03 Sep Galatians 01: The only gospel

Galatians 1:1-10

Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— ² and all the brothers who are with me, To the churches of Galatia: ³ Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, ⁴ who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, ⁵ to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. ⁶ 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— ⁷ not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. ⁸ But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. ⁹ As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. 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.

The book of Galatians is about the gospel. It is about the essential message of Christianity. Galatians is a book on the gospel, expounding the gospel, articulating the gospel, pounding the gospel, not to non-Christians but to Christians. Many people wrongly assume that the gospel is for non-Christians and baby Christians. They say, “The gospel is good. But the gospel is like the milk of Christian life. Milk is good, but then you need to move on to meat.” But is that true? Not at all. The gospel is the milk, the meat, the appetizer, the dessert, it is everything in Christian life. It doesn’t matter if we have been a Christian for five minutes, five weeks, five months, or five decades, what we really need is the gospel. Whatever our issue is, the answer is the gospel. The gospel is the dynamite of God’s power. And Galatians is all about the gospel. This is the book God used to transform the lives of many great Christian heroes in the past. They thought they knew the gospel. But when they read Galatians, they realized that they did not know the gospel. And Galatians transformed their lives. And that’s my prayer for us. Many of you know about the gospel. You heard it being preached every week in this church. But you have yet to experience the gospel explosion in your life. The coin has yet to drop. My prayer is that God will use this series to help you not only know about the gospel but also experience the life-transforming power of the gospel.

More than any other book in the Bible, Galatians emphasizes the fact that we have yet to understand the gospel. Galatians tells us that when we think we know the gospel, it only shows that we don’t. When we think we know the gospel, we move on to other things. But that only proves that we don’t know the gospel. Because those who know the gospel know that we don’t move on from the gospel. There is always more to the gospel. Our role is to grow in the gospel. So, this is the irony of the gospel. If we say, “I know the gospel,” it means we don’t get the gospel. But if we say, “I only begin to understand the gospel,” we get the gospel. The problem with the churches in Galatia is that they think they already know the gospel and they move on to other things besides the gospel. And Paul sent them a letter to rebuke them.

For this sermon, I want us to be crystal clear on what the gospel is, and what the gospel is not. Sometimes one of the best ways to know what something is, is by knowing what it is not. And let me give you a heads-up. If last week’s sermon is extremely practical, this week’s sermon has zero application. But I dare to say that this is definitely one of the most important sermons you will ever hear from me. As a church, we must get the gospel right. Because if we get the gospel wrong, we get all of Christianity wrong. The word gospel means good news. And in Romans, Paul says that the gospel, the good news, is the power of God for salvation. In other words, Paul says that the gospel is not just intellectual information. The gospel is not just a set of doctrines. Paul says that the gospel is the power of God. He does not say the gospel gives access to the power of God. The gospel itself is the power of God. To know the gospel is to experience God’s power that changes life. So, if we want to experience the power of God, we must get the gospel right. The gospel is the one thing that every Christian must not get wrong. The problem is that the gospel is the one thing that many Christians get wrong.

I only have two main points for the sermon: the true gospel and the counterfeit gospel. But before we go there, we need to talk about Paul first. Apostle Paul is the author of the book of Galatians. Galatians is possibly the first letter in the Bible that Paul wrote. And Paul spent the bulk of chapters 1 and 2 defending his authority as an apostle and his gospel. Why? There is an important reason for it as we are about to see.

The authority of Paul

Galatians 1:1-2 – Paul, an apostle—not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— ² and all the brothers who are with me, To the churches of Galatia:

Right off the bat, Paul wants us to know that he is an apostle. And he is not just an ordinary apostle. Paul says that he is an apostle not from men nor through man but through Jesus Christ. In other words, Paul is saying that his authority as an apostle does not come from men but directly from Jesus Christ. What’s happening? Why did he start his letter bragging about his apostleship? What is so special about being an apostle anyway? The word apostle is a common word that is used to describe a messenger who carries the authority of the person who sent him. Today equivalent is someone who carries the power of attorney. If you have the power of attorney, it means you can act on behalf of the other person who gives you the authority. In the Bible, there are two kinds of apostles. Apostle as in the twelve disciples of Jesus who are sent directly by Jesus with Jesus’ authority to build Jesus’ church, and apostle as in someone who is sent by the church with the church’s authority to act on behalf of the church. We can think of it as Apostles with a capital letter A and apostles with a small letter a. The capital-A Apostles are those who are directly sent by Jesus. They have absolute authority. They write Scripture. They no longer exist today. What we have today are small-a apostles who are sent by the church.

