Galatians 1:4,5

Galatians 1:4,5 Galatians 1:4,5—who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. It’s very easy to pass over greetings when we read the bible but this is the third week and we are still looking at the greeting. I told you this would take a while! The reason we are still in Paul’s greeting is because it is so jam-packed with truth about the glorious things of God. His authority and death defying power (v.1), his grace, peace and lordship (v.3), and now in verses 4 and 5 we see other incredible truths. Right away we notice what was done for us. Christ gave himself for our sins. After all, noticing what affects us is part of being human. By nature we are self-absorbed people. But through the Spirit we are awakened to the glorious truths that the taking away of our sins happened because it glorifies God, not because it glorifies us. You can look at Christ’s taking of our sins in two ways. One is biblical and the other is not. You can say, “Christ took away my sins! I must be glorious!” Or you can say, “Christ took away my sins! He must be glorious!” Now, none of us would openly say, “I must be glorious!” but if our view of the cross centers on us rather than on the glory of God, we have already said this in our hearts. Yes, Jesus loves us. Yes, Jesus took away our sins. Yes, we get the benefits of the cross. But He must get the glory. The glory of God is the ultimate reason for the existence of everything. Christ “gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age.” There is an age coming that is not evil. It is an age where those in Christ will look upon his face and not die. It will be an age where the glory of God will be so much more than we could ever dream it to be. Our wandering hearts and wandering eyes will be so satisfied with what we see and feel that nothing will enter our being that does not directly flow up in praise to Him. Christ came to deliver for Himself the church that they might be to the praise of His glory (Ephesians 1:12-14). Christ gave himself for our sins and delivered us from this present evil age and this all happens because of the will of God. The fact that those in Christ have been delivered is owing completely to the will of God. It is not owing to any good work we have done. We can’t pray enough. We can’t read our bible enough. We can’t do enough good things. We cannot avoid enough bad things. You can’t lay down your life for the Kingdom of God enough. Our salvation is owing to the fact that God in his sovereignty has chosen to save sinners. We are saved because it is his will to save us, not because it is ours. We can want to be saved all day long but if God in his Grace had chosen to not save sinners, our desire to be with him would be useless. Paul explains this in detail in Ephesians 2. It was God’s will for Christ to go to Calvary and die for sins. It was God’s will for His own son to die a death that he did not deserve. It was God’s will for Judas to betray Christ. Many of you will struggle with these truths and I struggle with them sometimes myself but the bible is very clear that these events came as a result of God’s ordaining that they be. Nothing catches God by surprise. He is not removed from his throne because of disobedient men. Joseph was sold into slavery because it was God’s will. He told his brothers, “You meant this for evil, but God meant this for good” (Genesis 50:20). He didn’t say “God turned this into good”, he said, “God meant this for good.” God is sovereign over all things. Nothing can escape his hand (Deut. 32:39). Paul closes his greeting by stating that God gets the glory for all of this. The ultimate end in all that has been said and done is the glory of God. We must never claim the glory that comes from our being saved. It must always flow directly to God. No one is good enough to save themselves. We get the benefits, He gets the Glory. Christ took our sins, he gets the glory. We are delivered from this present evil age, he gets the glory. He saves sinners like us because it is according to his will, he gets the glory. Glory will flow forever and ever, and he gets that glory!