Gospel Freedom

Good morning, CCW.

Why don't you take your Bibles and turn them to Galatians chapter 1?

Galatians 1 · chapter mention

This morning I am so pumped up about our new study of life and liberty.

And as you're opening your Bibles, I got a question for you to think on.

What really is freedom?

What really is freedom?

Man, good job, worship team, this morning.

There is, I don't know if you realize this singing that last song, there is a lot of doctrine, a lot of theology in that song.

And uh, man, we could do a study on the song, but that was good.

And uh, I got a little misty-eyed seeing Ella Roper up here on the keys, I have to admit.

Wyatt was taking photos.

I don't know how y'all, this will age me, but I don't know how many of you know.

Pastor Joe was one of my students long ago, so he was playing, and uh man, God is good.

But the question, do we really understand freedom?

Do we want freedom?

I believe if I asked everybody that question this morning, you'd say, oh, absolutely, I want freedom.

If you look up the definition of freedom, Webster says freedom is the power to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint.

So we have that right, being human beings.

But listen to me, if that's freedom, then think about this.

As long as it's not against the rules.

As soon as you break society's rules, then you can be canceled.

As soon as you act, speak, or think against political rules, you risk political incorrectness.

As soon as you act, think, or speak in freedom wrongly, you can go to jail.

There's rules.

But when we hear that, don't we go, rules?

Rules, Pastor! Rules are anti-freedom.

When I think of rules, so I had to really think through this.

Well, what is rules?

Rules is defined, principles governing conduct within a sphere.

So as soon as I hear that, I go, Well, that's not freedom.

When the speed limit is posted and I can't go 100 miles an hour, I say, that's wrong, that's going against my freedom.

And I tried.

Some of you have tried.

10 to 12 tickets in my first five years of driving.

I finally learned a lesson.

My freedom wasn't worth it.

Nor was my wallet depreciation.

So what I think sometimes is freedom, and what I think I want sometimes lines up and looks like anarchy.

If you asked your children, do they want to never clean their room, they would say, Yes.

I never want to clean my room.

I will walk over the mountains of clothes.

And that would be my freedom, mom and dad.

You're always on me about cleaning this place, but I need freedom.

You say, no, you don't.

Not that kind of freedom.

Are you with me?

So if freedom includes rules, what are the right rules?

We've got a 10-week challenge from Paul to the church at Galatia based on the fact that people were endeavoring to add and infiltrate rules to the gospel.

But not God's rules.

They were extra man-made rules.

So, if you'll go with me to Galatians 5, I want to give you the theme verses that I believe will allow us to understand this.

We're going to read verse 1 and verse 13 of chapter 5, then we're going to stay in chapter 1.

It says, Stand fast therefore in the liberty by which Christ has made us free, and do not be entangled again with a yoke of bondage.

Verse 13.

For you, brethren, have been called to liberty, called to freedom.

Only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

Father, we love you and we thank you for your word.

I pray that you help us, Lord, on this journey with the Apostle Paul to this church, Lord, who we're starting to be attacked by Satan and rules, the wrong rules.

Lord, help us today.

God, we are impacted by a lot of people's thoughts, a lot of people's feelings, a lot of things in our culture.

But God, I believe there is freedom.

Help us to understand it and live in it.

We love you in Jesus' name.

Amen.

So the point number one this morning is this we have freedom to be a follower.

We're going to see that in verse one and two.

Paul opens up the letter with a greeting, but man, he gets right to it.

So in his greeting, he says, Paul, an apostle, not from men through man, but through Jesus Christ.

And God the Father who raised him from the dead and all the brethren who are with me.

So Paul, in his greeting, tells them, I'm a follower.

I'm a follower of Jesus Christ.

My son Weston, he's not so easy to wake up in the mornings for school.

But on any day that doesn't include school, Weston is up before anybody else.

Six o'clock cracks, and Weston, and I like to get up, get going in the day, have my coffee, have my time with the Lord.

When Weston is not going to school, he's up.

And so the other day he had off of school because we had a doctor's appointment for him, and uh Heather had something going on.

So I had Weston, and he was just following me.

He was looking for something to do, and I'm like, man, I'm trying to do my, you know, got my I got my routine.

And I know this is my son, but he was following.

At one point, I walked into my bedroom and I forgot what I was looking for, and I turned around.

Weston is right here.

Like, what do you need?

He's just following me everywhere, looking for something.

I want you to understand who Paul was.

He was freed to be a follower.

And the theme of Galatians and the serious urgency of being a follower of Jesus is found in verse 7.

