Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Good morning. 9:30.
[00:00:07] Good morning. If I have not had the opportunity to meet you, my name is Michael Fueling. I'm the lead pastor here at the village church, and I want to invite you to open up your Bibles to the Book of Galatians. We're going to be in chapter one and a little bit of chapter two this morning. So as you turn there, I want to talk about, I think, a really funny thing about we human beings.
[00:00:29] We have this tendency to take a normal thing, like coffee or sourdough or chickens or Disney or CrossFit or video games or politics or camping or sports teams or musicians. And we have this tendency to take these things and to turn them not just like into a hobby, but into a lifestyle, an obsession. Like, even there's a personality that goes with so many of these things. Now, in your community groups or if you want to have a fun conversation at lunch, here's what you could talk about. Like, what is the one hobby or obsession that you have that you're really tempted to make into an obsession? And you might think, oh, I don't have one. Well, if anybody's going to tell you the truth, it's going to be your family. So good luck on that when we get to the Book of Galatians. I can't think of a better word for this group of people, but there is a nefarious group of people with. I'm gonna be honest with y'. All. I think it's one of the most strange obsessions I have ever heard of.
[00:01:36] This group of people, they go by a name, and their name is the Judaizers. And they get this name because what they really want to do is they wanna take Gentile or non Jewish Christians, and they want them to be Jewish Christians. They want them to follow all of the laws and everything. So Jesus plus law, et cetera.
[00:01:54] And I'm going to be honest with y', all, they're a pretty inspirational group of people.
[00:01:59] Rare do you find somebody this committed to anything this off the wall, at least from our perspective as Americans. So they were committed. They were obsessed with one Old Testament practice.
[00:02:13] If you're one of the ladies or young adults who studied Galatians this past year, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Okay?
[00:02:20] Their obsession, the Judaizers passion, was getting men to be circumcised.
[00:02:28] Excuse me, sir, what's your passion?
[00:02:32] What gets you up in the morning? If you could leave us with one message today, what would it be?
[00:02:39] Circumcision.
[00:02:41] Like what? It's funny in the 8 o' clock service, everybody said out loud the word circumcision. I was like, you did not think that was going to happen when you came to church today? So Acts chapter 15, verse 1 describes this group of Judaizers that you find in Galatia. And here's what it says. But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers or teaching other Christians. Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, look at this. You can not be saved. This is what we would call a false gospel. You don't get to add something to the gospel. So what was striking was that to achieve this goal of getting as many Gentile Christians circumcised as they possibly could, they would leave their homes, raise funds, travel the known world. And what we learned last week is that they would follow the Apostle Paul. He would go into a region, start a church, establish elders, then he would move on to the next place and they would come in after him, seeking to undermine his gospel and trying to convert as many of the creators Christians as they could to, we'll say, a version of Jewish Christianity, faith in Jesus plus circumcision, and then following Old Testament law. And unless you commit to all of these things, you can't be saved. Now, somehow, despite I think, what would probably be pretty great training by the Apostle Paul, these Galatian Christians have fallen victim to these false teachers into their false gospel.
[00:04:20] Now, as Christians, everything we believe in today hinges on these two facts. Number one, Paul's Gospel, Paul's message of salvation is the the one and the only true gospel. And number two, everything that we believe in hinges on this fact that Paul is an authorized Catholic capital, a apostle handpicked by Jesus. And if you don't know what apostle is, it's a group of men in the first century who were called and commissioned personally by Jesus to establish the church, to lay the doctrinal truth and foundation, and Jesus revealed personally to each and every one of the apostles, the gospel and the doctrinal truth that would be established in what we now have as the Bible. And so these Judaizers are now coming into the church and they are saying Paul's Gospel isn't true. And Paul is not a capital A apostle. You can't trust what he has to say. We're gonna tell you the rest of the story.
[00:05:26] So listen, what Paul is doing in Galatians 1 and 2, it matters like deeply for every single one of us.
[00:05:34] Because what Paul is doing at the very beginning here of like the early Church is he's establishing this irrefutable fact. What Paul is sharing is the pure true gospel. And he was personally commissioned by Jesus. Because if Paul can't make this point to the Galatians, then they're going to fall prey to the Judaizers and they're going to fall prey to a false gospel.
