Reservoir Presbyterian Sermons
The thunderclap of the Gospel: Jesus forgives our sin (Galatians 1:1-5)
the first reading shall be from Isaiah chapter 1 verses 10 to 20. It can be found on page 973. Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom, listen to the instructions of our God, you people of Gomorrah, the multitude of your sacrifices. What are they to me says the Lord? I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals. I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and girts. When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you? Dis trampling of the courts, stop bringing meaningless offerings. Your incense is detestable to me. New moons, suburbs and provocations, I cannot bear your worthless assemblies. Your new moon feast and your appointed festivals, I hate before my being. They have become a burden to me. I am wary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands in prayer, I hide my eyes from you. Even when you offer many prayers, I am not listening. Your hands are full of blood, wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight, stop doing wrong. Learn to do right, seek justice, defend or rest, take up the course of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow. Come now and let us settle the matter, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as wide as snow. Though they are as red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land, but if you resist and rebel, you will be devoured by the sword. The second reading shall be from Galatians chapter 1. This is 1 to 10. It can be found on pages 1657. Paul and apostle sent not from men, nor by a man, by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead and over brothers and sisters with me. To the churches in Galatia, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave him so far since the rescue us from present evil age. According to the will of our God and Father, do whom be glory for ever and ever are men? I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting from the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to different gospels, which is really no gospel at all. Evidently, some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ, but even if it were me or an angel from heaven, she'd preach a gospel other than that one preached to you. Let them be under God's curse, as we have already said. So now I say again, if anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God's curse. Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Jesus Christ. Great. Thanks, Emmanuel, for reading. What a blessing to hear the word of God. From this portion in Galatians and the opening part of Galatians and the subject of which the first five verses, God willing, I'll continue next Sunday, if we've still got breath in the body. But these first five verses could be summarised as the it's the rescue mission of the Lord Jesus Christ in order that we might live for the glory of God. So there's a grand theme. It's our old friend from the Reformers' Day, Martin Luther, calls this the thunderclap that suddenly came to him. And it really did suddenly awaken the man of the Reformation 500 years ago. And he writes about it lots in his volumes. It was the thunderclap. So the message I want to convey is, hey Christian, it's the Lord Jesus Christ that's rescued us from our sin in order that we might live for the glory of God. And if we don't remember anything else, just that. But it might be a little bit more. But that's it. That's the message. That's a sermon finished. But bear with us and we'll just elaborate that for a couple of minutes after. Let's pray. Lord, Heavenly Father, thank you for the gospel. The gospel that just awakens us to our own state of sin and the rescue that the Lord Jesus has provided. What a blessed theme we have before us. Please awaken our soul if our soul needs to be awakened this Lord's Day morning. If we're the one that needs the thunderclap, Lord, please send it that we might be forever changed in Jesus we pray. Amen. The book of Galatians is one of the most important books of the Bible. It's one of the most influential in the history of the church. And it became sort of the cornerstone book of Reformation thinking that broke into a church that was basically dead 500 years ago. And we're living with the legacy of that even this day. We're a Reformation church. We don't call ourselves that. We call ourselves Presbyterian. But what that means is we're a church based upon those wonderful truths of the gospel that exploded across the world from the Reformation 1500s. And it came upon Martin Luther like a thunderclap, he writes. And he says it all the time. And he changes the metaphor. He says, Oh, look, it was like a shaft of light that penetrated my heart. It suddenly arrested me to use another expression. And he felt that the message of Galatians was written directly for him. He felt it was an express post delivery of Ozpost for him. And it came like a thunder. Sometimes that happens. We just get