There’s a grand old man of the investing community with the nickname “saint”. So far he’s saved investors $175 billion dollars. Sounds as if the man would be very interesting, doesn’t it? However–this man has only one theme, and that’s all he wants to talk about. Now he sounds boring, doesn’t he? Doesn’t he fit the definition, “can’t change his mind and won’t change the subject?” One thing makes him interesting: he has a great theme and develops and applies it with depth, engaging logic, insight, and passion.
How does any of the above relate to us a Christians?
Consider for a moment the “imaginative” title we gave the current sermon series. If you check our website it says, “The Message of Galatians”. Couldn’t your elders have done better than that? As an interesting challenge, how would you sum up the message of the book of Galatians? It seems, on the one hand to be all over the place: rebuking false teaching, reviewing Old Testament history, exhorting right living, detailing Paul’s personal history, pondering Jewish law, vividly expressing Paul’s feelings, making a horrible pun, listing good things, listing bad things.
Yet, despite all of that, the letter is very unified. It might be hard to sum up but you could diagram it easily. Every theme links back to the Gospel: teaching that contradicts the gospel is false, OT history shows us the Gospel was always God’s ultimate plan, the Gospel demands right living, Paul could never have created the Gospel, the Law was to guide us to faith in the Gospel, Paul’s feelings and their own were born out of the Gospel, the Gospel is worth dividing over, the Gospel gives us a new life that is seen in supernatural character and actions, the Gospel doesn’t coexist with rampant sin. One thing makes Paul interesting: he has the greatest theme of all time and he develops and applies it with depth, engaging logic, insight, and passion.
What we want to be about as a church is faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We are sinners, rightly condemned by God and by nature his enemies. By God’s plan, his son Jesus came into the world to suffer the wrath of God for our evil lives and earn us endless reward from God for his perfect life if we put our faith in what Jesus has done.