I Am Astonished

Amen.

Amen.

If you have your Bibles open up to Galatians chapter 1, if you don't, don't worry, it'll be up on the screen.

Galatians 1 · chapter mention

While you're turning there, I I think it would uh it would be a mistake for me to not acknowledge uh the wonderful job my wife did last week on Mother's Day.

I had a chance to watch it online.

And just thought just a profound message about, you know, sometimes I think when it comes to anger, it feels like it's some kind of character flaw that you feel angry.

It's not a character flaw.

It makes you a human, and then you have a choice what you're gonna do with it.

And so I think the idea of taking anger and being able to work our way through it and not leave it unresolved and cause us to miss things right in front of us and opportunities that are still there, and maybe even hurt somebody else in the process, you know, being able to really be disciplined in the way we approach.

I thought you did an outstanding job.

Thank you so much for that.

And a bunch of people were texting me like you should leave more often, you know.

Your wife's your wife's great, you know.

And I'm like, yeah, all right, that sounds good to me.

But I did cook a killer lunch, didn't I?

Come on.

All right, all right.

Just want to make sure this isn't one-sided.

Um, all right, we're gonna do seven weeks in Galatians.

Seven weeks.

Um, and I got deep in my creative bag to name this series.

I'm like, okay.

We're gonna call it Galatians, is what we're gonna call it.

Um, and and what we're gonna do is try to build on the conversations we've been having, dig into the literary elements, dig into the historical elements, and try to get everything out of Galatians that we're supposed to get.

And so uh that's what we're gonna do.

We're we're gonna start in Galatians 1:1, which is probably the right place to start.

Galatians 1:1

Uh Paul does, if you think back on uh when we when I did that sermon during cover to cover on all the epistles, I talked about uh the general outline that Paul tends to use in the epistles.

So he starts off with the greeting, and then he goes to Thanksgiving, and then the body, and you know, that whole thing.

And so it Paul starts out with his greeting in Galatians 1:1, and he says, 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.

Galatians 1:1

So let me just pause there real quick, because what Paul is doing here is he's establishing his uh status as an apostle, and the reason that matters is because they are in this really critical time where they're going from the old covenant and the old covenants from the old testament into the new covenant that has now changed some things in terms of uh how they're what their community standards are and uh a lot of different theological beliefs.

This is at this huge uh moment of change.

And so now there's gonna be a lot of questions about what's right and what's wrong, and how do we handle this and that?

And so that's what a lot of the those letters and epistles are, are Paul sorting that out.

But who has the authority to say what's right and wrong?

It was this group of apostles.

Apostle means sent one.

Okay, so when you think about a disciple, a disciple who is a follower of Jesus, come follow me, and then it's a learner.

So a disciple is a learner, a protege, and then an apostle is someone that's now learned and is being sent out as a leader.

And so the criteria for apostleship, there was a few different things.

One of them was you had to have an encounter with the risen Christ.

So when you think about Peter, that was clear.

He he had been uh one of Jesus' best friends.

You think about James.

James was the brother of Jesus, he had been close to Jesus.

The apostle Paul was not one of his disciples.

We don't see him in the Gospels.

He shows up in the book of Acts, chapter 9, and he's actually, we're gonna hear some of his backstory, but he has a Damascus road encounter with Christ.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

And so when you see him in verse 1 saying that I'm an apostle, sent not from men or man, but by Jesus himself, what he's doing is establishing his credibility as an apostle.

So the things I'm saying isn't just one guy's opinion.

Uh I've been I've been authorized by by God to help us walk through these things.

So verse two says, All and all the brothers and sisters with me to the churches in Galatia, grace and peace to you from God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You're gonna see in the epistles, you're gonna see grace and peace often used.

And those are two good words all by themselves, grace and peace, but we gotta understand what's going on is you have ethnically diverse churches now, so you have Gentiles and Jews together.

So what he does is chooses a word that would have been part of the greeting of each culture.

