Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. This morning we begin a four week look at selected passages, based on the epistle reading for each day, from Paul’s letter to the Galatians. Today we look at a passage from the opening chapter of that great book, in which Paul defends 1) the Gospel of Jesus Christ that he preaches, and 2) his authority to proclaim that very Gospel.
Have you ever been in a situation where you felt you had to defend yourself? Now, please understand I don't mean defending yourself with a gun or with your fists. I mean, defending yourself and what you believe in with your words. Defending yourself from people who are accusing you of saying and doing wrong. Maybe it was a boss who once called you into his office and charged you with some violation of company policy. Or maybe you came home from the department or hardware store and your husband or wife started digging through your packages saying, "How much did that cost? Do we really need one of those? Why did you buy that?" Or maybe, like me, you remember back to your younger days when your parents came to you and said, "So you were out pretty late last night? Who were you with? And just what were you doing?” Sometimes, even when our words and our actions are perfectly legitimate, even if we haven't done or said anything wrong, we still find ourselves being forced to defend what we do or say.
In fact, often it's not only our words or behavior that we have to defend. Sometimes we also have to defend our beliefs, don’t we? Haven't we all been in situations where people have said things like, "You don't really believe that, do you? You don’t honestly believe that the universe came into existence over a period of six days? With all that science has taught us since the beginning of the enlightenment, how can you possibly believe a silly superstition like that?" Or this, "You mean you're actually standing there and telling me that you consider that sweet innocent newborn baby to be sinful, even before he’s old enough to know the difference between right and wrong? How can you say that? That totally defies all logic!" Or how about this, "So, you think that Christianity is the only true religion. Well, that strikes me as being narrow minded, bigoted, and totally intolerant of other cultures, with other belief systems. How can you be as offensively arrogant as that! I thought that in the 21st century we’d advanced beyond such parochial pettiness!
My friends, when we find ourselves in situations like these, (whether it’s in a college class room setting, or a lively debate with friends and relatives.) When we feel like we're being interrogated for what we believe, we feel a little uncomfortable, don’t we? We feel like we’re on the hot seat. Like we’re on the spot to defend what we believe, and why we believe it. And what’s more, we know we should do so, without getting back in the faces of our interrogators and coming off as arrogant and close-minded ourselves. After all, that’s often what we are being accused of. And besides, only Satan wins when we react like that. That’s why St. Peter encourages us to “always be prepared make our defense in such cases, but do so with gentleness and respect.”
But you know, you and I are not the first ones who have been placed in this uncomfortable position. The Apostle Paul often found himself in a very similar situation. At various times in his ministry, Paul was accused of teaching things that were wrong. In fact, here in the first chapter of his epistle to the Galatians, Paul defends himself against that very charge. He finds himself accused of proclaiming a gospel that was not ordained by God, but rather, one concocted by men. And these allegations against Paul forced the Apostle to make a verbal defense of himself and more importantly, a defense of the message he was preaching. In fact, that's exactly what St. Paul does here in our text for today. We might even title this text – The Apostle Paul Defends the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And Paul here makes his defense it in two major ways. He says that the gospel he preached to the Galatians is first, a Gospel he received directly from God, and second, a Gospel that has been revealed in none other than Paul himself.
Now, for us to fully understand Paul's words here in our text, we need to know something about the people who were accusing Paul of false doctrine. Paul's accusers everywhere he went, but especially in Galatia, have been given the name Judaizers. Now these Judaizers were an early Jewish Christian sect that believed that in order for a person to get right with God, he or she not only had to believe in Jesus, but also must comply with the Old Testament ceremonial laws. In other words, to be a true follower of God, you need to be circumcised, worship on the Sabbath, that is Saturday, and abstain from certain kinds of meat. In other words, the path to Christianity goes first through Judaism. And so the Galatian gentiles, who wished to convert to Christianity, must in their view first become Jews.
