Greg Ford - The Epistles
Okay, we’ve been in a series of messages called «Cover to Cover.» We started week one of this year on January 15, going through the Bible. Of course, even in 15 weeks, you’re only kind of scratching the surface, going at a high level and summarizing, but really trying to get our heads and hearts around how to read the Bible and how this whole thing fits together. So we’ve been talking about the meta-narrative of the Bible. We started looking at the Bible as history and literature, as well as theology. The better we understand the literature and the history, the more we can get into the theological takeaways we’re supposed to have.
So there’s been a lot of academic insight in this series, a lot of teaching. I know for some of you that’s right up your alley. For others, it may not be your favorite thing, but what I’m trying to do is set us up for long-term growth-not only for you when you’re, you know, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, in your Bible by yourself, to be able to work through questions and to really be discipled even in your time by yourself, but also to set us up for future conversations as a church as we dig deeper into God’s word.
We started in Genesis and began looking at the Garden of Eden. In fact, it’s more than just a story about these animals and Adam and Eve. It’s a story about the way God intended the world to function -that God created man and woman in His image, that God loved humanity and desired to have them in right relationship with Him, in right relationship with each other, and in right relationship with the world around them.
Pretty soon, things started to cascade as free will decisions were being made; you know, people’s free will kind of bumped into each other and there was collateral damage from that. So things became chaotic, and over time, God said, «You know what? I’m not giving up on humanity; I’m going to create a nation.» And so we have the nation of Israel. We have the law given by God, and we have the promised land. We looked at things like prophets, priests, and kings. We talked about covenants- all of these things that ultimately lead up to Jesus.
We looked at the Gospels; we flipped to the New Testament, which has 27 books. The first four Gospels are the accounts of Jesus' life, and «Gospel» means «euangelion» in Greek, which means a new king and a new kingdom. So Jesus comes talking about the Kingdom of God, and we talk about King Jesus. It’s not a political kingdom; it’s not a national kingdom. His kingdom is not of this world. It’s in this world but not of this world.
And so we see it’s a non-violent kingdom. It’s not that we are coming to try to take over physical space; it’s in the hearts of human beings. That’s what we’re invited into. So Jesus presents that in the Gospels.
Then last week, the connective tissue from the Gospels into the rest of the Bible is the book of Acts, which is the acts of the apostles written by Luke. The star of the show in Acts is Jesus and the Holy Spirit, but His function through the disciples. So Acts means the acts of the apostles. The first 12 chapters follow the apostle Peter, and in Acts chapter 9, we are introduced to the apostle Paul. However, we follow Peter up to chapter 12, and then from chapter 12 to Acts 28, through the rest of the book, we follow the apostle Paul.
When we follow Paul in Acts, we see that he goes on three missionary journeys and plants churches throughout the Mediterranean rim. And we’re going to look at the epistles, which are the letters that Paul writes to these churches.
Now, before I start to show you this, let’s sort of get our heads around what this would look like if it happened now. Right? So let’s say I was like the apostle Paul. I come to Columbus, and I worked two or three years in this community establishing a Christ-centered, Gospel -centered community where we look at who Jesus is. We worship Him, and we look at living the way that He taught us to live. And once that community starts to function, I put Joe in charge and say, «Alright, Joe, you’ve got it from here. I’m leaving Columbus, and I’m going to go do the same thing I just did here but up in Cleveland.»
So I go to Cleveland. Nobody’s from Cleveland. That’s cool. I figured I’d get at least one woo. That’s fine. That’s fine too, too late now. So I go to Cleveland, do the same thing. I start to integrate into the community, build relationships, and I raise somebody up in Cleveland after a couple of years-and then I head west to Toledo.
Oh yeah? You made that up. You ain’t from Toledo! So you go to Toledo, you spend some time there, you raise somebody up in Toledo, and now while I’m in Toledo, I get this letter from Joe back in Columbus because he’s like, «Yo, it’s going a little sideways back here.» And someone named Joe got excited. Okay?
So Joe is telling me what’s going on in Columbus, and I’m now up in Toledo writing him a letter to help him work through an occasion or situation or some problem. Something’s going down in Columbus, and I’m dealing with it from Toledo. I get there-I go down to Cincinnati. I figured I’d get a «Who Day.»
Alright, um okay. So I go down to Cincinnati, and then we establish work in Cincinnati, and I just keep making my way around the state establishing works. Okay? So think about that; that’s what Paul does in the second half of the book of Acts.
