Pastors Notes 27 November 2011
Last Sunday, we concluded our series on Galatians. The Apostle Paul made clear to us the Good News of Jesus Christ. We saw that we are a church in Christ (Gal 1:22). In Christ there is freedom (Gal 2:4) - our sins have been forgiven. We are accepted by God. We are no longer under the sentence of death. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, loves us and gave himself for our sins (Gal 1:4, Gal 2:20). We are no longer slaves to the power of sin, but we are children of God (Gal 4:7). We are free from the penalty and the guilt of sin (Gal 2:16; Gal 5:4). In Christ the Spirit of our Lord Jesus Christ lives in our hearts (Gal 2:20; Gal 4:6). Because we God’s children, we have received the promise of the Spirit (Gal 3:14). We are children of the Holy Spirit. We are to live by the Spirit (Gal 5:25).We are born again by the power of the Spirit (Gal 4:28) We are a new creation in Christ (Gal 6:15). We are born again as the result of a divine promise (Gal 4:23). We are children of divine promise (Gal 4:23, Gal 4:28). We who live by the Spirit are called to enjoy the freedom we have in Christ and live for God (Gal 2:19; Gal 5:13). Our Lord Jesus Christ rescued us from this present evil age (Gal 1:4). We are free to run a good race (Gal 5:7) – free to allow Christ to be formed in us (Gal 4:19). We are Christ people. We are to carry each others burdens when they are too difficult for that person to carry. (Gal 6:1-3). In doing this we fulfil the law of Christ – love your neighbour as yourself (Gal 5:15); do to others what you would have them do to you (Mat 7:12).We are children of the law of Christ. We are to serve one another humbly in love (Gal 5:13). We who live by the Spirit are to stand firm in the truth (Gal 5:1).
Galatians also showed how easy it is to turn to a different gospel (Gal 1:6). We who live by the Spirit, allow ourselves at times to use our freedom to indulge in the sinful nature (Gal 5:13). This sinful nature battles with our understanding of God’s truth. In Galatians this different gospel teaches God’s favour / acceptance = grace + human effort (‘the natural’). We set aside the grace of God (Gal 2:21). This human effort may take the shape of ‘customs’. People who teach this untruth, force us to follow customs, which are difficult to obey (Gal 2:14; Gal 4:10). We become enslaved by them (Gal 2:4; Gal 5:1). We rebuild what Christ destroyed (Gal 2:18). Some of us obey these customs because we are afraid of being persecuted by those who preach a different gospel (Gal 2:12; Gal 4:29), or we just want to please them and win their approval (Gal 1:10). Obeying these customs will keep us from obeying God’s truth (Gal 5:7). It will put in question whether a servant of Christ (Gal 1:10). In trying to finish by human effort (Gal 3:3), we turn back to weak and miserable spiritual forces of the world (Gal 4:3,9) – ‘the natural’, where miracles, and the power of God are not sought.
What might a different gospel look like to us in our western culture? In his book Christless Christianity, Michael Horton speaks of different gospel being preached in churches in North America. He notes that “the church in America today is so obsessed with being practical, relevant, helpful, successful, and perhaps even well-liked that it nearly mirrors the world itself. Aside from packaging, there is nothing that cannot be found in most churches today that could not be satisfied by any number of secular programs and self-help groups.” He says that the “focus is on us and our activity rather than on God and his work in Christ. … We come to church, its seems, less to be transformed by the Good News than to celebrate our own transformation and to receive fresh marching orders for transforming ourselves and our world. Rather than being swept into God’s new world, we come to church to find out how we can make God relevant to the ‘real world’ that the New Testament identifies as the one that is actually fading away.”
Horton adds that the “Bible is mined for ‘relevant’ quotes but is largely irrelevant on its own terms” God is used as a personal resource rather than known, worshipped, and trusted; Jesus Christ is a coach with a good game plan for our victory rather than our Saviour who has already achieved it for us; salvation is more a matter of having our best life now than being saved from God’s judgment by God himself; and the Holy Spirit is an electrical outlet we can plug into for the power we need to be all that we can be.” This different gospel turns “the message of God’s rescue operation into a message of self-help.
… God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and most world religions. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself. God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when needed to resolve a problem. Good people go to heaven when they die. Basically, the message is that God is nice and we are nice, so that we should all be nice.”
Last Sunday the question was asked of the church: in our church life do we emphasise the gospel of God’s grace in Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit (the ‘supernatural’) alone? Before you answer, please let Horton’s warning to the church speak to you. Horton may be a bit extreme in his view, but he does align himself with the Apostle Paul’s opposition to a different gospel being preached. Is there something that we can discern from Horton’s insights, that might make us more alert to Satan’s continuing and subtle attack on our understanding of the gospel of Christ at NBC? Remember, in our place of ‘New Beginnings’ we are, and will be, always under spiritual attack. What better of way of doing it, than attacking the very foundations of our living temple – the gospel of Jesus Christ.
God bless
Pastor Phil
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