Now if you think about it, even today, there are an awful lot of church bodies that still hold to this same basic idea. They say to be really and totally right with God, you need “Jesus plus blank” – and then they fill in the blank. For instance, Jesus plus your good works; or Jesus plus your adherence to certain rules; or Jesus plus your promise to live by the golden rule. It’s as though they are saying that Jesus gets you in the door, but there’s a higher more pleasing-to-God level of Christianity, one that depends on your inherent righteousness or obedience. It’s kind of like the picture of a ladder going up into heaven. God puts the ladder there, and so makes it possible to get to him, but then it’s our responsibility to climb the ladder up to him. My friends, despite the face that this philosophy plays so well to our highly individualistic and “I did it my way” culture, Martin Luther, and the Apostle Paul, never taught such a Gospel. We don’t climb any ladder up to God. Instead, God in the person of the incarnate Christ came down that ladder to us. Obedience and good works don’t add anything to our faith. Rather, inspired by the Holy Spirit, they flow out of our faith.
So, in contrast to this doctrine of the Judaizers, the Apostle Paul comes along with a different Gospel. A gospel which is summarized in passages like Romans 10:4, "Christ is the end of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes." Or Colossians 2:16, "Let no one judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to any religious festival, whether a new moon celebration, or a Sabbath Day". And again in Galatians 2:16, which will be part of our text for next Sunday, "A man is justified NOT by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ".
In other words, Paul preached a gospel that said that God no longer requires people to keep those Old Testament ceremonial laws. Because Jesus had kept those laws perfectly, sinners now need simply to trust in Jesus as their perfect substitute. To paraphrase Paul, forgiveness of sins and eternal life comes not from observing the law, but rather, only by God’s Grace through faith in Jesus. As Luther, inspired by Galatians, would later write. Sola Gratia – Sola Fide (Grace alone, Faith alone).
So, when the Judaizers heard Paul preaching that, their immediate reaction was to accuse Paul of caving in on God's demands. They're thinking to themselves, and apparently saying right out loud, "This Paul is going on God's law. He's out to make it easy to be a Christian. He's just trying to please men rather than God. His ideas could not have come from God. He must have made them up himself. This fellow Paul must be a fraud."
And it is in response to that accusation, that Paul makes the defense we have recorded here in our text. He begins by saying that, the Gospel he preached was not something he made up, but rather was received by him directly from God. Listen to what Paul says, "I want you to know, brothers that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ."
Now, maybe you're thinking to yourself, "How could Paul say that he received his teaching from Jesus Christ?” Paul was not one of the 12 disciples. In fact, Jesus had long since ascended into heaven by the time Paul became a Christian on the Damascus road. So how could Paul say that his teaching came from Jesus?" Well, do you remember how he became a Christian? Paul (known then as Saul) was on the road to Damascus when Jesus himself appeared, in a blinding light and said, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" On that day, Jesus not only called Paul to faith. He called him to be his chosen apostle to the Gentiles. And after that miraculous appearance of Jesus, Paul traveled not back to Jerusalem to be instructed by the Apostles. Rather, he traveled into the Arabian Desert, apparently to receive further instruction from Jesus. Paul describes that period of his life with these words from the text, "When God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus."
Paul's point is this: "I did not come up with what I preach on my own. My teaching is not shaped by the winds of popular opinion. It was not created by a set of human advisors, like some kind of political agenda. In fact, it was not even taught to me by the original apostles themselves. “No, my gospel," says Paul, "came to me directly from God."
And my friends, if you think about it, how could it be any other way? The Gospel that Paul preached (the gospel give to him by God) could never have been created by the human mind. In fact, it is totally contrary to the way the human mind thinks. God’s gospel declares that God loves sinners. As Paul would later go on to describe, “While we were still enemies, Christ died for us.” That means that you could be guilty of cold blooded murder, and because of Christ, God would still love you. You could be guilty of torturing helpless prisoners of wars, and God would still forgive you. You could be guilty of stealing millions from the savings of senior citizens all across the country and God would still say, "I will instead punish my son, so that you can be forgiven."
Do you all now see what I mean? To our innate human wisdom, that makes no sense! Our sense of justice tells us that God should make all those wicked people pay for their horrific crimes. But what our reason, being corrupted by sin, cannot tell us is what the gospel does tell us, namely, that God has already punished the sins of every murderer, and every rapist, and every embezzler in the person of Jesus Christ. God laid all those sins on his Son, and then sent Him to the cross.
