Invasion of Grace – No Other Gospel

Galatians 1:3-9

Pastoral Prayer: Loving and Gracious Lord of All, influences in our lives lure us to be observers and consumers. In order to live that way and claim to follow your Son we must de-form the Gospel, the Good News. Remind us today that our Amen is not a verbal affirmation but our response to the call to participate in the invasion of Grace you began in Jesus our Lord. By whose faith we are saved and in whose name we pray . . And All God’s people say . . . Amen.

There seems to be great concern about an invasion. Estimates are that it will cost some $200 million dollars to stop the perceived threat. Too often we are distracted away from the invasion of Grace rooted in the sovereign Love of God. Just listen to the anger that spews in our partisan politics.

Anger is big business. In 2014 Cory noticed his comments on what he termed Liberal political sites got him banned. Whether he was responding to articles about ISIS, police violence, Black Lives Matter or the Hobby Lobby decision he was met with pushback. It was then he decided to create his own website. Stirred by the Tea Party movement, the reaction to President Obama and the rise of social media he began posting his own stuff. He would take articles and rework them, turning up the rhetoric.

He admitted that his early stuff was not well written. Even then, the response was such that he hit a nerve. Maybe it was his desire to stop working at the factory. Could be he really was interested in countering what he was reading. Taking his queue from what people wanted Cory added advertisements to his website. He learned that if he could make a good story sound bad it would go viral. More clicks meant more money. He wrote highly opinionated pieces. He saw that people wanted gossip and bad news more than good news. People wanted to read what would make them angry. In a recent interview he said,

“I would love to write about good news all day but that is not what they want.” 

Cory, and then his wife and a group of contract writers, began to write about race, extremism and Muslims. The result was he quit his job after making more in one week from his website than a month at his previous job. He persuaded his wife to quit her nursing job. They said,

“We had a month where we made more than we did in our previous jobs for a whole year.”

For a period of time they made $120,000 a month. People they said,

“Love to hate.”

Anger is big business. The Greatest Showman gave people what they wanted – a circus.

It is not hard to see from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the churches in Asia Minor, Galatians specifically, that anger and hostility ruled the day. Why else would Paul  counter the climate with, 

There is no Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female, since you all are one in Christ Jesus?

The apparent hostilities associated with these groups illustrate the current animosities at work in our Country. The young man in Tallahassee that shot and killed two women and wounded four others before taking his life was part of a self-identified group, Involuntary Celibates, In Cels for short. The group hates women because they cannot persuade them to go out with them or get them into bed. 

It is clear what a world captive to the Powers of Sin and Death, what Paul calls, “this present evil age”, looks like. 

Everyone, in every era, looks for good news.

When Caesar Augustus came to power, the term good tidings, good news, applied to his birth, his coming of age, his rise to power and his victories. Everyone knew that this son of god would bring a new world, a new day. The word good news, glad tidings, used by the Greeks was plural. That little distinction is important. It meant that each future emperor would follow that same pattern. The good tidings, plural, referred to every benchmark moment in the life of the one in whom everyone put their trust and hoped for enough food, better roads, better sanitation, fewer wars. 

When the Apostle Paul used that same word, he used the singular. When he described the Good News of God he was making a statement. Everyone puts their trust in a king: the Israelites in Samuel’s day, the emperors in Rome’s day and Presidents, Governors and Legislators in our day. Luke gives us the announcement of the glad tiding to the shepherds. He too uses the singular form. In fact, his announcement is a direct counter to the way emperors were celebrated. He and Paul both present the coming of Jesus, the event of his coming, as God’s Good News for the world – an invasion of grace.

Paul’s letter to the churches in Galatia runs counter to every human attempt to provide what only comes in Jesus Christ. There is no other Good News – no other Gospel.

However, as in Paul’s day, so in ours. People desert, defect from, the Good News of God in Christ for good tidings at the ballot box. What King David could not provide, what no Roman Emperor could provide and what no President can provide or create is a community of grace. When the Gospel of Grace is absent from the Church, from churches, they cease to be, well, churches.

Listen to the way Paul begins other letters,

To the saints in Christ at Colossae.

To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Phillippi.

To all who are in Rome, loved by God, called as saints.

To the faithful saints in Christ Jesus at Ephesus.

Absent in his letter to the churches in Galatia is any reference to saints. What could that mean?

Reading clue: when Paul changes his normal pattern, look for a reason. Rather than tip his hat at their faithfulness, as with the Christians in Ephesus, he jumps right into his argument. We do not want to miss this.

First, the new disciples started well. We find this noted in Paul’s remark,

I am surprised, astonished, amazed that you are so quickly turning away.

From what did they turn? What drew their first allegiance?