Here is what happened. Paul is the one who founded the churches in Galatia. Paul taught them the gospel. But not long after Paul left to continue his missionary journey, other teachers from Jerusalem showed up at Galatia and questioned Paul’s authority. Their line of questioning went something like this. “Well, yeah Paul is a good teacher. He taught you the gospel and that is great. But Paul’s gospel is not complete. After all, he did not receive his teaching directly from Jesus. But do you know did? Jesus’ twelve apostles. And we came from them, and we are here to teach you what is lacking in your understanding of the gospel. The gospel is great, but you need more than the gospel to be saved.” And when the people in the churches of Galatia heard this, they embraced these teachers and neglected the gospel that was taught by Paul. Paul heard about what happened and he wrote them a letter. He opened his letter by saying, “My apostleship is not from men nor through man. I received my authority directly from Jesus Christ and God the Father.” In other words, Paul is saying, “What I taught you and what I will say in this letter is not something that came from men. It is not my opinion. My gospel is not my own. My gospel is the gospel of Christ. Jesus is the one who gave it to me, and he sent me to teach you his gospel in his authority.”

This is very important. Paul says that the authority he received is not from man but from Jesus. Paul got his apostleship directly from Jesus Christ. Therefore, he is not a second-rate apostle. That means when we read Paul’s letter, we are hearing Jesus speaking to us. Have you ever met Christians who differentiate between the red letters of Jesus’ words and the rest of the Bible? They think of the red letter of the Bible as somehow more holy than the rest of the New Testament. “Yeah, I know what Paul wrote in his letters, but what did Jesus say? It’s more important to know what Jesus said than what Paul said.” Have you heard that before? They created a dichotomy where there should be none. Paul’s word is Jesus’ word. So why did Paul go to such lengths to defend his authority? Because the gospel of Jesus is at stake. People are questioning Paul’s gospel and Paul is defending himself to defend the gospel. So, what is the gospel?

The true gospel

Galatians 1:3-5 – ³ Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, ⁴ who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, ⁵ to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

We are going to spend the whole series talking about this, so I’ll be brief this time. Three truths that we can see about the gospel from these verses. First, Jesus gave himself for our sins. The word ‘for’ in Greek is a word that means on behalf of. So, Jesus not only died because of our sins but Jesus died on behalf of our sins. There is a substitution that happened. Jesus did not merely give us a second chance, giving us another opportunity to get life right with God. The fact of the matter is we were helpless and lost. There was nothing we could do to save ourselves. We deserved nothing but condemnation from God. But Jesus did all we needed to do that we cannot do. And if Jesus’ death paid for our sins, we can never fall back into condemnation. Why? Because God would then be getting two payments for the same sin, which is unjust. Jesus did all we should have done, so when he becomes our saviour, we are absolutely free from condemnation. We are free in Christ.

J.D. Greear puts it this way. It’s like taking a final exam that is worth 100% of your grade and you don’t study at all because you are too busy watching Netflix. When you read the exam’s question, you know you are doomed. But then sitting right next to you is the perfect student who always gets 100 on the exam. Right before you must turn in your exam, he takes your failing answer sheet and writes his name on it. And he gives you his perfect answer sheet with your name on it. So, you end up with a perfect grade while he fails the exam for you. That’s the gospel. The gospel is not simply God forgives us of our sins, the gospel is God became our sins so that we became righteous. And we contributed nothing to our perfect grade. All we bring to the table is our failing exams, our sins. This is the only exchange Jesus will make with us. Our sins for his righteousness. That’s it. Nothing else. And the moment we make that exchange, we are fully righteous. We are not a quarter righteous or half righteous. We are 100% righteous because Jesus is 100% righteous. Therefore, God’s affection for us does not waver. God loves us today as much as he will love us a trillion years from now when we are perfect.

