Well, good morning. If you would, open your Bibles to Galatians 1. Galatians 1. And last week, Pastor John Mark preached from Galatians 1, and he showed us the two hills on which Paul was willing to die. And He showed us that it was the hill of the Gospel and the hill of His apostleship. So if you did not hear last week's sermon, I would really encourage you to go back and listen to that. I thought the message was very powerful. And also in this sermon series, I really do think it will be most edifying and most helpful if you listen to these sermons in order with open Bibles, because it's almost like a math equation. Every step is sort of building on top of each other, and Paul is arguing and making arguments that really do build on top of each other. So please go back and listen to that if you missed it. And so this morning I want to pick up right where we left off last week. And start in v. 11. I'm going to start in Galatians 1, v. 11, and we'll read to v. 24. So this is the Word of God. It says this, 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. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people. So extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when He who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son to me, in order that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me. But I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus. Then, after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remain with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother. And what I am writing to you before God, I do not lie. Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only were hearing it said, he who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy, and they glorified God because of me." Let's pray. Father, we thank You that Your Word has been handed down to us over 2,000 years, and we have the very words of Scripture in our hands today. Lord, I bless You for that, and I pray that we would be confident to receive the teaching that has been handed down, and that we would guard it and preserve it and preach it, and then that we would hand it down. And so, Lord, teach us more clearly about the Gospel. Teach us more clearly about the work of Your Son that we may exalt Him more than we ever have. And I pray, Lord, that You would receive all the glory. I pray that You would help this church and this people to know You, to know Your work. We pray these things in Jesus' name, Amen. In this passage we just read, we find Paul giving a defense of his apostolic authority to the false brothers. And we know from the context of the book of Galatians that these are Judaizers, people who have crept into the church of Galatia, And they're teaching this Gentile church that it needs to be circumcised and that it needs to follow the Jewish law in order to be justified before God and also in order to really obey Him. So it's justification and obedience to God. And one of the arguments that these false brothers are making against Paul is that he's trying to please man. And so we see Paul here in Galatians 1 defending his apostolic authority, and he's refuting those claims. by the basis that His apostleship and His Gospel actually are of divine origin. They're not from man. They've been given by God. And I submit to you today that just as Paul defended his apostolic authority against false teachers and false teachings, we today must defend Paul's apostolic authority and Paul's Gospel against false teachers and false teachings of today. And there are typically similar patterns that characterize false teachings and heresies. Christian heresies are typically going to err regarding the Trinity, or the deity of Christ, or doctrines about how God reveals Himself. Or they're going to err regarding justification by faith. and add to the Gospel, and require things to be saved that the Bible does not require. They're typically going to botch these two massive doctrines. Doctrines regarding God's revelation of His character, and of His nature, and also how to be saved. Or in other words, the Gospel. they get the Gospel wrong. And that's why they're heretical. Because they get the way of salvation wrong. And I can tell you this, brothers and sisters, and you can count on this, any Christian heresy that gets the Gospel wrong is going to get the Apostle Paul wrong. They're going to get the Pauline Gospel wrong. So what I want to argue for in this sermon is the same thing that Paul is arguing for here in the first chapters in the book of Galatians, that in order for the local church to rightly understand and preserve the gospel of Jesus Christ, that it must recognize Paul's apostolic authority and get right Paul's apostolic gospel as it has been handed down to us. in Scripture. So I'm going to come right behind last week's sermon where Pastor John Mark showed us the two hills on which Paul was willing to die, and I'm going to seek to defend Paul on those two hills, the hill of his gospel and the hill of his apostleship. And as I do that, I'm not going to try to just merely prove that Paul called himself an apostle, or that even others called him an apostle, but I'm going to strive to show that bound up within Paul's apostolic authority is the necessity for the church to correctly handle Pauline theology. In other words, if the church is going to be healthy and vibrant and growing and advancing the kingdom of God in the earth, preaching the gospel, baptizing, disciples in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, then we must receive the Pauline Gospel and preserve it and know it. And so I want to give you three points to flesh this out. Number one, Paul's Gospel and his apostleship are from Jesus. Paul's Gospel and his apostleship are from Jesus. Look at verse 11. He 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 was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.'" And there have been movements, and there are movements today that try to separate Paul