bible as a whole, you realize that these [7:28] Old Testament sacrifices are actually pointing to a future Savior whose name is Jesus. [7:34] But the only way we can get these messages is if we realize that the number one, the

[7:40] scripture is our authority. [7:42] And number two, when we are willing to admit something like that, that we have to actually [7:46] know what it says. [7:49] Because sometimes we get so many messages and from so many different verses that we [7:54] give up. [7:55] And we say, man, this is too hard.

[7:57] And it’s not that the Bible is so hard to understand. [7:59] There is no Bible code in here. [8:02] There is no certain coding that if you read this number of words and this number of paragraphs [8:06] at this point and this time and you connect the dots between the book of John and the [8:10] book of Exodus, you have the date of Jesus’ return. [8:13] When we kind of make the Bible trivial that way, we kind of give ourselves an excuse,

[8:18] well, how am I supposed to read a Bible that’s got all these secret codes in it? [8:21] It has no secret codes in it. [8:23] It’s explicit in what it’s talking about. [8:26] It is the story of God redeeming man. [8:31] That’s the story of the Bible. [8:33] It’s the story of how God redeems people that he loves from rebellion against him, how God

[8:40] gives of himself. [8:41] And the climax of scripture is a man named Jesus who’s actually the Son of God, God in [8:47] the flesh. [8:48] And where we find ourselves today in the book of Galatians is after Jesus has died on the [8:54] cross, after he’s risen from the dead, after the first century church has already begun. [9:01] So join me in Galatians chapter one.

[9:04] I’m going to start reading in verse one, of course, if we’re going to go through the whole [9:07] book. [9:07] It would probably be helpful if I started at the very beginning. [9:11] All right, buckle up. [9:13] Paul, an apostle. [9:15] All right, we got to stop right there.

[9:17] All right, I got to unpack this because, you know, this is just a guy named Paul. [9:22] And some of us may or may not know who this guy is. [9:25] We may have some opinions as to who this man is. [9:28] But we need to kind of unpack who he is, because who he is is very important in understanding [9:35] the rest of the book. [9:36] In this day, it wasn’t like it is today.

[9:39] If we write an email today, we might start it with dear so and so. [9:42] And then we write our message and we say from loves, hugs and kisses, XOXO, whoever. [9:48] And that’s how we show we don’t really reveal the identity of the writer until the end. [9:52] But in this day, when you were going to write a letter, you started it with your name. [9:57] You want the person to know who this is coming from. [10:00] And if you see how long some of these New Testament letters is, it’s very helpful because

[10:03] you’ve had to wait until the very end to find out who’s writing this. [10:07] You’d probably be pretty confused. [10:09] But Paul lets them know right off the bat that he is writing this letter. [10:12] So that begs the question, who is Paul? [10:16] Who is this man? [10:17] Well, to kind of unpack that, it’s really important that we kind of go back to a different

[10:21] section of scripture in Acts, Chapter seven, which is another book of the Bible, a couple [10:26] of books back from the Book of Galatians. [10:27] Acts, Chapter seven is a history book of everything that took place in the few years [10:34] directly after the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. [10:39] In Acts, Chapter seven, we meet this man named Paul, and we do not by meeting him think, [10:44] oh, he is going to be a leader of the church.

[10:46] He’s actually going to become one of the greatest missionaries that the Church of Jesus has [10:49] ever seen. [10:50] Because when we first meet him, we see him at the murderous execution of a Christian. [10:58] Not trying to stop it, but it says that he’s pleased that the Jews are stoning a Christian [11:05] by the name of Stephen. [11:08] It’s like, why would he do something like this?

[11:11] Got to understand about Paul is that he was a Pharisee. [11:13] Remember a couple of weeks ago in No Perfect People Allowed when we talked about the Pharisees? [11:17] The Pharisees were the most religious of Jews. [11:20] They were so religious that it was their job to enforce all of the Old Testament laws and [11:25] make sure that everyone in Israel was following the laws from the Book of Leviticus, from [11:30] Deuteronomy, from Exodus, that they were following the Ten Commandments with everything they

[11:34] could do.