Go ahead and bring this up. These are the 21 books of the epistles. Go ahead and bring it up. We have the Pauline epistles. «Pauline» just means they were written by Paul. The first number of those you’re going to see are named after the city. So if it were our context, it’d be Columbus, Cleveland, whatever. Right?
So when Paul-here’s a great example-when he writes to the Ephesians, he’s writing to the believers in Ephesus, the church in Ephesus. But when you get down here, and you see First and Second Timothy and Titus, those are individuals and those are what are called the pastoral epistles. He’s teaching them how to be spiritual, Christian, pastoral leaders.
So Timothy is actually the pastor of the Ephesian church. So it would be like writing to Joe in Columbus. I might write a whole letter to Columbus, and I might write a whole letter just to Joe. But when he writes to the Ephesians, this is to be passed around and distributed all over Ephesus. But when he writes to Timothy, he’s writing just to Timothy.
You’ll notice down here you have the book of Hebrews, which has an asterisk because there’s no agreement on who authored the book of Hebrews. So traditionally, it’s been attributed to Paul, but we don’t exactly know, and so I put an asterisk there. Down here we have the general epistles, which are named after the author.
So you have James, who is James the brother of Jesus. You have First and Second Peter, Peter, and then First, Second, and Third John, which is John the Apostle. So the same guy who wrote the Gospel of John also wrote three epistles-1 John, 2 John, 3 John, and actually the book we’re going to look at next week, Revelation. And then Jude, also a brother of Jesus.
Alright, now let’s look at the epistles. But before we get into the structure, I want us to really get our heads around what’s going on here. Alright, so all of these were written in the first century from, you know, probably 40 AD on to the end of the first century.
So when you think contextually, they didn’t have a post office like what we would have now. There was a postage system, but it wasn’t accessible to the average person. You had to either be in the government or in the military to be able to access that. If you and I wanted to send a letter, we would have to pay — it was, in today’s dollars, about $2500 to send a letter.
The difference now is right, we shoot a text message with our thumb-boom! -no problem; you send an email-blah blah blah-boom, gone. You do a bunch of them all day; it doesn’t cost you anything except just your time and energy. You think about even paper; at this time in the first century, there was no Dunder Mifflin paper company, right?
So it was like, how am I going to even get paper? They didn’t use that; they used papyrus, which was basically reeds that were dried out and would be cut. It’s expensive to do, and most people, even if they were literate, couldn’t write, so you would hire a scribe, and you would dictate the letter to the scribe, who would then write it down in papyrus.
I actually have a visual picture of a manuscript script, and this is 1 Corinthians, part of 1 Corinthians 11 to 1 Corinthians 12. Alright, so these are excerpts from the book of 1 Corinthians. Probably one of the first things you notice is how little spacing there is between the words, right? Like usually we teach kids you put a finger space or something in between words.
But because papyrus was so hard to get, it was expensive, it was tedious to do this, and they would try to fit as much on there as they could. So there are tiny, tiny, tiny little spaces in the writings. When Paul was doing these writings or Peter or John or James, they would do these in community.
So don’t picture Paul sitting with a quill pen and a piece of papyrus, writing just him and God. It was him and a group of people, usually two, three, four, five people. It might be somebody who he’s mentoring. It might be somebody who, «Okay, I’m going to be writing to the Philippians,» and this is somebody who may have known the Philippians or knew something about the subject we’re responding to.
So keep in mind all of the epistles are what we call «occasional writings,» which means they are written to a situation or an occasion. So Paul would sit there, and then we would discuss it.
And by the way, when it looks like that every word has to count, right? We can’t just hit delete or whatever; we have to get this right. So they would want to strike the right tone, make sure we got the right choice of words. And so we’d be discussing before we write this down. The scribe hangs tight; here, let’s talk about this. How do we want to say this?
And then we would dictate to the scribe, and the scribe writes it down. Once you have the letter done, now this is really important — we can’t just send that and hand it to the Philippians and have them read it because we’ve all received a letter or an email or whatever, and you’re not exactly sure how to read it.
Like, I know what the words say, but how are you emphasizing this? How should I interpret what you’re saying? So much of communication is beyond the words. It’s in the inflection, it’s in the pause, it’s in what you emphasize.
And so the courier that the apostles would entrust wasn’t just someone they knew could get the letter from point A to point B. This was someone who would be entrusted with delivering the right letter in the right tone. So they would have to present the letter back to Paul.
So you have Paul, and he’s saying, «We got this thing down.» We hand it over, and now the courier is going to present it back. They’re going to communicate it back. And if they got something wrong, Paul would go, «No, no, no! I want you to pause right there. When you say that, I want you to stop and wait. When you do this, I want you to raise your voice there.»
