Got your Bibles? Go ahead and open there to Galatians 1. We've also got some note sheets coming around and some pencils if you need those, if you like to take notes and write down things that the Lord reveals to you. God is a God of truth and He loves to reveal His truth and the way that He does that to us is through the Scripture. We know that the Scripture is reliable, we know that He has provided it for us, so that He would be less of a mystery to us than He was before. He will always hold a great sense of awe and wonder to us. God is so great that there is no way that we in our finite minds can understand every bit of the depth of His wonder and amazing awesomeness. But we do have the Word of God which reveals a great portion of who God is to us and He wants us to know that. So let's have our scriptures open to Galatians 6 in the New Testament. As you're turning there, I want you to imagine for a moment what it would feel like to get a phone call and to learn that someone you dearly love was in tremendous danger. Some of you might not have to use your imagination. We have been experiencing over the last several weeks a traumatic natural disaster in California. Over 20 serious wildfires have raged across our state. The Carr Fire that is centered around the Redding area in the northern part of our state is one of the worst fires in California history. It's burned over 131,000 acres so far. taking the lives of at least six people, two of which were firefighters, giving their best to try to contain the blaze. It has led to the evacuation of more than 40,000 Californians who are now without a place to stay. It's cost untold millions in damage, and it's still not yet contained. Some of you, including the Lemos family, including the Cliftons, including the Provences I know, have family or close friends who are directly in the threat zone of these fires. Some of them have been evacuated. Some of their homes are in danger of the flames. And so you know what it feels like to have somebody that you care about be in grave danger. You felt the intense concern, that sense of dread. that their homes might be destroyed, you've prayed fervently that they would be able to evacuate in time, that they would go to a place of safety, that they would not lose more than just their property in this crisis. If you've learned that your loved one was in danger, and if you could do something about it, you'd want to drop whatever you were doing today and go. You would want to intervene. You would want to do what you can do. And in many ways, there's a similar sense of urgency and intense concern in the heart of the Apostle Paul as he writes this letter to the churches in a region that we call Galatia. Though the threat to Paul is Though the threat that Paul is worried about is not just to the physical health of the people that he's caring about. It has to do with something even more important. It has to do with the well-being of their very souls. Paul is a follower of Jesus Christ. He's a preacher of the gospel message. The gospel message is the good news that despite the seriousness of our sin, Despite the fact that every human being is in danger of the fiery wrath of God, because every human being has sinned against God, has offended the one who gave us life and has made us vital, has given us our breath, God has provided us a way out of that terrible fate. The gospel tells the good news that God has loved us so much that he sent his son, Jesus, to die for our sin and to bear the penalty himself on our behalf. He was crucified, though innocent. He was laid to rest. And on the third day, just as he prophesied that he would, he rose from the grave, declaring and proving to us that he was so much more than just a man, that he was God in the flesh. All who put their faith and trust in Jesus can now have their sin forgiven and can go from being enemies to God, enemies to the one who created them and gave them life, to belonging in His family forever. What a huge transformation that can be had when we put our faith in Jesus Christ. And this is abundantly good news. This is amazing news. The word gospel literally means good news. But that good news was being threatened. Paul's concern came from the fact that the churches in a particular region called Galatia were coming under the dangerous influence of false teachers who were attempting to redefine the gospel in some fundamental ways. This letter is written in about 54 AD, so roughly 30 years after Jesus Christ went to the cross for us. And so this good news, this gospel, which alone has the power to save the eternal souls of mankind, was being threatened with corruption. And if the people in those areas began to believe the deceptive things that they were being taught, then they would be turning away from the only thing that could save them. Paul writes this letter in an attempt to defend his brothers and his sisters. And he knows that this is not a mere matter of opinion, that this is a matter of eternal life and death. And so we are at Galatians chapter 1. I want to read for us verses 1 through 5 this morning. Paul, an apostle. not from men 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 glory forever and