When you get your mail from your mailbox, it generally doesn't take long, I'm assuming we're probably all similar in this way, to scan what's there and pretty quickly have a pretty good idea of how much of it you actually want, how much of it needs your attention, and how much of it is going to go straight into the trash can. Now usually, the junk mail is pretty obvious. And the only reason that I may pause and look at one of those obvious envelopes is to wonder to myself, who actually opens this stuff? And why do they keep sending it? How much money are they spending to send out all of these envelopes that are probably almost all of them going in the trash? Why do they do it? and then it goes in the trash. Now occasionally, they might get me by disguising their junk mail to make it look like a check. And then I will think to myself, I really doubt that's a check, but just in case, I better make sure. So I open it, and it's never a check, and it goes in the trash. The bills that come are generally obvious. because they come all the time. We know what they look like. We know what day they're going to come because they come all the time. We get very well acquainted with those bills. At our house, they go in a mail holder that's on our desk to be opened and dealt with later. Once they accumulate some so I can have a shortened bad mood just one day instead of every day as the bills come. Every once in a while, it's getting rarer all the time, but there will be an envelope with a handwritten address that is our actual address on it, not to occupant or box holder. And it has a return address on it, the name of someone we actually know. And it looks like a personal letter or a card, and those are the ones that get opened right away because it's so rare. And I just want to see what's inside. What does it say? Now, I say all of that to point out how there are some common basic standards that we've come to expect about the mail. Even on the envelopes, we have a generally pretty good idea of what's going to be inside because of what's on the outside. Then on the inside of those envelopes, there are generally standard forms and structures. If it's a bill. You know it well. You know where the important part is. How much do I owe? It's right there. If it's business correspondence, it has a certain form. If it's a personal letter, it generally has a certain form. Now, those forms and structures can change over time. Internet and emails have changed things a lot. But having these forms is not new. All the way back in the Old Testament, about 440 years before the birth of Jesus Christ. There's the contents of a letter recorded in Ezra chapter seven. You don't have to turn there, I'm just using this as an example. In Ezra seven, this letter begins like this, in verse 12. Artaxerxes, king of kings, to Ezra the priest, the scribe of the law of the God of heavens, perfect peace. That's how that letter began. Now that structure and that order was very common in many places and for a long time. Another example, James chapter 1 verse 1 says this, James, a bondservant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes who are dispersed abroad, greetings. And so this structure is so common, lasted for a long time in a lot of places, it begins with the name or names of who the letter is from, to basically the return address. Then comes the recipient of the letter, or the address, who's going to, and then a greeting. So in James, that's a real easy one. James, that's who it's from, a little description of who he is, bondservant of God, of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then who it's to, to the 12 tribes who are dispersed abroad, greetings. Now those are pretty simple, straightforward examples. The Apostle Paul used the same format. But Paul extended it in most of the letters that we have in the New Testament from Paul. And he extended it because he's Paul. And that's what Paul does. And with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, it's interesting as you read through the Bible, This is the word of God. And yet you get to know some of the personalities of the human authors because the Holy Spirit used the personality. He did not overrule the personality of the human author. We get to know some things about Paul by the way he wrote. And so often, it's because this is Paul, he had to get some teaching in there. Even in the return address, he needed to teach. In the address to who it was to, he needed to teach. In a simple greeting, he needed to teach something. And so last week, we looked at the return address, Galatians, written by Paul. That's who it was from. We looked at the mailing address, verses one and two, to the Galatians, the churches of Galatia. We'll review those just a little bit this morning. And then we're going to look at the greeting. I remember James' greeting, greetings. Paul's greeting is a little more involved than that. And we're gonna look at that today. Something that is different about Galatians than almost all of the other letters that Paul wrote is in almost all of the others. Right after the greeting, Paul jumps into telling the readers something about them that causes him to give thanks to God. Even in 1 Corinthians, which is largely a letter of correction written to a church that was a source of grief for Paul because they had so many problems, Paul says he was thankful for them. Galatians doesn't have that. To the Ephesians, Paul could happily write in his mailing address, to the saints who are at Ephesus, and who are faithful in Christ Jesus. He was writing to a faithful church, to believers who he knew were remaining faithful to the Lord. He couldn't address the Galatians in that same way, because their faithfulness was in question. And that's what this letter is about. It's urgent. It's serious. The opening verses reflect that. Last week, we spent the majority of our time in the Book of Acts to be able to see the background of who the recipients of this letter were, why Paul wrote this letter. And so just by way of a brief reminder, and for any who weren't here last week, Paul and Barnabas were called by the Holy Spirit and sent out from the church at Antioch for what we call Paul's first missionary journey. That was really well-timed, Henry. Good job. We had this same map up last week. The green lines you see there are the route that Paul took going from Antioch. There's two Antiochs up there, but the one that's clear on the right side of the map