Second, Jesus delivered us from the present evil age. This is crucial. Jesus did not help us. He delivered us. He rescued us. We were not people who needed help. We were people who needed rescue. Let me put it this way. The gospel is not we were spiritually weak and in need of Jesus to give us a spiritual booster. The gospel is we were spiritually helpless and in need of Jesus to rescue us. And this is what separates Christianity from every other religion. The founder of every other religion is a teacher who teaches the way of salvation. But Christianity is different. Jesus is a teacher, but he is more than just a teacher. Jesus is a saviour. If you see a man drowning in the water saying, “Help! Help! Help!…” you don’t throw him a manual on how to swim. It won’t work. You need to jump into the water and rescue him. Christianity says Jesus did not come to teach us how to swim but to rescue us from drowning by throwing himself into the water. Jesus gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age. It does not mean we are no longer living in a sinful world. But it does mean that Jesus has set us free from the slavery of sin and evil. We are still living in this present evil age, but our allegiance is no longer here. We belong to another king and another kingdom. We are living in this present world with the power of the kingdom of God. So, if we are struggling with sin today, hear the good news of the gospel: Sin no longer has dominion over us. Jesus has set us free from the slavery of sins. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. We are fully forgiven of all our sins. And this is where we find the power to say no to sins. What we need to break free from sin is not greater self-discipline and more resolution. What we need is to go back to the cross of Christ and find freedom from sin and condemnation.

Third, the gospel is according to the will of God. The gospel is not man’s invention. I mean, who can come up with such content? That the God of heaven and earth would come and seek sinners and substitute himself for sinners so that sinners might become righteous and reign with God for eternity. Only God could come up with the gospel. And Paul is very clear here. God is the origin of the gospel. Everything happened according to the will of God. Our salvation was planned by God from the eternal past before we do anything good or bad. He is the one who planned and executed the gospel to perfection. And what is our role in all of this? Nothing. God is the one who did all the work. We are simply the beneficiary of his grace. And grace is given freely according to God’s will. We cannot earn grace. We can only receive grace. The only qualification we must have to become Christians is to admit we have no qualifications. Until we admit we have no qualifications, we are not qualified. The gospel is not about what we do for God but what God in Jesus has done for us. This is the humbling truth that lies at the heart of Christianity. Let’s be honest. We love to be our own saviours, don’t we? Our hearts love to manufacture glory for ourselves. But the gospel tells us that we were in such a hopeless condition that we needed a rescue that had nothing to do with us at all. And then it says that God in Jesus provided that rescue. That is why God alone gets the glory forever and ever. If we contributed to our rescue, even if it is just a tiny bit, we could pat ourselves on the back for the part we played in saving ourselves. But we can’t. Salvation is God’s doing from first to last. And so, God alone deserves all the glory for all time. Timothy Keller defines the gospel beautifully. “The gospel is this: We are more sinful and flawed in ourselves than we ever dared believe, yet at the very same time we are more loved and accepted in Jesus Christ than we ever dared hope.” This is the gospel.

The counterfeit gospel

Galatians 1:6-7 – ⁶ 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— ⁷ not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.

Every commentary I read highlights the weight of what happened in this passage. Usually, after Paul wrote his greeting, he would pray and thank God for the churches. We find this rhythm in all of Paul’s letters except Galatians. Why? Because Paul is mad. Paul is angry. But Paul isn’t simply blowing off steam. He is not writing a letter that he regrets later. That’s you and me. How many of you ever send a text message or email that you regret later? That’s what we do when we are angry. Praise God WhatsApp understands our problem and allows us to delete the messages we send. “This message was deleted.” There was one time someone was angry at me and sent me a long message. I peeked at the message and saw a lot of curse words in it. But I didn’t open it. Later I opened the message, and the message was already deleted. So, I asked innocently, “What was the deleted message?” And the person replied, “I was just asking for a book recommendation, but I changed my mind.” Smooth. Not so with Paul. Paul is upset and he does not regret what he wrote. He is not defending himself but the gospel.

