Greetings from Galatians - Part 1

What can we learn from Paul's letter to the Galatians?

On this episode, Pastor Jon starts our summer dive into the book of Galatians. Starting in chapter 1, we learn that there is the true Gospel of Jesus Christ and a false gospel that comes from false teachers. The person and the presence of Jesus is enough. Be watchful and mindful!

We pray this message encourages your faith, deepens your prayer life, and helps you gain a greater vision for life in Christ. Share this episode with someone who wants to grow deeper in God’s Word.

To learn more about Vision Church or discover how you can partner with our ministry, visit www.ourvisionchurch.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:11

Hey Jesse, do I need to switch out microphones? You can yell at me. I'm very comfortable with the song guy telling me what to do in the two. Okay, cool, cool, cool. I don't know where two is. Um hey, while we're all going, go to Galatians chapter one, verses six. Oh, we're gonna be reading from the very beginning. Uh, if you don't know, oh, this is three, this is one. See, I literally ran to the other side of the room. Y'all say hi to Catherine. Bless you. Oh, that's way better. That's significantly improved in all the ways. Okay, praise God. I'm gonna say that, and then this one's gonna start messing up, and I'll be like, I don't think it's the microphone. I think there's something wrong with that pastor. Um, so y'all pray for me. Galatians chapter one. Uh, Paul, an apostle sent from man, not by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead, and all the brothers and sisters with me to the churches in Galatia. Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. Somebody say amen. I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the mercy of Christ. You are following a different way. Somebody say a different way that pretends to be the good news, but is not the good news at all. You are being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ. Let God's curse fall on anyone, including us, or even an angel from heaven, who preaches a different kind of good news than the one that was preached to you. I say again what we have said before. If anyone preaches any other good news than the one you welcome, let that person be accursed. Obviously, I'm not trying to win the approval of people. So Paul is finishing up this patch and he's saying, obviously, I know this message isn't popular. Obviously, I know some of y'all are gonna have an issue with this. Obviously, I know that there are gonna be people in your church that disapprove. Uh, but if pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ's servant. Paul is willing here to burn some bridges, to really call some people to pursue God. And so uh, as we step into God's word today, I pray that you would receive not just from me, but really from the Holy Spirit and from Paul. Let's pray together. Our Father who is in heaven, holy is your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth, Jesus, as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread, forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Lead us, Jesus, not into temptation, but we should deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory for ever and ever. Amen. Uh when I was a student, uh, way back in the bronze era when dinosaurs roamed the earth, uh, I used to have to, but for the first time I got the opportunity to get an email. And when you get an email, one of the things they have to do is you have to pick it. And how many of y'all are embarrassed by your high school email? Like you would not want anybody to know. But one of the things I had to do with that is I had to get uh a password. And my password, I'm not even gonna tell you what my password was. Uh it was just, but y'all remember back in the day when your password was just like your first or last name, followed by like a pet's name, followed by, so for me, it was uh, we my family and I used to have a cat, the cat's name was Rex, so my password was cat 1990, and I was like, this is awesome. Uh and y'all, y'all, it's okay, you can laugh at me. I'll forgive you. Um, and my my password was cat1990, and it was a terrible password. But how many y'all realize when you have to set up something now that the password game has changed? Like now you can't just put whatever you want. It's gotta be, you need at least 17 uh uppercase letters, 12 lowercase letters, you need three special signals, you need 14 different numbers after that. Uh, you need a blood sample to be sent into a lab to have them approve it. It's you need all this stuff to get it. And we've gotten so bad about passwords that when I go to set up a new uh system or a new profile, they don't even ask me for the password anymore. They just go, we'll just make a password for you. Which I feel like beats the whole purpose of having a password. If I don't know how to get into the system, but you know how to get in the system for me, uh, what am I doing? This is what Paul is railing about here. Paul came and he said, I don't know what's you're good. Y'all keep going, do you what you do? Uh Paul shows up, and Paul has been telling them the password to get into the kingdom of God. If you don't know, now you know the password to get into the kingdom of God is not your good behavior, it's not your background, it's not you being connected