Sunday's Message - The Book of Galatians: Set Free. Live Free (Don't Be Stupid! - Galatians 3:1-14)

During most of the Summer, the congregation of Sligo Presbyterian Church will explore the Apostle Paul's Letter to the Galatians and consider how we might claim the freedom we have in Jesus Christ. During our time together, we'll explore the following:

• May 26 - One Gospel (Galatians 1:1-10)
• June 2 - Grace Changes Everything! (Galatians 1:10-24)
• June 9 - Getting the Gospel Right (Galatians 2:1-21)
• June 16 - Don't Be Stupid! (Galatians 3:1-14)
• June 23 - Children, Not Slaves (Galatians 3:15–4:7)
• July 7 - Don't Look Back (Galatians 4:8-20)
• July 14 - Effort Vs. Grace (Galatians 4:21-31)
• July 21 - Set Free! (Galatians 5:1-12)
• July 28 - Living Our Freedom (Galatians 5:13-26)
• August 4 - Sowing and Reaping (Galatians 6:1-18)

On Sunday, we continued the series by looking at Galatians 3:1-14 and by discussing how the gospel of grace was proven right by the experience of the Galatians and the relationship between God and Abraham. Below are a recording and the text of the sermon. You can stream the service by going to the Sligo Presbyterian Church YouTube Channel on Sundays at 10:00 a.m. (EDT) 

Well, today is Father’s Day, the most important day of the year, that is, after Easter, Christmas and Thanksgiving; Memorial Day, Independence Day and Veteran’s Day; Halloween, New Years Eve, and New Years Day, and of course, Mother’s Day (I mean, dah), Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Presidents Day, Arbor Day, Groundhog Day, St. Patrick’s Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, and naturally, the first day of Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter, as well as that wonderful morning we spring forward and fall back. You see, outside all these days, and don’t get me started on birthdays and anniversaries, Father’s Day is the most important day of the year, right?

And I’ll tell you, today I find myself remembering my own dad when I was growing up, who turned 90 in on April 15, another day that’s probably more important than Father’s Day, and thinking about how fatherhood has sort of changed in the last sixty years. You see, I think I had a great dad, but you know, he used to do a lot of things, often involving a belt, that fathers just don’t do now-a-days, at least I never did them as we were raising Maggie. For example, after seeing or hearing about something I had done or was doing, dad never seemed to hesitate saying that it was stupid or ignorant. Now, let me be clear, I don’t remember him ever saying that I was stupid, but when I wanted to sell Grit and so I had them ship and bill me for about 500 copies or when Blaine Adams and I bought a baby alligator because we thought is would be cool or when, on a dare, I got in trouble for asking my sixth grade teacher what Abraham Lincoln looked like in person, dad didn’t carefully word his response to protect my fragile self-esteem. Instead, he looked me right in the eyes and said..., well, I think y’all know exactly what he said. O how fatherhood has changed, and probably for the better.

But be-that-as-it-may, this business about being stupid and ignorant, well, that’s what we’re going to talk about this morning. Of course, this is the fourth message in a series we started about a month ago, dealing with Paul’s letter to the Galatians. And to this point, we all already know that, after they’d been taught by Paul himself about the gospel of undeserved grace, some trouble-makers had sort of slipped into the church after he’d gone and told these baby believers that, although this grace from God was all well and good, if they wanted to grow in their faith, they really needed to start obeying some of the Jewish laws, starting with circumcision. Of course, for Paul, this was not only wrong, it was dangerous because the minute you add law to gospel and obedience to faith, both gospel and faith cease to exist, even the crucifixion becomes unnecessary. Now, that was what Paul wrote, and over these last three weeks, we’ve related what he said to ourselves and how we’re often told that, although grace is all well and good, for us to claim it, you know, to feel it, we need to do certain things or to have certain experiences or to say certain words. In a nutshell, that’s what we’ve covered to this point.

And this morning, we’re going to continue our focus on this letter as Paul explains to the Galatians why the gospel of undeserved grace is right and the gospel of doing and experiencing and saying isn’t. You see, in the passage we have before us today, we’re going to look at how Paul, in no uncertain terms, told the Galatians that their decision to drift away from the truth was both stupid and ignorant. And then we’ll consider how we might avoid their mistake. 

