The scripture reading this morning is found in Paul's epistle to the Galatians. Galatians chapter 1, 1 through 10. Galatians 1, 1 through 10. Before we read the word of the Lord, pray with me. Lord, your law is perfect, reviving the soul. Your testimony is sure, making wise the simple. your precepts are right rejoicing the heart your commandments are pure enlightening the eyes lord as your word is proclaimed here this morning may your spirit cause the seed of your gospel to fall on fertile soil so that it might bear fruit and lord if there are those here this morning whose hearts are hard may it please you to soften their hearts so that they can have the joy of knowing your Son, Jesus Christ, of whom all the Scriptures speak. Amen. The Word of the Lord. Paul, an apostle, sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead, and the brothers with me. To the churches in Galatia, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all. Evidently, some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned. As we have already said, now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned. Am I now trying to win the approval of men or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. Thanks be to God for his word. Imagine with me that you started a small business. Let's say a bagel shop. And one of the reasons you wanted to start this bagel shop is because you had some really good coffee. And you wanted everybody to taste your free coffee. So you decided to give it away for free. Of course, business would be booming because people want free coffee. So you wanted to try to expand your business. So you moved to New York City to try your hand at a bagel shop there. Before you leave, you make sure that you have managers and employees to watch after your store while you're away. While you're gone in New York City, you have the same success that you did here. So you decide to go back home to see how your original store is doing. You walk up to the door, you see a lot of people there, not as many people as you would have liked, but there's still people there. But as you watch them transact the business, you realize they're having to pay for their coffee. Your business model was given on free coffee, but something changed while you were gone. Some other representatives from the bagel shops in town came to your managers and said, you know what, it really would make a lot more profit for you and be much better for our business as well if you didn't give away free coffee that made sure that people paid for it? How would you react coming back to your sweat and blood that you, years before, had come to build this business on? You would be angry. You would be frustrated. This is not what you started out to do. Something quite similar happened to the Apostle Paul in the churches of Galatia. When he established churches there on his first missionary journey, he came back years later and also, through letters that he had corresponded with them, realized that something had happened to that church. What he had established them in had changed. We're not exactly sure who these people were, but we do know that people had come in and had tried to get the new Christians to go back to the old Jewish ceremonial laws, to try to merge the Jewish Christianity of history to this new Christian faith. We even read about in Acts 15 how this was a major crisis in the church at that time. They had to quickly understand what happened to the old Jewish system and the new gospel of Jesus Christ. So Paul acts fast in his gospel to the Galatians. In all of his books, in all of his epistles, He gives thanksgiving, and he praises God for the people of that church. But we don't read that here in Galatians. Even in the book of Corinthians, where the people were getting drunk at the Lord's Supper and sleeping with their father's wives, he still is able to praise God for those churches. But when the gospel itself is compromised, Paul can't bring himself to thank God for that church, and he gets right into the heat of the matter. Kids, this would be like if your parents were called from work because you got in trouble at school. When they walk into the principal's office and see you sitting there, are they going to give you pleasantries and say, it's so good to see you, how's your day at school? No, they're going to be angry. Something has happened, and they are here to deal with that problem, and they're not going to give you the pleasantries they normally would. That is what Paul is doing here. He jumps right into the book of Galatians and attacking them for what they had done. And the passage we read, verses 1-10, is the introduction to the whole book. And there's a lot that Paul talks about, but the main thing he talks about is that there is one gospel message. Everything else is false. We, too, need to know what that gospel message is. And to do that, we're going to hear about how Paul has an approved message, an approved messenger, and an ultimate approval of his work. First, Paul talks about an approved message. Imagine that you're the manager of that bagel shop. You thought you were doing a good job while your owner was away. People were still coming to the store, you were still making money. But as soon as the manager comes back, you realize that you were not doing what he had commanded you to do from the beginning. And the owner is going to reprimand you strongly for what you have done. And that's what Paul does in verse 6 of our passage. He says, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel. Now