This was how it was presented to them. Now think about this: They didn’t just focus like we often do on one scripture. So we say, «Hey, open your Bibles to Romans 8:28,» and we just look at one verse. What they would do is take the book of Romans, and the courier would perform it-once he had gone back and forth with Paul and Paul got his presentation perfect-now I’m going to send you.
He would go and present it to these Roman audiences, 16 chapters non-stop. By the way, this is a great way to read the epistles-maybe you’ve never done this. Take an epistle, no matter how long it is, and read it front to back without stopping, out loud. Alright?
And you’re going to get something a little different than just setting one verse aside. You’re going to get it in that context. So imagine the courier takes it to the Romans, reads 16 chapters without stopping, gets to the end.
I mean, if you were in the audience, you’d have some questions, right? So part of training the courier was not just in presentation, but how to answer questions that are inevitably going to come up once we read all the way through this book. And that’s how these books originally were delivered.
Okay, I want to show you here -we’re going to look at the structure. So when you look at these epistles, instead of preaching 21 sermons on 21 books right now, I’m going to show you how to read them, and I’m going to show you the structure, and then kind of what’s behind each part of that structure, and then we’ll call it a day.
Alright, here’s the structure: The first is Paul starts with a greeting, moves to thanksgiving, then you have the body of the content of that particular occasion and situation. Then you have, where necessary, warnings and encouragement, and then he ends with a conclusion.
Let’s start with the greeting. So Paul has a pretty repetitive, consistent greeting. Even John, in the book of 2 John, has a consistent greeting similar to what Paul has here. You’re going to see in Romans 1:7, 1 Corinthians 1:3, Philippians 1:2-go ahead and bring those up. He says, «Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.»
Alright, so this refrain is something he opens with. So not only would that sort of be a good way for the speaker, the presenter, to begin reading the letter, but what Paul is doing here, especially now, based on our last 13 weeks of conversation, we know what Paul is doing here.
This isn’t a throwaway line. This isn’t just like, «Hey, what’s up, everybody?» This is very intentional. Think back when we talked about the garden. Think about when we talked about God blessing the world. What’s God’s will for the world? It is that shalom would go from heaven to earth; that human relationship, that human existence, would be in a place of shalom-peace with God, shalom with ourselves and the world around us.
And we looked at the range of meaning of shalom, which is beyond just peace. Okay? It’s security; it’s prosperity; it’s fulfillment in what you do in your work and in your relationships. It doesn’t mean you’re free of conflict, but it’s talking about a state of shalom. So what he’s doing is using these terms, grace and peace, which are important virtues and really foundational — in fact, the most important principles of community -he’s reinforcing that.
So he’s saying, «As I’m writing to you in your community, grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.» The second part we move to is thanksgiving, and sometimes you’ll see him do a prayer of blessing.
So when I say thanksgiving, he’s giving thanks. He’s being specific about what he’s thankful for with whoever he’s writing to. A few years ago, there was a book that came out-somebody gave it to me-it was actually one of our board members who gave it to me. It’s called «Crucial Conversations,» and the book is about how to have hard conversations, whether it’s with your family, it might be in your business, or with somebody who reports to you, or somebody that you report to.
And you’re going to have these tough conversations. So it gives like a framework for how to have tough or crucial conversations. And one of the things in there that it discusses is like the sandwich, right?
So if you have some hard stuff you’ve got to say, you start with something positive and affirming, and then you move into saying what you’ve got to say, and then you end with some positivity and optimism, right? And so now everybody knows that-I used to be like a managerial secret, and now it’s like everybody knows that. So whenever your manager or somebody you work with comes and starts complimenting you, you’re like, «What’s coming?»
Right? Something’s coming. And so I think the tactic, you know, is maybe lost a little bit of its pizzazz, probably in part because if you’re just giving the thanksgiving or the compliment as this sort of way, «Hey, let’s get that out of the way so I can really say what I want to talk about,» well then it’s sort of counterproductive.
But if it’s from a place of sincerity, if you really think about it, it’s a pretty smart thing to do. If Shaylen and I are sitting down and we’re going to talk through our marriage and we’re going to talk about some things that need to change-some attitudes that need to change, some behaviors that need to change, some conduct-there’s some stuff we need to work through, there’s going to be some constructive criticism.
It would be wise for us to sincerely take a moment to discuss the things that we really love and appreciate about one another-just take a little bit to have a foundation of here’s what you’re doing right. Because if you’re not careful, when we go right into the stuff we need to fix, you’ll think that that’s all I’ve noticed, and you’ll think I’ve overlooked everything you’ve been doing well, and vice versa.