to the right family. The password to get into the kingdom of God is a man of Nazareth who died on a tree, who was buried for three days, who rose again. His name is Jesus. And Paul is railing at this church, he's yelling at them because while Paul has been away, he planted this church a long time ago. While he's been away, these new people had shown up, and they've shown up with a different gospel. Somebody say different. See, this group of people were what was known as Judaizers. They were people from the old Jewish tribe, and what they'd done is they'd moved from Jerusalem into the region of Galatia, and what they were telling people was hey, before you can say yes to Jesus, you have to follow all of these Jewish laws. Before you say yes to the gospel, before you say yes to grace, before you say yes to your sins being forgiven, you gotta do all the other stuff. Somebody say other stuff. You gotta you gotta wash in a special ceremony, you gotta give a special kind of sacrifice, you gotta, if you're a dude, you gotta get circumcised before you can say yes to Jesus. Can I tell y'all, if I showed up this Sunday and I said, hey, we got we're doing a circumcision service, how many of y'all know that attendance levels would go down? And if you don't know what circumcision is, don't Google it. I'm telling you that right now. That's don't Google it. Like I'm just helping you out. They come in and they're saying there's all these new requirements. And here's what we're gonna do today. Over the summer, we're gonna be in the book of Galatians, hearing from Paul as he as he almost claps back at these critics, as he shouts back at these people, and we're gonna read from him. And uh we'll let's go back to the first verse. A Paul and Apostle sit not from man nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised them from the dead and all the brothers and sisters with me to the churches in Galatia. Uh, how many of you have ever had a friend of yours that was getting in trouble and they were getting in trouble doing something that you used to do? And you've tried to warn them, you've tried telling them, hey man, I used to hang out with those people, don't hang out with them. I used to hang out at that place, don't hang out there. I used to drink that, smoke that, do this, do that, you shouldn't do that. I used to can't y'all ever have a uh have a friend of yours, some of y'all that and they start dating somebody that you you know what their last relationship was like, and you're like, don't date them. Like, you know how some people have like an angel and a devil on one side, and you're like, I just want you to know they have a devil and a side devil on their side. Uh man, some of us have been places, and that's Paul's experience. See, Paul, for his whole life, he's a Pharisee of Pharisees. Paul has been following the rules. Paul is the church boy of all church boys. Paul has been there, gotten the t-shirt, covered it up with a three-piece suit, gotten the title. Like, Paul has been there early, stayed up late, studied, he's done all the sacrifices, all the ceremonies, and Paul is calling them because Paul is recognizing, man, I tried all that stuff and he did not save me. Paul, Paul did all those things, and he's coming to them and he's saying, Listen, don't you know it's all about Jesus, it's all for Jesus, it's all through Jesus, it's because of Jesus that we have the grace that we need to receive. And so Paul shows up and he is warning them. Why am I telling you this? In today's day and age, it is important who we listen to. We live in the age of fake news, we live in the age of opinionated newsmaking. I don't care if you listen to CNN or if you listen to Fox. Can I tell you everybody, every one of them has a financial advantage and telling you what you want to hear, not what you need to hear? Man, we live in an age of artificial intelligence, of Chat GPT and cloud, and I'm all for using them. And how, but can I just tell you those things are tuned, they're called, they're tuned to make you feel good about you, not to tell you the truth. John, what do you mean by that? Go into Chat GPT and ask it to help you with a project or do something. Uh Chat GPT doesn't just give you the answer, it does this little thing at the very beginning that I've started picking up on. It doesn't just tell you, John, John, thank you for asking about starting that business. It also tells you, John, that is a great business. John, you're so smart and so good looking. Man, that business is gonna succeed. You're gonna have market. Can I tell you it's wired, these technologies are wired to make you feel good about who you are. You could put in the worst idea on there of all time. You could go in there and be like, I want to start a business selling used unwatched underwear. And Chat GPT would respond, man, that is a business that has not been started by anybody else. You will have 100% market share. Here's why I say that. There are a thousand people that are lining up to tell you what the truth is, and you as a believer have to decide, I'm not stepping away from the gospel I have received. I'm not status word that works, and so I'm not moving away. And Paul is writing here to give them that encouragement. It continues in this, in verse 3, it says this grace and peace to you from God our Father in the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age. I