ever. Amen. This is a letter from Paul, not to one person. As the last few weeks we've been studying elders and deacons, we've focused mostly on Titus and 1 Timothy. Each of those is a book which constitutes a letter that was primarily written to one individual. The things in those letters were meant to bless the church entirely, but those letters were addressed specifically to other leaders in other churches. This particular letter was written from one person, Paul, to a group of churches, to several churches which populated a region that Rome had come to call Galatia. Now, Galatia got its name from a more northerly province which came to be known as Gaul. There was a people called the Gauls that kind of descended from France and moved southward. And the area of Galatia wasn't entirely populated by Gauls, but that area became known as Gaul because Rome just wanted to give it a label that they could relate to a bunch of different cities. So those cities in that area, we see Galatia, we see Pamphylia, and Lycia, and Phrygia. These cities were all referred to as the region of Galatia. This is the first mission journey that Paul took. He began in Antioch. on the western shores of Israel, traveled to the island of Cyprus, made his way up to Lycia, Pamphylia, and then around through that region of Galatia, starting churches, preaching the gospel, raising up leaders, so that the real gospel would be preached in truth in those areas. Though the nature of Paul's ministry drew him away from Galatia, as he was ever traveling to spread the gospel news, he was very close to the people that he started those churches with. And so he had a great concern for their spiritual safety. But like any church, the membership changed over time. Praise God. The Gospel continued to be preached, and the people that Paul had led to the Gospel led others to the Gospel. People were saved and those churches grew. Until after time, there were several people still in those churches that Paul knew, but there were many people that had never met Paul, who had never heard him preach face to face. So these congregations are filled not only with Paul's dear friends, but also newer believers that he never met. For one man to effectively instruct many churches, Paul needs to prove, especially to these newer believers, that he is worth listening to. So he begins with a brief description of his role in the ministry of the gospel. Paul describes himself as an apostle. Now we tend to think of that term as a specialized church title, but it was actually a common word that was used in Roman circles, particularly in the areas of politics and business very commonly in Jesus' time. An apostle was someone appointed as a delegate. sent by someone with authority to accomplish a task and to represent the interests of the person who sent them. That was what a Roman considered an apostle to be. And so an apostle, in the biblical sense that we've come to know, was someone specifically appointed by Jesus to establish the early church. That was their task. And they'd been given authority by Jesus to accomplish that task. Though there were many disciples of Jesus, there were few apostles. For the apostles learned directly from Jesus and were prepared by Him to help establish that early church. In choosing a replacement for Judas Iscariot, you might recall that of the 12 disciples, Judas Iscariot betrayed Jesus, and then shortly after his death, Judas committed suicide himself, so they were left with 11. In the early chapter of Acts, chapter 1, We see that the 11 remaining decide that they need to replace Judas on this group of 12. And in choosing a replacement for Judas, they considered certain characteristics. They wanted to choose the right man. Look at Acts 1.21. This will be on the screen for you. So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day when He was taken up from us, one of these men must become with us a witness to the resurrection. So this is the mindset of the 11 disciples who remain. They want to replace Judas, but they need to choose somebody who has been with them from the beginning. Because to be an apostle, you've got to be one of these ones who has been trained directly by Jesus. And they want to be careful also that this is someone who can bear testimony to the fact that Jesus didn't just live and teach, but Jesus died on the cross, after three days He rose from the dead, and He appeared to many to validate the fact that He had risen. It wasn't just a rumor that He rose, it wasn't some story that the disciples made up. They wanted somebody who indeed could testify that they had seen Jesus in the flesh after His resurrection, alive and well. So drawing on these specific guidelines, we understand the apostles as delegates of Jesus who received instruction directly from Him and who could bear witness to His resurrection. So John was an apostle, wasn't he? He saw and heard the transfiguration of Jesus. He went up on the mountain with James and with Peter and saw when God revealed His glory in Jesus, that He shone like the sun brilliantly. And the voice of God spoke down from the heavens and said, Behold, this is my Son in whom I am well pleased. Listen to Him. John