went from there to the island of Cyprus and then from there to the southern cities of Galatia. It was to the churches in these cities that this letter was written. Now in most of those places where Paul preached, they were initially very happy to hear the message that Paul had for them at the synagogues. We read one of those sermons that Paul preached in Acts chapter 13. And we saw that that sermon focused on the coming of Jesus Christ, that he was the promised Messiah spoken of in the Hebrew scriptures. But he was put to death by people who were jealous of him in Jerusalem. But then he was raised from the dead by God the Father. We saw there in his message in Acts 13 that he put so much emphasis on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And that there is salvation. There's forgiveness of sins in Christ through faith. That was all in his sermon to that church, those churches in that region of Galatia. Well, it didn't take very long for Paul's preaching of this message to get a lot of attention in those cities. He started in the synagogues. The synagogues were the Jews that had scattered out different places from Jerusalem and Israel. They'd been there a long time. The synagogue had been there in that city for a while. And there were a few Gentiles who had some interest and started coming. maybe just a couple of proselytes. But here comes Paul. He preaches once. The next Saturday, the whole city shows up and wants to hear Paul. Those Jews who had been there at those synagogues teaching for so long, they were kind of jealous of that. And because of their jealousy, they would chase Paul and Barnabas out of town. They almost killed Paul at one point by stoning him. But Paul and Barnabas, they kept on preaching the gospel, getting run out of town. They eventually made it to Derby. Once they got there, they turned back around and went back to the same places that they'd been run out of, encouraging those who had professed faith, and eventually returning to Antioch to report there to the church about what God had done. Then came the Judaizers. We saw them show up in Acts chapter 15. And these group of Jews from Jerusalem apparently went everywhere that Paul had been, all the places in Galatia where churches had been planted, and they called into question Paul's apostleship. They came from Jerusalem. I would assume they were saying things like, we know the apostles. We bet them. We came from there. Paul's not one of them. He's not a real apostle. He taught you only half the truth, only part of what you need to know. He left out the really important part that all these Gentiles who had believed in Jesus, well, that's great that you believe in Jesus, but you also need to be circumcised. You need to follow the law of Moses if you are really going to be saved. And sadly, there were many of those professed believers in those planted churches, in those cities of Galatia that were wavering. And we're ready to believe this false doctrine of the Judaizers. That's why Paul defends his apostleship right off in the return address in verse 1. Paul, an apostle, not sent from men, nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. I'm not sent here by man, Paul told them. When I came to you, I came because I was sent by the Lord Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. Therefore, as we talked about last week, if anyone disagrees with the message that Paul preached when he was there in Galatia, they were not disagreeing with Paul. This wasn't his message. They were disagreeing with God. They were disagreeing with the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the one who came to save you. This is his message. We're gonna see more of that as this letter goes on. He said to the churches of Galatia, the mailing address, then he has a greeting. It begins in verse 3. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Now this is a very common greeting from Paul. If you look through his letters in the New Testament, you will see these same words in most of them. Grace to you. Sometimes it's a little different order, worded just a little bit different, but most of his letters have these words in them. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ. But as this is inspired by God, and this is a letter from the Apostle Paul, and what we get to know about Paul and his letters, these were not just empty words or a formality. If you sign your letters sincerely and in your name, is it really sincere? And maybe it is, but are all of your letters that you sign sincerely sincere? If you sign it with love and in your name, was it really written with love or are you just signing that because you're used to it? Sometimes that can happen. But for Paul, this was not a formality. This is what Paul wanted for the recipients of this letter. Now, when he greeted some churches with grace and peace, that was the position they were in, and he was maybe reminding them as he greeted them, grace to you and peace from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ. This is where you stand. You stand in grace and peace from God. Isn't it wonderful? For the Galatians, this may be more of a prayer. the desire for them. Because if they did turn away from the true gospel to the works righteousness of the Judaizers, they didn't really have it. They didn't really possess grace and peace from God the Father and Lord Jesus Christ. He wants them to be recipients of grace. It's His desire for them. Grace, you're familiar with the word. What does it mean? Grace is unmerited favor. It is receiving an undeserved gift. Something that is given and not deserved. Not earned. Grace is incompatible with works. Listen to what Paul says in Romans chapter 11 verse 6. He says, but if it is by grace, It is no longer on the basis of works. Otherwise, grace is no longer grace. If you add any works at all, if there is anything that someone thinks they must do in order to make themselves acceptable to God, anything in addition to what Jesus accomplished on the cross, Whether it is taking communion, getting baptized, joining a church, or following the law of Moses, etc., fill in the blank, it is no longer salvation by grace, but by works. According to what Paul says there in Romans 11, 6, it is either all grace, or it's not grace. be both. It can't be part works and part grace or it's not grace. Paul's desire for the believers in the churches of Galatia was that they rely on grace. They needed grace. Now Paul also wanted for