The Problem with the Galatians

Good morning. It's good to see everybody. If you want to go ahead and stand with me, we'll pray and we'll get started here. Father, thank you for the day. God, I just thank you for who you are and for how much you love us and for what you've done for us, Lord. God, I just pray that today we would be able to set everything aside and just focus upon you, Lord, and just

lift a joyful noise to you. We love you, God, and we praise you and we thank you. In Jesus' name, amen. You guys can go and have a seat if you like. We'll continue on.

Yes, Lord. Better is one day in your courts. Better is one day in your presence than a thousand elsewhere. Better is one day than thousands elsewhere. There's love for us. How vast beyond all measure that he should give his only son to make a wretch his treasure. Father turns his face away as wounds which mar the chosen and he signs to give us no power. Jesus Christ. Thank you for your son, Jesus, and for what he's done for us on the

cross. Thank you, Lord Jesus, that you would make a wretch like me and make me your treasure.

Lord, if there are any here today that have never known you, Lord, today would be that day. Sing that first verse with me one more time. Keep the Father's love. For us. How vast beyond all measure. Wretch his treasure, Jacob, whose love endorsed through generations. We'll keep your covenant.

We need you now to do the same thing for now. First labor us upon. If you want things, we'll have two prayers back. You are the same yesterday, today, and forever, Lord. Entire nation out of slavery.

The same God that did that is the same God that's still at work today, Lord. We can always count on you, Lord, because you never change. The promises, the promises, Lord, that you gave in are still good today, Lord.

And I just pray, Lord, that we would just come to that realization, Lord, of how much we truly need you. I'm standing on the cross. I just pray that today, as Pastor Ryan comes, Lord, you just speak mightily through him, Lord. Speak your word to us, Lord. Let us be changed by the Lord God.

Let us not leave here the same, Lord. God, Holy Spirit, do your work in us, Lord.

We thank you. All God's people said, let's have some fellowship.

Good morning.

If you could start to locate your seats. Grab your bulletin. We'll get ready to go over a few announcements.

Welcome to Calvary Chapel. Glad you could be here this morning. Over on the left-hand side of your bulletin are the different events that go on throughout the week, studies to get involved in. So locate one of those. Over in the middle section, just a reminder, it looks like a lot of you took advantage of it, but the youth group's doing their coffee shop thing, and it seems like it's going really well.

Also a reminder, if you're going to get involved in the new small group, it starts this Thursday. And then, fellas, this coming Saturday is a men's breakfast. So come join us for that. 8 o'clock a.m. down at the other end of the hallway. Eat some food. Talk about Jesus. Enjoy being around each other. And then one announcement that's not in your bulletin. I got a little card from the Gideon that spoke last week, and he always sends me the total.

And I was pretty blown away. Our church donated $799 towards this. Towards the spreading of God's word. Yeah, that's amazing. I was talking to somebody. I was talking to Ross Lumbert, who's actually in the process of becoming a Gideon, or in the process of getting to where he can speak at churches, too. And he was saying that usually most churches give about $100 to $150.

So I thought that that was a blessing. And 100% of what they take in goes into getting the word of God into the hands of people. So those are the things that are. Going on. If you would make sure that your mobile device is silenced. And for our responsive reading, we're going to be in Psalm 42. Psalm 42. And for our responsive reading, we always use the new American standard.

If you don't have that copy with you, there should be one in a row around you. And as you're turning to Psalm 42, if you would stand in the honor of the reading of God's word. I will read the odd verses. If you will follow on Pastor Allen and the even verses. Psalm 42 for the choir director, a mascal of the sons of Cora. As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for you, O God.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all day long, where is your God? These things I remember. I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession. To the house of God, with the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival.

Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become so disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him for the help of his presence. O my God, my soul is in despair within me. Therefore, I remember you from the land of the Jordan and the peaks of Hermon from Mount Mazar. Deep calls to deep at the sound of your waterfalls. All your breakers and your waves have rolled over me.

The Lord will command his loving kindness in the daytime, and his song will be with me in the night. A prayer to God of my rock. I will say to God, my rock, why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile me, while they say to me all day long, where is your God? And read verse 11 with me.

Why are you in despair, O 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 Father, we do praise you that that is who you are, Lord. You are our help, and you are our hope. And Lord, we can find those things in you. And so, Father, as we look to you in your word this morning,

I pray that you would teach us by the power of your Holy Spirit what it is that you want us to learn this morning. As always, Father, I pray that you would shine forth and that the things of me would be laid aside, that you would convict where there needs to be conviction, that you would comfort where there needs to be comfort, and that you would teach us exactly what you want us to learn. 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 our study this morning, I want to spend just a couple of minutes talking to you. About the things that are going on in the world right now. I watched a very interesting video, which I would recommend that you guys watch as well by Amir Sirfati. It's called, The Beginning of Birth Pangs. And he was talking about what's going on over in the border of Turkey and Syria with the earthquake that took place.

