and then gives doxology, which is praise to God. So we'll read this, Galatians chapter one, verses one to five. 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 brethren who are with him, to the churches of Galatia, Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. Well, as we come to these five verses, of Paul introducing himself to the Galatian churches. I want to first cover the general message and context of Galatians. When you read a letter, and particularly these early church epistles presented to us in the New Testament, there is always a context. Paul is not writing these for no reason whatsoever. There is always an occasion to an epistle, to a letter. These are not informal greetings and just some good teachings, good words that Paul brings to the churches. No, here Paul is seeking to address an issue that is amongst the Galatian churches. Galatians, as an epistle, is explosive. And it has had some of the most profound influences on the history of the church, of God's people, and in fact, of the whole world, out of all of the books in the Bible. That's a very big statement, but it really has been throughout church history, the epistle to the Galatians that has stirred up some of the biggest movements in the church. It was Paul's epistle to the Galatians, which led Martin Luther to his great moment of conversion. Luther's conversion through reading and understanding Paul's message in Galatians sparked the movement of the Reformation, which spread throughout Europe and throughout the world. The world was different after the Reformation to how it was before. And it was largely because of that man, Martin Luther, and the influence of this letter upon him. It's the very reason we are in a Protestant chapel in Derbyshire this morning. It is in part because of the influence of this epistle of Paul on Martin Luther, 1,500 years after its very writing. It has an enduring influence. The same goes for many of our spiritual forefathers. You may know of John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim's Progress. Pilgrim's Progress was, until very recently, the second most popular, most sold book in the English-speaking world. Did you know that? Pilgrim's Progress of Bunyan. is simply a gigantic work and people from all languages and nations have read that book. Well Bunyan was largely influenced and converted and spurred on through Galatians and through Martin Luther's commentary. You might know John Wesley. John Wesley, he was the revivalist preacher of the 18th century, one of the most important figures in English culture and society in that whole hundred year period. He was the founder of what are now known as the Methodists, the Methodist Church. Well, Wesley held the epistle to the Galatians in highest esteem. It had a profound personal influence on him. But I want to make the case this morning that the main reason for reading and enjoying and understanding, learning from this letter is actually because of the important place it had in the first century. Although it's good to know that people like Martin Luther and John Bunyan were so influenced by this epistle, yet its influence was of an even greater nature amongst the churches of Paul's day. It saw its greatest impact in its original writing. Paul's epistle to the Galatians actually presents to us the culmination, the peak of what was likely the greatest of all the doctrinal challenges that faced the first century church. So you have the church, Christ ascends into heaven, he's given this message to his disciples to go to the ends of the earth, and then churches are planted. And what is, in those early years, the biggest challenge? It is the challenge brought to us in Galatians. And to get a grasp of this, we have to understand the relationship of Judaism, of what at the time was called Second Temple Judaism, to those very early years of the church. The history of Judaism can be tracked out throughout the Old Testament. There was the building of the first temple, and then there was the building of the second temple. And after the second temple was built, up until it was broken in AD 70 and destroyed by the Romans, that whole period has what we call Second Temple Judaism. It was Jews who worshipped and lived in that culture of the Second Temple and its many ceremonies. The ways of life, or the lives that these Jews lived, were impacted in almost every way by their Jewish religion. When apostles such as Paul went and preached in places, people were converted and churches were planted, there were obviously Jewish converts. And they brought with them all of the baggage, you might say, of their Jewish religion. As infants, they were circumcised. and they were to follow the many ceremonial rules which would structure their lives. Paul often calls these, and we'll see this in Galatians, we heard earlier, he calls them works of the law. These are deeds to be done in accordance with the Jewish commands and ceremonies. They were to sustain your standing in the Jewish community. If you were to be a Jew, if you were to partake in their culture, their society, their community, you were to follow these ceremonies. It's what marked you as Jewish. And then, it also marked your standing before God. Ultimately, they believed they were the covenant people of the Lord, descendants of Abraham, and so these ceremonies were there that they might be identified as a