“Christ’s Rescue Mission”
(Galatians 1:1-5)
Series: Set Free To Be Free (Galatians)
Rev. Todd A. Linn, PhD
Henderson’s First Baptist Church, Henderson
I invite you to turn in your Bibles to the Book of Galatians, in the New Testament, Galatians chapter 1 (page 783 of the church Bible; YouVersion Bible app).
While you are finding that, I’ll take a moment to say that I am really looking forward to our worship service this evening. Easter is just one month away and tonight I want to help us get ready for Easter. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be inviting folks to come be with us on this very special Sunday. We’ll have witnessing opportunities and you can be sure that the media will be publishing their usual array of articles on why we should doubt the Jesus of the Bible and question the resurrection story. So I want to help us all get ready for this season.
Tonight will be a special presentation in the spirit of years back, when I taught “Bible Basics” in the fellowship hall. Some of you remember those days and some of you are newer. We’ll do this on PowerPoint and I’ll have a helpful handout for each of you this evening that you’ll take home with you. We’ll be looking at popular arguments against the resurrection such as the belief that Jesus didn’t really die, or someone stole His body, or it’s just a nice myth. We’ll consider a number of specific evidences of the resurrection, talk about witnesses who saw Jesus alive, and—my favorite part this evening—why it all matters! What we have because of the resurrection.
That’s all tonight as we start preparing for Easter. It’s a good time to invite a friend to be with you this evening. Tonight at 6.
Alright, this morning we are in Galatians. Have you found it? Can you guess why we are in Galatians, and why we’re in the first chapter? We are starting a new series of messages in Galatians. We’re going to preach right through this little book of Galatians and going verse-by-blessed-verse through all six chapters.
This is unquestionably the best way to read, study, hear, and preach the Bible—the same way you would want someone to read a letter you wrote. You’d want them to read every single word starting at the beginning and going right through the letter. So we’re going to be doing the same with Paul’s letter over the next several weeks.
So we’re beginning today a series through Galatians, a series entitled, “Set Free to be Free.” We’ll be discovering spiritual freedom through the power of the Gospel. And my prayer is that each and every one of us during this study—each and every one of us—will discover real freedom, will be set free from the bondage of sin and, especially important, that we will be set free from the bondage of a rules-based religion, a religion of laws and performance-based living. That’s not Christianity. I pray we will discover true spiritual freedom through the true Gospel message. That we will be set free to be free, to live in freedom. So let’s get right to our study this morning.
Please stand in honor of the reading of the Word of God.
1 Paul, an apostle (not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead),
2 and all the brethren who are with me, to the churches of Galatia:
3 Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ,
4 who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver [or better, “rescue”] us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,
5 to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
Pray.
Galatians has been called, “The Magna Carta of Spiritual Emancipation.”
Perhaps more than any other book in the New Testament, the Book of Galatians had the greatest influence upon the Protestant Reformation. This year, incidentally, marks the 500 year anniversary of the Reformation. October 31, 1517, 500 years ago, Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the church door in Wittenberg.
Luther loved the Book of Galatians! So much so that he referred to it as his wife! He said, “The Epistle to the Galatians is my dear epistle. I have put my confidence in it. It is my Katy von Bora.” (Luther’s Works, vol. 54, pg. 20).
Normally, beginning a study of a biblical book, we would overview the chapters and take a look at different sections. But unlike Paul’s other letters, the chapters of Galatians do not divide so evenly into neat, tidy, sections and sub-themes. So rather than doing that this morning, let’s take a look at a little background of the book. And I’ve got this information for you on the wall if you want to jot it down maybe at the beginning of the Book in your Bible or in your notes.
Slide:
Galatians
(Set Free to be Free)
Theme: Discovering spiritual freedom through the power of the Gospel.
Author: The Apostle Paul
Destination: Churches in South Galatia
Date of Writing: AD 48 (Paul’s earliest letter; only 15-20 years after the death of Christ)
Place of Writing: Unknown; possibly Paul’s home church in Antioch in Syria
Purpose: To teach the doctrine of justification by faith in Jesus Christ and to refute false teachers who were advocating a faith-plus-works doctrine of salvation.