a thunderclap, don't we? You know, the one that it's not the one that's built up. There are some thunderstorms you can hear them coming for ages. We move that old, I don't know if it's a myth or it's scientifically right. But you, you see the lightning flash. And then certain seconds later, you hear the thunderclap that's associated. And what do you do? You count the seconds and you reckon that that's how many miles away it is. Well, that's what I was taught as an old kid. Six seconds delay. Oh, it's about six miles away. Oh, that's okay. That's fine. The next clap, it's a bit shorter, three seconds, then two seconds. And then out of blue, bang, the one that just hits you, that thunderclap. It really does shake you up, don't it? Well, this shook up and maybe shaking up us this day. And the thunderclap is this. I've just put it in different words. It's this, hey, do you not realise that Christians don't become righteous before God by doing righteous works? Which is so hard to grasp because it's so not what we expect. Christians don't become righteous by doing righteous works. Rather, we're declared righteous and we then want to do righteous works. It's not what we used to. And it wasn't what Martin Luther, he was a medieval priest. He's a medieval priest of the Ramakathic church. And he was the best priest you could be, meaning he did everything he possibly could to please God. And his church told him, what you're going to do to please God is keep going to Mass and keep taking the Mass and don't forget penance and don't forgive, give charity to the poor and then repeat every week. Do Mass, do the poor, do the penance, repeat weekly. And Luther as the priest was so scared of this because you didn't think you'd do it properly. And when he gave out the Mass, you know, the bread and the wine, he was so scared in case he didn't do it properly. It's just not how the church, it's not just that it's us. We kind of do think that that if we live righteously, we'll get to please God better. There's still some of that in us, isn't it? It's like, well, in life, it's like that. If you want to come, okay, if you want to become a pianist, what you have to do is you have to start early, I would suggest, in life, hard work, isn't it? It's lessons upon lessons upon patience upon patience, the more patience and it's learn the scales and then learn the notes and learn the rhythm and oh, it's shockingly hard work. And eventually, you can become a pianist. As a boy, I want it the other way around, I wish I could be a pianist and then, come on, just make me a pianist and then, oh, I'll promise to practice hard. It doesn't happen that way in life. So what we're used to is work hard, practice hard, repeat and repeat and then we'll become what we want to become. But the revolution is you do not become more righteous by doing righteous works. You are declared righteous by God in his rescue mission and he gives you this status. Let's cover the ground in these three ways. I'm talking about verses one to five. If you've got bubbles open, they'd be great. Galatians one, one to five starts off with Paul in a apostle and finishes up with to whom be glory and glory forever and ever, Amen. That paragraph there in your scriptures, three thoughts. One, the author, we should look at the author. Who's writing this to us? Secondly, the message. What is this thunderclap message? And then thirdly, some application. So first of all, those three things. The author, who's writing this for us? Well, we're really clear who it is. Oh, that is on the screen. Thank you. Paul an apostle. And I'll show first, see verse two, he's got other brothers with him who are writing this or helping him or being in, but it's from Paul the apostle. That's where this is coming from. And the sum of those opening two verses on the screen is that, look, you need to understand that anything written by the apostles under the direction of the Spirit of God holds authority through us. It commands obedience from us because the word apostle means that Paul was one of those select, distinct band of men set apart and taught and commissioned by the Lord Jesus Christ. When he uses that word, he means he's the one, he's part of the one off set of apostles who laid the foundation of the church. And that is how they're spoken of in scripture. If I can just draw your attention, for example, to Galatians chapter two, which is the very next letter of Paul. And Galatians two, verse 19, he reminds us of this very fact, the source of authority comes from the apostles. So it's Ephesians 2 and 19. Ephesians 2 and 19 says, consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people, and you're now members of God's household, which is built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets, these are the prophets of the Old Testament, with Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone. See, that's a brilliant summary, isn't it, Paul, of what the church is based upon? The foundation is something very clear that the foundation