An Introduction

Morning. Welcome to Calvary Chapel. Would you all stand? We also want to welcome those of you online joining us. Would you join me in prayer? Father, we thank you for this opportunity this morning again together to worship you in song, Lord, to study your word together. Father, we lift up our service. Be glorified, Lord. We lift up the ministry that will be taking place down at the

other end of the hall as the teachers will be teaching the youngsters. Guide them, direct them, and give the youngsters listening ears, Lord, to hear what you have for them. And we pray that you would just bless now our time as we begin to worship, Lord. Sing as unto you, Lord. By faith, you are so faithful, Lord. Set our hearts to worship you.

Receive he who loves us. Find sacrificial love that loves us in spite of us. You gave your son for us, Lord. Oh, we thank you, Lord Jesus. The star. Leave that today. Yes, Lord, we thank you. We praise you. Work you did on the cross. And then rising from the dead, walking among the folks, Lord. Being seen of some 500, Lord. The boys all gathered with you on the mountain. And after you

had given them strength, they saw you depart. And they gazed as fast as like being in a theater, really, really viewing. It had to catch their minds. We know, Lord, it just caught their minds because they saw you ascend. And you're at the right hand of the Father now, making intercession for us. We praise you. We thank you, Lord Jesus. Oh, may we contemplate from day to help us.

The authenticity of a Christian walk as we're honest and trusting you, Lord, before a world in which we live, Lord, who is seeking for something to confide in. Lord, we thank you, Lord. We thank you, Lord. We thank you, Lord. We thank you, Lord. We thank you, Lord. We thank you, Lord. We thank you, Lord. We thank you, Lord. We thank you, Lord. We thank you, Lord. We thank you, Lord. We thank you, Lord. We thank you, Lord. We thank you, Lord.

No, it's not God because none seek God, you say. But all by your Holy Spirit, you draw. Faith comes by hearing and hearing. Never stop. God's riches at Christ's expense. Would you all stand? Grace, that's all. Thank you that we forever endeavor. Amen. Grace, are we saved through faith. Not that of ourselves, but it's a gift of God, which God has worked in us. You see,

it's a gift. So if it's a gift, you can't work for it. Amen. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Oh, Father, just continue to bless our time now as we will be fellowshipping and having this time in your word. Our hearts to receive that which you have and to prepare us to give out what you have us to give out to others as we fellowship with you and one another. That's where joy comes in.

Jesus first, yourself last, and others in between, you see. And so help us, Lord. Strengthen us in Jesus' name. Amen? Amen. And the Lord bless you all. Let's have some fellowship.

Good morning. If you could begin to locate your seat. Grab a bulletin. We'll get ready to go over some announcements.

Welcome to Calvary Chapel. Glad you're here this morning. Over on the left-hand side of your bulletin are the things that are going on throughout the week. So take note. Find a spot to get plugged into. In the middle section of your bulletin, as many of you have already discovered, the blessed bean is open. So far, so good, it seems like. So keep supporting them.

I know it's a blessing to them. Also, as a reminder, Joe's getting his small group started up. Is it in two weeks or is it this week? The 16th. So not this Thursday, but the next Thursday. So, and there is a, Joe and I have put together a really high-tech sign-up sheet out there. So I think you're really going to enjoy what you see. So between the two of us, we really made it happen.

So there's a sign-up sheet out there. So if you could, if you're interested in that, please put your info down on there. And then, ladies, this Saturday, February 11th, is the Women's Breakfast at Daisy Mae's Cafe. And then a reminder that I forgot to put in the bulletin is that this is the first Sunday of the month, which means that we'll be having our intercessory prayer time, which is a really big word to say, we're going to pray for each other.

So we'll be gathering at 6 o'clock this evening down at the other end of the hall from 6 to 7. If you want to come join us, as we pray for the things going on in our church community and in the world. Also, I don't think they've been claimed yet. Somebody found a couple of Honda keys on the floor in the hallway. They're not even on a key chain. They're just loose.

One is the remote. The other is the, oopsie, I forgot my key key. So if you are missing keys, they are with the ushers out front. Pretty good. Feel pretty good about the fact that they'll still be there when you get done. So you don't need to necessarily jump up right now, but that's where they are. So those are the things that are going on. If you'd make sure that your mobile device is silenced.

And for our, I'm looking for my little hat wearing buddy, and I don't, oh, there you are, man. I'm looking where you usually are and you're not there. Okay, for our responsive reading this morning, by the way, you're going to join me, right? Yeah, you are. You can't not now, right? For our responsive reading this morning, we're in Psalm 125. Looking at the new American standards so we sound the same.

It should be a copy in a row, if not, make a friend. Psalm 125.

We have identified the keys. Hey, while you're turning to Psalm 125, would you please stand in the honor of the reading of God's word? It's just one of those mornings here at the Calvary Chapel. I don't know why. I've been feeling it all morning. So, all right, Psalm 125. I will read the odd verses if you will follow along with Lewis and the even verses. Psalm 125.

A song of... Those who trust in the Lord are as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but abides forever. As the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people from this time forth and forever. For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest upon the land of the righteous, so that the righteous will not put forth their hands to do wrong. Do good, O Lord, to those who are good

and to those who are upright, and to those who are right in their hearts. And read verse five with me. But as for those who turn aside to their crooked ways, the Lord will lead them away with the doers of iniquity. Peace be upon Israel. And Father, we come to you and thank you, Lord, that we can trust in you. And Father, I just ask that as we are going to be looking at Galatians,

which is all about resting in your grace, that our trust in you would continue to grow. So, Father, be with us this morning as we spend time in your word. In Jesus' name. In Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. Before we get into the word this morning, one of the ministries that we support here at Calvary Chapel of Arc City is the Gideons. And so, about once a year, usually around this time of year,

they send someone out to share with us about the ministry of the Gideons. So, I would like for you to welcome James Miller to come share with us. Thank you. Isaiah 55, verses 10 and 11. As the rain cometh down, and the snow, from heaven, and returneth not hither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth bud, that it might give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater.

