Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign, Everybody.
[00:00:07] My name is Dean Annan and I'm the discipleship pastor here. And yes, of course, under my notes here, there is a palm branch. And we'll be using those a little bit later.
[00:00:17] Something exciting coming.
[00:00:21] Well, I doubt anyone has ever heard of this gentleman named Victor Lustig.
[00:00:28] Victor Lustig, A count from the 1920s in France.
[00:00:33] An interesting fact about him is he sold the Eiffel Tower two times.
[00:00:38] Problem was, he didn't own it.
[00:00:42] Yeah, a fraudster, for sure. You know, some of you have heard of a man named Bernie Madoff.
[00:00:48] Oh, yeah. More of you.
[00:00:50] Bernie Madoff. He defrauded investors of billions of dollars over a period of decades. About 65 billion worth. In 2008, he was caught. He was sentenced to 150 years in prison. You know, fraudsters are real. They trick people.
[00:01:10] Sometimes people believe. Frankly, sometimes people just believe what we want to believe, whether it's true or not. When we look at Palm Sunday, though, Jesus, you know, he wasn't a fraudster. He's the real deal, the anointed one. Scripture calls him Messiah or Christ. We'll say sometimes here he was in Jerusalem, of course, riding into Jerusalem. And he's moving towards his crucifixion because he is about to become what was the final passover lamb for salvation, his death, his resurrection. And the crowds are cheering Hosanna, save us now. And they envisioned this revolutionary king to free them from the oppression of Rome.
[00:01:56] That's what they believed. That's what they wanted to believe. Jesus is the real deal. But their hearts, the crowd's hearts, it tricked them.
[00:02:03] The religious leaders of the day misled them.
[00:02:07] And Satan himself fueled their foolishness and their selfishness, their misunderstandings and their unbelief.
[00:02:15] And behind so much of this trickery, false Gospels, call it what you will, anything is Satan.
[00:02:26] You know, today we're going to be looking at chapter three of Galatians. We're going to be going back to Galatians, chapter 3, verses 1 through 14.
[00:02:35] You can turn there in a little bit.
[00:02:38] The question is this, though. Paul gives us five rhetorical questions in Galatians, chapter three, verse, verses one through five. And we'll go all the way to 14. But there's five rhetorical questions. He starts with this. Who has bewitched you?
[00:02:55] That's what he asks. Who has bewitched you? Galatian Church. He's talking to them. He's going to look at their experiences together. The Galatian Church had certain experiences that were shared and were common. And then he's going to take a look at scripture specifically, and he's going to help them. He wants them to process this idea. Who has become bewitched? You. And our big idea today is this. And it says, christians, let's be ready and beware of bewitching. That's a lot of bees. I know, but it's almost springtime, right? It's a lot of bees. Sorry, that's corny sometimes. But you're paying attention, right? You're paying attention. Sometimes people just want to believe what they want to believe. Some it's trickery involved. And a lot of times it's a big personality.
[00:03:36] Like a person who people just want to follow sways people. But a lot of times it's darkness. It is the demonic behind tricks or schemes, especially and even false gospels.
[00:03:50] In our previous sermons on Galatians, when we look back, we learned about this group called the Judaizers. And the Judaizers would say this falsely. They would say, this first part's true. You can place your faith in Jesus for salvation, your faith in him. And then they would distort the gospel. They would add something to it. And here's what they would say. They would say, and you also need to follow some of the Old Testament law to be saved.
[00:04:13] That was false. The Old Testament law, whatever the laws were, were about us seeing a need for salvation. It never offered salvation. This made Paul really mad.
[00:04:27] You'll see that in our text today. Now, Eric, last week, Eric talks about, talked about this doctrine of justification, because that's what Paul was talking about, or actually this doctrine, justification by faith. He talked about that. Paul clarified it, that only faith in Jesus saves you. As Eric talked about justification by faith. Let me put this on the screen for you. Justification is God declaring us right with himself.
[00:04:53] God's grace is another thing I want to look at today. Briefly, God's grace in the book of Galatians, grace is used many different ways. But God's grace in the book of Galatians often comes down to this. It's his generous power to save you, something you didn't deserve.
[00:05:07] And it sustains us and it empowers us to live as Christians today.
[00:05:14] But back to the justification. Really, it's justification is like a legal declaration. A cosmic legal declaration is the way Paul was using it, where God is, of course, the good and perfect cosmic judge. He's saying, you're not condemned, we're good based on the death of Jesus Christ for forgiveness of sins. But now in Galatians 3, Paul talks to the church, he talks to their experience, their shared experience, to make his case for justification based on the true gospel. The problem again, and you're going to hear this a lot today, the problem is that these Galatians, some of them were trying to make themselves righteous through following the Old Testament law, like circumcision.