I want you to see, uh, we'll get back to it, but I need you to hear early and be thinking on it.

He says, They came in verse 6 to bring a different gospel, which is not another.

He's saying there isn't another, but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.

But even if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you that we have preached you, let him be accursed.

So what he's saying, what then makes a follower?

Paul addresses it in his greeting, in his greeting from a letter.

You ever start a letter and just went, bam?

Paul from the gate says this that I am an apostle, not from man, not through man, not because of man.

No man appointed me to this role.

No man called me to this.

God chose me to be what I am, and my following is through him.

And then he preaches the gospel in his greeting.

I mean, talk about a love letter.

Boom! And he says, I'm through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead.

He he gives the gospel in his hello.

And so Paul gets right to it and he says further, he says, I'm a bondservant of Jesus Christ.

This meant something different to Paul.

Being an apostle meant something different.

Let me show you in verse 15.

We're unpacking a lot early, but we'll get back to it.

It says, But when it pleased God, verse 15, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through his grace to reveal his son in me that I might preach him among the Gentiles.

He said, I didn't immediately confer with flesh.

It wasn't about flesh telling him this was his calling, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were other apostles.

I didn't go check it with other apostles.

And so what he's saying is it wasn't about somebody else.

It wasn't a church program.

I didn't go through the next steps.

I didn't go through years of seminary.

God got a hold of me on the Damascus road.

And when God called me, I immediately had my heart changed and I became a follower of Jesus Christ.

Okay, this meant something because you understand Paul had been persecuting Christians.

Who Paul was up to that point?

Listen to this.

Paul was a follower of something, but it wasn't of Jesus Christ.

He was a persecutor of that.

And so I need you to understand it wasn't about man.

Paul is so adamant about the gospel because it transformed him.

He had been a rule follower.

He had been a rule following Jew who, following that rule system, got him to the highest point, a Pharisee of Pharisees.

And in that life, he was persecuting Christians.

But then Paul found freedom.

He found freedom in becoming what he was persecuting.

So he became a follower.

Well, followers are this letter A this morning, pardoned by Jesus Christ.

They're pardoned by God.

And so again, in his greeting, Paul gives the gospel, and out of the gate, he wants the gospel understood because this is what Paul knew.

You and me stand guilty before God without a pardon.

A pardon exempts someone of the punishment for crime.

And church, CCW, we together stand to gain hell without the pardon of Jesus Christ.

He gave himself for our sins to deliver us.

He pardoned us.

Heather's got an aunt, Aunt Debo.

Aunt Debo is particular.

Anyone got a particular person in your life?

I like this about Aunt Debo.

This is one of the things I love about Aunt Debo.

Her home is tidy, her cushions are tight.

Her hair does not move.

I like Aunt Debo.

But when you got toddlers at Aunt Debo's house, you start sweating.

You know what I'm talking about?

So as we were there one particular day, the coaster, Crystal Coaster, went flying through the air, and as if in slow motion, we're like, ah.

The worst person ever in the history for a coaster to go flying there went and crashed down, and I'm like, child, no! So we're after this, like, oh, we're going to Belks.

No telling how long Aunt Debo had had this coaster.

No telling how long this line of whatever, it was probably, you know, Swarvski or something, you know, I don't know.

But it didn't matter.

We had to find a replacement.

And so we went to Belk's, and lo and behold, Heather walked in and she found it.

And I'm like, it doesn't matter what the cost is.

It does not matter.

We must replace this.

And the children, they couldn't do nothing.

They did the breaking, but they couldn't do nothing of their so they ain't got no money.

Ask your children right now if they got any money.

Ain't no child with money here.

I'd play this game with the kids in youth group all the time called Scramble, and I'd say, bring me 37 cents.

None of them.

They don't care, they don't have money no more.

And even if they did, they wouldn't have much.

And so we had to pay because they couldn't.

We had to pay because they couldn't.

That's what a pardon means, church.

Y'all hearing me?

Jesus paid what you couldn't pay.

You could have never paid it.

You cannot pay it.

And so Jesus paid.

I want you to see it in Romans 8.

Keep your hand there in Galatians, but in Romans 8, listen to me.

He paid.

He paid what we couldn't.

He paid what the law couldn't.

Romans 8 says this, verse 1, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

Who did not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

Listen, for the law, you need to hear this, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

Listen, for what the law, what the Old Testament sacrifice could not do, in that it was weak in the flesh, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh on the account of sin.

So hear me.

We were pardoned and we had to have Jesus.

You and I, without Jesus, we're without hope.

We're lost.

It's done.

It's over.