joint people, and that they might together be under God, under a right relationship with Him. And when they were converted, there was this difficult question that faced them. What did they do with their Jewish identity, with their Jewish practices, and their Jewish ways of life? How does that relate to the church? What changes? What are merely those cultural things that can remain the same, that don't impact church life and the gospel? At the same time as these Jewish converts coming into the church, many Gentiles were converted as well from the opposite direction, and they were coming into the church. In the same churches, there were Jew and Gentile converts. Gentiles were largely pagan. They followed the religious ceremonies and ways of life stipulated by the Roman Empire, the Roman imperial regime. And throughout the Roman Empire, Jew and Gentile, they remained separate. There was no overlap of Jew and Gentile. Though all were under the Roman Empire, one were Roman pagans, the other were Jews living under Rome. They lived by, you might say, different principles. Their lives looked thoroughly different, and they had completely different philosophies. Just trying to unpick this, we need to see that this distinction between Jew and Gentile caused massive ruptures in the newly planted Christian churches. Some Jews, falling into their old religious inclinations, disassociated themselves from their Gentile brothers and sisters under the guise that the Gentiles had not first obeyed the Jewish ceremonies of God. I want to point us to the historical narrative of Acts because it actually just tells us what happens. Luke is an eminent historian. He's a brilliant explainer of what is going on in these early years of the church. Don't let anyone tell you that the Bible doesn't have accurate history. People measure many of the historical events at this time by the account of Luke in Acts. He tells us all about what is going on in these early years of the church. And in this brilliant account, we need to begin in Acts chapter 10. For in Acts 10, Peter is seemingly the first person to take the gospel directly to Gentile pagans. Peter takes the gospel to them and many are saved. And moving forward in chapters 13 and 14, Paul and Barnabas are then sent out as well, and more and more, a great number of Gentiles are added to the church. So we have Acts 1 to 9, many Jews being converted in Jerusalem and the surrounding regions. Then Acts 10, 13 and 14, there is a gigantic influx of Gentile converts to the church. However, there's this note between 10 and 13 in chapter 11 of kickback against the conversion of the Gentiles. After Peter is preached and people are saved in chapter 10, there is a group named the Circumcision Party that criticized Peter for eating with Gentiles. And you can read that in the opening verses of Acts chapter 11. It's an interesting back and forth between them and Peter. And ultimately, they step down. Peter is successful in dealing with their challenges. But although they do back off, we then see this whole issue come to a head in chapter 15. Men are said at the beginning of chapter 15 to have come from Judea, And they say, unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved. Right at the beginning of Acts 15, we see there is now a clear group who are in the churches who are saying, unless you are circumcised, unless you follow the Jewish ceremony of circumcision, you cannot be saved. In Acts 15, a council is then called because this is a gigantic issue in the church. And elders and churches are brought together along with the apostles to resolve the issue and to bring clarity. And clarity is brought wonderfully, not only by Paul, but by Peter himself in Acts 15, 11. we are given Peter's decisive testimony. Peter says, we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, just as they, that is the Gentiles, will. Peter is saying, we believe that salvation for Jew and Gentile is the same. There are no works of the law. It is by grace in Christ alone. And it is in this context of these early difficulties that we find Paul's epistle to the Galatians. It's difficult to tie down the precise dating of Galatians, but I think it's fairly easy to come up with a rough understanding of where it is in that story, in that narrative. Paul's epistle to the Galatians is written right in the middle of the controversy. It is before Acts chapter 15, and it is likely between Peter's evangelism to the Gentiles that we see in Acts 10, where Peter brings salvation to the Gentile converts. It is likely between that and the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. The Galatian churches had many of this circumcision party who wanted to introduce circumcision as necessary for salvation. They were in the Galatian churches. The Galatian churches had these groups among them. And notice from our reading in chapter two earlier, how widespread this teaching became, this Judaising of the gospel. For it did not only span across numerous of the newly planted churches, but also spread even among the apostles. Paul tells us, as we read in Galatians 2, that Barnabas, his co-worker, who was taking the Gospel to the Gentiles with him in Acts 13, 14, even Barnabas had become a hypocrite and had dissociated himself from the Gentile believers. Barnabas was withdrawing himself from Gentiles. because he feared the circumcision party. And