[00:05:58] Paul was frankly feeling, at this point, it seems, betrayed.
[00:06:04] He's angry about it because they're going backwards.
[00:06:08] The church seems to want to go backwards. The chains that were already broken, crawling back, trying to put chains on, that they were already free from.
[00:06:18] And so to set this up a little more as we get to verse one here in a moment, what you're going to see is on the one hand, a contrast law or works. On the other hand, you're going to see faith.
[00:06:32] And nine times, if you were to look through verse one to 14, you're going to see something like this. Through faith, by faith, of Faith, with faith, nine times in just 14 verses, Paul makes the church reflect on their experiences. There's going to be five rhetorical questions in the first five verses because he wants them to remember and to live like they know that salvation is by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone.
[00:07:01] Verse one, he says this right out of the gate, oh, here's Paul. Oh, foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?
[00:07:12] It was before your eyes that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed and crucified. Foolish there doesn't need a lot of interpretation. It's mindless, as if you were not using your brain, is what he's saying. Here in verse three, he uses that same language again, the Galatians, though he has called them many times in Galatians, he's going to call them his brothers and sisters. He's going to call them his children. Paul loves these people, yet he starts with this, oh, foolish Galatians. Why?
[00:07:41] He wants to motivate them.
[00:07:43] He cares about them.
[00:07:46] It's tough love. Yes, but they need to wake up. They need to wake up. You ever see a baseball manager, I don't know if you watch baseball very much. Have you ever seen a baseball manager rush out of the dust, rush to the home plate umpire because of some call, and the manager gets in front of the home plate and sometimes takes some dirt, right, and swipes it on top of the home plate and says some things, probably not nice things, right to the face of the umpire, but, you know, sometimes the manager isn't as concerned. Maybe what the call was about right there, what the manager oftentimes is doing is trying to get Thrown out of the game.
[00:08:23] Why would they want to get throughout of the game? Because they want to motivate their players. Now Paul's not going to get kicked out here, but he is about motivation of the Galatians because he loves them like his own children, his own spiritual children. He loves them. He wants to bring them back to the true gospel.
[00:08:41] Question one, that first one you see in verse one is, who has bewitched you? It's like they're under a curse, it seems. What's happened? He's saying, you know, the Judaizers seem to be behind stirring this up, but Paul's saying, wait a minute with this question. He's pushing something here. He's pushing a button. He's actually going quite deeper. There's something deeper. There's something sinister here happening in the Galatian church. Now, Bewitched. I'm going to put this up on the screen for you. Bewitched. What this word really means is this. It's.
[00:09:16] I lost it.
[00:09:24] Bewitched is to give someone the evil eye, to cast a spell over, to hold someone spellbound.
[00:09:34] Now what's interesting is this is nowhere else in the New Testament.
[00:09:39] Bewitched is a cultural idiom of the day.
[00:09:42] And so I don't think that the Apostle Paul is saying, you're actually under a curse. What I think he's saying, instead, you're acting like you're under a curse.
[00:09:51] And so Paul says, who has bewitched you? Who is singular here. But wait, wasn't it the Judaizers that did this? A group of people.
[00:10:02] But Paul didn't say who all has bewitched you. He also didn't say, who are they who bewitched you. So Paul's digging deeper here. There's something more going on here. The Galatians see that this false gospel, this gospel of faith in Jesus plus something else equals salvation. It's not just from the Judaizers.
[00:10:24] Instead, the false gospel's origin is with the devil himself, the father of lies.
[00:10:31] Paul knows this. Paul knows Satan works this way.
[00:10:35] Actually, the Apostle Peter knows that Satan works this way. In 1st Peter 5, verse 8, Apostle Peter talks about this. He talks about the devil. He talks about, we need to be waking up, we need to be sober, sober minded. We need to be watchful. Apostle Peter says about the Devil, be sober minded. He's talking to the church, by the way, be sober minded and be watchful. Your adversary, the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking.
[00:11:02] Seeking someone to devour.
[00:11:04] Like the church at Galatia that's the first question.
[00:11:09] Who has bewitched you?
[00:11:13] Satan's behind it. It's so important. We're going to come back to this over and over again. But then the end of verse one, Paul is basically saying, you have no excuse. Why are you buying into this lie? Galatians, it says this. It was before your eyes, the end of verse one. It was before your eyes the end that Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified. The idea of Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified.