We're like the crystal going through the air and Aunt Debo looking on us.

Listen, there's only one way.

It had to be paid, and it had to be through Jesus.

And so being his follower means we're pardoned.

Letter B, being his follower means we're pleasing to God.

We're pleasing to God.

I want you to see again.

In the opening greeting, he says, not by men, not through men, not for men.

It isn't because of man.

And then I need you to see, look at verse 10 for a second.

He says, For do I now persuade men or God?

Or do I seek to please men?

For if I still pleased men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ.

He says, I'm not a man pleaser.

Hear me, church.

There's people today that are always looking one eye over their shoulder.

Whatever they're doing, they got one eye over their shoulder.

And we live in a world today where everything is about what everyone else thinks.

He says, not from man, not through man.

And he says, I, or else, I wouldn't be a servant of Jesus Christ.

If I'm a man pleaser, then I'm not a servant of Jesus Christ.

He says, I couldn't be that.

You cannot be God's servant.

It says in other places, you can't serve God in mamm and it's talking about money, but you can't have two.

At a young age, children learn that they like attention.

Y'all got little children or you've had children, and you remember what it was like for your children when they started to get attention?

You learn early that adoration and applause feels good.

Alright?

I remember my kids being young.

I remember doing it myself, but my kids being young, if somebody came over, we had a large living room in Connorsville, and somebody might come over, a family member, and after a little while they'd start to show out.

Y'all know what I'm talking about?

You you might watch the most terrible cartwheel you ever saw.

And here comes the grandparents.

Oh, look at them.

Look at them go.

They're gonna be a gymnast someday.

I can see it.

They got it from me and grandpa, right?

Look at them.

And like, wait a second.

That was the worst cartwheel.

They just rolled.

They didn't even use hands.

It was not good, right?

And you're like, you're 30-year-old self.

You're like, actually, I could probably, I'll do a cartwheel.

You want to see a real one, right?

And so it's not good, but they learn at this early age, I like eyes on me.

Paul said in another place, Colossians 3.23, he said, do everything heartily unto God and not unto man.

He said, All that we do, by the way, in that verse lies freedom.

Hear me, church.

When I can understand that I, Rick, and you have an audience of one.

There's freedom in this.

My audience is not somebody else's opinion.

My audience is not somebody else's feelings.

I have an audience of one.

Now he's not saying, Paul's not saying don't do it your best.

He says do it heartily.

In fact, the opposite.

He says, do what you're going to do with all your effort.

If you're going to work, then work hard.

If you're going to do something, then man, by all means, do it with excellence.

Work as worship.

He says, but unto God.

See, we live in this age where we are instantly gratified by likes and comments and hearts and stars and disatisfied with a lack of it.

Right?

There's going to be a counselor soon, it's coming soon, who specializes in this in social media depression.

I'm telling you, the bloggers and the tweeters and the grammars and the reelers and the stories and the ticks and the talks and the tweeters, all of it are going to need somebody's help because they're always living with one eye over their back.

And they're always, every couple of minutes, did somebody.

I can't believe she didn't like it yet.

Are we even family?

She don't even care anymore.

She hadn't liked anything I posted in three months.

I'm telling you, social media depression is coming.

And we're living trapped in this world where we need somebody's constant attention.

We gotta have notices.

And if we wear something new, we want somebody to notice.

We hope that somebody will look at us, we hope to get views, and we hope to be viewed.

And listen, it's anti-freedom.

My Bible says that I should endeavor to live a life that's quiet and peaceable.

Almost, almost might I say, that I get unnoticed.

This is being locked in the world's cage.

Just ask our students, high school and middle school.

Look, they're living in a world right now where you want to talk about rules.

The rules are already in place.

And if you don't wear the right brand, if you don't play the right sport, if you don't listen to the right music, then you will not get approval and then you won't fit.

Listen to me, students, listen to me.

You are not good because of something that's on you.

You are not good because of some class or some sport or some ball.

You are good because on day six, church, he says, I made everything and I made man in my image.

And he looked at it and said, It's very good.

Psalms 139 says it this way that you were beautifully and wonderfully made.

He had a purpose for you in your mama's womb.

Before you came out, he said that you're good.

He says that we're good.

Look at your neighbor and say, You are good.

You're good.

Paul doesn't mince words.

He says, I'm not here to be a man pleaser.

He says, Don't live for your boss and his attention.

This is gonna hurt, but you don't live for your spouse.

You don't live for the in-laws or your outlaws, whichever one you got.

Okay?

He says, don't live for other people who work in your business circles, who live high and lofty lives and getting their attention.

