The Problem with the Galatians

And read verse 11 with me. Why are you in despair, oh my soul? And why have you become disturbed? Within me, hope in God, for I shall yet praise him the help of my countenance and my God. And Lord, I do thank you and praise you that you are our help. Lord, when we are in despair, you are the place where we can turn to for hope. And so, Lord, we do that this morning.

We look to you. And Father, I just pray that you would bless us as we spend time in your word this morning. Lord, I pray that your Holy Spirit would move through this place. Father, that you would bring conviction. Conviction where there needs to be conviction. Comfort where there needs to be comfort. Lord, that you would teach us what it is to know and follow you.

In Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. And if you would, open up in your Bibles to the book of Galatians, chapter 1.

Galatians, chapter 1. Before we get into Galatians, I just want to make sure. I watched an interesting video last night that I would highly recommend that you go and watch. It's a YouTube video from Amir Sirfati. It's called The Beginning of Birth Pangs. And he's talking about the things that are going on with this earthquake that happened in Turkey. I looked it up this morning, and the death toll is now over 28,000, which is just pretty awe-inspiring.

That's like losing almost all of Cali County. That's a pretty awe-inspiring thing. But what's even more awe-inspiring than that is the aftershocks that continue to follow. If you don't know what happened on the border of Syria and Turkey last Monday morning, I believe it was around 4. 4 a.m. their time, they had a 7.8 magnitude earthquake. And about four or five hours later, there was an aftershock in the same area that measured 7.5.

And it caused mass destruction. And since then, they've had more and more aftershocks. He shows in this video buildings that continue to collapse. This is after the earthquake. This is well after the earthquake. And these buildings fold up like an accordion. It's the most awe-inspiring thing I've ever seen. Just building standing, building's gone. And so these aftershocks are continuing to happen with an intense fervor.

And the earthquake did so much damage that it's actually shifted Turkey about nine feet to the west. So that's the magnitude of what's taken place. So pretty intense what's happened over there. But he points out the fact that this is really, it's only the beginning. And I talked about this a little bit Wednesday night. It's only the beginning of what's coming for the world, for you and I that are redeemed.

We know that Jesus is going to be taking us home to be with himself. But the world that still exists here is going to go through that only worse. And quite frankly, for very good reason. Because I don't know if you also are aware, but last Sunday night at the Grammy Awards, I try with everything in me not to watch award shows. Because if I wanted to watch people pat each other on the back, well, I just don't, right?

I don't want to watch people pat each other. They're on the back for pretending to be somebody else. There was a performance by Sam Smith and several other artists. And he performed a song that he referred to that's called Unholy. And literally it was satanic. Everything was satanic in nature about it. And that has happened at the Grammy Awards for the past several years,

where the things that have taken place with the performances have been satanic in nature, occultic in nature. And the fascinating thing is, to me, that the earthquake didn't hit. It hit L.A. Like, I'm kind of like, God, you missed. You should have hit L.A. And I know that's wrong. I shouldn't be that way. I should want them to come to know Jesus. And I do want them to come to know Jesus.

I want all of those people to come to a place of salvation. But quite frankly, I'm so tired of it. I'm just so tired of the things that I see right now. And honestly, I think God is too. And that's why we're seeing God shake things. But again, brothers and sisters, this is only the beginning. We were told in Matthew chapter 24 that this is the beginning. The beginning of birth pains, that it will continue to increase until Jesus takes us home to be with him.

And then at that point in time, there will be an unleashing on this earth like no one has ever seen before. As a matter of fact, it says that if the days were not shortened, no flesh would survive. And it should cause us to do two things. Number one, it should cause an aspect of purity within ourselves because we should know and understand what I really believe.

And that's what we're going to talk about this morning, that we not be led astray in the false gospels. That we not be led astray in the false gospels. That we not be led astray in the false gospels. That we not be led astray in the things that aren't the word of God. But it should also increase in us a desire to share the word of God with the people that are around us.

Because how dare we have this treasure in an earthen vessel and then hide it from the world that is going to have to go through that only worse. And so with that as just a little bit of a backdrop, I don't try to spend a great deal of time talking about those kinds of things. But I felt like it's so in the news right now that actually it's really not in the news. Have you noticed that?

In the United States, it's not in the news right now. I shouldn't have said that. I've been watching the foreign stuff that's going on, the BBC and Jerusalem Post and some of those kinds of things. And they are talking about it because, well, they care. But the only thing we care about here is Hunter Biden. And we care about some murder trial that's going on on the east coast of a guy.