of the church is the prophets as they spoke in the Old Testament, the apostles, as they're now speaking in the New Testament, and who's the chief cornerstone that squares off the whole building, the chief cornerstone is the Lord Jesus Christ. So, look, we get it, don't we? It's a construction metaphor, anyone involved in construction, or watching it, or watching your house being built, or watching a new office block being built, you get it, don't you? If we want to build a structure that'll stand for generations, you have to lay the foundation with great care, and it's obvious you can't lay the foundation twice. So later on, you can rip out a door because it's not quite square when the door jam, you can replace the windows, you can replace the roof because it's leaking, but you can't do the foundation twice. If you've done that, you've actually made a new building. It's absurd to think that you can do a foundation again. So, in like matter, there's only one set of apostles, that's where I'm going with this. Now, once the apostles died, once those twelve died, so Paul was a late addition, but he was an apostle. Once the last apostle died, he was probably the apostle John at a ripe old age, we only have their runnettings. We don't have sons of apostles. That's the point I'm making. When Paul makes this great claim, I've been not sent from me, I've been sent from Jesus, an apostle. Now, in actual fact, I don't know, but one or two or three or four of those apostles may have had sons, but they don't get the title, son of an apostle, that's the point I'm making. There's no second generation of apostles. If they didn't have sons, I hope they were good sons and came to know the Lord Jesus and honored their dad, but we just don't know. It's not like the monarchy. So, we have a new king, a pretty newish king, don't we? And it's automatic. If he passes away, there's a replacement, isn't there? And if William passes away, there's another replacement, George. And in time, there might be another one. But not so are the apostles. When they died, we only have their words. And this is the words we have. This is the teaching. And so, the message of the gospel is based upon the apostles' teaching, and that teaching is based upon what they got from heaven. So, they were not sent or commissioned or trained by other men, but by Jesus. God the Father raised him from the dead. It's a powerful statement, isn't it? And it's a reminder of what we call, doesn't it change the word apostle into an adjective, apostolic authority? It's from heaven. The authority of the apostles came directly from the risen Christ. The churches of Galatia that he was writing to directly here were to submit themselves to the teaching of the apostles as they submitted themselves to the revelation of God. That's the flow of authority. And here in the same way, here we are gathered on this Sunday morning in reservoir 2,000 years later, we are subject to the apostles' teaching just as they were subject to the wisdom directly from heaven. So, this is a message. The gospel we're about to get to in verse 3. This is directly from heaven through a man who was slain in the Spirit, we'd say, with a lightning strike on the Damascus road. He met with Jesus, then he went away for what was it? Two or three years to study the word of God and to be alone with God? This man. And then he comes into ministry after two or three years training. And this letter was written very soon after that. So, this is really fresh words of eyewitness apostles. It was written in about 48 A.D. How close can you get to the life and ministry and death and resurrection of Jesus? 48 A.D. What's that? Without knowing all the dates exactly, it's about 15 years, that's all. And so, I'm just paused here just to remind ourselves about what's at the foundation of the church's teaching today. It's the prophets' teaching of the Old Testament, it's the apostles' teaching, the New Testament. When you think, just to back this up a moment, can you think of the very earliest church that ever existed? So, before reservoir 110, no, 107 years ago, before Preston that sort of gave birth to us as a church plant, before Australia, before England, what story do you know of the very earliest church? You'd go to the book of Acts, wouldn't you? Chapter 2, what does Acts 2, 42 tell us about the very, very first church we can ever imagine? Oh, here it is, Acts 2, 42, they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and a fellowship. What did the early church have as their foundation? Apostolic teaching. First, and every church for centuries afterwards, the church has always had the apostles' teaching as their foundation. What about the best church you've ever known? Is this the best church? We wouldn't claim, no, we won't say that, will we? What's the best church you could ever imagine? The early one? No, because I had some squabbles to sort out, I don't think the early church was the best. Where's the best church? Where would you look in Bible for the