don't know how you feel about today's age, but there's days when I do open up the news and I do open up social media, and I I feel like Paul is not describing Galatia 2,000 years ago. It feels like Paul is describing the United States in 2026. And Paul is saying, listen, uh, the answer is still the same. The answer has not changed. The answer does not need to be edited, the answer does not need to be reformatted, the answer was Jesus 2,000 years ago. The answer was Jesus when you got saved, the answer is still Jesus today. And I want to encourage us to make a decision. Paul is writing this and um uh it continues in verse six. He says this, I am shocked. Somebody say shocked. I'm shocked. You're turning away soon from God. Paul wrote uh probably two-thirds of the New Testament. Uh he's one of the most prolific authors of the whole Bible. And so we have lots of samples in Paul's writing, and uh, Paul was a church planter. Uh, Paul was doing over a number of cities and over a number of years what we're doing now. He would show up in a city and say, Man, I want there to be a church there that represents the gospel. And Galatia is one of the first uh multi-ethnic churches, multi-generational churches. So it's he's writing to a church that's just like ours 2,000 years ago. And what typically Paul would do when he'd start a letter is I love Paul's letters, uh, because he starts with the how you doings. Y'all ever show up to a family reunion and you before you talk about whatever you don't talk about, you gotta do the how you doings. Like, hey, how you doing? Uh, how's your mama in them? And uh, you know, I know you had that surgery. How's your knee feeling? And oh, your daughter graduated. How oh, how's that going? And oh, y'all moved into the NASA house. And Paul, when he would write a letter, he would do the how you doings, he would talk about how things been. In this letter, Paul does not even do that, he just goes, Yo, it's Paul. I'm shocked. Paul pulls out the dad hat, flips it backwards, and starts just going in on them. How did you turn away from what I told you a long time ago? Don't let people fool you, don't let people lie to you, don't let people trick you, don't let people get their own self-interest in you. And Paul says, As I am shocked that you are turning away so soon from God. What Paul is saying is, I just left five minutes ago. Y'all ever this is just maybe my kids. Um, so my kids are home for the summer, and I praise God for that, and I thank God for the opportunity to spend a lot of time with them, and they are a gift from God, and I rejoice in them. And uh I I bless the Lord at all times that they are they are called into my house and I get to steward them for the next 18 years. But y'all, those kids can get a house messy so fast. I will clean the house in the morning. I'll be like, okay, I'm gonna go in my office for like 10 minutes, I'll go in, send two emails, come right back, and I'll be like, How did you even do that? Like, I'm telling y'all, I I believe that they have some kind of like toy multiplying device that they spill on the ground and they just sweep it and just uh Paul is writing with that kind of exasperation. He's asking himself, man, you do you got a gospel that was so good. You got the full presence of Jesus, you got salvation by faith alone, and yet it's been five minutes and you're already turning away. Can I tell you don't turn away from the good news of Jesus, the hope of salvation, and start adding things in that you don't need for the sake of pursuing Jesus. Here's here's what Paul Paul, the reason why Paul is saying this is simply this what you believe will decide how you live. If you believe that God has given you his grace freely, then you get to walk around knowing, man, I have received the grace of God. It is not of myself. I didn't get it, I didn't earn it, I didn't fight for it. Jesus gave it to me, and so I can walk around free because I have been freed by a great king. Jesus says free. But if you walk around thinking, I gotta earn my salvation, you will spend the rest of your life earning your salvation. If you walk around thinking, man, it's it's my effort that got me into the kingdom, then you will spend the rest of your life fighting your way to get into the kingdom. And I don't want you to not walk in that way. See the Judaizers show up, and here's the lie that they tell. They're telling people the lie of Jesus Plus. Somebody say Jesus Plus. We have uh we have Disney Plus at our house, and uh because my kids would not survive without Making Mouse Club House, and neither would I. And you know what I think is is really crazy about all these streaming devices? I don't care if you're a Netflix person, an Amazon prom person, a Hulu person, uh whatever you are. You know what I this is crazy to me. When I originally got the streaming service, it was $7.99, and you could stream as much as you want, whenever you want. And now two years later, it's $43.99. And that's for the ads. There's ads on the streaming service. Like, and and here's here's what here's what here's what annoys me, y'all. Here's what annoys me. Because typically there's a TV show that you like, so you sign up. The TV show that I like isn't even on the streaming service anymore. So now I have to get Disney Plus for those TV shows that my wife likes, and I have to get Netflix for the TV shows