If you don't know what happened, which it's not being covered much on U.S. media right now. But if you don't know what happened, there was last Monday morning, I think it was around 4 a.m. their time. They were hit with a 7.8 magnitude earthquake. And then about 4 a.m. 4 or 5 hours later, there was an aftershock that hit quite a few miles away, but still along the border there.

It was 7.5. And the destruction has been awe-inspiring. It's just been horrendous what's taken place there. I looked it up first thing this morning. And from what I can tell, the death toll is over 29,000 now that have lost their lives in this situation. It's just, it's horrendous. Well, in the video, that Amir shows, he shows some other videos because what we don't realize is there's still aftershocks taking place over there,

like an exponential amount of aftershocks, some of which are four or five and six on the Richter scale and in that general range. And there's still entire buildings just collapsing. He showed a video, two different videos of buildings that look like they're being folded up like an accordion. And people are standing around. And then all of a sudden, out of nowhere,

this building just folds up and falls. And it's just, it's almost disturbing to the, to the soul to watch these things. But he points out the fact that these are only the beginnings of the birth pangs that are coming. Jesus told us in Matthew chapter 24, that, that there would be war and pestilence and that there would be earthquakes and that those things would be increasing in intensity.

If you don't understand fully the intensity of this, he pointed out the fact that seismologists have realized that Turkey has actually shifted nine feet to the west because of, because of the, the magnitude of the earthquakes that have hit there. Brothers and sisters, this is, this is only the beginning for those of us that are believers in Jesus Christ. These things that we're seeing while increasing in intensity will be as bad as it gets. But for those that will be here during this great tribulation period, which I think is what we're edging towards very closely.

This is only the beginning. It's only the beginning of what will be a very horrendous time. And the, the, the destruction, the wars, all the things that we're seeing right now will continue to, to increase when God pours out his wrath on the earth. And it should do a couple of things for us. Number one, it should create a purity inside of ourselves, which is kind of what we're going to talk about this morning,

that, that we would not be taken captive by false gospels, but that we would keep our hearts and minds focused on the purity of God's word and keeping ourselves close to him. But it should also create in a, such an urgency to share the gospel with the people that are around us, knowing that there will be those who will not only have to face what will take place, place on this earth, but we'll have to face an eternity apart from God in hell. It should create an urgency in us to, to share the truth with the people that are around us. And so, and so with that as a little bit of a backdrop, we move now into the book of Galatians.

Last week, we started into Galatians and we gave an overarching theme to the book. And the overarching theme to the book of Galatians is back to grace because the Galatian people we're going to find have moved away from grace. They've moved actually into a different gospel. So the title of this morning's message is the, the problem with the Galatians. I was going to call it.

The kids are not okay, but that's the title of a book, I think. And so I didn't want to run into copyright infringement problems. And so, so I went with the problem with the Galatians, but if you want to put a little parentheses in your notes, it says the kids are not okay. That do that too, because quite frankly, the kids are not okay. And that's what he gets into.

Paul started off the book by introducing himself as the apostle of grace. The one who had seen so much grace shown in his own life. He introduced us to his, his recipients, the Galatian people, which if you want to learn more about who those Galatian people are, I won't go into it today, but you can feel free. If you weren't here last week to go to our website, a Calvary chapel, ark city.org.

And you can pick up on last week's message and, and catch up a little bit on these Galatian people. And then he introduced his subject because the subject ultimately is Jesus Christ and the grace that he has for us. And so as he did, so he moves quickly into what the problem is in Galatians. So we pick up in chapter one, verse six, and it says this, 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 of Christ. 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 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 bond servant of Christ. And so as we look at this section versus six through 10, there's three things that you're going to see. You're going to see false gospels. You're going to see a curse messengers, and we're going to see a bond servant. Of Christ. Now, before I get into this first section,

I want to present something to you. And that's what Paul did not say. You can oftentimes learn as much about someone or what they're saying based upon what they don't say as well as you can from what words they actually use. Because Paul typically has a way that he addresses his letters. After his introduction, he usually goes on to thank God for the people that he's writing for or to compliment them to speak of their great works,

to speak of their great love, to speak of the great faithfulness, to speak of the great faith that they have. But there is nothing complimentarian about the way that Paul presents his letter. As a matter of fact, he doesn't thank God for them, nor does he say anything good about the Galatian people. Now, that's an interesting thing for us to take note of, given the fact that one of the other letters that Paul wrote is first Corinthians.