[00:11:38] Now he's not really saying that. Okay, you Galatians, I know you're way over here and I know Jerusalem's way over here. I'm sure most of you saw Jesus with your own eyes crucified. He's not saying that. What he's saying is this.
[00:11:51] That he, meaning Paul, had previously clearly, vividly, graphically described the cross of Jesus Christ, its torture, his death and his blood. And they saw it like as if he put a billboard up there for them to see it. It was right in front of their eyes.
[00:12:11] They're without excuse. And now it seems like they're moving away from Christ crucified towards works. And if Paul were here today and he'd go to the cafe crew and get something, and of course he'd get a sandwich and pudding or whatever, right? Of course. He loves that. We know that from Scripture. Okay, he does. We don't know that.
[00:12:29] He would tell us again. He would come here and he would tell us again.
[00:12:34] The cross of Christ is clear, as clear as any pure diamond.
[00:12:40] There's no excuses.
[00:12:43] Why else was Paul saying there without excuse to fall for this false doctrine of faith plus works, equal salvation, where they were giving up God's grace for. For works. Why? Because they were Christians. They had no excuse. Yet we know from, from Scripture that, that even Christians, sometimes we believe things or pull in things that are unbiblical. Ideologies, ideas, forces, doctrines that are not based on truth. So that's why we preach this now.
[00:13:19] He was teaching to and preaching to believers. How do you know that? Galatians, chapter three, verse 26. He's talking to them as children of God. He says, for in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God, meaning they're daughters and they're sons of the Most High God through faith. He says to them, he knows their faith is in Christ for salvation, so they have no excuses for what they're believing.
[00:13:46] You remember, his goal is not to embarrass them, right? He wants to get them back to their senses. He wants to motivate them, them like a good manager would, maybe not like a good baseball manager, but he lovingly guides them to the truth. And so he's giving four more rhetorical questions. The first one we already looked at. There's four more coming in the next four verses.
[00:14:05] And these questions are to get them back to the idea again of by grace, alone, through faith, alone in Christ, alone.
[00:14:14] In verses 2 through 5, he wants to break this metaphorical curse, to remember with this, you know, this question, who has bewitched you? He wants to take them through their shared experiences because they shared a bunch of things together. And he was the apostle. Paul was preaching this message. He was saying Christ was crucified for forgiveness of sins. And he was doing that way before the Judaizers showed up.
[00:14:43] For the Galatians. In verses two through five, here's kind of the overview of what it looks like.
[00:14:49] First, in verse two, you're going to see that they were saved and they were given the Holy Spirit.
[00:14:55] In the next verse, they were sanctified by the Holy Spirit and are being sanctified by the Holy Spirit. In verse four, they suffered. They suffered as a church together. That was one of their shared experiences. And also the supernatural. The Holy Spirit was doing miracles amongst them. So verse two, it was by faith, not by works, that the Holy Spirit convicted them to repentance and faith and.
[00:15:16] And to salvation.
[00:15:18] Second question Paul would have, rhetorical question that Paul would have is this. How did you receive the Holy Spirit? And the answer is going to be by hearing with faith. That's how. That's how anyone gets the Holy Spirit. By hearing with faith. Verse 2 says this. Let me ask you only this. Did you receive the Spirit means Holy Spirit. Hear the Holy Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith.
[00:15:43] Upon hearing with faith and believing. That's how they receive the Spirit. Not by works of the law, but by hearing with faith.
[00:15:52] Verse three is the third rhetorical question. He asks, how will you be sanctified? Or that's the question at least, how will you be sanctified? So verse three starts out like this. Again he doubles down. Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit or the Holy Spirit, their faith, are you now being perfected by the flesh?
[00:16:13] And being perfected here is simply this idea of becoming more like the Savior, Jesus Christ. The word is sanctification. We use that sometimes, right? So who started your sanctification church? It is the Holy Spirit who will accomplish your sanctification. Galatian Church. The Holy Spirit, not by the flesh not by their circumcision or following the Old Testament law, but. But by the Holy Spirit. Of course we obey and of course we walk in the Spirit, but the Spirit completes our sanctification.
[00:16:47] Verses 4 and verses 5. The next rhetorical questions, question 4 that Paul in effect is saying is this. Did you suffer in vain? Church. Remember, he's talking about their shared experiences. Did you suffer as a church? Verse 4 says, did you suffer so many things in vain? If indeed it was in vain?