witnessed that firsthand. John was there in the upper room when Jesus returned and showed himself to the 11 disciples and the other believers of Jesus who had gathered in an upper room and were waiting to figure out what to do after the crucifixion of Jesus. He showed himself physically to be there. He showed them the holes in his hands and in his side. John was able to touch him and see that his resurrection was literal and was real. John had heard him preach, had learned from him. He was present for the Sermon on the Mount. So he was intimately aware of the things that Jesus taught. Peter was also an apostle, wasn't he? Peter was the one who walked on water at the invitation of Jesus. We sang about that just a few moments ago in the song, Oceans. Peter walked out onto the water and did miraculous things because Jesus had beckoned him to come. Peter helped to distribute the loaves and the fishes to thousands of people. He multiplied that food so that all would have more than enough to eat. He was there at the crucifixion. He watched Jesus' suffering. And then later after his resurrection on the shores of the Sea of Galilee, Peter ate breakfast with Jesus as he was redeemed, as Jesus asked him, Peter, do you love me? And three times, Peter said, yes, Lord, you know that I love you. And Jesus instructed him, he delegated him, feed my sheep, tend to my lambs. So John was an apostle, Peter was an apostle, Paul was also an apostle, but in a slightly different way. He was not one of the 12 disciples. He did not follow along with them, learning directly from Jesus, witnessing His miraculous signs. And without a doubt, if you've read many of Paul's letters, you'll realize that Paul faced opposition from many people throughout the places where he had planted churches. Many people who questioned his credentials as an outsider. They weren't so sure they could trust the word of this Paul who didn't even walk with Jesus in his earthly ministry. To some, Paul was a kind of a counterfeit. He was sort of a half-blood apostle. Lots of men had come along after Jesus and had served as deacons and missionaries or leaders in the church, but they were not apostles. Why did Paul get to be an apostle? What made Paul one of these special men if he had not walked the earth with Jesus Christ? Well, Paul answers that in verse 1 of Galatians chapter 1. Paul describes himself as an apostle, not from men nor through man. but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him up from the dead. You see, Paul was not converted by strong preaching. An evangelist did not lead Paul out of his sin and into the light of God. He was not converted by missionaries. He was given the gospel directly by revelation from Jesus Christ. The resurrected Jesus delivered it to Paul in a supernatural way. And so we're going to rewind a little bit here. This is roughly 54 AD. We're going to go back to about seven years after Jesus died on the cross. The church is still in its formational stages. It's infancy, and we're going to read in Acts about the conversion of the apostle Paul. At the time when John and Peter and the other apostles were beginning to preach the gospel and witnessing to others as God added to the church in miraculous ways and that nucleus of believers began to grow and expand, Paul was focused on a different mission altogether. He wasn't called Paul very often back then. He went by the name Saul. He began to use the name Paul more frequently once he began to minister to the Gentile people later on in his life. So let's turn to Acts chapter 8 for a moment. Here we see that before Jesus called Paul to be an apostle, Saul was headed in the opposite direction. Before he trusted Jesus Christ, Saul was dedicated to the eradication of the followers of Jesus Christ. Do you remember when we spoke a little while ago about the first deacons? We went back to Acts chapter 6 and we learned that the church was growing rapidly and there were many demands on the ministers at that time. The elders were becoming overwhelmed. They were supposed to focus on the teaching of the Word and the prayers that needed to be lifted up for the congregations, but they were so trapped with the meeting the needs of the people that many people were being overlooked. And so they decided as a group of men that the right thing to do was appoint some special servant leaders, deacons. And seven men were appointed to this task. Stephen was one of these men. Stephen was a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, one of the first of the seven deacons to serve in the early church. And do you remember that shortly after his appointment as a deacon, he served for some time, and then he was seized by some Jewish leaders. These men came from various synagogues, and they brought Stephen to trial for the things that the Christians had been preaching. Though Stephen was not an elder, Stephen knew the gospel. He was a man of faith, and he boldly took the opportunity to proclaim that gospel to these influential Jewish men, many of whom were Pharisees. I shared with you how that courageous sermon was the last sermon that Stephen would ever preach here on earth. Because after he testified to the reality of