Christ Gave Himself to Rescue Us

0:00All right, morning everyone. You can see we're beginning the book of Galatians, which I am excited about. So thank you for the book of Haggab looking forward to the, oh, I don't know. I'm not going to say years, okay? Probably months in Galatians. So we'll see. Hey, I was in nine sermons in Haggab. I wasn't too bad. So we'll see how this goes. I'm excited. I'm sure I forgot to bless this, not just this sermon, but our new season in this book. Father, I'm thankful for the book of Haggab. It was very significant to me earlier in my Christian life as I came out of the Catholic Church. I pray you'd use it powerfully in our church family here, Lord. Sure many wonderful things that we are familiar with and many new things that you want to reveal to us. Lord, give us a very strong foundation in the gospel. I've been blessed by the unchurched and unbelievers that you brought into our congregation as of late. We want to have a strong foundation in the gospel, Lord. And I pray that that would be established over this time as we look through this wonderful

1:03letter that Paul wrote. I pray as well that you continue to build our church numerically, but most importantly, spiritually, bringing in more unbelievers and unchurched people. So we see more conversions and baptisms. I thank you for what's been transpiring and pray for that continued work here, Lord. Is this book, these sermons over the coming weeks and months, to inform our understanding of how we are saved, Lord, that we wouldn't be deceived either adding to or taking away from the gospel? Help us to just grow in our thankfulness and faith in Christ. Give us understanding of your word. Give me insight as I prepare the sermons in the future and help us as we, I hope, families, couples, individuals, or reading glaciens. They're devotional time and as couples and as families that can be blessed and prepared for the sermons to come. Let me ask all of this in Jesus' name. Amen. All right, I want you to think about something for a second. So when you open a letter, how much attention do you give to the greeting? Well, if you're like me, probably not very much, right? You kind of jump to the important part of the letter.

2:05You want to know why the person wrote this. So if it's a bill, what are you looking for? The amount, yeah, the pain. If it's an invitation, what are you looking for? The date, the location, exactly. You kind of read the greeting very quickly to get to the important part. And I mentioned that because we can be like that with the epistles or the letters in scripture, at least if you're like me. So we kind of see the epistle. It opens. If it's one of Paul's letters, you got his name. Read something about grace and peace. You're going to zip through it and get to the important stuff. But this morning as we begin Galatians, I want you to see just how much Paul packs into this greeting. So much we can have a whole sermon on it. Because by the time he finishes, he'll actually have introduced just in this greeting, the truth that he's going to spend the rest of the letter defending. So let me give you a little background to know why Paul wrote this.

3:08So Paul had preached the gospel to these people. They came to faith in Christ. They started churches. Paul moved on. Churches are planted. But then after Paul left, these individuals will call them judyizers. They were Jews who came in and they were delivering a different message than Paul had preached. The message Paul preached was the gospel. These judyizers came in to these churches after Paul left and they said that believing in Jesus was a good start. You have to help Jesus after that. So what were some of the things that they said that the early church is essentially Jewish but then Gentiles were being added to the church. The judyizers are coming in. The Jews were already circumcised. There's this confidence that they have a heart for the law. But then the Gentiles are coming in and these judyizers are teaching, well you can believe

4:08in Jesus but you also have to what? You have to be circumcised. You better keep the law of Moses and only then will you be saved. Now the sad part of this is many of these Galatians were actually believing that false teaching. So Paul has to come in and set them straight, which is what this letter does. It has a men's application for our days. We'll see over these coming sermons too. So look at me verse one. Paul introduced himself, Paul and Apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Jesus from the dead. So in most Apostle letters he simply says he's an Apostle by the will of God or an Apostle who's called to be one. But here he adds a denial before the affirmation. He says I'm not from men nor am I through man. So his Apostleship did not originate with people. Now why would he say that?