[00:05:56] And here's what we all need to know and thank God this issue has been resolved. Two thousand years ago, Paul's gospel is the one, the only, the true gospel.
[00:06:05] And Paul is personally a capital A apostle called by Jesus, authorized by Jesus to teach the one pure true gospel. So turn with me. Galatians 1, verse 11. Here's what Paul says.
[00:06:19] He says, for I would have you know, brothers, if you remember from last week, what is Paul's emotional tone in this letter, especially in chapter one, righteous anger.
[00:06:33] I would have, you know, brothers, he's sort of in a defensive spirit, but not inappropriately, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it the gospel through a revelation of Jesus Christ. Where did he receive this revelation of Jesus Christ? He goes back to the road of who knows the word Damascus, where Jesus revealed himself. And somehow in this experience or shortly after, Jesus personally revealed to the Apostle Paul the one, the only, the pure, the simple gospel of Jesus Christ. And he gave him a mission. You take this pure, simple gospel and you take it to the Gentiles, the non Jews. And your job is to make sure that the Gentiles know the pure, simple, simple gospel, the way of salvation. Now some of you weren't here last week, so I want to remind you of something really important that we said. Every false Christian gospel follows the exact same formula. It goes like this, faith in Jesus plus.
[00:07:45] But here's the deal. When Jesus revealed the gospel to Paul and when Jesus revealed the gospel to the apostles, do you know what he never ever talked about with relation to the Gospel?
[00:07:55] Circumcision.
[00:07:56] Good works Law.
[00:07:59] Like he never ever once said, believe in me and follow all of the Old Testament laws. In fact, that's never what he said.
[00:08:07] So when these judaizers, when they come into Galatia and they're saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we know what Paul said. Faith in Jesus, good, but it's not enough. He didn't go far enough.
[00:08:16] You now have to subject your entire life under Old Covenant law.
[00:08:21] So in verse 13, Paul tells them his conversion story. I think to make some really important points to the Galatians, about this issue.
[00:08:29] He says, for you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God. What's that word?
[00:08:38] Violently, and tried to destroy it.
[00:08:42] And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people. So. So extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. And what's striking about Paul's testimony, most people look sort of to his former way of life. And I want to just draw your attention to something a little bit different here.
[00:09:05] As a religious leader under 1st century Judaism, Paul unashamedly, publicly and proudly murdered murdered people who dissented against his faith.
[00:09:18] And what he's saying is this is this whole group of Judaizers, what they're trying to bring you back into is a vile, perverted expression of what God intended through his word when he created the nation of Israel. It is why this nation has been rejected in the first century. It's why they rejected the gospel and it's now going to the Gentiles and. And listen, like, catch this. So perverted was 1st century Judaism and their understanding of the scriptures, okay, that if you wanted to be promoted amongst the ranks of Jewish leadership, these are the kinds of behaviors you had to be known for. I don't know about y', all, but, like, if Pastor Dean was like, I wanna become the senior pastor, I'm gonna start killing people who aren't Christians. And then we all were like, yeah, he's got passion and fervor. Promote him. You'd be like, that's a really broken group of people. And. And what he's trying to say is these Judaizers, they're trying to bring you back into something that isn't right. At best, it's a massive misunderstanding of what Judaism was intended to be. Hence why Jesus comes in and has to kind of dismantle all their interpretive grid. You've heard it said, but I say to you. You've heard it said, but I say to you, like, the way they've been interpreting and applying the Old Testament has been so broken. And Paul's like, don't go back to this broken version of Judaism, which is just gonna enslave you. On top of this. Look at verse 14. He says, I want you to notice. I mean, just what is he so extremely zealous for?
[00:10:49] I can tell you this. He doesn't identify his zealousness for the Word, for people, for God. No, no. What is he passionate about?
[00:10:58] The traditions of my fathers.
[00:11:02] Listen, if y' all want a man made religion you can go to the ones that have centuries and millennia of traditions. I'm not interested. Tradition isn't bad, don't get me wrong.
[00:11:11] But I'm not going to for a moment confuse tradition with the authority of what is taught in God's word. Like the gospel is revelation from God. Tradition are things that we do to like, repeat the same things over and over again, often make ourselves feel better and peaceful at home. Traditions are good, they're, they're not bad, but they're not the gospel.
