Paul’s Fervent Appeals
To protect the integrity of the gospel Paul confronted Peter, Barnabas, and the churches of Galatia. Turn with me again to Galatians 1:6. Alone of all Paul’s writings, Galatians does not begin with thanksgiving, a sure sign of his displeasure. His displeasure showed itself in another way right from the start. Verses 6-7a: 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.

His language in verse eight could not be stronger. 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! So much for gentle persuasion! And just in case they missed it, he repeated it in verse nine.

Now look at Galatians 3:1: You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. Look at verses 3-4: Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? Have you suffered so much for nothing – if it really was for nothing?  

Look at two other examples. Look at Galatians 4:8-10: Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God – or rather are known by God – how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable principles? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! Look at one more strongly personal appeal in Galatians 5:7: You were running a good race. Who cut in on you and kept you from obeying the truth?

Strong words! But Paul did more than use strong words with the Galatian churches. He also forced them to think theologically about what they were being asked to do. Paul did that especially in Galatians three. Let’s have a look.

 
The Promise of God and the Faith of Abraham
This chapter needs a lot of footnotes, because it presents us with unfamiliar language and customs. If we were doing a line by line analysis, I would need to include the footnotes. But I think I can convey the main point Paul made without them. The main point pertains to our experience as well. Everything Paul says in this chapter revolves around two realities: the promise of God and the faith of Abraham.

Paul began with the faith of Abraham. Verse six: Consider Abraham: “He believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” That is a direct quotation of Genesis 15:6. Paul was taking his readers back to the spiritual foundations of Israel. On Abraham’s part that foundation was believe in God.

In verse seven Paul immediately drew a conclusion: Understand, then, that those who believe (in Christ) are children of Abraham. “Abraham’s faith in God put him right with God. Your faith in Christ puts you right with God. You Galatians are just like Abraham; you’re his spiritual children, because you are people of faith.”

But what did Abraham believe? The answer to that reveals God’s promise to Abraham in verse eight: The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.”  That is a direct quotation of Genesis 12:3. Again, Paul was taking his readers back to the spiritual foundations of Israel. On God’s part that foundation was his promise to bless all the nations of earth through Abraham. Abraham believed that.

In verse nine Paul immediately drew another conclusion: So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. “All nations will be blessed through (Abraham).”  Paul was not splitting hairs. Christ had revealed to him the true purpose of God in history.

We can see that purpose better today. In September, 2000, more than 100 Jewish theologians released a Jewish statement on Christians and Christianity. The statement contained eight paragraphs. The first paragraph reads this way:

“Jews and Christians worship the same God. Before the rise of Christianity, Jews were the only worshippers of the God of Israel. But Christians also worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; creator of heaven and earth. While Christian worship is not a viable religious choice for Jews, as Jewish theologians we rejoice that, through Christianity, hundreds of millions of people have entered into relationship with the God of Israel.”

The faith of Abraham in the promise of God has been verified by historical reality in our lifetime. What the Apostle Paul labored to protect and to proclaim has been verified by historical reality in our lifetime.

Now, listen to the description of reality in verses 26-28: You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. That is the Church, and that is the second theme of Galatians.

 
Until Christ Is Formed in You
Another motive worked down in the low bottom of Paul’s soul. He cared not only for the truth of the gospel, but he also cared for the church, which the gospel formed. He never expressed his care any better than in Galatians 4:19: My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you . . .

The first criterion of God’s call to pastoral care is to care – to spend yourself and to be spent for the sake of the Bride of Christ, the Church. The purpose of this self-sacrifice is that Christ be formed in you, who are the Church. Think about that! until Christ is formed in you . . . I’d like to spend the rest of this sermon and the sermon next Sunday talking about what that means.

How is Christ formed in Brandywine Valley Baptist Church in this first decade of the third millennium? The answer plunges us back into the theology of the Cross. The shadow of the Cross falls across the “the ‘habits of the heart’ and ‘habits of the mind’ that dominate American culture.