I have no idea who he is. And we care about Beyonce, right? And so those are the only things we care about. And meanwhile, the entire country of Turkey is absolutely devastated. It's not a big deal to us. Anyway, those are things that are happening in the world that we should be paying attention to. Now, today in our study in Galatians, let's segue back into what it talks about in the book of Galatians.

There's a theme that we're going to be discussing. And the title of the message is the problem with the Galatians. I was going to title this The Kids Are Not Okay. But that's the title of a book. And I didn't want to steal somebody's title of a book and get myself in trouble for copyright infringement. So we'll call it The Problem with the Galatians. Last week, we saw the introduction.

Paul introduced himself as the apostle. He introduced the recipients, which is the Galatian people. And we talked a lot about that. If you didn't catch that, again, you can go to our website, CalvaryChapelArkCity.org. And you can pick up on some old messages. Go back and listen to that. And then he discussed his subject. And the subject is Jesus. Because the subject of the book of Galatians is to call us back to grace and back to Jesus.

But now that he has introduced everything, it's time to get to the point. And so we pick up in verse 6 of chapter 1. And this is what it says. It says, I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel, which is really not another, only there are some who are disturbing you. And want to distort the gospel.

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed. As we said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you received, he is to be accursed. For am I now seeking the favor of men or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men,

I would not be a bondservant of Christ. And so the problem with the Galatians, there's three things that we're going to see this morning. We're going to see false gospels, accursed messengers, and a bond slave of Christ. The first thing that we'll discuss is false gospels. Now, before I get into what he actually has to say, I want you to notice what Paul does not say.

Because sometimes we can learn as much by what people don't say, as we can by what they do say. You know what Paul does not say? Paul does not say anything good about the Galatians. He doesn't thank God for them. He doesn't speak of their faith. He doesn't speak of their joy. He doesn't speak of their acts of service. He has nothing positive to say to the Galatians.

What's even more fascinating than that is that when Paul wrote the book to the Corinthians, by the way, one of the most scorchingly corrective books he's written, he had nice things to say to the Corinthians. He said, He thanked God for the Corinthians. But when it comes to these Galatians, he doesn't take the time to do that. Why? You would think that the situation in Corinth was much worse.

Remember what he addressed in Corinth? He addressed immorality in Corinth. He addressed drunkenness in Corinth. He addressed their inability to really take into account not only the body of Christ, but the body of Christ in Corinth. And yet, he still had good things to say to them. Why is it so different with Galatia? Because you see, the Galatians had turned to a different gospel.

They had deserted Jesus, and they had deserted his grace. And when we do that, we turn to pride. And there is nothing that is an affront to God more than pride. So he starts off with no thankfulness. He starts off with no kindness to them. He jumps straight to the point of what he has to say. And the point of what he has to say has to do with false gospels.

He starts off with a strong statement. He says, As I was reading this, I put several different voice inflections on it. I hope you do that with the Bible. Put some different voice inflections on it. Because there is a voice behind the writer. And sometimes as you seek it through the Holy Spirit, once you put the right voice inflection on it, you're like, oh, that's what he meant.

Okay, so the first voice inflection I put on it was sort of the, I'm amazed. And then the second, the second voice inflection that I put on it was, I'm amazed. But the third voice inflection that I put on it is what I think he actually meant. And it's kind of like when you're having a conversation with your kids, when you've said the exact same thing for the 39,000th time in a row.

And you're like, what? That's not what I told you. I am amazed that you can't understand what I meant when I said this. That's the voice inflection I think he's using right now. Is that sort of incredulous? I am amazed because I put this about, as clear as I possibly could have, and you still are not picking up what I'm putting down. He says, I am amazed. Literally, it means I am marveling.

I am in shock. And the Amplified Bible includes, and a little irritated. That's why I was able to say, yep, that's probably the voice inflection he put on there. It was the, I've pulled out the last bit of hair that I have because I can't believe as clearly as I put the gospel to you that you've abandoned the gospel. And isn't that true? Isn't, isn't it amazing,

marveling, shocking when people have known the truth and they've turned from the truth when you finally found the cure and you've abandoned the cure. That's what he's saying with these Galatians. He says, I am amazed. And what is he amazed at? I am amazed that you have so quickly deserted him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel. What he's amazed about is that they have deserted Jesus.

