00:00 Introduction and Thanksgiving Greetings

00:23 Weather Talk and Frustrations

02:30 Transition to Galatians

03:11 Paul's Harsh Letter to the Galatians

05:20 Paul's Authority and Confrontation with Peter

09:09 Faith vs. Works Debate

14:12 Purpose of the Law

18:08 Concluding Prayer and Farewell

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Questions or Comments? Email us podcast@compassntx.org

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Introduction and Thanksgiving Greetings

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Hey everybody. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible podcast. Happy Monday, Monday. Merry Christmas. Why still the Merry Christmas. It's Thanksgiving week officially as of yesterday, actually. Happy Thanksgiving. There we go. Happy Turkey Day. Yeah, we've got football on Thanksgiving. Morning, we talked about that.

Just a reminder, nine o'clock. Be there. Be square. Have fun. It's gonna be, I think, chilly, not as cold as it was last year. Last year was really cold. It was. It was really cold.

Weather Talk and Frustrations

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It's really nice weather this season. I don't know what's happening to Texas. She's getting soft is all I can say. I don't look, the weather has been so mild.

I know. But this is the time of year where I really, I struggle with the weather forecasters because I look forward to the cold weather every year and I get my forecast on my apps that are like, Hey, the cold weather's coming. And then all of a sudden it's like, nevermind. It's gonna be 75 today. You frustrated me.

It's been really nice. Yeah. I'm okay with that, but it's just somebody needs to be held accountable for that. I think you're gonna have to go to God's department. Well knock on his door and tell him exactly what you feel about it, whether forecasting is the job that you can be wrong the most amount of time and still have a job.

I mean, that's really what it is. Can you smile? Nice. Can you talk? Good. Let's have you do the weather then with the caveat up front that hey, we're probably gonna get this wrong, so here you go. Yeah. Yeah. So if you're a weather forecaster out there, I apologize, but not really. 'cause I have some beef.

I have some beef. I'm a little upset. I just wish you would tell me not to get my hopes up. That's all. Ponder on weather. POW on Facebook. Yeah. You like that guy? He is good. Yeah. I like him. He seems like he's relatively accurate, I guess. I don't know. I never go back and spot check. Yeah. But I have a general sense that he's right about a lot of things and nobody knows whether it's, when it says there's a 70% chance of rain, does that mean there's a 70% chance that it will rain or 70% of your area is going to get rain?

And we get to fall back on the fact that like, Hey, well we told you, we told you you, we didn't say a hundred percent chance. We said 70%. Anyways, that's neither here nor there. Happy Monday. Hopefully you have a good week planned in front of you. I know a lot of our kids are off school on Thanksgiving week, and so class schools are closed, classes are off, and so maybe you'll get some more family time, which is I trust gonna be good.

But yeah, it's gonna be a great week.

Transition to Galatians

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We get to start off on Monday with Galatians. We are in a new book. Galatians one through three today, Galatians four through six tomorrow, and again we are in the Book of Acts, but we're also interspersing these letters because the missionary journeys were journeys to the churches that Paul writes letters to.

This relationship of the law and the Gentiles the problem that Paul's gonna address in the letter to the Galatians and Galatians is unique.

Paul's Harsh Letter to the Galatians

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Galatians is a borderline harsh letter from Paul. When you compare it to some of the others. Yeah. He doesn't really commend them for much. In fact, he comes right outta the gates pretty strong.

He says, I'm astonished that you are deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel. And he says, not that there is a different gospel, but you're believing in something that you shouldn't be believing in. And even says if I should come and preach to you a gospel that isn't the one you first heard, or if an angel should come, let them be a cursed.

In other words, let them be. Cast into to hell essentially is what Paul is saying here. That's how important the Pure Gospel is. And then Paul recounts his own conversion, which was out of a life of pursuing righteousness by the law. And that's the main problem here. The group of Judaizers are coming in trying to convince the Galatians that they need Jesus and something else in order to be acceptable before the Lord.

I didn't invent it, but rather I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ as he says there in chapter one. So, Paul comes outta the gate swinging in Galatians, I'm a proponent that this was written before the Jerusalem Council. Do you? I think so. Otherwise, it's a glaring omission. Paul was there at the Jerusalem Council.

He was part of that delegation. He could have said that. Yeah. And he should have said that. Yeah. 'cause it's, the whole letter is about circumcision and its role in, in someone's salvation. And so Paul could have just said, not just I, but the brothers in Jerusalem also convened and said that this is the case.

I think. That makes sense to me. Otherwise, it's a head scratcher to say, why wouldn't Paul mention that? Yeah. In my argument, it's not that it came afterwards, just that it's the same subject matter being dealt with. So it's possible if it's, if this is before, and I can see your argument there that this may have been some of the initial things that were stirring up the dissension that eventually led them to say, we gotta figure.

This out. Yeah. We gotta get to the root of this. Right? Right. Yeah.

Paul's Authority and Confrontation with Peter

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Well, chapter two, he begins to explain more of his own pedigree here and his own ability to say, Hey I've got some authority here. As he gives his. Justification for his acceptance by the apostles, his ministry. That there were people that even tried to distort and pervert his ministry even early on.

