“It’s Not Complicated”

A Sermon Based Upon Galatians 1: 6-24, NRSV

By Rev. Dr. Charles J. Tomlin, DMin.  

Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership

Pentecost 7, July 12^th, 2015

Have you ever been angry?   When Teresa and I were first married, we had to adjust to being married.  We were both ‘firstborns, which means we were stubborn and strong-willed.   We still are.   The test of the blending of our wills came as I was ‘stupidly’ insistent that Teresa follow the role of being  like my mother.   That was my first bad mistake.  

During this transition period we were picking on each other and old a cold spring day, as I went outside with table scraps, Teresa locked the door on me.   She was just playing, but I was getting cold.  It hurt my pride.  I demanded she opened the door.  She just stood there, laughing.  I said, “Open the door or I’ll open it!”  I meant that I’d put my hand through the glass.  She laughed and said, “You won’t do that!  I did that and I fixed it too.

That’s anger.  That’s passion.  It can take us right to the edge.   In our text today, Paul’s passion for the gospel and anger at those who would try to ‘pervert’ or ‘preach’ another gospel that is ‘contrary’ to the gospel, infuriates Paul and takes him to the edge (1:7). Similar to what I felt when my (ideas of) manhood were being threatened, Paul’s upset because the ‘revealed’ gospel is now being manipulated and perverted.   He has given his life for this gospel and he’s willing to give his life to keep it the gospel the gospel ‘revealed’ to him.     

How do we keep the gospel the gospel?   I love the wonderful punch-line of an popular advertisement that shows children helping an adult understand how ‘simple’ everything should be.  “It’s not complicated!”   It’s pure genius because most everything in our lives seems to be getting more, and more complicated.     We are supposed to live in a ‘paperless’ society, but the truth is you still need paper and now you have to print your own.   We are supposed have technology to improve our work lives, but we keep getting more and more information that we must decide upon and need more technology to do that same work.   The idea of “It’s not complicated” can become, well, a lot more complicated.

In Paul’s day there were those who wanted to ‘complicate’ the gospel too.   Last week we began our summer conversation about freedom talking about our human tendency to ‘enslave’ others and to do things that enslave ourselves.   Today we are going to understand how losing freedom is seldom our intention, but ironically, the more we try to preserve 'our" freedom, the more we are likely to pervert it rather than preserve it.   By adding things to the gospel, we end up less free, or not free at all.

PERVERTING FREEDOM

Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia begins with very serious charges.   He accuses the Galatian Christians of ‘deserting’  and ‘turning to a different gospel’ (1: 6), which is really no gospel at all.   Paul is specifically referring to those who would ‘turn back’ the clock on God’s grace, going back to salvation as it was before, by law and legalism rather than salvation by grace.

Before we too, in this sin-filled world, are motivated to renege on grace we need to understand what the ‘gospel of grace’ meant and still means.   For Paul it meant that he was a Jew who followed the laws of Israel, but it did not make him do good things.   For all Jews, it meant that they had been given the law of Moses, but like Peter, they are sinners anyway and were unable to perfectly follow it.  For us Gentiles, grace means that we are sinners too, even without having had the law to tell us we are.   We are sinners because the law is written in our hearts, even if it is not in our traditions.   Paul’s point is that we all need God’s grace, just like we also needs laws.   But even if we need laws to live, it is only God’s love and grace that can truely set us ‘free’ from sin.

In the wonderful story about the horse named Seabiscuit we have a story about grace.   During the Great Depression a horse whose racing days should have been over, was given another chance by a special jockey who saw something redeemable in that horse.  Giving grace to the horse changed that Jockey’s life too.   The whole story of the underdog, or underhorse, is a powerful story of a second chance.  This is what God’s grace means.  It is God’s way of giving humans a chance to be redeemed, not by by living a life of rules, but by living a life that matters, that loves and learns to live by faith.   

But God’s grace is appropriated into our minds and hearts through a relationship with God, which begins as we receive God’s love and respond by loving God in return, as we also learn to love others.   We do this in faith, believing that God has saved us, not through fear  but by faith.  In Jesus Christ, salvation begins with faith and ends with faith, because God’s love and grace is all we can ultimately depend upon.   As Martin Luther discovered in a thunder storm when lightening nearly killed him; everything in our lives depends on God.  Luther learned in that moment that God calls us to do good because God’s loves us, not because God is out to get us.   This took him back to the truth in the Bible that humans and church people can too easily forget:  A life worth living is lived out of love, devotion and grace, not out of fear and frustration and burdening demands.  