Paul said freedom is not in that.

You don't have to keep up with the Joneses.

I literally live across the street from the Joneses.

Literally.

And they have a nice lawn.

And he was out there yesterday.

Both my neighbors yesterday for hours.

I cut the grass, it took me an hour and 15 minutes.

They were out there all day.

I'm like, you guys, I'll tell you what.

Bushes are glistening, sparkling, they're so bright and pretty.

All the animals, the bunny rabbits and cardinals are all on theirs, and they stay away from mine.

That's anti-freedom.

Let me tell you.

And Joe, it's interesting that you're up here saying what you're saying in worship.

It's interesting just because I know the way the Spirit works.

Matthew 11, 28 says, Come to me, all ye who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

And this is what he says after that.

He says, Take my yoke upon you.

In my yoke, in the world's yoke, there's a burden, in my yoke, it's light.

And people think when they hear this verse, that it's about, you know, like taking a spiritual nap at home.

Oh, I came to God, and now I've got rest.

No.

It's actually about the work that you do.

He says, if you take my yoke upon you, my purpose upon you, you're gonna live a life where your heart feels different because you're living for something that matters.

And you're not worried about all the Joneses.

You're living a life of freedom instead of being locked up in the world's cage.

And so if you're labored and heavy laden, let me tell you something take my yoke, grab a halt of me and live for me.

I'm not telling you to take a nap.

I'm telling you to work with me and for me and live your purpose for me.

I've created you back in Psalms 139 for a purpose.

So live in it.

And then you will feel at ease.

Freedom is living for Jesus Christ.

And that's what Paul said.

I'm not a man pleaser.

Second point this morning is this.

How do we get to this freedom?

He tells us freedom is through faith.

Verse 4 and 5.

He says, who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil age according to the will of our God and Father?

He tells us, letter A, the provisions for being saved.

We have freedom through faith, the provisions for being saved.

It says, who gave himself for our sins?

We read by this stuff and we don't think through the weight.

There's so much weight in the phrase, who gave himself for our sins.

If you remember in Romans 8, he says, it was what the law could not do.

Old Testament law, they could, they had no finality.

They had no answer that continued.

And so the provision for salvation had to be a spotless, sinless Savior.

Under the law, church, under those rules, church, we are chained.

We are in bondage and it doesn't end.

Because of our sin, there's a never-ending need in the Old Testament for sacrifice.

You constantly had to sacrifice, and you constantly had to sacrifice because you're going to constantly sin.

It's like uh Pastor Dave has uh men's night.

If you hadn't been to men's night, you need to come to men's night.

Uh it'd be 20 to 40 guys.

We get together and do man things.

And one of the man things that we do is eat meat.

Right?

This is what's funny.

If there's 15 men, check me, right?

Dave, I've heard him say that.

15 men or 50 men, doesn't matter.

We eat according to the proportion that is available.

Dave will make 15 pounds of meat, and if there's 15 guys, every guy's getting a pound.

If there's 40 guys, we're going to get less.

But it doesn't matter how much he makes, it's all gonna get eaten.

Am I right?

And so it's never ending.

I know he probably feels like that.

He'd be cooking for hours.

I mean, tons of meat.

And then you see, like, you know, 13 skinny guys walk up and be like, there it all goes.

We all went home seven pounds heavier.

And so it's constant.

Listen to me, look at Galatians 3.13.

It says, Christ has redeemed us from being from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.

In the Old Testament, it was never enough, but what Christ did came and brought us a finality, an answer.

And in Old Testament, he was called, this is what God was called when he did this: Jehovah Jireh.

We sung a few weeks ago about Jehovah Jireh.

And the word Jehovah Jireh means God is a provider.

He provided, and it came the first time you see the term in Genesis 22, 14.

Abraham bound his son Isaac and put him on an altar.

And Abraham just believed that God could do anything.

He had the faith, freedom and faith, he had the faith to believe that God would provide.

And God there at the end of that says, Isaac, stop.

There's a ram.

It was a forerunner because in John 1.29, John the Baptist says this as the forerunner: Behold, I see the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sin of the world.

This provision that Paul talked about is called grace.

Paul talks a lot about grace.

It's all through Galatians.

I think it's a hundred times mentioned.

This is grace.

And grace is this salvation is God giving us unmerited favor, giving us the opposite, really, of what we deserved.

We deserve hell and he gave heaven.

We deserve punishment and he gave blessing.

We deserve alienation from God and he gave adoption.

And so gyrah provided through grace.

And so we need to hear just a moment.

