Set Free to Live Free - No Other Gospel - October 19, 2025

Day of November, right after service, we will have the info

session until you can sign up or you can just show up that day

and we'll let you know everything that we know about

the trip. Coming up in April May 2026, I

want to invite you to open your Bibles to Galatians, Galatians

Galatians 1 · chapter mention

Chapter 1. Have you ever gotten a phone

call that changed your life? Have you ever had a call that

changed your life? In Galatians we get to read the

story and life of the Apostle Paul and how he believed that

the resurrection of Jesus Christ is the call of God that changed

his life and there was no looking back beyond that or even

forward beyond that without his life being informed and shaped

by the resurrection of Jesus. When we read the book of

Galatians, you may feel like, my goodness, this guy had problems

I don't have. And it's true, the apostle Paul

had problems that you and I don't have.

But we have similar problems. And as we make our way in the

coming months through the book of Galatians, you're going to

find ways in which the life and story of Paul, the message of

Jesus and his writing to this group of churches that were in a

region called Galatia, can really touch our lives and

change the way we see ourselves. How we see our church, how we

see our campus and our city, how we engage with life and all of

our relationships. Paul is convinced that there's

no other gospel. And so he starts out this letter

and you're going to start to notice that Paul seems a little

spicy, a little fiery as he's working out what is going on

with the Jewish and Gentile followers of Jesus in Galatia.

This is how it begins. Paul, an apostle, sent not from

men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who

raised him from the dead. And all the brothers and sisters

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 to live in 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 preach to

you, let them be under God's curse, as we have already said.

So now I say again, if anybody is preaching to you a gospel

other than what you accepted, let them be under God's curse.

Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of

God? Or am I trying to please people?

If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant

of Christ. Have you ever had a call that

changed your life? In 2002, in May, a man named

Leonardo Diaz was hiking in the Andes.

He and a group had decided to do some serious hiking.

He was so excited. Their goal was to reach the

summit of Nevada del Ruez, a volcano in the Andes.

I promise you, the little mountains around Cusco aren't

this bad. But on the second day, they were

caught up in a Blizzard, and before he knew it, he lost sight

of his team of hikers. And he realized, my friends are

gone. I am by myself.

And he was lost. He began to run out of rations.

He began to suffer in the bitter cold, and although he had a cell

phone in his backpack, the prepaid minutes had expired.

Who are you going to call? He was out of minutes.

He couldn't call anyone. He figured he didn't have long

and he would die on the mountain.

As he's sitting there shivering in the cold, eating his rations

that he's now rationing out even more, his phone rang.

How many of you have ignored a call when your phone rings and

you don't recognize the number? How many of you think if the

phone rings, it must be a scammer?

If the phone rings, it's my parents.

I'm not going to answer that call.

The phone rang. He was out of minutes.

He answered it. This is Belle calling to see if

you want more hours on your phone.

Would you like a few more minutes?

He's like, I'd like a few more minutes in my life.

I'm so glad you phoned. Let me tell you where I am.

And he described where he was as best he could figure on that

mountain and a search team was launched to find him.

For the next 7 hours, someone from that company called him

every 30 minutes to try to keep him awake and save his life.

He answered a call that changed his life.

The Apostle Paul answered a call that changed his life, and from

his perspective, he was preaching the true gospel of

Jesus. It appears that Paul has been

accused of not preaching the true message of Jesus because

Paul preaches to both Jews and Gentiles.

Paul preaches the sufficiency of Jesus for the salvation of

anyone, Paul says. This has been my calling in

life. I'm so glad I answered it.

Galatia was an area where he had been and helped start multiple

churches through the communities of Galatia.

Galatia was a retirement community for Roman soldiers and

officials. It had the best roads that led

back to Rome. Have you heard it in your

history class? All roads lead to and in Galatia

they did. They all LED back to Rome.

And so the conservative nature of the Roman officials in this

area created pressure. The Jewish people were already

getting a pass as people who didn't worship other gods.

They worshipped only one God, the one true God.

And so in Galatia, they were already under pressure for not

worshipping the Greek gods or the Roman gods or giving

allegiance to Caesar as a God. And now there was a group of

people that Paul was leading who were actually Gentiles, some of

them Roman, who were now also following Jesus and seem to want

that pass that they don't have to worship all the idols.

They get a pass, they don't have to swear allegiance to Rome as

clearly because Jesus is Lord. What?

And so now the Jewish people in this area were also anxious.

You're going to ruin our Roman pass.

This is a very difficult place. You gentile Christians need to

become a little bit more Jewish. You're going to hear this

problem all the way through the book of Galatians.

Become a little bit more Jewish for men.

Change your Physiology. Gets circumcised for men and

women change your diet, change the places you go, change the

way you serve your food, take up more of the law, the Torah in

your life. And then there were a group of

people appears that came from Jerusalem and also supported

that message and said, well, we're from Jerusalem.