[11:36] He had risen to the state of a Pharisee. [11:40] Paul was actually one of the chief Pharisees. [11:43] He was the boss of the Pharisees. [11:44] Elsewhere in scripture we see that he actually had servants that would go everywhere with [11:49] him so that he wouldn’t have to do any of the menial tasks of life, like find somewhere [11:54] to stay or find food to eat.

[11:56] He was so busy enforcing the law of the Old Testament that he wasn’t to be troubled with [12:01] these menial tasks. [12:03] In Acts chapter 7, it says that right before the Pharisees and the Jews that were surrounded [12:08] they stoned this man named Stephen and executed him for basically saying that Judaism was [12:14] not the way to salvation, but Jesus was. [12:18] It says they laid their cloaks at the feet of Paul and Paul was pleased by what they

[12:24] were doing. [12:25] Then in the very next chapter, the beginning of Acts chapter 8, it says that Paul kind [12:32] of breathed threats and ground his teeth towards the church of Jesus. [12:38] It became his life’s mission to persecute followers of Jesus. [12:45] In Acts chapter 8, it says that he began going from house to house finding, in that day [12:51] it wasn’t called being a Christian, it was called finding followers of the way.

[12:55] In John 14, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life. [13:00] They were called followers of the way. [13:02] It says Paul would go from house to house finding these followers of Jesus. [13:08] When they would confess and admit or when he would find somebody and find witnesses [13:13] against someone for being a follower, he would pull them out of their house, he would lock [13:16] them up in prison, he would beat them, or in some cases he would have them killed.

[13:22] He became known as the persecutor of people of the way throughout the whole province of [13:28] Judah, throughout the whole province of Judea, throughout the whole province of Samaria, [13:32] all the way up to a place called Damascus. [13:35] He was in such hatred for followers of Jesus that he actually went to the high priest [13:40] and said, can I take the show on the road?

[13:44] I think I’ve found all the Christians I’m going to find around here, can I go to Damascus [13:48] and find some more? [13:49] We need to get rid of all of these followers of Jesus. [13:53] The high priest gives him permission to do this. [13:56] So Paul hits the road with his crew and he’s going towards Damascus. [14:02] As he is on the road to Damascus, it says that a light shone from heaven knocking him

[14:09] off of the horse that he was on.

[14:12] That this voice comes from heaven and says, Saul, his Hebrew name was Saul, Saul, Saul, [14:20] why are you persecuting me? [14:23] Paul’s response was so telling of the state that he was in. [14:26] He looks back at this light and is blinded and he says, who are you, Lord? [14:31] And the word that he uses shows that he is ascribing deity to this being that he’s talking [14:38] to.

[14:39] He’s saying, who are you, God?

[14:44] And he defines himself and he says, I am Jesus. [14:49] And in this moment, Paul’s entire life is changed.

[14:57] His whole lease on life goes from one who is a persecutor of Christians to one who [15:02] is now himself a Christian. [15:05] I can’t find it anywhere else in history where Jesus himself steps down from heaven to lead [15:11] somebody to himself. [15:13] After his crucifixion, after his resurrection, after he has gone up into heaven, Jesus himself [15:19] reveals himself to Paul and says, Paul, you will now follow me.

[15:25] And it’s sort of strategic in the way that God chooses Paul to follow him and then makes [15:33] him this man who would go on to write half of the New Testament, who would travel the [15:37] entire world taking the gospel of Jesus worldwide. [15:42] I’ll explain to you why. [15:43] Paul was an interesting person. [15:45] The reason he was Saul and Paul, it wasn’t that at conversion he’s like, well, I’m going

[15:49] to give you a new name. [15:51] That’s kind of how some of us kind of take it. [15:53] It’s like, oh, he’s a Christian, so he has to change his name. [15:54] So maybe we should do the same. [15:56] No, it wasn’t that at all. [15:57] His Hebrew name was Saul.

[16:00] His Greek name was Paul. [16:03] See, Paul or Saul was born in a place called Tarsus, which was outside of Israel. [16:08] His father was also a Pharisee. [16:10] His father was one of the members of the synagogue in Tarsus. [16:13] He was actually one of the leaders of that synagogue. [16:16] And so in his life, he had what is called dual citizenship.

