Pre-Review
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Hey, very good morning. Once again, welcome to our second English worship service this Sunday morning. We are continuing our series in the book of Galatians. If you're joining us for the first time, not too late. This is only part two of this, I think, 19-part series in Galatians.

Some time ago, my dad sent a WhatsApp message to our family chat group, saying that the famous Hong Kong actor, Chow Yun-fat, Zhou Ren-fa, has passed away. When I heard that, I said, Zunbo, legit or not? So I went online to search out whether it is a reliable source of information. And I then realized that Chow Yun-fat remained unperturbed by death hoax. It was all a scam. It was all a hoax. It is fake news.

And then I found, not just in 2023, but also in 2017, there was also this death hoax circulating on Chinese social media to say that he's dead. But no, Chow Yun-fat is still very much alive and kicking.

So these uh, news, I do not know why they get circulated, why people always say Chow Yun-fat has passed away or has died. I do not know where it comes from. But I did learn that not everything we hear, not everything we come across on social media or in our emails or WhatsApp messages are true. It is important to get a reliable source of information.

I start with that, because there is a question about who or which message is reliable. See Paul the Apostle had been to Galatia to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He went to tell people about the Good News that God has sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to save them from their sins. Jesus died and rose again to pay for our sins.

So he tells the cities in Galatia, there is salvation in Jesus and Jesus alone. The message of the Gospel is that salvation is by grace alone. Grace is God's wonderful, unconditional favour and goodness to undeserving people. That is the way God saves. He doesn't save us because we deserve it. God doesn't save us because we are good people. God doesn't save us because we can earn favour with Him. No, God saves us because of grace, mercy, magnanimity, generosity that is out of this world. And He saves us because Jesus Christ, His Son, is the only One who can pay for our sins. And He gave Jesus freely, graciously to save us.

So this is the wonderful message of salvation Paul delivered to the cities in Galatia and everywhere he went. But after he shared this and probably left the Galatians, there were some false teachers who creep into the church. And they say to the Galatians, Paul is not saying what is act, actually right. Paul says, Jesus says, but actually, we think Jesus alone is not enough. Because we tell you, you must also be circumcised in order to be saved. You must also keep the festivals in order to be saved. And you must also keep the law of Moses in order to be saved.

In other words, we're telling you, Jesus is not enough. You must have Jesus plus something. That's what you need in order to be saved. Now, after the false teachers teach this, some of the Galatians follow them, believe them, are bewitched by them, hoodwinked by them. And that's why the book of Galatians is written.

Paul, now not able to visit them, decided to write this letter of Galatians to tell them that he's very shocked, he's astonished, he's horrified that they would so quickly turn to a different gospel, which actually is not another gospel, it's not the real deal at all. There are no two gospels, there's only one Gospel we learned last week.

And their turning to this different message is tantamount to the desertion of God, to abandonment of God of all grace. So adding anything to Jesus is equal to abandoning God of grace.

So Paul goes on to say, there are some among you who trouble you and want to distort the Gospel, who want to pervert or to corrupt the Gospel of Jesus. Why? Because my point to you all along is that Jesus alone is enough. It is not Jesus plus something, but the Gospel, the true and reliable message is Jesus plus nothing is enough.

So now you have this situation where the Galatians are caught in between. On one end, Paul says Jesus plus nothing. On the other end, the false teachers say Jesus plus something.

Who? Should I believe? The Galatians may think to themselves. Whose message is the reliable truth? That is why we are given verses 11 to 24 this morning. Paul is emphasising the point that his message is not from man, but a message from God to us. It is the one and true and reliable message from heaven.

And Paul in these verses, in effect, let me just summarise them here, is saying my message is from God Himself. I get it proverbially speaking, straight from the horse's mouth. Number two, he's going to say, I did not receive this message from any man whatsoever. So I'm telling you, this message is from God, not from man, therefore it's that one, true, reliable message that you need to believe in.

So let's dive right in into this 14 verses, it's actually quite straightforward. I'm going to run through them quite speedily. Paul begins in verse 11 saying, For I would have you know, brothers, that the Gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. You are asking, who should I believe? I'm telling you, the Gospel I preach is not from man, because I did not receive it from man or any man, nor was I taught it. No one taught me this message that I gave to you. How did you get it, Paul? I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. I received it when Jesus appeared to me.

Now, I think most of us would understand this is most likely en route, when Paul was en route to Damascus. That's a story found in Acts chapter 9, when Paul was said to see this light break out from heaven, shining round about him. And he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? And he said, who are You, Lord? And He said, I'm Jesus whom you are persecuting.

So it is at this juncture, I think, that Paul received a revelation of Jesus Christ. In other words, Jesus appeared to Paul, and I think Jesus also communicated to Paul. I do not know how. Nobody really knows how. It is not stated how. Paul knew the Gospel. But he said, I received this Gospel through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

Paul's point is that this message he received is from a supernatural Source, not from man.

He goes on to say, For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. So why does he now talk about his past life? The point is this, I have a message from God. When Jesus appeared to me, he kind of anticipates the Galatians asking, how do we know Jesus appeared to you?

