Well, if you would, if you would turn open your copy of the scriptures with me to Galatians chapter 1. It's found on page 972 of the Bibles in front of you if you're using that one. And this morning we'll be reading verses 1 through 10 of Galatians chapter 1. As you're turning there, let's pray for our time together. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. Lord, we thank you that we can read it, but Lord, we need your spirit to understand it. And so we pray that by your spirit that you would open our eyes to see your truth this morning, that we might hear it, believe it, and do it. We praise you for who you are, Lord, and we praise you for everything we have in your son. In his name, amen. All right, Galatians chapter one, verses one through 10. Paul, an apostle, not from man nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead, and all the brothers who are with me, to the churches of Galatia. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. 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. For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. This is the word of the Lord. Well, when I was a senior in high school, I got the opportunity to go to Paris on a family vacation with my family, and we had never been to Paris before. So when you go to Paris for the first time, one of the main places you have to go is the Louvre Museum. And just as a little bit of a backdrop, 31-year-old Brock, not much of an art expert. So 18-year-old Brock really did not know much about art. So I think I knew one painting that was in the Louvre. I know the Mona Lisa, right? So I wake up that day, cool, I'm getting to go see the Mona Lisa today. They do a good job, it's kind of toward the back of the museum, so it builds up some tension, you know, when am I going to see it? When we finally get there. My takeaway from the most famous painting in the world That thing is small. Those of you who have seen it, you know what I'm talking about. That's my takeaway, that thing is small. But the reality is the Mona Lisa is not small. It is an average-sized portrait. It's a normal-sized portrait. What makes it appear small is its context. The Mona Lisa is placed in the largest room in the Louvre. It is on this huge wall, really high ceilings. You can't get within a lot of feet of it because it's roped off and there are so many people in front of you trying to see the painting. And then if you turn around, the wedding feast at Cana is behind you, and that's the largest painting in the Louvre. So the context in which it's placed, the room in which it's placed, makes the Mona Lisa look tiny, even when it's an average-sized portrait. Context sometimes can draw out things that we never would have noticed otherwise. So what I want to do to begin our time this morning is place the letter of Galatians in the museum of Paul. I want us to hang up all 13 of Paul's letters. to see what might pop out about this letter Galatians in a way that we never would have noticed if we were just reading it in isolation. So that's where we want to start. Just a couple of data points. So I said Paul wrote 13 letters. There are 27 letters in the New Testament. So he wrote half of the New Testament books. And in his 13 letters, he wrote nine to churches and four to individuals. So he wrote two to Timothy, one to Titus, one to Philemon, and then he wrote one to Rome, two to Corinth, two to Thessalonica, one to Galatia, one to Ephesus, one to Colossae, and one to Philippi. Nine to regions, nine to churches, four to individuals. In every single one of his letters, every single one, Paul starts off the same way. Who it's from, who it's to, grace and peace greeting. So look with me, I'm gonna have, we're using our Bibles a lot this morning, so I wanna hear a lot of pages turning as we go. Look at Galatians 1 with me, how it starts. Paul, an apostle, always starts off who it's from. and then who it's to at the end of verse two. To the churches of Galatia, and then we have our greeting. Grace to you and peace from God. If you would flip to the next book, Ephesians, look at the very beginning of Ephesians with me, page 976. Look how it starts. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus. Next, who it's to. To the saints who are on Ephesus, and then what do we have? Grace to you and peace from God. One more turn. Go to Philippians, the next book. Same start. Paul and Timothy, servants of Christ, to the saints in Christ Jesus who are at Philippi, grace to you and peace from God. There are some details that differ in between the letters that are honestly some really good truth nuggets, but by and large, structure's the same. who it's from, who it's to, grace and peace greeting. Now what Paul does next often is he gives thanks to God for the people he's writing to. So look with me at verse three of Stoan Philippians. Right after grace and peace, I thank my God in all my remembrance of you. Verse five, he shows why. Because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. So the Philippians have partnered with him in the gospel, and so he expresses thanks to God. One more turn, go to 1 Thessalonians, or no, Colossians, and then 1 Thessalonians. So Colossians 9.83. Same thing, Paul an apostle to the saints at Colossae, grace and peace. Verse three, what comes right after the grace and peace greeting. We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Verse four, why? Since we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all the saints. So he's thankful for their faith in the gospel, he's thankful for their love that flows from a genuine faith, a genuine belief in that gospel. Last one I want you to see. First Thessalonians, turn it one more time. Same thing, Paul, to the Church of the Thessalonians, grace to you and peace. Right after that, what do we get? We give thanks to God always