them to have peace. Both peace with God and the peace of God. Jesus said to his disciples, John 14, verse 27, Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Do not let your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful. Jesus wants his followers to have peace. He has peace available. He gives his followers peace. He wants you to have it. In John 16, verse 33, Jesus says, these things I have spoken to you so that in me, you may have peace. In the world, you have tribulation, but take courage, I have overcome the world. In Christ, you have peace. In the world, you have tribulation. Now, if a person does not have peace with God through Jesus Christ, they are at enmity with God. because of their sin. And there is nothing in this world that will give them peace with God. There is nothing they can do, nothing in this world that will give them peace with God. And being God's enemy is the absolute worst position anyone could be in. Apart from Christ, that is the position everyone is in. So grace and peace from God the Father. That was Paul's desire for this group of professing believers. Do you have it? Do you really have it? He wanted it for them. Now the Judaizers claimed to know God, claimed to represent God. They taught God as distant and cold, needing to be appeased by their own performance. But if you are a recipient of the grace and peace that can only be found and comes from God, we don't know God as distant and cold. We know Him as our Father. That in itself, knowing God as our Father, says a lot about the kind of peace that we have with God. He's our Father. ever have trouble sleeping at night, I'm going to give you this to think about. Think about what it means that God is your Father. That will give you peace. God is your Father through Jesus Christ. If He's our Father, that means He loves us. It means we have a relationship with Him. It means He wants what's best for us. And as the perfect Father, He will do whatever He is able to do to secure what is best for us. What is our Father able to do? He's infinite. He can do whatever it takes for us to have what's best for us. Grace to you and peace from God our Father. and the Lord Jesus Christ. And when Paul was preaching in those cities in Galatia, he taught them about the sufficiency of Jesus and what was accomplished on that cross and through the resurrection. And here again, I'd like to read for you a part of Paul's message that we saw last week in Acts 13. This is verses 38 and 39. Paul says, therefore, let it be known to you, brethren, that through him, through Jesus Christ, Forgiveness of sins is proclaimed to you. And through Him, everyone who believes is freed from all things, from which you could not be freed through the law of Moses. So Paul comes to these cities in Galatia. He is proclaiming in these messages he preached that what everyone needs most is found in Christ. And it is enough. It cannot be obtained through the law. What you need more than anything cannot be obtained through the law. It cannot be obtained through works of any kind, only through Christ. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. In verse 4, Galatians chapter 1, we have a reminder of the gospel that He had preached to them. Like in that message we saw in Acts 13, Remember churches in Galatia. Remember what I taught to you. This gospel. He's gonna elaborate on it through this letter. But right here in the greeting, as he starts off, remember that gospel I preached to you. Speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ from verse three, he says in verse four, who gave himself for our sins. The Lord Jesus Christ. who gave Himself for our sins. What does it mean that Jesus gave Himself? How did He give Himself? As we saw through our study of the Gospel of Mark, we saw the truth of who Jesus is. He is God. Jesus is God. God the Son came into His creation He humbled Himself so much to take on human flesh so that He could identify with us, with man. And so He could be the perfect sacrifice for sin in our place. He humbled Himself so much to do that. And He suffered. He gave Himself. It means He suffered so much on that cross to give Himself as a gift to forgive our sins. He gave Himself for our sins. He didn't send an angel. He didn't send a representative. He gave Himself for our sins. It was our sins that stood between us and our relationship with God the Father. It was our sin that kept us from knowing God as Father. That was the problem with man that needs to be fixed. It's our sin. So the Lord Jesus Christ gave himself for our sins. And now the Galatians are saying, because they were starting to agree with the Judaizers, I'm not so sure that was enough. He gave himself for my sins, but I don't know that that's enough. We just might need to add some merits of our own to finish the job. Now, after all that Jesus suffered on that cross, and considering who He is, that He is God the Son, coming to His creation, and so therefore the value of the sacrifice that He offered on the cross, that is blasphemous to say, I don't think that was enough. I'm going to have to fill in the gaps. Paul says in verse 4 that the effect, the purpose of the Lord Jesus Christ giving himself for our sin was so that he might rescue us from this present evil age. This present evil age. In Paul's letter to the Ephesians, Paul talks about unsaved man's relationship with this present evil age. Chapter 2 verses 1 through 3 says this, And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience. Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature Children of wrath, even as the rest. Children of wrath. Walking according to the course of this world. The course of this world is evil. It is the evil age that we are in. In 2 Corinthians 4, Paul refers to Satan as the god of this world. That's why it's an evil age. All who have not turned to the Lord Jesus Christ by grace through faith are following the lead of the God of this world. Walking according to the course of this world. Satan is charting the path. Now that doesn't mean that everyone is living filthy, evil lives in every way that they can. Some are. Not everyone. But living apart from Christ, living apart from faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, is living for sin and living for the flesh. And that is following Satan. That's what Satan wants. He wants you to live for the flesh. He wants you to do what you want to do. That's what makes this an evil age. Living according to the