that I like, and I gotta get Amazon Prime with the extra membership for the TV shows my kids like, and there's another show that my cousins like to watch when they're coming over, and I need the sports package for when can I tell y'all, don't y'all miss cable sometimes? Cable, it was so nice. Uh, for those of you that are Gen Zers, cable was when we had a television with a remote, and you would have a this thing called a TV guide. Uh and man, like it was annoying because you didn't know what was coming up, but at least you didn't have to sit there and let's let's let's all be honest. All we do is scroll for three hours, don't pick nothing, and then go to sleep anyway. Paying $30 a month to scroll through a bunch of TV, not watch any of it, and then go to sleep anyway. But that's the lie that the Judaizers are trying to get. They're trying to get this lie of Jesus plus. Hey, you can get saved, but you need Jesus plus your own effort. You can get saved, but you need Jesus plus your own works. You need to get saved, but you need Jesus plus, hey, after you need to get Jesus and you gotta get dressed right to show up to church. Hey, you can get saved, but you need Jesus plus, we're gonna do a special offering at the end of service, and if you're really saved, that's when you're giving it to him. The lie of Jesus plus something else. Can I tell you? Jesus is enough. Jesus is enough for you, Jesus is enough for me, Jesus is enough to set you free, Jesus is enough to give you purpose, Jesus is enough to call you, Jesus is enough for you to get into heaven. All you need is the person in the presence of Jesus. And Paul continues and he says this let God's curse fall on anyone, including us or even an angel from heaven who preaches a different kind of good news than the one who preached from you. I say again what we have said before. If anyone preaches any other good news than the one you welcome, let that person be cursed. Here's what I want to tell you. What you believe matters. What you believe about God matters. What you believe about your salvation matters. What you believe this church is about matters. What you believe your hope is founded matters. Because what you believe is gonna change your life. And here's what we believe, here's what we believe, here's what we believe. We believe that we needed saving. We needed saving. Ephesians chapter 2 says this for it is by grace, somebody say grace. It's by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast. What's the gospel? The gospel is simply this God gave himself to rescue us. Well, you gotta give him the offering. Hold on, no, I don't. God gave himself to rescue us. Well, you gotta be a member of the church before you can get saved. God gave himself to rescue us. Hey, you gotta join this church, but not that church. God gave himself to rescue us. Hey, you better read that Bible translation, not that Bible translation. God gave himself to rescue us. Hey, you gotta get yourself cleaned up before you start coming. God gave himself to rescue us. Hey, you gotta be connected to that family. God gave himself to rescue us. You gotta have a special meeting with the pastor, and he's gotta pray over you. And if he doesn't pray over you, you're not really saved. God gave himself to rescue us. We can't get moved off of it. We can't get bored of it, we can't get tired of it, we can't get sick of it. We gotta remember God gave himself to rescue us. God gave his own blood, his own life, his own pain, his own shame to rescue us. Here's here's here's what here's our part, and God gave himself. Our part is just to say yes, y'all. You know what faith is? Faith says yes to what God says. It's all faith does. Some of that is applied applicable to your calling. There are things that God is calling you to do or not to do, and you're you your job is just to say yes. God, I don't know how we're gonna get our family set together, but my job is just to say yes to what you're saying. God, I don't know how I'm gonna be free from my sinful background, but my faith is to say yes when you've called me to. God, I don't know how I'm gonna start that new business, I don't know how I'm gonna serve in that church, I don't know how I'm gonna give in that, I don't know what I'm doing. But your job is just to say yes. That's what faith does. Uh, and and I wanna I wanna I wanna clarify this because I feel like if Paul was here, he would want this clarified. I want to be very clear because when we preach messages like this where we say, Man, God gave himself to rescue us, some of us might hear, well, praise God, that means I can do whatever I want. That means I can go with wherever, be with whoever, do whatever. Uh and I want to say this we do not work for our salvation, but we do work from our salvation. The password at the door is Jesus, but can I tell you there are things for us to do inside of the room. We're not called to just do whatever we want, whenever we want, however we want. But what we are saying is there is no barrier now between God and man other than the person of Jesus. And so we don't work for our salvation, you don't have to earn it. But because you've been saved, because you've been changed, because you've been transformed, because you've encountered a good God who loves you, can I tell you, God doesn't have to talk me into changing, I just have to look at him and go, Man, I want to