So shall my word be, that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it. The purpose of the Gideon ministry is to introduce people to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Just a little bit of quick history. The Gideons placed their first Bible in a hotel in 1908. By 1926, they had distributed 100,000 Bibles. In 1929, it was a million. 2001 was one billion. 2015 was two billion. And last year, we passed out 2.5 billion was our total as of last year. Before the COVID hit, we were passing out somewhere in the neighborhood of 90 million scriptures a year around the world

when the pandemic hit that number had dropped about in half and we're in the process of trying to build that back up i don't believe we've quite gotten there yet but we're we're doing better please please pray for us and pray that we can get these bibles into the hands that need them and that they will these people will read them and receive christ um locally our our numbers have kind of dropped off about the same way before the pandemic we are passing out about 350 at cali county college 200 at southwestern and around 3 000 at wsu every year and those numbers dropped to about half and we're gradually getting getting back up there we're probably two-thirds of the way back to where they were so

again pray for us and pray for us to keep finding opportunities to get to the places there the public schools we don't have much luck with the colleges are usually pretty good to work with but just pray for us to find places and ways to get these bibles where they need to go these are numbers the gideons are kind of bad about numbers but i guess it's good to have a kind of a gauge for where we are but what we like is changed lives i'd like to share with you this morning uh testimony that the gideons received from a young muslim woman in california named sarah sarah grew up in a muslim home her father was from libya and her mother came from what she called a nominal christian home but had converted to islam because she'd come to believe

that christians just use grace as an excuse to sin as a child sarah developed a great fear for god she lived and practiced the faith pillars of islam prayed five times a day and wore a scarf from the time she was in the second grade her spiritual life was made up based on performance good deeds versus bad deeds but she knew that she was inadequate to live life perfectly in high school she began to ask questions but received harsh words and criticism for questioning the tradition and religious law she wrote i found myself in a place of total destruction religion hadn't satisfied me the world totally disappointed me and there I was with no answers. I finally cried out to God one night and said, God,

if you are real and if you want me, come find me because I don't know what to do.

Well, when the Gideons at her college offered her a New Testament, she didn't have time to explain, so she just put it in her backpack and said thanks. About a year later, she met a young Christian man named Chris, and he began to talk to her about Jesus. She was interested because he seemed sincere. She knew it wasn't compelled by fear or guilt. It wasn't a works-based thing,

just a genuine overflowing of joy and love for his Savior. Over time, her interest in Jesus, as well as her friendship with Chris, grew. Then one night as they were talking, Chris said, you know, Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except by him. Well, she was totally offended. She thought, how could he tell me what I'd believed in all my life

had been a lie? How could he tell me that my family, because they didn't know Jesus, would not spend eternity in heaven with God? They were doing so many wonderful things and living righteous lives. How could he say that to me? Then she remembered the Bible in her backpack, so she began to read it to try to refute what Chris had told her. When she got to Matthew 13 and Jesus's parable about the seed and

the sower, she read Jesus's words. He who has ears, let him hear. And she read it to her. She read it to her. She read it to her. She read it to her. She read it to her. And she knew he was talking to her, and it reminded her of the time when she said, God, if you want me, come find me. Well, she still wasn't ready to let Chris be right, but she did call a friend of hers in Alabama that she knew had been saved in high school.

After her friend's decision, her life had been completely turned around. Sarah asked her what happened. She told Sarah a little bit about it and then asked, can I call you back tomorrow? When she called the next day, her friend asked, where are you? I'm at home. I'm at home. She surprised her by saying, can you come pick me up at the airport? So Sarah's friend had actually gotten on an airplane and flown

across the country to come share the gospel of Jesus Christ with Sarah. She said, we spent five hours talking, and she answered all my questions. She took me through the Roman road in the Bible, and I still didn't give my life to the Lord at that time, but we did go and visit the young man who started this whole problem, Chris. We sat there together in my car in front of his apartment. I broke down in tears. I felt the Holy Spirit saying,

just respond. So I responded right then and there. I asked Jesus to come into my life, and I stood humbled because for the first time in my life, I was free. There were no more weights and balances. There were no more works, just the love and mercy of a loving God. It was finally personal. To me. Praise God. This is why we love to pass out Bibles. I have to thank you all for allowing me

some time to share with you this morning. Thank you for your prayers and your support. Just have a blessed day. Thank you. James will be at the back of the sanctuary after the service is over with his Bible open. And if anybody wants to give an extra donation to help get the word of God out, then you can just lay that in his Bible for him. So if you would open up in your Bibles

to the Lord, I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to hear from you. To the book of Galatians chapter one, Galatians chapter one. Today we start into, uh, uh, obviously a new book of the Bible, but kind of taking us a little bit of a different direction in one of Paul's epistles. I've given an overarching title to all of the book of Galatians. This is the title

that I've given to it back to grace. And so this morning, what we want to do is look at the first five verses of Galatians chapter one, and have a little bit of an introduction to, uh, what Paul has to tell us in this book of Galatians. But before we jump into the book, I got to thinking about something, uh, this week, I got to thinking about the fact that not everybody understands how we got from there being gospels to epistles. Like last week, we were totally just talking about Jesus walking the earth and being there with his disciples.