So let’s take a little bit to establish some gratitude here, and so when I do that, two things are happening: One, she knows that I’m not taking for granted all of the positivity, all the things she’s doing well. But also, it puts top of mind for me that this issue that we have to deal with isn’t all that’s going on in our relationship. It puts me in a state of thankfulness.
So you see Paul doing this, and he does it sincerely, specifically-which, by the way, I think is key. This is a takeaway for us when we’re going to work through things. You have to have hard conversations; I do. We should-we shouldn’t neglect them because this is how we get better.
But to make sure that we are reminding ourselves and we’re remembering and focusing on the things that we’re grateful for. So here’s a couple of examples. One is the Ephesians. In Ephesians 1:15–16, Paul says, «Ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.»
Look, he’s specific. He’s saying, «Your reputation is spreading that you are people who have faith and are faithful to God, and your faith inspires me. When my faith is weak, I’m inspired by yours.» And he said, «Not only your faith in faithfulness to God, but your love for people, which is what it’s all about -faithfulness to God, faith in God, and love for people.»
And so he’s saying, «Hey, the most important things? You guys are doing it, and you’re doing well. We’ve got some things to talk about, but man, I’m thankful for that, and I remember you in my prayers.» Here’s a good one, when you really look at it in its context-this is Philippians 1:3-6. This is Paul writing to the Philippians. He says, «I thank my God every time I remember you. Every memory I have, when I have memories of you, I’m like, Thank you, God, for the Philippians.»
He said, «In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.» Now think about this: He says, «From the first day until now, I remember with joy.» Remembering your memories brings joy to my heart. So let’s think about this-who are the Philippians?
Well, you remember the story in Acts 16 with Paul and Silas, right? And these guys go and they’re presenting to the community the euangelion, of a new king and a new kingdom. And that is illegal, essentially, in the Greco-Roman world -it’s seen as a threat to Caesar, even though they’re coming non-violently.
But yet they see it as a threat, so they beat these men down, they put them in an inner dungeon, they lock them up. And here they are, in the middle of the night, it’s pitch dark, in the inner dungeon, no windows, shackled up. And instead of the two guys going into the valley of despair, cursing God and saying, «Woe is us,» they start worshiping God.
And they start praising God, and in that moment, the prison is shaken, and the doors fling open and their shackles fall off. You remember this? The jailer is about to kill himself, and Paul says, «Don’t stop! Cut it out!» He’s like, and then, boom! The gospel goes forward, people repent, and it’s this movement. You know where that happened? Philippi.
So when he says, «Hey, remember day one, guys,» remember day one? That’s what he’s talking about. He’s going back, «Remember when we found each other when we were in prison?» Now guess what? What’s going on in the context is the Philippians are being persecuted. But guess who else is being persecuted? Paul!
He’s back in prison in Ephesus, so he’s writing the Philippians who he met during jail time while he’s doing time in Ephesus, and he’s writing back to them and going, «You know what’s keeping me afloat right now emotionally? You know what’s keeping my faith stoked spiritually right now? It’s remembering you and what happened on day one.»
And he said, «Every time I do, it gives me just a shot of joy.» And then he says this: «Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.» That’s his thanksgiving.
So not only is Paul encouraging the Philippians in their hardship, but he himself is being encouraged while he’s in his own chains. That’s some good stuff right there.
The third section is the body of the message. Now this is where the apostle Paul, Peter, John, and all the other apostles that write these epistles are writing. There’s a variety of different content, but I want to summarize it for you. Some of it is theological.
So in other words, it’s doctrinal teaching, and some of it is practical instruction. We might call it orthodoxy. Orthodoxy means right thinking or orthopraxy, which means right practice. How do we get our thinking right, and then how do we get our doing right? And so they’re dealing with one or both of those things.
And so a lot of it is theological. So again, these guys have all been thinking, especially the Jewish believers who have been trained to believe that our right standing with God gets down to our obedience to God’s law. And the more perfect we are in that behavior, the closer we can get to it, the more God will be happy with us.
And so he writes to the Ephesians in Ephesians 2:8 — 9: «For it’s by grace you’ve been saved through faith. It’s not from yourselves; it’s a gift of God, not by works, so no one can boast.» It’s a diverse group of people in the Ephesian church-Jews and Gentiles-and they’re drawing lines in the sand, who’s in and who’s out. And he’s saying it’s not about your ability to keep the law that saves you; it’s the grace of God.
So you’re going to see a lot about the grace of God. You’re going to see a lot in there about living in freedom, and freedom from two things: freedom from legalism and freedom from sin.