change for God. I have an affection and a love for who he is. God, I want to look more like you. God, I want to sound more like you. God, I want to talk more like you. God, I want to see when people walk around me, I want them to feel like they've been around you. And so I work because I've seen Jesus, not work to see Jesus. We want to work from a place where we recognize that we are saved. Paul wraps up his letter in this way. He says, This obviously, I'm not trying to win the approval of people. Can I tell you, in today's day and age, this kind of message does not always win the approval of people. I want us to be careful as a church, as we are going through the book of Galatians, that we are going to the Jesus of scripture and not the Jesus of culture. Thank you. I will. Praise God. Here's some things I want us to be careful of. This is how you know the truth. Here's here's some questions I want you to ask yourself. Does this please God or does this please me? Is the thing I'm about to do, the place I'm about to go, the thought I'm having internally? Does it please God or does it please me? Because culture will tell you as long as it feels good, do it. Culture will tell you as long as you it makes you happy, then it's got to be right. Can I tell you there is a difference between happiness and holiness? And God has called us to be holy, God has called us to be like Him. And my conviction is I believe if you pursue holiness, you will get happiness. But I've seen lots of people pursue happiness and get hell. And I want to encourage us to be the kind of church that said, Man, I want to pursue what pleases God because I know if my life looks like a life that pleases God, I will be full of love, I will be full of joy, I will be full of peace, I will be full of hope, I will be full of self-control, but it will happen because I'm pursuing God, not because I'm pursuing those things. Does this please God? Or watch this, does this please church people? Again, I want to read what Paul says. Obviously, I'm not trying to win the approval of people. I was I was on social media this week, and I said, Daniel, y'all, social media is the wild west right now. It's just like it's not even social media. Can we be real? Like, I never know what my friends are doing when I get on social media. I was I was watching this clip by uh uh we'll call him a preacher, although I think he needs to repent of his sins, give his life to Jesus, and uh, because I don't know if he's going to heaven, but yeah, I feel like he's worshiping a wrong God. But this young man was uh preaching a message and uh he he he was a part of a denomination whose conviction is uh that dress the way you dress and show up at the church is super, super, super, super, super, super, super important. And listen, for the record, before some of y'all are like, that's right, Pastor, we don't wear we're the jeans and t-shirt church. Can I tell y'all? Some of sometimes you need to wear a nice suit to go to church and be in the house of God, but that's a side sermon. And uh, he's preaching this message, and uh the whole crux of his message, I want to be very clear before I say this, because some of y'all sometimes don't listen. I'll wait through the sermon. I don't want y'all jumping me after the service. He is saying this, I'm not. His the whole thing of his message was well, you know what? God disapproves of women wearing pants. And so if you are a woman and you wear pajama pants, and if you were to pass away in your sleep or the Lord were to come while you were in the bed, God would look down and go, She wearing pants, I'm not taking her with me. And I was like, I y'all, y'all, I've read a lot of the Bible, I've read a lot of scripture, I've read a lot of, I have not seen the verse yet where it says, Hey, salvation is by Jesus plus pants alone. Like, I haven't seen that scripture. And can I tell you that young man needs to read his scripture? He needs to, that is another gospel, it is another truth. It is something that people, somebody's putting and saying, until you accomplish all these requirements, God will never approve of you. And y'all, we if we are not careful as church people, we can start showing up, and this can feel more like a country club than it does a hospital. And we can start putting signs on the door. If we're not careful, that says, This is how you need to dress, this is how you need to act, this is how you need to sound. And how many know the people that most need Jesus don't know what they're supposed to look like when they step into this house? I got an opportunity to do a wedding a couple weeks ago uh for uh some of our church family. And uh Vicki's like, please don't tell this story, please don't tell this story, please don't tell this story. Uh it's a good story, Vicki. It's okay. Uh and uh how many of y'all know sometimes when I love doing weddings, uh, and I I'm grateful to do funerals because a lot of the times the people that are there don't know Jesus, and so it's one of the few times when I can rub shoulders with him as a pastor and preach the gospel, and um I'm I'm stepping outside because it's in a backyard, and this guy is like cussing up a storm. I'm talking like, and usually what happens for me as a pastor, like I never tell people I'm a pastor. Because people, what they do is they're around me and they're like, they're cussing, they're