And now all of a sudden we're going to hear from some guy named Paul, who's writing a letter to a group of people in Galatia. Uh, how did we get there? How did we get to this place? And so I thought it good to take just a little bit of time to talk about this book of Galatians chapter one, to give, um, uh, a synopsis, a timeline, if you will, of how we got from the ascension of Jesus Christ to the epistles. And so that's exactly what I want to take just a little bit of time

before we get into the word to do. And so I've entitled this first section of what we're going to cover the ascension to the epistles. And you don't necessarily need to look in your Bible for this. Just sit back, relax, sip on your Utah mom latte and enjoy what I have to say. So it all comes down to the fact that when we were together last week, Jesus had given a commission to his

disciples. He had told them they're in the land of Galilee on one of the mountains. He said, I want you to go out and I want you to make disciples of all people go into all the world, make disciples, baptize them in the name of the father, the son, and the Holy spirit, and teach them to observe all the things that I've taught you. And I'm going to be with you everywhere that you go. Well, a couple of weeks later, Jesus met his disciples on top of another

mountain, just outside of Jerusalem. It's called the Mount of Olives. And while Jesus was gathered on the Mount of Olives with his disciples, they began to ask him, Lord, are you at this time going to establish your kingdom? And he said, no, the times and the seasons that the father has set in motion, aren't really for you to know just yet. Instead, what I want you to do is this. I want you to go and hang out in Jerusalem

in the upper room. And while you hang out in Jerusalem, I want you to wait there. I want you to wait there until the coming of the Holy spirit. And when the Holy spirit's come upon you, you're then going to go and you're going to be witnesses. And you're going to be a witness of me in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. And then Jesus ascended into heaven and his disciples obeyed. They went back

to Jerusalem and they hung out in the upper room. As a matter of fact, they hung out in the upper room for about 10 days. And as they were hanging out in the upper room for about 10 days, it says that they were all gathered together. They were praying and they were singing praises to God. When all of a sudden they heard something, they heard what was the sound of a mighty

rushing wind. And once they heard the sound of a mighty rushing wind, there were these tongues like flames of fire descending upon each of the disciples. We call that the coming of the Holy spirit. The Holy spirit came upon these disciples and they began to speak in other tongues. And as they began to speak in other tongues, they began to speak something specific. And what they spoke

was this. They began to speak the marvelous works of God and God through the power of the Holy spirit was now going to move through these disciples. And so that's exactly what he started doing. And so once that Holy spirit had fallen upon those disciples, they began to speak in other tongues. And so once that Holy spirit had fallen upon those disciples, the Holy spirit began to move

in Jerusalem. Crazy things were taking place. Peter and John would preach and thousands of people would come to know Jesus as their Lord and savior. He was using them to perform miracles, miracles that people hadn't seen since Jesus was walking on earth. They did crazy things that God was empowering them to them to do by the power of the Holy spirit. A revival was breaking out

in Jerusalem. But as right, as the revival was breaking out in Jerusalem, persecution quickly followed. You see, pretty soon the church began to grow. And as the church was growing by leaps and bounds, they needed to find some men who could help do the physical labor of the church so that the apostles could keep themselves focused on the word of God and prayer. And so they called seven men, seven men who were full of the Holy spirit, able to teach

and able to serve. One of these seven men was a guy by the name of Steven. Steven was a guy who was so full of the Holy spirit. And while absolutely content to wait tables, didn't mind mixing it up with the religious leaders as he declared the truth of the gospel everywhere that he went. And pretty soon he found himself in a debate with the religious leaders. And as he

presented his case to the religious leaders, they said, you have blasphemed and they sentenced him to death rather than waiting on the Roman authorities. This time they took matters into their own hands and they drug Steven outside of the city. And it says that they stoned him, literally picked up the Bible and wrote it down. And they wrote it down. And they wrote it down. And

they took off their outer coat and they each laid their outer coat at the feet of a young Pharisee. And that young Pharisee's name was Saul of Tarsus. And Saul of Tarsus was consenting to the death of Steven. Well, after they witnessed this death of Steven, Saul of Tarsus decided that as much as he hated Jesus, as much as he hated the followers of Jesus, he would continue the work that had begun with the death of Steven. And so we're told that he began breathing out threats and

persecutions against the church. Interestingly, what the disciples should have done in obedience, God used persecution to accomplish because he had told them to go to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the earth. And they stopped at Jerusalem because that's where it was comfortable. So God made it very uncomfortable. And Saul's breathing out threats and persecutions against them. And so they go everywhere and begin to spread the gospel.

Well, pretty soon, Peter feels the need to go share the gospel with this Gentile man. You see, up to this point in time, the gospel had mainly been going to the Jewish people because after all, Jesus was a Jewish Messiah. And God laid it on the heart of Peter to go share with a man named Cornelius, a Gentile, about the gospel of Jesus Christ. And Cornelius and his entire household gets saved. And so Peter and the other apostles realize the gospel is not just for the Jewish

people. The gospel is for everyone. And so they go to Jerusalem and they go to the Jewish people. Worldwide. And so the gospel continues to spread everywhere throughout the region. And it reaches all the way to the north end of Israel, even outside of the borders of Israel to a town called Antioch. And as the gospel reached this town called Antioch, which by the way, was partly Jewish

and partly Gentile, they needed someone who could come in and teach the people. Well, in between Peter preaching to Cornelius and the gospel going all the way up to Antioch, there was a significant event that took place. The significant event that took place was the salvation of a young man named Saul of Tarsus. The guy who was breathing out all of the threats, the guy who was doing all of that against the church found himself born again.

Saul of Tarsus was his Jewish name. Paul was his Greek name. We'll talk a little bit more about Saul's conversion when we get into the actual introduction. He needed someone in the land of Antioch, in the city of Antioch to teach the people. So the first guy they sent is a guy by the name of Barnabas. And Barnabas said, I need a friend. And so he phoned a friend and he brought in his friend, Paul. And Paul and Barnabas there in the city

of Antioch started teaching the people what it was to follow Jesus. And of course, numbers kept being added to the church. Well, while they were in Antioch, the Holy Spirit spoke in that church and said, I want you to separate out for me, Paul and Barnabas, because I have a work that I want for them to do. And so Paul and Barnabas set out on Paul's first missionary journey.

The missionary journey was very successful. And they came back and shared what they had done and said, oh, that's very wonderful. And Paul decided it was time to go on another journey. So they took two more missionary journeys. Now on the three missionary journeys that Paul and his companions went on, churches were founded all over Asia Minor and Asia and even into the Grecian Peninsula.

