The Gospel message is about grace and peace but be wary of distortions

The letter to the churches in Galatia (now Turkey) was written by the apostle Paul. He had been commissioned by Jesus through an encounter on the road to Damascus … the last of the 12 apostles. This letter, along with another written to the church in Rome, played a pivotal role in the Reformation of the church. Martin Luther even described himself as being ‘married’ to the letter to the Galatian churches because of the vital importance of its teaching.

The letter is a warning about tampering with the Gospel … the wonderful message of what Jesus has accomplished through the cross to save people from their sins.  Galatians has been described as the letter dedicated to explaining what the Gospel is NOT. Subtle additions of human works were being made to the message of grace alone. These additions were wrongly teaching that faith in Christ alone is insufficient for our salvation. Paul had been given authority from Jesus Christ, with the office of an apostle, to preach and teach the truth of the Gospel in the early church.

We do a lot of waiting in life but there is a type of waiting which stands apart from all the rest.

We do a lot of waiting in life … hospital visits … birthdays to come … on the wedding day. There are also times when this waiting can be stressful. In Psalm 27, David encourages us to ‘wait on the Lord’ knowing that this will not be in vain. With him there is nothing to be afraid of. God is David’s fortress, security and comfort.

This Psalm reminds us that no matter what the enemy does eventually he will fall. David can still have confidence in the Lord to do what is right because He has saved him through His sacrificial love which we see displayed at the cross. His deepest desire and longing is to be with God because of who He is and such a wondrous salvation.

David does seek the Lord and finds reassurance. Christ endured malicious accusations, suffered on the cross, waited 3 days and was then vindicated. As the Lord didn’t let go of Jesus, so he will not let go of his children when we face accusations. We need to learn to wait for the Lord. The cross gives us the greatest confidence … it was fixed in time so we can be sure our waiting will not be in vain.

When it comes to wisdom the danger is to be looking in the wrong places.

Where do you turn to for wisdom? There are the academics, other professional people and tools such as on-line search engines. This passage, however, provides a completely different source. It refers us to a message … it is the message of the cross. The apostle Paul calls it the wisdom of God.

What does this mean? It means that everything we really need to know for life and eternity is found in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross and his resurrection. It is regarded as foolishness to most who are looking for wisdom in the wrong places. Sophisticated knowledge which comes from purely intellectual pursuits fails to see our deepest need is for the forgiveness of our sins.

The cross is also referred to as the ‘power’ of God. For those who trust in Jesus, the priorities of their lives have changed dramatically. A new life found in relationship with God fills the believer with worship and renewed energy for living according to a different purpose. This is well put in the Lord’s Prayer … ‘Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven’.

The ‘what’ of the Christian message is familiar to most people. The ‘why’ and the ‘how’ however are much less well known.

In Romans, Paul begins by putting his name to the letter and then briefly telling about  the ‘what’ before he goes on to the ‘why’ and the ‘how’. We find that the gospel (good news) was promised in the Old Testament Scriptures, it is about God’s Son, descended from David (in one sense) and resurrected from the dead.

We also catch a glimpse of Paul’s heart, addressing the believers in Rome as ‘beloved’ …… showing his care and concern for them and hope to visit them.

This first part of Chapter 1 finishes with Paul giving a glimpse of the ‘why’. He says he is not ashamed of the gospel, the momentous truths about Jesus dying on the cross and rising again from death, because it is God’s way of saving people and we now get a glimpse of the ‘how’ …..  it is by faith. Faith is simply ‘confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see’.

Verse 17 is the key …….. it contains a quote from the Old Testament “the righteous man shall live by faith”. Another way of saying this is ‘the one who through faith is righteous shall live’. Its not about what we have accomplished but our participation, by faith, in what has been accomplished for us by Jesus Christ on the cross.

God looks on the heart

The sovereignty of God in achieving His purposes is something wonderful but also very profound. Here in this passage about the choosing of David to be king we still see that God is the one who ‘wrote the script’. We are short-sighted because our sin corrupts how we see everything. When it comes to choosing a king, David was an unlikely choice but we are told that God does not look at the outward appearance but the heart …. He is a man after God’s own heart.

God worked powerfully in David and this enabled him to do great things such as the victory over Goliath. David knew that God was with Him …. he didn’t rely on his own strength.  David was a pointer to THE great King who was to come after him and fulfil God’s ‘master plan’. Jesus is called ‘Emmanuel’ which means “God with us’. He has demonstrated His perfect Kinship by laying down His life, on the cross, so that we can live in and through Him.