Those habits and that culture pose to the Church the decisive question of our generation. Can Christians lead lives that are worthy of Christ in an American culture that invites and encourages us to use our unparalleled personal freedom for an unprincipled pursuit of pleasure and power? Doing anything we can get away with appeals to us, because we think doing it will make us happy.

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ tells a different story. Let me tell that story again briefly and bluntly. If using unparalleled personal freedom for an unprincipled pursuit of pleasure and power could save us from our sins, then Christ died for nothing. But it doesn’t save us from our sins. It doesn’t even make us happy for long. It is profoundly selfish and chains us to our sins. The message of the cross proclaims that self-sacrifice is the way of God in this world.

That is why I encourage us, summon us, challenge us to ask of the next person we meet, “How can I put the legitimate needs of this person ahead of my own?” Doing that is how the Church can be worthy of Jesus Christ in an American culture that invites and encourages us to do anything we can get away with. Doing that is how we allow the shadow of the cross to fall across the habits of the heart and habits of the mind that dominate American culture.

But we will live that way only if something else Paul said about the Cross enters deeply into our experience. Go back to 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.

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ changed the way Paul saw the world. It changed the way he saw the Jewish way of life he once zealously upheld. What good was that way of life, if that way of life put to death the whole point of Israel’s existence? What good was his own religious zeal, if in his zeal he missed the whole point of Israel’s existence?

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ not only put Jesus to death, it also put to death the behavior, values, habits and goals that made Paul the man he was. Their power to define him died as surely as Christ died.

The crucifixion of Jesus Christ also reveals that the habits of the heart and habits of the mind that dominate American culture have been tried and found wanting. Their power to define the Church must die as surely as Christ died and be replaced by something new.

A new Paul emerged from exile in the Arabian Desert. A new Church can emerge from the national confusion and the culture of death that dominates American culture and threatens the Church with irrelevance. The words at the end of verse 20 characterize this new Church. Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, (and then those words of irreducible tenderness) who loved me and gave himself for me. Paul never got over that. I hope we never get over that.

 
The Pastoral Center of Gravity
In his passion to see Christ formed in the Galatian churches he used the language of Galatians 2:20 later in the letter to describe their new identity, as he had used it to describe his. Look at Galatians 5:24: Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires.

The crucifixion of Christ says relentlessly to every Christian, everywhere in the world “that he has no abiding city and warns him that to be faithful to Christ will put him out of step with his society; for that society never existed, in East or West, ancient time or modern, which could absorb the word of Christ painlessly into its system” (Andrew F. Walls, The Missionary Movement in Christian History, 8).

The crucifixion of Christ has changed our status in the world, whether we know it or not; and it can change the way we see the world, whether we know it or not. The crucifixion not only put Jesus to death, it can also put to death the behavior, values, habits and goals that once made us what we were before we became followers of Christ. Those old marks of your identity can die as surely as Christ died.

The old marks of identity cannot bring humanity to realize its full potential as persons, and they cannot make humanity free. The Church needs to embody alternative habits of the heart and habits of the mind by the power of the Holy Spirit. Each believer here learns these alternative habits as members of this community of faith.

To the degree that the love of Christ and these new habits define who we are, to that degree Christ is formed in us, and to that degree Paul’s pastoral passion and the pastoral passion of all of us that serve this congregation reach fulfillment.

Our task next Sunday will be to meditate on these alternative habits of the heart and habits of the mind, which the Church embodies, and on the source of the community’s power, which is the Holy Spirit.

With these possibilities before us we come back to the great line in Galatians 2:20 and to the central human theme of Galatians. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God. Galatians 3:9: So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith.

When the apostle talked about faith and when I talk about faith, we’re not talking about inward feelings and experiences. We are talking about the conviction that what we’ve talked about today is true, like the Law of Gravity is true or the genetic code is true. It’s not just true for you; it’s true for every human being, even if every human being was blind to it.

It is truth to build our lives on. It’s truth to take risks for. It’s truth to test in all our relationships. It’s very personal, but it is never private in the sense that we never demonstrate what we believe or talk about what we believe. Of course, we should never flaunt it, but we should never hide it. So, let us together embrace the Church’s vocation to carry the salvation of Christ to every nation on the planet.