[00:17:08] In Acts, chapter 14, what we see if you look back there, is this idea of the cities of Lystra, Iconium, and also Antioch, and apparently the Galatian Church there, because those are in Galatia suffered, they're persecuted. So maybe if they had the Christians given into the circumcision party a little bit earlier, the Judaizers, they would have suffered less. Maybe they wouldn't have been persecuted as much. Maybe.
[00:17:38] But if they held to the true gospel, well, then their persecution would not be in vain.
[00:17:44] They shared in their suffering. Let me go to the fifth rhetorical question. This is verse five as we move on again, the question would look like this. On what basis did God perform miracles or the supernatural works that he did? Verse 5 says this. Does he, meaning God, who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, do so by works of the law or by hearing with faith?
[00:18:15] All right, if you had to guess, okay, this isn't like a test, but if you had to guess, did God perform miracles? Here's your choices. By works of the law.
[00:18:22] No, no. Or by hearing with faith. Yes, that's it. The supernatural work of the Holy Spirit cannot be manufactured.
[00:18:32] Don't let anybody say otherwise.
[00:18:35] We cannot manufacture the work, the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit. It is fully the grace of God that gives it to us. And so the problem is this, that the people are letting their experiences begin to shape their theology.
[00:18:48] False gospels and heresy and bad ideas grow from unchecked experiences and undisciplined theology, undisciplined thinking, undisciplined theology allows our experiences sometimes to shape our theology. Careful, careful. Because that's where false Gospels come in. That's where heresy begins.
[00:19:12] Paul wants these Christians to know that you. Yes, I know you're Christians. But he want us to know, even today, that we can act as if we're under a curse, sometimes a spell.
[00:19:26] When he said to them, but he would say to us, careful, who has bewitched you? Paul wants to break this metaphorical curse of this false gospel.
[00:19:38] Supposedly there's some higher way or maybe some deeper spiritual way. No, there isn't.
[00:19:46] This, instead of justification by faith, what the Judaizers are teaching and preaching and pushing is this self justification? Not justification by faith in Christ, but self justification. And I hate to say it, but here's what came to my mind and I'm just going to tell you what came to my mind. I had to think about whether I would say this or not. I'm going to. This idea of self justifying myself before the Lord. Somehow I have a part of my salvation that I've done something to deserve it in my mind is like this. It's a slap in the face of Jesus Christ while he hangs on the cross and has said it is finished. And I'm saying, I haven't done enough. You haven't done enough. Or it's like spitting on the grace of God, spitting on God's grace, the grace that saves.
[00:20:30] God's grace again, is this God's grace? It's something we don't deserve. It is his generous power that saves and it's his power that sustains us through everything and for all eternity. And it empowers you and you and me to live for today.
[00:20:50] Paul turns from these experiences in verses one through five. We saw these five rhetorical questions in there, and he's getting them thinking about their experiences as he's making his argument, making his case. But now we turn to verse six and he's going to switch gears a little bit. He's going to look to the Scriptures to continue his argument, to make his point. So in verse 6 through 11, here's what he does. He.
[00:21:15] He goes all the way back to Father Abraham.
[00:21:19] Paul talks about Abraham quite a bit in Galatians. Why Abraham? Why doesn't Paul just talk about Moses? Why didn't he talk about the law of Moses? Why doesn't he talk about circumcision? Because that was kind of the thing they were talking about.
[00:21:30] I mean, after all, right, Moses is the giver of the law, so why wouldn't he do that? Instead, he goes all the way back past and before Moses to the father of the Jews, Abraham. Why?
[00:21:42] Because Abraham was justified by faith before Moses, even before the law, the Old Testament law, even before circumcision.
[00:21:54] He's a brilliant theologian. Paul is in verse six, what Paul does is he draws from the Torah. He is in Genesis chapter 15.
[00:22:05] And here's what he says in Galatians 15, 3, 6, he's taking from Genesis 15, going all the way back and says this just as Abraham and Then everybody's ears would perk up because everybody loved Abraham. Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness, so Abraham believed. Abraham had faith, in other words, and he was justified by God. He was righteous before God because of his faith, his full trust in God.
[00:22:38] This is even before circumcision, because that wasn't until Genesis, chapter 17.
[00:22:43] Abraham believed God. And it's as if God was saying to Abraham, abraham, you're mine.
[00:22:51] I'm going to take care of your sins and you're going to be with me forever.