And in the similar way that the Galatians were being opposed by the Judaizers, those that were coming in trying to propose that they should be obedient to the law. And then we get into this section where he even cites Peter and says, look, I even had to stand up against Peter. And that's CFUs by the way, in, in verse 11 of chapter two, because Peter had.

Church in Jerusalem. The Judaizers man, Peter was a little bit cowardly here and backed off and didn't want to be seen by the Gentiles for fear of what the Jews would think for him hanging out with the Gentiles, the Jewish believers would think for him hanging out with the Gentiles. And he says there, even Barnabas was led astray in verse 13.

And so Barnabas seems to have kind of gone along with what Peter was doing here. So Paul is really kind of in this initial section here, pulling out the scalpel, opening things up here in Galatian saying this is what the problem is right now. Two quick observations. Number one, Paul spoke to Peter's face.

He didn't go behind his back. He did. And talk to his friends about it and say, did you hear what Cefas did? This cat, he told Peter right to his face and I love that. Yeah, 'cause that's a really helpful and healthy form of confrontation. You don't go to your friend's back, you go to your friend's face. Good friend will stab you in the front.

You may not even expect that, but others will follow your lead, perhaps unintentionally just doing what you're doing and you can cause others to stumble by your own sin. So always be aware of those things. Confrontation and also the fallout. Yeah, confrontation's. Never fun. No, ever. If you like it. I don't know.

Maybe you need to write a book 'cause it's terrifying for the rest of us. It is. And it's not just here. In fact, later on, Galatians, Galatians six, Paul's gonna say, brothers, if anyone is caught in a trespass, you who are spiritual, restore that person. That's what Mar's podcast, bro. That's, I, I get it.

It's another reason why community groups are so important. I mean, I know that's not the greatest carrot to, to try to get somebody to say, yeah, I wanna sign up for community groups. Do you wanna get rebuked? Sign up today for community groups? But it is a man, it, there is something beneficial about that to, to provide a safety net that God protects us through that fellowship with other believers who see into our lives closely enough to be able to call us out when we're sin sinning.

That's a grace of God. That's a gift. It's a mercy of his. Rather than just leaving us in our sin and allowing us to go on and store up more and more wrath or to lose more and more reward as a believer, at least or to defam Christ by your behavior or to defam Christ by our behavior. Yeah, totally.

Yeah. It is a gift. And may, maybe the thing that would make it easier for us is if we tell people who we trust and we love, hey, know that you can confront me. Yeah. I just want, I wanna open and extend the offer. Here's a blank check. I trust you enough to give you the blank check to write it and cash it in my life.

Give them a refrigerator, rice to your heart. Yes. Right. That's right. Yeah. Are you saying your heart's cold? It is very cold, conservative heart.

Faith vs. Works Debate

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Well, in verse 15 of chapter two, Paul gets to the corrective here. He is gonna say, though we're Jews and not gentiles. We know this, that a person's not justified by works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ.

Mm. Say it again. Through faith in Jesus Christ. Mm. One more time for those in the back. Faith in Jesus Christ. And now louder for those in the front. Just kidding, if you're still with us. Good job. Thanks for hanging in there through that. Man, the word faith is gonna show up so many times in the rest of this letter.

In fact, it might be good if you like to circle or underline or star in your bible to, to do that with the word faith because Paul's gonna make that his central theme now because that's what was being undermined. It's not that, and we talked about this recently, I can't remember how many episodes ago when we talked about James, that saving faith does work.

So Paul is going to come in here and preach faith and faith alone, and that's where he goes in chapter three. When he asks this question at the beginning. He says, foolish Galatians, he says, who has bewitched you? Who's put you under a curse? And then he talks about Christ as being crucified before their eyes.

And in other words, they have heard the gospel clearly proclaimed to them. And then he says, did you receive? Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith, the answer is faith. And so he says, then be being begun by the spirit. How can you be perfected by the flesh? And so he's really correcting and rebuking, I mean, second Timothy three, 16 and 17, when it says the word of God is useful for correction, reproof, rebuke that the man of God may be competent and equipped for every good work.

A Christian's power is faith. It's faith in that Christ. Faith in the Lord, love for the Lord. There's a lot of things that push that thing forward, but it is not works. If you try to make works the foundation of your faith, you're gonna find it to be faulty and ultimately crushing because you're works are never gonna be sufficient.

You're never gonna do enough to feel like you made it. You're never gonna have enough wisdom, excellence of character, self-control, sinlessness, you're always gonna be plagued by that unless. Everything about your Christian life is built on the foundation of faith in Christ, and that's what Paul's preaching here, and that's hopefully what you hear us preaching from the pulpit all the time.

If you ever get this wrong, you're gonna have a very different experience of the Christian life and it will be crushing. It will. It will. Chapter three, verse seven. Paul makes this argument here, which again, for those that were prone towards the Old Testament and the Jewish faith would've been a little bit staggering.