5:09Well I've kind of told you before when we were looking at Haggai that it's good to ask ourselves why this person is saying what he's saying to these people. So why was Haggai saying this to the Jews who rebelled in temple? Well I think that's a good approach to Scripture whenever we're reading it. So we should ask ourselves well why does Paul have to say this to these people? While they're trying to subvert his authority they're going to come in after Paul, the Judaizers that are preaching this false gospel to the Galatians, they're going to come in after Paul and they want to undermine his message. So what are they saying? Well Paul's not really an Apostle. And can you see why that message would perhaps have some credibility like if I said who are the twelve Apostles. Paul's name's not one of them right? So Paul might not have looked like an Apostle compared to the men we know as a twelve Apostle. So Paul's not really one of them. He's not one of the twelve. He wasn't with Jesus. Whatever he knows he got second hand. These twelve walk with Jesus.

6:10Paul didn't. We've got better information than him. So if they can undermine the messenger then they can undermine the message. And so Paul sets them straight and he says that my commission did not come through man or from man it came through Jesus Christ and God the Father, God the Father who raised Jesus from the dead. So notice that last phrase. And I think that Paul emphasizes this because the twelve Apostles walked with Jesus when he was alive but when did Paul become an Apostle? After right? So when the twelve Apostles were invited by Christ, was Paul invited by Christ? He was on the road to Damascus right? It was the resurrected Christ. So Paul makes that point. He says God the Father raised Christ from the dead and I think it's implying that Christ raised from the dead is the one who called me to be an Apostle.

7:10And this brings us to lesson one. The gospel is Christ's message so no one has the right to change it. The gospel is Christ's message so no one has the right to change it. Let's check Boschie here. Okay, when you're not at church I talk about you. That's what happens, okay? I was just thinking about something. We were working on the roof and we had talked at elders about Chuck being a deacon. We appreciate him. So I'm having this conversation with him about being a deacon and he said that I'm too far away. I'm happy to help for things like this but I'm not sure that the geography works for me. And then he said to me, you know I don't care about having a title. I'm still going to serve here as I've been. And I said, well, Chuck, I just want you to know we think very highly of you and your faithfulness and your character or I wouldn't be having this conversation with you so you can see him for you. To climb being a deacon, I just want you to know that we as elders, you have a lot of

8:12credibility with us and if you ever want to be a deacon it's available. But the thing that stuck out to me is Chuck said, well, I'm not interested in having a title that's not important to me. And I mentioned that because it's a pretty good illustration of what I think is happening here with Paul as well. Paul did have a title. He's an apostle but I don't think he really cared about having a title. The only reason he mentions his title is because of the credibility it gave behind the message. I don't think it mattered to Paul to have any title other than servant of Christ, right? And so Paul defends his apostleship not because he wants a title but because the message came from Christ and he wants to look like Christ messenger or ambassador. And watch what Paul does a few verses later. After defending his authority, Paul puts himself under the same standard as everyone else. Look at verse 8. He says, even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be a curse. So did you catch that? What's the word there that shows Paul's holding himself to the same standard that he holds

9:13all teachers to? He says we, that's exactly right. And himself and his, even his traveling companions. So Paul knew if he changed the gospel that he'd be as wrong as these false teachers, he uses a similar picture later in the letter, Galatians 3, 15. Paul says, to give a human example, brothers, even with a man made covenant, no one annulls it or adds to it once it has been ratified. And that verse captures the temptation with the gospel. I mean, this is really important to understand. It's going to be a theme as we continue through this book. We don't typically reject Christ. We preach Christ, but add or take away a bit. That's the problem with the gospel. And both of those are mentioned there. Paul says, we tamper with it in one of these ways. We annull it or we add to it. We subtract from it, which would be Jesus minus something, or we add to the gospel.

10:15Jesus plus something. And both of those create what? False gospel. The Galatians, their danger was addition. They're adding to it. It's faith in Christ plus circumcision. Faith in Christ plus the law. Still a temptation today. It can be Jesus plus some list of practices that, you know, real Christians should follow. Jesus plus a good enough track record. Jesus plus enough prayer in Bible reading. Now typically we call that legalism. Some of these things, or actually most of them, are even good things. We talk about prayer. We talk about Bible reading. We talk about church attendance. But as soon as we act like those are necessary to be saved, then we're preaching a false gospel, which is incredibly dangerous. The other danger, if one is, danger is addition. Jesus plus something, the other danger is subtraction. Jesus minus something.