from Jesus. And many critical Christian scholars and opponents of the Christian faith have tried to brand Paul as this later construct of Christianity. I was watching a debate between James White, who I think is one of the best apologists in the church at large today, and he was debating a leading Muslim apologist. And the Muslim apologist was continually arguing that Paul was not an original follower of Jesus. And that Paul should be separated. We should not think of Paul in the same category that we think of Peter and James and John. And trying to argue that Paul is sort of this later construct that really twists Christianity in a different light than what it was really originally intended to be seen as. And he and many others claim that Paul was the one that began to teach the doctrine that Jesus should be identified with Yahweh from the Old Testament. And it was Paul who would come along and talk about justification by faith, and they say that Paul twisted all these original Christian ideas about Jesus. And that we now, in the West especially, actually have a Pauline Christianity rather than the original Christianity. This is a big argument that critics of Christianity make today. And there are even sects of Christians who want to downplay Paul and say things like, well, we should just be all about Jesus. As if Paul wasn't all about Jesus. The Bible, however, makes no distinction between Paul's gospel in Jesus, or the original gospel in Paul's gospel. That category does not exist. There is no early Christianity and then a Pauline Christianity. And all we have to do to see this is ask, well, who writes about Paul primarily? How do we know about Paul's mission and his conversion? Well, we know because Luke records it in the book of Acts. From about Acts 13 to the end of the book, Luke shifts his focus from the narrative of Peter and the early church moving and preaching the Gospel to Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria, and it shifts to Paul, who would take the Gospel to the end of the earth, to the end of the Roman Empire. And so what else did Luke write? Well, he wrote the Gospel of Luke. the very historically focused account of the life of Jesus. So the same author, the same author who diligently composed eyewitness accounts of Jesus and composed them into a Gospel narrative, is the same author that wrote about the Apostle Paul being converted and taking the Gospel to the Gentiles. And we know that Luke and Acts actually are part one and part two of the same book and the same author. So the book starts with the birth of Jesus, and it ends with Paul in Rome taking the Gospel to the end of the earth. There is no separation between Jesus and Paul in the Bible's viewpoint, according to the Bible. And it would be one thing, you know, if the story of Paul really did come later on by someone who was far stretched out far away from the early apostles and eyewitnesses of Jesus, but that's just not what happened. So if you're going to throw Paul out, then you have to throw Luke out. And when you throw Luke out, you're throwing out Pentecost. You're throwing out the early church, going forth into Jerusalem, and the church spreading out into the nations. And at that point, if we throw Luke away, we've lost massive ground in the Christian faith. And it is true that Paul was not an original follower of Jesus in the way that he was an eyewitness of Jesus on the earth, but we know from Acts 9 that Paul is radically converted on the road to Damascus, and the resurrected Jesus appears to him. on the road to Damascus and reveals Himself to Paul. And that's what Paul is referring to here in verse 11. And also in verse 16 when he says that God was pleased to reveal His Son to me in order that I might preach Him to the Gentiles. And I mean, look at how Paul begins the letter in verse 1. Listen to the defense he gives of his apostleship. He says this, Paul, an apostle, not from man nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead. I mean, that's the most significant stamp of approval in human history. You know, he's saying, I'm not an apostle because I walk around with a business card that says Apostle Paul. I'm an apostle because Jesus Christ and God the Father made me an apostle. And so Paul's apostleship and his gospel are divine in origin in that Jesus Himself directly appoints Paul to go to the Gentiles, and He gives him the true message of God. And we will see in a moment that the message Jesus gives Paul is the same message that Peter and John and James and the other followers of Jesus are preaching. And so because Paul did not receive his validation or message from man, but from God, in order to preserve the Gospel in our church today, and in healthy doctrine, we must receive and know and understand Paul's Gospel. Look back at verse 8. He says, but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a Gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed. Let Him be anathema, devoted to destruction." Okay, Paul isn't saying, well, you know, we have disagreements about the Gospel, but we all believe the same God. Or he isn't saying, well, you know, we all disagree about this and that, but their hearts are good. Their hearts are to worship God, so let's just not be religious about this. and all these silly things that we come up with today. No, Paul was certain that the Gospel he was preaching was directly given to him by Jesus Christ Himself. And he's so certain that he's willing to call any message contrary to his. False. And any teacher who teaches anything contrary to this message, cursed. And he's willing to say, be devoted to destruction. That's how seriously Paul is taking the Gospel. He even says, us. If me, or Titus, or anyone with me, if we decide one day that we're going to apostatize, and turn away from this message you heard from us in the beginning, don't listen to it. Turn away from it. So we see in this prerogative for us as a local church to preserve