even Peter, the great apostle, he withdrew himself from eating with the Gentile believers out of this same fear. You can see the apostles, even them, the foundations of the church, they were being swayed towards a direction that was adding works to the gospel. And is it not a grave thing when we see a pastor of a good church placate or humour false teaching? It really saddens us. It is major news for us in an evangelical church if someone is adding works to the message that they preach. And yet how much graver would it have been in these early days of the church's infancy, the baby steps of the new church, for the apostles, for them to placate such false teaching, to humour it, to be swayed towards it. In Paul's epistle to the Galatians then, we receive his urgent and momentous plea for the basic fact of the gospel. It is the basic fact that we are not saved by works of the law. by good works, but we are saved by grace and grace alone. Paul states this gospel in chapter two, verse 16. It's a wonderful section of the epistle. Knowing that a man is not declared righteous by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. Even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law. For by the works of the law, no flesh shall be justified. It is only faith in Jesus Christ which can justify human beings, which can, as we read at the beginning of that verse, declare us righteous. only Christ Jesus and His grace, not works of the law. And I think it's important for us then as we go into these introductory verses to get that context, because that is what Paul is seeking to address. Martin Luther has these wonderful words at the introduction to his commentary on Galatians. And he is speaking of justification by faith alone. He says, in my heart reigns this one article, faith in my dear Lord Jesus, the beginning, middle and end of whatever spiritual and divine thoughts I may have, whether by day or by night. He says that in Galatians, As we come to the opening verses and move throughout the epistle, we must remember that one article of faith is elevated above all others. It is that salvation is by faith in Christ alone. It is by grace. Therefore, to understand Galatians and its message is to understand the gospel, and it is to guard against the greatest opponent to the gospel. It is good works, religion. This is the context for our understanding of these early verses. And then I want to move us in, therefore, to verse one. Paul's greeting to the Galatians. Because he begins, and if you're taking notes, this is the first point, he begins with his own apostolic authority. Paul, an apostle. Three words in the English. Paul, an apostle. What is he saying when he speaks of himself as an apostle? Well, he's using the term apostolos, which literally means messenger or one sense. And here it's very easy to see what he's doing. From the very outset, he establishes his authority. But it is not authority that he has, it is authority from another. In the first few words here, Paul is establishing that he has a right to tell the Galatians how they are to conduct themselves in the church, but it is because he comes from another. To illustrate this, you might think of the great battles of human history. We're often taught at school, I wasn't taught it actually, but I know lots of other people who did learn this at school, they learnt about the great battle of Agincourt, that battle between the English and the French. I say the English, there were actually a lot of Welshmen involved in the battle of Agincourt. But it was the English and the French fighting against one another in this gigantic battle of 15th century medieval Europe. Well, in those battles, before they would come to the moment of the cavalry charge, there would be messengers sent. They would obviously have to know, when is the battle going to begin? How are we going to conduct this battle? There were lots of rules for knights and for military leaders to follow. But it was not just anyone who had authority to walk over to the other side, to the 15,000 soldiers, and speak to their military leader or king and tell them, the battle's starting at this time. We're going to conduct it by these principles. And once we've won or lost the battle, this is the end result. No peasant could do that. A French wine merchant, though he may have made great wine, did not have the right to go and determine when the battle, or upon what principles, the battle would be fought. No, it was messengers who would be sent, and they had authority because of the one that sent them. So in the Battle of Agicourt, it was the victorious Henry V who would send his messengers to the other side. to determine these details. Those messengers had authority, not because they were great in and of themselves, but because the one that sent them was great. Henry was King of England. He was commander of the 6,000 to 8,000 men of the English forces. He had authority. And in a similar vein, Paul is beginning this letter by saying, I am a messenger of one with authority. He goes on to explain this. He says, not from men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father. He gives much more detail here, in case there was any ambiguity about his apostolic authority. He says he is a messenger not from man nor through man. What does he mean by this? He's driving two slightly different aspects of authority. Not