[16:21] He was a citizen of Israel because he was a Jew. [16:25] But Tarsus was a province of Rome. [16:29] So he also had Roman citizenship. [16:33] And she may be asking, so what? [16:35] The reason that this was so strategic for Paul to become a follower of Jesus is because [16:40] with this dual citizenship, he had the privilege to travel anywhere he wanted, go anywhere

[16:47] he wanted, go into any city unrestrained. [16:51] Well, couldn’t everybody in Israel do that? [16:53] No. [16:54] If you were simply born in Jerusalem, you could not come and go throughout the world [16:59] as you pleased because you were not a Roman citizen. [17:03] You were a citizen of Israel.

[17:08] So Paul, being born in Tarsus, has dual citizenship. [17:12] And so this is setting up something that is to come in just a moment. [17:16] But let me explain to you why the conversion of Paul was so important. [17:21] Paul understood the life of religion. [17:25] Paul lived a life that was completely steeped in this thing called religion. [17:28] Like I told you, his father was a Pharisee.

[17:31] By the age of 12, Paul had memorized the entire first five books of the Bible. [17:37] It’s called the Pentateuch, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. [17:43] His first five books of the Bible, by the age of 12, he had memorized the whole thing. [17:48] This was not that irregular because this was normal for a Jewish boy. [17:53] But after you do this memorization, you’re then tested at about 12 or 13, [17:58] right before your Bar Mitzvah, as to how you can teach these books

[18:02] and how you can follow them and enforce it on others. [18:05] So by the time he was an adult, he was so good at this that he was risen [18:09] to the level of a Pharisee who was a law enforcer. [18:13] Paul puts it this way. [18:14] He says in Philippians, Chapter three, that if anyone thinks he has any reason [18:19] to have confidence in what he calls the flesh or what could modern day be called

[18:24] religion, which is self effort, which is you earning something from God [18:30] or earning your acceptance from God. [18:32] Paul says, if anyone thinks that you can have confidence in this, [18:35] understand that I have more confidence than you. [18:39] Sounds kind of like a braggart right here, like he’s somebody’s boasting [18:42] of all that he’s accomplished.

[18:44] But then listen to what he says. [18:45] He says, I was circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, [18:49] the tribe of Benjamin. [18:50] I was a Hebrew of Hebrews.

[18:54] As to the law, I became a Pharisee. [18:58] In other words, he was so obedient, so good at enforcing the law [19:01] that he was put to the level of a Pharisee. [19:04] As to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law. [19:11] Blameless. [19:13] That word blameless is very important.

[19:15] It’s used many times in scripture. [19:16] But what Paul’s actually saying here is you could actually follow him secretly [19:21] all day, all night, and you would not be able to find one mark.

[19:29] Of sin in his life, because the way they would define sin was by the Old [19:35] Testament law. [19:36] He says, you cannot find one law of the Old Testament that I do not follow. [19:42] Follow.

[19:44] But then notice what he says. [19:46] But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. [19:55] In other words, Paul’s saying, if you want to talk about following the law, [19:59] I’m the best of the best. [20:02] But he says, compared to God, my best is worthless. [20:09] My best is disgusting.

[20:12] My best is sinful.

[20:17] I’d say, but why? [20:19] If he had followed all of these laws, then why was this something that he could [20:24] look back on and say, this is not good? [20:27] He is the parents dream child.

[20:32] Isaiah puts it this way. [20:34] Isaiah says, any righteousness that I can conjure up from within myself, [20:37] is as a filthy rag compared to the righteousness of God. [20:48] You see, his religious actions and his life of complete commitment to a moral [20:52] code and self-denial and hard work was completely worthless in light of how [21:00] great and how mighty and how awesome God himself was.

[21:07] The fact is that no matter what we do, this is something that Paul understood. [21:14] When we’re born, we’re just born sinful.

[21:22] Children showed this so often in just the way that they react, that there’s [21:26] something inside of them that just tells them, do something wrong.

[21:31] Just do something wrong. [21:33] If it can be wrong, they’ll do it. [21:36] This is why you have to stop kids from putting forks into electrical outlets. [21:41] This is why you have to stop children from touching the hot surface of a stove. [21:46] This is why you have to stop your children from basically killing themselves.