laughing, they're doing all the things, they're talking trash talking their wife, and and then they find out it's like, hey, that's my passion. They go, Well, blessed and highly favored. I just praise God for for his providence in my life. I'm like, you were a cussing two seconds ago, like what you doing? And cussing with a beer in your hand that you're not hiding, like it's lemonade pastor. I'm like, okay, okay. And and and and he's cussing, and and and and you know, I'm not I'm not for the record, I'm not pro-cussing, but I told him, I was like, hey, dude, were you cussing before I I was here? And he was like, he was about to edit himself and make himself stop. I was like, hey, were were you cussing before I got here? He's like, Yeah, I was cussing. I was like, are you probably gonna be cussing when I leave? He's like, I'm definitely gonna be cussing when you leave. I was like, then keep cussing. Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, John, I would rather you come to Jesus as you are than come in and pretend to be something you're not and try to impress church people and try to look good for church people and try. Can I tell you, I would rather you, if that's what if that's your issue, well, you know, there's kids around, so please be careful. But man, if that's your issue, let that be your issue and let's let Jesus work through your issue. See, the first thing that sometimes we learn when we start coming to church is how to lie about our real issues instead of being honest with God and with God's people because we're never saved. Can I tell you, no one can pray for you if they don't know what's going on with you? No one can stand in the gap for you if they're not aware of what's going on with you. And we need to be a hospital, not just for the stranger, but for one another. And we are never gonna be that if we keep pretending that we have it going on more than we do. Church should be the place where we show up and we say we haven't all going on. And Paul is writing to remind them. These people have come into your church and they've taught you to pretend. They've they've put in other obligations, they're saying you need to dress like this, act like that, walk this way, sound like this. Can I tell you I don't want you to pretend, I want you to be transformed? That's the power of the gospel. We need to ask ourselves does this please God or does this please me? Does this please God? Or does this please the church people? And this is the last one. Does this please God or this or does this please culture? Here's what I want us to be careful of. This is one of the things I love about this series. This series is gonna be we're gonna be talking a lot about who Jesus is, and we want to be careful that we are talking about the biblical Jesus and not the cultural Jesus. Some of us, when we think about Jesus, we have a favorite TV show, or the time we watch Passion of the Christ, and we're like, that's what Jesus is like. Can I tell you, even when you have a great movie that teaches you some things about Jesus, you're not gonna get a complete picture of who Jesus is until you get into the word of Jesus. And some of us, we've gotten our picture of Jesus. Some of y'all don't even have like a chosen Jesus, some of y'all are paying attention to South Park Jesus. You're just like, like he's grass and he's like, Can I tell you the picture of Jesus that he's this long-haired hippie who just, hey, love, free love, and rock and roll, man, like that. It's like he is the lamb that was slain, he is the sacrifice for our iniquity. But he is also the line of the tribe of Judah. He is the king of kings and the lord of lords. You don't mess with Jesus, you don't talk back to Jesus. I promise you, his patience is what lets people feel like I can say whatever I want. Can I tell you I there is a day of judgment, and the same Jesus that came to save us is also the same Jesus that is coming to judge us. Like, John, I don't I don't like that Jesus. Can I tell you that is the biblical Jesus? Here's why we're here. Here's why it's important that you know the truth. We are here, we are as a church on a rescue mission for lost and broken people. And we don't want to put another barrier in front of them, but if we walk around thinking to ourselves, well, Jesus loves, Jesus loves everybody, can I tell you that is also another gospel? Jesus loves everybody, but you need to love Jesus to make it to heaven. Some people are walking around thinking, I'm good, because if Jesus is real, then he loves me. And so I'm can I tell you that's that's not the gospel. Does anybody have a communion cup I can borrow, steal, rob, believe? Y'all thank you. I appreciate you. Um couple seconds we're gonna take communion. Uh the reason why we're taking communion is because communion is something that we do in remembrance. If you don't have a communion cup, I want you to just lift your hand. Uh our team is gonna is walking around. If you don't have a team cup, just lift your hand, lift your hand, lift your hand. I I I almost like threw this at you, and we all know how bad I'm at throwing things. It would have been bad, so I'm not gonna do that. Before Jesus went to die, he took communion with his disciples. The reason he did it is he says, and he gave them this commandment. He gave them this commandment. He said, He said, Do this in remembrance of me. You know what