to the Galatians, this had to be really surprising. They thought they were doing exactly what Paul had told them to do. But he starts right off in his book, telling them that they are turning to a different gospel. They had changed sides. The Greek word that is translated deserting also means changing allegiances. This would be like if you were in a battle situation. You're fighting next to your brothers, fighting your enemy. If they were just to desert you, they would just drop their guns and leave. But no, they change allegiances. They don't drop their guns and leave. They turn their guns on you and start fighting you. Your own brothers turn their allegiances. Kids, this would be like if you're playing soccer. You have a goal behind you, and you're going forward to try to get to the other team's goal. If your teammates desert you, they're just going to walk off the field. But no, they change their allegiances. They turn around, take the ball, and start shooting on your own goal. They are now playing for the other team. That is what Paul is accusing the Galatians of doing. They are no longer Paul's teammates. They are now the enemy of a different gospel. Like I mentioned earlier, we're not exactly sure who these people in Galatia were that were attacking the church and causing them to change. But one thing we do know is that they are obviously going to a different gospel. In verse 7, Paul accuses them of distorting the gospel and that there are people that are there to cause confusion and to distort the gospel of Jesus Christ. And Paul needs to make explicitly clear that there is one gospel message. Changing that one message in the slightest makes it into a totally different gospel. There is one approved message that God has given Paul and the church to proclaim. And what that message is, is very important for us Christians to know and to understand. Paul has already given us this simple message in verse 4 when he says, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age according to the will of our God and Father. That is the one simple gospel message. You don't need to add anything to that. We also read in 1 Corinthians 15 another good summary of what the gospel itself is. Christ, according to his Father's will, gave himself up for our sins to deliver us from the wrath of God. He died and was buried, but he was also raised again. That is the gospel message. Can we change that message? What happens if we do? Paul continues in Galatians 1 to tell us what happens to us if we change the gospel of Jesus Christ. We are eternally condemned, according to verse 8. That's not something we want to hear when we're standing before a holy and righteous God that we are eternally condemned. Paul gives us a little bit of hyperbole in verse 8 as he continues. Even if angels themselves came down to earth and proclaimed a different gospel, they too would be eternally condemned. Now Paul wasn't worried that there would be angels coming down from heaven to give a false gospel. Because he saw the Lord Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus And he was given by the Christ himself what the gospel message is. He knew that there would be no other angels coming down to give a different gospel. That time had stopped. God's revelation is in Jesus Christ and not from angels coming down from heaven. Today, who can we give this letter to? Who needs to hear this book of Galatians, that they are changing the false gospel? Many times in today's world, when you ask people what is the gospel, they might give you something like love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Or go out into the world and make disciples. That is a popular answer to the question of what is the gospel. But brothers and sisters, that is not the gospel. That is law. That is telling us something that we need to do. This is a fundamental distinction between law and gospel. The Gospel is a message declaring to us what has been done for us. The law tells us to do something. The Gospel tells us what happened to us. The law, as we read earlier this morning, drives us to Christ. It makes us realize the depth of our sin, that we need a Savior before a holy God. And that is what the Gospel proclaims to us. That we are then to live a life of gratitude for what Christ had done for us. Again, it's a simple message. In a way, it doesn't really make sense, does it? There has to be more. The Christian life needs to be more than just this simple message of Christ and him crucified. Paul realized that in Romans and in 1 Corinthians. He says that it's foolishness to the world, this simple gospel message. And he even uses foolish means. I could have added another point about an approved method of preaching. Having some man up in the pulpit speaking to you does not seem like the best way to get your message across, especially the message that has changed the world and what God's redeeming plan. But no, that is what God has proclaimed to have happened. It's foolish means of a foolish message. Paul in 1 Corinthians says a couple times that his message is Christ and him crucified. And that's it. Everything else, the Christian life, Everything that we need to know flows out of this one gospel message. We've talked about this approved message. Now we need to talk about approved messengers. Some of you may know that before I went to seminary, I used to work at a national laboratory. And especially after 9-11, security was really tight. In order to get even into the gates, you had to show your badge, to show that you