I want you to see in Romans 10, one of my favorite scriptures in the Bible.

I quote it.

I want you to see it.

Romans 10, 9 and 10.

What do we do with this grace?

This is what he's talking about.

This is what Paul said he had.

Romans 10, verse 9 and 10.

Romans 10:9

This is how grace is received, that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Now listen to me.

That doesn't sound like a question there.

Y'all with me?

You will be saved.

Some people doubt their salvation.

You will be saved.

If you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart, you will be saved.

And verse 10 says, For with the heart one believes into righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.

The gift is God's grace.

For us, we have to confess and repent, and we can be saved.

That's what he provided.

So freedom through faith.

And letter B is this.

Who are the people that can be saved?

I want you to look at verse 16 in chapter 1.

Who are the people that can be saved?

Says this.

He came, when it pleased God to separate Paul, he came to reveal his son in me that I might preach him among the Gentiles.

Paul makes a point of saying this because up to that point people believed that the Messiah was for the Jewish people.

And he says, look at verse 4 and 5, who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver us from this present evil age.

It's not mistakenly stated, our and us.

He's calling, he says, and so he said, I am called to preach to the Gentiles.

If you looked at Galatians 5, it talks about that there's false teachers that they were about to try to mandate in Galatians 5, 5 and 6, they were trying to mandate that anyone that was saved had to be circumcised, a Jewish custom.

So to be saved, they're saying, in order to be saved, you have to become like a Jew.

And so they have this back and forth.

In fact, Paul and Peter go at it over this in another chapter.

And so he's saying you have to do like our customs.

Man-made rules.

This is not salvation.

This is not grace.

I was doing some study this week, but there's a tribe in Thailand that at an early age they have the young ladies start to wear these neck rings.

I don't know if you've ever seen this.

And they elongate the neck.

And for this tribe, they equate this with elegance and with beauty, and it's a cultural decoration, uh something that separates them.

But can you imagine telling your child, using a custom like this, and saying, if you want to be saved, you have to wear these.

This is part of salvation.

This is what the Jews were doing.

They were saying, in order to be saved, in order to accept God's free gift of grace, you have to first become like a Jewish person.

That's of Satan, church.

It's an infiltration of Satan.

And so they were trying to push, and they were trying to, in Galatians 3 at the first verse, he says, Oh, foolish Galatians, how have you been bewitched?

They were trying to pull this over by a doctrine of salvation plus.

It's elitist, it's a racist way of being.

The Jews were interacting by saying, if you want to be a Christian, you gotta become a Jew.

You gotta be like me.

Look over at Romans chapter 1.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

By the way, Paul wrote a lot of the, you can see them all through these books, but he wrote in Romans.

And so all this stuff coordinates because Paul was passionate about sharing it.

And this is what he says: for I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It's not worthy of being ashamed at.

For it is the power of God to salvation.

Listen to this, church, hear me.

For everyone who believes.

For the Jew first, and also for the Greek or the Gentile.

Everybody can be saved.

So who does God want to be saved?

He wants everybody to be saved.

He wants everybody.

It says in another place, he is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance in faith.

It is God's will for everyone to be saved.

And so, but it takes the right gospel.

And this was a false gospel that they were putting out.

And so I need you to see the third point this morning.

We have freedom from fraud.

We're gonna look down at verses six through nine.

Freedom from fraud.

Look what it says.

I marvel that you're turning away so soon from him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel, which is not another.

But there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.

But even if we or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed.

As we have said before, so he says it again, if anyone preaches another gospel to you, then what you have received, let him be accursed.

Now, you can read this letter and kind of take it lightly, but what the way that Paul is speaking here, he comes out of the gate and he's not happy.

He's declared who he is, and he digs right in quickly about the problem.

And here's Paul's response.

He says, I'm astonished.

I marvel.

How is this even possible that you have turned away?

Complete shock.

Anybody here have had complete shock before?

When I was 15 years old, I had played baseball since a young age, and we got into this championship game: PNC Bank versus Schoen Lumber.

That was our team sponsors.

I was on team PNC.

We were winning the game.

We were up by one run, and it was the last at bat, and I was pitching.

I got the first two outs.

I don't remember how they got out, but there were two outs.

And the third batter comes up and he gets to strike three.

There's a rule that I hate.

I'll say that in church.

God is it's a bad rule.

On a third strike, if the catcher drops the ball, the runner can run.

Why?

I don't know.

That's dumb.

It's just dumb.

Third strike, batter can run.

So the batter takes off because the catcher dropped the ball.

The catcher picked up the ball, had plenty of time.