And first Corinthians is one of the most scorchingly corrective letters that Paul had ever written. And in first Corinthians, he still takes time to thank God for them. He still thinks takes time to praise them, for, for their great gifts in the Holy Spirit. And yet in this book of Galatians, there's none of that. Why? Because there was a major problem in the city of Galatia.

There was a major problem in the churches of Galatia. And the major problem is that they had left the true gospel. They hadn't just fallen into sin. They hadn't just drifted away from some things. They had actually begun to believe a different gospel. Brothers and sisters, we have to understand that that is serious business. And so Paul is serious. He is serious in the way that he addresses the Galatian people.

And so he starts off by talking about these false gospels. Notice what he says. He starts off with one phrase. He says, I am amazed. Now, I don't know if you put voice inflection ever in God's word. I think you should. I think you should do it with discernment. Like maybe do it a few times, catch some context, and then put a little voice inflection to it because I think it adds a little something to it.

So I tried to put a little voice inflection into this. Okay. So the first one was like, I'm amazed, right? Like kind of confused. And the next one was like, I'm amazed, kind of like heartbroken. But then I landed on what I think is the actual voice inflection that he used. And it's, I am amazed, right? It's kind of that point in time when you're talking to your kids,

parents, and you told them something 11 billion times and they still haven't done it. And you come home and you're like, what? You haven't done that yet. I am amazed that you can't understand exactly what I intended for you to do. Right? That's sort of the voice inflection. I think that Paul uses at that point in time, because he's like, because that's exactly how he feels.

He cannot believe that as clearly as he had portrayed the gospel to them, as clearly as he had portrayed grace to them and the way that they had reacted to the grace of God that was shown to them, not only because of what it says in God's word, but because of his own story, he couldn't believe they would move into another gospel. They would start believing something so false. Literally, he was shocked. And as, the Amplified Bible puts it, and a little irritated that they had fallen away so quickly.

Notice what it says. He says, I am amazed. And what's he amazed at? That you are so quickly deserting him who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel. What's he amazed at? Amazed at that they had deserted Jesus. There's a handful of phrases that he uses to describe this deserting of Jesus. Number one, he says it happened so quickly. Remember,

we said that Galatians was probably written right, right after his first missionary journey, which is when he would have first met these Galatian people, but right before the Acts 15 council. So you're talking maybe a year has elapsed. Probably not even that. Probably a few months has elapsed since Paul had been there. And so he is amazed that they would so quickly turn away from the gospel,

that they would so quickly desert Jesus. And so the second phrase that he uses is the phrase desert, or literally to turn away from. And when he says that, we need to understand this, that you're either following Jesus or you're following something else. There is no happy middle ground. You either pursuing Jesus with your whole heart or you're pursuing the things of the world.

You're pursuing a false gospel. So when he says you have deserted him, you have turned away from him. Is it complete turning away from the gospel of Jesus Christ? And who have they turned away from? They've turned away from him. We need to understand that the gospel of Jesus Christ is not just a gospel of Jesus Christ. The gospel of Jesus Christ is not just a system of beliefs.

It's not just words on a page. It's not just a book that we follow. It's not just a creed that we subscribe to. It's none other than a person. And that person is Jesus Christ. Jesus is the good news of the gospel. And so when we turn away from the gospel, we're not just turning away from a system of beliefs. We're turning away from the one that we should believe in.

We're turning away from the very one who gave his life for us. He says, I'm amazed that so quickly you would desert him. But not only have they deserted Jesus, what have they deserted? Grace. They've departed from grace. The free gift of God that came about through the work of Jesus Christ on the cross for you and I. And what have they deserted him for? What have they deserted the grace of God for?

A different gospel. Some of your translations may say another gospel, but the word, the best translation there is the word different, a different gospel, because this is what the word means. Not of the same nature, form, class, or kind. In other words, the gospel that they had left Jesus to go and follow doesn't even resemble the gospel of Jesus Christ. And as he looks at these Galatian people, he says,

I am amazed that you would do this. What gospel were they turning away? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? What? They were turning towards a gospel of works. They had turned towards Judaism. You see, the Judaizers that we talked about last week had followed Paul around, and this is what they had done when they followed Paul around.