best church? We've had the first church devoted to the apostles. What about the best church? Revelation chapter 21, there's the best church, and hey, look at this, verse 14 of chapter 21 describing what the church looks like, and it's described in terms of a building with precious stones and gold streets. Remember that description? And then part of that description, verse 14, and the wall of the city, that's the city of heaven. The wall of the city had 12 foundations, and on them were the names of the 12 apostles of the Lamb of God. So the church in heaven, where the redeemed are right now, your family and friends who have gone to glory, they're part of heaven, the perfect church, and what's the foundation of the perfect church? Oh, it's 12 foundation stones, and on the name of each foundation stone is the name of an apostle. So we may have views of God and life, and we may have views of church in Jesus. We may have a personal opinions about how we should live, but let me tell you, if it's not in line, if our opinion is not in line with the apostles teaching, don't build your life on it, it'll be wrong. Your personal opinion about God and how he works, and his love, and his mercy, and it's not in line with the apostles teaching, it's wrong. So Paul comes with that authority, it's brilliant, isn't it? I didn't come from men, but I came from God, and now I'm speaking to you, Church of Galatia, and he's been kind there, he's been very respectful. Later on he doesn't. He says somewhere in Galatians, "You stupid congregation of Galatia." He gets pretty blunt because they drifted, and he says, "How can you be so stupid?" But right now he's respectfully just saying, "I'm addressing you, and this is my authority." Now, second part of our message this morning is to look at this thunderclap of the gospel, as I'm calling it, verses 3 to 5, and in these three verses of Scripture Paul does give us a brilliant summary of the gospel, and sadly it's the gospel that the Galatian Church drifted from, which is why he later on, I think it's chapter 3, he has to use that strong language to get their attention, but I won't have to use that strong language to get your attention, I know, but it's there in Scripture. And verse 3 is like the taster to it, it's like verse 3, oh there it is, is the entree to the heart of the meal that follows. The entree is, he's saying, "Look, all this, it's delivered to us through grace, and it floods your heart and life with peace." So he's saying, "What I'm about to tell you, this is the entree." He said, "All this is about God's grace, and it ends up giving your life peace, and it's all from God the Father." So he's saying, "The source of salvation is grace, the effect of salvation is peace." And later in the letter, he gives more attention to those two words. So I've become to verse 4, which is the key of our message today. There are three things within verse 4, so in this second half, there are three little parts to it, bear with me. Verse 4 reminds us that it is the Lord Jesus who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, and all this is according to the will of God our Father. We're told three things at least, firstly, who we are. You see who we are in this? What it's telling us is that we're helpless and lost and drowning before the rescue mission, that is. And what's the word rescue tell us? It implies something very interesting that we need to be plucked out of the ocean in which we're drowning. It's interesting. Many of the great religions of the world, I say great because they're great in number. I'm not actually in favor of them, but many of the great religions of the world hold out a lot of teaching, and if you just apply yourself to the teaching, then that's the way of peace, or that's the way of blessing. But they don't offer a rescue mission. Christian gospel is really different. It's the thunderclap difference. Now, of course, Jesus was a great teacher, and he did hold out lots of teaching, and we are inspired by his teaching. But what Paul wants to give us in this nutshell version of the gospel, he doesn't make any mention of the teachings of Jesus. Remember the memory verse of Jesus. Remember the servant? No, no. The key thing he tells us in verse four is that he rescues us. We're rescued people. Hallelujah, which is interesting because okay, how are you known by your neighbor? Have you got a neighbor who doesn't know the Lord, or a workmate who doesn't know the Lord, or a friend who doesn't believe? What do they commonly think of you? Well, we don't quite know because they might talk behind your back. You actually hear what they say, but what do you think they're saying about you? What's the most likely thing they're saying about the religious one? Most likely what they're going to say is something like this. You mean John? Look, he says he follows Jesus. He's a follower of Jesus' teaching. That would be those general description of you, which isn't false, is it? But I reckon what I'd like is something more