Well, hello church. If you'd open to Galatians chapter one, Galatians chapter one, and as you're turning there, Man, I hope you're doing well. I know you just heard Kent say that we miss y'all, that we're going to be calling soon. Don't get too used to this platform. We really do hope to be together soon. Stay on the GroupMe, continue to get on these Zoom meetings, prayer meetings, and city groups, and we'll stay connected until we can see each other soon. Galatians chapter 1, let me read this for us. Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead, and all the brothers 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 to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, not that there is one, But there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. Let's pray. Father. What a book before us, what a letter. Holy Spirit, we pray you'd be our teacher right now. There are things that we must see. There are things that it is dangerous for us not to see. We don't even trust our own minds, our own intellects. Lord, I pray for those watching this right now as they have children there, as there could be possibly many distractions. Lord, we pray that there would not be distractions. We pray that there would be a focus, that we could hear your words as your words, that we could hear these words as a revelation given to the Apostle Paul and now passed on to us. Lord, we need to know your gospel. We pray you'd make it clear. We pray you'd help us to trust it and preserve it and to protect it. And Lord, help me right now to proclaim it rightly and boldly as I ought to. And Lord, we pray all of these things in Jesus name. Amen. Well church, after a good five months now, it seems evident to us as pastors that the Lord is calling us to begin to study the book of Galatians. We will eventually get back to the Gospel of John. That is our hope. There are glorious things there that we still want to see, much to see in the Gospel of John. But for this season, it does seem necessary to study the book of Galatians. And I'll give a few reasons why we think it necessary. The first and foremost is we just love the Gospel. And so any book of the Bible that's going to put us in the Gospel, like the book of Galatians, we want to study. and we're happy to study. Additionally, it also gets into the ministry of the Holy Spirit and supplements what we've been seeing in the Gospel of John really well in very practical ways the Holy Spirit is taught in this book. It also gets into the law and how the law relates to the Christian life, at what points, things that in all honesty I've been getting a lot of questions over the last two years. Spent a lot of time one-on-one with people in our church and outside of our church, emails, phone calls. many hours. And so it has just reached a point where we just need to put the Word of God before us corporately and study these things out. How does the law relate to the gospel? How does the Old and New Covenant relate to one another? And Galatians takes that head-on. And I think will be a huge service to us as a church. And then it is about the local church. It's for the local church. So it's teaching about the fruits of the Spirit. We talked about sanctification in the men's internship this week. It gets into sanctification. There's a lot about how to love practically the local church, how to care for the poor in our city, and much teaching that we need as a local church. So, stick with us these coming weeks as we begin to move through the book of Galatians. Let me set some context. As we get going into this book, Galatians is, I believe, the first of Paul's 13 letters to the churches. In fact, it is the earliest New Testament writing. 48 AD is when most scholars date this, and that's if you take a view that this was being written to the South Galatian churches. Now, without getting into that whole big debate and discussion, I do think most scholars are in agreement on this and that this is where we should place that this letter is being written to is South Galatia. And that would be kind of a southern region of Turkey in our day. These are churches Paul himself planted. And then he later gets word that new missionaries have kind of come in and have began to teach something that he will call a different gospel. And out of great concern, he begins to write them and writes them this letter, this first of his 13 letters to churches. And here's what he says in verse six, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. So he is shocked. He's going, have you lost your mind? How did this happen so fast that you have turned to a different gospel? Who came in and did this? Who's brought this confusion? He says, who troubled you? Later in the letter, he says, who bewitched you? Now, somebody has come in here and begun to teach something contrary to what we as apostles have taught. And he is troubled and he is shocked. And the tone of how this letter starts is unlike any other letter to any church he wrote to. It is an intense beginning. And you go, well, who is teaching this different gospel? Who has brought in this other teaching? And the answer is Judaizers. And so you go, well, what are Judaizers? And I would define