He uses some phrases to describe that. He says, first of all, that you've done it so quickly because Paul hadn't been there that long ago. Remember, we said that the timing of this is probably right after his first missionary journey, but right before the Acts 15 council. So you're talking probably not even a year has gone by since Paul was there. He says, I can't believe how quickly you have turned away

from this gospel of grace that I've presented to you. But do bear in mind, do remember, because we talked about this last week, that everywhere Paul went, the Judaizers followed him. These false teachers followed him, inserting a different gospel to them. He's not amazed that people came in behind him to give out a different gospel. What he's amazed at is they so quickly

were willing to fall for it. He says, I am amazed that you have so quickly done what you've done. And what have they done? They've deserted him. The word desert means to turn away, to turn away and walk the other way. He says, I'm so amazed that you so quickly turned away. And what have they turned away from? Well, they've turned away from a person because you notice what it says there.

I'm amazed, verse six, that you are so quickly deserting him. Friends, we need to understand something. Deserting the purity of God, God's word is not just deserting. It's not just turning away from a doctrine. It's not just turning away from a system of beliefs. It's not just turning away from a book because you see that system of beliefs, that doctrine, this book all point us to a person.

And the person that it points us to is none other than Jesus Christ himself. And so when you turn to the gospel, you're not just turning to a system of beliefs, you're turning to a person because the gospel, the gospel is Jesus Christ. It's not just about Jesus Christ. The gospel is Jesus Christ because we had been separated from him by sin and he restored us to him through the cross.

He restored us to him through the work that he did for us on the cross. And because of the work that he did for us on the cross, he's now able to freely gift us his righteousness and right standing with him. And when we turn to a different gospel, we don't just turn away from a system of beliefs. We turn away from the very one who saved us. We've deserted him.

You see, we have to personalize that. And Paul's very good to personalize that because what they were doing was serious and it needed to be taken seriously. And what have they turned from when they turn from Jesus? Well, first of all, they've turned from grace. Notice what it says, from him who called you by the grace, of Christ. They've turned away from that true message of grace,

that true message of salvation by grace alone, the salvation that comes through a free gift given to us by God. And when they turned from Christ and when they turned from grace, what did they turn to? They turned to a different gospel. That word different, some of your translations may say another gospel. That word in the Greek means, not of the same nature, form, class, or kind.

When he says a different gospel or another gospel, he literally means it is a different gospel. It's of a completely different class. It's of a completely different form. It's of a completely different kind. It doesn't match the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we need to understand something as believers in Jesus Christ. And we need to understand something as humans.

Everyone will follow something. You will either follow Jesus or you will follow a different gospel. Even people that are unsaved, they're following a different gospel. And it's one thing when we see the world follow a different gospel. It's another thing when we see believers in Jesus Christ who have been enlightened by the word of God begin to find themselves turning from Jesus

to follow a different gospel. It's always amazing when you confront people about these different gospels. And we'll talk about them here in just a minute. When you confront people about the fact that you're actually turning from Christ to a different gospel, you're turning from grace to a different gospel, there's always two things that they say. Number one, it's not really that different, is it?

And number two, it's not really that big of a deal, is it? I mean, it seems pretty innocent. I know this is true because it's happened to me. Anytime I've ever confronted people with the things that they're doing that aren't actually true, abject sin, but it's drifting towards a different gospel, they always give me those two answers. It's really not that different.

And it's really not that big of a deal. It's actually pretty innocent. The problem is, it is a big deal and it is a different gospel. Well, he goes on to define this different gospel in verse seven. He says, which is really not another, only there are some who are disturbing you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. You may have noticed, I pointed out that there's like three statements

that he makes about this different gospel. First of all, he says, this gospel is not actually another. What does he mean by that? Well, I think we first have to understand what the word gospel actually means. The word gospel actually means good news. That's the literal translation of that word. And so he says, you've turned to a different gospel, but this different gospel is not actually another.

It is not another set of good news because it's not actually good news. Even though the world may convince you that it's good news, even though the enemy may convince you that it's good news, even though your flesh may convince you that it's good news, it's not actually good news because it's not actually another system of beliefs that leads you to Jesus. It's another system of beliefs that leads you away from Jesus. He says, this different gospel is not really another.