He says, the proof is, I have been changed dramatically and miraculously from a persecutor to a preacher. And that's why he says, for. How do you know I met with Jesus? Look at this, because I was formerly a persecutor. I hated the church, I hated Christ. How was his hatred or persecution like? Well, we see many verses in the Bible, for example, in Acts 8, he was the one who approved of Stephen's execution. Stephen preached and Paul agreed to his execution. Paul would drag men and women from their homes to the prison because they believe in Jesus. Paul would be breathing threats and murder against the disciples of Jesus Christ.

In fact, he was so fierce, fearsome that Ananias would say, look at how much evil this man has done to your saints, when Ananias was responding to God. Paul himself would say, I persecuted this Way, this faith, this Christianity to the death and I tried to make these disciples of Jesus blaspheme. So Paul says, I was a persecutor, violently so. I want to destroy the Christian faith, but everything changed when Jesus came into my life and that's how you know I met with Jesus and He gave me the message.

Paul also goes on to say, and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the tradition of my fathers. So Paul mentions that he supersedes all his peers and contemporaries because he's so zealous about the traditions of the Jews. That's why he persecuted the Christian faith, because he sees that as conflicting with his former beliefs.

But Paul also says, but when He had, He who had set me apart before I was born, so Paul recognises that in the infinite, eternal mind of God, he was chosen. He was chosen to belong to God, chosen to serve God. So at a particular juncture of time, the Bible says, He called me by His grace. He called me literally on the road to Damascus, Paul or Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me? And God was pleased to reveal Jesus to Paul so that he, Paul, might preach Jesus among the Gentiles.

So in this few verses, just a side note, we see how Paul was consecrated or set apart, how Paul was called out to, how Paul was converted, he was changed, he was saved, and how Paul is commissioned now to be a messenger of the Gospel to the Gentiles. But don't miss this. Paul was saying, I, this is my life before Christ. I persecuted the church, I wanted to destroy it, I was advancing in Judaism, I was zealous for the traditions.

But there came a point of time, everything changed, because now I realized God set me apart. God is the One who called me by His grace. God is the One who revealed His Son to me. The point is, from I to He, from a persecutor to a preacher, it's because God broke into his life.

This is a wonderful encouragement, I suppose, because it tells us there is no man too hard for God to save. If the chief of sinners, Paul would call himself, could be saved, so could our loved ones around us.

The Big Idea

The big idea, let me get back here in case you're lost, it's important sometimes when you travel ah, to see the little sights and scenes, but to take a step and say, where are we on the map? So why did Paul write verses 11 to 24? Paul's point is that his message is the only true and reliable Gospel. The only one.

And this is because his message is from God and not from man. And we know that that is true because he received it not from man but from Jesus Himself. And we know that he received from Jesus, or he encountered Jesus, because Jesus changed his life forever. So Paul is saying, trust me, listen to the Gospel. I did not get it from man, I received it from Jesus who changed my life.

And if I could break it up further, you could see that on the ongoing verses, Paul adds to this, by saying, I did not consult with men. That's what verse 16 to 22 will be all about. He says in verse 16, I did not immediately consult with anyone. My message did not come from man because I never sought any consultation with anyone.

So we're going to see a travelogue. He's going to bring you on a tour of the next 10 to 20 years of his life. Now he doesn't say a lot what he does in different places. I don't think that's his emphasis. His emphasis is simply to say, I didn't really go to Jerusalem to learn from the Jerusalem apostles. My message is from God, I did not get it from man.

So, this is a map of the travels of Paul before his first missionary journey that we are all very familiar with. And it's given right here. This is where he traveled, pretty much this area. His missionary trips would take him around this area. But these are the travel plans that we're going to read.

Main point, just to show you, he did not really consult with any of the Jerusalem apostles. But let's take a look. He says, I did not go up to Jerusalem. I, I did not consult with anyone, neither did I go up to the, to Jerusalem, to those who were apostles before me. But I went into Arabia and returned again to Damascus.

So he says, I went to Arabia. Please don't think of Arabia as Saudi Arabia. It's a different Arabia in those days. And he says, then after three years, only after three years, then I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remain with him. Cephas is Peter. Not only did he meet Peter, he also met with James, the Lord's brother, but no one else.

His point, I think, is saying, I only visited them for 15 days. It could not be the source of my message. And that was, in fact, three years thereafter.

He goes on to say, in what I'm writing to you before God, I do not lie. This is important for you to know, he says. Perhaps the false teachers are claiming that Paul did go to Peter, James, and the Jerusalem apostles to receive his message. Paul says, no, nothing like this. This is my travelogue. This is where I've been to. I did not consult with any man about the Gospel, for 15 days even, with the Jerusalem apostles of Peter and James, it's not enough.

Then actually, after that, I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia and I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea. So if I was, as you purport, a, a servant or a messenger sent by the Jerusalem apostles, I should have been known by the people in Judea. But I'm an unknown. That goes to show I have no relationship. I was not sent by the Jerusalem apostles.