So let’s look at these two things. Let’s talk about what’s legalism, freedom from legalism. When we looked a few weeks ago at the law, the Torah-okay, it’s the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And in those books, you come out with 613 laws, and we divided those laws into three categories.
The first is you have the ceremonial law, which were the laws of worship. In other words, if you’re going to give worship to God that He will accept, it has to be in this specific way -that’s in the Torah. The second was the judicial law, which essentially was: how do we administer justice? And that’s if you know your animal dies on my land, I owe you an animal type of thing. So it’s how do we have justice?
And then judicial punishments; when someone messes this up, what’s the punishment that fits the crime? The third is the moral law. And this is like, «Hey man, when you lie, you break people’s hearts, you break your word, you break people’s trust-it messes up relationships.» So here’s how we should behave.
So we have freedom and trust and goodness in relationship. So those are the three types of laws. So what you’re going to see is starting with Jesus and then confirmed through the epistles; you’re going to see that of those laws, the ceremonial law-the specifics of the Torah — are not necessary anymore.
You’re going to see that the judicial law, the specifics in the Torah, are not necessary anymore. Now don’t hear me wrong -don’t walk out of here and say, «You know, that’s why I don’t go to any church anymore; they’re lawless.» Alright?
I want to be specific. The ceremonial law, which is worship-how do we worship God? It is very important! The spirit of the law is very important. But to go, «We have to do this in a specific way, otherwise God won’t accept it,» is not. And I’m going to prove it to you.
The second-again, back to the judicial law-it’s not saying we shouldn’t have justice. It’s not saying we shouldn’t have laws. It’s saying the specifics around the Torah are not what we have to follow. We must take the spirit of that law and contextualize it.
Okay, let’s show you how Jesus does this and how Paul carries it on. Alright, John 4-we’ll go back to the Gospels-is the story of the woman at the well, the Samaritan woman. Jesus walks up, starts a conversation with her. Pretty soon, it turns into a ceremonial law conversation -they’re talking about worship.
Verse 20, the Samaritan woman says, «Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain.» Okay? In other words: «Hey, we have a line in the sand. Samaritans worship like this.» And she says, «But you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.»
So within the Torah, there’s here’s where you light the incense, here’s the courts, and you can only go to this court if you’re this kind of person, and this court if you’re that kind of person. Here’s the men’s court and the women’s court and the gentile court. It all has to take place at the temple.
So Jesus says in verse 21-don’t miss the weight of this: «Woman,» Jesus replied, «Believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.» Verse 23: «A time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.»
And they are the kind of worshipers that the Father seeks. In other words, if you think it’s in the mountain and I think it’s in the temple, we both miss it because you went through the motions, but it never touched your heart.
So He’s saying essentially, «You are the temple. It doesn’t matter where you are. You could be in your car. You could be in your cubicle. You could be walking through the woods. You could be tiptoeing through the tulips. You could be riding on the exercise bike. You could be on the elliptical.»
You could be where you are and worship God, and when your heart touches His heart, He’s pleased with it. So what He’s doing is saying, «Look, the specifics of the ceremonial law -let’s not draw lines in the sand and divide and go until you do it that way, God won’t accept it. God’s accepting the purity and the sincerity of a heart that reaches out to Him- you are the temple.»
Alright, so if we keep going to John 8 is this is the woman caught in the act of adultery. She’s dragged out in the public forum. It’s a big scene! She probably wasn’t even allowed to dress; they want to make a spectacle. They want to catch Jesus in a catch-22, so they bring him out, and it says, «Teacher,» they said to Jesus, «This woman was caught in the act of adultery and the law of Moses-so they’re talking about the judicial law -the law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?»
And this is, oh man, this is the best story, maybe in the whole Bible. What do you say? «Are you a law keeper or not?» The judicial law says to stone her. It says that the punishment that fits the crime for adultery is that we kill this woman.
And Jesus says, «You’re absolutely right! Everybody get a rock. Everybody get a rock! Get warmed up! Get that rotator cuff loose -we’re about to take this lady out! We’re going to kill us a lady today! Okay, she’s going to die right here right now with these rocks hurling at her.» Okay? «And so she committed adultery, right? You guys caught her? Yep? Yeah? Was she doing it alone? Where’s the dude? Oh, he got away -that’s convenient! That’s fine. Let’s not worry about it. We’re gonna take her out’cause she broke the law.
So everybody get a rock, and we’re going to hold the Torah here -we’re going to hold it up because we’re holy.» Alright? «So everybody get your rock, and on the count of three, get ready to hurl it. You ready? One, two, He without sin, cast the first stone.»
