Series Title

The movie, Braveheart, tells the story of William Wallace, the great rogue Scottish patriot who led the clans in a revolt against the English. Fueled by his love of country, Wallace organized and inspired simple men to stand up against the powerful English army.

The defining moment in the movie comes as Wallace sits atop a mighty steed, sword in hand, face slicked with war paint and sweat, the English army behind him in the distance, his own band of brothers before him. Sensing the fear and trepidation among his feeble ranks, Wallace launches into a frothing, passion soaked speech.

“They can take our land”, he cried. “They can take our homes, villages, they can take our families, but they’ll never take our freedom!” With that he thrusts his sword in the air and all his men shout and cheer, and fly into battle.

The English soundly thump the Scots. Wallace’s men suffer enormous casualties, and the clan alliance begins to crumble. Soon, Wallace himself is taken prisoner by the English and cruelly executed. The crusade for Scotland ’s freedom is, for the time being, halted.

Humans hunger to be free—to truly live. Freedom is perhaps our deepest longing. While at the same time it can seem hopelessly elusive. Man has concocted hundreds of freedom-motivated schemes in order to satisfy the longing for freedom. In the name freedom, nations have killed one another in war. Humanity has turned to the financial world in hope that money can bring freedom. We have tossed aside restraint and discipline in the hope that liberalism will make us free.

After all is said and done, however, every human attempt to secure freedom ends in death—physical, emotional, or spiritual. Freedom, says Eugene Peterson, “has become barnacle encrusted…sluggish and impotent” because it has been used by people who want to sell it as a commodity for profit. [ii]

Freedom in this day and age, though still a deep longing, crashes on the rocks of day-to-day life. Bills, sickness, work pressure, depression dull the notion of freedom sometimes to the point of cynicism.

Freedom, as our culture tends to understand it, is a human initiative—we can attain it through hard work, struggle. But what the Bible tells us—and what Galatians tells us—is that Freedom is a gift of God. Freedom is divine. The Bible teaches that everything good comes from God. Freedom is good; therefore, freedom is of God. What Galatians tells us is that freedom—true freedom—is found in Jesus Christ. Encountering the risen Christ leads us to freedom, life.

As far back as the NT time, Christians have struggled to live, as Jesus wants them to live: as free, grace saved, Spirit led people.

God has used Galatians through the centuries to “restore vigor and passion to the life of (Christians) and to confront the world with the realities of a free life in Christ, a life that is free for all: given freely to all of us, making all who receive it free; enabling us to live freely in relation to God and others.” [iii] Therefore, the book of Galatians has been called the freedom letter.

For the next nine weeks, we are going to walk through the book of Galatians together. We’re going to seek God’s direction and grace to help us become freer.

It used to be that the messages of God were reserved for the Jewish people. Jewish law centered on God’s way for the Jewish people. However, just before Jesus went into heaven, he told his closest followers to make disciples of “all nations" Matthew 28).

A little while later, the Holy Spirit came and empowered them to spread the message of the Gospel to all people, all languages, Jew and Gentile (anyone not a Jew).

Now that the message of Jesus was for all people, the disciples (Paul included) began taking the message of the Gospel to the wide world.

Paul had spent time in

Galatia

preaching and teaching and converting the Galatian people to Christianity. Churches were born, and people began journeying as followers of Christ. However, after Paul left the region, false teachers from within the ranks of the church began filling the new believers’ minds with all sorts of junk.

These false teachers were known as Judaizers. Judaizers were Jews that thought that the gospel wasn’t enough to be saved. They taught that although Jesus was important he wasn’t all that was required. They taught a certain type of legalism that suggested that to be saved you needed Jesus PLUS Jewish law. If you really wanted to be accepted by God, you had to practice all sorts of Jewish customs and observe Jewish law as well. Jesus PLUS circumcision, Jesus PLUS observation of Jewish food laws, Jesus PLUS Jewish citizenship. If you did these things, AND had Jesus, then you were truly saved

Paul caught wind of this and became irate! So he sits down at his writing desk and fires off the letter we read here today, the Book of Galatians. The book of Galatians is Paul’s passionate response to the false teaching—the heresy-- that was going on in the Galatian church at the hands of these Judaizers.

Paul had taught the Galatian churches about freedom, about how to live as free people. He taught them the Gospel message, the message that the only way man can be made right before God is by believing in Jesus Christ, and the event of the cross. And that the only way man is able to obey God and live a holy life is through the power of the Holy Spirit.

We’re going to spend a lot of time over the next couple of months talking about the Gospel, so it is very important that we have a clear understanding of just what the Gospel is.

“The Gospel is the incredibly good news that the only way a person can get right with God is through the cross. By the cross we mean that great historical event where the Son of God in human flesh, Jesus, died for our sins and rose again from the dead. The only way a person can get right with God is by putting their faith in the Jesus who died on the cross and rose again from the dead.

…And once being made right with God through the cross, the only way a person can live a holy life and obey God is through the Holy Spirit which Jesus has poured into our hearts the moment we become a Christian.

This is what was under attack among the young Galatian churches. This is what Paul is so jealous to preserve in Galatians.