The alternative to ‘salvation by grace through faith’ is ‘works salvation’.   Good works are very much a part of living a life of faith,  but ‘salvation’ by good works is a ‘perversion’ of ‘salvation by grace' not because of the presence of works but because of the absence of grace.   Grace is the grease that allows the wheel of faith to keep turning out good works through us, which comes from faith and not by fear.    The ‘other gospel’ the Galatians were falling back to not only laced grace, but became a‘human boasting’’ that tried to restrict God’s salvation, rather than release God’s salvation into the world, making it all human effort rather than  a result of divine love and grace.

The  problem some "false missionaries" had with grace was that they could not let God be God.   They would not allow that God would do anything new (which the prophets said he could do).    It was a reneging on moving forward with God by a stubborn selfish will that prided itself by resting in the past rather than moving into the future.    Like I was when I got married,  not wanting  to move forward in my marriage, and demanding that my relationship with my wife to be like the relationship with my mother.  What I needed to do, was get smarter and move on.   My mother was not being negated, but having a good relationship with my wife needed to be elevated, so I could get on with this new way of life.   In the same way,  though God once required salvation through circumcision and keeping of the Mosaic law for Israel, God is moving in a new way.  By and through God’s actions in Jesus, God has made a way of salvation for more people.   Is God changing?   No,  God isn’t changing in his being or nature, but God is extending and enlarging his way of saving.   Now, by grace, God is making salvation big enough reach around the whole world through ‘faith’ and ‘grace’ in ways that were limited by ‘law’ or ‘works’.  

On the basis of salvation ‘by grace through faith’ God is showing that he is God and that he is free to save more (and anyone) through faith, apart from the works of the law, through the saving work of Jesus Christ.   Jesus has become the basis, the inspiration, and the foundation cornerstone of everything God is doing to save.   If you add anything to Jesus, or take away from Jesus, you are ‘perverting’ the faith, says Paul.   Jesus should be enough for us, because Jesus is enough for God.   Salvation is no more complicated than this.

PRESERVING FREEDOM

God does all the saving through Jesus.   While this does not mean the law is negated, it does mean that the law is now subjugated and it has been superseded through the faith, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.   Now, that God has  ‘finished’ his saving work through Jesus, we are to no longer work for salvation, but are only to ‘work it out’ into our lives.    But is this too easy?    

We need to recall at another place in Scripture where Paul says we ‘work out our own salvation with ‘fear and trembling’  (Phil 2.12).    Because salvation by faith is bigger, broader, larger and greater than salvation by works, it can be simpler, but it can be even more challenging, engaging and rewarding for us.    When you make such a dramatic move, it can be earth-shaking and it can be life-changing and isn't that point?    Just following laws and rules change teach us about sin, about right and wrong, but it doesn’t cause us to want or desire to do right.  Following rules does not mean that the love of God has gotten into our hearts.  

So, now we’ve come to another issue about freedom.   We not only need to protect the gospel from perversion, we must have the kind of love and grace in us that preserves the truth of the gospel in the world.  This is where the gospel gets personal.    This ‘faith in Jesus that saves’  did something in Paul that the law never did for him---it changed his heart and redirected his life.    Three words say it all,   “BUT WHEN GOD….”  (1:15)   When salvation is a work of God in you rather than just a work you do for God, then salvation is preserved the power of God set loose in you.    You don’t have to add things to make your looked saved on the outside, because it is evident in you that you are being saved from the inside out!  God is at work in you and this is how faith is preserved.

From the very beginning,  our new contemporary Church in Yadkin County has been questioned and even rejected by certain "church" folk who keep insisting on certain ‘requirements’ to be a true church.   Some want a cross on the wall.   Others want an invitation like a Baptist service.   Still there are those who want them to preach and say certain words or sing certain songs or play certain music.   I recall very specifically, how one fellow was adamant that the church ought to have a cross on a wall, but he said nothing about carrying a cross in real life.   I recall a time when it was not good to have a cross on the wall, because it made you look Catholic.   I’m glad we don’t worry about that today, but I wished we cared even more about bearing the cross in our lives, and even bearing it for our brothers and sisters in the world and in the church.   

Somehow, we can still miss the point that goes all the back to those who resisted the gospel in Paul’s day.   As a wise old Baptist minister once told me during the days of Pentecostal renewal.   “The gift of the Spirit is not how high you can jump, but it’s how you walk when you hit the ground.”  In other words,  the spiritual life is about the life we live for Jesus and for others.  How we come to discover that life may differ, but the way we are to live for Christ is what preserves and protects true faith.  As Paul’s life changed, from having a religion of law and hate to grabbing hold to a religion of love and grace, that is still the only way the freedom of grace will be preserved.

PROCLAIMING FAITH

“We must not pervert the gospel of Christ”  (1.7) and we preserve this faith by letting faith change us.   But now we come to one final, very big question   Is having faith in Jesus really big enough to save the whole world?   Can we actually let go of a religion of rules, laws, and trust the Spirit to freely lead us to have salvation through grace?   Is Jesus and the gospel big enough to save us from ourselves and is it big enough to save everybody who still needs saving?