accurate. What I wish I was known for is someone says, "Oh, you mean John? Oh, he claims to have been rescued." I just don't think that happens, though. It's important, isn't it, to understand that we're rescued. That's our status. Our greatest status is not, "Oh, he's a devoted man to the teaching of Jesus." I'd like to be known more than that, because in actual fact, we can't follow Jesus' teaching until we've been rescued. Many of the prisoners tried to follow the teachings of Jesus, but at least the frustration. Many have tried to follow Jesus' teaching without being rescued, but it's too hard. It's too hard to follow the teachings of Jesus until you've been rescued from your sin. Imagine you come with me to the beach. Do you have one of my favourite places on earth? This is our small mind that I am. Well, one of my favourite places I won't ever want to go to is Cows Pier. Oh, I just love it. It's because I was introduced as a kid, and those first family holidays, they stay with your mind, don't they? Cows Pier. There's young blokes jumping off the water to impress their girlfriends. That doesn't change, does it? Many are fishermen trying their luck, and I've never seen a fish court, but they're sitting there all day, growing old on the pier, and then there's others who are waiting for the knobbys ferry to come in. Do I love doing? And then you hear a sound, "Help!" screams a woman who's out of her depth. She's cramping. She's just drowning. What do you do for a drowning woman? So what do you do for a drowning woman? It doesn't help a lot to speak to her with kind words and saying, "Oh, dear, I'm sure it won't be that bad." That's not going to help much. Calm down, dear. And certainly, you don't throw the dummies how to swim manual. Quick, quick, read this. Read this. It's great teaching. I know I'm being overly obvious in this, but what do you do? You don't coach her from the shore. You don't throw her how to swim manual. You throw her a rope or something. So hold on to you. And I want to just do this to remind us that's what Jesus has done. He's thrown us a lifeline. He hasn't thrown us a book of teaching. Follow my sermon on the mount and do it better this time and try harder with your prayer life and pray harder and pray longer and you'll come through. It's not what Jesus does. He throws us a rescue line and he brings us out of our state of sin because that's what we need at first. We need to be rescued and we need to be born again with a whole new light in our heart in our mind and song in our heart. We need to be born a second time, but this time spiritual. We need the new birth first and then the scriptures come alive to us and then the teachings of Jesus become step by step by step that much more achievable. At first we need to be saved. Lord Jesus who gave himself for our sins to rescue us. That's what Jesus did. So the three little parts of this are who we are, where the drowning woman. That's who we are. We cannot save ourselves. We need the rope. Secondly, what did Jesus do? Well, the text says he rescued us by giving himself for us. That's staggering. He gave himself for us. In other words, he did what we could not achieve. That expression means he's in the place of us. This is what we call substitution. Jesus substituted himself for us. He went where we should have gone, which is to the cross to die for sin because the only way sin can be rectified is through the death of someone perfect. I can't die for your sin because I've got too much against my account. Your best friend can't die for you. A great saint who's lived the life beautifully, powerfully, he can't die for you. She can't die for you. Only the perfect lamb of God can die for you because he's got nothing to pay for his own sin. And that's why the gospel of Jesus is revolutionary. Jesus' death was for our sins. He gave himself not in a general way to make this world a better place. He didn't give himself so that we could have a second chance and try harder. No, no, no. He did it for us to get us right with God. He did all we needed to do but couldn't. Jesus did everything we needed to do, but we couldn't do. His death was substitutionary. It's a perfect word for it. It's an absolute swapping of places. This is the heart of the Christian gospel. And Luther in his writings and who preached this in the very early parts of the sixteenth century, he writes, friends, can't you see this? These words are thunderclaps. Do you understand what Jesus has done for you? He's given himself for you. We need to understand that we're sinners and we live under judgment because of our sin. We're condemned by that judgment until and unless and unless and or until Jesus forgives. You no longer bear your sins anymore, dear Christian. The death of Jesus was a sacrifice for that. So the appeal of the gospel is this sinner. Run to Christ. Yield to Christ who gave himself for you to release you from the burden of sin. Friend, look, when it's all too much and your conscience hits you and begs you and