Paul is astonished that the churches in Galatia are so quickly deserting Paul’s gospel. The word deserting is a strong word that means to transfer one’s allegiance. So, it’s like this. I am a big fan of Manchester United. I watched every single one of their games. It does not matter if they are doing good or bad, I am with them. They are my team. If they win, I win. If they lose, I lose. They have my allegiance. But let’s say one day I show up at church wearing a Liverpool jersey. And not only wear a Liverpool jersey but I preach with a Liverpool jersey. There are only two possible explanations. Either I have lost my mind and switched allegiance, or I lost a bet. And this is why Paul is astonished at the churches in Galatia. “What happened to you? The last time I saw you, you were a big fan of the gospel of Christ. You gave your allegiance to Jesus. You were all in for the gospel. You were wearing the gospel jersey. But what on earth are you wearing right now? You are wearing an “L” jersey? L for Liverpool, law, legalism, licentiousness, everything that is wrong. Seriously, what have you done?”

Let me tell you what happened. Not long after Paul left Galatia, a group of teachers came from Jerusalem and taught that the gospel alone was not enough. This is what they teach. Acts 15:1 – But some men came down from Judea and were teaching the brothers, “Unless you are circumcised according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.” Paul says that what they are teaching is not gospel. There is only one gospel and that is the one that Paul teaches. And any variation of that gospel is no gospel at all. It is counterfeit. The gospel says that everything we need for salvation has been done by Jesus. It is finished. Jesus did all the work and all we need to do is receive by faith. But the counterfeit gospel says that the gospel alone is not enough. And let me be clear on this. What the counterfeit gospel teaches is not to take anything away from the gospel but to add to the gospel. It is not trying to remove from the truth of the gospel. It is trying to add to the truth of the gospel. What the counterfeit gospel teaches is, “Yes, the gospel is awesome. The gospel is good. But you also need other things besides the gospel to be saved. You need to be circumcised.” Why circumcision? Because circumcision is an external sign of God’s people in the Old Testament. It is a symbol of obedience to the law of Moses. In other words, the counterfeit gospel says that to be saved, we need the gospel, but we also need to obey God’s commandments. These teachers say we need to update our gospel with the latest update. It’s like the apps on our phones. Every now and then, the developer will make an update to fix the bug and the coding etc. They say we need to have an updated gospel.

If I can put in a formula, counterfeit gospel looks like this: “Salvation = faith + obedience.” Some of you might think, “Wait. What is wrong with that formula? It looks legit to me.” There is one big problem with this formula. The moment we add anything to the perfect work of Christ, it is no longer perfect. In fact, it destroys the perfect work of Christ. Galatians 2:21 – I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose. If there is anything we can do to earn our salvation, then Christ died for no purpose. In other words, Paul says we never need to update the gospel because God got it right the first time. Updating the gospel does not make the gospel better but destroys the gospel. Let me illustrate it for you. Look at the picture of this painting. For those of you who love art, you know what this painting is. For those of you who don’t understand art like me, it looks like a picture that my niece draws when she is bored. This is one of Picasso’s masterpieces called “Les femmes d’Alger.” It is the most expensive work of art. It was sold for USD 179.4 million in 2015. Let’s say this painting comes to my possession. I stare at this painting for a while, and I realize that I can make the painting look better and sell it for more money. I can add a few strokes of colour to make this painting look more alive than before. So, I add a few of my brilliant strokes to Picasso’s masterpiece and I try to sell it at an auction. The painter is now not Picasso but Piccayos, Picasso + Yosi. How much do you think the painting is worth? I am lucky if I can sell it for $100. Why? Because by adding a few strokes of my own, by updating the painting, I destroyed Picasso’s work. This is what Paul is saying. If we add just a bit of our work to Jesus’ perfect work, if we accept even just one small addition to the gospel, then Christ’s death is meaningless. It is either, Jesus plus nothing equals everything, or Jesus plus anything ruins everything.