So grace or the word karos, karos was was a Greek word that was used uh you know as a greeting for Greco-Roman folks.

And then you have the Jewish people who would greet with shalom, uh, which was again a statement of peace.

So it would almost like show up to a crowd where you have two different cultures and to maybe almost like a bilingual greeting, so to speak.

Even though he uses the same language, he's using two different uh elements of culture to kind of tip his cap to both of them.

So grace and peace.

And then, okay, so then something really interesting happens, right?

We mentioned after the greeting in the the template, so to speak, of the um of the epistles comes a thank a statement of thanksgiving.

All right.

So if you look a lot of Paul's letters, he'll say, Hey, I thank God, you guys are so faithful.

And I thank you for, I thank God for your faith.

I thank God for your faithfulness.

In fact, you guys are so full of faith.

It's like everybody knows now.

Like the words traveling, man, and it's inspiring more than just where you're at, it's inspiring other people.

Keep up the good work.

He'll say, Hey, I want to just applaud you.

I want to just thank God for your grace.

You guys are so gracious, you're so kind, you're so hospitable.

And so, what he's doing is what you might do as a leader or even in your own home.

When you have traits uh of your family or your organization, when people are doing them, you want to call that out in a positive way, affirm it because you want to see more of that behavior.

So, Paul does that, particularly around grace and around faith and around love.

And uh it's funny because when he gets to the Corinthians and he greets them and he he gives thanksgiving, um, he doesn't thank God for their grace because they're not gracious.

He doesn't thank God for their faith and faithfulness because they're not faithful.

He doesn't thank God for their love because they're not very loving.

He just says, I thank God for his grace towards you.

He's like, I thank God that you're saved.

Okay, I thank God for all that he's done on your behalf, you know, and then he goes into it.

But in Galatians, he skips the thanksgiving.

It's the only letter that he writes to a region or a church that he does this.

He doesn't, he doesn't express any thankfulness.

He he goes right from you know, grace and peace in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I'm Paul, an apostle, not of men, but from God.

And then in verse 6, he says, 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.

You remember when we were talking about the epistles, we were saying that when they would be delivered, Paul would write it, he would give it to a courier who wasn't just a postman that would give it and walk away, but they were actually trained to perform the letter.

Because, like any letter, the dynamics are, you know, it's not just about the words, it's the inflection.

It's it's how are the words said.

And so he would have this person, he would train them, when you say this, say this like this, because I want to make sure they don't miss the point.

And so you can imagine, okay, the Galatians, when the courier shows up with the letter and says, Grace and peace in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, and then goes into, I am shocked.

I am astonished.

All throughout the book, you're gonna see six chapters, you're going to see a lot of provocative language.

You're going to see Paul speak in very intense terms.

So he says in chapter one, I am astonished.

He says, um, he says, May they be cursed in chapter one.

In chapter three, he says, You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you?

In chapter five, um uh he says, you know, these people um who are are agitators, these people that are creating this disruption, he says, I wish they would emasculate themselves, which is a crass thing to say.

It would catch our eye, like, what in the world?

That's very intense.

You can imagine that being imagine that being read in church.

You get to uh uh chapter six, he says, Hey, this I write you, I don't want you to miss it.

I write it in letters as large as I can.

It's almost like uh the Declaration of Independence or whatever.

When John John Hancock's like, I'm gonna sign my name so big King George doesn't even have to put his glasses on, right?

He's gonna know it was me.

All right, so he's going, I'm he would have had the courier spin that thing around.

Look how big he wrote.

This is what this is an expensive statement I'm about to make.

I'm taking up parchment.

I want you to know how big a deal this is.

And so, a couple things to know from a literary standpoint, the idea of exaggeration or hyperbole was a rhetorical uh uh tactic that was used quite a bit.

So when we see something right where he says, I wish they would emasculate themselves, we know he's not literally saying that.

He's making a deeper point, which we'll get to in a few weeks.

But it was something that for us might even be off-putting as we read it.

Like, how could anybody even receive this as intensely as it's being delivered?