And slowly, everybody put their rocks down until it’s just Jesus and the woman. Verse 10: «Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, 'Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you? ''No, Lord, ' she said. And Jesus said, 'Neither do I.'»
Now what He’s saying is what you did was wrong, because the next line he’s going to say, «Stop. Go and sin no more. Let this be a defining moment in your life.» But He said, «The judicial punishment? We’re not going to kill you for what you did. We’re not going to shame you. What we’re going to do is learn the lesson today; go and sin no more.»
Why? Because it’s for freedom that you’ve been set free. What you’re doing right here is not helping you! This is not what God intends for you! This is not the life you want! Is this what you want to do, create this sort of collateral damage?
One day, you’re going to wake up and you’re going to realize what you did and what you can’t undo. And let’s stop it today! Let’s stop it today. If we’re going to draw a line in the sand, let’s draw a line today and go, «We learned this lesson now,» so we seal up the problem and move forward.
But we’re not going to kill you today! You’re not going to die today! You’re not radioactive today! You’re not rejected today! But repent today! So He affirms the moral law, and He says, «Yeah, we need justice and yeah, we need worship, but you don’t have to cling to the Torah.»
So you’re going to see now in-oh by the way! This is real good stuff! So John-that’s John’s Gospel- in John’s epistle in First John 2:1, he says, «My dear children, I’m writing this to you so that you will not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate who pleads our case before the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who is truly righteous.»
So think about that. Now Paul’s pro-or I’m sorry, John is probably writing that thinking back about Jesus, the advocate, and the time that He stood up in the courtroom, okay, with the woman caught in the act of adultery and handled His business. And he said, «So, but why am I doing this? I’m doing this so you don’t sin. Don’t sin. Don’t keep doing this. But when you do, don’t run from God. Don’t run from Jesus. Run to Him! He’s an advocate that will help you to mature your way through it.»
So you’re going to see in Paul’s writings this affirmation of this concept. He’s going to write about freedom from legalism, freedom from sin. Let’s just look at a couple excerpts. Galatians 5:1-by the way, after Mother’s Day, we’re going to start a seven-week series in the book of Galatians -it’s going to be awesome!
Galatians 5:1, he says, «It’s for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then and do not let yourself be burdened again by the yoke of slavery.» And in that text, he’s talking about the slavery of legalism.
Colossians 2:16–17: «Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink or with regards to religious festivals, or new moon celebrations, or a Sabbath day.» What’s he talking about? Ceremonial law. «These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ.»
Then he talks about freedom from sin. So in other words, we don’t want to use legalism as an excuse to sin, and we don’t want to use sin as an excuse to legalism. So he says in Romans 6:1-2: «Well then, should we keep on sinning so that God can show us more of this wonderful grace?»
Since God stands up against the bully and-in which Jesus has everybody put the rocks down, and He defends us and He’s our advocate. If that’s the case, should we just jump right back into the bed? He says, «Of course not! Since we’ve died to sin, how can we continue to live in it?»
Let’s move on. Let’s mature. Let’s grow. Ephesians 4:22–24: «Throw off your old sinful nature.» I love that because here’s what I found about my sin nature — it doesn’t fall off on its own! It’s got to be thrown off! It’s proactive! Throw off your sinful nature. You’ve got to be proactive about it.
Don’t let it control you! Your former way of life, which is corrupted by lust and deception. Instead, let the Spirit renew your thoughts and attitudes. Put on your new nature-proactive! Put it on! Created to be like God, truly righteous and holy. Talks about division. This is another thing Paul writes a lot about in the body of his messages.
1 Corinthians 1:10, he says, «I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ to live in harmony with each other.» They were divided over personalities and law. They were suing each other. He’s like, «Fight like crazy for unity! Don’t just draw petty lines; find a way to be unified.»
He writes about leadership to Timothy. I love this! Second Timothy 4:12: «He says to Timothy, this young guy, ' Don’t let anyone look down on you because you’re young. Be an example to all believers in what you say, in the way you live, in your conduct, in your love, and your faith and your purity until I get there.'»
He said, «Focus on reading the scriptures in the church and encouraging the believers and teaching them.» So throughout the body of these messages, again, you’re going to see these themes of how do we get our doctrine right-doctrinal teaching and practical instruction?
How do we live it out? Moving to number four-here he goes into warnings and encouragement. Not always does he do both, but whatever is needed based on the context of the letter.
So here’s a good one. Galatians 6:11. This is great based on our earlier conversation. Look at it. He says, «See what large letters I use as I write to you with my own hand.» Okay? This is how he sets up his warning at the end of the Galatians 6-the last chapter of the book — he’s bringing it home.