11:16What are we going to take away? I think this is what we see most often in our culture. It's going to be Jesus without sin, without repentance, the gospel, without emphasizing the cross. Jesus who affirms everyone, confronts nobody. It's almost like in our culture tolerance has become synonymous with sin, or with love. If you love people, you tolerate. If you love people, you never address anything. If you love people, you never confront anything. So that's kind of the subtraction from the gospel. Well, the gospel is people are saved by grace through faith, so it doesn't matter. What they do, how they live, don't address anything with them. The gospel without sin, or repentance, judgment. We see this in liberal churches that deny sin and judgment. Often it's called hypergrace. Christians never need to confess. Jake preached a whole sermon on this. You're two ago. Christians never need to confess sin. They never need to repent. This is another false gospel, which Paul says is no gospel at all.

12:18Let me give you three applications that this has for us. First and most obviously, we don't ever want to make the gospel sound harder and we don't want to make it sound easier. We don't want to add to it. We don't want to take anything away from it. That means when we're preaching the gospel to others or even when we're preaching the gospel to ourselves, reminding ourselves that sometimes we do have to remind ourselves of that, that the work is done, that Christ has accomplished it for me on the cross, and I am saved by that finished work that Christ did. Second, and I thought about this a lot, and whether it's a harsh statement, I don't think it is. The gospel should be a litmus test for any teacher in our lives. If a teacher can't get the gospel right, they shouldn't have any influence. They're not somebody that we should listen to. There's nothing more foundational or basic than that. If someone can't preach the gospel well or accurately, then they're not somebody, whether

13:19it's your favorite author, not going to read their books, whether it's a podcast, you enjoy, you're not going to listen to them, teachers in the church, even in this church, including myself. That should be a deal breaker for anyone that we listen to or read or that has any influence on us that they get the gospel right. The third application, it means we can rest. Even reflecting on it this week, it is very calming. It's very reassuring to me that the gospel has this unchanging nature. Here's what I mean by that. If the gospel were man's message, then the gospel could change with man. They could change with the next generation. It could change with the culture. As long as the gospel is Christ's message, which is the point Paul's making, don't miss that. Paul says, I'm an apostle or an ambassador from Christ. The gospel has come from Christ, which is why Paul ties himself to Christ. If the gospel comes from Christ, and Christ himself is unchanging, if Jesus is the same

14:21yesterday, today, and forever, then the gospel is going to be unchanging. That's very encouraging. That's very reassuring to me. That means the same gospel that saved Abraham, and we'll talk more about this later in the book, the same gospel that saved all the saints throughout the Old Testament, the same gospel that saved Paul, the same gospel that saved believers throughout the church ages, the same gospel that saves us. We don't have to worry about whether there are any difference to it. It's always going to be the same justification by grace through faith or justification being declared righteous by our faith in Christ. Now look at verse two. Paul says, and all the brothers who are with me, to the churches of Galatia, so three things here. So first is all the brothers who are with me. So sometimes I think Paul almost looks like this machine, he just operates by himself, but he wasn't. He's not this lone voice. He did have other brothers with him. He's not bringing some strange or unique idea just to him.

15:22He had other others who stood with him in the messengers preaching. And he says to the churches of Galatia, which is important to understand that we're dealing with the region. That's probably the best way to say it. Galatia was not a city like Rome or Corinth. It was a region and there are several congregations in this region. And the false teaching of the Judaizers had actually spread to affect maybe all of the churches in this region. So Paul has to write to this region of Galatia dressing this. And then the third thing that stands out in verse two is that this is all there is. Now here's what I mean by that. Paul's letter to the Galatians is completely unique among all his letters and that it doesn't include anything positive or affirming. So when Paul wrote to the Galatians, unlike every single one of his other letters, he did

16:23not give thanks for anything associated with them. That's shocking. He did not have one compliment to them. Here's what I mean. He tells the Romans he thanks God that their faith is being proclaimed in all the world. He tells the Philippians he thanks God every time he remembers them. What church seemed messed up? They had a lot of problems. He had to send two letters to him to address everything, right? And the Corinthians had a bunch of wacky stuff going on with them. We started reading through Corinthians Sunday night in our home fellowship. They had some of the worst problems of any church in the New Testament, division, immorality, lawsuits, abuse of the Lord's suffer, but listen to how Paul agreed to them. To the church of God that's in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus called to be saints. That's encouraging. He's like, you guys are being sanctified. You're called to be saints. But this is the only letter Paul wrote, at least, that's in the New Testament, where he says nothing more than to the churches in Galatia.