We will be referring to these false teachers as the Judaizers. They were, ostensibly, Jewish believers but they were doing two things that were bad. First, they were attempting to discredit the Apostle Paul. And, secondly, they were trying to discredit his teaching of the Gospel. They had infiltrated the churches after Paul left and were spreading this heresy of a faith-plus-works way to salvation.
This is of such great concern to the Apostle Paul that he gets right to the matter early in chapter 1. In fact, many of you know that Paul’s usual style is to identify himself at the beginning of the letter and then give a word or two of blessing like, “Grace and peace to you.” And then, after that, he usually gives some words of commendation. Something like in 1 Corinthians, “I thank God for the grace given to you by Christ Jesus.” Or Philippians: “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you.”
Those words of encouragement and commendation are missing from the opening of Galatians. And it’s not that the church wasn’t doing some things right, it’s just that Paul was so concerned. So urgent was the matter of addressing quickly these false teachers and dealing with this heresy that he gets right to the business.
You see that in the opening here. Right after verse 5, “to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.” Then, where we would expect to see something like, “I thank my God for the good happening there in Galatia,” instead, verse 6, “I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel.” You detect urgency here. Concern.
Imagine running into an old friend while you are walking down the street. And you would ask, “Hey, how are you doing?! Good to see you! How’s work, school, family?!” But imagine if you saw this same friend as you approached him and also, at the same time, happened to see someone headed in the direction of your friend, someone with a gun or obviously meaning to do harm to your friend. You wouldn’t take time to chat up with your friend and engage in the usual pleasantries of friendly discourse—you’d curtail your words to the most important and needful matter. You’d have just enough time to say, “Look out!” or, “Get down!” “Watch out!”
That’s how we are to understand the opening chapter of Galatians. Paul is first concerned about the spiritual well being of the churches in Galatia. There will be time later for catching up on the good times, later when he visits in the future. Right now there is just enough time to say, “Look out!” Beware of false teachings, a false gospel.
And the false gospel about which Paul is concerned is this wrong idea that people are saved not by grace though faith in Christ—but rather people are saved by grace through faith PLUS works. There are some false teachers who got into the churches there in Galatia and began teaching that these new Christians—who were of Gentile background (non-Jewish background), they were told that if they really wanted to be saved and accepted by God, then they were going to have to keep the Jewish cultural customs of the Mosaic Law, things like circumcision and the dietary laws, and so on. If they did this, then they would by okay in God’s sight. So Paul is writing this letter to say, “No! We are not saved by our works, by keeping traditions and following laws.”
So we’re going to be looking at this recurring stress upon the one true gospel. We’ll see this a great deal as we study this letter, especially the first four chapters. The first four chapters emphasize that Christians are saved by grace and chapters 5 and 6 are largely about how we live in that grace. Set free to be free.
These churches are most likely the churches of Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe. If you’re like me you like to know where these places are that we read about in the Bible. If you have maps in the back of your study Bible, it’s cool to look at them and gain a better understanding of what we’re reading. Let’s take a look at a map here:
Pic 1:
See the wider shot here…Europe to the west…Italy boot…Galatia there is in what the Bible calls Asia Minor; this is modern Turkey. Let’s zoom in a bit by looking at the second picture:
Pic 2:
So here is modern Turkey…See Galatia there in Green. By the way, see Byzantium in the upper left corner? This is ancient Byzantium. Later would be called other names like Constantinople and now called Istanbul (where our team will be headed Tuesday of this week, traveling to Istanbul to work with our missional partners there.
One more map to see the location of these Galatians churches:
Pic 3:
Antioch, Lystra, Iconium, Derbe. These are churches Paul established during his first missionary journey (Acts 13:1-14, 28).
So Paul is writing this letter, this powerful treatise on spiritual freedom in Christ. And I’ve entitled our study this morning on the opening verses, verses 1-5, “Christ’s Rescue Mission.”
God has come to us, taken on humanity, and has come to us in the Person of Jesus Christ in order to rescue us from this present evil age. Let’s read about that this morning. I’ve got to main points that break down the introductory verses into to headings about the messenger and the message. First, let’s consider:
I. The Messenger (1-2)
an authentic Apostle
Paul gets right to defending his apostleship in the very first verse.