[00:22:56] This is the relationship. And everyone agreed. In that day, they all knew, everybody agreed that Abraham was saved and that spiritual children of Abraham, that term would mean those people are also saved or blessed like Abraham. And so I'm just going to give you a little summary of verses seven through nine, because here's what was happening. In verses seven through nine, Paul was saying all those who are spiritual children of Abraham, in other words, all those who are also saved and righteous before God are those. In verse seven, he would say those of faith are sons of Abraham or saved. Same idea in verse 8. By faith, there's faith again.
[00:23:35] All people, the Gentiles, it says in verse eight, are saved or justified again, by faith, not by works. In verse nine, those of faith are blessed, meaning have all that Abraham has in his inheritance, meaning saved again. So, and more.
[00:23:53] This is beautiful. I've talked before about how often he says nine times he says of faith by faith, with faith in verses 1 through 14. And so only receiving the free gift of God's grace through faith. Can anyone be saved? Not performance, not the Old Testament law, not something we can do. It's always been grace overworks every time.
[00:24:19] By grace, through faith, you were saved, you are sustained and you're empowered, just as Abraham was, just as everybody before Jesus was, just as everybody after Jesus.
[00:24:34] In a few weeks from now, we're going to be back in the book of Galatians.
[00:24:38] Pastor Ryan's going to take us through a lot of these promises to Abraham. It's going to continue in Paul's argument.
[00:24:45] And I'm not going to spend a lot of time right now on the rest of the Abraham argument. But this is Paul's wake up call. He wants them to remember that right now you're being fools and you're not using your heads.
[00:25:01] That calls to us as well. We don't want to be that, do we? Here's what Paul would remind us of, that. As Christians, we think, we study, we ask questions, we find out answers to questions as well. We don't let circumstances or experiences or fraudsters lead us from the true gospel. And how do we do that? Well, the way we can do that and the way we can grow and the way we can stay fast to the word of God. And the gospel is number one. And the key is just simply this. There's no number two. It's humble ourselves. Humble ourselves before God himself, humble ourselves before the revealed Scripture and humble ourselves to the body of Christ so they can help us and work with us so when we limp, limp, they can carry us.
[00:25:49] Don't be bewitched. The Galatians were acting as if they were under a curse. Paul in verse 10. Then he starts picking up this idea of under a curse. He says, under a curse. Where's he taking this language from? Under a curse? He's looking back to Deuteronomy. Again, his arguments are from Scripture. He's looking at Deuteronomy, chapter 27 in verse 10. He says this. For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse. And then he says, for it is written. So he's going back to the Torah, to Deuteronomy 27. He says, Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all that is written in the book of the law and do them as if anyone could. Verse 11.
[00:26:25] Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law. For, for here it is, the righteous shall live by faith. This is illogical any other way but faith to be right with God. Paul is trying to say, not the law of Moses. In verse 11, he's saying, it's evident. It's even in Scripture.
[00:26:45] It's even in Scripture. He's telling them, you know, my last section in this sermon, I just want to get a little more personal.
[00:26:54] Let's. Let's go on a journey here and ask this question. Am I bewitched or am I like. Am I acting under. Like I'm under a curse, following things that are not true? Am I susceptible maybe to being bewitched? In other words, where am I believing or operating outside of the truth? Or am I believing and operating in some way outside of the true gospel?
[00:27:21] The Galatian Church, some of them were anchoring themselves in a gospel that had its origin in the devil, the father of lies, Just like the Galatians. Paul would want us to check.
[00:27:34] So let's check.
[00:27:37] So here's some bewitching detours. By the way, sometimes detours are good to take, right? You need to. These are not good okay, these are checkpoints. Not good. Don't go this way.
[00:27:47] A compilation of different things from some other sermons, things that I've put up here before. And so let me just go through these again. Are you bewitched? Here we go. Number one, simply this. Non Christian spirituality can be New Age spirituality. By the way, everywhere you look, you will find this. Disney movies, books, it's there, it's in the air. Eastern mysticism, it's really the same thing. There's really no different. It's just cleaned up a little. Not really. Occultism, astrology, metaphysics, this idea of monism, all is one, or pantheism, everything is God.
[00:28:18] Not true. You hear this stuff, though.
[00:28:20] Just listen carefully to the movies and things you see. You're gonna see this idea of interconnectedness and this higher consciousness, but there's no Jesus here. There's no Jesus in that.
[00:28:32] It will and it does. And I know this. It opens the door to the demonic without question.
[00:28:37] Mysticism, this idea of Ouija boards or tarot cards or psychics.
