Finding Grace in a Demanding World

Welcome to our seven-week Bible study called Finding Grace. This is a verse-by-verse study, women's Bible study of the New Testament book of Galatians. And my name is Sue Laboutier. My husband is the pastor here at Calvary Chapel. And you may wonder why I titled this Bible study Finding Grace. So let's start with that word grace. It's a lovely word and almost always has a positive connotation. There's Grace Kelly. What's not to love about her? There is a grace period. We all love a little extension of time before the fines kick in. There's saying grace. What's not to love about a thankful heart? And there's carrying oneself with grace, which is elegance and beauty. But biblically speaking, what is grace? And that's what we hope to discover in this Bible study. What I want us to possess by the time we're finished with this Bible study is a strong confidence in the truth that the Bible teaches us that Jesus is enough. When we put our faith in Jesus Christ and what he has done, what is true of him becomes true of us. That is the way God sees it. So open your Bibles to the Book of Galatians. And let's begin by reading the first seven verses, and then we'll pray. It begins this way.

I'm astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. Let's pray. Lord, would you guide us as we go through this entire Bible study, particularly today in this introduction? Would you guide us into truth, Lord? Open up our hearts to your spirit and speak to us as we process these scriptures. I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. I am not sure if there's anything that's more frustrating than setting something completely in order, turning around, and when you come back to it, it has been completely messed up. If you have toddlers, this is your address in life. But there are things like bathroom drawers and toy closets that happen this way all the time. This very experience happened at the home of Sally and her brother in the story, The Cat in the Hat. Mother had gone out for the day, and the children were left alone in the house on a rainy day. Would you indulge me in just two pages of this book? I sat there with Sally. We sat there, we two. And I said, how I wish we had something to do. Too wet to go out, too cold to play balls. So we sat in the house. We did nothing at all. So all we could do was to sit, sit, sit, sit. And we did not like it, not one little bit. I wonder if today some of you can relate to that very story, not being able to go outside, relate to being at home. Well, in this case, their boredom added to the fact that there was no supervision set the stage for an oversized, rambunctious cat to step in and convince the children to participate in things that would turn the house upside down. Down deep, they knew their mother would not approve. And the fish in the bowl kept telling them that that was true. Sally's mother and the Apostle Paul actually have a lot in common. They both left the scene with the house in order. As it relates to the Galatians, the Apostle Paul had been the one to bring them the gospel of grace and set the house in order, if you will. Now, Galatia isn't a town. It is an area, we might say, like the Treasure Valley. And Paul and Barnabas were the ones that had come and preached the truth of the gospel to these people. And then they left to continue on with their calling. After Paul left, he heard that people had come in behind him and attempted to undo everything that he had taught. And so this letter is a response to the unraveling of truth. It had been tragic for those people and frustrating for Paul. I think it was his personal frustration, obviously, combined with the direction of the Holy Spirit, that birthed this letter. But what happened to the Galatians has blessed us with one of the richest gospel understandings that we have in the whole Bible, second only to the Book of Romans. A gospel that teaches us that faith in Jesus is enough and faith in Jesus is everything. And it also leaves us with a how-to manual on living in grace. So in your study guide on page 4 and 5, on page 4 are some notes for this particular introduction. And page 5 is a map, which is always useful to us. And so if you don't have that yet, you can pause this video and go ahead and download those notes. But the Book of Galatians actually begins in the Book of Acts in chapters 13 and 14. And I'll put these verses on the screen for you so that you don't have to look them up. Paul and Barnabas were part of an amazing church in Antioch. And it tells us in Acts 13 to that while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then after fasting and praying, they laid their hands on them and they sent them off. And so they headed off on what we now call Paul's first missionary journey. They headed to Cyprus, and then they headed up to Antioch, Pisidia, which is in the region of Galatia. And these were some of the first people that they reached in that area with the Gospel of Jesus. So Paul and Barnabas went from town to town, and they talked to Jews and God-fearing Gentiles. And I'll show you an example of their message, OK? Galatians, I'm sorry, Acts 13. 38,