But that was an element that wouldn't have been super abnormal to them.

They would have, uh it was a way of making a point emphatically, is what he's doing.

And so the question is, okay, with all of this intense language, and there's a lot more than what I shared, but some of it we'll get to later.

Why is Paul so upset?

Why?

Why come in so hot?

Why skip the Thanksgiving?

Why go right into I am astonished?

What are you so astonished about?

All right, that's we're gonna look at today and set the tone for the next several weeks.

Okay, so Galatians 1, if you have it open, go to verse 13.

Paul is setting up his issue with some backstory, and so he starts talking about how he got to where he got to.

So he says in verse 13, he said, You've heard about my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.

I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, and was extremely zealous for the tradition of my father.

So, in other words, he's like, I was kind of wise beyond my years, they were fast tracking me.

I was the golden boy, I stuck out among my peers, and he said, I was zealous, I was intensely focused on the traditions of my father.

I was fully immersed and focused on, okay, the culture that I grew up in.

Verse 15, it said, But when God, who set me apart from my mother's womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles.

Uh, if you want to do this sometime this week, go ahead and cross-reference back to Acts 9.

And when Paul has this, he has this moment, he's actually just been a part of the the martyr, the martyring of Stephen.

He's on his way to kill more people, which sounds so bad, but he thinks he's doing God's will.

He thinks he's doing God a favor.

I'm I'm I'm I'm violent for the right thing.

And so he's going uh on the Damascus Road, and it's in that moment he encounters Christ and he realizes I have had a blind spot.

I thought I was doing the right thing.

It turns out uh God says, uh it says, Lord says, Why are you persecuting me?

He's like, Who are you, Lord?

What are you talking about?

I thought I was working for you.

He's like, No, you're working against me.

So he has this about face moment, and it says in Acts 9 uh that the Lord said, Paul is my chosen instrument to the Gentiles.

He's gonna go reach into places that have not been reached into yet.

And so he says, So I uh I was set apart for that.

And then he says, My immediate response, look at this.

My immediate response was not to consult any human being.

I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia.

Later I returned to Damascus.

Okay, now this is some good stuff we're gonna do here historically.

We're gonna look at this because this this would be one of those verses you might read through and go, okay, so we went to Arabia, who cares, and what's Arabia, and why would that matter?

Usually we just read past it.

But there's actually some really good stuff there.

So Arabia is not modern day Saudi Arabia, um, which we might think of.

It's it's actually modern day Jordan and southern Syria.

And so at the time, it was what was called a bridge culture, it was part of what's called the Nabataean Kingdom.

So it was outside of the Greco-Roman Empire.

The nap the Nabataean kingdom was was um was not controlled by the Greco-Roman world, and because it was in that area of Jordan, it was key uh as part of a network of trade.

So the Nabataean kingdom was well known for long-distance trade.

And as a um as a bridge culture, what you have is it was unique at that time.

If you went in there, it was like a melting pot.

They had a combination of Arab culture, Aramaic culture, Greek culture, Roman culture, um, and and uh Syrian, uh Persian, I'm sorry, Persian culture.

And so if you looked at their art, you looked at their architecture, you looked at their culture, it really had become this melting pot.

And when you think about trade, especially at that time, okay, this is where when you think about Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria to the ends of the earth, this is a unique area that the ends of the earth are passing through the Nabataean kingdom.

And you know this if you've ever uh if you've ever worked with, done business with people uh of different places.

This isn't just you see people different than you.

You're actually doing business with people different than you.

So you're starting to learn, hey, I didn't know what that outfit meant when I first saw it.

I didn't know what that cultural element meant when I first saw it.

That was odd to me when I first saw it because I was unfamiliar, but actually I've gotten to know this person.

The more I got to know, I realized this is a really good person, it's a trustworthy individual.

And so you start to build connection.

This is the person I go to for myrrh.

This is the person I go to for silk.

This is the person I go to for this.

And so now what you have is the Nabataean uh becomes a very cross-cultural place.