the Gospel and defend it. The church in Galatia was to guard the Gospel. They were to uphold it in its originality and in its truth. They were not to swerve from it, or add to it, or change it. So, Cross Church, we must take this Gospel that has been handed down to us We must receive it. We must guard it. We must proclaim it. And then we must hand it down rightfully to those who will come after us. We must not swerve or make room for compromise regarding the gospel. We must not convince ourselves that it's okay to have differences of opinion regarding the Gospel. It is okay to have differences of opinion regarding many things, but not the Gospel. The Gospel is not negotiable for Paul, and it should not be negotiable for us. There have always been teachings that have risen up that are assaults on the Gospel. It's been happening for 2,000 years. And they're clearly cultish, and some are clearly cultish and easily identifiable. I mean, some are just so wacky that they're pretty easy to see, and there's only a few people that flock to them. But there are some that are so subtle, and they creep their way in. and they proclaim and they demonstrate on the surface that they're true and pure. But the end result is not Christ crucified. The end result is Christ crucified plus fill in the blank. And that's exactly what's happening in the church of Galatia. There are false teachers who are going in and they're saying, look, we believe Christ crucified. We believe in the Messiah. We believe we should put our faith in Jesus as the Messiah. There's no other name under heaven by which we must be saved. But you also must be circumcised. But you also must eat a Jewish diet. And church, there are many false teachings today that proclaim what looks like the Gospel. But the end result is that something is being added that takes it away from its original and true form. And when these teachings arise and present themselves, we need to do exactly what the church of Galatia was to do. Hold it up next to the Pauline Gospel. We should hold it up next to the Pauline Gospel. We should examine it. We should see if it's a true and pure Gospel. And I want to be very candid just for a moment that this new movement that emphasizes Hebrew roots and following the Torah in order to really obey God is not compatible with the Pauline Gospel. and it's not compatible with Pauline theology. You simply cannot get Paul right and come to the conclusion that true obedience is found through following the Jewish law. You cannot come to that conclusion. The teaching is absolutely contrary to Pauline theology. And there are many other teachings that have come throughout history. And people claim that an angel has appeared to them. Men like Joseph Smith or Muhammad, the Islamic prophet, claimed that an angel appeared to them. And isn't it interesting that the two largest Christian cults on the planet were birthed by men who claim that an angel appeared to them. What did Paul say? If we are an angel from heaven, proclaim a Gospel different from the one we proclaimed. Don't listen to it. Let him be accursed. Church, many false teachings will arise. And if they don't line up with Paul's Gospel, they don't line up with Jesus' Gospel. And number two, not only is Paul's apostolic authority affirmed in that Jesus himself commissions Paul and gives him the gospel, but also because Jesus' first apostles and eyewitnesses affirm Paul's apostolic authority in gospel. Look into chapter 2 just for a moment. Chapter 2, verse 2. It says this, it says, I went up because of a revelation and sat before them, the Jerusalem church, though privately before those who seemed influential, the Gospel that I proclaim among the Gentiles, in order to make sure I was not or had not run in vain. And then look down at verse 7. It says, "...on the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the Gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the Gospel to the circumcised, for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised, worked through me from mine to the Gentiles. And when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised." So here we have Paul who has received his gospel and his apostleship from Jesus and has been preaching it to the Gentiles and planting churches for 14 years. He goes to the church in Jerusalem and it says He sets His Gospel before them. He submits the content of His message to the church in Jerusalem. Why did He do that? Was he worried that his gospel was wrong or that he had been preaching the wrong gospel for 14 years? No, he was not worried about that at all. But he was worried that two churches were beginning to form. A Jewish church that was believing in Christ but following the Torah and following the law. And a Gentile church who was free from the law. And for Paul, those things are not compatible. In Paul's Gospel, there is no Jew or Greek. And so Paul wants to make sure that he's setting the Gospel before the church in Jerusalem. And it says that they affirmed his Gospel and offered him the right hand of fellowship. In verse 6, it says that they added nothing to him. meaning they did not add or change anything about His doctrine. They did not add any Mosaic customs or anything of the sort to His message in the slightest way. So the Jerusalem church says, yes, the Gospel that you put before us is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It's the same Gospel we receive from Jesus and that we've been proclaiming to the churches in Jerusalem and to the church in Jerusalem and the surrounding areas. And it says that not even Titus, who was Greek, was compelled to be circumcised. So the Jerusalem church is affirming Paul's Gospel, and the proof of that, the proof that they're affirming his Gospel, is that the Greek companion Titus does not have to be circumcised. And it says that Peter and John and James all affirm. They all affirm. They're all there together. And they don't force Titus to be circumcised, showing