What he’s saying is, because they know he’s got a scribe and they know he’s writing and all this, and so Paul says, «See how big letters I use as I write this with my own hand.» He’s creating a visual for them that when he got to this part of the letter, he went to the scribe and said, «Give me the pen! Give me the quill pen! Excuse me! Bring me the parchment! I’m going to show you.»
You know how precious this parchment is? You know how precious this papyrus is? I’m going to take up as much real estate as I need to, to sound the alarm so that you know how important the warning I’m about to give you is. And nobody’s writing this but me! This is coming from my hand!
And so he’s giving them a warning. If you miss it, it’s because you wanted to miss it. And you know what the warning was? You have to come after Mother’s Day! We’re going to Galatians-six chapters. See you then!
Alright, he does a lot of encouragement throughout the books. You’re going to see he often ends a book with encouragement but often he’ll weave encouragement throughout because, again, let’s go back in time. Where are they at? First century. They are being persecuted!
First century, everybody’s going through hardship. And sometimes in hardship, we need some encouragement! Sometimes we need to even tell people what we already know but to encourage us in the process.
So some of the great encouragement texts of the whole Bible come from the epistles and the writings. I’m going to give you a few. Ephesians 6, the last chapter of Ephesians 6:10 — 12: «Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood.»
You think you’re fighting flesh and blood, it’s something else. So he says, «Be strong in the Lord.» Romans 5:3 says, «We can rejoice also when we run into problems and trials.» In other words, you don’t have to wait until the problem subsides and the trial is concluded before you start to rejoice. «Rejoice in the Lord always,» he says.
«We know that they help develop endurance.» Something’s happening in you. You’re getting tougher! You’re getting better! It’s a tough situation. You don’t want to be in it. You didn’t ask for it, but navigate it the correct way! Walk it through! Make the next right decision!
In the process, you’re developing endurance and strength. Romans 8:18 he says, «What we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory that will be revealed in us later.» Yeah, it hurts! Yeah, it’s difficult! Yeah, I don’t like it! But there’s some glory that’s going to come from it-something good!
He’s affirming, saying, «Don’t get so bogged down in how you feel right now that you fall into despair about the future. Don’t get stuck in the valley of despair! Keep moving! Keep moving!» And so he’s affirming and giving them hope.
2 Corinthians 4:16–18 says, «This is why we never give up: Though our bodies are on a bell curve, our bodies are dying and perishing. Our bodies are suffering and hurting-our spirits are being renewed every day.»
«Our bodies are going down; our spirits are going up and to the right. Our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. They’re temporary.» That’s not to be degrading. That’s not to lack empathy about how big or how hard what you’re doing, what you’re walking through is.
But he’s saying, «No! Look! Keep going! This is going to pass! It’s going to pass! It feels like you’re going to have it forever. It’s not always going to feel like it feels right now.» He’s saying, «Keep going! It won’t last forever! And yet it will produce in us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever.»
When we put our pain on the scale and we put the glory on the scale, the glory is going to outweigh the pain.
He says, «So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now. Rather, we gaze on the things we cannot see. We walk by faith and not by sight.» For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.
I know I’m over time, but this is just feeling good! 1 Peter 1:6 and 7, he said, «Be truly glad! There is wonderful joy ahead, even though you must endure many trials for a little while.» It’s temporary!
«These trials will show that your faith is genuine; it’s being tested as fire tests and purifies gold.» I know you feel like it’s a pile of something right now but it’s a hunk of gold. And it’s being refined. It’s being put through the heat.
He says, «Though your faith is far more precious than mere gold, so when your faith remains strong through many trials, it will bring you much praise and glory and honor on the day when Christ Jesus is revealed to the world.»
1 Peter 5:10: «After you’ve suffered a little while, He will restore you, support you, and strengthen you and place you on a firm foundation.» 2 Corinthians 1:3 and 4: «God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort.» This is for somebody today-the merciful Father and the God of all comfort.
«He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.» Some of you are walking through something right now and you feel like you’re not going to make it through. But if you’ll stay steadfast, if you’ll keep putting one foot in front of the other, if you’ll keep getting up out of bed when you don’t feel like it, if you’ll keep doing the right thing for the right reason, not only will God bring you through it, but God will use you in somebody else’s life.
To not just tell them about that person that maybe one day went through something that you heard about, but you’re like, «I’ve been there! I walked it! I know that look in your eye! I’ve had that look in my eye! I know the feeling of despair! I know the feeling of having no hope! I’ve been there, and I pushed through it. The Lord brought me through it, and the God of all comfort comforted me in my trouble, and I’m here to comfort you! I made it. You’re going to make it, and I’m going to be here.»