And like I said, I think we can get all this from what Paul wrote in his letter. I mean, remembering that, for Paul, the Galatians had turned their backs on a message that he believed was grounded in Jesus Christ himself and was consistent with what the church leaders believed and was essential to what it meant to be a Christian, sort of to get them back on track, Paul had two things to say about what they had decided to do. 

I mean, first, he wrote that the Galatians were being stupid, stupid in turning from what they first believed and stupid for turning to something else. You see, for Paul, there was no two ways about it, they were just, plain being stupid, and that’s why he wrote this:

You stupid Galatians! I told you exactly how Jesus Christ was nailed to a cross. Has someone now put an evil spell on you? I want to know only one thing. How were you given God’s Spirit? Was it by obeying the Law of Moses or by hearing about Christ and having faith in him? How can you be so stupid? Do you think that by yourself you can complete what God’s Spirit started in you? Have you gone through all of this for nothing? Is it all really for nothing? God gives you his Spirit and works miracles in you. But does he do this because you obey the Law of Moses or because you have heard about Christ and have faith in him? [Galatians 3:1-5, CEV]

Now, that’s what he wrote, and I’ve got to tell you, as a preacher for over 37 years, I can’t imagine calling the folks in one of my congregations stupid. Of course, if I had, I wouldn’t have been a preacher for over 37 years, right? But that’s exactly what Paul did; he called the Galatians stupid.

And I think his reason was clear. They were being stupid, because they’d completely forgotten what they’d experienced when they heard the gospel of undeserved grace for the first time, you know, when they first understood that their whole relationship with God was grounded in his love and his mercy and his compassion, and I’m talking about the undeserved grace of God, and something they felt when they simply trusted that it was there. And with that trust, they could now see God’s presence and experience his power and feel his Spirit. You see, this was what they had. But after Paul left, what had they done? They took what was simple and powerful and liberating, and they started adding stuff, you know what I mean, stuff they had to do and stuff they had to experience and stuff they had to say. In other words, they took something that had changed their lives, the gospel of undeserved grace and added the words “but” and “if” and “when” so that it wasn’t undeserved anymore. Now, from Paul’s perspective, that’s what the Galatians had done. And that’s why he said they were being stupid. But that’s not all he said.

You see, second, I believe he also thought they were being ignorant, and I’m talking ignorant about how God had worked with his people in the past. In other words, if they knew the Old Testament, they’d know that, right from the beginning, God had always put grace and faith over law and obedience. I mean, after saying they were being stupid, just listen to what Paul wrote:

The Scriptures say that God accepted Abraham because Abraham had faith. And so, you should understand that everyone who has faith is a child of Abraham. Long ago the Scriptures said God would accept the Gentiles because of their faith. This is why God told Abraham the good news that all nations would be blessed because of him. This means everyone who has faith will share in the blessings given to Abraham because of his faith.

And because of what Jesus Christ has done, the blessing promised to Abraham was taken to the Gentiles. This happened so that by faith we would be given the promised Holy Spirit. [Galatians 3:6-9, 14, CEV]

Now that’s what he said. 

In other words, for Paul, the Galatians were completely ignoring the example of Abraham, you know, about how his entire relationship with God was grounded in undeserved grace and simple trust. I mean, it was grounded in unearned love and sincere belief. You see, it was grounded in God’s acceptance of Abraham and Abraham’s faith in God. Now that was the basis for God’s relationship with Abraham, and through Abraham, God’s relationship with us. But then, for some reason, the Galatians had started to assume that God’s relationship with them couldn’t be grounded in anything as undeserved and as unearned as grace and love and that their response to God couldn’t be as simple and sincere as trust and belief, in other words, when they drifted away from acceptance and faith, they were doing something they may not have even realized they were doing. In actuality, they were discounting and dismissing and disregarding what God had done in the past. You see, they were completely ignoring the story of God and Abraham. And you know, when a person ignores something, that would mean they’re being ignorant, right? And so along with being stupid, I think that’s what Paul believed the Galatians were being, and you know, he told them so.