for you, mentioning you in our prayers, remembering before our God and Father what? Your work of faith, your labor of love, and your steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul gives thanks when people have believed the gospel by faith, and when they are living out the gospel by faith. So if we're in the Museum of Paul, all 13 letters laid out, what's common to see at the very beginning, who it's from, who it's to, grace and peace greeting, and thanks to God for the gospel. Paul gives thanks to every region he writes to, except for one. One region Paul does not give thanks for. Flip back with me to Galatians 1. We really don't even need to read the letter to know what's happened, right? If you can see what Paul has given thanks for in all the other letters, if he's giving thanks for the gospel, and then we come to a letter where there is no thanks, the assumption is that there is no gospel. And what do we see in verse six? Again, if you're in the Museum of Paul, verse six pops off the page. I mean, this is drastic. Where you would expect a thanks, you get an I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Paul cannot express thanks for the Galatians because they do not have the thing that he gives thanks for. And so he offers, instead of thanks to the Galatians, he offers astonishment. This gospel Paul writes elsewhere, is a matter of first importance. This gospel is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes. This gospel is the only thing that can take you and I from eternal death to eternal life. And so because of that, because the gospel is the only thing that can save, we must prioritize it, We must protect it and we must persevere in it. Those are our three points for today. Prioritizing the gospel, protecting the gospel, and persevering in the gospel. So starting off that first point, prioritizing the gospel. There are a lot of ways that we could tease out that principle. I really just wanna focus on one. Prioritizing the gospel means giving thanks where it's preached. Prioritizing the gospel means giving thanks where it's preached. Now that might sound like a basic point, and it is a basic point, but I actually think it's something that we struggle with in the Reformed community. So when I went to seminary, more often than not, I was asked by fellow students, when did you become Reformed over when did you become a Christian? And oftentimes that reveals a mindset of reformed theology is more important than being a Christian. Now I love reformed theology, right? I have subscribed to it in our presbytery. I think that it is the best theological expression of the word of God. I think that it is the best way to make and mature disciples of Jesus Christ. I think it is the best way for us to be salt and light out in the world. So in one sense, I empathize with the desire to really care about Reformed theology. But if we care about it to such an extent that we are no longer giving thanks for Gospel-believing, Gospel-preaching churches that are not Reformed, we're actually out of accord with the Scriptures. We're not in line with what the Apostle Paul taught. Now for you, the Westminster Standards might not be the thing that rivals the gospel in your heart as a priority. It might be our style of worship. It might be the culture of the people. It might be a secondary theological issue. It might be a political issue. But whatever it is, if we are not giving thanks for gospel-preaching, gospel-believing churches, we're out of a chord, we're out of a line with the scriptures. And so that is a point that Paul is showing us here. And if you want a proof from the scriptures itself, take a step back into the Museum of Paul for a moment. What probably sticks out just as much as his lack of thanks for the Galatians is his thanks for the Corinthians. If you read 1 Corinthians, You are like, these people are acting a fool. I mean, there are divisions in the church. Some are following Peter, some Paul, some Apollos. There is a sexual immorality that they're allowing to occur in the church that even the pagans don't accept, and they're boasting about it. They're arrogant about it. They're suing one another in the civil courts instead of dealing with it man to man. Some are getting drunk at the Lord's Supper. There's disorder with the spiritual gifts. There is all sorts of dysfunction in the church at Corinth. And amazingly, Paul, 1 Corinthians 1, says this, I give thanks to my God for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Jesus Christ. And at the end of that letter, he says, now I would remind you, brothers of the gospel, that I preached to you which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved. The Corinthians had all sorts of problems, but they still have the gospel. And so because of that, Paul, first and foremost, gives thanks to God for them. Now that doesn't mean we can never seek to correct our brothers and sisters in Christ that we perceive might have great errors when it comes to their theology and their practice. Paul does, read 1 Corinthians, right? He addresses all the issues. It is loving for us to approach our brothers and sisters in Christ to correct them if we perceive them to be in error. But first and foremost, we give thanks to God for them. because they are brothers and sisters in Christ because they have believed in the gospel. They are in the family of God and we will see them in heaven. And so we come expressing thanks before we seek to correct them in their practice and in their theology. So that's the first point here. Prioritizing the gospel means giving thanks to God where it's present and where it is preached. So our second point, not only should we prioritize the gospel, we need to protect the gospel. This is the lesson verses six through nine of our passage here. Where the gospel is present, we give