[21:52] Because when we are born, because of the sin of Adam and Eve that we find in [21:58] Genesis chapter 3, where they disobey God, Paul puts it elsewhere in Romans chapter 5. [22:03] He says, once Adam sinned, everyone else that was born was just born into sin. [22:12] And Paul understood religion so much that he understood that he had spent his [22:16] entire life trying to negate the fact that he was a sinner.

[22:23] And he said, it was all worthless compared to Jesus.

[22:31] Paul realized the source of redemption.

[22:35] Let’s go one step further.

[22:39] Paul, an apostle, not from men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and [22:45] God the Father, who raised him from the dead. [22:50] See, as we go through this series, you’ll see that what we just read is the theme of the series. [22:54] That salvation, that authority, that religion, that life itself does not come from us. [23:04] We can do nothing to save ourselves.

[23:08] And he says, not even his apostleship comes from man, but rather it comes through Jesus, [23:14] whom God the Father had raised from the dead. [23:18] Compared to other letters, he writes a longer introduction to this one. [23:21] The issue that he is confronting head on in this book is something that we are struggling with here ourselves. [23:28] We called this series Losing My Religion. [23:32] And the reason that we called it that is because we see in the story of Paul,

[23:35] and we’re going to see throughout this entire book, that there is a thread about the gospel of Jesus [23:40] and the source of life, the source of salvation, the source of hope. [23:46] You see, it’s not that we don’t believe salvation isn’t available. [23:52] It’s the source or the location that we can find this salvation that we have trouble finding. [23:57] We find ourselves in hopelessness. [23:59] You see in pop culture that every single person wants hope.

[24:03] Every single person in this world seems to want some type of change in their lives. [24:08] But the problem is that we try to manufacture that change from within ourselves. [24:13] Paul spent his entire life trying to manufacture hope, trying to manufacture change, [24:18] trying to manufacture some type of life from within a religion that man had constructed as a way to earn his keep with God. [24:28] And Paul comes to this place where he’s writing the book of Galatians, [24:32] which is thought of to be the very first letter that he writes to a church in the New Testament.

[24:37] And he comes here and he says, you have to understand. [24:40] We have to start from a place where you understand that my apostleship does not even come from myself.

[24:48] He did not run in an election. [24:51] He did not earn this job. [24:52] He did not interview with Peter. [24:54] Peter, he didn’t send his resume to Peter. [24:56] Peter gets his resume. [24:57] He’s like, man, this guy’s pretty good.

[24:58] Let’s call him in for an interview, James. [25:00] And then James and Peter come and they say, hey, John, come into the office. [25:02] We’re going to have a three way interview. [25:04] And they interview Paul and they say, well, Paul, we’re going to give you the job of an apostle.

[25:09] Paul says right here, that is not how this happened. [25:12] Understand that I did not become an apostle through the will of man, but rather through Jesus.

[25:18] God himself made me an apostle.

[25:24] Because if you read all of Paul’s letters, there’s kind of one thread about him that seems to be pretty pronounced in him. [25:31] And that’s if he was choosing to be an apostle, he wouldn’t have chosen it. [25:35] He calls himself the least of the apostles. [25:39] He calls himself the chief of sinners.

[25:44] You say, but he was so religious.

[25:47] Remember his religion in comparison to God’s greatness. [25:53] He was bankrupt.

[25:55] So why is he writing the book of Galatians? [25:58] We have to ask ourselves this in Paul’s realization of the source of redemption, something had happened in him. [26:03] After he’s saved, he goes basically throughout the entire world, preaching Jesus, and he starts churches. [26:11] He builds churches kind of like this. [26:12] He goes into community and has very small home gatherings. [26:16] And he preaches the gospel.

[26:17] People start getting saved. [26:18] So their friends start getting saved. [26:19] Their family members start getting saved. [26:21] And they gather together and they study the scriptures together.

[26:25] Well, one of his first stops is Galatia. [26:28] Once he leaves Galatia, a very interesting thing happens and a very bad thing’s happened. [26:33] A very bad thing happens. [26:35] Another group comes through Galatia. [26:38] These men were called the Circumcision Party. [26:41] Now, the reason they were called the Circumcision Party was because, well, it’s kind of self descriptive.