Paul reminds us again and again that he believes God’s grace is ‘big enough’.  It is big enough because ‘it is not of human origin’  (1.11) and it is ‘a revelation of Jesus Christ’.   It is big enough because he is ‘proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy’ (1.23) and now the very people he tried to kill are the people who are now ‘glorifying God’ (1.24) because of the grace that came to  him.   This was reason enough for Paul to believe in Jesus, but is this still reason enough for us?   Does what God is doing in us give us reason to believe this message of grace is still enough today?

Today there are many, many options for human salvation, or for distractions that might cause us to deny the importance of receiving God's grace.    Too many human ‘distractions’ have much more influence and draw much more attention than Jesus, don’t they?   I mean, look at what little power Christianity has in the Middle East these days.   I watched a 60 Minute News special interview where Orthodox and Catholic Christians, who used to be in the thousands in Iraq,  are now being forced to leave.  The past mistakes of many western nations has attributed to practically eradicating Christianity from  the Middle East,  but it may be that a weak Christian witness has put the final nail in the coffin.     

My point here is not to get political, but to wax philosophical.   What power does ‘grace’ have over this monstrous radical Islam that still elevates ‘law’ over ‘grace’,  which has largely been built out of the common Islamic notion that Jesus was good, but was not enough?  With this very big problem of an angry radical Islam before our world,  we can understand how Muslims believe Jesus is not enough, but do we?    Do we really trust in God’s grace and follow a faith we believe is for the whole world?    Do we trust this message of grace through faith as our own way, our own truth, and with our own life?   I’m reminded of what a German TV announcer once asked in a book:  Did Jesus Fail?   He spoke of how gentle, caring, compassionate and graceful Jesus was, compared to what we often see in the world.  Then, he made this statement.   He said:  “Some people say that Jesus tried to save the world and failed.   But I say something different.   I say that Jesus gave his all and we failed to take his message seriously enough.  Do we dare try this way of grace in the Sermon on the Mount, or the the way of grace at the cross,  which preaches a faith based solely on God's love and grace?   Has Jesus been tried and found wanting, or has Jesus ever really been tried?”

When I was in college, when we got tired and weary with learning, we would beg our professor, Dr. Van Murell to tell his parachute joke.  Dr. Murell was a wonderful teacher and scholar, but he couldn't tell a joke.  It was not that he couldn't remember it, but he had no correct tone of  voice, and he would laugh before he got to the punch line.  It was so funny to watch him try to be funny, that the joke was never as funny as he was, and we loved it.  It gave us a moment of grace from a teacher that expected your best, and that made us all nervous and tired.   

When got to the joke, he'd tell us how a man fell off a cliff high above a lake, was hanging on a limb for dear life, and then was heard praying for God to come to his rescue.  Someone came by, heard his prayer for help and offered him a ladder, but he refused, saying that as a man of prayer  he was waiting on God.  Then, a helicopter came by, but he waved it on with the same response.  Then a motorboat came under him, asking him to let go and they would pull him out of the water below, but he persisted in his belief that that God would still come. Still another person came and offered to throw him a parachute, so he could float down to safety.  At that point, Dr. Murell would say that this fellow was like a lot of us, praying but not studying hard enough to be saved from the upcoming test.  He would let out a laugh, but we would stop laughing in that moment.  Finally, his laughter would make us relax and he'd tell us how this fellow finally fell and died.  But when he got to heaven, he went to God to complain: "God why didn't you come to save me?  "We'll" God said, "I tried to save you.  I sent you a ladder, a helicopter, and a motorboat, and even a parachute?  Dr. Murrell would keep laughing at his joke, he'd told hundreds of times, and we'd laugh at him laughing because it was a moment of grace for us.

How do we know whether or not Paul is right to say that ‘the truth of the gospel’ (2:5) is the only gospel truth we need to trust change our lives and to save this world?   How can we prove it?  The truth is we can’t—we can’t sincerely preach it, proclaim it nor witness to it, unless we let go to trust and follow this one who lived and taught us everything we need to know about God's grace.  The only real way to protect and preserve this kind of faith is to trust it enough to fall into it.  Only when we trust in God’s grace with every bit of our lives, will we be able to proclaim the truth of THIS GOSPEL (1.15).  

Paul ‘stands firm’ on this gospel because it saved and changed him.   Grace isn't complicated because it either means everything or it means nothing.   In this very moment, through some very normal ways, God is sending his amazing grace to you.   Will you accept the ladder, the helicopter, the motorboat or the parachute?  It's not complicated, but you still have to let go!  Amen.