1 Paul, an apostle (not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead),
Paul immediately defends his apostleship here. In New Testament times, an apostle is a person who was specifically called and appointed by the Lord to be sent on a missional endeavor of preaching and teaching the gospel.
The reason Paul gets right to defending his apostleship is, as we will see later in the letter, there false teachers we mentioned earlier, these Judaizers who have infiltrated the Galatian churches, they have raised questions about whether Paul should really be called an apostle (Galatians 2:7-9).
So Paul writes in verse 1 about his calling. He stresses that he is called as an apostle not though human agency. Like those who are called to ministry today. When people sense a call to the ministry today, it is a call that is confirmed through human agency, namely through the church. When I sensed the Lord’s calling me into ministry, my sense of call was confirmed by my pastor, by church leaders, and through the congregation of that church in North Georgia who licensed me and then ordained me into gospel ministry. That’s how it works today, through a congregation.
But an apostle—a New Testament apostle—an apostle was not called that way. Paul did not receive his calling and commission through some human agency or council. He received his calling from Jesus Christ Himself. You can read about it later if you wish in Acts chapter 9.
So when people ask, “Are there apostles today?” Or, “Should we refer to a preacher or pastor as ‘an apostle?’” The short answer is, “No.” No, not if we are using the word ‘apostle’ in the Scriptural sense, the way the Bible uses the term.
In order to qualify as an authentic apostle a person needed to meet at least two criteria: 1) He had to have personally witnessed the resurrected Christ, an eye-witness of the resurrected Jesus Christ. And: 2) Secondly, he had to be personally called, appointed, and commissioned by Jesus Christ Himself.
So you see why Paul is using this phrase in verse 1, “an apostle (not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead).” Paul is an apostle through Jesus Christ.
This truth is especially important because New Testament apostles are used of God to write the very Word of God. The words of the apostles preserved for us in the Scriptures bear the mark and approval of God’s authority. As such, the words of the apostles may be considered the very word of God Himself.
So where we read of Paul’s asserting his apostleship or defending his apostleship we would be wrong to think that he is becoming rather peevish or unduly defensive as though he were a weak man who could not take a little criticism. No! Paul is defending his calling as an apostle because it is the very Word of God at stake here. If he is not an apostle, then it really doesn’t matter much what he has written. If he is an apostle, then we should read his words carefully, reverently, knowing we are reading the very inspired Word of God Himself.
Paul and verse 2:
2 and all the brethren who are with me (unnamed, but note they are secondary to Paul since he is an authentic apostle), to the churches of Galatia:
Then this greeting in verse 3:
3 Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ,
Grace and peace. These are summary statements of the Gospel. So we go from the Messenger to the Message. We go from the authentic Apostle to the authentic Gospel. This is our second point, a point on which we will elaborate and expand in weeks to come:
II. The Message (3-5)
an authentic Gospel
Yes, grace and peace are summary statements of the Gospel. Listen to John Stott here:
Although “grace” and “peace” are common monosyllables, they are pregnant with theological substance. In fact, they summarize Paul’s gospel of salvation. The nature of salvation is peace, or reconciliation—peace with God, peace with men, peace within. The source of salvation is grace, God’s free favor, irrespective of any human merit or works, His loving-kindness to the underselling. And this grace and peace flow from the Father and the Son together.—The Message of Galatians
Isn’t that great? Now, with reference to Jesus Christ, Paul continues to expound this message of the authentic gospel in verse 4, Jesus is the One:
4 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,
Here is Paul’s first teaching in Galatians on the authentic gospel. Jesus Christ “gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age,” as is God’s will.
Christ gave Himself for our sins. He took our sins upon Himself. He did what we could not do. He died a substitutionary death, a death in our place, a death to appease the Father, the righteous Judge who was separated from us because of His holiness—and we, separated from Him because of our sin—Jesus Christ gave Himself for our sins. Jesus Christ lived and died for us.
And Jesus did this that, verse 4, “He might deliver us from this present evil age.” This sinful fallen age. We look forward to the age to come, don’t we? The age to come when Jesus comes again and He comes to judge all the wrongs and set everything right and usher in an age of perfection. That’s the age to come. No more sin, sickness, or sorrow. The age to come. But now we are in this present age, an evil age. Jesus has delivered us from this present evil age by making a way for us to enter into the age to come.