them simply as those in the church who have adopted Jewish practices and sought to influence others to do so also. The Greek verb to Judaize appears only once in the New Testament, and it appears in chapter 2, verse 14 of Galatians. In this passage, the RSV, the NASB, the ESV translated, to live as Jews. Instead of using the word Judaize, they translated that phrase, to live as Jews. The NIV, to follow Jewish customs. Barclay translates Judaize to live by the Jewish law. So if we're going to translate the phrase literally in Greek, it would read like, oh, why do you make Gentiles Judaize? But they translate it, why do you make Gentiles live like Jews or follow Jewish customs? Because that's what a Judaizer does. Now, Galatians 2.14, we're going to get into this in a couple of weeks, and this will be a significant chapter once we get there. But it is worth jumping over there quickly because Paul rebukes Peter for Judaizing. He's saying even Peter is beginning to Judaize. Even he as a Jew is beginning to teach Gentiles to live like Jews. And Paul has no kind words to say. He says, you are not walking in step with the truth of the gospel. And he gives a harsh rebuke to the apostle Peter for forcing Gentiles to live like Jews, which he says is turning to a different gospel. One commentator says Judaizers refers to Jewish Christians who sought to induce Gentiles to observe Jewish religious customs. And he points out that they agree with the apostles doctrine on almost every point, but they add that if Gentiles want to enter into the covenant people of God, they must do it as God's people always have through circumcision and keeping of the ceremonial law. So they would say, yeah, we agree with Paul. We agree with the apostles on, you know, Jesus is the Messiah. We believe in that Jesus is the only way, but we disagree. We think Paul is confused regarding the law because Paul's trying to change the law and you can't change God's law, they would say. Now, you can imagine the pressure that these new converts, these Gentile converts would feel to begin to add to their gospel elements of the Mosaic Law. They would have felt a strong pressure to do that. And so remember, we're not talking about Jews outside of the church who are saying these things. We're talking about people who've left Judaism, who've left the synagogue, who've entered the church saying that they believe in Jesus as the Messiah, they are members of the local church. Many believe that they actually entered the church in Jerusalem. They were part of the church in Jerusalem, and they've now traveled down into the churches of Galatia and have begun to introduce these teachings, which would have been sounding something like, very deceptively, we agree Jesus is the Messiah. We agree on the gospel. We're preaching the same Jesus. He's fully God. He's fully man. We think there's salvation in no other. And since we believe that, and since Jesus is our Lord and our Savior, shouldn't we follow his example? Don't we worship the same God as Abraham, and Moses, and David, or the prophets? Do we think we're better than Abraham, or Moses, or David, or the prophets? And the person would be like, well, no. Yeah, we worship the same God as them. And then the question would follow, well, how can you have the faith of Abraham or the faith of Moses or the faith of David or the faith of these prophets or even the faith of Jesus and not be circumcised? Abraham was circumcised. Moses was circumcised. David was circumcised. All the prophets, Jesus himself was circumcised. So you think you're going to enter into the covenant people of God without the sign of circumcision? And then the person, this new Gentile Christian goes, well, I mean, when you put it like that, right? And you can just hear the deception in this line of reasoning. And Paul's response is shocking. He says in Galatians 5-2, if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you. He says, literally, you have cut yourself off from Christ. You will be separated from Christ if you receive this sign of circumcision. Now, obviously, I mean, someone may even be thinking, why is Paul taking this so serious? I mean, God's people used to circumcise as the entryway into the covenant. So why is Paul so adamantly against this? And maybe the best way to think about this is, think if someone were to hand you a cup of purified, pure water and say, drink this, you wouldn't have a problem drinking it. But what if they drop a few drops of poison into that cup? You're not going to drink that any longer because you know that few drops of poison could now kill you. And this is how Paul sees this Judaizing teaching. It is now extremely dangerous. You add a little false doctrine, a little heresy to the gospel, and it now is no gospel. It now is called a different gospel. And the poisonous teaching of these Judaizers comes in kind of two levels. So they would say they're stressing the need for Gentiles to be circumcised and keep the law both for acceptance with God, justification, and as the regulative principle for Christian living, sanctification. So they're saying, you need to keep the law as a way to be saved and you need to keep the law in the Christian life