This week's Bible Study - February 10, 2008
The Message
 Background Scripture:
Galatians 1:6-9,11-12, 3:1-9
Quote of the Week:
“A message prepared in the mind reaches a mind; a message prepared in a life reaches a life.”
Bill Gothard
When you were a child, did you ever play that game where everyone was in a circle and one person started by whispering to the person next to them and then it continued around the circle until it came back to the originator? Very rarely did the message at the end stay as intended at the beginning. There always seemed to be a kid that would start it as a tongue twister, so it was probably lost by the time it got to the third person. Sometimes there was the kid who purposely mumbled (either at the start or along the way), just to see how it came back. The message got propagated, but it changed along the way.
When I think of Christianity, at least a couple of thoughts that are very divergent come to my mind. On one hand, throughout history, there have been efforts by rulers and others that wanted to squash or change the message of the gospel. They tried to get rid of the Bible entirely. They tried to add rules and regulations. They tried to deny the deity of Christ. They developed seminars of 'smart' people to come together and reject the truth of Christ. There have been very concentrated efforts to stop the spread of Christianity.
However, on the other hand, nothing has ever stood the test of time as Christianity has. The truthfulness and longevity of the Bible and the progression of the gospel, even when people attempted to destroy it, is incredible. In the ministry of Christ, which spanned three short years - the world has been impacted in a way that no other person, ruler, country, culture or any other effort has ever done. When you really think about it, it is astounding that there are the vast numbers of believers and Christian churches today. It truly has been held by the power of God, even when we as humans have failed it so miserably.
Surely you know of the background of Paul. He was once known as Saul and was very much tied to the ritualized life of rules and regulations and commandments of a fervent Jew. The Christians disregarded many of these things - at least they were not the 'main' thing. Saul was one of the key opponents of the Christian movement - going from town to town, finding these heretics and persecuting them. However, on the road to Damascus to do such a thing, a bright light blinded Saul and he had a serious change of heart. He had a heart change and a name change (Saul to Paul). Rather than fighting against these Christians their freedoms in Christ, his life turned into the biggest advocate for Christianity, and the most successful missionary. He still went from town to town, but his motive became sharing the love of Christ with people and encouraging them to accept Christ.
Paul was very committed in doing what he 'knew' was the right thing to do, even while persecuting believers. However, when he saw the error of his ways, he became more and more focused on pouring his heart into loving others. He was deeply concerned for the people that he ministered to. He was not concerned with the numbers, but he was concerned with the genuineness.
Paul didn't plead to them to turn to Christ based on logic and his own persuasive skills. While he planted seeds, it was really the work of the Holy Spirit that caused the growth. However, the Galatians people started to have problems, as they began to desert the gospel of grace to turn to another gospel (which really wasn't a gospel at all). They turned from the supernatural, which was based on the sufficiency of Christ and turned to a 'process' that made sense - based upon their own goodness and trying to earn their relationship with God. This was the very background that Paul had come from, so he knew first hand of the issues associated with that.
This change in their perspective was not something that they had dreamt up, but it was based on a deliberate act of confusion spreading and perversion of the gospel. This is akin to the kid in the circle who changes the message to throw everyone else off. These people still exist today - and it's not as if they change everything. In fact, they tend to speak the same words, but they apply a different meaning. Is everyone's Jesus today the same Jesus? When you start to look into it, you find various ideas of who Jesus is - or 'what' Jesus is. There is only one Jesus.
Paul was clear that this true gospel message was not something he created - it wasn't the output of a first century seminar. This gospel was not something that another individual gave to him. Granted, Paul did get much counsel from various believers as he sought to know Jesus, but the gospel was not theirs - it was in a revelation from Jesus Christ. It was truly from God. Since it was from God, it was meant to stay. God's message does not change over time - and God does not change his mind. We are accustomed to changes brought about based upon society or culture. However, God's word stays the same. Paul warned that others would come along and say different things, in an attempt to pull these believers off course. Paul heaped condemnation on anyone who comes and attempts to change the gospel to pull people away from the truth.
Paul's focus was clearly on pleasing God, rather than pleasing men. Sometimes you will find that a stand for Christ will cause friction in other areas of your life. It may cause difficulties in some of your relationships, or in your career or many other places. Are we going to be focused on pleasing God, or are we going to settle for the approval of men. It is amazing the number of decisions that we have made throughout our lives to appease people that we went to school with, hung around with or worked with. Often, after a few months go by, we find that we don't even associate with these other people, yet we are living in the consequences of decisions we made to appease them. Be careful about pleasing anybody other than God.
In the first passage, we saw that many of the Galatians had accepted the teaching of Paul, which was from God. They began to see that they were saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. By acceptance of this, they received the Holy Spirit and a newness of life brought by that reception. However, Paul was very concerned that they had been bewitched by others into adherence to a strict observance of the law.
Having seen the power of Jesus Christ, why would they ever go back? By accepting, they acknowledged that they were not capable of coming into a relationship with God through their own efforts. But, it would appear that many of them turned back to human effort to maintain that relationship. I do know of some people that once claimed to be believers, but for one reason or another, stepped away from the focus on Christ. They may still claim to believe in God, but some think they have to earn their own way, by being good enough and following a strict set of moral standards, with no room for failure. Others have a difficult time trying to understand why Jesus is the only way and what about all of the other people in the world that have their own religious systems? Rather than focus on what has been made clear and impacted so many lives, they focus on other things altogether.
Have you ever fallen back into the trap of doing because you think that is what you need to do to maintain your 'Christianity'? Certainly, I'm not implying that what you do isn't important - it's just what causes you to do what you do. We didn't receive the Holy Spirit because of any goodness within us. We received it because of our belief. Sometimes we all lose a bit of focus, and get trapped into doing, doing, doing. It leads to rut like living - often referred to as a grave with the ends kicked out. Why do we forget what God has done for us?
Paul pointed back to the heroes of their faith - namely Abraham. Time and time again in the New Testament, Abraham is referenced as a man of faith. Certainly, he did obey the direction of God - although not completely, all the time. However, it was his faith and not his obedience that pleased God. After many things that God told Abraham, there were words like 'so he got up and went'. He was a man of action, but it wasn't this action that caused God to bless him. God's plan all along, from the very beginning was that he intended to bless his people because of their faith. We may think that we are good enough, but truthfully, we could never merit God's blessing on our goodness.
Over time, we realize that obedience brings many blessings into our lives, but it is not what God bases his love for his upon. It may help our families, and keep us from many types of trouble - whereas our disobedience can lead to many consequences, both direct and indirect. God isn't keeping a large spreadsheet with your mistakes (or your successes) to identify whether or not you are his. It is all based upon the relationship with Jesus Christ.
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