Christmas time invokes many different emotions and thoughts … presents, giving, Santa Claus etc. For some people this time is a bit of a chore. For others they see it as a party, family or holiday time. These things, however, need to be put in a proper perspective. They are not the reason for Christmas itself.

For a minority, Christmas is a time of real celebration because of Jesus’ birth. Where sin had destroyed the relationship between God and man, Jesus’ birth heralds the way this can be restored. It was, however, lost on most of the people of Jesus’ time. Only a small number, during his earthly life believed that he was born to die as a sacrifice and substitute for them. Later this was to become many millions all throughout history.

These passages, about Jesus’ first and second coming, tell us that the Christmas story is not the end. Things will be very different when Jesus comes a second time. It is then that he will appear in great power and glory as the King of kings. Those who have turned from their sins and trusted in him will be saved. Those who have rejected him, and gone their own way, will be rejected by him to suffer eternal punishment with all his enemies.

The Creator has a wonderful purpose for His creation

In this passage the apostle Paul says that God uses the spread of the gospel, the ‘good news’ about Jesus, to achieve His grand plan for the world. Paul is here revealing something which was hidden in Old Testament time even though the prophets did partially see into the mystery. The mystery is that both Jews and non-Jews would be made one through faith in Jesus Christ ….. heirs together, members together and sharers together …… all are placed on an equal footing because of the gospel.

It is a great privilege to be part of God’s grand plan. This involves proclaiming and sharing the message of good news about the beauty, glory and riches of Christ accomplished at the cross. It is about how people can approach God with confidence, not in their own righteousness but in His. Paul was willing to suffer greatly in order to spread this message …… he even said ‘for me to live is Christ and to die is gain.’

   The wonder of light in the midst of darkness

With activities beginning for the New Year it is surprising how quickly we move on to the next big thing. Let’s take some time to consider the coming of Jesus which is celebrated in December. He is the light of the world. The writer of this passage, John, wants us to see the connection between the first beginning at creation and Jesus’ coming. For us this involves the getting of life and how we are found by it.

As we read, Jesus is presented as our life. This refers to the life that is embodied in him. Why did he go to the cross? John’s answer is that he came to bring life into deadness. When dead lost man truly meets Jesus he comes alive. Jesus said to Martha elsewhere ‘I am the resurrection and the life’. Only Jesus can give us true life … meaning and purpose. Believers also have the hope of eternal life. A life given to God is a life well spent.

Jesus is also the light. The light shines in the darkness. Jesus taught that this light can be within us so that we can be children of the light. In Genesis God separated the light from the darkness but in this passage we find that the light shines in the darkness. It shines a light on evil. We are told that the darkness does not overcome the light. Faith in Jesus Christ brings light into our spiritual darkness.

 Christmas is often thought of as a time of giving and receiving but for some a special gift has a very important result.

At this time of year there is a lot of emphasis on giving as well as receiving. The cost of the gift is often considered because there are budgets involved. In this passage, however, we learn about the response of people who have received a free gift from God … the forgiveness of their sins, past, present and future, freely received by faith alone.

There was an enormous cost to Jesus for this gift which was his terrible sufferings on the cross. We can’t fully understand what this meant for Him. Those who have received this gift have a purpose for their lives. It is to share this message, this ‘gospel’ or ‘good news’, with other people. For some this may involve them with telling others directly about Jesus. For others it might be just the way that they live which shows they belong to Him.

  An important perspective on the one whose birthday we celebrate at this time of the year.

It is likely that the apostle John wrote about Jesus in this passage to correct misunderstandings. People who were from a Greek Jewish background would have been familiar with the term ‘Word’, or Logos in their language. It referred to a Greek demi-god. Here John shows how different Jesus is to their mythological gods.

John says, in this passage, that the Word became flesh. John was showing that Jesus, whilst being fully and equally God, also became man. In breath-taking humility he laid aside his heavenly glory and became one of us for a very specific and wondrous purpose … to save us from our sins.

How could He do this? He did this by living a perfect life and then offering up Himself as a spotless substitute and sacrifice on the cross. Forgiveness is now offered to mankind as a free gift to be received by the ‘hand’ of faith and this clothes the believer with Christ’s perfect righteousness. One hymn writer has put it this way …’nothing in my hand I bring, simply to your cross I cling, naked come to you for dress, helpless look to you for grace, stained by sin to you I cry, wash me Saviour or I die.’