The Gospel of Grace

We live in a time of cultural diversity. This diversity carries over to our religious or spiritual beliefs. We have many different spiritual beliefs in our culture and the proper view, according to our culture, is to see them as all equal and thus equally correct in their viewpoints. This is true even when the spiritual views are completely opposite of each other.

Paul addresses the Galatian believers about what belief they are really following.

Galatians 1:6

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.

Paul is blown away by the fact that these Galatian believers are so quickly turning from the Gospel based in the grace of Jesus to a gospel that is not based on grace.

Grace is the fact that God loves us, not based on us or our performance, but on Him and the fact that He loves us. He loves us without us deserving or earning it.

Grace is the core of the Gospel, and without it, there is no Gospel.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is the grace of Jesus.

Galatians 1:7

Which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.

There are three things about this “different” gospel.

It is no gospel at all. It is a false gospel.

It causes confusion. God is a God of order, not of confusion.

It is a perversion of the true Gospel. It twists the truth of God into a lie.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is following the truth of God.

Galatians 1:8-9

But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned! As we have already said, so we say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!

Paul says that if anyone is proclaiming a gospel other than the Gospel that was proclaimed to them by Paul, which is found in God’s Word, may he be eternally condemned. Paul says that not once, but twice.

This is not a light statement. It is intense and direct.

Why is Paul so unyielding on this point? It is because, when the Gospel is perverted, it affects the eternity of others. We are told in Romans 1:16 that the Gospel is God’s power that brings salvation to everybody who believes. The Gospel is the Good News that, when believed, brings salvation. If the “gospel” that is proclaimed is not the truth, it will not bring salvation but a false sense of security. It will bring death, not life.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is knowing the truth of the real Gospel which brings life.

Galatians 1:10

Am I now trying to win the approval of men or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Paul asks two rhetorical questions.

Question #1:  Am I now trying to win the approval of men? The answer is no. We as the church, the people of God, are not to try and make people like us. We are God’s people and our desire is to please Jesus. When we try to please men, we lose our focus of seeking Jesus, His kingdom, and His righteousness. Our focus has to be the Kingdom of God.

Colossians 3:2 says we are commanded to set out minds on things above, not earthly things. Our desire should be to please God.

Question #2: Or am I trying to please men? The answer again is no. If Paul was still trying to please men, he would never had rejected Judaism and surrendered his life to Jesus as Lord. When you see what people were trying to do to Paul, it shows that his focus was not on pleasing people.

Paul then says that if he was still trying to please people, he would not be a servant of Jesus.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is being servants of Jesus and desiring to please Him, not people.

In 1 John 2:15 we are told not to love the world or in anything in the world. If we do, then we don’t really love the Father.

The love of the world means I have don’t love God, because if I love God I cannot love what is opposed to God, and the values of the world are opposed to God.

That is why there is one truth, not many truths. If the Gospel of Jesus is true, then whatever doesn’t agree with that Gospel is false and doesn’t have the power to save and transform us. It is why all religious and spiritual views cannot be equal. They are not all true.

The Gospel of Jesus is at times offensive. The Gospel points out three things that offend many.

The Gospel says all have sinned and come short of God’s standard.

The Gospel says that no person can save themselves.

The Gospel says that only in Jesus is salvation found.

Those truths are very offensive to many people.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is recognizing that the real Gospel can be offensive because it points out painful truths.

If we allow God to enable us to look past those offensive things, we can see the power and joy of the Good News of Jesus.

The Good News: Jesus came and sacrificed His life to pay for our sin and offers that sacrifice to everyone.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is getting past what is offensive to the Good News of salvation through grace in Jesus.

The chorus to Creed by Rich Mullins says:

And I believe what I believe is what makes me what I am

I did not make it;

No, it is making me

It is the very truth of God,

Not the invention of any man.

Let the Gospel of Jesus make you who He wants you to be.

By the Gospel of Jesus Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                               Joe

The Real Gospel

Gospel means good news. The Gospel is the good news that God became human, lived a sinless perfect life, died on the cross as our atoning sacrifice for sin, rose from the dead, and ascended to the right hand of the Father to make intercession for us.

The Gospel of Jesus is a Gospel of grace. It is based on God’s love and grace, not our worthiness or our human effort.

In Galatians 1:6-10 Paul deals with the Galatian believers abandoning the true gospel and following something that was not really the Gospel of Jesus.

Galatians 1:6

I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.

Paul says that as he looks at what the Galatian believers are doing, he is astonished. In 21^st century language, Paul is blown away. He watches what is going on and he shakes his head in total wonder.

Paul is not just astonished at what they are doing but also at how easily they changed what they believed and how quickly the change took place.

So, what had happened?

They had turned from two things.

They had turned from the One who had called them into a grace-based relationship with God. They had turned from Jesus.