So now let's think about what Paul just said.

He said, Hey, I grew up one way, man.

I grew up in one way.

I was I was passionate about the the traditions of my ancestors.

I was being fast-tracked through.

I didn't know, I didn't know anything about the ends of the earth.

And all of a sudden I'm on my back on the Damascus Road, and God's saying, You're my chosen instrument to the Gentiles.

He's like, That's nice, but I don't know any Gentiles.

I haven't been to any Gentile places.

I don't know anything about the ends of the earth.

So instead of going to Jerusalem, which was the epicenter of their culture, he says, I think I need to go somewhere else.

So he goes to Arabia in a bridge culture to start to prepare for his purpose, for his mission.

Um, it's interesting because in the Bible you'll see will a wilderness motif at certain important points.

So you go, think about Moses.

Moses goes to the wilderness.

Moses goes to Mount Sinai.

You think about uh Elijah, Elijah goes to the wilderness of Beersheba.

He also goes to Mount Sinai.

You think about Jesus.

Remember his whole thing of going into the wilderness and the temptation of the devil.

And then now you have Paul, who kind of has his own Arabia wilderness motif.

And within that wilderness concept is the idea that God takes somebody who's maybe been immersed in tradition, they've been immersed in one way of life, takes them out of it into the wilderness to hit the reset button.

I want to take you away from ego, I want to take you away from traditional pressures, I want to take you out here, and I want to give you a fresh new vision of God because I have an assignment that there's a shift going on, and I want to prepare you for it.

I'm gonna do it in Arabia.

I'm gonna do it on Mount Sinai when it's just you and I in solitude, and then I'm gonna send you back.

So, Paul, as he's writing and telling this story, he's again giving them that that's what Arabia was for me.

It was my Mount Sinai, it was my uh time in the wilderness.

And so uh it says in verse 18, we're still in Galatians 1, 18, he says, Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem.

So he was in Arabia for three years, comes back to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas.

When you see Cephas, think Peter, that's the apostle Peter, and stayed with him 15 days, and I saw none of the other apostles, only James, the Lord's brother.

So James and Peter really were the two key leaders, particularly in the church in Jerusalem.

Okay, so he goes there and essentially he's going, Look, I I encountered Christ.

I I've I've you know I've got the same thing you guys do in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, it's at the ends of the earth.

I didn't know anything about the ends of the earth.

I'm called to the ends of the earth.

Here's what my last three years have been like in the Nabataean kingdom.

Here's what I've learned, here's what I've seen, and here's what I believe matters.

And so they're going through all of their traditions, and he's going, I want to make sure we're aligned on what lines in the sand need to be drawn and which ones don't, in order for us to reach these Gentiles.

For each for me to be able to fulfill my calling.

And so they're all on the same page.

The same Christ that visited Paul also was the one that taught Peter and James.

Okay, so now here we go, Galatians 2, 1 through 3.

So then after 14 years, I went up to Jerusalem again, this time with Barnabas, I took Titus along also.

I went in response to a revelation and a meet and meeting with those esteemed as leaders.

Okay, so when it says he went as a revelation, it could he could be saying that he went like he was praying and he felt God revealed something, like nudged him, he you need to go to Jerusalem.

Or it might have been someone, a person revealed something.

Hey, there's something in Jerusalem, you need to go see with your own eyes, telling them a story or something.

But he's like, you know, 14 years ago, I met with these guys and we were all good.

And he goes, it seemed like something had changed in 14 years.

So he goes back and meets with those esteemed to be leaders, and he said, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles.

Hey guys, after the last time I saw you for 14 years, I've been preaching this gospel to the Gentiles, and I want to be sure I'm not running my race in vain.

Verse uh three.

Yet not even Titus, who is with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek.

Now look at this, verse four.

This matter arose because some false teachers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves.

We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you.

Okay, so he goes to meet with these people, and we'll get to uh he brings Titus with him, we'll get to that in a minute, but he said, a group of people infiltrated to try to spy on our freedom, okay, and to uh essentially undermine the gospel.

