Galatians 1:11,12

Galatians 1:11-12 “For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” We have seen in recent weeks that the gospel is being distorted among the church and it seems to be happening the same way that all biblical doctrines are distorted. Even today, just like back then, distortions of the gospel are arising within the church. But these distortions are always the gospel of man. Man-centered gospel leads to man centered theology, which in turn leads to man-centered worship which, produces more man centered gospel (although it’s not really gospel). You may be reading this and thinking, “aren’t you being a little extreme?” Well, let’s look at some aspects of your local congregation and when they gather to see if this cycle is true; Man-centered gospel verses God-centered gospel. Man-centered gospel—a message that focuses on man being the chief end for which Christ came to die. God-centered gospel—a message that focuses on God’s glory being the chief end for which Christ came to die. Example of man-centered gospel: Jesus came and died for me. Example of God-centered gospel: Jesus came and died for me for the glory of God. This may not seem like too much of a difference but let’s see how this affects your theology. Man-centered theology—a system of theology that makes man the center of all doctrine. God-centered theology—a system of theology where all other doctrines are subject to the doctrine of God. Example of man-centered theology: All events in life are ultimately determined by man. Example of God centered theology: All events in life are ultimately determined by God. This greatly affects our worship. We do not sing of the glory of God but of the glory of man. Man-centered corporate worship—man becomes the focal point of songs, prayers, and preaching God-centered corporate worship—God becomes the focal point of songs, prayers, and preaching Example of man-centered corporate worship: “He took the fall, and thought of me, above all” Example of God-centered corporate worship: “God of wonders beyond our galaxy, you are holy, holy” The problem with man being the center of the Gospel stems from pride, which stems from our sin nature. The gospel is not something that we can afford to get wrong. We are not talking about stuff such as infant baptism verses believers baptism or taking communion every week verses quarterly. We are talking about the message of the cross. That message is the very power of God for those who are being saved (1 Corinthians 1:18). I have said this before and I will say it again—we must preach the gospel to each other as believers. And it can’t be a man-centered gospel. The church in Galatia was experiencing the affects of a man-centered gospel. Paul is writing to the church to clear up the confusion. The gospel that Paul is preaching is not man’s gospel. He received it from the Lord. He was not taught it. Christ revealed it to him. Paul did not learn the gospel from Ananias but received it from the Lord (Acts 9). The gospel as laid out in the bible is the only gospel that has the power to save and sanctify. I cannot say this enough; WE MUST GET THE GOSPEL RIGHT!!

It's getting closer.....

We are almost through with the new cd............I think. Everyone has all parts, vocal and instrumental, fixed to their liking and we are down to the final mixing. Andrew gave us a rough mix sunday night after our concert at the Point Community Church and hopefully the next mix will be final. We're keeping our fingers crossed.

Galatians 1:10

Galatians 1:10 “For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.” We have seen in the last few verses that Paul is astonished at the Galatians hasty turn to another gospel other than what he had preached to them from the beginning. Those in Galatia that taught a gospel other than what Paul had taught were not only attacking the gospel but also attacking Paul’s character. As Paul preaches salvation by grace through faith he is accused of preaching a “easy” gospel. He is not preaching a salvation by “works” but by “faith”. This is contrary to what the false teachers are preaching. This salvation by faith alone would stand against the customs of Galatia. Later on in this letter Paul explains a couple of the things that the Galatians have evidently been sliding back into. In chapter 5 Paul address the circumcision that many were clinging to for salvation by presenting the truth that circumcision and uncircumcision do not account for anything but “faith working through love”. In chapter 4 Paul addresses his concerns for the Galatians in their ritualistic practices in observing special days in order to gain favor. Paul’s main purpose in writing this letter to the Galatians is to once again proclaim the truth of the gospel that salvation is wholly of grace and not of any human effort or work. No one is good enough or can do enough good things to save themselves. Our salvation is, from beginning to end, the work of God. Here in verse 10 we see Paul defending the claims that had been made about him preaching an easy gospel to gain approval with men. By the time of this letter Paul has been persecuted harshly for proclaiming the gospel. The testimony of Paul’s life is sufficient reason for the Galatians to know that he is not seeking the approval of men. Paul had suffered such severe persecution that had he been seeking his own well being, he would not have been a servant of Christ. Paul had faced tremendous hardships, but he was “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Corinthians 6:10). Paul did not seek the approval of men but to please the Christ who saved him.