thanks, but where the gospel is absent, we are to offer no thanks. That's the main takeaway Paul is showing us here from six through nine. We are to offer no thanks for the gospel is not present. And instead of thanks, what do we get? Astonishment. Part of his astonishment in verse six is the pace at which they have deserted this gospel. Look, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him. This has not been a slow burn. This was a quick turn away from the true gospel. Second note to make, look at verse six. The personal nature of the gospel. Paul does not say you are so quickly deserting it. He says you are so quickly deserting him. Him who called you in the grace of Christ, God Himself. When we desert the gospel, we are deserting God Himself. That is what is going on here in Galatia. And in deserting God, they're turning to another gospel, which Paul makes clear as day, is actually not another gospel. There is no other gospel, there is no other good news because there is no other God. Paul is laying that out clear as day here. And then in verses eight through nine, he gives the Galatians instruction for what they are to do when a different gospel is preached. Twice in two verses, he says that if we or even an angel preach a gospel different than the one we first brought to you, Let him be accursed. He's gonna say it again just so we get it. If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one that they first brought, let him be accursed. That is strong language, right? He is saying let them be under the wrath of God if they are turning people away from the true gospel. If they are turning people away from eternal life in Jesus Christ. We live in a society today where many base their ethical system, they base how we should live on the harm principle. So whatever is harmful to others is wrong. Well, you know what is incredibly harmful? What is eternally harmful? Heresy. Heresy is unbelievably harmful. Paul is not playing around when it comes to the gospel. We are to protect this gospel because there are eternal ramifications with the gospel. Now some might critique us for being exclusive here, right? We are proclaiming that Jesus Christ is the only way, that this gospel is the only way to be saved. that very much pushes against a common tendency that we see in our day-to-day, a universalist tendency when it comes to religion, where people might say it doesn't matter what religion you follow or really if you follow one at all, if you're sincere and you just seek to be a good person, it'll work out in the end. What we are saying very much pushes against that mindset. Now something I like to do with people when I'm talking with them and they have that sort of mindset is to see if they are also universalists in the political sphere and also in the medical sphere, right? Are they saying we shouldn't be exclusive in those spheres too? Are they saying it doesn't matter who you vote for, doesn't matter what politicians we get in office, doesn't matter what policies get enacted, Just be a sincere citizen. Just try your best and it'll work out. Are they saying it doesn't matter, take a vaccine, don't. Take medicine, don't. Eat whatever you want. Just seek to be a sincere body and it'll work out for you health-wise. I've never met a universalist when it comes to the political sphere or the medical sphere. Many people have no problem being exclusive there. But when it comes to religion, for some reason, we can't be exclusive. And so I try to draw people back to being consistent with their worldview there. And then to show them that the Bible teaches, which is our source of authority, that Jesus Christ is the only way, that the gospel is the only way that we can be saved. So we must protect this gospel. And where it is being distorted, like Paul, We need to urge people to turn back to the true gospel in Jesus Christ. It is a loving thing for us to do that. So now, for many of you in this church, this is your home church. You were born in this church, you are married in this church, and you plan on dying in this church. You love this church, and I love that. But if this church one day turns from the gospel that is contained in this word, approach the elders, approach the pastors, seek to correct them, and if they don't listen, don't stay here. Do not stay here if the gospel is gone. I love verse eight. Paul even includes himself in the cursing. Even if we, Paul is saying, even if I come to you with a gospel different than the one that I first preached to you, let me be accursed. Let me be under the wrath of God. Don't listen to me, Paul is saying, even if he has steered from the gospel in which he first came with him. So don't stay here if one day we turn from the gospel. Now I kind of, I did something interesting, I watched a lot of services from churches that I knew that I would disagree with this week to kind of prep for this. And I found something to be interesting. There were a lot of churches that looked the exact same as this one. Beautiful building, great architecture, amazing choir, singing hymns, an organ accompaniment, a call to worship, confession of sin, assurance of pardon, reading of scripture, a sermon, If the main reason you're here is one of those things, if you're here because you like our building, you like our liturgy, you like our formality of worship, you like the fact that we sing hymns and have an organ, you would have no problem going to one of these churches. But do you know what was absent from those services? The gospel of Jesus Christ was absent from those services. We have got to prioritize the gospel, and the only way to protect this gospel is by prioritizing it. Those are good reasons to join a church, but the gospel needs to be our main focus, our main reason that we are here to worship the triune God of the Bible through his