He throws the ball.

I'm like, that's it.

Championship, game over.

Here we go.

He throws it to the first baseman, but the first baseman is not tall enough for the 10 feet throw that's over his head.

It goes into right field.

I'm like, are you kidding me?

That guy rounds to second base, so he's on second base.

I'm pitching to the next batter.

This guy, the catcher, misses another.

I'm telling all year long, these guys were money.

They were game.

They knew how to play the game.

He drops a ball that was right to him.

The guy steals third base.

The next pitch, a guy hits a ball.

It's going straight for our center fielder, who is the best center fielder in the league.

I promise you.

His name was Nick.

And Nick was there.

The ball was coming.

It hit him in his face.

Didn't even hit his glove.

Nick goes down and the ball goes flying behind him.

I'm like, what?

And nobody's around it.

They knew he'd catch it.

This guy got in, so it tied the game.

The guy on third, then the other guy made an in-the-park home run off of a ball that should have been caught because it bounced off a guy's face.

We lost the championship game.

I'm still not over it.

I sat in the dugout.

My dad tried to get me to go home and like, I'm not going.

Not going.

They finally left.

I cried.

I sat in the dugout.

I cried the whole season.

The whole season was over and we had to out.

I struck him out.

That was it.

I sat there.

I walked home.

I was so sad.

I was in complete shock.

I was astonished that two guys that knew exactly what to do folded.

They've been doing it right all season.

But when it came to be counted on, they crumbled.

Paul said, I preach to you the gospel, and you saw Jesus.

He says this in other place.

You saw Jesus vividly almost from the cross in the way that I preached him to you.

And I cannot believe.

How is it even possible?

I marvel, I'm astonished, I'm amazed that you're turning away from grace.

What are we doing here?

He says, turning, this is active tense, present tense.

They are turning as the letter is being written.

And he says, the Greek word for that turning is a word for deserter, for turncoat, turning away from freedom.

What are we talking about?

It's like when the Israelites had wandered, they had the opportunity to go into the promised land, and God said, I'll be with you, I'm going to guide you into my promised land.

And ten men went in and said, There's giants there, there's no way.

Not doing it, can't do it.

They'd seen the hand of God and watched God do mighty things, and they said, They still weren't believing.

It's like God could cure someone in your family of cancer, and you'd say, Nah, I can't join the serve team.

Like, I can't go.

I can't teach.

You see God move.

It's like we believe him for enough or a little bit, but not all the way.

And he said, What are you guys doing?

Turning away.

This is freedom.

This is the best life.

And the Israelites, they wandered in the wilderness for 40 years, never entering the promised land.

And at one point they were there in the wilderness and they said, What are we doing, Moses?

It'd be better if we just went back to Egypt and we were staying in chains, in bondage as slaves.

Are you hearing me?

And today in America, we look over our back and we look for the approval and the purpose and everything else, and we say, sign me up for chains.

If I just get enough money, chains, if I just get enough popularity, chains, if I just get earthly power, chains, if I get enough people looking at my style, chains, and we sign up for all of his chains instead of worshiping him who has called us to his grace.

They said, Moses, let's just go back to slavery.

God church has called you to grace, his unmerited favor.

And it was his idea through Jesus Christ.

And it's plain.

His plan is plain, and it's by his rules.

The gospel of this Christ died for our sins and rose from the dead.

John 14, 6, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

There's not another way.

There's not another option.

You got one God-sized hole in your heart that's going to fulfill you in this life.

If you miss it, you're going to walk through life and you're going to be like elevator music.

You were here, you happened, but you didn't make an impact because you didn't live out the purpose you were intended for.

And Paul felt so strongly about it.

Ever since Satan's fall, man has tried to add rules to the glorious gospel.

He says it so clearly in verse 6, 8, and 9.

He says, Let them be accursed.

If anyone adds to this gospel, they should be accursed.

Now you need to hear this, and I don't mean to be rowdy in church about it, but he says that word accursed is anathema, which means to be damned.

He says, you might as well go on to not heaven.

That's what a person that adds to the gospel.

This chapter, according to Paul, deals with things with which our eternal destiny hangs.

He says he should be accursed.

Any man.

There's an unparalleled seriousness about the gospel, church.

And I'm going to tell you why in just a second this is so prevalent, because we live in a time where there's a lot of false gospels being preached.

There's no liberty in it.

He felt so strongly, listen to what Paul says.

You might have missed it, you might have read through it and thought that was weird, or, but look at verse 8.

He says, But even if we, or an angel, that's strange, or an angel from heaven preach any other gospel, let him be accursed.

