I'm going to read the first five verses and look at just a few things in these verses tonight. 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 this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. We'll look at a few things in those verses tonight, and then we'll depart. Well, you know, a lot of people, whenever they communicate, have a lot of different styles and different ways they communicate. Sometimes, you ever had someone talking to you, and when they're talking to you, You felt like they were kind of beating around the bush and that there was something that they were wanting to say, but they were not saying it yet. Or there was something that they were moving towards saying, but they were being very reluctant or very careful to ever get around to the particular point that you felt like they were trying to make. We all knew that, in a sense, because most of us, We make small talk, don't we? We'll meet people and we'll make small talk. Ruth says that I can talk to anybody. We'll be out on a trip and I'll meet a stranger and I'll begin to talk to them. And I found out people like to talk about themselves. So if I ask them something about themselves, they're all in. They're like, well, where are you from? Or what brought you here? And you begin to open up a conversation. But we all know what it is to try to ease into a particular subject. Maybe something that we don't know how well they'll receive it, or we're afraid that they might reject it. So we just kind of maybe fly around the airport without landing on the runway for a period of time because we're trying to kind of ease into the particular subject that we are about to broach with them. Whenever you read the letters that Paul wrote to the churches in the New Testament, you find out that many times he was very abrupt, wasn't he? He was very plain. He didn't ease into anything. I find it interesting that in this letter, and it is interesting to me that many of the letters in the New Testament were written to correct problems, weren't they? We've been seeing that as we've been working our way through 1 Corinthians. One section of the letter addresses one particular issue and then you'll move to another section of the letter where he's addressing another particular issue. In a way, it's comforting to me because it makes me realize that the early churches were not perfect churches, right? It makes me realize that, you know, they were true churches. He doesn't accuse them of not being real believers or real churches, but he addresses the problems and the things in which they were in error in those churches. But he never seems to accuse them of not being a church and not being, you know, genuine believers, even though they had many problems and they had Drifted in certain aspects, but whenever Paul would address a problem. He was he was very forthright He was very honest. He doesn't like beat around the bush. He doesn't he's not fearful of speaking the truth like many modern preachers, you know many It kills me to see a preacher apologize for the truth. You know, he gets up and it's like, I'm going to say this, but before I say it, I don't want anybody to be upset or anybody to be, it's like, he's scared to say it. And I don't think we should be unloving. I don't think we should be unwise. And I don't think we should be unkind, but we shouldn't apologize for what God has said. We shouldn't apologize for what God has spoken and what God has Revealed, of course, there's a right way and a wrong way to do it, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do it because we're too afraid or too cowardly to do it. And when you read the epistles in the New Testament, you discover that Paul was very honest, very forthright. He did not like beat around the bush. He didn't say something without ever really saying it. He would say it. You might not like what he said, but he would say it clearly and he would say it courageously. and he was saying in a way that could be understood. Whenever you look at Galatians, you realize he's writing about a problem, an error, a real problem, a serious problem. He doesn't take long to get into the problem. He starts addressing it in verse 6 of chapter 1. The problem is that he's fearful that they are, you know, turning away from the gospel. that they are accepting a distorted gospel, a perverted gospel, a gospel when you read the letter you discover which would be a false gospel, which would be a mixture of works and grace because there were some who were trying to teach the churches of Galatia that you're not saved by grace alone, through faith alone in Christ alone, you've also got to adopt kind of a Jewish lifestyle and be circumcised. And there's one thing you can always be sure of. Whenever works enters into the equation, grace goes out the window. I mean, it's not like, well, it's kind of grace and it's kind of works and it's kind of a good mix. Now, whenever works comes in, I'm gonna tell you, grace is immediately perverted and immediately it goes out the window. And the same person that would never stand up and say, I believe you're saved by works, might out of the other side of their mouth say, well, you're not really saved by works, but there are some works you've got to do. And immediately when that happens, what they can't seem to understand is that the receiving of God's grace has nothing to do with our works or our performance or our effort, but to really receive the grace of God will change us. And when it changes us, the Bible said that we are God's workmanship in Christ created unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should walk in those good works. In other words, works have nothing to do with our salvation, but our salvation has everything to do with the way we live our lives after having received the grace of God. Paul doesn't kinda ease into the subject in Galatians. He's not writing