17:23That's it. Now that fact alone tells us how big of a deal their problem is, right? You get the gospel wrong? You don't hear a single positive thing from Paul. So think of it like this. For all of Corinth's problems, they got the gospel right. They're failing to live it out well or perfectly. So Paul has to address their failure to live out the gospel, but to the Galatians, he has to address the fact that they don't know the gospel, that they're getting the gospel wrong and those are like two worlds apart. That's why Paul is so serious with them. Look at verse three. He says, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul's common greeting, grace and peace. But when he writes this to the Galatians, I think it carries even more weight than when he wrote it to other churches.

18:24And here's what I mean. A good way to think of grace is unmerited favor. It's receiving what we don't deserve in a good sense. This like mercy would be not receiving what we do deserve. If you ever wondered about distinguishing between grace and mercy, grace is receiving the good or blessing you don't deserve. It's unmerited favor. Mercy is not receiving what you do deserve in terms of judgment or punishment. So he writes to them about grace. Well what were the Galatians leaving that grace? They're leaving the grace of God. Look at verse six. They're so quickly discerning him who called you in the grace of Christ. They're abandoning God's grace for works. So he writes to them about grace and peace. It's got significant weight also because peace is the result of grace. So the order is very significant here. When God saves us by grace through faith, Romans 5.1 says that we have peace with God.

19:26So the order matters. It's always grace and then peace. And that's why it's always written that way. It's never peace. It's never peace. And then you work hard enough to have peace. And then finally God is gracious to you. You don't work your way to peace with God and then receive grace as a reward. Instead God chooses to be gracious to us and then peace follows. But the false teachers are reversing that. And here's the problem. Whenever you reverse grace and peace, you always forfeit peace. Does that make sense why I'm saying that? Whenever you reverse grace and peace, you always forfeit peace because peace can only come from God's grace. So what I mean by that, if grace is unmerited favor and you forfeit grace, well now it's about you. It's about your work, your labor, your effort. Essentially, you're always asking the same thing. Am I doing enough? Am I working hard enough for God to be pleased with me? And that is a state that's always absent of peace. There is no peace on that. When I was Catholic, when I was part of a workspace religion, there was the only peace, and if

20:28they have told you guys this before, I'm not joking, was when I walked out of the confessional. Because I just confessed my sin and that was the only time that I knew that I was going to go to heaven because after that I was completely performance-based relationship with the Lord and was I ever being good enough. So there's absolutely no peace on that. There's something else worth noticing in these two words. So when the Greeks so we greet each other with hello and the Greeks greet each other with the word greeting or like the word grace, the Greek word carous. Paul changes it slightly, the Greek greeting to the word carous or grace. The Jews would greet each other with the word Shalom or peace. So Greeks are saying grace to each other. The Jews are saying peace or Shalom to each other. And so what Paul does is he writes his greetings in the letters using grace and peace because it's his way to bring together the greetings for Greeks and Gentiles and Jews to say

21:37really that he's welcoming both of them into the church together. He's not just addressing Jews, he's not just addressing Gentiles, he's addressing both of them to put them side by side. And that matters in every letter, especially significant to the Galatians because there were false teachers that were saying the Jews are fine because they're circumcised because they're keeping the law but you Gentiles basically need to become Jews. So what Paul does is he welcomes the Gentiles as Gentiles, he says grace to them. You're part of the church to you by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. You don't have to become Jews to be fully accepted by God. It's almost like before Paul ever gets to the argument his greeting has already shown it. Grace and peace, one gospel forever. And you can see why this is significant, you don't have to turn there but when we get the chapter 2 we see the distinction between Jews and Gentiles, the wall between them was so strong. I mean it should not have been there but Paul makes the point that even Peter had gotten