It doesn’t mean that they stopped believing in Jesus as Messiah or Lord or Savior. It means that they had added something to the grace of God.

They had turned from the true Gospel of Jesus. The Gospel that Paul had shared with them. They had not rejected the Gospel completely. They had added to it.

Satan is great at confusion. He loves to distract and confuse.

Satan did it to:

Eve

David

Solomon

Peter

Judas

The result is always believing a lie; not rejecting all the truth, but mixing a falsehood with the truth and thus creating confusion.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about believing the truth of the Gospel.

Galatians 1:7-9

Which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the Gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternal condemned. As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned.

Just because someone calls it the gospel does not mean it is The Gospel.

Paul says that a gospel that is not really The Gospel is being preached to the Galatian believers. The result was confusion.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 14:33 that God is not a God of confusion but of peace.

God is truth and speaks truth and so He will never attempt to confuse us. If you are facing confusion in the spiritual aspects of your life, it is not God. It is Satan. Ask God to give you understanding and clarity and He will.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is living in truth and peace, not confusion.

Paul declares a severe curse on anyone who is trying to share a different gospel than the one Jesus gave to Paul and that Paul had been teaching. He says may they be “eternally condemned”.

That is strong. Paul is saying that eternal condemnation is the fate of someone who purposely tries to deceive and confuse followers of Jesus.

In Matthew 18:6 Jesus says, “If anyone causes any of these little ones – those who believe in me – to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.”

Jesus is serious about protecting His children from anything that would cause them to doubt or stumble. Paul reiterates that same idea not once but twice.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is recognizing that God is serious about protecting His children from things that would spiritually harm them.

Galatians 1:10

Am I now trying to win the approval of men or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Paul asks two questions.

Question #1: Am I trying to win the approval of men or God?

Question #2: Or am I trying to please men?

The answer to the first question is that Paul is focused on what God wants, not man. The answer the second question is that Paul is not trying to please people.

Matthew 6:33 tells us that we are to seek first and above anything God’s kingdom and God’s righteousness. We are to seek God and what He wants.

When we do that, it will be at odds with the values of this world and the people who have bought into those values.

Personally, I like being at odds with the values of this world. I love it when people who are living by the values of the world look at me and think I am weird. Twice in Deuteronomy God calls His people a peculiar people.

Raise the Roof AND Remove the Walls is following God’s values, not the world’s values.

Paul says that if he tried to please people and win their approval he would not be a servant of Christ.

We are called as followers of Jesus to serve Him.

Serving Jesus means:

We desire to do His will.

We seek His will.

We by the power of His Spirit obey Him.

Paul sought to do God’s will and did not care what people thought or said or did.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is serving Jesus.

The key to knowing what the true Gospel is and not being confused -

The key to serving Jesus and not being distracted by world-based values and what others think -

Is God’s Word!

We have to spend time in the Bible.

The Bible teaches us what the Gospel is.

The Bible teaches us who God is.

The Bible teaches us what God’s will is.

Knowing the truth allows us to recognize the false.

Jesus is the truth.

What Jesus teaches is the truth.

Following the One Who is the True Gospel, Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                                      Joe

It's About Jesus

Paul writes his letter to the Galatians to say that it is about God and His grace, not about living based on the law. In the first five verses Paul shares five truths that will help us relate to God as our Father based on the grace given to us through Jesus.

Galatians 1:1

Paul, an apostle – sent not from men nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead.

Truth #1: Our calling is from God, not man.

Paul was not made an apostle because people said he was or because any group of people made him one. Paul was an apostle because God had called him to be and made him an apostle.

Your calling as a follower of Jesus is from Jesus.

Your calling to exercise your spiritual gift is from Jesus.

Your calling to minister in the way you are ministering is from Jesus.

If it is from man, it will fail.

If it is from God, it will stand.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is about living based on God’s authority, not man’s.

Galatians 1:2

And all the brothers with me.

Truth #2: Christianity is about community.

Paul is not doing this thing by himself. He has others with him.

In the American church, we have made Christianity an individual endeavor. We have made it about us, or, at best, us and God.

God makes being a follower of Jesus about:

Jesus

Others

You

When you do it that way, God’s way, it leads to JOY.

I need my Faith Family to effectively follow and serve Jesus. Paul understood that and brought others along with him in following and serving Jesus.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is seeing our need for each other and following Jesus within a faith community.

Galatians 1:3

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Truth #3: God’s grace brings peace.

The order is always the same, grace and then peace.

We cannot experience God’s peace until we have experienced God’s grace.

We are saved by grace.

We are declared righteous by grace.

We experience peace by grace.

If we try to find peace without experiencing God’s grace, it will be a human- based peace, and that kind of peace will not last.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing God’s grace and peace.

Galatians 1:4

Who gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father.