that they agree with Paul's Gospel. That's absolutely amazing. And Pastor John Mark will be preaching on that text in the coming weeks. But what we need to see is that the pillars of the faith, the Apostle Peter, and the Apostle John, and the Apostle James, all writers of Scripture, and all eyewitnesses of Jesus' resurrection, all leaders of the church, it says in verse 9 that they perceived the grace that was given to Paul. They affirm his gospel as being true and accurate, and they affirm his apostleship to the Gentiles, and they say, yes, we affirm that Jesus has called you As an apostle, we will go to the Jews. You and Barnabas go likewise to the Gentiles, to the glory of God. So even though Paul is absolutely convinced and secure in his apostleship and in his gospel as being from Jesus, he still, in humility, submits himself to the church. And I mean, guys, we have to learn from this. We have to learn from Paul here. Because in our postmodern culture, this is especially tempting for younger generations, the millennial generation and the Generation Z, There's such a badge of honor that comes when we sort of step away from everybody and kind of stand on an island on our own. And there's such a badge of honor that comes when people say, you know, I'll stand up, I'll be alone, I'll stand on this island, and I'll oppose everybody who says I'm wrong. And I'll stand even if everybody else opposes me. and I'll exalt myself in isolation." You know, this whole mentality that everybody in our culture seems to love. And you know, there have been times throughout history when men and women have done this. There have been times, and I'm very thankful for it, when men have stood in isolation on God's Word, and they've stood up for right, and they've stood for the Gospel. And there may be times when we have to stand alone for the Gospel. But this whole notion, this whole isolated notion has crept its way into the church. and not in a good way, in a bad way, in a very, very bad way. It's good when people stand up against man-made religion, like Martin Luther and the Reformers. But it is not good when you oppose the apostolic doctrine as revealed in Scripture. When you oppose that tradition, Chapter 1, verse 6 says that you are deserting Him who called you. You stand against this message, and you've deserted Jesus. It's very, very serious, brothers and sisters. So young people especially, don't succumb to this do-it-yourself attitude when it comes to what to believe. Too much is at stake. Eternity is at stake. The revelation of God has been handed down to us by the apostles and prophets in Scripture. And we're now to preserve it. We're to receive it and preserve it, preach it and hand it down. We're not to mix it up or come up with anything on our own or change it. It's been handed down to us. We receive it. We don't add to it, and we don't take it off into isolation and say, you know what? Let me read this for myself and figure out what I think, and then that's what I'll believe. No, we receive the tradition in men and women for 2,000 years. Even some have died to receive this Book, to steward it, and to hand it down. And we should receive it and continue to be wise stewards of it. So I absolutely want to align myself with the apostolic tradition. And that's one of the reasons why we adopted a historic statement of faith for this church. And that's why we didn't just go and come up with our own statement of faith, because there have been men who have faithfully stewarded this Word for thousands of years. And we would be foolish to remove ourselves from wise men, and remove ourselves from wise counsel, and think that we somehow have within us the ability to come up with the real thing on our own. I mean, that is arrogant. And it's foolish. No, we don't exalt men outside of the Bible above Scripture. And yes, there may be times when we should correct or go a different way or see where people of the past have mishandled parts of Scripture, but we should not be so foolish to think that we in our own post-modern culture can somehow rediscover what God really wants for us. The Holy Spirit has promised and the apostles promised that the Spirit preserves us in unity and we should be thankful for that. No cult or false teaching wants to submit itself to the church. All cults will want to veer away from the tradition that has come before us. They'll claim that they've found a new way. That they've rediscovered. or that they found the missing link, or what have you. But I would submit to you that there is no new way. And praise be to God that we have the full revelation of God in our hands. In 2020, we have the same revelation of God that the apostles penned in the first century. It's amazing. Nothing has been added or taken away because people have heeded what is being taught in books like Galatians. So if the Apostle Paul himself isn't over here going, well, you know, I know what God said to me. I don't care what Peter says. I don't care what John says. I'm going to believe what I know, and I'll die on that. He doesn't do that. What does Paul do? He goes to Jerusalem, and he sets his doctrine before them, and he says, look, I refuse to run contrary to another church. I refuse for there to be two churches. We have to see, are we preaching the same thing? And they learned that they were. It's amazing. And if that's Paul's heart and mind, then it should be ours as well. And lastly, Paul's gospel and apostolic authority are affirmed in that Paul is an author of Scripture. And we see clearly that Paul is an author of Scripture simply by the force of his arguments in Galatians 1. I mean, think about this. If anyone preaches a gospel contrary to mine, let him be accursed. Don't listen to it. This is the Gospel that I've handed down to you. This is the measuring rod. What I said to you is the measuring rod for all teaching. You don't make a claim like that unless you've been authorized to write Scripture. And