had been approved for entering into the national laboratory. And while you were walking around, you always had to carry the name badge on your chest so that people could identify you and see that you are really supposed to be there. If somebody wasn't carrying around an ID badge, you could ask them to give it to you. And if they didn't have one, you might have to call security because they were not approved to be on the site. There were other times where I had to go through background checks and have people look into my history to see if I'm able to do certain functions of my job. But once that happened, once I was shown to be approved to be able to do certain tasks, that's all I had to do. It was just a one-time act. Now, when Paul was coming to the Galatians, he didn't have an ID badge to show them. They couldn't readily tell of who he was and why he was able to give them the message of God. He had to tell his audience how to identify him. And he does that right away in verse 1. He says he is an apostle, sent not by man, but by Christ himself and God the Father. That is where his authority comes, is from God the Father himself. In other parts of Paul's epistles, he uses an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God. Or in Romans, he's a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God. Now apparently the situation in Galatia needed a lot more than that quick introduction that we find in the very beginning of Paul's epistles. Somebody else had come into the church of Galatia and usurped Paul's authority, telling the people of Galatia they needed to be listened to and not Paul, that they were the true, improved messengers of the gospel. So therefore, in Galatians 1, 1-11, almost through the end of chapter 2, Paul goes to great pains to show the people of Galatia why he was able to be the only approved messenger of the gospel. He even does more than what we read in the book of Acts in terms of his going away from being a Pharisee to now being an apostle of Christ. Paul has to make sure that they are very clear of who he is and why he has the authority. This had to be confusing for the church of Galatia. Who do they believe? They had Paul come there, you know, instruct them initially in the faith, establish a church, and he leaves. And the people that he put in command to serve that church apparently were twisted by other people coming in. So who do they believe, Paul or these new people? They couldn't just say that Paul is going to go in there and say, I was here first, therefore you need to believe me. No, that is not what Paul says. So how do we know if we are listening to an approved messenger? And Paul, too, for the churches of Galatia. How could they tell that Paul was the true messenger? Well, one indication is given to us in verse 7. When Paul says, some people are throwing you into confusion and trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. So one method that you can tell is that they're stirring up confusion. The gospel message is a simple message. And that if you start throwing it into confusion and start causing division in the church, It might be an indication that one of the people you're listening to is not an approved messenger of the gospel. Paul had, as we read in Philippians, a very great pedigree. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He was blameless before the law. But that didn't necessarily mean that he was an approved messenger. He calls in Philippians 3 that he gives everything a loss for Christ. Everything that he had done, he now considers rubbish because of the gospel of Christ. So Paul's pedigree didn't necessarily make him an approved messenger. And even today, we might want to think and look at people's history and who they are to see if they are an approved messenger. Maybe if they go to the right seminary, that automatically makes them an approved messenger. That might not be the case. Just because you go to a certain seminary doesn't mean that you are an approved messenger of Christ. What about having a doctrine? What about having lots of training underneath your belt? Still, that might not mean that you are an approved messenger of the gospel. Remember that Paul says, even if an angel from heaven came down, they might not be an approved messenger. So how are we to tell if we have an approved messenger? It goes back to what the approved message is. If somebody preaches the approved message of Christ our Lord, that makes them an approved messenger. It's a simple gospel message of Christ and him crucified. In the early church, when the apostles were writing to the new churches, they consistently reminded them that there would be false prophets in the church and those that are going to be identified as teaching false doctrine. And we have those in the church today. There are people who go to the right seminaries, have the right degrees, that do not necessarily present the true gospel message of Jesus Christ. So what are we to do? In Acts chapter 17, we read about how when Paul was in the church of Berea, and he was preaching to them, they searched the scriptures daily to see if what Paul was saying was really true. They looked up into the scriptures, God's own word, to see if Paul was speaking the truth. And we do the same thing today, don't we? We need to examine the scriptures to see if what is being said is correct. Kids, imagine that you had a substitute math teacher. And they come into class, and they start teaching you wrong things. They start saying, 2 plus 2 is 5. Or 5 times 6 is 42. Now