It's not really good news. The second thing that he tells us about this gospel is that this gospel is disturbing them. He says, only there were some who are disturbing you. One thing I didn't point out that I think is important to point out is, do you notice that this gospel came through people? It came through the some. We have to know that when other gospels get presented to us,

they're always presented to us by someone. And they're always presented to us by someone who seems to have found the secret. Have you ever noticed that? I found the secret to living life. As a matter of fact, there was a book at one point in time, I think Deepak Chopra wrote it, called The Secret, because he had discovered the secret of how to live life, which he didn't.

He basically repackaged karma and called it the secret, made millions of dollars off of it. He had found the secret to making millions of dollars, repackaged something old and write it as something new. But it's always delivered by somebody, somebody who's found the secret, somebody who's very charismatic in nature, and somebody who can convince you to follow a different way. He says, some are disturbing you.

That word disturb means to trouble or to agitate or to cause inward confusion or unrest. You may notice that when a different gospel is presented to you, at first it presents a great deal of confusion. Wait, it sounds different. I don't understand. This feels different. This feels different than what Jesus would have to say. And it caused agitation. Not only was it causing unrest inside of their soul,

but it was causing unrest inside of the church. Listen, brothers and sisters, grace leads us to peace. Another gospel leads us to confusion. Paul later will go on in one of his other letters to say that God is not the author of confusion. Right? It's interesting. This word troubled, to really paint the picture, is also given in one of the gospel accounts. The same Greek word is used when the disciples were out

in the middle of the sea, in the middle of a storm, and they saw Jesus walking to them on the water. It says that their souls were greatly troubled. They were greatly disturbed. That's the sort of thing that's being talked about here. You see, this gospel was not really another. This gospel was actually causing trouble. And then the third thing he tells us is that this gospel,

is a distortion of the gospel of Christ. The word distort means to pervert, to corrupt, to change into an opposite. And again, this is oftentimes the hard thing for people to grasp when they are starting to fall for a different gospel. They say, no, no, no. This illuminates the gospel for me. This illuminates Jesus for me. I can understand more about myself.

I can understand more about Jesus because of, I can understand more about God. I can understand more about Jesus because of, I can understand more about Jesus because of, I can understand more about the Bible because of this false gospel, when really what it's doing is, is it's distorting it. It's perverting it. And because that's what was going on there, the church had found themselves in a very bad place.

Well, what was the false gospel that was being taught in Galatia? Well, the false gospel that was being taught in Galatia was a system of works, Judaism. You see, what happened was Judaizers followed Paul around and they said, I understand that Paul told you all about Jesus. That's wonderful. That Paul told you all about Jesus, but you see, he didn't tell you the whole story.

He left part of it out. It's wonderful that you found your faith in Christ, but if you really want to be saved, you also have to be circumcised and you also have to follow all of the law. You have to follow everything that the Mosaic law has to say. It's Jesus and the law. You see, Paul left part of the gospel out. You see, he wants to earn followers for himself.

He is a, what we call a man pleaser and he wants to earn a large following. So he gives kind of a grace only sort of a gospel. And he always leaves the law part out. So now that you're saved, that's great. Now you need to follow the law. And it was perverting the truth of the grace of Jesus Christ. It was distorting their liberty that they had in Christ. And it was putting them back in bondage

to something that Jesus had set them free from. That's right. Now, I started thinking about this and I thought, okay, so what are some of the false gospels that we deal with today? I started to make an exhaustive list of false gospels. But I don't have time for that. I don't have time to go through every false gospel, every false teaching that's out there. So what I've done is I've put them in some categories.

Three categories I feel like that will encapsulate some of the false gospels that are going around today. Are you ready? Number one, the gospel of subtraction. Let me tell you what I mean by that. The gospel of subtraction will, first of all, take away everything that God's word has to say. About sin. You see, the gospel of subtraction says those are old ideas.

Those are antiquated ideas. Those come from a patriarchal society where they didn't really understand humanity just yet. And we are more enlightened now. Now we understand that some people are born homosexuals. Some people are born in the wrong bodies. We understand that God has given us all things freely, including all the herbs of the field, therefore, you can smoke as much pot as you want to

because, after all, all things have been given to us by God. Those old ideas aren't really ideas that we should follow anymore. You name the sin, you name the thing. Those are two of the hot-button issues in the church today. I want you to know that. Where people are subtracting from the gospel. Listen, brothers and sisters, sin is a major part of the gospel.