Now go back to Galatians 1:6-7 – ⁶ 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— ⁷ not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. This is why Paul says that when we turn from the gospel, we are not only turning from a set of beliefs; we are deserting him, a person. Listen. When we turn to a different gospel, we are deserting God. To turn from the gospel of grace is to reject the God of grace. This is no small matter. Paul then continues to say that these teachers distort the gospel of Christ. The word distort means to reverse, to turn it upside down. And this is exactly what happens. Let me show you the difference between the true gospel and the counterfeit gospel. The true gospel is: “Faith = salvation + obedience.” It means that when we put our faith in Jesus, the result is that we receive salvation, and we produce obedience in our lives. Therefore, obedience matters. But we need to put obedience in the right place. Obedience is the result of faith and not a condition of salvation. In other words, we are accepted first and then we obey. But the counterfeit gospel reverses the order. The counterfeit gospel is: “Salvation = faith + obedience.” Can you see the difference? The counterfeit gospel says we need to obey God first before we are accepted by God.

So, we can either say, “I have received the grace of God and therefore I obey God,” or we can say, “I’ve obeyed God and therefore I receive the grace of God.” The difference is in the order. Which is the cause, and which is the effect? And this is everything in Christianity. To distort the gospel is to change the order. And when we distort the order, we are rejecting God. Because only in the gospel we can have a genuine personal relationship with God. Let me explain. If we believe that we are saved by grace through faith alone, that the God of the universe humbled himself and became a man and lived the perfect life and died the death of agony at the cross for us, not because we were good but because he loved us, that’s beauty. It melts our hearts. We then love God for God. But if we believe that God will save us as long as we are good enough, in other words, God doesn’t love us for us but for what we are doing for him, we won’t love God for God. We will only love God for what he is doing for us. We do not obey God because we love him but to get something from him. Our relationship with God is transactional. That’s why to get the gospel wrong is not simply getting prepositions wrong; it is to reject God himself. And I believe this is the church’s greatest problem. The church’s greatest problem is not those outside the church who oppose the gospel but those inside the church who distort the gospel. Look at what Paul says next.

Galatians 1:8-9 – ⁸ But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. ⁹ As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

This is a very strong word. Paul says that if anyone preaches a gospel that is different from the one Paul preached, let him be accursed. The word accursed is the Greek word “anathema” which means cursed by God and devoted to destruction. So, Paul is saying, “If another teacher comes and preaches a different gospel, that teacher is cursed by God. If one of Jesus’s twelve apostles, Peter, John, or James comes and preaches a different gospel, he is cursed by God. If an angel shows up and preaches a different gospel…” Now, think about it. It is not a human who shows up; it is an angel from heaven. What will you do if an angel shows up in our church service and says that the gospel that we believe is wrong? Paul says, “If an angel shows up and preaches a different gospel, that angel is cursed by God.” And Paul does not stop there. Paul also includes himself on the list. He says, “If I come to you and say that the gospel that I preached was incomplete and now after many years of study I have a better more complete version of the gospel, Gospel 2.0…” Can we agree that it is normal for someone to change and add to their teaching? For example, I preached this same passage in 2020. But I changed at least 25% of the content for this sermon. But Paul says, “If I do that, if I come to you in the future with an updated gospel, do not listen to me. I am cursed by God.” Wow. The Galatians must have thought, “Paul, that is a very strong word you just wrote. Are you sure you mean it?” And Paul does not want to leave them in doubt that he meant everything he just wrote. So, he repeats himself in verse 9 to make a point. “If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.”

Let me put it in our context for you. If there is a miracle worker who raises someone from death but he preaches a different gospel, if there is someone who performs signs and wonders but he preaches a different gospel, if there is a professor of theology but he preaches a different gospel, if there is a megachurch pastor who has tens of thousands of people in his church but he preaches a different gospel, if there is a TV preacher who is on air every day but he preaches a different gospel, and even if I as your pastor preach a different gospel, let us be accursed. Do not listen to us. Listen. It is not the messenger of the gospel that validates the message; it is the message of the gospel that validates the messenger. Paul’s gospel is the only gospel not because Paul is the one who preached it but because it is the only gospel given by Christ. Paul’s gospel is the only gospel because it is Christ’s gospel.