from man touches on the source or appointment of his authority. He does not derive his apostolic authority from a mere man. It is not the source of his authority. But he says, nor through man. And that doesn't touch on the source, but instead the agency of his authority. He is not enabled by a mere man. So Paul has authority not because his authoritative source is a man, nor because the one with authority gives him the power of a man, but instead, his source and power comes from God the Father and Jesus Christ. When these two things are put together, he is emphatically denying that any of his authority comes from man. His authority is not of humanity in any way. There is nothing of men in Paul's authority, but there is everything of Christ and God the Father. Christ and God the Father here make up the sum total of Paul's authority. He is a sent messenger from them. Like when you think about the messenger sent to deliver an important message in the battle. So Paul is sent by God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. He comes in the greatest authority, the creator of the world. And as he notes here, interestingly, the one who is risen from the dead. The credentials of God the Father are manifest in and of themselves, in that God created all things. There is none on his level of power and authority. And Paul comes with his authority. But in case the Galatian churches denied the authority of Christ Jesus, Paul reminds them, he has risen from the dead. Paul an apostle not from man nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead. Paul comes on authority of a raised, resurrected Saviour and Lord. You might ask, why begin an epistle in the way that Paul has? Often Paul will begin, Paul an apostle, and then he'll go forward into his greeting. But why stress authority so much? Well, I think it's because of the crucial matters of the letter. It is the gospel that is at stake in Galatians. In that context, Paul must express that he is from the highest order of authority. He is a messenger from the one who has authority to speak on these things. I think it's also because Paul is much stronger in this epistle than he is in many others. We see him saying in verses eight and nine of chapter one, repeatedly, let him be accursed if he preaches any other gospel. Paul is using extremely strong language here. And maybe he wants to emphasise at the beginning that if at any point throughout the letter they think, Paul, this is a bit strong, he comes with a message from God. It is God's message that Paul brings. He comes on authority of God the Father and the risen Lord Jesus Christ. As we'll see throughout the letter and as we saw a little in chapter two, there were men of this circumcision party who were coming to the Galatian churches and they were claiming to have authority on matters of salvation. They were saying, you must be circumcised if you are to be saved. Well, in light of that, Paul establishes that I do not come with a manly authority like these other men. I come with the authority of God the Father and the risen Jesus Christ. Paul comes with the greatest authority because the one who sent him is the greatest of beings. And in short application of this first point about Paul's establishment of authority, I want to ask this question. As we see the Galatians being swayed by men of no authority, being swayed away from the authoritative apostolic teaching that they received when they were initially planted as a church, As we see the need of Paul to repeatedly emphasise his authority from God, how easily are we, like the Galatians, swayed by men or ideas of merely human origin? The Galatians were in the mess that they were facing here because they listened to people of merely human authority. but they did not rightly heed the ones, the apostles, of divine high authority. How highly do we regard the word of the Lord in contrast to the whimsical passing ideas of mere men. We must have a high regard for the word of the Lord. We must have a high regard for the preaching of the word. We must place that as our primary authority and not the words and wisdom of men. So firstly, Paul's authority in verse one, but secondly, in verses two and three, his greeting to the churches. Paul goes on to bring greeting to the Galatian churches, and he begins this by interestingly noting that there are brethren who are with him. Paul, after saying that he's an apostle, and not of men, but from God, he says, and all the brethren who are with me. He writes this letter with others. There are some possible options for who these were. It may have been his co-workers, such as Barnabas or Luke, maybe Sosthenes or Timothy. We do not know for sure who these people might have been. But they were those who were with Paul, other Christians, who shared in Paul's concerns for the churches in Galatia. Here, there is a double plural, if you might put it that way. Paul is writing with all the brethren who are with him, and he is writing to the churches of Galatia. Most of Paul's epistles are written to individual churches or individual believers, but this is to the churches in a large region. Here, Paul is expressing that there are believers with him who share in his concern, adding weight to his concern, that the Galatians are falling away from the gospel. It shows Paul's primary attention for the churches. Do you notice that? If we were to