22:40caught up and when he started treating Gentiles differently than he was treating Jews. In the body of Christ there's not this distinction in terms of whether someone even goes so far as to later say male and female, Jew Gentile, slave or free. He means there are distinctions regarding roles and responsibilities but regarding being saved we're all saved the same. Male or female, young or old, slave free, Jew Gentile, by grace through faith in Christ. So how does God give this grace to sinners? Well look in the next verse, verse 4. Says who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of our God and Father. This is like the gospel in one sentence and this brings us to lesson 2. Christ gave himself to rescue us not merely help us. Let me ask you a question to think about as we continue through this letter.

23:43Were the Judeisers or were the false teachers denying Christ? It's almost a true question. I would say no. They weren't. They weren't telling people not to believe in Christ. They were preaching Christ which is what makes this so significant that they could be preaching Christ and still get such a strong rebuked from Paul. They're preaching Christ plus works. The Christ doesn't merely helping us. He's rescuing us. There's so much in this verse. I want to look at a phrase by phrase. Verse it says who gave himself. So Christ gave himself. Nobody took his life from him as he said. In 1018 no one takes my life from me but I lay it down of my own accord. So you read the gospels. You see Christ crucifixion and who does it look like is taking Christ's life from him? I mean the religious leaders, the Jews, Pilate, Rome. They're all responsible for their actions but Jesus went to the cross willingly to give

24:46himself for us. Second it says for our sins. Now there are many wonderful ways that when we come to Christ our relationships, marriages, families, lives can be improved. But Jesus didn't come for any of those reasons. He did not come to give us lives free from trials. He did not come to ensure we're always healthy. He did not come to help us make more money. He did not come for any of those reasons that false teachers might preach. He didn't come to guarantee perfect marriages and families. Even if our marriages might be improved sometimes they might not be. And I'll just use myself as an example. Most of you know how gracious God has been to me that my parents came to faith. I was able to share the gospel with them and baptize them. But there was a season where it didn't look like that was going to happen. And so when I came to Christ essentially it meant being a strange for my family.

25:48So that's why Jesus said I didn't come to bring peace. I came to bring a sword. I came even to, no we know he didn't mean this literally it's an exaggeration. But he was making the point that coming to faith in Christ can mean division within families. And I was a good example of that. I became a strange for my family who was super upset. But I had left the Catholic Church when I came to faith in Christ. So for some people to come to faith in Christ could at least and in some parts of the world mean persecution from family members. It can mean a strangement from family members. And so there's not a guarantee that coming to Christ means a better life. Means a better marriage means a better family. And my whole reason for saying that is this says that Christ came for our sins. And it's really important to keep that in mind. That's the our primary understanding that he came to save us from our sins. Sin is the problem that Christ came to solve for us.

26:51Third, it says from this present evil age. Now this is important because it's going to help us strike the right balance here. And let me illustrate what I mean by this. In any discussion of the gospel, we're trying to keep things balanced. But there are just these two ditches that we tend to fall into. And both of them create a false gospel. So if we're talking a lot about sin and judgment, what are we tempted to do with the gospel or tempted to add to it or tempted to be legalistic? There's this greater temptation toward legalism. If you're going to emphasize sin and repentance, then you better make sure you get people lots of rules to follow so that they avoid sin and so they avoid judgment, right? So that's one temptation adding to the gospel. Well, if you're going to talk a lot about grace, which is what Paul does in this letter, well, then you're going to be tempted to give license to sin. You talk a lot about God's grace and then suddenly God is so gracious, you can just do

27:51whatever you want. It's all about God's grace. It doesn't matter how you live, it doesn't matter what you do. God is gracious. So those are the two temptations that we can fall into. Well, while we're trying to strike the right balance, even though there's a lot of discussion of grace, that phrase from the present evil age helps us strike the balance. Because if God delivered us from the present evil age, which means even though we still live here, He rescued us from the power that this age has over us. Sin, guilt, condemnation, the ways a world rebelling against God would seek to pull us away from Christ. If Christ has delivered us from this present evil age, we can be sure that He doesn't want us to be part of it, right? So even in this discussion of grace, there's still this balance that we're not going to be worldly, we're going to be set apart from sin. If God delivered us from the present evil age, we know that He doesn't want us to be part