Truth #4: Jesus rescues or delivers us from sin.

You and I cannot save ourselves.

You and I cannot forgive our sins.

You and I cannot cleanse ourselves from the stain of sin.

Jesus can and does.

Jesus rescues us from the present evil age because that is what God the Father wanted and why Jesus came.

Apart from Jesus, we have no hope of forgiveness of our sin. Without Jesus, we are still dead in our sin.

God the Father desired to forgive us of our sin, but as a holy God, He couldn’t just overlook it, so Jesus came and took our sin on Himself and paid the price. When we submit our lives to Jesus’ authority and trust His death to pay for our sin, then we are rescued from this present evil age.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing deliverance from sin.

Galatians 1:5

To whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Truth #5: Our lives are to glorify God.

When we live based on God’s calling and will -

When we live in community with other believers -

When we live based on God’s grace and experience His peace -

When we live knowing that Jesus’ death and resurrection delivers us from sin -

Then we will glorify God with how we live.

When we understand who God is and what He has done as opposed to who we are and what we have done, then we will glorify Him out of our gratitude for all He has done for us.

These five truths have one thing in common. They are based in and are all about Jesus.

It is Jesus who calls us.

It is Jesus who connects us in community.

It is Jesus who gives us grace and peace.

It is Jesus who rescues us.

It is Jesus we are to glorify.

One of the best things that anyone ever told me was that life was not about me.

So, in love, I tell you that life is not about you.

Life is about Jesus. In fact, everything is about Jesus.

In Jesus, Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls

Joe

Grace Not Rules

I don’t like rules. That created a lot of problems as I was growing up because I was surrounded by rules. I had rules in my home, rules in my school, and rules in my church. I grew up viewing life from the perspective that it was about following rules and I knew I was not good at doing that.

When I became a Christian, I tried to follow Jesus by keeping rules.

Rules like:

Don’t lie.

Don’t cheat.

Don’t steal.

Don’t disobey my parents.

Don’t cuss.

All those rules were good, but I found myself not keeping them.

I found that I was feeling like what Paul expresses in Romans 7:21-25. It says, “I have discovered this principle of life – that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So, you see how it is: In my mind, I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature, I am a slave to sin.”

I wanted to follow the rules, but I couldn’t. I felt like giving up, and so I did.

It wasn’t that I stopped believing in God or that I stopped going to church or that I fell into gross immorality. I didn’t do any of those things. I simply decided that it was too hard to try and follow all the rules. I knew I was saved and I was going to heaven, so I decided that was enough.

I found I was still not at peace.

Then I read Matthew 5:17. Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

Look at what Jesus says: He did not abolish the Law. He fulfilled the Law.

Jesus fulfilled the Law by completely obeying every rule and every command. He obeyed all of the law.

Paul asks who will rescue him. His answer is Jesus.

Jesus did this through completely fulfilling the law and then dying on the cross as our perfect, sinless sacrifice.

We are delivered from the burden of the law as we surrender our lives over to the authority and control of Jesus.

Galatians 2:20

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.

Jesus fulfilled the law. I can’t, so I surrender my life to Jesus and His life is lived through me. His righteousness is given to me.

Galatians 2:16 says, “Know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Christ Jesus. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified.”

No one will be justified by observing the law!

The truth was that I could not follow all the rules.

The truth is that you cannot follow all the rules.

The truth is that no person can follow all the rules.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is acknowledging our inability to follow God’s commands in our own human strength.

We are justified by the grace of Jesus.

We are sanctified by the grace of Jesus.

We will be glorified by the grace of Jesus.

Not only can we not follow all the rules, the Law, but we were never intended to try and follow the rules to receive salvation.

Ephesians 2:8-9 reminds us that we are not saved by works, but we are saved by God’s grace made real in our lives through faith. This is so we will have no basis to boast about our salvation. Our salvation is completely secured by Jesus’ finished work on the cross.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is depending on God’s grace.

In Galatians 6:14 Paul says, “May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

Our boasting about salvation should be about what Jesus did on the cross, not about us or our worthiness for salvation or our work in following the rules.

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is boasting in the cross of Jesus.

I still do not do well at following rules.

But I have found some truths that allow my struggle not to hinder my walk with Jesus.

God looks at the heart, not at the outward appearance. – 1 Samuel 16:7

God gives us the desire and the ability to do what pleases Him. – Philippians 2:13

God’s grace saves me, not my works. – Ephesians 2:5

God has enabled me to be the righteousness of God through Jesus’ death on the cross. – 2 Corinthians 5:21

God is forming in me the image of Jesus and thus using my dislike for following rules to reject the world’s values and follow Him and His will. – Romans 8:29

Our hope is in Jesus and His grace, not our work at keeping all the rules.

Based on Grace, Not Works, Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

                                                    Joe