Jesus Christ, and after he proclaimed before those men that he truly was the Son of God, those Pharisees, those leaders of the synagogues, dragged him out of the city, and they stoned him to death. At the end of Acts chapter 8, as Luke records, or rather at the end of Acts chapter 7, as Luke records Stephen's martyrdom, we get our first mention of Saul in the book of Acts. Verse 58 says, and then they cast Stephen out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul. So Saul was present when Stephen preached that amazing sermon. Saul was present when with his last dying breath, Stephen prayed to God the Father and asked that he would have mercy on these men who were putting him to death because they didn't realize the gravity of what they were doing. We don't know exactly the role he played in the execution of Stephen. But those men who would have taken up stones against him would have wanted to take off their outer garments so that they would be more free to attack him violently. And they laid their garments at the feet of Saul. It's quite likely that he was either organizing this execution or he was a part and parcel of it. And as the book of Acts goes on in chapter 8, it describes how this young man Saul, this Pharisee, began to ravage the church of Jesus Christ, arresting whatever men and women that he could find who claimed to belong to Jesus. Then in Acts chapter 9, starting with verse 1, it says, But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and he asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem." First of all, what is the Way? The Way is the first title that was used to describe these men and women who followed after Jesus Christ. Before they were called Christians, that was a title given to them by the Roman authorities as followers of Christ. Before they were called Christians, they were actually called the Way. And so Saul is seeking to get papers. He wants authorization by the synagogues, specifically in Damascus, to arrest anyone who identifies themselves with Jesus Christ. He wants to be able to put them in jail, seize their property if necessary. These papers might have even given him authority to put them to death. Saul was a promising young Pharisee, almost 30 years of age. Perhaps even a member of the Sanhedrin, which was a very influential council of 70 individuals who governed over Jerusalem under the watchful eye of Rome. They were allowed by Rome to keep the Mosaic law in their borders, and they could enact justice and render verdicts against people. If Paul was not part of the Sanhedrin, he was likely gunning for a position in that council. He was convinced that the Way, these followers of Jesus, were a crazy, heretical subgroup that threatened to defile Israel and divide the Holy Nation. And so he used what authority he had to try to put an end to the Way. This was the very task he was involved with when his life was interrupted by Jesus. Now remember, by this time, Jesus has been crucified. He has died on the cross for sin. And though the Pharisees didn't believe that it was so, Jesus had risen from the grave, and after showing himself to hundreds of people, he ascended to return to heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father. Saul thought this was all a conspiracy and a threat to the Jewish religion. He didn't believe that Jesus had died and risen again. He knew that Jesus had died, but he was not convinced that he was anything more than a radical desire to draw attention to himself. Many people over the years had claimed to be the Messiah, and they had died and stayed dead. And so Saul was convinced that that was Jesus' story. He was just another man who had dreamed about being the chosen one spoken of in scripture, but he had no belief that this was actually the one that was sent by God. Verse three in chapter nine says, Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven shone around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, who are you, Lord? And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Saul thought that he knew Jesus. This is one of the greatest threats to the gospel. We see this throughout the world today. People who think they know who Jesus is, but they have not learned Him as He has revealed Himself in Scripture. People who think that Jesus was a good man or a prophet or perhaps a revolutionary or a social justice worker, but they do not realize that He was Emmanuel, God in the flesh, that He had come to this planet for the express purpose of living his life perfectly so that he would be free from sin and qualified to give his perfect spotless life as a sacrifice for all who would put trust in him. There are so many ways that the gospel can be twisted and set astray. And unfortunately, Saul, who thought he knew Jesus Christ, did not actually know him. We sang a few minutes ago, open up my eyes to the things unseen. if we are to know Jesus Christ, if we are to come to true faith in Him, it's gonna take more than our intellectual study. It's gonna take more than us looking at the facts and figures. It's gonna take the Holy Spirit taking away the blindness that we were born with, this sinful nature that every human being possesses