[00:11:30] And I'm sorry, but like, if I'm going to devote my life to anything, it is not going to be the traditions of man. It is going to be the divinely revealed gospel of Jesus Christ. And here's what he's saying. You can go back with the Judaizers, they're just resubjecting you to a man made expression of a religion and a man made gospel that isn't from heaven. Don't waste your time. Don't waste your time.
[00:11:51] Verse 15. Paul's conversion illustrates the power of the Gospel to save the worst kinds of people.
[00:11:58] It says, when he God, who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me.
[00:12:22] But I went away into Arabia and I returned again to Damascus. Okay, so later on in the book of Galatians, we're gonna talk about Paul's conversion and what God did in his life. But right now I want you to focus on this line. In verse 16, he says, I did not immediately consult with anyone. Let me translate.
[00:12:47] When I got saved, when Jesus revealed himself to me, he revealed the gospel to me. The simple, pure, unadulterated gospel. That's it.
[00:12:55] And I left and I went to Arabia and Damascus and different places, but I preached the gospel.
[00:13:03] I didn't meet an apostle for three years. You're gonna watch this unfold in the text.
[00:13:10] Here's what he's saying.
[00:13:11] The Judaizers, they're telling you that I made this gospel up.
[00:13:16] It's a man made gospel. Paul just came up with it to maybe get as many converts as he can and put no demand on them whatsoever. And Paul's like, listen, listen, listen, listen.
[00:13:24] I didn't make this gospel up.
[00:13:27] I received it from Jesus.
[00:13:29] And by the way, FYI, the apostles who also received the gospel from Jesus, we have the exact same Gospel. Like I didn't go to them and say, excuse me, could you tell me your gospel so that I can corroborate mine? How about you take this from mine and let's all go make up a religion and then tell everybody that same religion. He's like, no, actually, the gospel we received, I got it personally from Jesus, they got it personally from Jesus. And years later when we converged, lo and behold, we had the exact same gospel. Let me illustrate this further with an illustration. If you don't know me that well, I am as serious as I am absolutely goofy. So I want you to imagine with me that I am a pirate. I know. You're like, easy. Got it.
[00:14:17] I and I alone know where the greatest treasure on earth can be found. How do I know? Because I put it there and I wrote down the coordinates before my death. I gather all of my sons around me and I give them the coordinates to the greatest treasure on Earth. And I tell them this directly.
[00:14:40] I don't want you going after the treasure until my friend finds you and you do it together. Who's your friend? I told the coordinates to one other person. Oh, interesting.
[00:14:52] One of my sons asked the father, how will we know it's him?
[00:15:00] And I respond, you'll know.
[00:15:03] A few weeks after my death, an old gnarly one legged pirate wobbles off of a ship, takes off his peg leg and he points it at my sons and says, ARR, I am your father's old friend. Let's go find this treasure together.
[00:15:15] All right. Now what proof might this gnarly one legged pirate show to validate that he's truly my old friends? What's the answer? Everybody, the coordinates.
[00:15:25] So my son tests him with a question. Tell us the coordinates. If they match, he's the guy. But another son objects.
[00:15:33] But how do we know that one of you didn't tell him the coordinates?
[00:15:38] And then the old gnarly one legged pirate and his mates break through the brothers debate and respond not just with the exact coordinates, but with a detailed journal of all of their travels. No overlap between any of them and the sons. No opportunity for cheating. Irrefutable evidence. Pastor Michael, what on God's green earth does this have to do with pirates?
[00:15:57] ARR. Everything. Okay, I'm done with that.
[00:16:01] Both Paul and the apostles separately received the same gospel coordinates.
[00:16:08] Identical. The chances are rare. Every gospel in the world is the same. Faith in something plus good works. And they're the only people on planet Earth who came away with a works less gospel. They're the only ones, they're the only ones who come away with identical coordinates for the gospel.