You know why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? And if I don't understand that I'm lost in sin, then I never understand that I need a Savior. And if I excuse all of my sins, pretty soon, I don't need a Savior anymore, Because after all, those sins aren't, remember we said it, that big of a deal. They're not that big of a deal anyway.

And once we do that, we distort the gospel. But you see, there's another thing that the gospel of subtraction does. The gospel of subtraction takes away things from the Word of God. It will actually take away the truth of the cross. Do you know that there was a teaching that went around in the early 2000s, maybe between 2002 and 2010, a teaching that went around that was a crossless gospel?

They said that when Jesus died on the cross, he didn't die a substitutionary death. What he died was an example of love. Therefore, if you want to be saved, you have to follow that exact same example of love that Jesus has. That is a gospel of subtraction. It takes away what God's word has to say. The gospel of subtraction takes away some of those really bad parts of the word, like the fact that there's a hell.

There was a guy named Rob Bell that wrote a book about that, how there really is no hell. God loves you out of it, and God would never send anyone to hell. And he's right. His God wouldn't send anyone to hell because his God isn't real. There's all the parts about judgment that people like to leave out. As a matter of fact, we're told in the book of 1 or 2 Peter, I can't remember which one it is, that they have willfully forgotten that God destroyed the world once through a flood.

And therefore, they will willfully forget that God will come again and judge the earth, which he's going to do during that tribulational period, which is what I alluded to earlier. They willfully forget those things. Why? Because that gospel of subtraction sounds really good. But once you take away all those things out of the gospel, it's not really good news anymore.

It's just news. And nobody's lives are changed by it. The second thing. Is the gospel of addition. The gospel of addition. What do I mean by that? Well, I think it takes on two different forms. Number one, we add works. We all do this. Listen, we need to. The quicker that we admit that I give in to some of these false gospels, the quicker we can deal with them.

We all love to add works to our lives, right? What makes you what gives you the most peace in your heart is the most peace that you have in your heart, knowing that you in a right standing with God because you've accepted the work of Jesus Christ. Or do you find peace in your heart because you've read your Bible every day this week, because you've attended church more consistently than you've not attended church, because you read the right translation of the Bible, because you do all of the things that you know you're supposed to do. Listen, works are a fruit of faith, but they're not my foundation of faith.

I don't work to earn. I don't work to achieve. I work because that's what. God has called me to do. I work in response to the things that he has done in my life. But we as human beings and Bible teachers in the world are always wanting to add works to things. And we love to add these works because then we can keep a list. And as we keep the checklist, like we mentioned last week, we can do two things.

Number one, I can feel really good about me because I feel really good when I check things off of a list. I actually work great in life off of checklists. You know? I work great off of checklists because I like rewards and I'm like, Oh, another check mark. I get a soda, right? I don't know if you do that with yourself or not. So I do me and I feel really good about me because I've checked off all the boxes.

Well, if I sit down at night and I can check off all the boxes, I feel pretty good about me because my position is solid. Not because of what Jesus has done, but because of what I have done. But you know what else we like to do with checklists? We like to hold them over other people's heads. And we like to say. Look how much better I am than you. Oh, those words may not actually come out of your mouth.

Some of you it might. But those words may not actually come out of your mouth. Oh, but that attitude's in our hearts, isn't it? When we can hold on to that list and we can see that we've checked off all the lists. And we can look at someone else and know that they have not checked off all the lists. And we can think, gosh, if I could just show them how to be more like me.

If I could just give them the secret of everything that I've done. Then they're going to be more like me. Then they're going to be doing pretty good. What an unfortunate place to be. The gospel of addition brings all of the glory to me. But you know what? There's another part of the gospel of addition that doesn't have anything to do with works. It's actually this really big fancy word called syncretism.

Syncretism is adding to. It's taking parts of other religions and adding them to Christianity. You may think, who does that? Christian bookstores. Christian bookstores do it all. You know how they do it? By promoting authors that are terrible. Authors that are combining things of other religions with the Bible. I'm not going to go through a list of all of these things.

But I promise I'd step on just about everybody's toes here if I started to. And you need to pay attention to the things that you're reading. Because we are constantly adding things from other religions. Things with pagan roots. Things that are pagan. Pagan in nature to our Christianity. To our teaching. To the things that we read. And when we do that, it's called syncretism.