keeps us from truly knowing God unless He revealed the truth to us. And so this is exactly what is happening to Saul, a man of great intellectual power, a man of great intelligence, who thought he had figured out Jesus, but in reality was wrong about who Jesus really was. Saul was suddenly experiencing a crisis of his own. You might remember back in the Gospels, when the 12 disciples are gathered to Jesus and he asks them a simple question, a very important question, he says, who do the people say that I am? And the disciples respond to him and they say, well, some people say that you're Elijah, come back from the dead. Other people say that you're John the Baptist, though he's been beheaded, that God has brought him back to life and now John the Baptist is doing ministry through you. Other people think that you're one of the other prophets or maybe Moses. And he says, well, who do you say that I am? And those disciples had to declare, they had to confess before Jesus what they thought of him. And Peter spoke on their behalf and said, truly, you're the son of God. He made the good confession. And Jesus responds and say, blessed are you, Peter, for this you did not find on your own. You could not have come to this conclusion unless the Father had revealed it to you. Saul, is being asked essentially the same question. Who do you say that I am, Saul? You have persecuted my people. You have pushed against me. You do not believe that I came to rid the world of sin. You believe that I'm a false prophet. Who do you say that I am? And Saul's question, or Saul's answer to that question had to begin to change. His answer in his heart, the answer that he thought he knew was, well, Jesus is a fraud. Jesus is an imposter. He's a blasphemer. But Jesus had now appeared to him personally. He had seen him with his own eyes. And all that Saul thought he knew about Jesus had come crumbling down. Saul was wrong. He was dangerously wrong. And he must reconsider everything. Can you imagine the horror racing through this young man's heart? as the very God that he worshipped, the God he thought he was defending by persecuting this radical group of followers of Jesus, now appears to Saul and makes it clear just how wrong he had been. I have to think that Saul suddenly has the face of Stephen in his mind as he realizes how wrong he was. that he thinks about that man who in grace and with mercy and love had preached the truth to him and had prayed for men like him as the final stones crushed him to death. I imagine he thought of the names of the men and the women that he had imprisoned because they were blasphemers in his eyes. How devastated he must be to realize in that moment that his wrong view of Jesus had affected so many people. But here was Jesus himself, clearly alive, clearly risen from the dead, declaring that Saul had been fighting against the very will of God by persecuting the early church. And in persecuting them, Saul had been persecuting God's own son, Jesus Christ. In the next several verses, Jesus begins to assert his authority over Saul. He speaks instructions to the man, and then Saul gets a taste of the power behind those commands. Look at verse 6 of Acts 9. Notice that Jesus doesn't give him a long list of things that are going to happen. He doesn't line out an itinerary. He gives him one step, and he says, you follow that step, and I'll continue to give you more. I will continue to reveal as you continue to walk in faith. you will be told what to do. Verse 7, The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one. Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And for three days he was without sight, and he neither ate nor drank. Saul was not alone when he experienced this miraculous revelation, but his traveling companions we see in these verses are not having quite the same experience that Saul is having. They hear a voice crying out. They hear the words that it is saying, but they cannot see the vision of Jesus. The encounter is a very personal encounter between the man who persecuted Jesus and the one whom he persecuted. When Saul rose from the ground, and started to head to the city, something had changed in him. This man who prided himself on seeing what others could not see, this Pharisee who believed himself to be enlightened and undeceived by the upstart sect that they called the way, he was now himself physically blind. He could open his eyes, but he could see nothing. His eyes were no longer working. Saul, who was a leader of other men, was himself forced to take the hands of the people who were with him. His companions had to lead him on to their destination, Damascus. And thus begins this new incredible journey that God had planned for this unusual apostle. God would rewrite all of what Saul thought he knew about Jesus Christ. Eventually, God restored Saul's sight. Eventually, God appointed him to be an apostle, an evangelist, a planter of churches, an advocate of the gospel, a bold preacher to passionately represent the truth that he had learned to all who would listen to him. Establishing doctrine, protecting the truth, and serving Jesus as a delegated witness to that truth. Paul was an apostle. but not by men and