you know that that is wrong. because your other teacher had told you something different. Two plus two is four, not five. So what would you do? You would make sure that what your teacher taught you before was right. Yeah, in fact, two plus two is four. Therefore, you would tell when your teacher came back, this substitute teacher was not being a good teacher. They were telling us false things. You check up on them, and you tell when your teacher comes back. The same thing happens today in the church. The elders, one of their main tasks is to make sure that what is preached from this pulpit is the true message of Jesus Christ. And they examine the scriptures to see that what is being taught is true to God's word. One thing to help us in that, or help the elders in that, are our confessions. Another guide for what we believe the Bible says on many topics. The reason that the elders need to do this, and the reason that we need to make sure that what is being taught is the approved message, As Paul says it a number of times in this passage of Galatians. Otherwise, we are eternally condemned. He says it twice, in fact. He repeats verbatim the words he said before. That if we are preaching to you another gospel, they are eternally condemned. This is serious business. In Hebrews chapter 13, the author of the Hebrews says that the leaders have to give an account to God himself of what has happened to those underneath them. And James 3, that teachers will be judged with greater strictness. So we need to make sure that we are approved messengers of the approved message of Jesus Christ. But finally, Paul concludes this section of Galatians talking about who he is getting his approval from. Now he throws the question back to them in verse 10. He asks them, who am I trying to get approval from? I find verse 10 kind of comical in a way, because he says that, are we trying to prove approval of men or of God? If I am trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ. We read in the book of Acts and in 1 Corinthians, all the trials and the sufferings that Paul had endured at the hands of people because of the gospel. Even in the churches of Galatia in Acts 14, we read about he was left for dead. He was stoned. because of the people there who wanted to kill him because of his message. If he really was trying to please them, he would not be a servant of Christ, because we know what happens to that. He gets stoned and left for dead. Who could bring this accusation on to Paul? It is most likely the Judaizers thought that Paul was trying to please men by making them not do the ceremonial laws of the old Jewish system, but trying to make them have an easier religion. And apparently they thought that that couldn't be the case. You still need to be steeped in the traditions of the Old Testament, steeped in the Mosaic Law, and that Paul was trying to please men by taking those restrictions away from them and making them have an easier religion. So we can see how that could be an accusation that people could bring upon Paul. But as we talked about earlier, as we read in Paul's letters, that the message of the Gospel is foolishness to those who don't believe. So just by the nature of the one approved message, it cannot please men on its own. Kelvin comments on this passage that the corruption of doctrine springs from ambition or any other sinful passion. So the truth is maintained in its purity by an upright conscience. And Paul contends that his doctrine is sound because it is not modified to gratify men. Paul knows that he is preaching the approved message of Jesus Christ because his conscience tells him that. He didn't have to modify his gospel in the least, but he is speaking the truth because that is what Christ told him to do. Calvin continues, that the desire of attaining favor is one motive for speaking according to men. When there reigns in our hearts such ambition that we desire to regulate our speech, So as to obtain the favor of men, our instructions cannot be sincere. This is important. If we regulate what we say to people, then we cannot be sincere in what we say. If we regulate the gospel of Jesus Christ and change it into something to make men think of us more highly, then we are changing the gospel and we cannot be sincere in our instructions. There are times in our lives where we don't want to tell people the hard truths. We don't necessarily want to be truthful and sincere in all things, but we have to be. When it comes to the gospel, we have to talk about things that we would rather not talk about. Sin, death, blood, wrath. Of course, there are good things to talk about because we have been redeemed from those things, But yet, we have to keep and to talk about the hard truths of Scripture to stay true to the message of Jesus Christ. We have to talk about the whole counsel of God. There are things in the Bible we don't want to talk about, but we have to give people what they need to hear from God's Word. If you can turn with me to 2 Timothy chapter 4. 