Faith who are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. And so Paul's making this connection and he's saying, look, it is those of faith. Faith is what unites us to the greatest promise, which is that promise that Abraham in the seed of Abraham would bring blessing to the whole earth. That is Jesus is the offspring of Abraham there.

And so the gospel, he says, was preached back there in Genesis 12, three as this is about the faith in the promises of God. As he goes on verses 10 down through verse 14, there, he's gonna expound upon this more. And this time he's going to shift to a different analogy. Again, going back to the Old Testament this time, that the idea that anyone who is disobedient, is gonna be under a.

Curse. And it's somebody who is breaking the law. And he says there, he quotes here, he says, cursed, this is from Deuteronomy. I believe curse would be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the book of the law. And then he says, it's evident. No one's justified before God. And so in, in other words, we need.

This is penal substitutionary atonement. What is our faith in It's? Our faith is in Christ. Taking our place, bearing our punishment. That's the penal taking our place, being the substitute for us. In atoning, bringing atonement, bringing us, reconciling us, closing the gap between our relationship with us and the Lord.

And so, we needed Christ to do that. That's what our faith is in our faith is in the death of Jesus. It's not in this obscure, random, non-specific faith. It's faith in the object of our faith who is Jesus. And this makes sense too, that it would be penal, substitutionary atonement, because this is what the Old Testament pointed to.

And praise God for that. One of the things Paul does really well. In his letters is he anticipates objections.

Purpose of the Law

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And so he is gonna do that again here by saying, well, you're gonna argue and ask me then, well then what is the purpose of the law? Why was the law even given to begin with? And essentially his answer is the law was there to, as he puts it, imprison everything under sin.

This is verse 22, so that the promise by faith in Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe. In other words, the law was there to show us that we couldn't be made right with God through the law. That's the purpose of the law, and that we needed an alien righteousness. A righteousness that comes from outside a righteousness.

Righteousness that can only be ours through faith in Jesus Christ. And so he's gonna call the law eventually the guardian or the Tudor, verse 24, that guardrail, even as you think about bowling, it's the bumpers on the lane that. Keep you in the lane. And that's what the law is doing to guide us and lead us to the conclusion that we need Christ, that we need a righteousness that's not our own.

That the law that we see in scripture is actually just the same. It's the same thing. It's legalism to say that you should obey Christ, and it's a misappropriation of the New Testament of grace. So why do you not believe that? It sounds like Paul's saying that the law was meant to be a tutor until we reached the maturity with Christ, and now the law effectively goes away.

So why does it sound like you're saying something different? It's in essence the motive in the law. And so this goes back to James, like we, we talked about a couple days ago that James is gonna say, faith without works is dead. And so the works that we have go back to what James says, that we need to be those that, that not only read and hear the word of God, but also those that do it.

So, we don't go to the law to try to rebuild what Christ is torn down. We don't go to law to try to rebuild it as a source of our justification. Rather we go to scripture to obey the word of God because this is what we see scripture calling us to do in other passages, not in order to.

Acceptable to God, but in order to respond and be obedient to the God who has already accepted us because of what Christ has done for us. So obedience then is not a condition for salvation, but a response to it. Yes. Our obedience therefore is still required. It's necessary. Yes. It's a part of what it looks like to be a Christian.

This is what the purpose of the old covenant law was, the mosaic law. It's meant to hedge you in so that you say, I give up. I can't do it. I know I can't do all these 600 laws. I just can't do all these things. And then God would say, that's exactly right. Good job. You nailed it. And now you have to trust me.

Now you have to put your faith and your hope in me and not in your obedience to the law. Again, if you find yourself, and this is funny, not funny. This is challenge because a lot of Christians find themselves here. When you begin to define your relationship with God on your obedience, you're always gonna find yourself tripping up.

And if you're ever self satisfied, that's actually a very dangerous place to be because then you're depending upon your obedience, your relationship with God. Is going to fluctuate and be again, devastatingly heavy and painful. If you're always rating it, if you're always grading it on, you draw obedience to the law.

The goal is to build faith in Christ and you build faith in Christ by reading your Bible, by praying, going to church, all the things that he calls you to do. But those are not the most fundamental elements. They're the response again. They help grow your faith in Christ. And that's always the posture of the Christian.

Concluding Prayer and Farewell

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Well, let's pray and then we will wrap up this episode. Lord, give us the wisdom to be able to be honest with ourselves to be able to assess what Pastor Rod was just talking about there, where we're at with our approach to obedience.

If this is because of a. Desire to be confident in ourselves to have a self-righteousness Lord, if this is truly a response to what you've done for us, because we love you, because we love Christ, because we want to live a life of obedient devotion to you. Lord, we want to be those that are pursuing the latter and not the former.

And so help us to do that. Lord, help us to be those that are committed to Christ. Those that are so , in awe. And. And captured by what you've done for us through Christ, that we are willing to say Whatever you want us to do, Lord, we will do that. And we see that revealed to us in the Word of God.

So help us to be students of the Word who are not only hearers, but also doers. And we do that, Lord, for your glory as you form Christ in us. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Keep your new Bibles and tune in against tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. See you then. Bye.

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PJ: Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said