tells you that you're such a failure, when you sense that you can't live up to this Christian ideal, you can't seem to please God when the burden of guilt and shame is that much for you. Run to Christ and you'll find that Christ has given himself for you to release you from that burden. Maybe this is the thunderclap that you need today. The third part of this is why did God do it? Who we are, what Jesus did, why did God do it? Well, that's where he goes to in our text. It was according to the will of God for his pleasure and it was to demonstrate his glory. And some of this is almost beyond our weird little mind. Well, I'll speak for me. All of this, it says, according to the will of God, our God and Father, it was all according to the will of God that he wanted to release us and give us a new birth. This is the mind of God for you and for me. It's just amazing what God has done. So just put those things together so far. This is a message that's based upon the authority of the apostles who are a select band that Jesus commissioned. This is all about the rescue mission of Jesus Christ, rescuing us from sin. And that, just picking up the theme of the third verse there, the opening part, this is what fills our life with grace and peace. And ultimately, it's all for the glory of God, two who see that doxology at the end, to whom all of the above is for the glory of our God forever and ever. So the purpose of the gospel, it's not even to please us, though it does give us wonderful pleasure. Ultimately, the reason for the rescue mission is that God's name shall be glorified forever and ever. Finally, how do we apply this to our life? Well, in lots of ways, and we've been thinking about it during the sermon, we ought, of course, glorify God in all of this and heap, honor him for such a provision. And then, look, just in closing, I want to suggest that we need to take this to heart for our self, lest it really hasn't dawned on us. What a great thing it is to be the subject of a rescue mission. These aren't empty words of the apostle Paul. Look, I've often experienced and I still do every, look, every second day, I still am troubled about believing that Christ Jesus gave himself for me, because I'm not worthy of that. And I still say to myself, I could so much more easy believe that Christ was given for a righteous person, for a great preacher of the faith, for a holy person, yep, for a deserving person, yes. But I struggle to apprehend deeply that he died for me a failure. And so, one, so undeserving. And I wonder if the devil plagued you with similar thoughts every now and again. I imagine, can I imagine that, is this overstating it? Can I imagine that you're a bit like me? I hope you're not. But to satan bug you with thoughts, well, take this verse, especially the fourth verse and fortify yourself with it. And look, when the devil comes with that whisper, oh, you're such a sinner. Don't let it crush you. Don't let those thoughts tear you down. You could almost say, yep, thank you, satan. That's a great reminder. Let me tell you something that Christ Jesus gave himself for me because I'm a sinner. Christ died for me. So, don't let satan frighten you with tempting those thoughts. Don't let satan frighten you when he reminds you that you have failed, that you haven't lived up to God, that you don't deserve this. What you can say is, let me read you how Luther put it, because I just enjoyed reading Luther's sermon on this this week, and I'll close with this. It's got a bit of Luther directness about it, so I can not own it. Put it this way, says Luther. Satan, when you say that I'm just a sinner, you do not frighten me, but you bring me immense comfort. In fact, when you say that I'm a sinner, you provide me with armor and weapon against yourself so that I can slit your throat and with your own sword and trample you under my feet, because what you're doing is you're preaching the glory of God to me. That's what you're reminding me of. You're reminding me of the blessing of Christ my Redeemer. So, friend, can you say that? Leave aside the sleigh of the throat, but why not? Genesis 3.15, the promise of the coming one, which is going to trample Satan's head under his feet. So, don't get downcast when you're reminded of you're not measuring up, but use that to say, well, that's actually going to preach the gospel to me, because it's exactly because I'm not measuring up that Christ died for all my sin. Christ has rescued me. Christ has put my feet upon a rock, and I'll never be shaken from the rock. Christ has given me a new status, and He's given me a status called righteousness, and that's all that matters. Now, get on, dear Christian, and serve Jesus with all your heart. Look upwards, don't look back. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the gospel of the Lord Jesus. Thank you for this great description of the rescue mission, and please help us to be mindful of that when we're tempted to doubt. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.