We've got the real message of Jesus.

We don't know about Paul, but Paul's insisting I answered the

call of the gospel. It changed my life.

Paul recalls that the resurrection is the turning

point for all humanity, that it is the defining moment in

history. There is no other king, there's

no other ruler, there's no other event that has a such a dramatic

change in the history of the cosmos.

This is the defining event of all history, the resurrection of

Jesus. If that were true, would it be

taught in your history class, your socials class?

See, this is the same Roman problem that we have, is that

these religions were actually viewed as story that connects us

with spiritual realities, spiritual beings, spiritual

powers, but they're not necessarily events.

And so the Christian claim that the event of the resurrection of

Jesus radically changes life and is God's call to all people.

It's historic, it's transformational, It is the

ultimate act of God. On behalf of everyone.

Paul claims that What defining moment defines your life?

Monday was Thanksgiving, right? Who had a wonderful Thanksgiving

dinner, Friends giving dinner. You had something.

We were cooking in the kitchen. Ellen and I actually, she was

doing more cooking. I was just messing around.

I decided I wanted some breakfast.

I said, can I put this pot back here?

And she said I'm a little nervous about that.

I said, oh, it'll be OK, I'll just put it here.

And I turned it on and then I said, oh, I'll, I was trying to

do something nice in the moment. I said I'll take the recycling

out and the compost. So I took the compost out and on

my way back I heard and I was like, that didn't sound good.

And by the time I got to the kitchen, Ellen was surrounded by

this mess of glass and a Pyrex dish that had been on the stove

blew up and the glass went everywhere.

There was glass on the floor. There was glass in the other

dishes she was making. There was glass in the new thing

of Bessel that was opened. I said, what happened?

She said there were two eyes on 2 burners on.

I said oh I must have turned on 2 burners.

I said what was in that and I lift off the pizza pan that was

holding a pie and then underneath I could see the sweet

potatoes. I blew up the sweet potatoes.

There were sweet potatoes everywhere.

Were you still found sweet potatoes yesterday?

And Ellen says they were the most beautiful sweet potatoes

I've ever made in my life. I was like, oh, I am really in

trouble. I said I'll clean it up.

She said OK, I'm going away. She went upstairs. 30 minutes

later, I'm still cleaning. She comes down, I said, well,

you OK? She says, well, it took 30

minutes, but I think I'm all right now.

That moment could have become the defining moment of our

Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving could have been

ruined by me. Not only did I blow up a Pyrex

dish, not only did I blow up the most beautiful sweet potatoes

ever made, but I blew up Thanksgiving.

But do you know Ellen has another defining reality in her

life? A defining reality where it

looked like death had won. A defining reality where it

looked like sin had won. A defining reality where it

looked like a tyrant had won. A defining reality where it

looked like the the crowds had swayed the opinions of everyone

and Jesus was dead. But no, the resurrection of

Jesus is the defining moment of her life and of my life.

And though in this week I've suffered some setbacks, in this

week my family has experienced death as it feels like a

defining reality. But no, the resurrection speaks

a better word. It speaks the word of Jesus

winning, of Jesus, setting things different.

Some of you have blown up sweet potatoes.

I don't mean literally like I did, but some of you, like me,

have had events in our life that we think that is the defining

moment of my life. It shattered me.

That's the defining moment of my life.

It messed me up. That's the defining moment of my

life. It changed all my relationships.

And somehow you act as if that is the defining moment of your

life. But Paul says, look, no, it's

the resurrection of Jesus that it's the ultimate defining

reality of life. Now for Paul, this was huge.

In fact, it was the realignment of everything in creation.

Let me show you this. Paul is convinced that in the

resurrection of Jesus that God has an inaugurated a rescue of

people. That all those who trust in

Jesus will now be rescued from this present evil age.

Would you say that to your friends, This present evil age?

Yeah, Go ahead. This present evil age.

Have you been rescued from this present evil age?

This was actually a Jewish mindset.

The Jewish mindset was that somehow God would show up and

rescue them from a present evil age.

Notice what Paul says here. Grace and peace to you from God

our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who gave Himself for our

sins to rescue us together from the present evil age according

to the will of our God and Father, whom be glory forever

and ever. Amen.