[00:16:27] And Paul's like, listen, I didn't get it from them, they didn't get it from me, they got it from Jesus. I got it from Jesus. It all came from Jesus. The gospel we are proclaiming to you is a divinely revealed from heaven, truthful gospel, period. And anybody who claims that they have received the gospel from Jesus better have the same stinking coordinates as Paul the apostles and, and Jesus himself. Because if they don't guess what they are, quote unquote from Galatians 1:8 9. Accursed anathema, damned to hell. That's how serious getting the gospel wrong is. And these Judaizers, they come in and they don't have Paul's gospel and they don't have the apostles gospel and they don't have Jesus gospel. And Paul's saying, listen, when people come in and they try to convince you it's faithful plus anything, understand this, they're not from Jesus, they are from the devil. And here's summary of Paul's first defense against these evil false gospel slanderers. My gospel, not theirs, is Jesus gospel because it came from Jesus himself. Listen y', all, I don't know about you. I'm not interested in devoting my life to a quote unquote gospel message that some dead guy made up named Paul 2000 years ago just to enrich himself.
[00:17:49] I want to follow and proclaim the divinely revealed from heaven. True, simple, pure gospel. The one that has the power to save evil wicked men like Saul who then became the Apostle Paul. I want a gospel that has the power to turn someone's life upside down and make them a follower of Jesus. I don't want one that is going to make them Jewish again or enslave them to a man made religious tradition. I want to proclaim a powerful gospel that changes lives.
[00:18:19] Now, as you read through Galatians 1 and 2, Paul is not defending himself for his sake. Paul knows what it feels like to be slandered. Paul is defending himself for the sake of the Galatian church and every single person who would read this letter, you and me, and we need to know this. If Paul's gospel isn't true, then the New Testament is a joke. If Paul is not a capital A apostle chosen by Jesus himself, he you cannot trust the New Testament. And so what Paul is doing is he's defending himself not just for them, but for everybody who comes after him.
[00:18:51] In verse 18, Paul continues his defense. He says, then I received the gospel. I preached for three years. After three years, I went to Jerusalem to visit Cephas. Who's Cephas? Peter.
[00:19:04] And I remained with him, Peter for 15 days.
[00:19:08] But. But I saw none of the other apostles except for James, the Lord's brother. And what I'm writing to you before God, I do not lie. Here is Paul's second defense. My gospel is Jesus gospel because it's the exact same one as the apostles.
[00:19:22] And what's interesting is that the Judaizers, it seems, would come into town and say, you can't trust Paul. We're from Judea, we're from Jerusalem, we represent the apostles.
[00:19:34] And Paul's like, this isn't the apostles gospel. I know these guys personally.
[00:19:40] After three years of preaching my gospel, I finally went. I sat down with Peter for 15 days. John was also there. I'm not lying to you guys. I'm telling you the truth. And we all had the same gospel. These guys are the ones who are lying to you. We're the ones who have the same gospel coordinates. They're the ones coming in with the wrong coordinates. We get to chapter two, verse one, he says, then making this point again. After 14 years, I went up again to Jerusalem, and this time with Barnabas, taking Titus along with me. Again, if you don't know these characters, Barnabas and Titus are really important because the Galatians knew these guys. Barnabas and Titus were very, very responsible with Paul for bringing them to salvation. They trusted Barnabas and Titus. Barnabas was the guy it appears, everybody liked and trusted. And so here we go. He's like, listen, Barnabas and Titus, the guys you love, they were with me when we sat down with the apostles and we corroborated our gospel coordinates. If you don't trust me, fine, trust them. You know them. And they actually were with me in Jerusalem and met the apostles. And we all agreed we are on the same team. It's the Judaizers who are bringing in a false gospel.
[00:20:56] In verse 2, Paul says this. I went up because of a revelation to Jerusalem and set before them. Who's them? The capital A. Apostles, though privately before those who seemed influential. The gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles in order to make sure I was not running or had run in vain, okay? He gets saved. Jesus gives him the gospel, preaches for three years. After three years, he goes to Jerusalem. Fifteen days with Peter and John. We're on the same page. Cool. 14 years later, he goes back to Jerusalem to again corroborate the gospel that he received to make sure they are all preaching the same gospel Coordinates, probably, if we're being really honest, he's going there to make sure the apostles aren't beginning to compromise on the gospel.
[00:21:41] And then in verse three, he makes a genius point, which, again, sometimes reading this section of Galatians one and two can feel for most Christians like you're reading through the book of Leviticus, because it's just like more and more story and whatever. But if you just slow down and you allow Paul's defense to enter into your brain, it's actually genius. He says this. Even Titus, even Titus, who was with me, he was not forced to be circumcised, though he was a Greek. Now, I got questions. How did they know? Like, they seem to know everyone who was and was not. Okay, different issue. Okay, but, you know, you're thinking it, and there are cultural things here that I just don't understand.