[00:28:45] In the first service, I said physics. I'm like, no, no, no, no. I love physics. It's not physics. I did that last time. I don't know why I did that.
[00:28:53] Fortune telling, all of that.
[00:28:57] Shut the door on that stuff.
[00:29:00] Spiritual syncretism. Spiritual syncretism is just the idea that you or I, we have our Christianity, but we add something to it. Something from the secular world, something from another religion or even occultism, knowingly or unknowingly. And so today is about, let's know this stuff. Let's think about it. Let's be discerning.
[00:29:19] People think this stuff is harmless, but it's not.
[00:29:23] Second thing on this detour not to take, let's stay on the road. Are you bewitched? Is redefine Jesus and gospel or redefine Jesus and gospel?
[00:29:32] Cults are very common in this. Mormonism, Jehovah Witnesses. You know, when you want to find out what a counterfeit is, you study the original. That's what federal agents do when they're looking at $100 bills. They want to study the original. The original, the original. Then they can spot the counterfeit. One pastor famously said this.
[00:29:49] Master the truth to refute the error. Don't spend time studying error. Shun it. Study truth.
[00:29:56] D.L. moody. Some of you know who that was. Great evangelist from days gone by, he would say this. The best way to show that a stick is crooked is not to argue about it or spend time denouncing it, but to lay a straight stick Alongside it, I love the points. I love what they're doing.
[00:30:15] I don't 100% always buy into that simply for this one reason, because I think that it's good sometimes to know what cults are teaching for certain reasons. I'll give you an example. This last week or the week before, man called me and. And he's been studying and researching. He's a. He's a Christian believer for sure, studying and researching Jehovah Witnesses. And he was trying to figure out what's going on there and what the difference was, because. Why? Because of love in his heart for a friend of his. He wanted to share the gospel and he wanted to understand how he might do that best. You know, one example I'll put on the screen up here is this is from John, Chapter one, verse one. And this is.
[00:30:54] This is from the scripture. You'll see this.
[00:30:56] It says in the beginning was the Word, and that's Jesus here. And the Word was with God, and the Word was God. That's a good translation. That's a good, accurate translation in the English. The problem is the New World translation that Jehovah Witnesses use. They do this and multiple times they'll do this in Scripture. They'll take a new version of their own, call it the New World translation. And in this particular verse, they're going to insert an indefinite article in a God at the end, meaning something created.
[00:31:28] Jesus is created. As a matter of fact, they teach that Jesus is Michael the Archangel. Here's a problem with that. There's lots that negates the doctrine of the Trinity. It negates the deity of Jesus Christ, who then would have no power to save anyone.
[00:31:46] A different Jesus is a different God. It's a different gospel.
[00:31:51] Don't be bewitched.
[00:31:53] All right, third one. How about this? Don't go this way.
[00:31:58] True Jesus, but distorted gospel essentials. Now, I'm not going to talk a lot about this. Some Sundays ago, we already talked about many of these things. Sometimes we see that whether it's traditions or certain doctrines have been added to the gospel, whether it's certain sacraments or whatever, in some traditions and things we're all familiar with. But Paul would say, no, there's no way to earn the grace of God towards our own salvation. And Paul would call that a false gospel. Sometimes it's because we're familiar, we like those things. Sometimes it's a tradition, because traditions can be good or bad. Frankly, traditions can be like a good anchor, like a ship. A ship in the ocean needs an.
[00:32:45] But it needs to be anchored in the right spot in the ocean. A ship captain knows to try to put down the anchor into firm sand or maybe clay, because it will stick. But if they try in a rocky bottom, lots of rocks, gravel, the anchor's just going to probably hop along and that ship can crash into the rocks overnight as it drifts.
[00:33:08] We can be like that if we're not anchored in the right place.
[00:33:12] Let me move forward. Just this other idea, this other detour we do not want to take when we ask this question, are we bewitched? And it's this number four, Christian leaders who champion sin and reject God's word. These are health and wealth teachers. They have great suits. Oh, man, great suits, great jets. But they're gospels from the devil and it's not a church because they're not preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Sometimes they're labeled prosperity gospel. Sometimes word of faith.
[00:33:40] Here's my only advice, and I'm gonna go past this one. Here's my only advice. Your TV remote. Make sure the batteries are fresh, okay? Why? Because if you land on these guys, you wanna go past them as fast as possible.
[00:33:53] Make sure the batteries are good in your tv. If Paul were here today, he would say, who has bewitched you?
[00:34:02] And I would hope all of us could simply say, well, not those guys. No way. Because we're more discerning than that.