2 Timothy chapter 4. The first five verses of 2 Timothy chapter 4. In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing in his kingdom, I give you this charge. Preach the word. Be prepared in season and out of season. Correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations. Endure hardship. Do the work of an evangelist. Discharge all the duties of your ministry. Paul says that people will not endure sound teaching or correct doctrine. sometimes that is deep and heavy stuff. But they will have itching ears and will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions. Sometimes we have to remember, when was this written? This was written 2,000 years ago. And the church is still facing the same problems. Many churches today are still gathering for themselves people that are going to tell them what their itching ears want to hear. Paul tells Timothy to be an evangelist and to fulfill his ministry. What is an evangelist? It's one who preaches the good news, the approved message of Christ and him crucified. The problem today in a lot of churches is that we've taken the evangelist out of the pulpit and replaced him with a teacher or a counselor. Someone whose job is then to tell him how to live the Christian life, but not why to live Christian life. They give us what we want to hear. How to raise kids, how to have a good marriage, how to have a good financial being. Those are good things, but we cannot replace the gospel of Christ to hear about those things. Who would we rather hear about? Some guy up here talking about a dead guy from 2,000 years ago who was raised from the dead? Or somebody who can impact our lives right now? But that is what Paul tells us to preach. It's a stumbling block to people that do not understand, as we read in 1 Corinthians. A lot of the Christian life doesn't make sense. A trinity, three persons, one God, a God becoming flesh, being 100% God, 100% man, putting a perfect man, a sinless man on the cross, and having him raised again from the dead, and having his righteousness somehow imputed to us. having him ascend into heaven and waiting for him to come back, a lot of it doesn't make sense. Preaching the true gospel message in a way almost guarantees that we will not win the approval of men. Maybe in God's grace we will see the fruit of that message, but maybe we won't. Paul certainly didn't see the fruit of his labors all the time. But there is a missing link to this puzzle, and that is the Holy Spirit and the promises of God. god has promised to be present wherever his word is proclaimed and where sacraments are given isaiah 55 it says that god's word will not return void sure the gospel message is foolishness but it's foolishness to the unregenerate those who have not been given the holy spirit to make their hearts soft and to understand the gospel message so we cannot forget that is the holy spirit plays a role in the gospel message in a very important role for without the holy spirit the gospel is foolishness we have to trust god that he will give the holy spirit to those whom he wants to hear the message i have a few friends that have kids and now my sister also has a child and my wife's sister has a child and one thing that we have noticed over the years is that they love to read stories. Just not a lot of stories, but one story over and over again. They love it. They know what it is. They can even read it by themselves just from memory because they've heard the story so many times. The story doesn't change. If you try to throw in something else into the story, they're going to call you on it right away because that is not the story that they heard originally. They love to hear that one story. And I want to read to you one of the verses from And this hymn, I Love to Tell the Story, because it is so beautiful about how the gospel message is something we love to hear and need to hear. I love to tell the story, tis pleasant to repeat, what seems each time I tell it more wonderfully sweet. I love to tell the story, for some have never heard the message of salvation from God's own holy word. I love to tell the story, for those who know it best seem hungering and thirsting to hear it like the rest. If we only seek God's approval, then we will be faithful to his word and will not change our speech to make the gospel into something else, but we'll want to hear that story over and over again. Brothers and sisters, there is one approved message. God has been pleased to give us approved messengers of that message so that we can faithfully hear the good news of what God did for us through His Son, Jesus Christ, and for His glory. If we give this message for God's glory alone, then we will have approval. God's approval. Why use something different than what God has given us in His Word? Now, this isn't just for pastors or those training to be pastors. This is for every single one of us. We need to be able to give people an account for the hope that we have. We don't have to have all the answers to the tough theological questions that will be brought to us, but all of our answers fundamentally come down to Christ and Him crucified. God has redeemed a people for Himself. Anything more or less in that simple message of the gospel is a false gospel. Paul tells us, as we read a number of times, what happens to those people? They're eternally condemned. On that last day, we long to hear, well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master. And that comes from nothing less than knowing just Christ and Him crucified. How can we want a better approval than that? Let us pray. Gracious Father, we have heard the one true message concerning your Son, Jesus Christ. Thank you for providing this church with pastors and elders who are true to your word and protect them from the pressures to seek approval from men rather than from you. But Lord, keep all of us faithful to that one gospel message and all that we say and do. And Lord, most of all, we thank you for sending your Son to die the death that we deserved and to deliver us from this present evil age. Amen.