And when you start to see God not only bring you through, but God use you in somebody else’s life, it brings purpose to the struggle! It brings purpose to the pain!
So, what is Paul doing? He’s encouraging each other! Guys, we could take a page out of this book! A big part of being in community-this is why we don’t just ingest content and live in isolation!
It’s in human relationship that you’re helping! You see that person where they are, and you go, «Come on; you’re going to make it through! It’s not going to last forever! Let’s keep our eyes on Jesus!» We pray together. And sometimes, we’re patient together.
Last part of the outline of Paul’s writings is the conclusion. In his conclusion, he would often give personal remarks or greetings, final instructions, a final blessing, a doxology. Sometimes he would have some beautifully eloquent writing about the character of God-something awesome!
But one of the things you’ll notice at the end of Paul’s writings in the last chapters is that he’ll mention he’ll send greetings not just from himself but from other people.
So I want to show you two things. You don’t even have to really read these; I just want to show-I want to give them as a visual example. So this is Romans 16, the last chapter of Romans, and I highlighted all of the individuals that Paul mentions that are with him as he’s writing this letter -it’s eight different people that he mentions in just a few verses.
Alright, go ahead and leave that up and bring up on the center screen. This is Colossians 4, which is the last chapter of Colossians. He mentions 11 different people that are with him.
And the reason I bring these physical examples up is that as I mentioned before, often we think of Paul as this lone wolf that’s sitting there with parchment and a pen and praying to God by himself and figuring all this out. Paul himself was growing as a disciple in community!
He was discussing how do we take this new covenant and get our theology right and get our behavior right? How do we not live in bondage to legalism, and also not in bondage to sin? How do we not cross this line? How do we not become judgmental but at the same time hold one another accountable?
How do we do that? How do we express our faith in love? How do we do that? And so he didn’t just come up with this on his own. He’s got, you know, at least eight friends in Rome and at least 11 friends, okay, that as he’s writing to the Colossians, and what is he doing?
He’s working this out in community! And friend, this is just a demonstration of how you and I do it too. It’s very important! Who are the people in your life, as you’re wrestling through these things: «Lord, I want to honor you. I want to live in freedom. I don’t want to be unnecessarily divisive. I want to express faith and love! How do I do these things? How do I lead?»
Well, how do I do these things? It’s not going to be you by yourself. Yes, you’ll have moments of solitude, but much of it will happen in community! Who are your people?
Who are your eight names or 11 names or three names or four names? Who are the people helping you work these things out? We add value to one another as we wrestle and grapple them through.
And maybe you already have that! And if you do, that’s awesome! In fact, keep up the good work! Keep doing what you’re doing! In fact, today might be a good day to just thank the folks-let them know you’re not taking them for granted. «I appreciate how you’ve helped me grow,» and just affirm and say, «Thank you!»
But if you don’t have community-if you don’t have your list of eight names or 11 names-get into community here! This is what we do! This isn’t just about a monologue or a worship set, or yeah this is awesome, and we worship God in one accord, but a lot of this stuff and how it plays out in our conduct and how it plays out in our beliefs is often worked out in conversation.
It’s worked out in relationship! So if you don’t have community, go to our website. If you don’t have community, go to our welcome tent. Go get into a Bible study! Get into a group! Give it a shot!
Alright? If you go in there and they’re all weird, try another one, right? I mean, nobody’s going to be offended, right? It’s just like not everybody’s for everybody. So at some point, you know, the church is big enough; go find another group!
Alright, but whatever you do, don’t do this thing by yourself! The Apostle Paul, who wrote most of that, didn’t do it by himself.
Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you, God. We thank you, God, for the power of your word! Somehow, someway, people and places and situations and occasions that are a couple thousand years old somehow show up right in our lives and make a lot of sense.
Help us, Lord, as we navigate in the times that we live in, in the context that we live in, to be able to not be bound in legalism but to not be bound in sin. Help us, Lord, to be the body of Christ that is not judgmental but is fierce in our accountability.
I pray, Lord, at the heart level, we would reflect Jesus, who shows up with, «He who is without sin cast the first stone. Where are your accusers? None of them condemned you? Yeah, me neither. But go and sin no more.»
Lord, help us to not condemn one another, but help us to not stay where we are. Help us to mature in the right direction. Help us to have victory over the things, Lord, that are holding us back or holding us down.
Lord, we want to be the body of Christ that you’ve called us to be. In Jesus' name, everybody said, «Amen.»