here to a church, he's writing to some churches. The churches of Galatia in verse two. And apparently this, he's fearful that this error is beginning to creep into these churches. He's probably had reports given to him. He may have spoken or written to receive letters from some of the people in the churches of Galatia. So because he loves the gospel so much and because he loves Christ so much, and because he loves the church so much, he writes to try to pull them back from the brink of accepting a false gospel. He said this different gospel in verse 5 is no gospel at all in verse 7. The people that are wanting to distort the gospel, he said, they're troubling you. And then he pronounces a curse upon anybody that would preach any gospel other than the gospel that he had preached to them, which was the gospel of free grace. What I want to do is I want to look at the introduction or the greeting in the first five verses. In particular, I want to look at verse four and verse five. Years ago, Because for years when I traveled going to the prisons, I got to listen to Alistair Begg on the radio. I still love to hear Alistair Begg preach. And not long, some point after I came to serve this church, we heard that Alistair Begg was going to be in Louisville at the seminary, the Southern Seminary. So me and Daniel went up to hear him because we thought that's as close as we'll ever get to get to hear him. So we drove up there and it was great. I mean, he preached two messages, two of the most powerful messages. I've ever heard. Ray Woody was sitting right over here beside me. He was there, if you know Brother Ray. But one of the things I remember about that day is that before he preached, Brother Hersher York had the president of the seminary, Al Mohler, get up and just make a few comments. And he just said a few things about preaching before they turned it over to Brother Alistair to preach. And I remember as he was talking, I'm thinking, he's saying more by accident than I can say on purpose. You know, he's like just, he was just making, he was just up there just kind of talking, you know, but he was, some of the things he said were so rich. Some of the things he said were so full and so impactful that I thought, man, he says more by accident than a lot of us can say on purpose. He says more without trying than most of us can say with trying. And I say that for this reason. You know, a lot of people would look at the first five verses, which is the greeting that Paul would usually affix to the beginning of a letter, and they would go, well, that's just a greeting. You know, that's just kind of the beginning. That's kind of his opening shot. But when you read it, you discover there's so much wrapped up in just a greeting. This coming Lord's Day morning, Lord willing, we're gonna continue in 1 Corinthians chapter 15. As I looked at the verses, I was aiming on taking a large section of verses this coming Sunday morning, but as I've studied them, I realized I can only do three. And the reason I can only do three is because there's so much in those three verses, and Paul would just, would write something, and the Holy Spirit leading him and directing him, and there would be so much truth wrapped up in such short, small statements that if you're gonna, you would just, you feel like you would just be not doing the text justice to go through 10 verses, when these three verses are so full of so much important truth. And even in know these greetings, have you ever read a portion of scripture, maybe you were tired and as you were reading it, you were thinking, man, there's really nothing here. You wouldn't say that because that would be irreverent, but maybe you're thinking there's really nothing here, but at some later point, you discovered that there was a whole lot more there than you realized. For instance, that genealogy, the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew chapter one, you just kind of, well, you read it and some people read it, but if you read it and think about it, there's a whole lot in that genealogy. For instance, that genealogy will tell you that there was a harlot in the family lineage of the Lord Jesus Christ. And it tells you about a Moabite, Ruth, in the family lineage of Jesus Christ. And, you know, that genealogy reminds me that there's no sinner that grace can't claim. And there's no situation that grace can't conquer. And there's so much in the Scriptures And one of the things I like about expository preaching is it forces me to slow down and see sometimes, and I'm often surprised by the text because you'll come to a text, maybe it's a text you're familiar with, but when you spend a week with that text, you begin to see it, hopefully, in a more full and rich way. So what I wanna do is I wanna look at this greeting, not the first part of it, but the last part of it, And think about some of the things, as Paul begins his letter to the churches of Galatia, think about some of the things that he says regarding our salvation. When I was a boy, when I was a boy in church, I heard a lot about salvation and people being saved and people being unsaved. And the question was, are you saved? And there was always talk about salvation, but it wasn't until after I, was converted. And I began to go to the scriptures that I began to realize what an amazing thing it is to be saved, you know, to be God's child, to be forgiven, to be adopted, to be regenerated, to be born again. So I think you can see just some of the amazing elements of our salvation just in what Paul says in verse three to five. Now, that common greeting that he always, you know, nearly would always use, verse three, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Then he begins to talk about who Christ is and what he has done for us. The first thing he says is that he gave himself for our sins. Now this is the truth of substitution. And