follow an Anglican or a Presbyterian view of church government, which says that the people with authority are the elders, or in the Church of England, the bishops and the priests, then it would seem strange here for Paul to address his letter to the churches of Galatia. They are his primary focus. It is the churches and not the bishops. It is the churches and not even the elders. The churches are who Paul cares for. There is something of an association here. For it is Paul and all the brethren who are with him, the many believers alongside him, writing to these several churches. And what is this province of Galatia? Well, here it seems he is referring to Galatia, which was a Roman province in 1st century Asia Minor. Now, Asia Minor is what we now see as modern day Turkey. And like other Roman provinces, it was under the imperial rule of Rome. But it had several different communities and currents running throughout. The culture was not monolithic. Although all people were under Roman rule, yet not all people lived in the same way. This was partly due to its Gallic or Celtic background. You'll notice that Galatia speaks of the Gallic peoples. That's actually the root of it. And the Gallic peoples or the Celts, they were united by a fairly similar language. But they had many diverse cultural practices, religious practices. And so it's easy to see why in this context of diversity under Roman rule, problems arose between Jews and Gentiles. Both Jews and Gentiles were in the churches of the Roman province of Galatia, and there were big issues because the circumcision party were coming in and Jews were turning away from their Gentile brothers and sisters. And it is to these churches that Paul brings his greetings. It is ordinary, struggling churches, yet notice they are nevertheless churches. Churches in danger of losing the gospel, but churches still. He brings them his greeting. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. And here I think there is a lot to Paul's introduction greeting of grace and peace. Although this is a common greeting of Paul, yet the central intention of the letter could, in a way, be summed up in his greeting of grace and peace. Paul intended in the epistle to these churches for the Galatians to cling to grace, not to works of the law, and for the Galatians to receive the peace of God, to receive that declaration of righteousness, that their souls are reconciled to the Lord, and not by works of the law, and not by the shaky foundation of good works religion. So here I want to argue that Paul brings them grace and peace, actually primarily because they need to remind themselves of God's grace. And they need to remind themselves that if it is not for God's grace, they have no peace. There is no grace if you introduce works of the law, and there is no peace if you do not have grace. It is noteworthy that the whole epistle is bookended by Paul's declaration of grace and peace. In the final three verses where Paul blesses them and closes his epistle, he says to them, grace you and peace. He encapsulates the whole letter in those words. And he is bringing to them that which simply the Jewish Samaritans could not bring. They were flirting with good works religion, which replaced the grace of God with works of the law. But Paul wanted them to pull back and to remind themselves of God's great grace to them. Maybe there's a lesson here for us. For this issue is very present in our own society. I think it's present in our cultural milieu, we're surrounded by it. And I think in different ways maybe it's present in our churches. For although we may not be tempted right now to add Jewish ceremonies and works of the law as those things necessary for salvation, yet we so easily forget that true and lasting peace only comes from, is only found through the grace of God. And our cultural culture passively opposes this, it does it in a quiet manner, but it does oppose this idea, repackaging good works religion in simply a different apparel. They might not teach you that you get your salvation through an act like circumcision or through the attending of mass, but they will tell you that we really are good people at heart. That the average person just isn't that bad, we're generally okay. And this, when we imbibe this idea, it just leads us to a half-hearted faith in God's grace. The fact is that when you lose the idea that you absolutely need the whole sufficient work of God for your salvation, that you really aren't that bad, and that you can do a little bit of yourself, you've lost the heart of the gospel. You've lost that one thing that brings lasting peace. What of the growing philosophy of empowerment? People often speak about manifesting things nowadays. We hear that a lot even from footballers who say, I tried to manifest it. Celebrities tell us about these ideas and children are taught it on the television and in many different ways that we can just do whatever we like. That we just need to kind of activate it in our minds, that self-belief will lead us to fulfilling our dreams. But these ideas, in a roundabout way, are just completely opposed to Paul's point that we can do nothing, no matter how empowered we feel, to be right with God. Salvation is a matter of grace alone. It is a matter of peace with God. And that comes only to those with faith in Christ. We must remind ourselves that we as the Church