to be sanctified. And Paul in this letter is pushing back saying, you can't be justified by keeping the law and you can't be sanctified by keeping the law. And if you teach Gentiles to do that, you're turning to a different gospel. You're not walking in step with the truth of the gospel. Now, church, many of you are aware, there is a movement going on in our day, kind of a grassroots movement. It's not an organized thing, but it's gaining traction. It's a Christian type Jewish movement, and they're giving a lot of these same arguments. It is strikingly similar. In fact, I won't quote the ministry that said this, but one of the larger ministries, more influential ministries online, one of their teachers said, oh yeah, we believe in justification by faith. But then right after that, a few minutes later, he says, but if someone doesn't keep the law of Moses, they've left the faith. So they're saying at one moment, you must have Jesus to be saved, Jesus alone. And then the next moment they say, but if you don't keep the Mosaic law as Israel did, you can't be saved. And this is the type Judaizing that was happening in the church of Galatia, And this is the type of Judaizing that's happening in the church at large, and I would be irresponsible as a pastor to not remind us that this same teaching has made its way into our church. A little Gentile church in Pensacola, Florida. is receiving the same teachings. And so I don't even need to say how relevant the book of Galatians is for our church at this moment. I think that is quite clear. So as we study through Galatians, I would say to you, Kent will actually be preaching next week, read Galatians, would you just read it and then reread it and then continue to read it? We're going to do our best pastorally to be accurate to the text and walk through Paul's line of reasoning and Paul's teaching, but Paul is our teacher. Paul is our teacher going through this, the book of Galatians. We just want to come on the back heels and basically repeat what Paul's saying, how Paul's saying it, And just say, yeah, his gospel is our gospel. What he rejects, we reject. What he accepts, we accept. And so let's today begin with the gospel. Let's start with Paul's gospel before we get to other false gospels or different gospels as Paul would call them. Let's start with Paul's gospel and let's ask, what is this gospel? What is the gospel? And I got three points I want us to walk through. What the gospel is, what the gospel does, and why the gospel matters. What it is, what it does, and why it matters. Let's start with what the gospel is. Now, let me put it in the simplest way first, and then we can build from there. The gospel is this, Jesus. who he is and what he's done as revealed in scripture and received by faith. That's the gospel. Jesus Christ, who he is and what he's done as taught and understood rightly from scripture and received by faith. That is our gospel. And this is a gospel that is to be received. I mean, right as his pen hits the page, Paul's, he is in verse nine saying, if anyone preaches to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. And so this gospel saves you when you receive it. Not earn it, not deserve it, but receive it. And I am actually concerned, as many of us are, that when we look at the landscape of churches in our country, I am concerned that there are many who are not preaching this gospel, Paul's gospel. The gospel is not your testimony. I was bad and, you know, I started going to church and I started reading my Bible and I met some Christians and then, you know, I'm doing better now. It's not the gospel. The gospel is not that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. I mean, that doesn't sound anything like Paul's gospel. He found out that he was a wretched sinner. cut off from Christ, persecuting Jesus himself. He saw his sins and threw himself upon Christ. And his life after he met Christ was full of suffering. Paul's life was not his best life now. Paul's life is much better in heaven than it was on this earth. I can promise you that. The gospel that Paul preached was not that God wants to have a relationship with you. Oh, you know, you hear preachers, oh, God just, it's killing him inside, that you don't have a relationship with him. Please come down the aisle, you know, raise your hand at this prayer and ask Jesus into your heart. You can have a relationship with him. That is not the gospel. That is not the gospel that Paul preached. That is not the gospel that any of the apostles preached. Now, we can have a relationship with God. Praise him. Through Jesus Christ, we can have that. But that is not the gospel. The gospel Paul preached is that we were born enemies of God, children of the devil, dead in our sins, and that God acted on our behalf mercifully and graciously by sending his son. to die in our place, to take our sin in himself, in his body, on the tree, to absorb God's wrath, to raise from death, to give us the hope that we could raise from death as we receive him by faith. It is a gospel that Paul is preaching. It is a gospel that is not dependent on man. It's not focused on man. It's not centered on man. It's something that we do. It's centered on something that Christ did on our behalf. The gospel Paul preached bleeds out. I mean, as soon as he starts this letter, I mean, look at verse one. Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. He's preaching about a risen Jesus. By the time he gets to verse three, the end of verse three, he says, the Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins, who gave, I mean, Brother and sister, don't ever get tired of reading phrases like that. He gave himself for our sins. We are talking about a crucified and a risen Jesus. And there's four things to notice about this gospel. You might want to write these down if you're taking notes. This is the first thing to notice about the gospel. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's what Paul calls it in verse 7. He says, the gospel of Christ. So it is Christ's gospel. Therefore, even if an angel from heaven comes down and says, oh, God has revealed to me to tell you there's this new thing you're to preach. No. In fact, that's how many false religions and cults have started. An angel. That's how Mormonism started. That's how Islam started. Many false teachings have started from an angel coming down and saying, there's a new thing. No, Paul says. He says in verse eight, but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we have preached to you, let him be accursed, literally damned in hell. He says, let that angel go to hell if he preaches a gospel different. And not just that angel, but he says, we. And that's the second point, that this is an apostolic gospel. Paul includes himself in the other apostles and says, we don't have freedom to just change the gospel we preach to you. This gospel we preached to you at first, we can't come around and change it at this point. It's not ours to change. If we preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we receive, let us be accursed. And look at verse 11 and 12. Paul says, for I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor as I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. So he doesn't see himself as having the authority to change or tweak or come back on the back end and say, well, actually, you know, we should actually see this differently than I said earlier. So this is Jesus's gospel, this is an apostolic gospel, and then there's something unique about Paul as an apostle that we would say this is Paul's gospel. In fact, Paul three times says, my gospel, my gospel. 2 Timothy 2.8, remember the Lord Jesus risen from the dead, the offspring of David as preached in my gospel. Romans 2.16, God will judge the secrets of men on that day when according to my gospel. That's authoritative right there. God's going to judge the secrets of people's hearts according to Paul's gospel. Romans 16.25, now to him who is able to strengthen you according to my gospel and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery that has been kept secret for long ages. Now, what does he mean when he says my gospel? And some have actually, trying to understand, what does this mean that Paul's saying, my gospel? They've said, well, he loves this gospel so much, he can't separate it from that personal pronoun. He has to say, my. You know, because it's his. You know, maybe there's some level of truth in that. I'm sure Paul does love the gospel to that point that it's that personal, but I don't think that's what he means. I think this has to do with his ministry to the Gentiles. We see in Ephesians 3 verse 1, Paul says, for this reason I, Paul, a prisoner for Christ Jesus on behalf of you Gentiles, assuming that you've heard of the stewardship of God's grace given to me for you, how the, here it is, the mystery was made known to me. by Revelation, as I have now written briefly. When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations, as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, that is with the Jews. and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel. Of this gospel, I was made a minister according to the gift of God's grace, which was given to me by the working of his power. To me, though I am the very least of all the saints, this grace was given to preach to the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ and to bring to light for everyone what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things so that through the church Through the church, the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities and heavenly places. So Paul says in verse eight, two things, I am the very least of all the saints. And he says, this grace was given to me to preach to the Gentiles, the unsearchable riches of Christ. This is Paul's gospel. He is taking this gospel by direct revelation from Jesus to the Gentiles. He calls himself at one point a minister, an apostle to the Gentiles. This is Paul's gospel. And let me just say, praise God for this man, Paul. This little Jewish man. I mean, we have the gospel today because of Paul. Praise the Lord for this man guarding and risking his life repeatedly for the gospel. And number four, this gospel is not just Jesus's gospel passed on to the apostles, passed on to Paul to bring to the Gentiles. This gospel is also the church's gospel. We see in 1 Timothy 