[00:22:20] Again, who is Titus? Known and beloved to the Galatians?
[00:22:27] And here's his point.
[00:22:30] All right? You know, Titus.
[00:22:32] Titus is not Jewish. Titus isn't circumcised.
[00:22:37] Titus went to Jerusalem with me. And all the apostles talked to Titus, and not a single one of them said, titus, you need to go get circumcised in order to be saved.
[00:22:48] And Titus isn't just some random guy. Titus is also a pastor, a preacher, a teacher of God's word, an evangelist.
[00:22:57] And so you would think that the qualifications for a pastor would be higher. And even the apostles were like, listen, we just don't care.
[00:23:08] That's Old Testament. You're not under that. It's the new covenant. Now, those are laws and traditions. Like, you're not obligated to do this. And so here's what Paul's saying. He's saying, even Titus, that guy that you trust, if this was so important, if this was essential for salvation, you would think the gospels, the apostles, the leaders of the church would have required him, but they didn't.
[00:23:29] All right, I need you to hear this. If anybody adds to the gospel, they're not from Jesus, it is from Satan. It is a false gospel conjured up in dark places to trick people. A false gospel will say, jesus is not enough. Grace is not enough. Faith is not enough. You must add something else.
[00:23:52] In the first service, I made an error. I said, I don't know anybody who is hearing a gospel of circumcision. And then some guy came up to me and said, no. He was told that if this didn't happen with his son, then his son couldn't be saved. And I was like, okay, apparently there are still people out there that are requiring this for salvation. I don't hear that often. In fact, this morning was the very first time. But there are so many plus ones that people add to the gospel. And here's like a short list of 330. Okay, here we go.
[00:24:22] You can't be saved if you don't speak in tongues.
[00:24:25] You can't be saved if you weren't baptized and had your original sin removed. You can't be saved if you don't Sabbath on certain days. You can't be saved if you don't belong to our denomination.
[00:24:34] You can't be saved if you aren't a member of this church. You can't be saved if you don't take communion through the right church. You can't be saved if you wear makeup or jewelry. You can't be saved if you don't read the King James version of the Bible and that alone. You can't be saved if you don't have a dramatic testimony. You can't be saved if you were saved as a child and don't remember the moment clearly. You can't be saved if you still struggle with doubt. You can't be saved if you still struggle with temptation. You can't be saved if you haven't stopped sinning completely. You haven't been saved if you need counseling or medicine. You can't be saved if you aren't doing enough good works. You can't be saved. You haven't been delivered from every single sin. Struggle instantly. You can't be saved if your faith isn't strong enough to get you healed. You can't be saved. You haven't been re baptized by our method. You can't be saved if you haven't renounced every past sin out loud verbally in the name of Jesus. You can't be sin if you don't submit to our leader. I could go on and on and on and on for the love of God.
[00:25:27] The gospel plus anything isn't a gospel. That is a man made gospel. I'm just not interested. And neither is the Apostle Paul or the real church. For the last 2,000 years. We're just not interested in proclaiming man made gospels or tradition as gospel.
[00:25:45] In verse four, Paul exposes these false teachers for who they really are behind closed doors, he says. Yet because of these false brothers secretly brought in this is great language. Who slipped in to spy out our freedom that we have in Christ Jesus.
[00:26:07] So that they might bring us back into slavery. Here's a little secret about false teachers that they don't tell you.
[00:26:16] Almost always their private lives are full of secrets, sin, and shenanigans that they hope no one finds out about.
[00:26:27] Paul actually takes a moment and he outs them.
[00:26:31] They're slippery. They actually came into the congregation acting as somebody. They weren't scoped out the weak points of the congregation and the weak people so that when Paul left to go start another church, they could come in and undermine his gospel and his apostleship. I don't know about y', all, but that feels really shady to me.
[00:26:58] And they came back in, and guess what? The first subject on their mind was circumcision. Okay? So first of all, who sends in spies?
[00:27:07] Second of all, let's be clear.
[00:27:11] Their gospel will damn the Galatians to hell.