Churches are being founded everywhere. Well, at the end of the book of Acts, you see that all these churches have been founded. They all have pastors. And now sometimes issues would arise in these churches. Sometimes there would be concerns. Sometimes there would be questions. Sometimes there would be sin that needed to be addressed. Sometimes they just simply needed to be encouraged to keep

doing what they were doing. So the writing of these epistles was to all of these churches that were founded by Paul. Throughout the Roman region in order to encourage them. If I didn't put it clearly enough for you, you should just go and read the book of Acts because I just gave you a short synopsis of the book of Acts. But that's how we got from the place of the ascension to the epistles.

This church that we're going to start talking about or group of churches or the churches that are in Galatia. And we'll talk about that in just a moment. And there's an issue that's arisen there and Paul's going to have to address it. As we move into this introduction, the first five verses, there's three things that we're going to pay attention to. We're going to see the writer. We're going to see the recipient and we're going

to see Jesus. We pick up in verse one of chapter one. And this is what it says. Paul, an apostle, not sent from men, nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God, the father who raised him from the dead. And all the brethren who are with me to the churches of Galatia, grace to you and peace from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins so that he might

rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and father to whom be the glory forevermore. Amen. We start off first with the writer. Paul, an apostle. Remember, we said Paul was the one who had been converted on that road to Damascus. So I want to spend just a few moments talking to you about Paul and his conversion, because there are very few stories as grace filled as the story of Paul and his conversion.

When Saul was being raised, he was raised as the perfect Jewish boy. He knew everything about his heritage. He knew everything about his, uh, his rights as a Jewish person. And he was raised to be in his understanding of the law. As a matter of fact, he studied as a young man under at the feet of a guy by the name of Gamaliel. Gamaliel was the foremost scholar in the law in his day. And he was

raised with the fullest understanding of the law that every Pharisee had. As a matter of fact, he referred to himself as a Pharisee among Pharisees. And we remember how the Pharisees felt about Jesus, don't we? From our study in the book of Matthew, the Pharisees did not like Jesus very much. Now I've always had a question that's never fully been answered for me and may never be answered on

this side of eternity. And that's how many dealings did Paul or Saul have with Jesus before his conversion? Because Saul was a Pharisee and Saul was around Jerusalem. So you wonder how many times when Jesus was doing things and there were Pharisees around who were questioning him, how many times did he actually have an encounter with Jesus at that point in time?

That question has never been answered for me. It may never be answered for me until I get to eternity. But it is an interesting thing to think about. But something was happening in Saul every time he'd see Jesus. His hatred for him grew. He hated everything that he had to say. He hated everything that he stood for. He hated that he threw in the face of the religious leaders all

of their laws and seemed to only want to obey the ones that were important to him. He hated everything about Jesus. As a matter of fact, the crucifixion of Jesus was probably the high point of his life up to that point in time. But now he knew that he was going to be crucified. And he knew that he was There was a rumor. There was a rumor going around that this Jesus, who everybody seemed to love so

much, but he hated so much, had been raised from the dead. And now there's all of these followers of his who are out preaching the same message that this Jesus preached. And by God, I'm going to do everything that I can to destroy it. Witnessing the death of Stephen only strengthened his vigor. As a matter of fact, the language that's used in Acts chapter 8 about the breathing out of the

violence of Saul is intense language. He didn't just kind of want to destroy the church. He wanted to utterly destroy the church. And he wasn't satisfied just to do so in Jerusalem. As a matter of fact, once he'd heard that these followers of the way had gone to other places, he went to the high priest and requested letters because he wanted to go to Damascus where he had heard that there was a pocket of these

believers was. He wanted these letters so that he could go to Damascus, arrest them and bring them back and cause them to stand trial. He was a man who hated the church. He was a man who hated the gospel. And he hated Jesus. Well, on his way to Damascus, something interesting happened. He was surrounded by his by a group of Roman soldiers that were his protective detail. But while he was

on his way, it says a bright light shone from heaven. And as the bright light shone from heaven, it knocked him to the ground. And there was a voice. No one else heard the voice, but him. But there was a voice. And the voice said, Saul, why are you persecuting me? And he said, who are you, Lord? He said, I'm not persecuting you. I'm persecuting you. I'm persecuting you. I'm persecuting you. I'm

Jesus. I'm the one that you're persecuting. And if you look at the account of this that he has to give later on in the book of Acts, he includes an interesting phrase that the old King James Bible includes to Jesus says to him, I am Jesus whom you have been persecuting. It's so hard for you to kick against the goads. I found that to be an interesting line because I think that that's

so true of who we all are before we come to know Jesus as our Lord and Savior. You see, there's something very telling about that statement that Jesus makes to Paul while he's on this road to Damascus, when he knocked him down off of his high horse, if you will, and caused him to be blind. He said, it's hard for you to kick against the goads. Let me put this in Ryan vernacular language. Aren't you tired of fighting? Aren't

you tired of fighting against me? You see, I think that God had been at work in the life of Saul for a long time. I think that God had been at work in the life of Saul for years, but Saul did the same when I do, when we're convicted by God, when we know we should be following Jesus, but we're not willing to surrender to him. We're not willing to submit to him. He kicked back against it. He fought

against it. He pushed that conviction down. He pushed all of those things down and he tried to fight. It's absolutely hard as he could because that Jesus is not what I expected because that Jesus isn't doing what I thought he would do. And he fought and he fought and he fought. And now God's finally knocked him down. And he said, aren't you tired of fighting?