[26:48] They basically would come into towns after Paul would go through towns and preach Jesus only. [26:54] And they would say, oh, Paul’s been here. [26:56] Well, that’s good. [26:57] Did he tell you guys about Jesus? [26:59] Well, yeah. [27:00] Well, he kind of left something out.

[27:04] Jesus is the way to salvation. [27:06] Jesus will get you acceptance with God. [27:09] But there’s one more thing you need to do. [27:13] And understand these weren’t Jews in Galatia. [27:16] These were Gentiles. [27:18] You also need to be circumcised.

[27:20] You also need to follow the Ten Commandments. [27:24] You also basically need to become a Jew. [27:26] So if you have Jesus, that’s good. [27:28] But let’s add something to that. [27:30] You also have to have this list of mandates. [27:32] And they were called the Circumcision Party because they would go through all these Gentile churches

[27:36] and say, well, Paul’s basically giving you a false religion. [27:38] He doesn’t have as much authority as we do. [27:41] Actually, we kicked him out of the Pharisees. [27:43] So he’s not even one of us anymore. [27:44] Why are you listening to Paul? [27:47] And so Paul starts off and he says, hey, I’m an apostle because God made me that way.

[27:53] I have authority. [27:54] Not because I’ve earned it, but because Jesus has redeemed and Jesus has said so.

[28:03] And when he faces off with this Circumcision Party, you’re going to see through this entire book, [28:09] he basically says Jesus plus anything is not the gospel. [28:17] Not Jesus plus obedience, not Jesus plus sacrifice, not Jesus plus going to church, not Jesus plus hard work. [28:25] Your best is disgusting to God. [28:28] So our attempts to add anything other than Jesus to how we are saved is offensive to God. [28:38] You basically have two types of people in this world.

[28:41] You have the type of person who is either a follower of Jesus and says, I am a Christian, [28:46] but they want to base their keep and how they go to church and how they earn acceptance with God [28:52] and how good their prayers are by how hard they work and how tough of a life they’ve had [28:58] and how they have fought their way into the church and they have earned their keep in the church. [29:03] And they should be respected for this and they should be held high and lofty for this. [29:08] And they should be the leaders because look at how hard we work.

[29:11] Jesus saved me, but I am earning my salvation.

[29:17] Then you have a second type of person. [29:18] You have the type of person that sees this and says either A, I don’t want to work that hard, [29:28] or B, I can’t earn that. I can’t work that hard.

[29:36] So what people like the Circumcision Party caused is a great divide in the church between saint and sinner.

[29:47] And it looks a lot like the current state we have in the church. [29:54] We have saints and we have sinners. [29:59] We build buildings in the name of saints. [30:02] We put pews in a church in the name of a saint. [30:04] We put bricks on the floor with the names of the saints. [30:08] But then we got the people who, they just can’t quite cut the mustard.

[30:12] So we kind of let them come in, but they just are allowed to be here and they don’t do anything else.

[30:22] That’s what Paul is fighting right here. [30:25] And he is trying to get through to them the message that it is Jesus and Jesus alone that gives salvation, [30:35] and Jesus and Jesus alone that gives authority. [30:38] Because ultimately it became an authority issue between who has authority. [30:42] Paul or the Circumcision Party. [30:44] And Paul begins the letter of Galatians by saying, neither of us.

[30:49] I’m not an apostle because I’ve done anything. [30:51] I’m an apostle because of what God has done.

[30:55] Authority never comes from a human source. [31:00] So we started this by saying that scripture was our ultimate authority. [31:04] And we as a church, we say scripture guides us, scripture teaches us, scripture shows us even how to have church. [31:11] It shows us how to follow Jesus. It shows us who Jesus is. [31:15] But the key is we have to understand that authority does not come from a human source. [31:21] Paul’s salvation was not earned by his own hands and neither was his apostleship.

[31:26] He claims no responsibility for his apostleship. [31:29] You see, we struggle with this. [31:32] And the problem that we have is that we don’t want to give authority to anyone outside of ourselves. [31:38] So we have camps of authority where we’re fighting to keep authority or we’re fighting to keep authority away from us. [31:47] And it’s ultimately that you have an authority issue. [31:51] Because trust me, I get it. I do too.