not through man, but by Jesus himself. Let me ask you some questions. Did Paul seek this position? No. He was on a mission of his own when he was interrupted by Jesus Christ. He didn't seek to become an apostle. He didn't even seek to become a follower of Jesus. Jesus, in a sense, gave him no choice. He came before him and caused him to go blind and said, follow after me. Saul had the sense to say yes and got up off his feet and did what he was told, but he didn't seek out that salvation. Did Paul do anything at all to earn his place as an apostle? Absolutely not! He did quite the contrary. He did everything in his power to not be considered for the position of apostle. He persecuted the early church. He put men to death for believing in Jesus, and he put many others in prison. This was the last person in the world that you would imagine God might make an apostle, a witness to his truth, a delegated official to represent him in this world. So Paul here at the beginning of Galatians defends his credentials, but not because he thinks of himself as somehow some super apostle, not that he thinks of himself as the definitive last word with truth. He's not trying to come across as a super Christian, nor does he desire to pull rank among the other apostles. See that after he describes himself as an apostle, back in Galatians chapter 1 and verse 2, he connects himself with others. He says, Paul, an apostle, and all the brothers who are with me to the churches of Galatia. So he identifies himself with these other apostles who are doing the same kind of work that he is doing. He doesn't put himself above them. He identifies himself with them. The gospel that they preach, the gospel that they stand for courageously, is the same gospel that he's willing to defend to the end. He is not a lone ranger. He is not all by himself. Paul is one of many whom God has appointed to this holy work. Just as Paul is writing too many churches, he also writes on behalf of many believers. He represents the other disciples, the other apostles, the other missionaries who are standing up for the good work of the gospel. Now Paul desires that the Galatians will trust what he has to say, but not because he himself is anything special, but because the author of salvation, Jesus Christ the Lord, is the one who delegated Paul and gave him this message to preach. Jesus is the one who assigned him his marching orders. He is the one who saved Paul by grace from his rebellion, and it is Jesus who defines the true gospel. After introducing himself in the first two verses of Galatians chapter one, verses three through five constitute the formal greeting that Paul typically included in some shape or form in all of his letters. Now this particular greeting is different in one key way. I'm gonna make you wait till next week before I share that with you. But this is his formal greeting where he addresses the church and asks them for a chance to speak with him. Because he's such a shepherd at heart, Paul's careful to tie some very important concepts into this greeting. He doesn't just fill time with cliches or small talk. He unwraps some very key features of the gospel, even here in this greeting, so that the readers will have no question that he's not buying into this new version of the gospel that has begun to infiltrate the church in that region. He says in verse 3, 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. This snapshot of the Gospel sets the foundation for some key points that Paul is going to address during the course of this letter to the Galatians. Grace and peace are clearly two things that Paul desires for the churches of Galatia. Just as he desired this for his own Jewish countrymen, just as he desired it for every person he came into contact with, be they Gentile or Jew, regardless of their race or gender, regardless of their economic status, this is what he desired for them, grace and peace. These are the things that we need, church. They should be the two things that we are striving for. But as Paul will make crystal clear, the only way we can truly experience these things is to have Jesus provide them for us. And this is where I need to share with you the important problem with false gospel that so threatened the health of this group of early churches. The false gospel that Paul is seeking to fight against in the book of Galatians said this, False gospel said, yes, of course, you need Jesus to be saved. He is the one who dies as a sacrifice for our sins. Because of him, you can have your sins washed away. And that's something that you absolutely need. But there's something else that you absolutely need. You also need to keep the law. You need faith in Jesus, but you also need to prove that you are worthy of His grace by following the commandments that Moses gave to the chosen people. You need to be circumcised. You need to observe the temple ordinances. You need to maintain the dietary laws. In order to be a good Christian, you have to also be a good Jew. That was the slightly modified gospel that was beginning to infiltrate the churches in the region of Galatia. men had added to Jesus' salvation, saying, you need Jesus, but you also need works. You also