Aren't you tired of fighting against me? Aren't you tired of fighting against that conviction? I don't know who all sitting in here this morning and the story that each one of you have, but I would venture to say that there's somebody in here that is thinking, man, I'm tired of fighting. I'm tired of fighting against the conviction of the Lord because he's been trying to get you to surrender. He's been trying to get you to submit and you won't. And he says,

aren't you tired of fighting? And finally, Saul said, what do you want me to do? He said, I want you to go into town. I want you to go to the street called straight. Somebody's going to meet you there and they'll tell you what to do. And sure enough, that's exactly what happened. A fellow shows up, preaches the gospel to him. Paul believes it says great scales fell from his eyes. And Paul turned from being a man

who hated the gospel to a man who preached the gospel only with the same passion with which he hated the gospel. Now he became a man so impassioned to tell the truth about who God is. Why? Because he experienced the grace of God in a way that he didn't even know was possible. He experienced the grace of God in his life because he had been a man who was under conviction. He had been a man who was under the

law. He had been a man who was living in bondage. And now this man who'd been living in bondage was totally completely set free. And all he knew was he wanted everybody in the world to know the same message of freedom in their life. Paul, an apostle. He's quick to tell us what his title is, an apostle. Although an apostle not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ and God, the father who

raised him from the dead. The word apostle means a sent out one, but in this specific context, it's not just any sent out one. It is the sent out ones. You see, there were 12 of them originally. One of them we learned in the book of Matthew turned on his son. He said, I'm going to tell you the Savior. And so now we were down to these 11 apostles. I believe that Paul fills that bill for

the 12th apostle. These apostles, we don't have anymore today. These are the ones that laid the foundation for the doctrine of the church. But not only was the grace of God under fire in Galatia, but Paul's reputation as an apostle was under fire in Galatia. After all, if you want to destroy the message, what's the best thing to do? Destroy the messenger. And that's exactly what these Jewish

people that followed Paul are going to do. They're going to destroy the messenger. And that's exactly what the people all around tried to do. They tried to destroy the messenger. And so Paul is quick to defend. And part of what he'll do in the book of Galatians is defend his position as an apostle. But I want you to take note of what he says about his position. He says, the position I

have as apostle didn't come from man. It didn't come through the agency of man. The position that I have as an apostle came through God, the father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That's an important thing to pay attention to because we as humans can't really give anybody authority. Have you ever noticed that? Authority comes from God. We're actually told that in the book of Galatians.

And the authority of a pastor or a leader ultimately comes from God. He says, I didn't receive my authority because some man gave me authority. I received my authority as an apostle because God gave me the authority. We as human beings can't really ordain anyone. Now I am an ordained pastor, according to what the state of Kansas has to say. Matter of fact, also the state

of Oklahoma and the state of Arkansas all recognize the fact that I am an ordained pastor. But the ordination that I have as an apostle, I don't have the authority to ordain anyone. I don't have the authority to do what God has had to do in my life. You see, all we as human beings can do is ratify the calling that God already has on someone's life. Sure, a person can go through

seminary and they can get read all the books and they can get the right degrees and a organization can say they are ordained. But if God hasn't actually put them in that position, then they're always going to be fighting against the wind. In Calvary Chapel, we believe that an ordination process is going to be a process of ordination. And we believe that an ordination process is going to simply the recognition of what God is already doing in the life of an individual, that God has placed upon them that authority, God has placed upon them that calling, and we're just agreeing and saying, yes, we agree that authority is from God, and we want everyone else to recognize that that authority is from God. And that's what Paul is saying here. I'm an apostle,

not by man, not through man, but through Jesus Christ. And then, of course, as he often does, reports to them the fact that he's not alone in this. He says, and all the brethren who are with me, the men who supported him, the men and women who supported him in his ministry. But now we come to the recipient. The recipient is the churches in Galatia. You may notice

it's not church singular, it's churches plural, because as he's writing this, he's writing to a region. As a matter of fact, the region of Galatia was a region in Rome. And I, put a little map up here to hopefully give a little bit of context about where Galatia is. So follow me, whoever needs to follow me with a camera. I don't remember who's supposed to do

that. Follow me here. Let's give a little context. So right down here is Jerusalem. This is where Jesus ascended. Right up here is Antioch. That's the church where Paul and Barnabas were called out of to go do their work. Obviously, the Mediterranean Sea here, they come over here. This is Galatia, this kind of bluish green color right here. This is the region of Galatia. This is who he's sending the letter to.

Three specific churches, Lystra, Iconium, and Derbe are the ones that he established on the first missionary journey. I believe that those are the specific recipients he was sending the letter to, but he's sending it to the entire region. So let's talk a little bit about the region of Galatia. The region of Galatia was originally founded by a group of people known as the Gauls. And as the Gauls came there, they were then taken over later by the Romans,

but the Romans referred to that region as Galatia because the Gauls were who lived there. But the Galatian people were kind of interesting. The Galatian people, according to a historian, were known for two things. They were known for being fickle and fond of change. J. Vernon McGee said, they're a lot like Americans. Isn't that kind of how we are, pretty fickle and fond of change? Let me tell you a little story about how fickle that the

Galatian people were. When Paul came into the region of Galatia, one of the cities he came to in Acts chapter 14 is a city known as Lystra. When he came to Lystra, it says that he first showed up and he healed someone that was there. And as he healed someone that was there, everybody said, oh my gosh, the gods have come down to visit us. And so they showed up seeking to worship Paul and Barnabas. They said,