[00:27:16] And that's not me saying that. Let me just remind you briefly of what Paul said just a few verses prior in Galatians 1, 8 9. He says, but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed. And as we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. Which brings us, I think, perfectly into our one singular. So what of the morning? Yes, I only have one.
[00:27:54] It's a question. Do you have the same gospel as Jesus as Paul and as the apostles?
[00:28:03] Does your gospel add to what has been delivered to us?
[00:28:08] Does your gospel take away?
[00:28:10] So one of my favorite questions to ask people who are spiritually searching.
[00:28:16] It's a question. It's very simple. I've probably asked this well over a hundred times, and the answers are all over the board. But the question is this. If your child were to come to you and they said, how can I go to heaven when I die?
[00:28:30] How would you respond?
[00:28:32] And take a second, just think about it. How would I respond if a child came to me and wanted to know how to go to heaven? Now, I have heard all sorts of answers, and they generally fall into three buckets. We have muddy answers, false answers, and clear answers.
[00:28:51] The single most common answer that I have received back goes like this.
[00:28:56] You just need to be a good person.
[00:28:58] And to be clear, this is a false answer because it's gospel. Believe in Jesus plus do good works. And the moment you fill in the blank in the plus section, you now have a false gospel that damns. Now, no parent ever wants to Give their child a gospel that has no power to save them. What every parent wants is to make sure that not just me and my spouse, but my kids and my grandkids, we have access to, to a divinely revealed pure gospel good news of how we can objectively be saved.
[00:29:34] Another common answer goes like this. Go to church, be baptized, be a good person, faith in Jesus plus good works plus a sacrament or three. And it's like, no. The moment you fill in the blank with anything, it ceases to be the gospel.
[00:29:52] It is now something that curses. It doesn't save.
[00:29:56] I think from genuine Christians. The most frequent common answer goes something like words, words, more words, words, Jesus, believe, pray, read your Bible.
[00:30:10] And we're not trying to muddy the gospel. It's just we haven't been practiced at giving the gospel simply and clearly without the additions as requirements for for salvations. Okay, should Christians read the Bible and pray? The answer is yeah. Does that get us saved? No. Somebody comes to you and says, I wanna know, how can I know that I'm going to heaven? I'm not talking about reading the Bible in that moment and I'm not talking about prayer. I'm getting down to the main thing. I don't wanna give a muddy answer, I wanna give a clear answer. So I wanna revisit something we talked about last week and we talked about tiered doctrines and we have three kinda tiers. And if you want more details, listen to the end of last week's message and there's a lot more.
[00:30:48] But we Talked about Tier 3 doctrines, which all doctrine is important, but these are less important, not essential. Feel free to disagree with each other. You have tier two doctrines, very important, but still not essential. We can agree to disagree, but I really don't like where some people stand on this and you don't like where I stand, that's fine. But we're both going to heaven because we agree on Tier 1 issues essential for salvation Gospel essentials.
[00:31:14] These are the ideas, the doctrines, the truths that if you are going to be an actual, real, genuine Christian, you and I have to affirm all of these. And here's a list of tier one doctrines. All have sinned.
[00:31:33] Sin has broken our relationship with God.
[00:31:36] Jesus.
[00:31:37] Most of them believe he's man. That's not the issue. But Jesus is God.
[00:31:41] Jesus died for sin. Jesus rose from the dead and is coming back. Salvation is by faith in Christ alone. And this is important. Not by again works, sacrament, law, affiliation, nothing.
[00:31:55] And lastly, anybody who repents. This means to change your mind about what is true and real and give their allegiance to Jesus will be received and forgiven.
[00:32:06] Now, I want to. Just as we close here, I want to ask two questions. And here's the first.
[00:32:11] Do you believe these statements factually?
[00:32:15] Like, can you look at these and say, okay, objectively, factually, I agree with those statements. That's the beginning. Now, you might be here, you might be like, hey, there's two or three of those. I'm not sure where I stand. I'm not sure what I actually think about those. I don't know if I'm ready to say that I believe them.
[00:32:32] And by the way, I appreciate when people are honest. And I think every single person who comes to Christ needs to ask all the questions they need to ask.
[00:32:41] For most of us, before we were able to give our life to Christ, there were some intellectual hurdles, some questions that we really needed to answer. And I just want to say, like, ask the questions.