we've talked about this because in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, at the beginning of the chapter, when Paul says he's going to declare again to them the gospel, the first thing he says when he is defining and declaring the gospel is that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures. It's the doctrine of substitution. Now, one of the great, great texts in the Bible on substitution is the Old Testament prophecy of Isaiah in chapter 53, where it says, he was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement that brought us peace was laid upon him and by his stripes. we are healed. That's one of the finest texts, one of the most important texts in all of the Word of God regarding the doctrine of substitution. Now the doctrine of substitution is basically this, that the sinless perfect Son of God took the sin of His people upon Himself. And that he became, according to the text of scripture, sin for us, even though he knew no sin. And the father poured out his holy wrath for our sin upon the person of his own dear son in our stead and in our place. And that he paid our debt. Now I think that a lot of people, when they think about salvation, They think that God forgives merely out of sympathy. You know, you come to God, you're emotional, and you ask God to forgive you, and that God forgives just out of sympathy, that he's moved to compassion, and he is a God of compassion, he is a God of love. And a lot of people think that God forgives a sinner merely because he's good, he's kind, he's loving, he's merciful, and he's moved to pity and he's moved to compassion. Now all of those things that I just described, you can find many texts in scripture that declare that God is like that, right? I mean, God is a God of pity, God is a God of mercy, compassion. love, patience, long-suffering, forgiveness, all those different things. But do you know that if God forgave on that basis, he might be loving, he might be kind, he might be merciful, but you know what he would not be? He wouldn't be just. If a terrible, you've heard me say this, if a terrible crime is committed and the judge takes this guilty criminal And he says, I just can't find it in my heart to punish you. And he lets that criminal go free. You know what the judge is not? He's not just. He's not righteous. Because a great wrong has been done and that wrong has not been rectified. What happens at the cross of Calvary is that the love of God and the justice of God meet The love of God for sinners and the justice of God in punishing evil and punishing sin and punishing rebellion meet in the cross of Christ because the Father is, in the language of Romans 3, He is just because He punishes sin. but he's also the justifier of the ungodly because he puts our sin upon Christ, punishes it in the person of his own son so that in showing us mercy and forgiving us of our sin, and making us his children, he does not violate his holy character, his righteousness or his justice, but he also can show compassion and show love and do it without becoming unjust and unrighteous. That's the doctrine of substitution. In the language of this verse, verse four in Galatians one, it says that Jesus gave himself, his voluntary surrendering of himself to become a sacrifice and a substitute for sin. In the language of Romans, he became a propitiation, a sacrifice that turns away the wrath of God. In other words, he took our sin, the Bible says he bore our sin in his body on the tree, and he suffered in our place as a substitute and a sacrifice to remove or avert the wrath of God that should have fallen upon us, to avert that and remove that from us by taking our place on the cross of Calvary, and that satisfied divine justice. He came He lived and he died to deal with our sins. Now, if you went out on the streets of America today and said, what is wrong with people? It'd be a long time probably before you get the answer, sin. But that is what's wrong with us, right? Sin. I remember this. I probably shouldn't even tell this, but I basically have watched every Three Stooges episode a hundred times. And I remember one episode in particular that there was like two professors that were debating on whether the problem with men was their environment or whether it was hereditary. So they made this wager and one guy, he believed that he could educate Poor behavior out of people so in walks the three stooges and they go. Well, here's our perfect test case, you know so they educate them and refine them and you know, teach them how to behave and dress them up and You know after a period of time They're gonna be put to the test and they have this big gathering and get together and they're all dressed up. I think they're wearing tuxedos or whatever. And guess what happens with them? It devolves into a food fight. And chaos ensues, you know, because it was making the point that, you know, you can't educate, you can't educate that out of them. That's just the way they were. And that's kind of a debate among men. What's the problem with people? What's wrong with people? Why do people do the things they do? Why don't they do the things they ought to do? What's wrong with people? It's funny, we live in this world where we think we're so smart, but nobody seems to be able to figure out the answer to that, and the reason they can't figure out the answer to that is because the answer's found in a place that they don't want to acknowledge has the answer, and that's God's Word. I don't know of anything that gives a suitable answer to the question of what is wrong with human beings other than the scriptures. The scriptures reveal that men are fallen, that men are fallen, they're marred. They're marred because of Adam's transgression and because of our inheritance in Adam. We're not sinners because we sin. We sin because we're sinners. We inherited that. It's as natural as