Paul is Zeus and Barnabas is Hermes. And they set out to worship them. They brought the oxen out, the ravens, and they set out to worship them. And they set out to worship them. And they brought everything. And they're going, you guys are nuts. Don't worship us. We're not gods. We're here to tell you about the one true God who's able to do this. Well, a few days later, some people show up

that are Jewish in nature that don't like Paul's message. And they convinced the people that Paul and Barnabas are spreading a false message. So what started off as being worshiped as God ended up with Paul being stoned nearly to death and left outside of the city for dead. See what I mean? They were a little bit thick. They were a little bit thick. They were a little bit thick. They were a little bit

and fond of change. They really are like Americans. One day you're our hero. The next day you're our whipping horse, right? And so that's kind of how they were. And so these Gentile people had experienced, or these Galatian people had experienced a great revival with the work that Paul had done there, but an issue had taken place. These same Jewish leaders had begun to spread

false teaching amongst the Galatian people. They told them that's wonderful that you have your faith in Jesus. They told them that's wonderful that you have your faith in Jesus. They told them that's wonderful that you have found salvation in Jesus. But you know, Jesus isn't quite enough. You also need the works of the law, in particular, the Mosaic law, and in particular, the right of

circumcision. You see, if you really want to be saved, you have to do these other things as well. Paul will refer to this as another gospel, which is not really a gospel at all. This is why Paul is writing the book to the Galatians, because false teaching has corrupted the entire church. And as false teaching had corrupted the entire church, then Paul felt it necessary to write to them to

correct this issue, to call them back to the grace of God. Paul wrote this book somewhere around AD 50. There's a little bit of debate between 48 and 53 as to when exactly he wrote it. I believe it was close to AD 50, somewhere right after his first missionary journey. Somewhere right before the Acts 15 council in Jerusalem. That's the general time frame in which

he wrote it. But there are several reasons why he wrote it. Number one, Paul wrote to combat legalism. Legalism is the idea that I can be better by doing more works. And isn't that kind of what we're all bent towards? Aren't we all kind of naturally bent towards legalism, right? We like to make a list and check them all off and say, this is what I did. You know why we like to do that. We like to do it, number one, because it makes me feel better.

You see, if I can keep a list of works, if I can keep a list of these are the things I did today, I feel pretty good about me. That's the first reason why I usually like to be legalistic. But you know the second reason why I like to be legalistic? Because I can prove that I'm better than you. I can hold it over your head and say, look how much better I am than you because

I did this list of works and you didn't. And Paul writes to combat legalism. The second thing Paul writes is to combat false gospels, because that's exactly what they were believing. They were believing a false gospel. We'll talk about that a little bit more next week. Paul writes to explain true liberty. I found it interesting, the story that James read to us,

that kind of fits perfectly into this, because in the story that James read, a woman found herself to be a convert to Islam because she believed that Christians only used grace to excuse their sin. And you know what the problem is? Oftentimes Christians only use grace to excuse their sin. She's kind of right, but grace was never intended to be a license for sin. Grace was never

intended to be a freedom to sin. Grace was always intended to be a freedom from sin, an ability to live outside of a sinful life. And he'll explain what that true liberty looks like. And then last it's written to call God's people back to grace. R. Kent Hughes in his commentary said something I've never thought about with the book of Galatians before. He said, Galatians is a book for the

prodigals. He said, so many people have found themselves giving into a false gospel. You see, Satan will do one of two things with us as believers in Jesus Christ to cause us to be a prodigal. Number one, he'll cause us to backslide. He'll cause us to slide back, into the sins of the past, back into the addictions, back into the pornography, back into the illicit relationship we never should have had, back into the judgmentalism,

the gossip, all the things. He'll cause us to slide back into that. But if he can't cause us to backslide, and I love this, I never have heard this term before. He said, if he can't cause us to backslide, he'll cause us to front slide. Front sliding into things like legalism and adding to the gospel, adding to God's word. You see, I believe that in any group that I preach to, including myself,

there's always the potential that one of us is a prodigal. We've either slidden back into all of the sins of the world. We've slidden back into the things that we should have never been involved in to begin with, or we've slidden forward into the things that have really made us depart from the grace of God. We've slid into legalism. We've fallen into false gospels, things that make us feel better that have nothing to do with God.

Nothing to do with Jesus. The book of Galatians is a call to come back to the grace of God. It's calling all the prodigals to come back home, come back to grace. The book breaks down three ways very nicely. Chapters one and two, he defends grace. Chapters three and four, he explains grace. And chapters five and six, he applies grace. Well, we've seen a lot of grace in the book of Galatians. We've seen a lot of grace in the book of Galatians.

We've seen the writer. We've seen the recipient. Now let's look at the main subject. Verse three. It says, grace to you and peace from God, our father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins so that he might rescue us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and father. He starts off with this typical greeting. Oftentimes this is referred to as the Siamese twins,

or the New Testament. He uses two words, grace and peace. Now there's a specific reason he uses that word, but then there's some applicable reasons why he uses that word. The main reason he uses those two words is because when he's writing to a church, he knows that there's two different groups of people in that church. There are those who are Jewish in background,

those who are Gentile in background. The Jewish people had a specific way that they greeted each other. When they saw each other, they would say, Shalom, peace to you. So he greets all of the Jewish brethren when he says peace. But the Gentile people, the Greeks, had a greeting for each other as well. When the Greeks saw each other, they would say, grace to you. And so he's writing to the Greek people as well. Now I mentioned this during first

service and several people have come up to me and use it already. Isn't it a wonderful thing to think that we would greet each other with the word grace and maybe even the word peace, right? I'm going to add to those of you that greeted me this way after first service, maybe we should say grace, and peace to you. Because man, what an amazing way to say hi to each other, right? Instead of being

like, what up? Because that's what we usually say to each other, at least those of us in the thug life. But wouldn't it be amazing if we just saw each other like, hey, grace and peace to you. It's a wonderful greeting, is it not? People will look at you a little bit weird to begin with, but I have news for you. They look at you weird anyway, right? Like they're talking about you

behind your back anyway. You may as well give them something to talk about. So they give this greeting to them. That's the specific reason, but there's a couple of applicable reasons why, he gives this greeting to them. The first applicable reason is this. Paul is writing to two very different groups of people. As a matter of fact, there's almost been no greater divide in history than the divide between the Jewish people and the Gentile people.