So who is this?

Okay, so this is a group of people called the Judaizers.

And the Judaizers, let's just, they're people who are trying to call people back to strict adherence to the law.

So think about it like this three years, um, gospel's going to the Gentiles.

Over the next 14 years, what started to happen was these people who had been considered unclean, who had been considered outsiders and other, are now, because of the the new covenant through Jesus, are being welcomed in.

In a sense, it is, when you look at it, it is the absolute fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant.

You go all the way back to the covenant of Abraham, God says, I'm gonna make a great nation out of you.

I'm gonna bless those who bless you, I'm gonna curse those who curse you, but don't get it twisted.

This isn't just about you.

It's that the world has gotten very chaotic.

I want to set you apart and I want to teach you conduct that puts you in right relationship with God, yourself, and the people around you.

And once you guys get that down, I'm gonna send you back out in the world so that it functions the way that I want it to.

And then within that is a word that we saw that came up there where he said uh they didn't compel Titus to be circumcised.

So there's the word circumcision.

Uh, if you don't know what circumcision is, ask your mom after church.

All right, just call her up and ask her, she'd probably tell you if she doesn't know, go to ChatGPT.

Can it can explain it to you?

But don't go to Google Images.

All right, I just warn you on that.

Don't do that.

Um, but let's just suffice it to say for this conversation that it is it is a symbol of God's covenant with Abraham.

In fact, the first person to ever be circumcised was Abraham.

And the sign was I'm it was the removal of flesh that made you different from the surrounding nations, the Canaanites and the others.

So I want you to do that because I want you to remember I'm putting you in, I'm doing something special through you, and you're you're different, you're set apart.

Not forever, but for a season of time, so that we can get this down and I can send you back in.

And so so to them, circumcision wasn't just about foreskin.

It wasn't just about the the action.

It was actually about the covenant.

It was about the right relationship with God.

Being in that's what God wants from us is to be separated.

And so now through Jesus, he says, Look, the the separation, I'm sending you into the world.

Now, you're still to act according to the kingdom of God, the prince.

Principles of the kingdom of God, but I'm sending you into so now you can have table fellowship with, you can build for friendship, connection with, and ultimately take the kingdom of God into the world around you.

And your justification and your right standing with God, your righteousness, is not because you can keep the 613 laws perfectly, it's by grace, by the grace of Jesus that puts us in a condition of forgiven and right standing with God that will then spill over into all of our conduct, right?

That's the new covenant.

But this group of Judaizers, think about it now, they've lived their whole life one way, and when it starts out, it's kind of cute.

We have a few Gentiles among us, and whatever we're extending table fellowship, and then all of a sudden, in the process of 14 years, there are more Gentiles than Jews.

There are more uncircumcised people than circumcised people, and they hit their cultural pain threshold.

Like this is crazy, this is too much.

It was one thing when it was just a few people, and now it's everybody.

And now it's uh now we're outnumbered and it's gotten sloppy, and it's not even just circumcision now.

It's kosher eating, and it's food, this and that, and it's all just a million different things.

When we talked about the law, when I presented the Torah to you uh several months ago, we put it in three different distinctions.

We said there's the ceremonial law, which is laws of worship and connection to God.

There was the judicial law, which defined justice in the community standards, and then there was the moral law, which uh is essentially defining morality, which keeps you in right relationship with yourself and the people closest to you.

And so we we we put them in those categories.

Now, to the people at this time, they didn't have those categories.

The reason we're even able to put them in those categories is because we look at the writings of Paul and we see that in the New Covenant, he affirms the moral law because he says, hey, yo, a lie is still a lie.

Violence is still violence, abuse is still abuse, okay, cheating is still cheating, stealing is still stealing, and so he defines morality and upholds it, but then the ceremonial law, he says, look, the why behind the law is to connect to God, and you don't have to do that with these food rituals.

You don't have to do it with circumcision, you don't have to do these things.