[31:54] Ask my parents. Ask any teacher I have ever had my entire life. [31:57] I don’t like authority. [32:00] I don’t like to be told what to do. [32:02] You can even ask my wife. [32:04] I don’t like to be told to pick my dishes up. [32:06] She said, stop telling me what to do.

[32:11] Something inside of me says, run from authority. [32:13] Flee from it. [32:15] Steer your own way. [32:17] I’m just a free bird. [32:19] And that’s kind of how we want to have life. [32:21] But understand that that’s the type of authority that will lead you to a less than life.

[32:27] That’s the type of authority that will lead you to having a mediocre life and come to the end of your road and say, [32:33] Look at the life I have lived. [32:35] Regret, regret, regret, regret. [32:37] Because if you had placed authority where it was supposed to be, [32:42] you would look back at your life and say, grace from God, grace from God, beauty from God, life worth living. [32:48] But we’re so stubborn and we fight so hard to hold on to what is ours and the authority that we want to have in our own life

[32:57] that we are driving towards a cliff at 100 miles per hour and we refuse to let Jesus grab a hold of the wheel and put us to the right way.

[33:08] Because we have an authority issue.

[33:13] But it’s mostly because of the way humans that have been in our lives have made authority look.

[33:22] Paul’s trying to set that right and say, authority is not a human thing. [33:28] It’s a God thing. [33:30] If you have an issue with authority, you have an issue with God.

[33:35] See, the thing that he writes about here with Jesus and God raising him from the dead, [33:40] it’s basically the source of the thing we call the gospel. [33:44] And the gospel is the ultimate authority issue. [33:48] This is how God defines salvation. [33:52] The gospel gives God authority. [33:56] Because you have to ask yourself, if Jesus offers salvation,

[34:00] and if you’re in America and you’ve grown up, especially in a place like Midlothian or Richmond or in the South somewhere, [34:06] you’ve heard that Jesus offers salvation, I’m guessing. [34:09] But you have to ask yourself, if Jesus offers salvation and it’s completely out of our hands and not by us whatsoever, [34:15] if he takes our sin away from us,

[34:22] then who is doing the delivering? [34:24] Who is taking the sin? [34:27] Who is giving life? [34:30] Well, if all this is true, then Jesus is. [34:33] Well, then you have to go to the next step and say, well, then who has authority? [34:36] If you can’t even save yourself,

[34:40] how can you be trusted with authority over yourself?

[34:46] Have you ever asked yourself that question?

[34:49] If only Jesus can save, [34:53] then who should be in charge? [34:56] Who should have ultimate authority in your life? [34:59] Jesus. [35:01] Let’s go one step further.

[35:06] He says, and all the brothers who are with me, [35:10] they’re writing this to to the churches of Galatia. [35:13] Verse three, grace to you and peace from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ, [35:20] who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age.

[35:29] Who is it that delivers in that passage?

[35:33] Where does he deliver us from?

[35:37] First, sin. [35:39] Secondly, this present evil age.

[35:44] That’s the reason the gospel is the ultimate authority issue. [35:48] Because if Jesus plus something from us gives us salvation, [35:54] then authority can be shared between us and Jesus. [35:58] We can share it. [35:59] We can say, OK, Jesus, this week I’m going to do my thing. [36:01] I’m going to go over here. I’m going to live my life.

[36:03] Next week, you get authority. [36:04] We’re going to kind of do the swap thing. [36:06] We switch authority every week. [36:08] But all that would do is that would lead you into a life where you never come back to Jesus.

[36:16] Salvation and gospel and hope and change are all in the hands of Jesus. [36:23] So you must be willing to give him the authority in your life. [36:28] Because the gospel delivers completely and it gives you a new life. [36:36] Because it is from God. [36:39] And it’s not from you. [36:42] Notice then what we are delivered from.

[36:45] OK, it says that Jesus takes our sin onto himself. [36:48] He pays the penalty for sin. [36:51] And I don’t think we have a problem with that. [36:53] It’s like, well, that’s great. As long as I don’t have to pay for it, fantastic. [36:55] Oh, good. No hell? Good. [36:59] That doesn’t sound like something I wanted to be involved with anyway.

