Appetizers

Thursday April 23, 2009

Dear Fellow Travelers,
Over the next several months, I will be devoting my Sunday morning messages to a study of Paul’s letter to the church in the region know in his days as Galatia—Asia Minor. That means that you might expect to see some of the results of that study here in my perspective, today being no exception. Although the members of my congregation already have this, I felt impressed to pass it on to you. I am calling it “Appetizers” and I must admit that I gleaned most of it from John Stott’s book, “The Message of Galatians.” Hopefully, these “appetizers” will whet your appetite for some of soul food!

1. Satan would have us prove ourselves holy by the law, which God gave to us to prove us sinners.

2. Everybody is living either living in the Old Testament or the New, and derives his “religion” either from Moses or from Jesus. He is either “under law” or “in Christ.”

3. People cannot see the beauty of the pearl because they have no concept of the filth of the pigstye.

4. God still speaks through what He has spoken, and nothing is more necessary for the life, health, and growth of Christians that that they should hear what the Spirit is saying to them through His ancient—yet ever modern—Word.

5. The death of Jesus was primarily neither a display of love, nor an example of heroism, but a sacrifice for sin.

6. The gospel is a rescue, an emancipation from a state of bondage.

7. The gospel doesn’t teach me what I ought to do (for that is the proper office of the Law), but what Jesus Christ the Son of God has done for me; to wit, that He suffered and died to deliver me from sin and death.

8. The Law requires works of human achievement; the gospel requires faith in Christ’s achievement.

9. The Law makes demands and bids us obey; the gospel brings promises and bids us believe.

10. The gospel offers blessings; what must we do to receive them? The proper answer is “nothing.”

11. Obeying is an attempt to do the work of salvation ourselves, whereas believing is to let Christ be our Savior and to rest in His finished work.

12. The gospel is not good advice to men, but good news about Christ; not an invitation to us to do anything, but a declaration of what God has done; not a reward, but an offer.

13. If we are “in Christ” our “religion” is characterized by promises rather than by law.

14. God intended the Law to reveal sin, and to drive men to Christ. Satan uses it to reveal sin, and drive men to despair.

15. You shall remember that you were a bondman in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you.


You think on these things—
Mac