Why does Paul put so much weight on us having the true gospel? Two reasons. First, the glory of Christ is at stake. We talked about this earlier. The moment we tamper with the gospel, Christ’s death is meaningless. If there is anything we can add, remove, or change to the finished work of Jesus, then Jesus died for no purpose. Second, our salvation is at stake. If the gospel is the power of God for salvation, then to distort the gospel is to take away the very power of God for our salvation. Martin Luther puts it this way. “There is no middle ground between Christian righteousness and works-righteousness. There is no other alternative to Christian righteousness but works righteousness; if you do not build your confidence on the work of Christ you must build your confidence on your own work.” To change the gospel even the tiniest bit is to lose it so completely that the new teaching has no right to be called a gospel. There are a lot of different things in church that we can have a different view on. For example, the mode of baptism. We can disagree on the way we practice baptism, and our disagreement might lead us to go to different churches. But we are still brothers and sisters in Christ. However, when it comes to the gospel, we cannot have a different view. There is only one gospel. Any other gospel is no gospel. If we distort the gospel, we destroy Christianity. It’s like this. Let’s say that I give you my debit card. You can use all the money in my bank account freely. Don’t get too excited. This is just an illustration. So, you take my debit card and I tell you that the PIN to my debit card is 1234. But you say, “I don’t like that PIN. It’s too easy. I like 1235 better. So, I am going to use 1235.” So, you go shopping with my debit card and you enter 1235. What will happen? It will be declined. You can enter 1235 all you want but you will never access my money that way. If you want my money, you must enter 1234. If we want to experience the power of God for salvation, we cannot tamper with the gospel. The only access to the power of the gospel is by faith in Christ alone.

Paul concludes by saying, 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. Life would be a lot easier for Paul if he tampered with the gospel for the sake of getting along with other people. But Paul would not do that. He would rather offend people for the sake of the gospel. Why? Because Paul is the servant of Christ. He is not trying to please people but the one he is trying to please is Christ. And this is the way we should think about the gospel. Listen. Every day we open our eyes in the morning, we are given a choice. Who will we live for? We must live to please someone. We have to be servants of someone. Who is it? Is it ourselves? Is it others? Or is it Christ? Here is the rule of thumb. If everyone loves us, we are not living for Christ. Because if we are trying to please Christ, we will have haters. Sometimes pleasing Christ will please others. But sometimes it won’t, and it will hurt us. But whose pleasure do we seek? Are we bold enough to tell people that there is only one gospel? Or are we still trying to please people by keeping the gospel to ourselves? The question is not, will we offend someone? We must offend someone. The question is, who will we offend? Jesus? Or others? It is so much easier to tolerate those who preach a different gospel for the sake of getting along. But if we do that, we are not trying to please Christ but people. But we are servants of Christ, and we believe that the gospel alone is the power of God for salvation. Therefore, we rather lose the approval of people around us than lose the power of God that saves us.

But how can we do that? How can we break free from the desire to seek people’s approval? There is only one way: we must see the beauty of the gospel. The gospel tells us that we already have God’s full and complete approval. God is already pleased with us, and we don’t have to prove ourselves. How? Because of what Jesus has done for us at the cross. Jesus is the beloved Son of God in whom God is fully pleased. But at the cross, Jesus lost God’s approval. God turned his face away from Jesus and Jesus experienced cosmic disapproval. Why did God do it? Because Jesus took what we deserved and paid for it. Jesus experienced God’s total disapproval of our sins so that when we put our faith in Jesus, we can hear God say to us, “With you, I am well pleased.” And if we already have the complete approval of the God of the universe, we no longer need to seek the approval of others. We no longer need to please people because we already have the affirmation, attention, and affection of the God of the universe. And now we obey God not because we desire his love and approval. We obey God because we already have his love and approval, and it makes us want to live in a way that pleases him. This is the gospel. The question is, have you seen the beauty of the gospel? Let’s pray.

Discussion questions:

1. What struck you the most from this sermon?
2. Why did Paul defend his apostleship? What does it say about Paul’s gospel?
3. Look at the three truths of the true gospel. Which one resonates the most with you and why?
4. Explain why the counterfeit gospel is extremely appealing and dangerous at the same time.
5. How does the gospel set us free from seeking other’s approval?