Drop down to verse 43. Many Jews and devout converts of Judaism followed Paul and Barnabas, who, as they spoke with them, urged them to continue in the grace of God. And finally, Acts 14, verse 26, they sailed to Antioch. They're on their return now, the original Antioch in Syria. And gathered the church together, and they declared all that God had done with them and how he had opened a door of faith to the Gentiles. And in a nutshell, in a really brief summary, that's how the Galatians came to know the Gospel. But just like in the story of the cat in the hat, when the mother went away, after Paul left these new believers, the stage was set now for certain people to come in and mess things up. Who would do this? What is wrong with these people? Why would they come and mess up what Paul and Barnabas had taught? What was their motivation? Well, we find out in Acts 13, verse 45, when the Jews saw the crowds, because it had told us in verse 43 that the crowds were many, they were filled with jealousy. And they began to contradict what was spoken by Paul. So their motivation was jealousy toward Paul, therefore a disdain for his message, for the Gospel of grace. In the same way that Sally and her brother neglected to check in with their mother, the Galatians neglected to check in with their spiritual father. And they listened to these people. And before long, the Church had a huge mess on its hands. And that is the point of this book. Paul was now in cleanup mode. So with this background, from Acts chapters 13 and 14, now I want to read again, starting at the first of Galatians, verse 1.

And all the brothers who are with me, probably speaking of the people there in Antioch, I'm writing to the churches of Galatia. Now, Paul probably wrote this letter right there from the church in Antioch. Scholars mostly agree that it was written about 49, 48, 49 AD. Not. long after they had gone and preached the gospel in Galatia. And scholars also think that this was the first New Testament book of Paul's that was written. Verse 3 goes on to say,