And between you and me, I’m glad he did, because I believe we can learn from their example. You see, as Christians who are being encouraged to add a bunch of “buts” and “ifs” and “whens” to the gospel of unearned love and undeserved grace and who are being tempted to believe that, for God to accept us, we must first be acceptable, in the face of all this, we sure don’t need to be stupid and we sure don’t need to be ignorant. 

You see, right here and now, we can decide that we’re going to be smart, that we’re not going to screw up something that’s perfect just the way it is by adding a lot of stuff to it which just doesn’t belong. Instead, we’re going to remember that grace is supposed to be simple. It’s sort of like Paul wrote to the Corinthians:

We can be proud of our clear conscience. We have always lived honestly and sincerely, especially when we were with you. And we were guided by God’s gift of undeserved grace instead of by the wisdom of this world. I am not writing anything you cannot read and understand. I hope you will understand it completely, just as you already partly understand us. Then when our Lord Jesus returns, you can be as proud of us as we are of you. [2 Corinthians 1:12-14, CEV]

You see, we can remember that in spite of what the world might say and in spite of what we might even want to believe, as I mentioned last week, with God, you really can get a free lunch and when you approach him, fortunately, you don’t always get what you pay for, and as it relates to grace, and I’m talking about the undeserved gift of grace that God has given to us, I’m telling you, something free really can have enormous value. You see, this is something that we can understand. And because of that, unlike those Galatians whom Paul said were being stupid, right here and now, we can decide that we’re going to be smart. 

And trust me, in the exact same way we can also be informed. I mean, rather than choosing to be ignorant, because ignorance is always a choice, we can decide that we’re not going to rely on some nonsense that we may have been told, and I’m talking about a message that might make us feel comfortable because it fits in nicely with what we think and confirms what we want to believe. Instead, we can decide that we’re going to learn what the Bible actually says about grace and faith and our relationship with God, or maybe better, God’s relationship with us. In other words, so that we might better understand, we’re going turn to the foundation of what we believe, and I’m talking about passages like this one Paul wrote to the Romans:

God promised Abraham and his descendants that he would give them the world. This promise wasn’t made because Abraham had obeyed a law, but because his faith in God made him acceptable. If Abraham and his descendants were given this promise because they had obeyed a law, then faith would mean nothing, and the promise would be worthless.

Everything depends on having faith in God, so that God’s promise is assured by his gift of undeserved grace. This promise isn’t only for Abraham’s descendants who have the Law. It is for all who are Abraham’s descendants because they have faith, just as he did. Abraham is the ancestor of us all. The Scriptures say that Abraham would become the ancestor of many nations. This promise was made to Abraham because he had faith in God, who raises the dead to life and creates new things. [Romans 4:13-14, 16-17, CEV]

You see, from the time of Abraham to June 16, 2024, our relationship with God wasn’t and isn’t based on our ability or even willingness to obey the law, any law. And it isn’t based on us doing the right things or having the right experiences or saying the right words. Rather, as descendants of Abraham, our relationship with God is grounded on his gift of undeserved grace and our willingness to trust that everything that needs to be done has already been done. Now that’s what the Bible says; therefore, by just reading it, we can avoid the ignorance shown by the Galatians. You see, we can decide that we’re going to be informed.

And I’ll tell you, looking back, I think that was probably what my dad was getting at when he pointed out that something I had done or was doing, well, that it was stupid. I mean, ordering all those Grit newspapers that I wasn’t going to sell and buying a little alligator that I didn’t know how to raise and making a comment to a teacher that was definitely inappropriate, and all kinds of stuff I didn’t mention, I’ve got to admit, they really were both stupid and ignorant. And for Paul, that’s what the Galatians were doing when they forgot their own experience with God and the example offered by Abraham. I mean, they were being stupid and they were being ignorant. But you know what, we don’t have to follow their example. Instead, we can make the decision to be smart about our relationship with God, and we can be informed about how God related to Abraham in the past. In other words, on this Father’s Day, knowing what we know about this incredible gift of undeserved grace, man, we really don’t need anyone to say, don’t be stupid.