Oakbrook Evangelical Free Church

Galatians 1:6-10 “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— 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 eternally 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! “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.” NIV
Introduction:
The man who asked for help!

I. Messages People Get Excited About – Different ‘gospels’
“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— which is really no gospel at all.”

He is astonished that these new believers are starting to turn away
1:7 – corrects a false impression
There is only one Gospel – The one and only gospel!
God created the world and placed humankind in it to have an intimate relationship with Him forever. Adam and Eve chose to rebel against God to live independent, on their own, to run their own lives deciding for themselves what they would do or wouldn’t do, what was right and wrong for themselves.
They “fell” away from God and joined Satan’s rebellion. This “fallen” nature and world is thus been passed on to each succeeding generation resulting in sin and more sin and sickness and death.
The problem in the universe is not our alienation from our inner selves, nor genetics gone astray. The problem in the universe is that we as individuals and humanity as a whole is alienated from God.
Into this very bad situation of rebellion God launched the greatest rescue mission in history. He sent the one and only Liberator to give his life to rescue us.
Isaiah 53:6 “We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” NIV
Isaiah 64:6 “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags” NIV
Romans 3:10-12 “As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one.”” NIV
Romans 3:19-20 “Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.” NIV
John 3:16 ““For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” NIV
Mark 10:44-45 ” the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”” NIV
1 Corinthians 15:1-4 “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain. For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,” NIV
Romans 3:22-24 “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.” NIV
1 Peter 2:24-25 “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed. For you were like sheep going astray, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.”
Ephesians 2:8-9 “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.” NIV
We aren’t as bad as we can be – we are as bad off as we can be.
“Sin is an unsearchable morass of disposition, drift, willful choice, unwitting impulse, obsession, compulsion, seeming happenstance, the devil’s appetite for souls, the world’s shaping influence, and God’s hardening of hard hearts.”
But God has a comprehensive salvation plan to rescue us from the penalty of sin, the power of sin and the presence of sin.
Justification – Christ’s plan to give us a right standing with God
Sanctification – Christ’s comprehensive plan to rearrange our lives
“Strugglers with indwelling sin genuinely grow in grace even though some issues remain on the stage of our lives in some ways for the rest of our lives. Abiding struggles are no reason to throw over the Christian life as we grow and struggle toward future perfection!

Glorification! – Christ’s comprehensive plan to completely deliver us from the abiding presence of sin and its effects.
“Different” Gospels

Here – not world religions but an inside job!
Implications:
~ Even new believers do not have the luxury of spiritual immaturity
Are u learning to “listen” to the gospel others are speaking?

~ Universalism in all its forms is wrong (Many roads to Jesus; only one road to God)

~ Every one of us needs someone in our lives to speak the Gospel into our lives!
Saved by grace.
Live by grace!
II. Turning Away from the Gospel Brings God’s Curse
Amathema = accursed – doomed to eternal punishment!
When a person rejects the free gift of God’s forgiveness he/she remains under the divine curse for his / her sin.

Turning away is astonishing because
~ It is a turning away from God’s call
~ It is a turning away from God himself! – Very personal!
Angels
Other Religions…
Islam
There are three monotheistic religions in the world, religions that teach that there is only one God: Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
The term “Islam” means “submission” to the will of God, and the person who submits is called a “Muslim.”
The founder of Islam is Muhammad, who was born in 570 A.D. At age 40 he claimed to begin receiving revelations from a spirit being he believed was the angel Gabriel. These later were recorded and became the Qur’an, Islam’s holy book.
Many people think of Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses as Christians in slightly different denominations, but this is not the case. To put it bluntly, both religions teach another gospel and another Jesus. They are cults, not Christian denominations.
Mormonism was founded by Joseph Smith, a teenage boy in New York. He claimed that he was visited by first God the Father and the Son, and then by the angel Moroni, who gave him golden plates, which he translated into the Book of Mormon. He said that Christianity had been corrupted since the death of the last apostle, and God appointed him to restore the truth. But Joseph Smith provided nine different versions of these events, which set the tone for the rest of his teachings.
Deuteronomy 18:22 gives God’s standards for His prophets: 100% accuracy. Joseph Smith wrote a lot of prophecies, many of which never came true. He was a false prophet, and the religion he founded is not from God.
Mormonism is not Christian because it denies some of the essential doctrines of Christianity, including the deity of Christ and salvation by grace. Furthermore, Mormon doctrine contradicts the Christian teaching that there is only one God, and it undermines the authority and reliability of the Bible.
Jehovah’s Witnesses was founded by Charles Taze Russell, another false prophet. His Watchtower Bible and Tract Society has produced a prodigious amount of literature. It has prophecied the return of Christ in 1914, 1925, and 1975. Again, by God’s standards, the representatives of the Watchtower Society are false prophets.
Jehovah’s Witnesses deny the basics of the Christian faith. They deny the Trinity. They believe there is one singular God, Jehovah. Jesus is actually the created being Michael the Archangel, and who became flesh at the incarnation. The Holy Spirit is not God but an active force much like electricity or fire. They deny the bodily resurrection of Christ. Like Mormons, they deny the existence of hell and eternal punishment.
Both of these religions teach salvation by works, not God’s grace. And they teach that salvation is only found in their organizations.
Others:
People get so excited about something that, that is all they talk about! Shackley, Tupperware, Tongues, Baptism, KJV,
III. Who is the invisible person in your life?
What keeps some from coming to Christ – Pleasing People!
True believers have only one person to please!
The story of a perfectionist!
~ Always striving but never arriving.
~ At times paralyzed into inaction and procrastination