They would say, I understand that Paul's told you about Jesus, and that's great. It's wonderful that you've put your faith in Jesus, but you see, there's other things that you need to do, too. You see, there's other things that you need to do in order to actually be complete in Christ. you also have to be circumcised. You also have to keep all of the Mosaic law. You have to follow

all of these rules and regulations. You have to keep all of the feasts. You have to also do all of those things. You see, the Judaizers came along behind him and said, it's Jesus and works. It's Jesus and all of the things of works. And so they had left for a different gospel. Now he's going to go on to present three things to us about this different gospel. I want you to notice what it

says in verse seven, which is really not another. There are some who are disturbing you and they want to distort the gospel of Christ. So he describes this other gospel in three different ways. Number one, he describes it as not another. That's important for us to pay attention to because this is not just another set of good news. This is not just another thing that is the good

news of Jesus Christ. Just in a little bit of a different form. This is absolutely nothing like the gospel of Jesus Christ. This gospel of works that they had given into was not another gospel. It was a completely different thing. He describes it a second way. He describes it as that as something that some have used to disturb you. Now, I want to point something out to you. This false gospel that

had been brought to the Galatian people had been brought by someone. You have to understand that. They didn't just happen upon this themselves. They weren't studying the scriptures and realizing this themselves. It was brought to them by someone. And that's the way it always works. When someone presents to you a false gospel, it's someone who does it. And they're usually

very charismatic. They usually have realized that they have found the secret. And now they want to tell you all about the secret that they have found. This someone, I have found the secret to it all. Matter of fact, there was a book that came out at one point in time, remember, by Deepak Chopra called The Secret, which basically says, I have found the secret to it all. And I have found the

secret to it all. And basically all he did was repackage karma and call it the secret and then made a million dollars off of it, right? The only secret he found was the secret to getting rich. But he tried to tell everybody, I have found the secret. And we have to beware of that kind of thing because it's going to come from someone. And that someone will convince you that they

finally found the secret. But notice what this gospel does. He says, some are disturbing you with this news. Some are disturbing you with this gospel. That word disturbed, means to agitate, to cause inward confusion or unrest. Brothers and sisters, the grace of God leads us to peace. False gospels lead us to a place of unrest. That word disturb, or some of your translations may say trouble you, is used elsewhere in scriptures. As a matter of fact,

that same Greek word is used in the gospels when the disciples were out in the middle of the water on a boat and there was a storm that came up. Jesus came walking to them on the water and it says that when they saw Jesus walking to them on the water, they were greatly disturbed. They were greatly troubled. That's the idea behind what this gospel is doing to the people of Galatia. It was causing trouble, not only in their hearts,

but it was causing trouble in their church. And then the third thing that he tells us about this false gospel is that this false gospel has distorted the gospel of Christ. That word distorted, distorted the gospel of Christ. That word distorted, distorted the gospel of Christ. means to pervert, corrupt, or change into an opposite. It has distorted, it has changed the

gospel of Jesus Christ, which is exactly how we know that it's not another. It's not just another form of the gospel. It's a completely different thing. And as we mentioned, the gospel that they had given into was the gospel of works. But as I was thinking about this, I've actually been meditating on this for about the last two weeks, thinking about these other gospels that are around,

because in our world today, there are other gospels. I hope you realize that. I hope you realize that even within the church, there are people that want to try to preach another gospel to you. And so I started thinking about all the different ones, started making a list of all the different gospels. And I thought, no, I don't want to give an exhaustive list of all of the different

gospels because we don't have time for that. We don't have time to do all of that. So what I want to do is I want to give you categories, because I think that there are three categories that I want to give you. And I want to give you three categories that I want to give you. There are three categories that we can fit the other gospels, the false gospels that seem to be

prevalent in our current culture, three categories we can fit them into. Okay. Number one, the gospel of subtraction, the gospel of subtraction. What do I mean by that? Well, I think it takes on two forms. The first thing that the gospel of subtraction does is it takes away sin. All of a sudden, all of the morals that seem to have governed the world and run clearly throughout God's word

are called antiquated. They're called provincial. They're called patriarchal. They're called evil, quite frankly. They're called shackles that are holding us down, bondage that we've been living in. And the gospel of subtraction takes all of those things away. It says, you don't have to worry about sin. That's just how God made you. Didn't God give us everything to use freely,

every herb of the field, smoke, whatever you want to, you can do whatever you want to, because it's all about God's grace, right? You can just do what you want to. And it takes away sin. It subtracts the message of sin from the Bible. But do you know what else it subtracts? The gospel of subtraction also subtracts portions of the word of God. It takes away the parts of God's

word that they don't like. There was actually a teaching that went around at one point in time in the early two thousands. Um, which BT dubs, can we just talk about how wrong it is that we can call a period of time, the early two thousands? I don't know why that just bothers me. I feel old because of that. Anyway, there was a teaching that went around during the early two thousands that, that sort

of stripped away the power of the cross. And they said, Oh, the cross is such, that's such a bloody image. What Jesus was really doing was not giving us a substitutionary sacrifice. What he was doing was giving us an example of love, an example of love to follow. And the real gospel is learning to follow the example of love that Jesus set for us on the cross.