[00:34:09] My fifth idea of detours that could take us away from the truth we're worth. It's simply this. It's kind of a catch all. I believe in Christ, but I live another way.
[00:34:25] Yeah, that's basically a hypocrite. But let me talk about more than just that. It's like you're living under a curse. And remember, Jesus has broken the chains of sin, the chains of what is false, so we can know truth and be illuminated. Know what is true. Right? Good and holy. Right. It's like we're crawling back if we believe in Christ. It's like we're calling crawling back to those chains, wanting to put them back on. We don't have to live under that curse.
[00:34:49] For you, if you think of, and I hope you do today, because we're thinking today about idols, what they are in your life. For some people, it's this simple. And these are the big three that I usually think of. It's comfort, control and relationships. Comfort, control and relationships can be idols. Actually, they're kind of mixed in there. They kind of work within each other. Here's a short list to get you thinking as you think about maybe idols even in your own life, or ways you're maybe thinking of going on a detour or have in the past. How about this? These are examples of being bewitched. Let's practice discernment. The first is this non marital sex. Having sexual relations with someone that is not your spouse.
[00:35:34] If you're a Christian, you know that's a sin.
[00:35:37] Break free. You don't have to live that way.
[00:35:39] And if you do, you're living as if you're under a curse.
[00:35:44] Second one would be this. Going back to abuse. I can't imagine the hard stories. And I've heard the hard stories. If you've been in an abusive situation and you get out of that situation and then you find yourself because of familiarity or lots of complex things going back to that same relationship, being abused again, it's as if you're bewitched.
[00:36:09] Your story's hard.
[00:36:10] Your story's really hard.
[00:36:12] But know this, Jesus loves you.
[00:36:15] It's time to get out and it's time to get help.
[00:36:19] And I wanna say the same for pornography. If pornography is something you're dealing with. And by the way, if you come to me and say, I'm not sure, Pastor Dean, if this thing I'm watching is really pornography, stop watching it. Then if you're not sure, yeah, don't watch it. But all I want to say to you, if you're stuck in that now, is that Jesus loves you, get help and get out.
[00:36:44] Spiritual syncretism, talked about that before. A lot of times people will mix things from other religions or grab onto, believe it or not fit. Things like voodoo, things like tarot cards, all kinds of things. Why? Because in some way, shape or form, they think there's control there. My life is out of control.
[00:37:03] I need control.
[00:37:05] And that's why they enter into these occult practices and they're looking for something higher than Jesus Christ. Something deeper spiritually than Jesus Christ, something more powerful than Jesus Christ. And they will never find it because Jesus is higher, Jesus is deeper, and Jesus is more powerful than anything you could possibly imagine. So I would say Jesus loves you.
[00:37:26] Get help and get out.
[00:37:29] Last one here in this list of five is Living My Truth.
[00:37:35] Living my Truth. You know, that really contradicts the word of God. There was only one objective truth. Truth is not relative. It is God's reality. I think of truth this way as God's reality.
[00:37:46] And we know it from the revealed word of God. We see it, we have what to go by.
[00:37:52] You and I, we really don't get the option to have a my truth versus someone else's truth. Whether it's in anything like marriage or life or gender or sexuality. It's God's truth, His truth.
[00:38:08] If you're stuck in this, know that Jesus loves you.
[00:38:11] It's time to get help, talk to someone and get out from under that. The easiest people to bewitch usually are young children or children and new believers. And so, parents, I just want to say to you, yes, we understand this is your responsibility, but we want to help you as a church to guard the minds and the hearts of the little ones for truth, for the gospel and for their sake. But also, if you're a new Christian here, a new believer in Christ, so happy you're here, I want you to remind you of something you might already know. You love Jesus. He loves you so much. But the devil hates you and he will do what he can to bring you back, but you are free of chains. And we're here to help. All right, the gospel. Let me just talk about the gospel. Have I talked about the gospel already? Yeah, I'll talk about the gospel again. Sorry. Gospel, gospel, here we go.
[00:39:03] Gotta talk about this. The gospel is not.
[00:39:06] God loves you.
[00:39:08] What? It's true. God loves you. Talk about that in a minute. God loves you. That's not the gospel. It's not the gospel message. It's also. The gospel is not bringing Jesus to our community and bringing Jesus to our culture. Is that something we're called to do? Of course. It's a great thing we're called, but it's not the gospel. The historic biblical gospel is a message and it's profound.
[00:39:32] It's historical truth.