3.14, the church of the living God that is called the pillar and the buttress of truth. That means the gospel. Now we see it in 2 Timothy 1.13, Timothy and the churches that he's pastoring are called to guard the good deposit, entrusted to them. Good deposit, that's the gospel in its context. And so the church has been given a stewardship as the gospel of Jesus, get the flow of this. The gospel is Jesus, who he is, what he's done, all of his work that is able to save us. That gospel is passed on to the apostles. They receive it, they preach it to the church. The church receives it, is saved by it, and we proclaim it, we protect it, and we preserve it. And it now is ours to steward. And the reason why I think Paul tells us to protect and preserve the gospel is because it's always under attack. You know, it's what got Jesus killed. It's what got all the apostles killed, minus John. It's what has led to the death of countless martyrs for Christ. This gospel, as it moves into new cultures and countries, it often is followed with great persecution. And you say, why is that? Well, because it's offensive. It's offensive. It's an offensive message. In fact, one way to try to figure out or differentiate between a true and a false gospel is, does it offend? You know, you know you found the true gospel, at least one of the main criteria is it's offensive. And Paul even says this in Galatians 5 verse 11. He says, but if I, brothers, still preach circumcision, why am I still being persecuted? Like if I preach circumcision, I'm not going to be persecuted. In that case, the offense of the cross has been removed. So Paul's gospel is offensive. How many times, guys, do we try to remove the offense of the cross, the offense of the gospel, but you can't. By its very nature, it's offensive. It humbles prideful man. It divides families. Jesus said, I did not come to bring peace. I'm dividing husband and wife, father and mother, children and parents. This is an offensive message. It calls for a complete abandonment from all sin and complete allegiance to Christ. In fact, Romans 9.32, Jesus is called in his gospel is called a stumbling block. It's called a rock of offense First Corinthians chapter 1 verse 22 Paul says I'm very aware that this is no popular message In fact, he says Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom But we preach Christ crucified a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles So he knew this was a foolish and offensive message He used to mock it He used to laugh at it. He used to kill people who preached it. Until that Damascus road, where in Acts 9, Jesus himself shows up before Paul, utterly changes everything. Even Ananias is told to go to Paul. And he said, and Jesus himself tells Ananias, he is a chosen instrument of mine. This Paul, this Saul to become Paul. He's a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles. And he says, I must show him how much he must suffer for my name. here's what's interesting when Paul at the end of Galatians goes to defend his gospel one last time he says this is his defense, I bear in my body the marks of Jesus. He appealed to the suffering and this again is at the beginning of his ministry and he's already marked with persecution because of this gospel. Guys, I can tell you that the gospel being preached in many churches either isn't the gospel at all, or it has been so watered down and truncated that it's almost unrecognizable as an apostolic gospel. This is, I don't know what could be more tragic. I mean, I got a message the other day from someone who is at one of the largest churches in the country, to my knowledge, Baptist churches. And they sent me the Easter service. And this pastor, I've actually been in his office and spent time with this man. He said to his congregation, as he walks out onto the stage, this is the first thing said to them, we want to welcome our special guest today. The president of the United States is watching. And he went on and paid homage to the president before the name of Jesus. was even spoken on an Easter Sunday. And then he talked about the president protecting Israel and some political things. And then he went on to say that they loved the president as a church because this president that same week gave, to quote him, the boldest and clearest proclamation of the gospel he's ever heard in his life. Not as a president, but ever. He gave the president. He went on as a kind of an afterthought after all of this talk about the president to say, oh, by the way, church, just thought you should know that in our online service last week, we saw 2000 salvations. Now, Guys, I don't know what to think about something like that other than to think, there is no way this man is preaching Paul's gospel. There's just no way. What does this gospel do? Let's ask that. What does the gospel do? And there's two categories Paul's working off of in this passage. And we're going to see this more in the coming weeks, but some have called this the gospel in the air and the gospel on the ground. And so the gospel in the air is what we might call a kind of a cosmic salvation or a cosmic redemption. And the gospel on the ground is what would be more of a personal