[00:32:52] It is your responsibility if Jesus is God and salvation is real. If these are true, you want to do everything you can to get to a place where you can say, I believe these Tier one gospel essentials. And if there's any way that we can come alongside of you and help you, there is no dumb question. There are no bad questions. If you're wrestling through faith, we would count it an honor to come alongside of you and help you open up God's word and history to see what actually it says about these issues.
[00:33:19] But here's the deal with these.
[00:33:22] Satan believes all of these things to be true and he's going to burn in hell forever.
[00:33:29] And so this is the scary part. You can intellectually acknowledge the gospel to be true and still have an unreconciled, broken relationship with God. And here's the second question I want to ask.
[00:33:44] Have you personally apologized to God for your sin and asked him to save you?
[00:33:53] So here's what's interesting. In every other relationship in life, if I were to tell you, you sinned against this person and broke the relationship and it was terrible, how do you fix this? You would say, I need to go take full ownership. I need to go apologize and ask for forgiveness. But there's something weird that happens with God. With God, what happens is we go, I know that I've broken the relationship with God through sin, but he has to save me. I'm me. I'm a good person. Do you know who my grandma was? I go to this church. I went to the Orthodox church, I went to the Catholic church. I went to the village church. I Showed up at Christmas and Easter, like, I'm. I'm. Like, I'm the kind of guy he wants in heaven.
[00:34:29] And so people have this notion that just by our sheer existence and we're not Hitler or as bad as that other person, that, like, God's just, this is cool, right? You're just going to, like, overlook it. Right? And here's the deal. We would never take this logic and apply it with anybody else ever. Why would we apply it to the God of the universe when our soul is on the line?
[00:34:46] And so what I would tell people is, listen, you, me, we broke the relationship with God. God didn't sin against us. We sinned against him.
[00:34:54] And that relationship, it needs to be made right.
[00:34:58] And so we come before God. And here's what I love about the gospel message is God, there's nothing I can do to get saved. There's nothing I can do to possibly make right all that I've made wrong. Jesus did the work for me.
[00:35:11] You have asked me to believe in the Gospel and apologize for my sins and ask you to save me. That's what you asked me to do.
[00:35:18] I can't make any of this right. But you've told me that if I believe in the gospel and I ask you to forgive me, you will do just that.
[00:35:25] And so I just want to ask you, maybe you're here this morning and you're like, yeah, I thought I was saved because I intellectually assented to all of that as fact.
[00:35:33] Believing facts don't save. Believing facts won't reconcile you to a broken relationship with your God. What will reconcile that is you taking responsibility and, and asking God to forgive you of your sins. And here's what I love. God's not like I don't think about it, right? That's not how he works.
[00:35:52] God knows your heart. And the moment there is sincere apology and belief in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, the answer is Amen. Absolutely, 100%, once for all, forever. And by the way, here's my Holy Spirit who will never leave you or forsake you. Let's do this, guys. That's really good news. And if you have never trusted in Christ, I just encourage you, today is the day. Today is the best day. And God is absolutely pumped and excited to forgive you, adopt you, and save you forever. Amen. Village church Amen. Let's pray together. God, I am grateful that the Apostle Paul, the Book of Acts, so much of the New Testament just documents all of these false gospels that try to creep into the church Lord, we saw that the Galatians were susceptible to this from a lack of training or knowledge. We also see how really subtly just sneaky and slippery these judaizers were. And so God, we don't want to fall for that. We don't want to fall for any of that. So God, I pray that you would train us and establish us in in the pure, simple gospel, Lord, so that we can not just believe it, but give it away with clarity. I thank you for even the illustration that Paul gives of his own radical conversion.
[00:37:14] The false Jewish gospel of faith in Jesus plus had no power to save him. It was only the pure, simple, powerful gospel that had the ability to take a murderer and transform him into somebody who loves you with all of his heart, soul, mind and strength.
[00:37:30] And so God, we want to wield this powerful gospel with clarity, with simplicity.
[00:37:37] Lord, may you train us and may you teach us. May you establish us. And if any person here is wrestling through this, would you by your Holy Spirit just prompt them to the right next step so that they can have that moment where they are reconciled with you and once and for all and forever forgiven. We love you. We pray all of this in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