I've realized about following Jesus? I forget. You know, like I I've been at church a long time and I'll walk around and y'all ever meet somebody who's like newly like first time, just got saved, and and if I'm not careful, I'll start telling them about well, you know, I'm glad you're in the church. Now here's your list of things you gotta do, and and I forget to just remember Jesus. I forget that he saved me, I forget that he redeemed me, I forget that I'm different because of him, I forget that I never could have saved myself, but he showed up and saved me anyway. And the reason we take communion is to remember. It's not just another thing that we put on the calendar and go, like some people believe it's like, well, if you don't take communion, you're not going to heaven. Oh, there's a faith on the cross that didn't take communion or get baptized, and Jesus said he was going to heaven. I mean, that's that's just what my Bible says, but you can disagree with the Bible if you want to, so go ahead. You take communion to remember his broken body and his shed blood. You take communion to remember. He was bruised and spit off. So because he was broken, we can be made home. That is the gospel. When Jesus stepped up into the cross, he would have already been bleeding from the cuts on his back, from the bruises and the mults, from the nails and his hands and in his feet. After Jesus passed away, there was a Roman guard that took a spear and pierced him in his side, and out of it gushed not only blood, but water. And medical doctors have examined this and said that Jesus would have died from a medical condition that essentially said the way you would describe it to a non-medical person is that he died from a broken heart. He poured his blood out for you and for I. And because he poured his blood, we can be washed and be made new. That is the gospel. Let's drink together. Can we just thank the Lord for his goodness over our lives? Jesus, we thank you. We thank you. God, we're not moving away from the gospel, we're not moving away from your truth, we're not moving away from what you speak to us. We're not moving away from the table of communion. We're not moving away from the broken body and the shed blood. Your sacrifice is enough. Your sacrifice is enough. Vision, look up at me, look up at me, look up at me. Truth has consequences. And the sacrifice that Jesus gave, one of the best consequences that you and I, we get to walk in freedom that we did not pay for. And I'm so grateful that that freedom isn't just for us. It's for our friends, our neighbors, our families, for our children and their children's children. I don't want you to walk in tomorrow as you're scrolling through Instagram and putting on the news to believe another gospel. I want you to be wise. The Bible says to be wise as serpents, innocent as doves. What's the Bible saying? Be smarter than the devil. Because he's got plans and purposes for your mind, for your heart, and for your thoughts. He has plans for what your hands are supposed to touch and where your feet are supposed to go. But if you would be reminded, I am saved by grace through faith. If you would be reminded, this is how we'll end, and stand to your feet if you could, and we're gonna end the service. I hope it encourages you. You need to be reminded how expensive your salvation is, that it costs God everything. Y'all ever go to like a yard sale and you see something that's like worth thousands of dollars where people don't know how much it's worth, so they treat it like trash. Your salvation costs God everything. And He's giving it to you freely. Just because you got it for free doesn't mean you need to treat it like it's free. Just because you got it and you didn't have to pay anything does not make it cheap. You can't move away from the gospel. Let me pray for you. Our prayer team is gonna get a position. Um I'm gonna pray for you. I'm gonna pray a blessing. Uh, if you're a parent, um go get your kids. If you need prayer, come to the front to receive prayer. Holy Spirit, we love you. And God, today, as we step into the book of Galatians, God, I pray over our church. May we not be the kind of church that is easily fooled or easily tricked. May we not be the church that adds barriers to the gospel, but we reminded the goodness of God. God, the old song says, Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed away the snow. So, God, we receive your gift of salvation. We receive that because of the gospel, we are changed, we are transformed, we are made new, we are made different. God, we we we refuse the temptation to add into our own works or to create barriers to your presence. God, the password is Jesus. It's always been Jesus. It right now is Jesus, it's always gonna be Jesus. There is no other message, there is no greater word, there is no other call to salvation other than the person of Jesus. So, God, I pray through this series, help us to say yes to you more than we say yes to our own flesh, to say yes to you more than we say yes to church culture, to say yes to you more than we say yes to the worldly culture. Help us, Jesus, to just keep saying yes to you. So, Father, I pray today over my friends. May signs and wonders surround them, may goodness and mercy follow them. Bless all the things their hands touch, bless all their places their feet will go. In Jesus' name, God's people send.