salvation. It's actually really awesome today. Earlier this morning, I went to take the garbage cans to the street and my neighbor was out in her front yard and I actually got to share the gospel with her, this same thing I'm preaching right now. But in Romans eight, it seems Paul builds out This gospel that has in the death of Christ, it says the whole creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. It's groaning and waiting, the whole creation waiting to be set free from its bondage to decay. And that's going to happen on the heels of the sons of God being glorified and fully brought into God's heavenly kingdom. And so the death of Christ is accomplishing something even on that scale. And you go, well, where do we see that in Galatians? And there's two places I'm seeing this. Galatians 1 chapter 4. Paul says, here's what the gospel does. Verse four, grace to you. It extends grace to you and peace from God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. So there's no way you can go from being an enemy of God to having peace with God, but through Christ. There's no way you can go from the judgment of God to the grace of God, but through Christ. And verse four, he goes on. And he gave himself for, our sins, that substitutionary death on the cross. So, that's what we would call gospel on the ground, personal salvation, justification by faith, the penal substitutionary atonement of Christ. He gave himself for our sins, but then it moves into this, what we would call the gospel in the air, this cosmic salvation in verse 4 when it says this, he gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age. So there's this age, the present evil age, that's the age we live in, and there's, through the death of Christ, a deliverance from this present evil age. And obviously into another age, that age of glory, that new heaven and new earth, that word deliver there actually reaches back into Exodus. It's the word used when Israel was delivered from Egypt. Mind you, through a sacrificial lamb and the blood put over the doors, through that dying lamb, they found deliverance. And he says through Christ's death there is deliverance from this present evil age. Now here's the other place in Galatians that I see this cosmic effect of salvation, this big massive scope of what Christ did. Galatians 6, 14, and 15. He says, far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the world. For neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but a new creation." So he goes, why are we even talking about circumcision in light of these other three C words, the cross of Christ, And because of the cross of Christ, a crucifixion to the world, which evidences and gives birth to a new creation. Listen to Tom Schreiner. He says, the present evil age is not the only reality, for the fulfillment of the ages has now dawned in Jesus Christ. The cross of Christ represents the intrusion of the new age, or as Paul puts it, the new creation. And so, a dying, crucified Jesus not only can save you from your sins, but can also deliver this fallen world from its fallenness and corruption and bring it all into new order. Now, let me end with this third point, why the gospel matters. I know some of you are probably thinking, haven't you already answered that, why the gospel matters? But there's got to be at least somebody thinking, I don't really see why Paul is so adamant about this disagreement. It just doesn't seem like it's that big a deal to me that some are being circumcised and some are not, and that they're teaching this. Why can't they just agree to disagree? Why does this disagreement even really matter? And so I want to point us back to one more thing. Well, maybe I should say this first. Look, there's a time to disagree. In fact, we must disagree with people because we think some people are wrong, and they think we're wrong, and we're going to disagree about things. You know, we look around in the city at other churches. We disagree on baptism with some churches. We disagree on church polity, on ministry practices, on whether women should or shouldn't preach. We're going to disagree on parenting strategies and on marriage and in our end time views. I mean, so many issues there is going to be disagreement on, but yet we could say they could still be a brother or sister in Christ. They could still be saved and that disagreement could exist. There are other issues that that cannot happen. They are different type issues. So if someone doesn't accept Pauline authorship or apostleship, if they say Paul's writings are not inspired, that's a different issue. If somebody doesn't accept Paul's gospel, which is the gospel of Jesus, that's a different issue. There is simply no freedom in a church to disagree on that. You say, why? Well, look at verse 8. He says, I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him. Him! who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. So to change the gospel that Paul is preaching is to leave, to desert God, to walk away from God. This is not the same as a different view on baptism or a different view on some ministry strategy. It's to walk away from God, to change the gospel Paul is preaching, he says, is to distort