Uh, it's not what the Bible says, right? And you know what else they like to subtract? The other thing that's really being subtracted right now is the message of judgment. Have you noticed that the, the message of judgment that, that, uh, God will judge people for sin, that there is a real literal hell. We're told in the book of second Peter, that they willfully forgot that God created

the world. They have willfully forgotten that God destroyed the world once through a flood, and they will willfully forget that he's coming again, that the world is being reserved for fire. When he comes a second time to judge unbelieving man, they forgot that God judged the first time and they forget that God's going to judge again. Why? Because judgment doesn't fit

into my understanding of God. Hell doesn't fit into my understanding of God because I've subtracted so much about God from scripture, but none of those things fit in anymore. That's called a false gospel because it doesn't line up with what God's word has to say. And so the first false gospel is a gospel of subtraction. The second false gospel or category, is the gospel of addition. The gospel of addition is again, twofold. I think, first of all,

it takes on the form of works because the gospel of addition says you must add works to all of your Christian life. Now, listen, I don't want you to misunderstand me. When I really come to faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy spirit will produce works in my life. Actually, I will bear the fruit of the works of the Holy spirit in my life. The idea behind the legalistic idea of works is that,

you can never know from one day to the next, whether or not you're really okay, because you have to maintain a certain number of works. You have to maintain a certain amount of things and you make a little checklist. We as human beings are so prone to legalism because we love the way it makes us feel. We love that feeling of accomplishment that goes with keeping the checklist. And oftentimes we as human beings will have this checklist. You know

why we keep the checklist of works? Two reasons. And I brought these up last week and I'll bring them up again. Two reasons why we like the checklist of works. Number one, it makes me feel good. It makes me feel good. I feel like a better parent because I've kept the checklist. I feel like a better Christian because I've kept the checklist. When I have kept all of the things that I think are the works that are important,

I feel really good about me. But you know what the one thing that should make me feel good is? The grace of Jesus Christ. Because I know that I could read the Bible till I'm blue in the face and memorize what it all has to say and try as hard as I possibly can. And I will still never live up. My list of works. Look what I did. And I feel really good about me. You know what the second

thing my list of works is really good at doing? I can hold it over everybody else's head. And I can say, if you were more like me, if you acted more like I act, if you did the things that I did, then you could be as good of a Christian as I am. That's the gospel of addition. I've added works to the grace of God. But you know, there's actually even more to this gospel of addition.

Because the gospel of addition causes us to add things from other religions to the gospel of Jesus Christ. There's a really, really fun big word. It's called syncretism. Syncretism is when I sync together things from other religions with the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's always been an issue with God's people. As a matter of fact, if you were to go back into the Old Testament

and read what some of the prophets had to say, the children of Israel were really good at bringing their sacrifices to God. They were really good at bringing all of these sacrifices and presenting them to God. The problem was they would bring sacrifices to God on the day that they were supposed to bring sacrifices to God. But then on the other days, they would take sacrifices to Baal. They were like, hey, we can

just do both, right? We'll add in the things of Baal to the things of God. Then everything will be great. Everybody's going to be happy. And that's what happens within the church today is we have synced up so many things from other religions with the things of God. You say, Ryan, where does that happen? Your Christian bookstore. And you're going to find a lot of books of people that have synced up

Eastern ideas, new age ideas, occultic ideas with the gospel of Jesus Christ. They've mixed those two things together and they've made one brand new religion out of it. And it's not another gospel. It's a gospel of addition. And we have to pay attention to these things. People, you need to pay attention to what you're reading. You need to pay attention to who

you're listening to. You need to be aware of these things. Because they don't come in bold and brash and say, this is false teaching and you're really going to like it. No, they come in deceptively. Read any book in the New Testament and they will all tell you the same thing. Beware of the deception that comes in because they like to mix a little bit of truth with some heresy. Pretty soon you're down the path of a false gospel,

the gospel of addition. And then number three is the gospel of self. I was going to title this the gospel of Oprah, but I didn't know if everybody would know who that was. The gospel of self. And again, I think it takes on two characteristics. The first aspect of the gospel of self is the doctrine of self-care. Ryan, you stop that now. I like self-care. Listen, I don't want you to get

me wrong. Okay. You need to take care of yourself. You need to listen to your body. When your body says it's time to rest, you need to rest. When your body says you need some exercise, you need some exercise. When you need a vacation, you need a vacation. There's nothing wrong with that. There's actually everything very godly about that because scripture speaks to us about the importance of rest.