son, Jesus Christ. And so one way that I wanna close this section is by hopefully giving a helpful framework for how we can identify the gospel when we see the Bible taught. Because the thing is, we actually have to be aware when we are listening. In Galatia, it might have not been the most obvious thing. The false teachers would have still said they had the gospel. They still would have been teaching about Jesus Christ. What they did was they slipped in the law to the salvation equation. It was Jesus plus the law is how you get saved. But that might not have been the most obvious thing if people really weren't aware of what was going on. So we need to be aware when the Bible is being taught. So this is a framework that I found to be helpful. There are a lot of them, so you don't have to use this particular one. But this is one from 2 Corinthians 5, which I found to be helpful. So there the Apostle Paul says, therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ. God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. What Paul is saying there, he's saying Jesus Christ told me to tell you, be reconciled to God. We want to be in churches where the leaders week in and week out are urging people, appealing people on behalf of Jesus Christ to be reconciled to God. Not to be happy primarily, not to be healthy primarily, not to be the change you wish to see in the world, but to be reconciled to God. And for those four words to be understood in the way in which Paul taught them, four things must be true. So first one, when we talk about God, which God are we talking about? Right, are we defining who God is and what he's like from the scriptures? Is that how we are defining who God is? Or are we defining who God is and what he's like from our feelings? Or from rationalistic thought? Or from something else? We want to be in churches where time and time again, the teachers are going to the word of God to describe who this God is that we need to be reconciled to. The second point, the command to be reconciled to God, implies that there's a separation. between God and man, and man and God. You wouldn't tell someone to be reconciled if there was no problem. There is a problem. How is that church defining what the problem is? The Bible defines our core problem, our root problem, as sin, as rebellion against God. And because of that rebellion, We are estranged from Him by nature and we are deserving of eternal wrath by nature. Our core problem is not a lack of positivity. Our core problem is not the political or social structures in our society. Our core problem is not a lack of effort. Sin is our core problem. Now sometimes churches, who I think are still preaching the gospel, they will proclaim that Jesus saves. Don't define too often what Jesus saves us from. And that's unhelpful. Because Jesus told us to repent, and if we don't know what we're repenting of, that can be quite confusing. So we've got to be clear about sin. We've got to teach about sin, and we've got to teach about the punishment of sin. That's not a happy-go-lucky message, that's not gonna win you very many friends, but it's true, and it's ultimately harmful if we don't teach about sin as the root cause of all of our problems. So if the church is not teaching about sin, don't go to that church. Third one, the command to be reconciled implies that there is a way to be reconciled. Right? That implies that we can be reconciled. This is answering what's the solution to the problem. The good news, the gospel of Jesus Christ, is that there is a way out of our sin. There is a way out of our mess. That way is not found in following the law. That way is not found in trying to be a sincere, genuine, authentic person. The way is a person, and his name is Jesus Christ. He is the way, the truth, and the life. The gospel is the good news that even though you and I are naturally sinners falling short of the glory of God, God so loved the world that he sent his one and only son to do, verse four, to give Himself for our sons, sins, to deliver us from the present evil age. Romans 5, Paul is clear as day. He says, we were reconciled to God. We are able to receive this reconciliation by the death of His Son. Our salvation comes through the finished work of Jesus Christ alone on the cross. If your church does not time and time again go back to the word of the cross, don't stay at that church. We need to go back to the word of the cross time and time again because we are only saved by Jesus Christ alone. That is the good news of Christianity, that we didn't earn it, but God so loved us that his son paid the penalty on the behalf of those who believe in him. So we hold forth the word of the cross. Fourth and lastly, be reconciled is a command. It's a command in the Greek, which implies that there's something that we have to do. Just because Jesus came does not mean that everyone will be saved, right? No one is naturally born a Christian. We are all naturally under his wrath. We must believe in this gospel by faith. We must actually repent of our sins and receive his salvation by faith. We must trust in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior in order to be reconciled to God. That is the only way. In those sermons I watched, I don't think I saw one call to repentance. I don't think I saw one call to repent and believe in the good news. You want to be at a church where time and time again, you are being called to be reconciled to God, to receive him by faith, to repent of your sins. Again, that might make people uncomfortable. That is the most loving thing we can do though, is to urge people to be reconciled to our God. So, in your churches, how are they defining who God is, what's the problem, what's the solution, and then what am I to do in response? Those are four questions that you can kind of ask as you are seeing