breathing to human beings. And you know that by raising your own children. You don't have to teach them to do wrong. It's natural to all of us to do wrong. The problem with man is their sin. The problem with man is there is a propensity in their heart against God. They don't love God. They don't want God. They don't desire God. They will not submit to God. They will not obey God. And they love darkness rather than light. And that's all human beings. Educated ones, uneducated ones, every race, every class, every people. on this earth, this big endless talk about communism and socialism in our society. And the root of that is that people think they can force a utopia. They think that they can, you know, control people and force a utopia. The only problem is, you know, you can't make people behave other than what they are. So no matter what kind of force you exert, you know what people do? They live selfishly. They manipulate the system. Me and Brian, I remember reading the book Animal Farm in school, and we were talking about it, and you had a copy, didn't you? And you brought me the copy of it. And man, it's just like, it's human nature. It's just human nature on display. Because we're all gonna be equal. The only problem is some people become more equal than other people. And that's just human nature. You can't fix that. The only thing that can change a human being is a new heart. And the only way a human being can have a new heart is through the gospel of Jesus Christ and the new birth. Jesus came to deal with our sins. And so what he says is Christ gave himself, he yielded up himself for our sins. He went to the cross, took our place, bore our guilt, paid our debt for our sins. And that's man's greatest problem. But notice what it said he done next. He did this to deliver us from the present evil age, from the present evil age. Now, most of you, like me, were raised on the King James Version there. It's this present evil world, present evil world. Of course, that raises a question. What is that in reference to? In what sense is this world evil? I mean, is the beauty of creation evil? No. Is the physical world and creation, is that evil? No. What's it talking about? Well, it's talking about the condition of the world because of man's sin and because of man's rebellion against God. What Christ did when he gave himself for our sins was to effect a deliverance to deliver us, to save us. And what he did was for us. It's good when you come across the word us in scripture to go, who is us? Who's it talking about? Well, you know, it was written to believers. It was written to believers in churches. He's talking to the Christian. He, it said, gave himself for our sins to effect a deliverance, a salvation for us. Now, he describes this deliverance by saying that he did this to deliver us from this present evil age or this present evil world. Now, that makes a point that this age or this world is what? Evil. I mean, it's evil. But why? Well, it wasn't always evil, right? It wasn't evil before Adam sinned. It was good because God made everything he made and he said, it's very good, you know. So it wasn't evil prior to the fall. So it had to have become evil after the fall. And if we believe our Bibles, and I know we do, there's coming a day when it will be made new and it will not be evil any longer, right? There's coming a day. But in between those two fixed points, one in the past and one in the future, the Bible says this is an evil age. Why? Well, according to scripture, it's under the curse of sin. According to scripture, it is ruled, at least in some limited sense, by the prince of the power of the air, who is a deceiver. That serpent, we're told, in Revelation 12. And the people in this world are described as children of wrath and children of disobedience. So this evil age, this evil world, this world system, this is what the Bible is talking about when it says love not the world. neither the things that are in the world. This evil age, this evil world system is under God's wrath, and it's under God's condemnation. It and everyone in it have an appointment with divine judgment. Every human being, it is appointed unto man, wants to die, and after this, the judgment. And Christ has delivered us from this present evil age. It doesn't mean, it's not saying that the Christian is delivered from living in a fallen world, because we do, don't we, right? I mean, you're affected by the sin of this world. You're touched by it. Every one of us have been touched by it. We suffer, we grow, we get sick, we age. We are broken by the failures and sins of our own failures and sins, but the failures and sins of people around us. Christ has not delivered us from being touched by the pain and sorrow and the perplexities of living in a fallen world, but he's delivered us from the judgment that will fall upon this world. He's delivered us from this world's, the wrath and the condemnation that rest upon this world. The world is passing away, but he that does the will of God will do what? Live forever. So we're not delivered in the sense that the world doesn't touch us or that we're not ever affected by the fallenness and the evil of the world, but he's delivered us in the sense that we do not have an appointment with divine wrath and divine judgment, and the world does. We're not going to be, we're not going, we're going to be, we're going to be delivered, it's not that we're not going to suffer in the world, but we are going to be delivered from the ruin, the complete ruin that awaits the world. when God pours out His wrath. Now, the third thing He says here, He gave Himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of our God and Father. Why did God do this? Because He willed to do it. He determined to do it. And that will included his people. I was reading one time A.W. Pink. He's one of my favorite writers. And I was reading him