But rest is not what the self-care generation is all about. Me is what the self-care generation is all about. You deserve the best, right? Aren't you worth it? Maybe she's born with it. Maybe it's Maybelline. I don't know. Makeup commercials are going through my head right now. That's the self-care generation that we live in. And the self-care generation says it doesn't matter

what everybody else needs right now. What's really important is what I need right now. That's going to affect me. And I need to make sure that I take care of me. After all, if I don't take care of me, who is going to take care of me? Well, God promises to give you everything you need. I'm pretty sure Jesus promises to take care of you. I feel like God said the exact opposite when Jesus

spoke to us in the book of Matthew, when he said, seek first your self-care and all these other things will be. No, that's not what he said. He said, seek first the kingdom of God and all of these things will be added to you. Right? And so the first aspect of the gospel of self is the gospel of the self-care, the doctrine of the self-care. But the second aspect of the gospel of self is

this. You can be your own God. You can be your own God. Let me put it to you in today's words. You should just live out your truth. Oh man, that one hit a little closer to home, didn't it? Because that's what everybody's saying right now. Listen, you need to just live out your truth. What's truth for you? You figure that out and then you live out your truth. You be the most authentic version

of yourself you can be. You know what the authentic version of myself is? A sinner going to hell. I don't want to be the authentic version of myself. I want to be the Jesus version of myself. The portion of myself that gave himself to Jesus and said, you got to fix everything I've screwed up. After all, what Paul tells us in the book of Romans, that in me, that is in my flesh dwells,

no good thing. But this is so prevalent in our culture right now. Actually, there's a really big catchphrase that's been going through Christian circles for the past few years. It's called deconstruction. And the deconstruction movement, hashtag deconstructed, right? The deconstruction movement says, I'm going to deconstruct my faith and I'm going to reconstruct

it according to my own truth. They won't use those exact words, but that's the idea behind what they want to do. I want to reconstruct my faith according to my own truth. Therefore, if my faith is deconstructed, I'm going to deconstruct it according to my own truth. Therefore, if my faith is damaged because you called something sin that is actually something really important to me,

then I'm going to deconstruct that part of my faith and I'm going to rebuild it. I'm going to reconstruct it according to my own truth. Brothers and sisters, we need to know this is the world we're living in right now. This is the church world we're living in right now. These false gospels are everywhere. And we need to understand that you and I are just as susceptible to them

as anybody else. You know why? Because in me, that's in my flesh, dwells no good thing. Anytime I've ever confronted anybody with any of these false gospels, I always hear the same two responses. That's not really a false gospel. Second response I always hear is, it's not that big of a deal. It's pretty innocent, isn't it? I mean, after all, I'm using it for good. But those two responses are very prevalent. It's not really a false gospel,

and it's not really that big of a deal. Now, I'm here to tell you right now that Paul seems to think it's a big deal. Jesus seems to think it's a big deal. We should probably think it's a big deal. Well, after he presents these false gospels, he now deals with the accursed messengers. He says, 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 have 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. Now, Paul has two warnings that he has to give. The two warnings that'll end the exact same way, but the two warnings are this. The first one starts off by saying either we or an

angel from heaven. Let's take those two phrases. The first, let's take the second phrase first. If an angel from heaven comes down to you and preaches to you a different gospel, then let him be accursed. Do you know that there's a cult out there right now that claims that an angel from heaven came down and gave them this brand new vision, this brand new revelation? Kind of seems like Paul

might've been talking about that, right? Almost like God gave him the discernment to know that was going to happen someday and he needed to deal with it. But not only if an angel from heaven comes, but I want you to take note of what Paul says. But even if I preach to you a different gospel, other than the one that I've preached to you, I'm not going to be accursed. I'm not going

to be accursed. Let me be accursed. You know what that tells me? That tells me that none of us are exempt from falling prey to false gospels. Because if the apostle Paul, the apostle of grace, the one that wrote three fourths of the new Testament says, even if I preached to you a different gospel and brothers and sisters, I guarantee we all better watch out. We all better

pay attention because it means that I'm susceptible to it as well. And also, if I preach to you a different gospel, you better sit me down. You better pull me out because he has harsh language for those that do. He says, even if we or an angel from heaven preached to you a different gospel, other than what has already been preached, once you take note of what they're supposed to happen to them, let them be accursed. That word accursed is the strongest word in the Greek language for

cursing someone. Let me tell you what it literally means. It's the strongest word in the Greek language literally means doomed to destruction. That doesn't sound very loving or gracious at all. Ryan, that sounds terrible. Really? Because Jesus seemed to feel the exact same way. Go with me over to Matthew, Matthew chapter 18, Matthew chapter 18, verses six and seven. Jesus says, but whoever

causes one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him to have a heavy millstone hung around his neck. He 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 come, but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes. You see, Paul took this seriously because Jesus took this seriously. If Jesus,

who had just gotten done talking about the tenderhearted little kids, if he's going to say, I want you to know if anyone stumbles any of these little ones, I think he's not, he's not only talking about kids, but he's talking about anybody that are his kids. If anyone stumbles one of these little ones that believe in me, he'd be better off to go ahead and find himself a necktie made of a millstone and throw himself in the sea because otherwise he's going to have to deal with me. Brothers and sisters, we need men like Paul and like Jesus in the church today who will stand up and say, not only no, but heck no, you're not coming in here with that business. And I will stand up no matter how mad,

I'll step on your toes if I need to, because that's a false doctrine. And I care more about your eternal soul than your temporary pleasure. I care more about your eternal soul than how you feel about me at this moment. And I am willing to stand up and be a man and call out what's wrong. We need it. And we don't have very much of it in the church right now. Instead, what do we have?