The word “deliver” there in verse 4 is really better translated, “rescue.” Jesus gave Himself for our sins, that He might rescue us from this present evil age.
Rescue implies helplessness, doesn’t it? If you are sinking down into the ocean you need someone to rescue you, to pull you up. You can’t pull yourself up out of that water. You need someone else to come and rescue you. This is what sets Christianity apart from every other major religion. Christianity is not about keeping laws and instructions one must follow. Christianity is about rescue.
Imagine someone sinking in quicksand. He’s just sinking down into the sand, little by little. If he tries to flail about, he just sinks further down. And imagine you come up to him and you say, “Hey, I know how you can get out of that quicksand. I Googled it earlier and found something about getting out of quicksand. Wikipedia had this great article. I printed it out. It’s great teaching. Here. Take this.” That’s not going to help, is it?!
Other religions are largely about trying to follow the printed information. The teaching. The founders of main world religions are basically teachers who invite you to follow their teachings: Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam. Popular Eastern religions and philosophies of today. Same thing. Here’s the printed material. Save yourself.
What we need is rescue. It’s the old gospel chorus:
I was sinking deep in sin
Far from the peaceful shore
Very deeply stained within
Sinking to rise no more
But the Master of the sea
Heard my despairing cry
From the waters lifted me
Now, safe am I
Rescue.
And this is the proper way to understand the connection to verse 5. Because Jesus Christ is the One who rescues—and not we ourselves—then God is the One who gets all the glory, verse 5:
5 to whom be glory (or, “to whom belongs all glory”) forever and ever. Amen.
To whom belongs all glory. Why? Because of His rescue mission. It is precisely because I cannot rescue myself and did not rescue myself that God receives the glory for everything. I get no glory for this. No one is saved because he or she is “savable.” No one is saved because he or she was gifted enough to reason everything out and apply the rules of logic to the truth claims of Christianity and “wisely conclude” that Jesus is the way. No.
If that were true, verse 5 would read differently. It would be something like, “To God be some of the glory and to you also, to you, John Smith, you also deserve some of the glory forever and ever.” No! You were dead in trespasses and sin, spiritually unable to do anything to improve your lost condition. God gets all the glory for our salvation. It’s humbling, isn’t it? And yet, it picks us up, too.
In the words of Tim Keller: “Paul reminds us that in the gospel we are both brought lower and raised higher than we can imagine.”
RESPONSE:
Have you been rescued? Can you say that Jesus Christ has raised you higher than you can imagine?
If you have never grasped the saving hand of Jesus Christ, then today reach up and take hold of the One who comes down to you. Just take Him. And He will pull you up. You take Him by saying to Him:
“Lord Jesus Christ, I admit that I am weaker and more sinful than I ever before believed, but, through you, I am more loved and accepted than I ever dared hope. I thank you for paying my debt, bearing my punishment and offering forgiveness. I turn from my sin and receive you as Savior.”
Let Jesus Christ rescue you today.
Some of you have already been rescued by Jesus, rescued from this present evil age, but you have fallen back into the old lifestyle of this evil age. Last week didn’t go so well for you. This morning, repent. Turn back to Jesus and ask for forgiveness, receive His pardon, and live again in the power and freedom of the gospel.
In a moment we are going to sing our invitation hymn of response. As we sing, turn to Jesus. Some of you will want to come forward and join the church, you come. Others of you may have spiritual questions, or you want to be sure of your salvation, you come as well. I’ll be standing up front here and you come and we’ll take some time after the worship service to pray together. Before we sing let’s go to the Lord in prayer.
Let’s pray.
We thank you for this messenger, the Apostle Paul—and we thank you for his message, the authentic gospel message of freedom, deliverance, rescue. Rescue us now from this present evil age, bringing to us pardon and forgiveness, bringing us again to the light. We say to you this morning: “Lord, here am I.” In Jesus’ name, amen.
Now stand and as we sing, you respond however the Lord is leading you.
3 Living, or dying I still would be Thine;
yet I am mortal while Thou art divine.
Pardon, whenever I turn from the right;
pity, and bring me again to the light.
Master, Thou callest, and this I reply,
“Ready and willing, Lord, here am I.”
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