They like others in Collossae, Phillippi, Ephesus and Rome heard the good tiding that in Christ God had invaded the world with grace. Using the military imagery of invasion made sense in a day when the Roman army was the measure of power. They had the best weapons and the largest army. And at the same time, the people suffered lack. Poverty and hunger was the norm for most. Allegiance to the emperor came with a cost. Listen to what kings cost Israel,

He will take your sons and put them to his use in his chariots, on his horses, or running in front of his chariots. He can appoint them for his use as commanders of thousands or commanders of fifties, to plow his group and reap his harvest, or to make his weapons of war and the equipment for his chariots. He can take your daughters to become perfumers, cooks, and bakers. He can take your best fields, vineyards, and olive orchards and give then to his servants. He can take a tenth of your grain and your vineyards and give them to his officials and his servants. He can take your male servants, your female servants, your best young men, and your donkeys, and use them for his work. He can take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves can become his servants. 

Whether kings or emperors or any of the branches in a Democratic Republic, human beings will use human beings, all the while leading them to believe they will do better than anyone else to give you what you want.

When Paul came with the good tiding of God’s invasion of grace in Jesus Christ, that God gave himself for them rather thantake from them, those in Galatia turned toward God. The startling part of the story was that this invasion came via the death of Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead. This Jesus Christ,

gave himself for our sins to rescue, to snatch, us from, the grasp, of this present evil age

They started out well.

Second, the new disciples added something to the glad tiding. Not long after Paul left another group of Teachers came along. They came with the same language of good tiding. Likely they too had heard the news of God in Christ Jesus. Their zeal had made them good evangelists. The one problem: they had added to the good tiding. In fact, Paul actually writes to the Galatian Christians that when we add anything to the good tiding, it becomes something other than the Gospel. 

For the Teachers, the addition was the Law of Moses. They taught that Moses received the Law from an angel. Given such an act, these Teachers persuaded the Christians in Galatia that there was more to the story. Their good news was that Jesus and the Law would bring about the peace for which they longed. What was once only grace was now grace plus something. Paul described the work of these Teachers as, troubling you.

In the heightened rhetoric of our political climate, some have decided that to be real Christians requires the proper party affiliation, a particular position on health care, immigration and the use of force around the world. Anything less that what these new Teachers tell you means that somehow we are not Christian enough. Listen to the language games that are played. Quickly you find that prominent Evangelicals have created a new law to add to the work of grace.

These folks are keeping records of pastors and churches that support their vision. This database is used to shame and create division in churches that don’t fall in line. 

We Baptist pastors may have not done such a good job. Our history is one influenced by Separatists and Anabaptists. In England the Separatists took opposition to political power as a means to further the Gospel. Feeling the brunt of persecution that came if you were not a part of the approved church was a very real experience. Even further back, our history includes the Anabaptists. These were Christians committed to peace, non-violence. They believed that to participate in the political system actually undermined their commitment to Jesus as Lord. They too suffered persecution at the hands of others for not being considered part of the “right church.”

Somewhere along the way the form of discipleship in Western churches has looked more like grooming us to be good citizens of the Nation-State than citizens of the Kingdom of God. We forget the words in Hebrews,

By faith Abraham when he was called, obeyed and set out for a place that he was going to receive as an inheritance. He went out, even though he did not know where he was going. By faith he stayed as a foreigner in the land of promise, living in tents as did Isaac and Jacob, co-heirs of the same promise, for he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose architect and builder is God.

Rather than living as Exiles in Babylon, we have decided Babylon is home.

There is no other Gospel. There is no Gospel plus the Law. There is no Gospel plus the proper political affiliation. Adding to the Gospel of Jesus Christ strips the Good News of anything good and eliminates the Gospel of Grace. There is only the good tiding that God invaded the world in Jesus Christ to snatch us from the grasp of the Powers at work in this present evil age.

There is neither Democrat nor Republican nor Independent  – there is a community of grace.

Finally, they forgot the Amen.

To him be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

The Amen that Paul has in mind is not the Amen that listens and observes a good point made in a sermon. Paul’s Amen is the Amen of participation. It is the response to the Good News that says, Truly! Let it be so. 

Paul’s Amen calls us to take up the event of Christ’s death and resurrection as Good News for the world. An Amen whose response is, “Yes,” and “Finally.” 

We may wonder how it is that this Good News has not seemed to change much in our world. Maybe it is the hard work of the Powers of this age that convince us that there has to be more to Grace, that God’s Love is somehow insufficient to save us. Maybe it plays to our need to do something, to contribute something else we feel that we are taking charity. And we are. Subject to the Powers of the world and often influenced to add to the Gospel, we are always on the verge of deserting, of turning away, from the Good News of God in Christ Jesus. 

Rather than offer a new Law in response, maybe we would hear that Good News again and give with Paul a hearty Amen.

To him be the glory forever and ever.

*I often have a manuscript available but do not always read it. It is part of my preparation. There may have been slight additions/differences to the preached version.

Audio

About the Author
Husband to Patty. Daddy to Kimberly and Tommie. Grandpa Doc to Cohen, Max, Fox, and Marlee. Pastor to Snow Hill Baptist Church. Graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Reading. Photography. Golf. Colorado. Jeeping. Friend. The views and opinions expressed here are my own and should not be construed as representing the corporate views of the church I pastor.

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