Well, we have men that he's going to talk about here in just a minute, men pleasers. Paul takes this very seriously. As a matter of fact, after calling it out once back over to Galatians chapter one, after calling it out once, he says it again, as we have said before. So I say again now, just in case you didn't catch it the first time, if any man is preaching to you a gospel contrary to what you have received, he is to be accursed.

Anyone. Paul takes this seriously. Jesus takes this seriously. We should take this seriously. I shared with first service too. I usually love to make some jokes and make people laugh and, and make the Bible light and fun because I love God's word. There doesn't seem to be a lot of laughter in Galatians. He seems to get pretty serious. And I think we have to take it pretty serious. Well, now he goes on to talk about the importance

of being a bond slave of Christ. He says, 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. Paul deals with an issue, an issue that naturally was probably coming up in the minds of the Galatians. First of all, it was an attack that had come against him that,

that the only reason he preached a gospel of grace was to make himself a friend of the Gentiles, to please men, to please people. And so he addresses this by saying, I'm not out to please men because if I was still out to please men, I couldn't. I couldn't be a bond slave of Christ. But he also confronts something. What he confronts is the fact that what he has to present to them is not a popular message. I shared this with first service

last week, but I didn't share it with second service, at least not that I can think. But in Lloyd Ogilvie's commentary, he had something very interesting to say. He said, the book of Galatians is a dangerous book. It was dangerous for Paul to write because it meant he would make even more enemies of himself. More people would come against him as he stood against the false teachings of the day.

It was a dangerous book for the Galatian people to read because it would challenge the very core of who they were. And they would have to make some decisions that may ultimately lead to persecution. But then I love the way Lloyd Ogilvie closed it because I feel the same way. He said, and it's a dangerous book for me to teach because I inevitably will have to make some of you upset as I confront the false gospels.

That we all love so dearly, that our flesh is so attracted to. But I have to do it because I am a bondservant of Jesus Christ. Paul says, am I now seeking to please men? I want to define that word please for you. That word please means to accommodate one's self to the opinions and desires of another. Brothers and sisters, we live in a culture of men pleasers. It's actually what our entire

culture thrives on right now. The opinions of others is one of the greatest idols that our culture faces. Kids, and I'm not trying to over-exaggerate this, kids are literally killing themselves because of the opinions of others. Because the opinions of others mean so much to them. And as believers in Jesus Christ, we have to get past that. We have to get past the

opinions of others. Because there's only one person that matters, and that's our Savior, Jesus Christ. His opinion is the only one that will last for eternity. But Paul says, listen, am I seeking to please men? Am I accommodating myself constantly to the opinions of others? Am I giving up what I really believe because of the opinions of others? He can faithfully answer no, but I think we should

all ask ourselves that question. Do I change who I am based upon the opinions of others? Am I one way in front of people whose opinions matter to me? Am I one way in front of people whose opinions matter to me? And a different way in front of everybody else? Because that would mean that I'm not really a bondservant of Jesus Christ. As a matter of fact, if I'm driven constantly, tossed to and fro by the

opinions of others, you know what that actually makes me? A hypocrite. Because I'm never really, I'm never really who God has called for me to be. I'm never being honest about myself. Paul says, am I seeking to please men? He says, if I was still seeking to please men, I could not be a bondservant of Christ. If that was my goal, if being a man pleaser was my goal, I couldn't be a bondservant

of Christ. Now I'd like to define the word bondservant for you. The word bondservant in the Greek is the word doulos, and this is what it means. One who gives himself up to the will of another, to the disregard of one's own interests. One who gives himself up to the will of another, even to the disregard of his own interests. You see, brothers and sisters, in that verse is presented to us the choice. You will give yourself over to

the opinion of someone. Are you going to give yourself over to the opinion of men and be a man pleaser? Or are you going to give yourself up to the will of God and be a bondservant of Jesus Christ? Isn't it great that in God's word, you have to make a choice? That in scripture, Jesus calls us to make a choice about who we're going to be. Are you going to follow false gospels? Are you going to follow the one true