Rescue. We talked about it last week

with Thanksgiving. That Psalm one O 7 is the story

of those who have been rescued over and over and over. 4

metaphors for how Israel had been rescued from Babylon But

the ultimate rescue in the Jewish mindset had been the

rescue that they had experienced when God came and rescued them

from captivity in Egypt. How many of you have seen the 10

commandments? It's that story of God rescuing

Israel from slavery under Pharaoh in Egypt, and God was

challenging all of the Egyptian gods to show that he was the one

true God. But they were looking forward to

an ultimate rescue, an ultimate rescue from this present evil

age. That's the little bit of

language they they would use to say we need a rescue from our

present evil age. Now, Paul says Jesus has done

it. Look at the four things he says

Jesus has done. Jesus gave himself for your

sins. Jesus rescued you from the

present evil age. Jesus has done this according to

the will of God our Father. He, he uses such an affectionate

word of God here to say God is like a Father who cares and

who's had a will and a plan for a long time and that this is all

for the glory of God. Now this, this image that we

have in our mind of the present evil age, what is it?

What is the present evil age? Well, there were three parts to

the present evil age. 1 was captivity to idols.

Idols were everywhere. The second is that their belief

was that if you get attached to an idol, you will get captivated

by sin, that every idol elicits a kind of sin in our lives

that's actually against the will of God.

You shall have no other gods before me.

That's the first commandment. But when you do, it leads to the

breaking of the rest of the commandments.

It leads to more sin, which ultimately leads to being

infected by death in all your relationships.

And so when they long to be free of this present evil age, they

long to say, we want. We're so tired of idolatry.

Those who worship idols, it says in Psalm 115, become like them.

They can't see, they can't hear, they can't speak, they can't

feel, they can't move. They become like an idol.

Nothing Notice we we may feel like we have no attachment to

idols, but I love what Tim Keller says.

Follow along as I read an idol is anything more important to

you than God. Anything that absorbs your heart

and imagination more than God. Anything you seek to to give you

what only God can give, that's an idol.

A counterfeit God is anything so central and essential to your

life that should you lose it, your life would feel hardly

worth living. An idol has such a controlling

position in your heart that you can spend most of your passion

and energy, your emotional and financial resources, on it

without a second thought. It can be family and children,

career and making money or achievement and critical acclaim

or saving face and social standing.

It can be a romantic relationship, peer approval,

competence and skills, secure and comfortable circumstances,

your beauty or your brains, a great political or social cause,

your morality and virtue, or even success in Christian

ministry. Is anybody starting to think you

might have some idols in your life?

The reformers would say of our hearts that our hearts are idol

factories. They look at anything and

everything that God has made and says, I could make that an

ultimate good in my life. When you're meaning Tim Keller

goes on. And life is to fix someone

else's life. We may call it codependency, but

it is really idolatry. An idol is whatever you look at

and say in your heart of hearts. If I have that, then I'll feel

my life has meaning. Then I know I'll have value.

Then I'll feel significant and secure.

There are many ways to describe that kind of relationship to

something, but perhaps the best one is worship.

And This is why idols go with worship.

And This is why God says, you shall have no other gods before

me. To be rescued from this present

captive age is to be delivered from idolatry and the sins that

it generates in the Jewish expectation.

This is what it looked like. Here's the present evil age.

The Messiah shows up and ushers it in.

Then there's the whole age to come, and it's all lived on

earth. It's the redemption and the

fulfillment of everything for which creation has been made.

It's just a break. Here's the Messiah.

In fact, the accusation that Jesus wasn't the Messiah seemed

to be because the new age hadn't come and the Romans weren't

kicked out of Israel. But here's the Jesus reality.

The present evil age is running on.

It's still going, but there's this fundamental break in

history. There's a hinge in history now

where the Messiah Jesus shows up, He lives, He dies on a

cross, He's buried, he ravages she'll, he's raised from the

dead, He ascends into heaven and he sends his spirit.

Now by his spirit, the age to come has come, and the age to

come is running parallel with this present evil age.

And, friends, that is a dangerous place to live in.

Paul was writing to people in the church who felt like we are

living in a time of great danger, where our allegiances

are being tested, where we need to find some allies, where we

need to find some safe places and some safe people.

And Paul's writing into that and saying that might be true.

You might think you need that, but don't add to the gospel of

Jesus. Jesus is enough.

So I wonder for you, as you look at this and as we start this

series, are you convinced that Jesus is for you?

Thanks a lot. Have you trusted Jesus for the

forgiveness of sin? Are you letting Jesus rescue you

from your idols? Do you know your idols, the

things that you're taking hold of and saying, oh, this is

becoming like an ultimate thing in my life?

Do you know the sin that's being generated by those idols?

Are you trusting Jesus for deliverance and rescue even

today? You've been rescued once, but He

will rescue again and again and again if you will trust Him.

That's why we need grace and power to live with Him now.

That's why we remember the cross of Jesus.

We're going to come to this table in just a moment, and I

want to encourage you. So just begin to reflect on what

has God drawn my attention to today?

How is God calling? Are you thinking, OK, God, I

heard that, but I think I'll ignore it?

Or is there a certain desperation in your heart today

and you're like, I'm going to answer that call because I want

to respond to God's work in my life.

I want to trust that what Jesus has done sets me free.