It was a massive, listen, racial divide that took place, not only in the world, but in the church at that point in time. And when Paul is writing to the Galatian people, he wants them to know no one's excluded in this. The letter that I'm writing to you is all inclusive to everybody that's there, Jews and Gentiles alike. But then there's one other reason why Paul says this, and it's a reason that flows very well. And that's this. You cannot know the

peace of God until you first understand the grace of God. I would venture to say that there's a good number of people in this room this morning that aren't really experiencing the peace of God in their lives. As a matter of fact, you don't feel very peaceful at all in your life. And the reason why you're not feeling very peaceful in your life is not because of the turmoil that's going on in the world.

It's because of the turmoil that's going on in your heart, because you don't really understand the grace of God. And God is calling you back to grace so that you can understand the grace of God. And once you understand the grace of God, it's amazing how the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus. He says, grace and peace to you. And who does this grace come from? This grace comes from none other

than God, the father and our Lord Jesus Christ. I love those two phrases used together. God, the father and the Lord Jesus Christ, because as we look at those two phrases together, we realize that he encapsulates a phrase from the book of Hebrews for us. He says, grace and peace to you from the author and the finisher, of our faith. Isn't that a beautiful thought? And then he tells us a couple of things,

three things, three statements about Jesus that I want you to pay attention to. Three statements that I think are pretty cool. Number one, he says, who gave himself for our sins, who gave himself for our sins. We've spent a lot of time the past few weeks talking about this, haven't we? About how much Jesus gave himself for our sins. And I want you to pay attention to that.

He gave himself for our sins. He gave himself for our sins by laying aside his glory and coming down and dwelling among us. Gave himself for our sins by living a life just like what you and I would live, subject to the same weaknesses, the same sicknesses, the same issues that you and I deal with yet without sin. And he gave himself for our sins when he allowed himself to bear the sin of humanity on that cross. As Peter tells us, when he bore and he gave himself for our sins,

his own body on the tree, all of the sins of humanity. Yep. Jesus Christ who gave himself for us. And then the second thing that it says is that he might rescue us from this present evil age. Might rescue us from this present evil age. There's something about that word rescue, isn't there? The word rescue is such a powerful word. It's such a comforting word.

I watched a movie this weekend. I'm not, I'm not necessarily endorsing this movie. You shouldn't necessarily go out and watch it, but it was an interesting movie. Nonetheless, this new Top Gun movie, Top Gun Maverick, right? It fulfills all of my boyhood dreams of wanting to shoot down planes and things. And so, so I'm watching this movie and it's crazy to see a scene where they get rescued. And there's a great line.

This guy comes and rescues them and he flies through the smoke and says, good afternoon. This is your savior speaking. And all I can think is that's exactly what Jesus said to me the day that I got saved, right? Good afternoon. This is your savior speaking. I'm here to rescue you now because that's exactly what he did for me is he rescued me from the bondage of sin.

He rescued me from the guilt of sin. He rescued me from the destruction of sin that he might rescue us. And what's he rescuing us from this present evil age, all of the things that encapsulate this present evil age. Sin and everything that's here. Now you may be thinking to yourself right now, Ryan, I don't feel very rescued from this present evil age. I'm still living in this present evil age. Well, let's

understand the tense of salvation. What he did when he rescued you is he rescued you from the power of sin. When Jesus died on that cross, he stripped Satan of his power because the power of sin is death. And Jesus defeated death. And so he rescued us from the power of sin. No longer do I feel the curse and the power of sin. I just won't be set free from the presence of sin until he takes

me home to be with himself. That's when I'll be set free from the presence of sin. But for right now, I can be set free from the power of sin. You see all of the stories that guys like James and when Jim comes and shares all the stories that we read about salvation, it's exactly that people being rescued from the power of sin, people being set free from the guilt and the power that sin had over their lives.

As a matter of fact, you have a story, the exact same. You have a story about how Jesus rescued you from this present evil age. And if you're here this morning and you've never accepted Jesus as your Lord and savior, then today's the day for you to have a story about Jesus rescuing you from this present evil age. And then the third phrase that he uses is this. He says, according to the

will of our God and father, man, I always loved it. Once again, translate this in the Ryan simple language. The Ryan simple language is this, and he did it on purpose. Isn't that great? He didn't do it on accident. He wasn't like son of a gun and I saved him. Huh? I didn't see that coming. Well, that's a wonderful fringe benefit. No, he knew exactly what he was doing. He did it on purpose.

He picked you on purpose. He rescued you from this evil age on purpose. He knew exactly what he was doing. Matter of fact, it was according to his will. Ryan, how long has it been according to his will? It says before the foundations of the earth. That's how long it's been. It's been according to his will. Matter of fact, you remember the very first thing that God did after

Adam and Eve confessed what they did after he laid out punishment for Adam and Eve in the garden. Do you know what he did? Number one, he made a promise. He said, the seed of the woman is going to crush the head of the serpent. And then number two, he made a covering. He sacrificed lambs for their sin. And he made coverings for the nakedness of Adam and Eve so that they would

no longer live with the guilt of their sin. And the rest of the story of the Bible is all about him and his will in rescuing us from this present evil age. And then he says one last thing. He says, to whom be glory forever more. Amen. I love this because Paul just sort of, before he has to lay out what they're doing, because this is one of the few epistles where he doesn't spend much time talking to them about

everything that they've done, right? He doesn't spend very much time talking to them about how good they are and how faithful they are. He pretty well just lays it out from the word go. But after thinking about everything that Jesus has done, after thinking about the fact that grace and peace come from God, the father of the Lord, Jesus Christ, who rescued us because he gave himself for us. And it was all according to his will. And he starts thinking about the

wonderful salvation story, the wonderful grace that God has shown in his life and is able to show in the lives of everybody else around him. He just breaks out into spontaneous praise. I know I ask this every now and then, but I want to ask you again, do you ever just break out into spontaneous praise? You should do that sometime. You know why we don't do that? Because we don't meditate on things like this.

You know what we meditate on? Your phone. You meditate on what's on your phone all the time, or what's on the news all the time. Listen, I can tell you what's on the news. Bad, okay? The country's going to keep falling apart. The world's going to keep falling apart. We're not going to have any leadership. Everything's going to keep getting more expensive. Things will keep getting worse. I've just given you the news for the next 39 years, right?