So from Acts 13 and from Galatians 1, I made a short list of things that are clear to us. First thing that's clear is that Paul established himself as an apostle, one who was sent forth with the message of God. He was commissioned by God. It is clear that Paul and Barnabas were the spiritual fathers of the believers in Galatia. It's clear that the gospel that they preached was the gospel of salvation through faith in Jesus and not by effort of what people did. And it's also clear that Paul felt a deep sense of love and responsibility for those believers. So after this short greeting, Paul gets right to the point in verse 6. He says, I am astonished that you're so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. Not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. So here is the point of the letter. I'm gonna arrange that a little bit differently to give us a different layer. The point is there are people who are troubling you. How are they doing that? They're distorting the gospel of Christ. What is the result? You've turned to a different gospel. How quickly did this happen? Very quickly. The tension throughout this book is going to be one of law and of faith. The word law is going to be mentioned 34 times and the word faith 25 times. Now I want to ask a couple questions. When we say righteousness through the law, that is characterized by effort. What effect does this have on people? Well, it leads to an uncertainty and instability in our relationship with God because it's a moving target. We're never really sure that we're uncertain if if he approves of us. Second thing, it leads to a general anxiety, an emotional, a real emotional anxiety. We're never completely emotionally and spiritually at rest. And also horizontally it leads us to comparison because we're looking for where that moving target is and so we're comparing with one another. On the other hand, righteousness through faith is characterized by grace and this is mentioned seven times in this book. What effect does this have on people? Well, it leads to a general sense of peace and well-being because grace tells us that we have gotten something we don't deserve and that because of what Jesus has done we can be at peace and at rest because the target has been, the bullseye has been hit. So that is the effect. Now before we close, I want to go through verses six and seven in our study guide. I listed them there with some double spacing so that we can do some markings and I'm gonna ask these three important questions that we always ask in our women's Bible study. These questions are, what does it say? What does it mean? And what does it mean to me? So the first question is, what does this say? We're gonna circle some words. In verse six, circle the word astonished. What does it say? It says that Paul is astonished that they turned from the gospel of grace. He was surprised. Circle the word quickly. It says that's how fast this happened. Circle the phrase turning to a different gospel in verse seven. Since gospel means good news, a different gospel is a different sort of news, specifically that the work of Jesus wasn't enough. There had to be something additional, some additional effort to layer on top of that. And finally, circle the word distort in verse seven. The Galatians heard and embraced a distortion, a twisting, a bending of the truth. Have you ever gone on a road trip? You know those mirrors and rest stops? Like you look in the mirror and it's all distorted and you know it's you, but you just try and put your makeup on or something and it's like not good enough, you know? It's all distorted. So that's what that means. Now let's ask those other questions. What does it mean? What does it mean to me? Look at the word astonished again. What does it mean? It means Paul did not expect this for believers to listen to and embrace false teaching. What does it mean to me? Maybe I should expect distorted teaching to cross my path, my children, my young, my friends who are young in the faith. The word quickly, what does it mean? Perhaps it means to us that there is a vulnerability with young Christians, those who have just embraced the gospel message. There's a vulnerability there. What does it mean to me? Maybe I should put up a defense against that. The phrase turning to a different gospel, what does it mean? It means that they turned to a different gospel. They didn't seem to resist. They turned. They listened to a different gospel. What does it mean to me? I should be careful who I listen to. People who bring a distorted message may be sincere, they may be charismatic, but I must be careful that I don't turn to listen and engage in that. And finally the word distort, what does it mean? People will sometimes advance a different sort of message, a distorted one. It is not clear, again like those those mirrors and in the rest stops. It is distorted. What does it mean to me? I must know the clear gospel message. I must know what the Bible teaches. I must read my Bible and know the real gospel like I'm doing in this study. Now the full title of this Bible study is Finding Grace in a Demanding World. And the nature of this world places demands on us naturally. Paul will go on to talk about that. But in addition to that there are also always people around us trying to convince us that there's something yet that we must do. Like understanding, investigating and understanding Hebrew culture, Jewish festivals, the Sabbath, being baptized in water, confessing our sins to a priest, taking communion. Some of these things have merit and they are obedience issues. They are good, but not one of those things will cause God to say, enter in. I see what you did there. That's awesome. Come on in. God will only say enter in to those who put their faith in what Jesus did. That's who he says enter in to, not someone who attempted to do it themselves. The last thing I want to say is that in our world today, right now, there is a sudden interest in spiritual things. We've gone through these seasons. I've seen it a few times in my life. A sudden interest in spiritual things because of what we're facing in our culture. And suddenly prayer is in vogue. When there is a sudden interest in spiritual things there is sure to be a surge in distorted teaching. And so it's a time like this that we need to know the gospel of grace so that we're not caught unaware, so that we're not astonished that people are turning to a different gospel. At the bottom of your study guide I gave you three scriptures that you can check out as soon as this video is finished. There are some classic verses that fall into the category of what we know to be true. And I just want to wrap up with some housekeeping about this Bible study. This Bible study is organized in a five day a week format. So once you get started now with Galatians chapter 1, what you're gonna do is it'll first say read and write these certain verses. So I want you to grab a journal or a notebook and you're going to write out the verses for the day. There's instructions in the study guide for you. And by the time we finish the Bible study you will have written the whole book of Galatians. I hear from so many women that they just get so much out of slowing down and writing the words themselves. The teaching aspect of that alone is really huge. So I want to encourage you to do that. Then you're going to consider the message that's conveyed in those verses of the day by answering the questions in the study guide. I kept each day to just one page. It's very brief and very doable. And then at the end of the week there's a page that has questions for thought and discussion. And those are some questions that might be super useful in your study group to talk over and share what you had learned in that. But probably the most important part of the Bible study is that last question that we ask ourselves. What does this mean to me? Taking the passage, applying it to my life, just sort of breathing it in and understanding what it is the Holy Spirit wants to teach me in these days through this book. So we'll be right back here next week. We'll go over Galatians chapter 1. Let me pray for you. Father I pray that for each one of us that are going through the scriptures, going through the study, you would open our minds, speak to us Lord, speak truth to us. Lord your scripture honors your son Jesus Christ. And that is what we want to do is honor, put our faith in what he has accomplished for us that we don't deserve, but we are able to take in anyway by putting our faith in his work. Lord for each one, speak to us as we go through this study. I pray in Jesus name, Amen.