we see in the Old Testament, when God would commission prophets and such, He would appear to them and call them, oftentimes in a very supernatural way. In Paul, on the road to Damascus, the Lord Jesus in resurrected form appears to him and converts him. And so Paul can say with the rest of the disciples, the original apostles, that he is a witness of the resurrected Christ. Paul has seen the resurrected Christ. And we see Paul's status as an author of Scripture explicitly stated in other places in the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians 1.13 it says this, and we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. So Paul here is arguing that his words are not merely human words. His writings are not merely human wisdom, but they're taught by the Spirit. This is what we call the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture. That although the apostles and other men were writing in their right minds, and they're using their own literary devices and they're in their own emotions and their own frame of mind, that the Holy Spirit is guiding them, He's carrying them along to make sure that the very words of God are being penned. And so Paul is claiming this about himself, and he's saying that these teachings are not simply his teachings, but they're the Spirit's teachings. And then later in chapter 14 in 1 Corinthians 37-38, he says this, if anyone thinks that he is a prophet or spiritual, he should acknowledge the things I am writing to you are a command of the Lord. If anyone does not recognize this, he is not recognized. So again, Paul's apostolic authority is so legitimate. that He says to the prophets and to anyone with any revelatory gift, they must submit themselves to Paul's teaching. Because Paul's teaching are Jesus' teaching. Paul's writings are the Holy Spirit's writings. So no matter how gifted or spiritual a person is, if you don't submit to Paul, you're not recognized. You are not a prophet. And then lastly, 2 Peter 3.15-16, this is the Apostle Peter, and he says, And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him. as He does in all His letters when He speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction," here's the key, "...as they do the other Scriptures." And so here you have the apostle Peter, who's been affirmed by Jesus, who Jesus has promised that the Holy Spirit would come to him and bring to his remembrance all the things that Jesus taught, and carry him along so that he can be an apostle and he can write Scripture. You have Peter affirming Paul as a writer of Scripture. Notice what he says here. He says, people will twist Paul's writings like they do the other Scriptures. So notice the link here. Jesus affirms Peter as an apostolic writer of Scripture, and now Peter, writing in Scripture, affirms Paul as a writer of Scripture. Do you see the progression? This is what men like John Piper mean when they say that the Bible bears witness to itself. The Bible affirms itself. And so in closing, I know some may be thinking to yourself, well, okay, if what you're saying is true, then shouldn't we just read Paul? I mean, what about the rest of the Bible? And guys, what I'm not saying is that the rest of the Bible is not the Word of God. Okay? This is the Word of God. The whole Bible, all 66 books, are inspired by God. They are authoritative. We should read them, and we should know God from them. But what I am saying, is that to understand the Bible rightly, we must start with the apostles of the New Testament. And primarily Paul, because he wrote a majority of the New Testament. They teach us how to understand the Bible. So if we want to understand the law, we don't need to start by reading the law. We need to start by seeing what the New Testament authors teach us about the law. And this is a major, major hermeneutical principle that if missed, could really end up causing severe misunderstanding and error. So yes, guys, I am arguing for these things about Paul because God in His sovereign plan ordained Paul to be a massive figure in the church of Jesus Christ, and in the message of God going into the earth. And so I just want to end with one question to this church. Will we be faithful to steward this Gospel? Will we be faithful to know it, to receive it as it has been given, and to preach it to the world, to proclaim it, and to guard it from false teaching, and then to hand it down? I mean, when I'm on my deathbed, guys, I want to be able to rejoice in the Lord and say, thank you, God. We preserved the Gospel. And we're handing it down. We stewarded this message. And we're handing it down to those who are going to come after us. And some of you may say, well, I don't know the Gospel that well. I need to read it. I need to know it better. And so I would encourage you, church, emerge yourselves in the New Testament. Emerge yourselves with the message of the Gospel. Know the Gospel. Guard the Gospel in your heart. Preach it to yourself and proclaim it to the rest of the world. Let's pray. Oh, Father, we thank You for Your glory. Lord, we thank You that Your Son has triumphed over every enemy, and that in Him and in Him alone is salvation. Lord, we pray that You would help us to exalt Christ in what we believe, to handle right doctrine, to preach right doctrine. And we pray, Father, that this church would be faithful to steward the Gospel as has been revealed in Scripture. Lord, teach us the Gospel. Help us to know its content. Help us to know the matter of salvation. so well so that when false teachings arise, we clearly and quickly can discern them and turn away from them. And Lord, we pray that You would guard us from swerving. Guard us from believing or following anything that's contrary to the message of the Gospel as revealed in Scripture. Lord, guard us, bless us, and I pray, Father, that many would come into the fold. of God as we proclaim this message to the nations. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.