Big Words

I must admit to all of you that I am extremely illiterate when it comes to talking about computers. I know what a monitor is and a keyboard and a mouse. I know what CD-Rom is and I know just enough to check my email and blog. That's about it. Pentium, mega-bites, ram, modem, gigahertz, and Celeron are all words that I have heard but just really don't have a clue what they mean. I have no interest in finding out either. I just found out the other day by experience that you can't play MP3 stuff on a regular CD player. But some of you know what all of these words mean and are probably laughing at the fact that I don't. You may think it is crazy that I am probably using all of those things as I type right now and don't even know it. How in the world could I grow up surrounded by computers and not know what these things are? There are computers at my house, at the office, in my cell phone, on the engine in my car, and we even use one in our church services. How could I be around so much technology without knowing the language? The answer is simple--I just don't care about any of it. I don't care about my computer. I am just using it to serve myself. I don't care what goes on inside of it as long as I can depend on it and it works for me. Hopefully by now this is sounding familiar and you are getting the point of this post. But for those of you who think that this is just more proof that I'm clueless, I will spell it out for you. Justification, sanctification, regeneration, election, propitiation, glorification, the Trinity and imputation should be as common language to Christians as gigahertz and modems are to the technologically advanced. Baseball players know what the DL is, football players know what a touchback is, and christians should know what justification is. There are thousands of terms that we use everyday to explain and communicate our passions. How often do we ignore the truth of God's word because we are too lazy to find out what words like propitiation mean? I think the truth is that we don't know because it has never been taught or we don't care. God's word is not burning in the hearts of pastors so they begin to do cute things to make up for it. To think of what we have traded for humor makes my stomach turn. One of my grandfathers fought in WW2 and the other fought in Korea. When they stepped on the battlefield they knew the hand signals. They knew the codes and they knew the manuevers. They knew the language. We are at war. We better know the codes and we better know the language. Because we must be able to use the full armor of God or we will die.

Busy week

I would like to apologize to the few faithful devo readers. It has been a busy couple of weeks and I have just not had time to write them. But next week is looking better so hopefully we will be back to Galatians. Later Taters......

Why do we want to believe it?

In all of my study of "The Da Vinci Code" refutations I am yet to see anyone answer this question; Why do people want to believe it? This question staggers me more than the claims in the book. We know what Dan Brown says and we know what prominent theologians and every pastor with a blog says, but none of them answer this question. (at least none that I've seen. They may be out there but I haven't seen them.) Here are some thoughts on why I believe people want to believe it. Not why they believe it, why they want to believe it. 1.) Everybody loves a conspiracy.--I must admit that I myself would rather watch "Conspiracy" on the History Channel to see the theories about the JFK assasination than study his credentials to be president. Who doesn't love a good UFO story?! Does anybody remember the guy who worked at Area 51 that came out talking about the aliens he saw only to be dismissed as having never worked there. I have watched hours of that stuff. 2.) It is much easier to justify my actions if the standard has been lowered.--All sinners look for justification, just not at the same place. Our only hope as sinners is the righteousness of Christ. There is no hope offered in a fallible Christ. Many people find justification for their actions in believing there are no absolute truths. Let's be honest, this is exactly what this boils down to. 3.) There is power in numbers.--Over 40 million copies sold, translated into 42 languages. The average reader has a tendancy to think they are somewhat "smart". "If 40 million people are buying it, it must have something to it." People don't want to be ignorant of religion or history, they just are. When was the last time you knew of a church history book selling over 40 million copies. After picking up this fictional book most readers will retain small, seemingly insignificant statements from this book and assume them as fact. If I read a fictional book about a teenager in a gang on the streets of New York, I don't assume that teenagers, gangs, and New York are fictional. I could go on and on but there really is no need to. I am sure that you have reasons why if you think about it. Tonight my youth are going to learn about the Council of Nicea. ha, ha. I couldn't imagine ever hearing that in youth. Ignorant kids make ignorant adults.

Galatians 1:6-9

Galatians 1:6-9 Galatians 1:6-9—I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel—not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or and angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preach to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. I wish there was some way to simultaneously cast these verses into the hearts and minds of all Christians, especially since the recent uprising of the “Gospel of Judas”. Many questions are being raised about things such as “The DaVinci Code” and the “Gospel of Judas”. This is good in one sense and bad in another. It is good because it is calling us to give an account for the hope that we have (1 Peter 3:15) which in turn drives us to understand why we believe what we believe. It is bad because most doubts and fears are not coming from the world, but from within the church. There is nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Evidently, the 21st Century is not the first time that the Gospel has taken fire from false teachers. Paul tells the Galatian church, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you……and are turning to a different gospel”. Paul was astonished at the turning away of the Galatians. Those who are not in Christ are naturally going to turn aside from the true Gospel. It is part of our depravity (Romans 3:12). We have had God’s word for hundreds of years and yet because of our lack of knowing it, we are shaken by the claims of “new discoveries”. Galatians 1:6-9 is a perfect picture of what Paul would have to say to the Church of America. Throughout all of Paul’s letters he is constantly preaching the gospel to the church. You may think that this sounds odd because the church should already know the gospel, right? But for different reasons, we must continue to preach the gospel to each other as believers. Preaching the gospel is not only the means by which salvation comes, it is also a part of the means of our sanctification. The same message that brings us to God is the same message that continues to keep us with God. Steven Curtis Chapman once wrote, “No heart loves greater than the one that is able to recall the time when all they knew was shame.” There are none who cherish the gospel more than those who know the gospel. Paul pronounces a curse to all those who would distort the gospel or preach a gospel contrary to the one that he has preached. The gospel that Paul preached was a crucified and risen lord. The word “accursed” is translated from the Greek word “anathema”. Anathema carries some weight with it. You can see the importance of the gospel when you understand what Paul pronounces over those who distort it. If someone is anathema they are, “cut off from salvation”, or “damned”. This should tell us something about the importance of getting the gospel right, and preaching the gospel to each other. Paul felt so strongly about the power of the gospel that to distort it or to turn to another gospel would be spiritually suicidal. I hope that the recent attention that the media has given to false gospels and fictitious claims would not turn your head. These are neither new findings nor is this the first time these issues have come up. It doesn’t take a historian or theologian to refute these claims. It just takes the church being the church.