flesh, following the ways of Satan, apart from faith in Christ. That's what makes this an evil age. Now just suppose that we were able, somehow, we found enough morally qualified statesmen. They're honorable. They're dignified individuals. to fill every position at every level of government. And somehow they all get in. And they do all the right things to enact all the right laws to clean up the blatant wickedness that we see in the world today. And they enforce those laws that they write. And so All the streets and all the cities are safe and clean. There's no more glorified violence on television or the internet. There's no more glorified immorality on television or the internet. The Ten Commandments are displayed in all the schools. Children are taught the principles of morality and the benefits of clean living and abstinence. It's all the good things. And if it got to where we were able to live morally clean, safe, well-ordered society. It sounds great, doesn't it? I'd vote for that. But scripture would still be true. And according to scripture, it would still be this present evil age that people would need to be rescued from. Now that kind of society that I described could be accomplished by having in the right places people who are evangelicals and Catholics and Mormons, maybe just a few Hindus scattered in there, who can largely agree on morality and could come up with a nice, enjoyable society. Even if it was all evangelicals leading this country who all agreed on morality. And maybe they could accomplish that kind of a society that would be a whole lot nicer to live in. I'd vote for that. That'd be nice. But that still wouldn't stop it from being this present evil age that people need to be rescued from. Because Satan is not trying to keep people from morality. necessarily. I mentioned 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 4 where Satan is called the God of this world. Let me read some of the context of that statement for you in 2 Corinthians 4 verses 3 and 4 where Paul says, Even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving, so that they might not see the light of the gospel. of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. That is what the God of this world wants to keep people from. He wants to lead people away from, blind them to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The only thing that can rescue people from this present evil age is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Morality doesn't bother Satan. the Judaizers coming into these towns and adding some law to hide and obscure the true gospel from people, that didn't bother Satan. In fact, it was probably his idea. If people think living a good, clean life and obeying some laws will improve their status with God, Satan isn't going to try to stop that. because that is a very effective way of hiding the true gospel of grace and their need for rescue from people's eyes. Now, I wanna be clear. I'm not saying that I'm opposed to clean living either. I'm in favor of it. But we also need to be clear, that's not the gospel. That's not what will save people. That is not the message the church has been given to preach to the world. To the church, when we're teaching believers, and yes, we teach about living for the Lord. We teach about forsaking sin and pleasing the Lord with our lives. The world needs the gospel. Back in Ephesians 2, what was it that Paul said made the difference for the believers in Ephesus, when they used to be dead in sin and following the ways of Satan, what was it that changed? What made the difference? When Ephesians 2, verses 4 and 5, he says, but God. But God, being rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. not by cleaning up your life, by grace you have been saved. We need to be made alive by grace, unmerited favor. We need to be rescued by grace, unmerited favor. We need to be forgiven for our sins by grace. We need to be saved through the gospel of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. That is the message that we are given to preach to the world, because that is what will rescue people from this present evil age. The last phrase of Galatians 1, verse 4, According to the will of our God and Father. This was God's idea. This is the way He made it to be. Through Jesus Christ, the message of the grace of Jesus Christ that people are rescued from this present evil age. It was God's idea. Well, the law of Moses was also God's idea, but it had a different purpose. It never was God's purpose for that law to be a means of salvation. It could never be the means of rescuing someone from this present evil age. All the law can do and what its intention was, was to prove how evil we are. that this age is evil and that we need to be rescued. It will not do the rescuing but it will let you know you need to be rescued. The way, the only way that God decided that that rescue could happen was by grace through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his substitutionary work on the cross and his resurrection from the dead, not by our works. Now when we know that, when we believe that, and when we proclaim that, God is glorified. Verse 5, to whom be the glory forever. Amen. Now if anyone thinks, believes, or teaches that anyone can have any part in saving themselves, if we try to add anything, anything that makes it not all of the grace of God. We are robbing God of the glory that He alone deserves. If I think that I have any part in providing my salvation, I am saying some of the glory should go to me. And if some of the glory goes to me, then some isn't going to God. It doesn't work that way. Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 1, verses 26-31, For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise. God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong. And the base things of the world, and the despised, God has chosen the things that are not, so that he may nullify the things that are. so that no man may boast before God, but by his doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption, so that just as it is written, let him who boasts, boast in the Lord." If the gospel that you believe reserves any glory for you, it's the wrong one. It's not the one that Paul preached in Galatia. The only one that will save is the one that's all by grace and the one where God gets all the glory. That's the gospel we've been given to preach. That's the gospel that will rescue men from this present evil age.