28:52of it. Grace does not mean license to be worldly. Listen to another way that Paul describes Christ rescuing us. It is 2.14. He gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself, redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession who Resell is for good works. So He gave Himself to redeem us and then He purifies us. The same Christ who rescues us also changes us. Paul will say later in this letter, Galatians 5.13, you were called to freedom brothers, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh or to sin, but through love, serve one another. So we're not saved by good works, but we are saved for good works. The rescue first, the changed life later, but all of the freedom that we have in Christ, it isn't a freedom to sin, it's a freedom from sin. Fourth, it says according to the will of our God and Father.

29:57So this is beautiful. The cross wasn't plan B. God, there was no panic around the throne room of God, associated with man sinning, and now what are we going to do here? It has always been God's plan to give His Son. He did not do it reluctantly. He wasn't agreeing to something that the Son that He didn't want or that the Son didn't want, it was God's plan to give His Son willingly. It was the Son's plan to be given willingly to rescue us. And then finally, look back at this phrase to deliver us. So this is a word of rescue. This is the same verb that Stephen used in his sermon when he recounted God speaking to Moses at the burning bush. Acts 734, Stephen said, I've sure, quoting God, I've surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt. I've heard their groaning and I've come down to deliver them. It's the same Greek word. And I like this example with Egypt because if I had to choose any illustration of salvation

30:58in the Old Testament, it would probably be the Hebrews being delivered from Egypt. It is a beautiful picture of salvation. So you've got the Hebrews who are slaves to the Egyptians. They're delivered from their slavery by the Passover Lamb. It is a picture or type of our deliverance. We are slaves to sin. We are delivered from our slavery to sin by Christ, the true and greater Passover Lamb. Now I draw your attention to that to ask this. As you think about the Hebrews deliverance from Egypt, how much do they contribute to it? They did not unleash the plagues. They did not defeat Pharaoh. They did not part the Red Sea. It was all what God did for them. So just as God came down, delivered the Hebrews from Egypt. He comes down, delivers us from sin and death. Now one more time I want to ask you to think about why someone is saying something that he's saying. In this case, why? The author Paul is saying this to these people, the Galatians.

32:03Well he's contradicting the teaching that they're delivering. That they're saying Christ gets you started, but then you have to help him. Christ is a good start, but then after that you kind of got to pick up the ball and run with it to be saved. So they're not denying Christ, but they're just demoting him. Jesus is a good start, but you need to finish the job with your obedience. Now let me share two stories with you and then I'll explain the relationship to these verses. So January 13, 1982, in the middle of a snowstorm, air Florida flight 90 took off from Washington, DC and then seconds later it struck the 14th street bridge and plunged into the frozen Potomac River. 78 people died upon impact. Five people survived the crash. One of the people who survived was a woman named Priscilla Torado. They brought this police helicopter overhead and they lowered this lifeline tour, but she

33:08was too weak by this point to hold on. And also by this point hundreds of bystanders had gathered along the side of the river to watch this. Nobody did anything to save her. And then letty Lenny Scottnick, he jumped into the frozen icy water. He swam out to her and he pulled her to shore. Now I wouldn't say that he assisted her. I would say he rescued her, right? Okay, one more illustration. This comes from September 11, 2001. Wellas Crowther, he was a 24-year-old equities trader. He worked on the 104th floor of the South Tower. As a child, he saw his father getting dressed for church and his dad would wrap this small comb in a red bandana that he kept in his pocket. When Wellas was six years old, his father gave him a red bandana that he always kept with him. So after the second plane hit the tower, there was a group of injured people who were above

34:13Wellas, trapped in the smoke, they were on the 78th floor. So he puts this bandana over his nose and mouths to protect himself from the smoke and the haze. And he carries this woman on his back down 17 flights of stairs. And then he heads back up and he rescues others. He never made it out. His body was found months later in the lobby of the South Tower alongside firefighters. But he's credited with saving 18 people and they know how many people he saved because these people talked about this man with the red bandana over his face who would save them. And they did a lot. They started to honor this man. They have like a marathon with people wearing red bandana as they started an organization called the red bandana organization. But here's my point. These people didn't need someone to assist them. He didn't go up and start yelling directions to them. They needed someone to rescue them.