Because we say, I love Jesus. But look, this new author just wrote a book. And it's really good. And I really like what he has to say. And we don't realize that what he has to say are actually from another religion. They're actually pagan in nature. And all of a sudden, they're pagan in nature. And all of a sudden, you just added a whole lot of things that are pagan cultic practices to your Christianity.

Pay attention to where some of these things come from. Do your research about where they just came up with their new idea from. Because if it's not in the Bible, then it's not something you should add. But it's happening all the time. And listen, our culture isn't new on this. The Christian bookstores back in ancient Israel were doing the exact same thing. The Christian bookstores back in ancient Israel.

They were adding Baal to their religion. They were adding Molech to their religion. Because if you notice, in the Old Testament prophets, when God was really angry with the people, they were still bringing sacrifices to the temple. You need to know that. They were still bringing all of their sacrifices to the temple. But they brought their sacrifices to the temple on the day they were supposed to.

And on the other days, they were in the high places having drunken orgies. Offering sacrifices to those gods. That's why God said, Quit bringing me your sacrifices. Unless it's also coupled with a broken heart. And I fear that in the church today, we're bringing sacrifices to God on a Sunday. And we're adding to it all of the other religions every other day of the week.

The gospel of addition is dangerous. Pay attention to what you're reading. And then the third one is the gospel of self.

Really thought about calling this the gospel of Oprah, but I opted out of it. The gospel of self. Again, the gospel of self. Again, I think that the gospel of self takes on two different forms. The gospel of self, first of all, is all about self-care. Have you noticed how big that phrase is in our culture right now? Now listen, I don't want you to misunderstand me.

There's aspects of taking care of ourselves that are important. You have to listen to your body. And when your body needs rest, it needs rest. You have to listen to your mind. And when your mind needs some release, you need to take a vacation. You need to listen to the needs that your body has and take care of those. But the self-care culture that we live in is not about meeting the needs of your body.

It's not about meeting the needs of the body. It's about meeting the wants of the flesh. Because that is what it's all about. And the self-care world that we live in says, hey, listen, you deserve it. You deserve all the good things of this world. You take care of you. You make sure you've got all the things that you need. But you know what the gospel of self-care really is?

Selfishness. It really is materialism. It really is all of those things. And all of a sudden, we're just like, I just want everything for me. Because after all, I'm... I'm worth it, right? Maybe she's born with it. Maybe it's Maybelline. But the gospel of self is not just self-care. The gospel of self ultimately says, you can be your own God. We mask it in different words today.

We call it living out your truth. You ever heard that phrase? You just need to learn to live out your truth. Whatever your truth is, you need to live that out. And be authentic to it. Because authentically you is the best thing that you can be. No, authentically me was on his way to hell. I need to be authentically like Jesus. That's who I need to be like. Because he ultimately should be my God.

It's interesting that the very first temptation that came upon man is no different than the temptations that we face today. After all, what did the serpent tell Eve? Listen. You're not going to die. It's not really a false religion. It's not that big of a deal. Actually, God knows in the day you eat of it, you will be like him, knowing good from evil. You can be like God.

Brothers and sisters, that's the world we live in today. The world we live in today says, you can be your own God. And as I've said before, and I will continue to say, I expect the world to act that way. But when it creeps into the church, when we as the church start setting our own truth, we got big problems. And while we're here in small town USA, a pretty conservative church,

where I sure do my darndest to teach you what the Bible has to say, in the church world in general right now, people are falling left and right. Big people, people in leadership positions are falling left and right to the cult of self, to the gospel that says, you be you. You can be your own God. I'm going to go ahead and give you the phrase that they use. They say, I've deconstructed my faith.

I don't know if you've heard that phrase used or not. I've deconstructed my faith. And now I've built it the way it suits me. I've now, I've now come to realize what my truth is. And my truth usually means I get to do what I want to do, right? These are the gospels that we're facing today. These are the gospels that we can sometimes give into today. And these are the gospels that we need to pay attention to,

because it's one thing for me to talk about everybody else in the world that may give into these gospels. It's a whole other thing for me to look at you and go, which of these is you, is it that you deal with? Which of these is it that I deal with? Because I'm not here to step on the toes of everybody else in the world. I'm here to step on our toes. I'm here to convict us about the things we're doing.

Because I would venture to say that each of us at some point in time has dealt with or will deal with some of these gospels. Because it is our natural bent to desert Jesus, which is why we have to stay as close as we possibly can. And know what we believe and know why we believe it. Because there are major consequences that go with false gospels. As a matter of fact, the next section that we look at is accursed messengers.