the Bible being taught. And if your church is not holding out the gospel for you, do not keep going to that church. So that's our second point, protecting the gospel. We must prioritize it and we must protect it. Third and last point, we must persevere in the gospel. We must persevere in it. How are we to persevere in the gospel? How are we to hold fast to it until the end? Paul describes how he did in verse 10. For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. It is when we seek God above all else that we will hold fast to the gospel. But it is when that we seek the approval of man over God that we will turn from the gospel. Heresy, interestingly here, is actually tied with people pleasing. Which is interesting because it ties to a lot of church historians will say that the many of the heresies in the 2,000 years of church history come from the mission field. Because missionaries there are really tempted to appease the people group they're trying to reach. And so they might be really tempted to distort the gospel to make it more appeasing to the people that they have come to reach. Paul says we can't do that. We have got to prioritize God over man. We've got to seek to please him over man. Now how do we do that? Because each and every one of us in this room knows at our hearts, in our heart of hearts, in our flesh, we love man's approval. We love seeking the approval of man. So how can we do this? How can we seek God's approval over man's approval? I saw an article the other day that was laying out the 10 most hated fan bases in the United States. And lucky you guys, you had two teams in the top five. So to my Eagles and my Phillies fans here, you are among two of the top five most annoying and most hated fan bases in the country. Now, does hearing that make you want to renounce all of your fandom, throw away your Eagles and your Phillies gear, never watch another game? Does that make you want to... That's right. Does that make you want to be syncretistic when it comes to baseball? You're not going to wear a Braves hat with your Phillies gear when you go to the game? Of course not. Of course you're not going to abandon your fandom just because some people aren't happy with you. But why? Why won't you abandon that fandom? Because you love your team and you love your city. And it is out of that love of your team and that love for your city that you can endure some people not being happy with you. And frankly, if someone were to abandon their fandom just because people weren't happy, you probably would think, I don't think that they were a true fan in the first place. Well, how can we endure people not liking us for being Christians? It is because we so love God. We so love Him. that that desire is so much more important to us than what people might think of us. And we only get that love of God by believing in this gospel. Because when we believe in this gospel, we receive the Holy Spirit who gives us new hearts that desire to love God and desire to follow His commandments. This gospel is transforming us from the inside and out every single day. We love God the more that we believe this gospel. So as we trust in Jesus, as we rest in Him by faith, As we daily seek to deny ourselves and seek to please Him, we will more and more be transformed into His image. And the amazing news, Paul says here in verse 10, am I now trying to seek the approval of God? We don't have to win His approval. It's because Jesus was rejected by men that we can be received and loved by God. We are fully righteous in His sight, in Jesus Christ. We don't have to earn His approval, we already have it in Christ. So we simply seek to please Him after that, out of a gratitude for what He has given us. It's beautiful news. And there's another amazing point here too. You actually can't love people if you're trying to please them. Because you know what you'll be focused on as opposed to loving them? Trying to get them to like you. Now that might look like love at times, it's not actually love. We cannot truly love one another if my end goal is for you to like me. The only way that we can actually love people is if we're seeking God's approval first. Because we receive love from him and also what does he command us to do? Love one another. So if we're seeking to please him, we will do what he calls us to, which is loving one another. So the only way that you can actually love others too is by seeking God first. And that is the most fulfilling life that we can live here on this earth. And we can only do it by this glorious news of the gospel and by believing and trusting in this gospel alone. So that's how we are to persevere in the gospel, to hold fast to it until the end. So may we see the love of God and the grace of God in Jesus Christ, in the gospel that he has for us. May we prioritize it, may we protect it, and may we persevere in it until the end. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we praise you for your gospel, that sinners like us do not have to be stuck in sin. We don't have to receive the reward that we deserve of eternal death in hell. But God, because you sent your one and only son to live the life that we should have and to die the death that we deserved, everyone who believes in him, is forgiven, is saved, and will live for all of eternity with you in heaven. Lord, may this gospel never be just a word to us. But would it come to us in power and with full conviction and with your Holy Spirit? Father, would this gospel transform us day after day to make us more into the image of your Son? Would you help us to believe it and to hold fast to it until you return or until you take us home? Father, lift our eyes to you and give us such a gratitude for what you have given us in your Son. We praise you for all of these things. And we pray all of these things in his name. Amen.