have the remedy to every sick soul. And it is us with the one message that truly brings lasting peace. Martin Luther says these words, The world advances free will, the rational and natural approach of good works as the means of obtaining forgiveness of sin. But it is impossible to gain peace of conscience by the methods and means of the world. Experience proves this. Various holy orders have been launched for the purpose of securing peace of conscience through religious exercises, but they proved failures because such devices only increase doubt and despair. We find no rest for our weary bones unless we cling to the word of grace. We find no rest for our weary bones unless we cling to the word of grace. And as we look at the final two verses here, that really just propels us in to Paul's word of praise towards God and the Lord Jesus Christ. For it is a matter of grace which is presented in Christ giving himself for us. This is our third and final point, the gospel of our glorious God, which is brought in verses four to five. In these final two verses of Paul's introduction greeting, four and five, we are met with just a declaration of praise towards God for what he has done in his gospel of grace. It is as though for Paul, before he addresses the subject matter of his epistle in the other five chapters, he must first summarise the Gospel for them. And this is what we see. We see the deliverance we receive from Christ giving himself for us. Our eyes are raised up to the cross. We're taught of the saviour who gave not gold or silver, but made the ultimate sacrifice, the sacrifice of his own flesh and blood. This is the agony we read of in Psalm 31. Recall verse 9, have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am in trouble. My eye wastes away with grief. Yes, my soul and my body. It seems that all of Christ's humanity, body and soul, was brought and sacrificed on the cross for our redemption. John Gill says this in answering the question, what exactly did Christ give? He says, not the world and the fullness of it, not gold, silver and such like corruptible things, no, nor men for them, and people for their lives, nor angels, his creatures and ministering spirits, but his own self, his life, his flesh, his blood, his body and soul, his whole human nature. and this as in union with himself, a divine person, the eternal Son of God. That is what Christ gave on the cross. The God to which nothing can be added, for he is the perfection of all good things. That was given on the cross. We see the sovereign hand of the Father in decreeing this. Paul says, Christ who gave himself for our sins, according to the will of our God and Father. It is God's decree which brings us this wonderful redemption. And is it not the glory of God that is displayed to us in verse five? It is to Christ and God the Father, to whom glory will be given forever and ever. Amen. When we look at this gospel, at this sacrifice of Christ, predestined before the foundation of the world, how can we add anything to this sufficient sacrifice? Is it not the greatest gift and before it are not our best works of the law, our best good deeds but filthy rags. Paul's exhortation here in giving praise to God for what he has done is that we must accept the gospel of Christ himself and the eternal, wonderful, sovereign work of God. For outside of it, there is death. But when we cling to that alone, there is eternal life, grace, lasting joy, and peace for every troubled soul. He says here, to whom be glory forever and ever, amen. To God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, be glory forever, one, and ever, two, and then amen, three. When you think about that battle that we mentioned earlier, where Henry V has this great victory as an outnumbered army of the English defeat the tens of thousands of French soldiers. That victory has ingrained the memory of Henry V in our culture, in our history. It brought him glory, whether it is in Shakespeare's famous play about him, or it is in the fact that we still learn about him today as the victor of the battle, that brought Henry glory. And yet what Paul is saying here about the glory of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ is of a different manner. When Paul says forever and ever here, he does not use those terms in the ordinary colloquial way. It is not merely a very long time, like that glory of Henry, which will fade away. Instead, it is the glory that cannot end, for it has no limit. for God really will receive the glory forever and ever and ever. And after we've been giving him glory for his gospel grace for 10,000 years, there will be no limit to the many more years that we will be giving him praise for. We will not have even begun to plumb the depths of his eternal glory and brilliance, for he is an infinite God. and his gospel grace will bring him infinite glory. Paul finishes here with the word amen, and I want to end on this note. Here he just gives an expression of agreement with all the saints, that this will happen, that it is the case. John Gill has these wonderful words which sum up what Paul is saying here. The apostle adds his amen as joining with all the saints above or below in ascribing salvation. and the glory of it to him that sits upon the throne and the Lamb forever and ever. We must with Paul and all the saints give our amen to this glorious gospel grace of God.