Notice what Paul says in verse 8. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed. As we've said before, so I say again now, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you, what you received, he is to be accursed. He gives two different warnings that end the exact same way.

The first warning that he gives is if we, or even an angel from heaven, comes and tells you a different gospel, he should be accursed. Once you notice the two groups he calls into account here. First of all, an angel from heaven. Isn't it funny how some of the false religions today were told that they received a message from who? An angel in heaven. Almost like Jesus knew that was coming

and he told Paul, you better write, if anybody, including an angel from heaven, writes a different gospel, he's to be accursed. But Paul doesn't just leave it with somebody else. Paul doesn't just leave it and say, even if an angel from heaven, he says, even if, even if we, and brothers and sisters, that means even if me, if we start changing our tune and preach to you a different gospel other than the one we originally brought to you, let him be accursed. Paul says, even if I start to fall away and give in to the false gospels, and I love that.

He says that, you know why I love that? He says that because he knows that in him, that is in his flesh dwells no good thing. And that all of us, including the apostle Paul are subject to the whims of the flesh, apart from the discerning power of the Holy Spirit and the active and living word of God. He says, even if we, or an angel from heaven preach to you a different gospel, other than the one we originally brought to you, other than the one that we've already preached, he says, let him be accursed.

That word accursed is the strongest word in the Greek language to curse someone with. The word is anathema. The word anathema literally means doomed to destruction. You think, that seems a little harsh, don't you think, Paul? I mean, isn't there a little bit of room for grace here? Paul says, not when it comes to false gospels, not when it comes to you leading God's people

astray, but you know what? Paul wasn't the only one that felt that way. Matter of fact, go with me real quick to the book of Matthew chapter 18. Hold your finger here. Matthew chapter 18, and I want you to look at verse six because Jesus seemed to feel this exact same way.

Matthew 18 verse six says this, but whoever causes one of these little ones to stumble, these little ones who believes in me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned, in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks for it is inevitable that stumbling blocks will come, but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes. Why did Paul take this so seriously? Because Jesus took this so seriously.

Why did Paul handle this so harshly? Because Jesus handled this so harshly. Because the most important thing he could do is let them know, if somebody else is preaching a different gospel, I promise you, God's going to deal with them. Just don't go with them because they should be accursed. And if we didn't believe it then, go back to the book of Galatians.

In verse nine, he says it again. As we have said before, so again I say, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you have received, he is to be accursed. He said, if you didn't catch it the first time around, you need to understand that if any man, if anybody is preaching to you, a different gospel, then he is to be accursed. Same Greek word, accursed, anathema, doomed to destruction.

And so he tells us about these accursed messengers. But the third thing he tells us about is the importance of being a bond slave of Christ. Give me one second.

He goes on to say, for am I now seeking the favor of men or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still striving to please men, I would not be a bond servant of Christ. One of the accusations against Paul was that he was a man pleaser. But his goal was to draw a huge following. And the way to do that was to preach easy grace, to preach an easy gospel that didn't involve the law.

And Paul says, I'm not still trying to please man. But do you know why else I think Paul wrote this next section, this next verse? Is because what Paul was having to do now was going to make him very, very happy. He was going to make him very, very unpopular. And he knew that. And he didn't care. Why? Because he says, am I striving to please man? Am I seeking the favor of man?

That word please means to accommodate oneself to the opinions and desires of another. Oh, my friends, we must beware. That if we want to be bond servants of Jesus Christ, we can't live our lives to please others. We can't live our lives to meet the opinions of others. And yet, what is one of the most dominant things in our culture today? The opinions of others.

It's one of the most powerful forces that is facing our culture today. Did you hear about the young lady that killed herself this last week? Maybe. Made it pretty viral because of the bullying that she was going through. Why did she feel pushed to that? Because the opinions of others drove her to it. Brothers and sisters, our culture is inundated and dominated by the opinions of others

because we seek to please. We seek to accommodate ourselves to the opinions and the desires of others. And the unfortunate thing is, many in the church are doing it with the gospel of Jesus Christ. We're accommodating the gospel of Jesus Christ to the opinions and the desires of others. Paul goes on to say, if I were, if that was my goal, I couldn't be a bondservant of Christ.