gospel? Are you going to follow in a curse messenger? Are you going to follow the message? Are you going to be a man pleaser? Or are you going to be a bondservant of Jesus Christ? Well, what's this mean for us? How do we put this into some shoes and make it walk? Three things. Number one, recognize that it is a different gospel. If you're struggling with some of these

other gospels, you need to recognize it for what it is. Recognize that it is a different gospel that you are finding your flesh drawn towards. Because if you can't recognize that it's a different gospel, you can never deal with it. And sometimes brothers and sisters, that means something. That means you're going to have to do a little bit of research about the thing that all

of a sudden you enjoy so much. You need to do a little bit of research about the book that you really like. You need to do a little bit of research about the teaching that you're really enjoying. Who are they? What do they really have to say? What is their belief system? You're going to have to do a little research so that you can recognize that it's a different gospel. There's a series of

commercials that have been going around here lately. The He Gets Us commercials. Have you guys seen those? It's like you're kind of going, okay, that's good, but is it really good? You see, I am of the opinion that God is good. I am of the opinion that God is good. I am of the opinion that it maybe isn't as good as we think that it is. So I did a little bit of research on the He Gets Us

movement. And there's a lot of actual liberal ideology that's behind the He Gets Us movement. So you have to be aware of these things. At first you go, oh, look, a commercial about Jesus. People are talking about Jesus. But is it the same Jesus? That's what you have to ask yourself. And you need to do a little bit of research. I didn't figure that out because of how smart I am.

I figured it out because I use the internet, right? And I did a little research on it. And you can do the same thing with all of these other things. Make sure that you know what you're reading and make sure that you know whether or not it's a different gospel. And listen, when you're confronted with the fact that it's a different gospel, number two, you need to realize it's a big deal. It's a big deal. We as Christians are so good at excusing

things. Let me rephrase that. We as humans are so good at excusing things. And being like, nah, it's not really that big of a deal. It's merely a flesh wound, right? Like that's kind of who we are by nature. It's not really that big of a deal. After all, it's not hurting anyone. But we need to recognize that it's a big deal. Recognize that it's a different gospel. Recognize that it's a big deal.

And then number three, come back to grace. Come back to Jesus. See, Paul did not write the letter to the Galatians because he simply wanted to call them out and tell them what big idiots they were. That was just a fringe benefit, right? He didn't write it just for that purpose. He wrote it so that they could be corrected. He wrote it so that they would no longer follow

after these false gospels, that they would no longer follow after all of these other things. And brothers and sisters, I think that that's something we need to pay attention to because Jesus never tells us where we're wrong without also telling us how to be right. And so when we realize it's a different gospel and we realize it's a really big deal, then let's just come back to Jesus because his arms are always open and waiting for us to come back for restoration. Come back to Jesus and let him fill you once again with his grace. Come back to Jesus and let him

restore you because that's what he's so good at doing. Because the grace of God that brings salvation, that teaches us to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts is the same grace that we need every day. One of my favorite old hymns is a very familiar old hymn, Amazing Grace. My favorite line in that hymn I've written in the front of every single one of my Bibles says this, his grace has brought me safe thus far and his grace will lead me home. Come back to grace. Come back to Jesus. Amen.

Let's all stand. Well, brothers and sisters, it's a big day today. Fun day today. I think we all know what's important today. Jesus, not the game. Okay, get it right. No, but it's going to be a fun day. I hope that you enjoy your day and I hope that you're blessed by everything that happens today. Would you bow with me? Father, we come to you and we thank you, Lord, for another day. Lord, for another time in

your word. Lord, for the conviction of your Holy Spirit. And Father, I pray that you would move by the power of your Holy Spirit in and through our lives. Father, be with us as we go out from here. Keep us close to you and give us that discernment of your Holy Spirit. In Jesus name. Amen. Be blessed.

Jesus, my everything. Holy Spirit, rain down on us. Drench the unseen. Pour out your presence. Pour out your presence. Worship your majesty. Worship your whole. My everything.

See, pour out your presence. Inhabit our praise. As we cry, break out. Revival. Lord, send it. Lord, send it now. Oh, spirit, heaven, break out. Oh, come now in power. Cover this land like you've done it before. Would you do it again? Father, God, we need you. Yeah, we need your Holy Spirit, Lord, just to come and do a mighty work in us, Lord. God, we need you. We need you. We need you. We need you. We need you. We need you. We need

you. We need you. As we leave here today, we need you every hour. Lord, we need you every hour of every day. Father, God, I pray that as we leave here today, God, just continue your mighty work in our hearts, Lord. Don't let us leave the same. Let us leave different. Let us leave on fire for you, Lord. Father, we love you, God. We praise you, and we thank you. All God's people said,

amen. You guys have a wonderful week. Go Chiefs!