Paul feels so strongly that he says, if Michael preaches another gospel, hey Gabriel, you hear me?

If you speak another gospel, then you can be accursed too.

You think he doesn't feel strongly about this?

He calls on the power of the heavenlies and says, if anyone, even an angel, speaks anything, then the true gospel, they can be accursed.

Anethma, this is mighty speech.

Paul calls even to the angels.

He says, No one changes God's gospel.

I want you to see a picture of John Calvin quote from the Reformation.

See this?

A dog barks when his master is attacked.

I would be a coward if I saw that God's truth is attacked and remained silent.

What are we living and standing for, church?

What's making you a Christian today?

Do you believe in this gospel?

Do you believe in this truth?

And here's what we see letter B that Paul's doing.

Perversions are refuted.

He says, these are perversions.

He says it's not like there is an actual another gospel.

He said they're just trying to pervert the actual gospel.

He says there's not another one.

They're just trying to pervert the one that exists.

So I want you to think about this.

How much, if you were going to drink some water, how much how much poison would it take for you not to drink it?

How many drops of poison?

I mean, would you if you're really thirsty, if it was just one fourteenth a teaspoon, would you still go ahead with it?

I asked the teenagers the other day, how much garlic would it take to make your cereal gross?

How much garlic would you still be okay with jumping into that?

Fruit loops.

Pastor Dave loves him some cereal at night.

How much garlic, Pastor Dave?

Garlic-flavored fruity pebbles.

Wrong illustration, sorry.

It wouldn't take much poison, I know that.

Everyone here of right mind would say no poison.

I wouldn't drink it if I thought there was one drop.

And here's the deal: one drop, and it's totally contaminated.

Totally and fully contaminated.

One drop.

And I need you to understand that one change in the gospel and it's totally contaminated.

So how's it apply today?

What do we look at today?

Well, there's at least three.

There's many, many more, but these are three of the big ones that are going on today, and you've heard it, but one of the gospels that's false, that's being spoken everywhere, is the prosperity gospel.

Right?

And here's what I know.

In John 15, 18, it says, if they hated you, they'll hate me first.

And prosperity gospel never talks about anything like that.

Your life, what they say, your life will be completely different than Jesus Christ's was.

That's what they're saying.

If you're a Christian, the prosperity gospel says, you will live nothing like Jesus.

You will not suffer persecution.

It kind of sounds something like this.

I know some of y'all maybe hear some people.

This is my rendition.

When one door Closes, the shadow in the doorway will meet you with the next seed to fulfill your next job promotion.

And if you choose to declare great thoughts, you will reap buckets of hundred dollar bills.

If you smile long enough, you will reap in favor.

That's not in the Bible.

This is prosperity preaching, and it sounds good, and it'll pack up a seat.

I tell you that.

It'll fill a seat.

But it's the gospel plus something totally wrong.

Oh, they talk about Jesus some.

There's another gospel that's that's big right now, rampant.

It's the God is love only gospel.

He loves and accepts everyone and everything.

And if you claim or preach anything against that love, you are clearly not accepting and you're clearly not diverse.

Hear me, church.

That's all fine.

God is a God of love, but he never once overlooks sin in this book.

He doesn't say it's okay if you want to be a drunkard on the weekend.

That's okay.

It's okay.

It's okay.

You can be a Christian on occasion.

God loves you anyway.

And God loves you.

And he loves who you are.

But God does not look at sin and go, I don't care.

He says we shouldn't live in sin.

In fact, when he met with a woman and changed her life, he said, go and sin no more.

It wasn't that he didn't love her, he didn't have grace.

But there's a gospel today that says, you're not accepting, you're not diverse.

God didn't overlook sin.

He was plain about sin.

He loved everyone.

There's a political gospel that believes right now that party is going to save the universe.

And I'm going to tell you something.

I'm going to break some news to some people right now, right?

And we're running and going right now.

And look, I'm all for it.

I want Christians in office.

I want all that.

But there's only one king.

And he's not Democratic or Republican or independent.

He's king of kings.

And the way that we live our life, this proclamation, living for political party and candidates, Jesus said in Matthew 6.21, where your treasure is, there your heart will be.

The things we place most value on will have our heart.

And if our heart is in political outcomes, more than eternal outcomes, then we've misplaced our priorities.

Our words and actions reveal who sits on the throne of our heart.

And this is what Scripture says the heart of the king is in the hand of God.

He is in control, never lost control.

He is sovereign.

He is king.

And Romans 3.23 said this: for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

We don't look to some man, we look to a God.