[00:39:35] It's a thing of history. The message is this. And you could put more in here. I just tried to reduce it to a few words. For us today, the gospel is Jesus died for our sins and rose again, proving he is God.
[00:39:47] Is it needed?
[00:39:49] Yeah, it's needed because he came to save sinners.
[00:39:54] Why did he do it?
[00:39:55] His motivation is love.
[00:39:58] Is there a response needed by the church? I should say by those who don't know Jesus? Well, yeah, there's a response, but the response is only a few things. It's either rebellion and rejection and stiff arming spiritually the Lord who loves and has saved you, or it's receiving by faith.
[00:40:15] It's one or the other.
[00:40:18] The gospel asks four questions and the gospel answers four questions.
[00:40:24] The gospel asks. And you can just look at it. The gospel asks the questions. Am I accountable to someone who made me? And the Answer is, yes, it's God. It also asks, am I in trouble? Is there a problem between me and, you know, him? Yeah, yeah, there is a problem. We're going to be judged if we don't know him by faith and have come to him in faith. And of course, that's the other question. Third question, what's the solution? Is there a solution? Can I be okay? And yeah, there is a solution.
[00:40:48] The solution is already that Jesus has acted to save us from judgment. But then how do I get right with God? We know that it's by putting our faith in the Lord. The Gospel answers all those questions. All the big questions are answered there.
[00:41:03] So Paul would say, as I conclude, who has bewitched you?
[00:41:07] I hope you've been thinking, that's really the point of the sermon today. Are we thinking? Are we discerning people?
[00:41:13] Are we aware? The first. So what is Expect demonic attempts to bewitch your doctrine. I already said that. The Christians, this, this big idea is, you know, let's be ready, let's beware of bewitching.
[00:41:27] You know, the demonic attempts will try to curse you by literally questioning, changing the gospel. Remember and believe. Remember and believe this, that only the deaf of Jesus Christ on the cross in place of sinners, saved by the way, that's big enough, that's high enough, that's powerful enough, it's deep enough because it's true, no more.
[00:41:48] And anything else that we add to that, the apostle Paul would say, we're fools by grace, through faith, you were saved, you're sustained and you are empowered, just like Abraham, just like everybody before Jesus, just like everybody after Jesus, by faith.
[00:42:04] Also the second. So what then is similar?
[00:42:07] Expect demonic attempts to bewitch your life. So if the devil can't change your doctrine, he will try to change your life.
[00:42:18] You saw some of the ways earlier, so I won't go back through those. But you saw some ideas. They were on the screen.
[00:42:26] Either your own heart, or sometimes our own sin, or the demonic realm will try to find ways to take you away from. From Christ, your thoughts, your actions. Instead, here's what we can do. We can go back to Christ.
[00:42:39] We can be a disciple of Christ. There's a word. I haven't said that yet. A disciple of Christ. A disciple of Christ is what? A disciple of Christ is someone who follows Jesus Christ. We have to know him, know who he is. What has he done, what has he said? What has he commanded? That's how I follow him. And then am I changed? How about once a week, you take a moment to go back and say, how have I changed this week for the glory of Jesus Christ?
[00:43:00] How have I changed? And then am I committed to what Jesus has committed to. To what he's called us to do? This is a disciple, is someone who is following Jesus, being changed by Jesus and committed to the mission of Jesus. Don't give Satan a foothold. Be a disciple of Jesus Christ. You have all you need.
[00:43:17] If you need to today, then confess, repent. Come back to him. Restore that fellowship. Jesus has never left you, and you can be changed by the power of the Holy Spirit.
[00:43:26] Well, on this Palm Sunday, as Jesus, we think of him and the donkey entering Jerusalem just before the crucifixion. Let's remember he came to save. That's the good news.
[00:43:37] This is the good news of the Gospel, that he died for our sins. He rose again, proving he is God.
[00:43:45] Let's go to him.
[00:43:46] And if you haven't yet, let's put your faith in him.
[00:43:49] Let me pray.
[00:43:51] Lord, as we remember your journey to the cross and your crucifixion and your glorious resurrection, I pray that we, as a body of believers, will never get over this extravagant love that you have shown us and that through the power of the Holy Spirit, you will empower each of us to live for you and for you only.
[00:44:12] Save us from ourselves.
[00:44:14] Save us when we get off track.
[00:44:16] By your mercy, I ask you, restore us, restore our minds, our lives and our fellowship to you.
[00:44:23] And I pray this in the name of Jesus.
[00:44:28] Amen.