You can do different things as long as it's accomplishing that.

The judicial law, he says, you know, the world changes.

Like justice in the it doesn't change, but the the context of the world changes, therefore the judicial law should change and will change.

Now, again, we have it that clearly to the Judaizers.

Okay, Paul goes hard on them in Galatians, and I get why, but you have to understand, these are not evil people, these are not wicked people.

They were people overwhelmed with the chaos of a new covenant and not able to make a distinction between what is a cultural issue and what is a moral issue.

And in that confusion, they didn't see the difference between the moral and just something that is uh, you know, circumcision.

They're putting it in the same category, right?

So and so that's what they're confused about.

So here's what Paul does.

You notice it says he brought Titus with him.

We don't really give, it's like, okay, whatever, who's Titus?

So think of it like this Paul takes his least churchy friend to the most straight-laced group of people in the world, right?

He takes them to Jerusalem, we're the most straight-laced, and he takes his least churchy friend who sincerely loves God, but I'm gonna see how this goes.

And so Titus was a Cretan.

He was from Crete, he was an uncircumcised Gentile.

Um we he was either born in Crete, we don't know for 100% sure where he was born, but we know ultimately that Paul sends him to Crete to be the pastor of Crete.

Okay, so let me just give you a snapshot of Crete.

Crete was a barbaric place.

Crete was a wild and dangerous place.

The Cretan culture was largely shaped by their belief of Zeus.

They believe Zeus was born in Crete and buried in Crete.

And if you study the Greek god Zeus, he is uh the characteristics of Zeus, he is a he is arbitrary in his justice.

Sometimes he's just and sometimes he is just violent because he feels like it.

He is uh a seducer of women, he's lustful, he takes what he wants.

He's manipulative, he lies a lot.

He'll do anything to manipulate to get what he wants.

And so now their theology about Zeus has shaped their culture.

So in the first century, most men on the Isle of Crete were mercenary soldiers to the highest bidder.

In other words, they would kill for money.

Doesn't really matter what we're fighting about.

I don't care if it's a good cause, bad cause, how green is the money?

How much are you paying?

And so, whatever the highest bidder, we'll just go kill for you because you pay the most.

Um I have a couple quotes.

This is uh actually historical quotes from a guy named Polybius, who is a Greek historian, second century BC.

He wrote, now it would be, he said it would be impossible to find, except in some rare instances, a personal conduct more treacherous or a public policy more unjust than in Crete.

Right?

So this is this is Titus.

This is the guy who he's eventually gonna send there.

What's interesting, and this is a really good cross-reference to this this section to really grasp it.

So there is in the Bible, you probably notice that the name Titus, there's a book called Titus.

And that book is Paul writing to the same Titus.

So so the author of Galatians writes Titus to Titus.

And he's saying to Titus, listen, man, it's a crazy place that I'm sending you to.

And he said, in fact, most of even the Christian leaders are corrupt, they become just like the culture.

It says in uh Titus 1:12, he said, one of Crete's own prophets, it was actually a guy named Epimenides, who was a he was a poet and a philosopher, and Paul calls him a prophet.

Titus 1:12

So he says, one of his their own prophets, this is what their own prophet says about them.

Cretans are always liars, evil brutes, lazy gluttons.

So in that time, the word for liar, there was like a byword for liar that was like a derivative of Cretan.

So if you say, dude, so-and-so is a Cretan, I mean, it was literally a it was a way of insulting them.

It's saying that person has no character.

That person is a pathological liar.

That person's a Cretan.

They are the type of person that lies so much, they don't even know if they're telling the truth or not.

Yo, I've met people like that.

They lie so much, and I'm like, I don't know, and I don't think you do either.

I mean, you just, I mean, like, they just lie.

It's just like instinct, it's just like breathing.

They just lie.

He says they lie, he says they're brutal, they're violent, uh, on a whim, they're merciless, and then he says they're they're consumers.

They just consume, they're just they're just lazy gluttons.