Kansas is going to be hot and then cold and then hot and then cold. It's a Katy Perry song, right? It's exactly what Kansas is. Don't worry about it. Focus on what Jesus says. Because to him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. But I love it. I love it because he realizes that Jesus is the one who should receive all the glory. A couple of things I want to point out to you as we wrap up here this morning. Number one,

legalism and false gospels take the glory away from God and they give it to man. It's exactly what it does. When we live our lives in a legalistic way, or we live our lives according to a false gospel, it takes all the glory away from God and it gives it to a man. But when we come back to grace, grace takes all the glory away from man and it gives it to God.

Brothers and sisters, wherever you are in your life today, come back to grace. Come back and see what God's grace has to offer you. Amen. All right. I'm going to invite the kids to come in. So bring them in. Bring on the hounds. Push. There you go. All right. So keep an eye on your kids as they come in because it's communion Sunday. You might flag them down as they're

searching. We'll play Legos in a minute. We're going to do communion first. Come on in, kids. Find your parents. Claire, they're right up here in the back. Any other classes coming? Okay. All right, gang. Today is communion Sunday. So have a seat, kiddos. We've got some kids looking for parents. If we see these parents anywhere, they may be in the very back. You might have to go back to the

back room. Today's communion Sunday. Now, let's explain for a second. We're going to do communion in just a few minutes what communion is. Up here in these gold, brass, whatever color trays those are, there's two cups. The bottom cup is going to have a cracker in it. The top cup is going to have juice in it. It doesn't mean very much until we understand what they symbolize. Those things

symbolize the body and the blood of Jesus, his body that was broken for us and his blood that was shed for us. Wait. We have one more class coming. Hold that thought. Bring them in. These are really tiny ones, so parents, keep your eyes out. They'll be looking everywhere. There we go.

Oh, and then one more coming. I'm always amazed. There's always way more than I think there are. Come on in, kids. Found one. Okay. I think that should be all now. I see a trail of ushers coming. Okay. Like I said, this morning's communion Sunday. So we want to understand what we're doing. The elements that we're about to partake of mean nothing in and of themselves. It's what they symbolize. And they symbolize the body of Christ that was broken for

us and his blood that was shed for us. On that last great night of the feast, Jesus took the bread and he broke it. He said, this is my body, which is broken for you. Take and eat. And then he took the cup. He said, this is the cup of the new covenant of my blood, which is shed for you. Take and drink. And in this, we understand something. We can't just know that

those things exist. We have to make them a part of our lives. And we do that by faith. We do that by asking Jesus into it. We do that by asking Jesus into it. And we do that by asking Jesus into it. Our hearts to be our savior. And so Jesus told us as often as we do this, do this in remembrance of me. And so every time we partake of communion, we not only remember who Jesus is, but we declare

his death. We declare that the place where we have found salvation, the place where we have found freedom, the place where we have found grace is in Jesus Christ. And so Paul warned us in first Corinthians to make sure that we do so in a worthy manner. And so I want to talk to you about what that means real quick. Number one, if you're here this morning, if you're in a place where you're

not a believer in Jesus Christ, this won't mean very much to you. It's the saddest snack you've ever eaten in your entire life. And so it won't mean very much to you. And so if you're here this morning and you're not a believer in Jesus Christ, and today needs to be the day of salvation. As a matter of fact, I'll say it again. Aren't you tired of fighting? Aren't you tired of fighting

against what God's been trying to do in your life? And all it takes is you acknowledging that you're a sinner and asking him to be your savior. And as you do so, he comes and makes his home inside of you. And you're a brand new creation, just like what happened to Paul. But the second way that we partake of this in a worthy manner is a word for us as believers in Jesus Christ. It's hard for us to go through a day, a week, a month,

any amount of time without dealing with some aspect of sin in our lives. So as the worship team gets ready to come up, and as they sing this last song, I want to ask you to allow the Lord to search your heart. So as the ushers are handing out the elements, when they're ready to come up, they're ready to come up. And as they sing this song, the Lord impresses upon you an area of sin in your life. You can confess that to him.

The thoughts that have been wrong, the actions that have been wrong, the grudges that we've held, the anger that we've harbored, confess those things to the Lord. The word tells us if we confess our sins, he's faithful and just to forgive us. So allow the Lord to do that searching work in your heart. So I'm going to invite the worship team to come up. And as they come up and share

this last song, the ushers are going to come down and they're going to begin to hand out the elements. If you'd please help kids. And as they hand out these elements, if you, when you receive the elements, if you would please stand and we will partake together. I'm forsaken. Oh, your spirit is within me. Because you died and rose again. Sing that again.

Because you were forsaken. Accepting your spirit. Because you died and rose again. Because you were forsaken. Accepting your spirit. Because you died and rose again. Bow with me. Father, we come before you and thank you. Thank you for the time that we've had here this morning. And Lord, thank you for the blood of Jesus Christ that was shed for us. Father, I thank you for your body that was broken for us. Lord, I thank you that because of what you did for

us, Lord, we can be on a shadow of a doubt. No, we have been accepted. Lord, keep us ever in mind of the wonderful sacrifice that you made for us. And Lord, may we live in response to everything that you've done. We just thank you and praise you, Father. In Jesus name. Amen. You may partake.

I'd like to do this every now and then. Before we bow one last time, I just want you to look around you. I want you to remember all the people that are standing here today are all here for one reason and one reason only. And that's because of what Jesus did for us. It makes us all family. Amen. This is a group of people. This is a family that's meeting to glorify the Savior that's given us

life. Father, we come before you and pray that as we go out from this place, that you would move in our hearts. Father, that you would draw us back if we're far away. Strengthen us if we're close. Father, I pray that you would continue the work that you've begun in your word this morning. We just thank you, Lord, in Jesus name. Amen. Be blessed.