need to prove by your good deeds that you are worthy of this gospel of grace. Here is the deadly poison that Paul is so passionate about protecting his brothers and sisters from. The false gospel that was being presented in Galatia was a threat to the very grace and peace that Paul says he desires for that church, because it undermines the premise of grace itself. What is grace anyway? What does grace mean? Grace is a gift that we don't deserve. Grace is a beautiful thing that someone gives to someone who has done nothing to earn it or merit it. When Jesus went and died on the cross for our sins, he was giving us grace. He was blessing us with a way out of our sin, even though we deserve in every way, shape, or form to pay the penalty for the sins we've committed ourselves. We cannot get true peace from our own efforts, friends. For our own efforts must be ever-changing to meet the needs of the moment. How do we know that the next wave of challenges that we run into in our lives will prove to be too much for us? How do we know whether that tragedy that we narrowly avoided last time won't catch up with us this next time, and then suddenly we won't be strong enough to stand in the faith and to resist temptation and to do all the right things all the time? We cannot have peace, friends, if our standing with God is dependent on anything besides the cross of Jesus Christ and His holy work that He did there. If it's dependent on Jesus and it's dependent on our ability to please God and to do the right things, then we will fail. I am a believer in Jesus Christ. I have personally trusted in Him to be my Savior, to wash my sins away. He did that, not only for the sins that I had committed before, but the sins that I will one day commit. He paid the price for those things. If I had to get the forgiveness of Jesus, and then from that point on, live rightly, I'd be a lost man today. Because I sin probably daily. I don't want to sin, I don't desire to do the things that God doesn't desire me to do, but because I am a man with a weak heart, because I do not know the things that God knows, because I am sometimes deceivable, I fall back into patterns that I know I have no business living out. So if my peace is based on me doing the right thing, I can't actually have peace. Because even if I do the right things for a while, I know deep down in the back of my mind that I will eventually fail again. That I will fall short of the glory of God. How can I have peace? I can have peace by knowing that my salvation rests not in my faith, but in the grace of Jesus Christ. His powerful work, His sacrifice is the one thing that keeps me out of hell, that keeps me out of condemnation. Verse 4 in Galatians 1 says, "...who gave Himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age." Paul is truly a man of the gospel. He can hardly write a sentence without bringing us back to the source of his peace and hope. We experience peace when we rest upon the deliverance that we have thanks to Jesus. He gave himself for our sins and in doing so delivered us from this present evil age. Fear, anxiety, failure are all defining characteristics of the landscape of this present evil age. but we can be set free from that through the free gift of life that Jesus Christ gives to us. That, friends, is real grace. And this happens, according to verses four and five, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever, amen. The will of our God and Father plays an incredibly important role in all of this. Not only does this encroaching, works-style salvation threaten to rob the Galatians of peace and grace, it threatens to rob glory from God because it puts emphasis on the will and the ability of man instead of putting it on the will and the ability of God. If a man is saved by the good things that he does, even if it's just a small part of his salvation, then he in some way deserves a bit of the glory from the Lord for his redemption. His obedience, his law keeping, his merit has afforded him glory. When in reality, we come to the Lord Jesus Christ with nothing to give to him except our sin, except our brokenness. Paul desires for God to have all of the glory. And so He will stand against this heresy, this wrong teaching that is beginning to threaten His brothers and sisters in that region. Our view of the cross and our view of salvation, how it was purchased for us there on Calvary, will have a drastic impact on how we view God Himself. Does God deserve every bit of the glory for our redemption? Absolutely. And Paul will fight hard to make sure that God's glory isn't polluted or misappropriated to these congregations in the region of Galatia. So as we progress through this letter, friends, keep in mind that Paul defends the gospel to secure our peace. He wants us to have security in the Lord. He wants us to be at ease with Him, knowing that He has paid the price for us. He does it to defend true grace, to help us to understand that grace is a free gift, and not a free gift with strings attached. And He does it to ensure that all the glory belongs to God Himself and not to man. I'm excited, friends, for what we will learn together in our journey through this book of Galatians.