Bondservant is, interestingly enough, similar to the word please. Bondservant or doulos, as it is in the Greek, means one who gives himself up to the will of another, to the disregard of his own interests. In this verse, there's something presented to us that you will do one of two things. You will live your life to please people or you will live your life to please God.

You will either be a people pleaser or a bondservant of Christ. The choice is yours. How will you live your life? Will you live your life giving in to all the different gospels or will you live your life simply to please Jesus? Because you can really only do one. Well, what do we do with what we've learned this morning? What do we do with these? Well, as a point of application,

there's three things I would like to leave you with. Number one, we need to recognize when it's a different gospel. We need to recognize when it's a different gospel. That means that you may have to do some research about things. That brand new book that just came out that everybody's so excited about, that brand new teaching that just came out that everybody's so excited about,

you may have to look into that just a little bit. There's a big movement right now with the commercials. And they're called He Gets Us. Have you seen some of these commercials? And they seem really good on the surface, but I have a feeling that there's a little bit more behind it. I have a feeling that there's a liberal agenda behind it. And it's more and more showing itself

to be a liberal agenda. But you know how I know that there's a liberal agenda behind it? It's not because I have some massive amount of discernment in the Holy Spirit. It's because I researched it. The first commercial I saw, I went, huh, wonder who's behind that? That's a really well-made commercial that looks like it probably comes out of a book. It probably costs a lot of money.

I wonder who's behind it. And so I dug and I dug and I dug and I dug. And I started seeing some of the liberal movement that's behind it. I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't dug for it, but I dug for it. Anybody can do it. You have this wonderful thing called the internet, right? And you can research all kinds of things on it. You should do that with the newest books that come out.

You should do that with the book that you find to be, oh, this is the greatest thing I've ever read. Make sure. Double check it. Paul told the Bereans, you are more fair-minded because you searched the scriptures daily to see if these things were so. You need to recognize when it's a different gospel. Number two, you need to recognize that it is a big deal.

Again, I can't tell you how many times I've confronted people with, hey, you know the pagan roots of that particular teaching, right? You know the pagan roots of that numbering system. Like you understand that. And they're like, but it just doesn't seem like that big of a deal. After all, we're using it for good. After all, we're using it for God's purposes.

Well, that may be, but it's still a different gospel and we need to understand that. And you need to recognize that that's a big deal. And it's not a big deal because Ryan says it's a big deal. As a matter of fact, most of the things that I like that are probably borderline false gospels, I don't think they're that big of a deal either. Gonna like them, right?

And then the Holy Spirit's like, it's a big deal. Because when he says things like, if anyone presents to you any other gospel other than the one that I've taught to you, even if it's me, let him be doomed to destruction. Apparently, God thinks it's a big deal. And we need to realize that. Listen, you guys know I love to get up here and joke and be funny with my teaching.

But when it comes to this, there's no joke. Because it's serious. Because it's your eternity. And it's the eternity of everybody else around you. Recognize that it's a big deal. And then number three, come back to grace. Come back to Jesus. If you have found that you've given in to one of these false gospels, I need you to understand something. Paul didn't write this just to put them down.

Paul wrote this so that they would come back to Jesus. Paul wrote this so that they would come back to grace. Because, brothers and sisters, Jesus doesn't show us where we're wrong without also showing us how to be right. And I will often, throughout this book of Galatians, bring us back to this exact same point. Come back to grace. Come back to Jesus. Because his arms are wide open.

And once you're willing to leave behind that false gospel, you will once again find peace in the grace of Jesus. In the grace of Jesus Christ. Amen? Let's all stand.

Fun and exciting day today. I'm not saying they're Jesus' team. I'm not saying they're not.

But may the... There's no hope in this, just a lot of fun. I pray that you enjoy your day. Would you bow with me? Father, we come to you and just thank you. Thank you for what your word has to say to us. I thank you that you correct us. Where we need to be corrected. And so, Lord, give us that spirit of discernment that we need as we examine the things that we do.

And Lord, may we learn to take seriously the things that you take seriously. And Father, give us a heart. Give us a heart to come back to Jesus. Father, we thank you and we praise you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Be blessed. Be blessed.

God, we need you. We need you so much, Lord. More than we realize. God, I just pray that your Holy Spirit would continue to work in us, Lord, as we leave here today. Lord, God, just do a mighty work in our hearts, Lord. God, just do something awesome. We love you and we praise you and we thank you. We pray these things in your precious and holy name. All God's people said, amen.

You guys have a wonderful week. Be blessed.