And why did God do that? Because he loves you and me. You see, in the big scheme of things, we are no different than they. We've broken all of God's commandments. Time and again we've known what the right thing to do was, and we didn't do it. We've fallen into the same sins of pride, worry, anger, fear, and bitterness. Considering how many times we've been guilty of the same sin, any mere mortal would have given up on us long ago!
But not our God. Our Gracious Father in heaven says, "For the sake of my Son, I will not give up on you. No, you are still my own dear child." My friends, that's what the gospel says to you. It says something that no human mind could ever invent. It says, "In Christ, you are forgiven, no strings attached." That's a message that could only come from God, first to Paul and now to us.
Now, we might say that that was Paul's first line of defense. He focuses on what the Gospel actually says and where that true gospel comes from. But Paul's defense of the gospel continues. He goes from the source of his gospel to the effect of his gospel. Or to put it another way, the true gospel was not only received from God, it was also revealed, in the life of Paul.
Now what does that mean, "The gospel was revealed in Paul"? Let me see if I can illustrate. Suppose I have a brand new lamp, without a light bulb. Now say that I’ve plugged it in, but I still don't know if it works. Tell me, how can I figure out if my lamp works? (And don't anybody say, "Stick your finger in the socket.") Rather, how about if I go ahead and put a brand new light bulb in it. When I put the bulb in the lamp, if the lamp works, it will make a change in the light bulb. The lamp will turn it from a dark bulb into a bright light. You might even say that the bulb proves that the lamp works.
Now, apply this to what Paul is saying in our text. Paul is trying to prove that the gospel he's preaching works. That it’s genuine. It's real. It's from God. So what does he do? He points to the effect the gospel has made in his life. He says, I was once dark. I was a terrible persecutor of the church. He writes, "You have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it."
But then what happened? Paul came in contact with the grace of God in Christ. Jesus shared with Paul the incredible things he had done for him. And that message changed Paul. Like the light bulb in my illustration, Paul went from darkness to light. Paul became someone totally different. He says that the churches in Judea heard the following report. “'the man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.' And they praised God because of me."
My friends, just as surely as the change in our light bulb proved that the lamp is genuine, that it's not faulty, so also the change in Paul's life proves that the gospel he proclaimed is not faulty, but rather, is the truth. A truth that still has the power to change lives today.
OK, so what does all this mean for you and me in the year 2007? Two things: First, it means that when you confess that you are a poor, miserable sinner, who is worthy of nothing but God's punishment and yet who, for Jesus sake, has been declared a child of God and heir of heaven, then that's not your idea, it's God's idea. The true gospel comes not from men, but from God. Every man-made religion in the world says that God will reward you in proportion to how good a person you are. How well and how far you climb that ladder to reach him in heaven. But the true gospel of Jesus Christ says that God loves you even though you are a sinner. The true Gospel says that God came down that ladder personally for each and every one of you.
And the second point of Paul’s words is that that Gospel, what God has done for you in Christ, cannot but have an impact on your life. The gospel changes and motivates people. It drives us not upward on some fictitious ladder back to God, but outward as God’s restored good creation, to care for his created world, and for its human creatures in need. It restores us to the fully human creatures that we were created to be. Look at what it did for Paul. It turned the greatest persecutor of the church into the greatest defender of the church.
So, are you looking for a little change in your life? Are you frustrated by a bad attitude you can't seem to shake? Or a sin you've grown far too comfortable with? On this Father's Day weekend, do you feel guilty wearing a T-shirt that says, "World's Greatest Dad" because you know you aren't? Or are you troubled by the fact that you haven't always treated your own dad with the respect he deserves?
Let's face it, we all see things about ourselves that are not good. We see things we want to change. Things that we must confess as sins. The trouble is, in and of ourselves, we can't change them. But through the Gospel, God can - and does. With a piece of bread and a sip of wine, with a handful of water and the power of his Word, he says, "For Jesus' sake, your sins are forgiven. You are now a new man in Christ. You are now a new woman in Christ. Go in peace and sin no more." Friends, that's the gospel. Believe it. Hang on to it. And defend it with all the strength that God gives, for Jesus' sake. Amen.
And now may the peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in true faith unto life everlasting. Amen.