[37:02] I haven’t met very many people that are like, lake of fire? Should I bring sunscreen?

[37:08] Sounds like it could be a good trip. [37:10] Now, I haven’t met that person yet. [37:13] So when we say, Jesus, no hell, they’re like, woohoo! [37:18] Sign up. Where’s the prayer card? [37:20] I’ll put my name on it. You can call me out. I’ll come up front. [37:23] It doesn’t take a fool to say no hell. Fantastic.

[37:28] But then it goes one step further and it says he delivers us from our sin, which Jesus does. [37:35] Don’t get me wrong. Jesus does that. [37:37] Like we said, 2 Corinthians 5, 21. I love that verse. [37:39] I’ll say it a thousand times from up here. [37:41] He who knew no sin became sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God. [37:48] We have no problem with him taking our sin.

[37:50] Our problem comes when he wants to deliver us from this present evil age. [37:56] You say, no, I don’t want to be evil. [37:58] I’ve seen horror movies. I don’t Freddy Krueger in my nightmares. [38:02] So I don’t want to be in the evil age. [38:04] But what Paul is actually saying here is the thing you have problem with. [38:07] And that’s life change. That’s authority giving.

[38:11] We like to read that sometimes. [38:13] And this is for the churchy crowd. [38:15] If you’re not the churchy crowd, this isn’t describing you, but this is the churchy crowd. [38:18] You read present evil age and you say present evil world. [38:23] You’re like, yep, world’s evil. [38:25] World’s a very evil place.

[38:28] So now that I’m a Christian, I don’t shop at Barnes and Noble anymore. [38:30] They have wicked books. I go to Lifeway. [38:34] Because that’s where they have Max Lucado.

[38:38] Barnes and Noble. I’ve seen some of the things they have there. [38:42] So we go over to Lifeway to the Christian bookstore. [38:45] We wear our Christian t-shirts. We listen to our Christian CDs. [38:47] And we have our Christian hats, our Christian clubs. [38:50] We’re Christian, Christian, Christian. [38:51] And we’re like, I have been redeemed from this present world.

[38:53] I don’t have a television. I don’t have a computer. [38:56] I live in a shack on the mountain. [38:58] We’re gone. [38:59] I’ve been redeemed from this present evil world.

[39:05] And this is what the circumcision party loves.

[39:11] They say, yeah, earn your salvation. [39:13] Get out of the world. They’re ugly. [39:15] Distance yourself from sinners. [39:18] Because sinners have this thing called sin, and it will make you dirty. [39:23] And when you’re dirty, you look like them, and you’re going to smell like them, and you don’t want that. [39:29] That is not the message Paul is saying right here.

[39:32] Paul says this present evil age. [39:37] And the important thing in the Greek right here to understand is what he’s talking about. [39:41] Is a term that the church of Galatia would understand. [39:43] Which is a term that would help them understand that there are two ages you can be a member of. [39:47] The first age was the sinful age.

[39:52] The second one is the kingdom of God. [39:55] He’s not saying you’ve been taken out of this culture, out of this world, to be put in a new one. [40:00] What he’s saying is you’ve been taken out of this sinful life, this sinful age, and you’ve been placed inside of the kingdom of God. [40:08] Because the sinful age is where sin consumes people. [40:13] The kingdom of God is where God rules and reigns in your life. [40:20] But he does that inside of culture.

[40:24] He does that right where you are.

[40:28] See, once you are a Christ follower, you are immediately in the kingdom age. [40:33] The kingdom of God. You’re under the rule and reign of Jesus. [40:36] This is what he means when the next thing he says is according to the will of our God and Father.

[40:43] You get complete life transformation. [40:46] Because remember, you’re giving authority over to God and your complete values have changed. [40:53] You’re like, what does that look like? [40:55] If I’m not just switching my bookstore and my radio station, what does that look like? [41:00] How does this transformation take place? [41:03] How does this authority look?