35:14And that's what Jesus does for us physically. But the false teachers are denying this. They're teaching that Jesus gets things started. You help them the rest of the way. You're drowning in the ocean. Christ is going to stand on the shore and he's going to tell you how to swim. He's going to be yelling encouragement to you. You're in this burning building and Christ is going to show up and give you a map to tell you how to navigate out of the building. Essentially, that's what these people are saying spiritually. So Paul comes and he says, no, Christ did not assist you. Christ did not help you. He rescued you. He saved you. He did all of it. None of it relied on you. Paul's going to ask them later. Galatians 3-3. Are you so foolish that having begun by the spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? So Paul basically means, are you so foolish to think that Christ gets things started? But you're going to be the one to help him finish your salvation and your own effort.

36:19Now let's go back to those two rescues for a moment. And I want you to think about something. When people tell the story of air, Florida, flight 90, nobody praises Priscilla, the woman that made it out of the water. Nobody talks about how well she swam. Nobody talks about how strong she must have been. Instead everyone talks about Lenny risking his life to save her. Similarly, when survivors from the South Tower tell their story, they don't talk about how they found a way out. They don't say it was terrifying and it was hard to see and there was so much smoke, but just some way. I just made it out of there. And my own effort is found the way. And basically I saved myself. Now all of those people talk about the man in the Red Bandana rescuing them. So in other words, rescued people, they don't take credit. People who are saved don't talk about what they did.

37:21People who truly understand what happened to them, they don't praise themselves. They don't have any glory for themselves. They don't boast about anything. All they do is talk about the person who rescued them. They talk about who saved them. And I mention that because that's exactly the point that Paul makes in the next verse. Look at verse 5. He says, to whom be the glory forever and ever amen and this brings us to our last lesson. The salvation of God's work, the glory belongs to God alone. Now look back over these verses. Who's doing the work? Yeah, there's no work we do. There's no credit to us, excuse me. There's no acknowledgement of our contribution. There's no praise for anything that we brought to our salvation.

38:22The Father sent Paul, the Father raised Jesus from the dead. The Father is the one who willed our rescue. The Son is the one who gave Himself. Now because God did everything for us, He gets all the glory. But a false gospel that teaches Jesus plus something, which is essentially a false gospel that teaches faith plus works, inevitably it's going to take some glory from God. It's going to leave room for boasting. But a true understanding of the gospel excludes boasting. Later Paul told the Galatians, Galatians 6.14, far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now why did Paul say that? Because he understood that the gospel was not Jesus plus anything. He understood that there was nothing that he had contributed to his salvation. Now if you think about it, did Paul have a lot, just be honest, did Paul have a lot he could boast about?

39:22Yeah, I mean, he's one of the most incredible godly men in human history. He's educated, he's zealous, he's advancing in Judaism. Many men his age, he's a great teacher in credible spiritual insight and men's labor for the gospel. People for countless churches being planted and who knows how many people coming to salvation and he still says, I'm not going to boast in anything. I'm only going to boast. Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Why do Paul say that? Because he knew that he had contributed nothing to his salvation. So he had nothing to boast about. Similarly he said to the Ephesians Ephesians 289, by grace you've been saved through faith. This is not your undoing. It's the gift of God not a result of works. So that no one may boast. And God designed salvation this way that we'll get to heaven someday and we won't feel at all responsible for being there. We will not be able to take credit for any part of our salvation or our eternity.