This “different gospel…is really no gospel at all”(1:6-7), Paul says. Because anything added to the Cross and Spirit—the only two ingredients for freedom—promotes bondage! So he says, “don’t you see that this foolish teaching, this false doctrine that they call ‘gospel’ is no gospel at all? This idea suggests you’re bound, burdened, rule driven!”(Paraphrase mine) The cross and the Spirit are it. By the Cross and through the Holy Spirit you are free, nothing more, nothing less.

What gave Paul the authority to challenge these Judaizers? What could he have that would shake the Galatian church into realizing they were being fooled? What authority did Paul have that we read his message today? Look at the first paragraph chapter one. There are three “windows into Paul’s experience that launched him into a life of freedom”[v]

Paul identifies himself as an apostle. It is who he is. To be an apostle is to have experienced the risen Jesus. It is to have been invited by Jesus to join him in the spreading of the Gospel message. It is an identity. Everything Paul did and said came as a result of him being with Christ and sent out by Christ.

If being an apostle of Christ is to have experienced Christ, then one could not boast anything good they had done to earn the title. Jesus transformed Paul, not because he served a lot, read his Bible a lot, worked 18 hours a day. Paul didn’t earn the title apostle; he became it because of Jesus’ grace on his life.

This also happens to be one of the details he’s trying to debunk in the Galatian letter. The Judaizers were trying to convince the believers that you could earn God’s favor. Paul was saying that favor with God comes through the grace of Jesus, which is out of an experience of Jesus’ mercy.

What this means simply is that Paul didn’t inherit God’s favor. It didn’t fall to him because of his Jewish heritage or political savvy.

Another myth that the Judaizers were trying to spread, that favor with God comes because you’re Jewish. True, the Jewish people were God’s chosen people. But through person and work of Jesus Christ, and his cross, God’s grace was made available to all people.

Paul’s identity tells us something very important about how we get freedom: We get freedom not from culture, but from forgiveness of sin (grace), creation, and redemption. We are free only because of Jesus Christ through our choice to follow him.

The Judaizer’s heresy made individualism of utmost importance. If you were to gain God’s favor by following all the rules, you’d have to do it alone. This was about your own individual pursuit; you didn’t need anyone.

Paul lived free in community. Sometimes when we read Paul’s letters we get the impression that he is a lonely, isolated, condescending spiritual giant who fired off angry letters when someone ticked him off! Truth is, Paul lived out his freedom within the context of a community. He is free with them. He is one of them. It has been said, “except for Jesus, Paul was the most original and creative individual to live in the first century, and yet he was deeply and humble involved in a nurturing community of persons.”[vi]

In other words, Paul understood church. He understood the essential role that a local church played in nurturing freedom in Christ. The Judaizers threatened to turn the Galatian church into a prison with their rules. Paul ached over that because of the free community he’s always known with “the brothers”.

We never develop the freedom of maturity and wholeness and strength on our own, but always through the shared life of others in the faith.

These are what gave Paul the authority to write to the Galatian churches and plead with them to flee from the heretics messing with their heads! Paul knew the sweet smell of freedom, true freedom, freedom because he experienced Jesus.

I’m notorious for over-packing. When we go on trips, I’m the one with the heaviest bag. When we unpacked our suitcases after our holiday, I put a third of the things back in the drawer or closet because they never got worn. I always think to myself, “next time, Shaun, you’re going to take less stuff!” Or, “You didn’t need nearly this many things.”

The letter to the Galatians is Paul’s way of pleading with the Galatian church that they don’t need all the stuff that they were being told they needed. That if they stuck to the Cross and the Spirit, they’d be free.

I have struggled to find an adequate title for this series on Galatians. I like catchy, memorable titles, ones that are original that will come to mind later. I thought of none. But I found one that fits perfectly: Traveling Light. Traveling Light happens to be the title of Eugene Peterson’s book on Galatians. Travel light is what Paul is urging the Galatians to do. It is not Jesus PLUS all the other stuff. It is Jesus only.

I’m wondering if there is any among you this morning who are baffled by the concept of freedom in Christ. Any who might look around at their life, or their church, and think, “freedom, yeah right. Have you seen my life?”

I know that we can be unburdened, freed to live the life that Jesus longs for us to live: free, grace oriented, Spirit filled. Over the next few weeks, and indeed, the next few months (through James, Advent, and James again), it is my prayer that we learn what it means to truly live as free people. People saved by the cross, alive by the Holy Spirit; a people traveling light.

Series Bibliography

Coming back to the Heart of the Gospel (Galatians) ( North Shore Alliance Church , North Vancouver , September 29, 2001 ).

CRUX: Coming back to the Heart of the Gospel (Galatians) ( North Shore Alliance Church , North Vancouver , October 06, 2001 ).

Sermon Notes (18.08.02)

[i] “Traveling Light” is the title of Eugene Peterson’s book on the Galatian letter (see series bibliography). After trying, perhaps too hard, to come up with a catchy, memorable and original title for this series on Galatians, I came to the conclusion that Peterson’s title was the best, so I borrowed it. I think that “traveling light” was what Paul was about, and what he hoped for the Galatian church and, indeed, the church today.

[ii] Peterson, 12

[iii] Ibid 13, parenthesis added

[iv]Buhler, “Only One Gospel”

[v]Peterson, 26.

[vi]Ibid 27

Welcome to Galatia

August 18, 2002

Series Bibliography

Sermon Notes (18.08.02)