[41:05] This means that the gospel is now the determining factor in your life. [41:10] In other words, you give all authority over to Jesus. [41:15] That’s why we’re okay with him taking our sin, but we’re not okay with him taking our life. [41:19] Because we want to hold on to that. [41:21] We want to keep control of that. [41:23] We want to be able to just be who we are.

[41:25] We don’t want to have to change. [41:27] We want the destination to change, but not the mode in which we get there.

[41:35] This is what trust is. [41:37] Believe in Jesus is such a tough term nowadays. [41:41] Because lots of people believe in Jesus like they believe in clouds. [41:45] If I go outside, I’m likely to see a cloud. [41:49] And I believe that that cloud is there. [41:52] But me believing that that cloud is there does not change one thing about my life.

[41:58] So if I ask you, do you believe in Jesus, a lot of you will simply say, absolutely I believe in Jesus.

[42:05] A much better word is trust. [42:10] You see, trust means that you are not trusting yourself, rather you are trusting Jesus.

[42:18] Trust means that you are not following yourself, you are following Jesus. [42:25] To give trust means to give your life. [42:29] This means giving Him authority.

[42:34] See, this morning I’m not going to do what some churches might do. [42:36] I don’t want you to give me any authority in your life. [42:39] Quite frankly, I don’t want it. I can barely handle my own.

[42:44] What I’m asking you is to give Jesus the authority in your life. [42:50] See, because in those first few verses of Galatians, Paul is telling the church what the rest of the book is going to be about. [42:57] It’s going to be about the Gospel of Jesus. [43:02] And Jesus is wanting authority in your life. [43:07] Paul is about to have a fight because one team wants authority. [43:13] And they want Him to fight for it.

[43:14] And he says, I don’t want it either. [43:18] Give it to who I’ve given my authority to. [43:20] Jesus.

[43:23] Even though this is not the largest of crowds, [43:25] even in this crowd, I guarantee you, at least some of you believe in Jesus.

[43:32] But you don’t trust in Him. [43:34] You haven’t given Him authority. [43:37] Where there is no authority, there is no transformation. [43:40] Where there is no authority, there is no life.

[43:45] Jesus wants authority in your life. [43:49] He wants you to trust in Him because you cannot earn your salvation by anything that you do, [43:57] by any book that you read, by any Bible study that you are a member of. [44:02] By coming here, it does not earn your salvation because Jesus plus anything is a lie. [44:11] It’s Jesus and Jesus alone that will give you salvation. [44:17] If you will trust in Him.

[44:25] And the Scriptures do not leave any middle ground.

[44:31] The Scriptures simply say, God has authority.

[44:36] You can either experience it or you won’t. [44:42] But the cross of Jesus is God begging you to experience His life-giving, life-changing authority.

[44:58] Because He is not a taskmaster.

[45:03] He is not a ruthless, heartless leader. [45:11] Rather, He wants you to give Him authority by laying down His own life.

[45:21] That’s the kind of leader I can follow. [45:26] That’s the kind of hope that I need.

[45:31] Because it comes from a real God. [45:35] Let’s pray.

[45:39] Father, we come before you right now as people.

[45:50] We are struggling through this life. [45:53] We are struggling with authority issues, we are struggling with sin issues, we are struggling with life issues. [45:58] All of the pressures of this world. [46:03] We just come here on a Sunday morning, giving that over to you.

[46:11] God, I pray that you would take the authority in all the lives of the people gathered here today.

[46:17] That you would change lives. [46:20] That you would open eyes. [46:22] Father, if anyone in here has not given you the authority in their life, has not experienced the transformation and the redemption that you have to offer. [46:32] Father, I pray that today would be the day where they would say, I don’t want authority any longer.

[46:40] I can’t be trusted with it. [46:42] I’ve ruined my life.

[46:45] But I know that you can redeem Jesus.

[46:50] Lord, I pray that salvation would spring up from within these people as you draw them by your Holy Spirit. [46:58] Redeem, bring repentance into our hearts. [47:01] Change our lives.

[47:05] And may we leave this place, glorifying you. [47:10] Lifting your name high. [47:12] Lord, as we’re given an opportunity to respond right now, may we respond in worship. [47:18] May our voices be lifted high. [47:21] And may we sing to you as transformed people, as redeemed people, as your followers.

[47:31] Amen.