And because they've all fallen short, we should pray for all of them.

We should pray they all be saved.

We should pray that God would lead them.

That's what we should be doing.

There's a political gospel.

Well, what really got me thinking on some of this was I shared a funeral with a Catholic priest some years ago.

And the priest at the end of the, he asked me, did I want to go first or him?

And I was young, and I really didn't, you know, I'd done a few funerals, but I'm like, why don't you go first, Father?

And uh so he got up.

It was real weird.

We had a half Baptist family, half Catholic family, as we're going through this funeral, and when he was finishing up, he began to pray for the for the deceased and for their eternity, and that maybe there'd be some way through the people in their family that their prayers would see them into a better eternity.

And I said, wait a minute.

What is he saying?

Throw the record back.

And so I got up and I had something lined up and I said some of it, but then I went on into 1 John and I said, and it says that we can know that we're saved.

And I gave a gospel invitation at the end of that funeral, and five people came to know Jesus Christ.

But I need you to understand, this is not something that's new.

This rules plus is not something new.

By 1095, under Pope Urban II, man had devised a system through the Catholic Church where they could pay the church to lessen their eternal punishment.

This payment was called indulgences.

You paid the church to lessen the punishment of your sin, which developed the idea of purgatory.

Purgatory is not real.

I don't believe.

And out of that, the Protestant Reformation and Martin Luther came forth out of a mountain of man-made systems and merit.

Martin Luther had the courage and guts, like Paul, to call out indoctrination.

And he said, This is infiltrating our whole world.

And I'm telling you, without Martin Luther in 1517, I don't know that we are where we are today because Martin Luther loved the book of Galatians and he saw the truth in it and he stood.

I've got a picture up here that I want you to see that came out of the Reformation.

Four things or five things, the five solas.

This is what came out of the Reformation, out of a mountain of man-made stuff.

He said, Grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone, for the glory of God alone, and Scripture alone goes above all men, above all popes, above all church.

These are what came.

And he says, not the council, not the Joneses, not the church, not somebody else's opinion.

The gospel is these things.

Matthew 7, 15 says this, I'm about to wrap up, church, that we are to watch out for false prophets.

They come into you in sheep's clothing.

And they're hitting us in culture, and we don't even recognize it.

Some of the things I've said, you're like, oh yeah.

Yeah, that's happening around me.

Scripture says they're ferocious as wolves.

If they can take your focus off the main thing.

Heather and I went on our honeymoon to the Bahamas, and the first place we ported, we got off ship, and uh we're walking through the market, and they're selling goods and all kinds of stuff, and they're yelling stuff.

And Heather, you know, newly married, give her anything she wants.

Still will.

But we're walking through the market and she says, Baby, can I I want this Louis Vuitton wallet?

My ear said, What?

Louis, who?

That don't sound like something we can afford.

But I looked at her and I saw them, and the guy was pricing with her, and and and I was skeptical because of the cheap price.

I thought, well, that's cheaper than any purse I've heard under that name before, or whatever it is, but it was still it was still too much.

But this is my new baby.

And so she, I think what's 70, I don't know, something like that.

And I said, give, give it to her.

There you go.

Got a hundred left for the rest of the week.

We're gonna make it.

So, but we get home, and Heather went shopping somewhere, and we're in a she's in the mall, and she opens up her new Louis Vuitton.

Opens it up to pay for something.

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick! The Louis Vuitton button flew off of that purse.

That wallet.

She looked at it.

Heather began to turn red.

I said, Well, I knew it was a Vixtron, baby.

It wasn't a Vuitton.

Right.

The Vixtrons are big sellers for one reason.

One reason.

Somewhere other than the Bahama market, there are real ones.

It's a big seller because there are real ones.

If there weren't real ones somewhere, there would not be a market for the fakes.

Y'all hearing me?

Knockoffs owe their very existence to the public desire because of the original.

Jesus said to his followers, there would be no shortage of false prophets sharing false gospels.

But fakes only exist because there's a real thing.

Can I give it amen?

There is a real thing.

Jesus' church died a very real death, suffering the worst form of torture.

It was real.

And the only sacrifice for our freedom was the salvation for the lost through Jesus Christ.

And so following Paul, Jesus, Paul would share for the next five chapters.

He says, This is what freedom is.

If you don't understand this, the world can hold you hostage.

Your heart can be held hostage by the likes and the comments and the notices and the fulfillment and the feelings of everyone around you.

And you can be bound up in change.

It's endless trying to fill the void that only Jesus Christ can fill.

I want you to bow your heads and close your eyes.