It's just all about them.

They're mirroring their theology of Zeus.

And so he tells Titus, I'm sending you in.

And he said, So their own, their own, their own prophet says that they're liars, evil brutes, and gluttons.

And he said, verse 13, the saying is true, therefore rebuke them sharply so that they will be of sound faith.

All right, now think of this.

Back to our question: why is Paul so upset in Galatians?

Why is he so upset with the Judaizers who are simply just trying to get their bearings on like calling people back to the law, like what the Old Testament prophets would do when there was chaos?

They would call people back to the law.

The reason is because in the new covenant, okay, what they were doing is they were willing to lose.

They were willing to win the culture battle at the expense of the gospel war.

So they were drawing the wrong line in the wrong sand.

And Titus, he brings them in as a case study, because here's the deal.

I know in your world it's Puritan enough that we can make a deal over circumcision and food laws and eating kosher.

But I'm about to take this Cretan and send them to Crete.

And I'm gonna tell Titus, my friend, when you go there, I want you to find men.

He said, find men who are not violent, find men who are not prone to violence, not gluttons, not uh drunkards.

He said, who are faithful to their wives.

They need to be Cretan enough that the men of Crete will connect with them, that they can, that they can bridge a gap, that they can build a connection, that they can earn the respect of the people here.

But this is gonna be hard work.

It's gonna take generations because the culture's so embedded.

So don't take people that are prone to violence, don't take people that will act that way like the culture, but have enough Crete energy that the men from Crete will connect them, but then they will act differently so the men of Crete see a new standard being set.

And they start seeing a family working the right way.

And they start seeing a guy with masculinity who isn't just consuming women and consuming goods and consuming things and making it all about him, a guy who's tough but not violent.

He's like, You're you're gonna have to you're gonna have to do this, and it's gonna be really hard because the what are the real issues of Crete?

The real issues are violence, lying people's word don't mean anything, therefore they're becoming internally corrupt, they're corrupting their relationships.

It's an absolute chaotic mess.

If I make a list of the top 100 issues of Crete, you know what's not on the list?

Foreskin and food laws.

Those are not the problems of Crete.

So, what we're about to do is saddle Pastor Titus to go to Crete and to show up and say, okay, guys, uh, I'm Pastor Titus and I brought a sharp knife with me today.

And so today we're gonna really prove our commitment.

We're gonna prove our commitment today, and so we're discipleship 101.

Everybody write down circumcision.

Yep, that's where we're gonna start.

And if you can pass that test, okay, then we'll get to 201 and 301, and it's gonna be really good.

They're gonna run, bro, out of town.

This guy's not gonna make it past the front door, he's not gonna get to the real issues.

So people will stay bound in their lack of character.

The lies will continue.

There will be nobody to model after, there will be no leaders to follow because we've been willing to draw the wrong line in the wrong sand, so the evil brutality will continue and the consumption will continue, and all of that is bondage and chains and prisons that people will remain in because you didn't want to lose a culture war.

Because you said we you have to be circumcised?

He's like, You're missing it.

This is why he writes real big letters, this is why he speaks emphatically, this is why he skips the thanksgiving.

This is why he goes right to I am astonished, that you have reverted to a gospel that is no gospel at all.

And if you don't figure this out, there will be it'll be a curse.

It's like a curse.

It'll be cut out.

It's just it's awful.

Let's not do this.

And he brings Titus to test them.

So that's why he's upset.

That's what we're gonna look at, and we're gonna keep looking further at this because it raises a whole bunch of questions.

You have them right now, they're popping in your head.

Okay, well, what about this and what about that?

And that's why we're gonna take a few weeks to do it.

Uh, here's what I end with this.

I end with this.

Um, I'm willing to stand up here.

My my ultimate desire is to obey God, and I'll I'll do and say whatever I really believe He's doing and telling me to say, and and uh so I'm willing, if if we need a rebuke or we need correction or we need uh challenge or whatever it is, I'll do I'll do whatever God wants me to do, or what I think I'll do it to the best of my ability.