one time and boy, it got me fired up. He was so deep. Sometimes he's so deep I can't follow. But we talk about the love of God. And it may not mean anything to you, but it meant something to me the day I was reading it. But we talk about the love of God and we think about the love of God from eternity, that God knew us and loved us before the foundation of the world. But as I was reading that day, he made the point that God's will preceded his love. God did not just know of our coming existence and was moved to love us. He willed and determined to give us existence and to love us. His will is prior even to his love. His love is an expression of his will. Our salvation is because God sovereignly willed to save us. It was according to His will. Christ died for our sins to deliver us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Fathers because that's what God determined to do before He ever created the universe. God determined to rescue us, to redeem us, And He determined and willed all of the means by which He would accomplish that, including the cross, including the sending of the Holy Spirit to convict us and draw us, including the proclamation of the gospel and whatever human instrument He used to bring that gospel to you, to bring that gospel to bear upon your heart. God determined to do that before He ever created the universe. It was a will of God. It's sovereign grace. Free grace. Electing love. A love that we can't understand. A grace that we can't fathom. Because in our finite condition, we think of our salvation in the terms as if it began when we were saved. But it didn't begin when we were saved. It began in eternity, when God willed to save a people. You know, Calvinism is, Spurgeon said Calvinism is just the gospel. You know, but, My whole ministry, my whole life, I have been exposed to attacks upon Calvinism. And as of recently, I don't know why, I'm seeing a lot of them on the internet where people are attacking reform theology and And usually the attacks are rooted in a complete misunderstanding or a complete misrepresentation of what scripture teaches and what Calvinists proclaim and believe. But ultimately, what we believe is that salvation is all of the Lord. It's all Him. We didn't decide to be saved. We definitely don't deserve to be saved. We didn't come to Him. He came after us. We didn't seek Him. He sought us. And we definitely didn't do anything to approve ourselves to Him. Christ did that on our behalf. Salvation is of the Lord, and it's because God willed to save us. Listen, I promise you, and I'm not anything, but I promise you, in heaven, nobody's gonna be walking around going, let me tell you what I did to find Jesus. We're all gonna be going, I can't believe I'm here. I mean, it's all Him. Now notice the last little line, to whom be glory forever and ever, amen. Salvation, undeserved salvation is cause for God to receive glory and honor and praise. Eternal, never-ending praise. eternal and never ending honor and glory and worship. And that belongs only to God. Because God alone has done what he's done for us. And God alone deserves the credit for it. And God alone deserves the honor for it. And God alone deserves the praise for it. And that glory and praise will never end throughout eternity. Our presence, our Our being in the presence of God will be an eternal manifestation of the amazing goodness and grace of God. Because there will not be a single sinner there that deserve to be there. Not a single sinner there that deserve to be there. Salvation is cause for God to receive glory and honor and praise. And I think, and it's just my opinion, I think that one of the reasons And this is not trying to be ugly, but one of the reasons that what passes for worship in the modern church is so shallow is because we have such a low view of God and such a high view of ourselves. The highest compliment my preaching was ever paid was by an inmate in prison. I've been preaching up at Marion Adjustment for a long time. And when I would get there, they would be counting the inmates. And they would let me into the chapel, and when the inmates were counted and released, if they're all there, if they're not all there, then chaos ensues. But when they're all there, and they would release them, and the ones that wanted to come to church would come over. to the church, but there were some of them that, for whatever reason, were allowed to sit in the chapel, and they had a special deal where they could be there while the count was going on, they were accounted for. And I walked in there one night, and there was like four or five of them sitting around the table, and they were talking, and I just walked up and I said, They've been coming to the services, and they looked up at me and said, can we ask you a question? I said, well, of course. And he said, can anybody be saved that wants to be saved? I said, well, absolutely. Whosoever will. Let them come and take of the water of life freely. I said, anybody who wants to be saved can be saved. One of them looks up and he goes, but I know what you'd say next. I said, what would I say next? That no one would ever want to be saved unless God did something in their heart and brought them to himself. I said, that is equally as true. That's true as well. And he looked up at me and he said, you know what I like about your preaching? I said, I don't know, not too many people like too much about my preaching. He goes, when you preach, he said, God is big and man is small. I said, that's true. God is big. He's everything. And we're nothing. The only thing I contributed to my salvation was the sin I needed to be saved from. That's all. Let's pray. Lord, we love your Word. Thank you for these verses and the truth contained in them. If you tarry, I pray you'll meet with us here Sunday morning and Sunday night. And may Christ above all things be magnified. Amen.