the grace of Christ, to turn to another gospel. And if you leave the gospel of grace, what else do you have except judgment? These are not minor disagreements. Brothers and sisters, there is one gospel that saves, one. There is one message of grace. There is one God who can give us grace. One. There is no room for disagreement on that. Let me move toward closing and say one more thing here. This week a book was written by a man named Dane Ortlund and it was titled, Finding the Right Hills to Die On. I hope a lot more books are written like this, because this is a very helpful book. Because you all know, we live in a day when Christians are wanting to die on many different hills. Many different hills Christians are willing to die on. And I just look at the scope of Christianity and you just think, are you really going to die on the hill of politics? You know, are you really going to die on the hill of women not wearing pants? Are you really going to die on the hill of baptism or whatever end times view? Is that really the fight that you want to fight and battle it out over? I mean, I'm happily, I'm not ashamed to say I'm a five point Calvinist, but I see guys battling it out, dying on the hill of election. with someone that they agree on 95% of everything that matters in the Bible. I mean, it's, I just want to say to Christians, you know, die on a hill, but die on the hill that matters most. You know, you die on the hill of the gospel. This one is the hill to die on because if you get this wrong, you get everything wrong. How thankful, guys, are we, you know, for men like Martin Luther and the Reformation who picked the gospel to be the hill he died on. I mean, we're here today because the gospel was preserved by he and others in the Reformation and the Bible was preserved. I mean, how thankful are we in 3-400 AD for Athanasius And those with him who were guarding the doctrine of Jesus Christ from those who said, no, he's not fully God. They're bringing in a different Jesus and they guarded the gospel. Suffered much to guard the gospel. Are we not thankful they chose the gospel as the hill to die on? And when we think back even in the 60s and 70s in this country, how many churches, how many pastors died on the hill of inerrancy to guard the church from liberalism that was getting rid of our Bible. I mean, we are thankful for so many and even countless unknown pastors and Christians and churches who have chosen the gospel as the hill to die on. We are here today because of them making this the issue that they would protect and proclaim and preserve. Guys, ask yourself, what hill is Paul willing to die on? And he literally did later in his life. This actually literally would be the hill he would die on. But it was the hill of the gospel and the hill of his apostleship, and that he was an inspired author. You lose those two things, you lose everything. Galatians is Paul's first letter. He's been a Christian probably 14 years at this point, but he has put his stake in the ground. And I would exhort us, church, this is where we put our stake in the ground. This is where this is the hill we die on. We've got no hope apart from the gospel. We love it. We believe it. We need to proclaim it. We need to defend it. May God help us now and in the days to come to do this. Would you pray with me, church? Father. Lord, we need you to help us. Lord, we feel the realness of Paul's words when he says, I am the least of all the saints, but grace has been given to me to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. We want to do the same thing, Lord. But we need a gospel that we can preach. We need a gospel that's enough like Paul's, that it has the power to save when we receive it. And so Lord, would you help us as we study Galatians to make sure we're believing the gospel and to make sure we're protecting it from anything that would intrude and take it away. Lord, we love you. We thank you for the book of Galatians. We ask for wisdom. We ask for help. Lord, I pray for this church, Lord. I know that studying these issues right now is very far in their minds from things that day to day matter most. Things related to their family, things related to their job. But Lord, I pray that you would sober our minds right now to remember that if we don't have the gospel right, we don't have anything right. And so, God, make this an issue of utmost importance to us all. And we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, church, if you would stand up and we will close with the benediction from Ephesians chapter 3. For this reason we bow our knees before the Father from whom every family on heaven and earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power in your inner being, that you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the height and the depth and the width and the breadth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, and that you may be filled with the fullness of God. And to Him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we can ever ask or think, to Him be the glory in the church and in Jesus Christ throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. Love you, church. Y'all be blessed. We'll see you soon.