But as I read this and I started looking at the Galatians and I started thinking about this church, I thought, you know, we all have room to grow.

There's definitely room for improvement.

But I thought, you know, Paul couldn't find it in himself to be thankful for you know the Galatians on this.

And I have I have a lot of space for Thanksgiving on this subject.

I want to affirm this church.

We are not perfect.

In fact, there's probably people watching or listening who in some way were hurt.

So I'm not saying we're beyond that, we're full of human beings, but I think you guys have done an unbelievable job, unbelievable job of being a Christ-centered community that is new covenant-minded.

That I've heard so many people, you understand how many people I've had tell me, I feel like I can bring anybody to that church.

I feel like people that look like they don't belong, nobody looks at them like they don't belong, nobody's looking at anybody sideways.

Like I feel like I can bring anybody who's sincerely seeking God.

And I feel like they're gonna be welcomed.

I feel like, in fact, I've heard story after story of people who came in expecting to be rejected and expecting to get side-eyed into the back out in the parking lot.

That they were like, I was shocked how welcome I was.

In fact, I didn't believe it at first, so I tested the community and I found I found it to be sincere.

And so so Paul couldn't say thank you in in chapter one, but today I think Paul would say thank you to you.

And if he wouldn't, I I'm going to anyway.

All right, I want to say thank you.

Thank you for being that kind of church.

Now, that being said, I say that in a way that's not self-congratulatory, so to speak, but I think in a healthy affirmation, and I think just like in the spirit of a Thanksgiving, like that's the like let's affirm the right things and let's affirm it to each other, but let's not quit on it.

Let's keep our foot on the gas.

Let's let's let's keep doing this the right thing in the right way, and let's hold each other accountable to it, and we have room to grow in it, and so let's step into that that that next season of that.

But I want to say thank you, thank you.

The second thing, and then I am really wrapping up, is I I would be remiss to not put the question in front of us as individuals and ask us to take it to the Lord and think slowly about it.

Is there anywhere in your life that you're willing to win the culture battle at the expense of the gospel war?

Is there anywhere in your family?

Is there anywhere in your relationships?

Is there anywhere in your community?

Is there anywhere in your communication?

Is there anywhere in your being that you go, look, I I I maybe like the Judaizers, you're like, I'm sincerely disoriented.

I'm I'm truly trying to hold this up.

I mean, can you imagine going from having a commitment like Paul to the fidelity of the Torah?

Only to say, hey, I'm not anti-circumcision, but it's not what it's all about.

If you want to be fine, but if they don't want to be, that's fine too.

To to now make it a moot point, dude, that's overwhelming.

And so you might be in a position where you're trying to wrestle those things through.

And I think to bring the question before God and to search your own heart to go, is there anywhere in me that I am willing to win the culture battle at the expense of the gospel war?

Let's pray, Lord.

We come to you in Jesus' name.

God, I just thank you for what you're doing in this church.

Testimony after testimony comes in of people with all kinds of different backstories, who have been through different things, who come from different places, and yet, Lord, you're doing something here that's just beautiful to observe and beautiful to be a part of.

And it's that you're you're bringing a diverse community together at the foot of the cross.

Lord, we understand that our justification, that our righteousness does not come from ourselves and our ability to keep keep all the rules and the laws.

But our righteousness comes from the fact that you made he who had no sin to become sin for us, that we we might become the righteousness of God.

And Lord, we we understand that it would be a huge mistake to go, yeah, God is gracious, therefore anything goes.

Like that's not even what Paul is doing, who's going to bat for grace in Galatians.

He says to Titus, hey, these are problems and you need to confront them, rebuke when necessary.

So Lord, we understand that you have standards and you have things that we need to fix and change and repent from.

And at the same time, Lord, we do it from a place of grace, a foundation of grace and faith.

So Lord, help us as a church to continue to do that case by case, situation by situation, for your glory and honor in Jesus' name.

And everybody said amen.