40:26It'll be all about what Christ did for us. Now I'll give you three ways that this should affect us. First, it should affect how we describe our conversions, excuse me. You can tell a lot about people's understanding of the gospel as you listen to them describe how they're saved. So when you share your testimony, who's the hero of that? Hopefully. But I'm convinced there are some people who believe there's something they contributed. They're going to talk about some decision they made, some way in which they changed. You know, I was in this bad place and then I turned things around. Whenever you listen to someone say something like that, I'm not denying that they're saved but I can tell that they don't have a truly accurate understanding of the gospel. Because a truly accurate understanding of the gospel leaves no place for boasting. Nothing about what we've done unless we just want to discuss the sin that we contributed

41:29that required us being saved in the first place. And must all be about what Christ has done for us. Second, this should keep us humble toward others. Believers should be the humblest people. The reason I say that is if salvation was a reward for being good, then we could definitely look down on those who were not saved, right? If we contributed anything to our salvation that we could look down on those who have not contributed enough to be saved. But if we understand that we're saved by grace through faith and we understand we're not better than anybody. And we know that the difference between believers and unbelievers is simply that believers are forgiven, justified by grace through faith. We recognize we did no more to be saved than Priscilla did when she was in the Potomac or the people that well-less rescued out of the South Tower. We know we're no better than anybody else. And the third thing this should do is it should make us worshipers. And I'll tell you why I say this.

42:30I want you to look at the verses again to see what happened here. Paul's greeting, it's in verses one through five, but there's really one part of it that doesn't fit. In verse one, Paul introduces himself as the author of the letter. That's part of a greeting. That makes sense that he did that. In verse two, Paul says who he's writing to. He says to the churches of Galatia, that would also be part of a greeting. That also makes sense why Paul said that. In verses three and four, Paul gives his greeting on behalf of God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. That also makes sense. Fits perfectly with the greeting. The liquid Paul does in verse five. He gives a doxology. Where do you normally see doxologies at the end of a letter? It's the closing note of praise. I'll give you a bunch of examples. Romans, Philippians, 2 Timothy, Hebrews, Peter, Jude, all have the doxologies at the end.

43:35So what's going on here? Why does Paul give this doxology as part of his greeting? Well, here's what I think happened. Paul describes what Christ did for us, and it's almost like he can't help himself. It's almost like his he is writing and reflecting on what Christ has done. He just erupts in this praise. He can't even get through his greeting without providing this doxology. He talks about what the Lord did, and then he says, to whom be the glory forever and ever amen. He doesn't wait till the end of the letter. He actually praises God in the middle of a letter that he's upset in. I know that he is at least astonished, because that's the word he used in the next verse, but likely disappointed or upset with the Galatians. But even in this frustration that he's experiencing, he can't help but worship the Lord. This is a good example for us. When we remember what Christ has done for us, praise should be the response.

44:38And notice that last word, amen. That means so be it, or it is true. Paul's inviting the Galatians to agree with them. He's inviting us too. Now they conclude by going back to the beginning of this. We said most people skim the greeting of a letter to get to the most important part. But in Galatians and the greeting, Paul tells us the most important part of the beginning. He'll use the rest of the letter to defend it. He tells us who sent him. Jesus Christ and God the Father. He tells us what Christ did for us, gave himself to rescue us, and then he tells us who deserves the glory, God forever and ever. The rest of the letter will explain this. Over the coming weeks, we're going to watch Paul defend his calling, defend the gospel, and then show us how to live in the freedom that Christ purchased for us. But it all starts here. It all begins with a savior that we have in Christ who gave himself for us. So let me ask, has Christ rescued you? If not, stop trying to save yourself. Trust him today for your salvation.

45:39Understand you don't contribute anything to it. If Christ has rescued you, then live like someone who's been rescued. Don't try to return to earning what's already been given to you. Instead give him the glory because to him be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Father, thank you for that. I thank you for what Christ has done for us. Thank you for the way the gospel's been established that we contribute nothing to our salvation. I thank you for the beauty of it, but we understand our flesh, our pride, desires to add to or take away from it. We desire to be able to boast and think about what we've done for you versus what you've done for us. So protect us from that Lord. Use this wonderful book to bring us back to the gospel and what Jesus has done. And we pray all this in his name. Amen.