So again, in case you're lost, the big idea Paul is writing here is saying that this Gospel that he gives is the only true and reliable message. Because he did not receive it from man, he received it from God.

And we know that that is true because he met with Jesus, who changed his life, and Paul did not consult with man. Got it? Simple.

And now he says, it all culminates, they only were hearing it said, he who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy. This is amazing, they are saying. This persecutor is now a preacher and what he preaches is totally consistent with the faith we have received from Jesus and the other Jerusalem apostles.

So Paul's point is, you can only explain how I have changed from a persecutor to a preacher, how I have this message that is consistent with the others because my message is not from man but from God and they glorified God because of me.

So, the Galatians are asking, whose message is the right one? Paul says, my message is from God Himself. Because I met with Jesus and Jesus changed my life. And I tell you, I did not consult with anyone, I did not receive extensive downloads from the Apostles, my message is not from consultation from any man.

So the Gospel I preach to you is the one true and reliable message. So do not turn away from it because turning away from it is tantamount to the desertion of God. But this is the message you need to depend on in order to be saved.

Again, this is not a Chow Yun Fat death hoax, scam. This is straight from the horse's mouth. This is God's message for you. This did not come from man's brain. This is a message that broke through from heaven to earth. It's a precious gift of God. This is what you need to depend on in order to be saved.

Now, I kind of shared what the Gospel is last week and I want to go a little bit deeper this week. Because this is the message you must depend on in order to be saved.

Paul told us what the Gospel is in 1st Corinthians 15. This I think is one of the best, if not the best, descriptions of the Gospel he has given. Now I would remind you brothers of the Gospel I preached, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that He was buried and that He was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures and that He appeared to Cephas, the twelve and more than 500 at any one time.

So we could see that the emphasis of the Scriptures here is the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He died and He rose. These are the core things in the Gospel because he says this is in accordance with the Scriptures. Now there's a bracket there almost, where he says that He was buried. I think that He was buried is meant to show or to prove that Jesus did actually die and that He appeared to Cephas, to the 12 apostles and more than 500, to show that He did rise from the dead.

So you could say the Gospel message is about Jesus dying, bracket, and was buried and rising, bracket, and appeared to prove that He did rise. And His death and resurrection is for our sins, to pay for our sins, to atone for our sins, to wash away our sins.

So based on this description in 1st Corinthians, I think we can then define the Gospel as the Good News. It is Good News because there is now truly One way by which you can be saved from your sins. This is news, not advice. This is not what you need to do tomorrow but this is what has already been done for you yesterday. Jesus Christ came to die and to rise in order to save you from your sins. Jesus alone saves us from our sins so that He would bring us, reconcile us back to God.

So the message of the Gospel is crystal clear. Jesus paid it all. He said it is finished. This is the wonderful Good News. It is not do, do, do, do, do. It is done, done, done, done. It is Good News. It is already done. Jesus died and Jesus rose again. This is the message that you need to depend on in order to be saved.

Everything - Jesus = Nothing

I'm not very good with mathematics. I suppose not everyone is good with mathematics, but let me give you an equation for the Gospel if I can. What we are saying so far is that everything without Jesus is nothing. What I mean by that, is everything man tries to do in his own strength, without Jesus Christ, will not save you. It is nothing in the eyes of God. All our righteousnesses, in inverted commas, are like filthy rags. Everything, the money you give to the poor, the little help you offer to a poor old lady across the road. The attempts to keep yourself from outward sin, the visits to various religious institutions and the rituals you go through, everything you do, try to earn favor with God without Christ does not save. It does not qualify in God's eyes.

Jesus + Nothing = Everything

But the Good News from heaven breaks through by saying Jesus plus nothing is everything. Jesus alone saves. Jesus and His finished work on the cross does not need any supplementation whatsoever. He paid it all, He did it all and He proved it by His resurrection from the dead. He is the sole basis of any man's salvation.

Jesus + Anything = Nothing

And therefore the third equation, Jesus plus anything then leads to nothing. Because if it is by grace then it is no more works. If it is by works then it is no more grace. You cannot say I am saved by Jesus plus something. You cannot believe the false teachers who are going around saying Jesus is not enough. You need to supplement to that circumcision, festivals, keeping of the laws.

Now again, it's not that circumcision is bad, it's not that the festivals are bad, it's not that the law is bad. But if you do these things with the intention to earn your way to God then they become bad. Because Jesus plus something is a false teaching. You are turning to a different gospel, you are deserting God.

This is not even a gospel at all according to Paul. Jesus alone is enough. Jesus plus something is a lie. Jesus plus nothing is the truth.

So it was John Newton who gave us the song Amazing Grace who said, although my memory is fading, he was about to die, I remember two things very clearly. I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Saviour. Jesus plus nothing is the Gospel we depend on in order to be saved.

So Paul gave the Gospel to the Galatians. They were distracted, sidetracked, bewitched and he wrote again to tell them, don't go into those bondages. Christ has set you free. Jesus plus nothing is the true Gospel. And that's what I hope you will believe in today.

But another thing I think we must gather from this one reliable and true message of the Gospel, is the importance to defend or to guard the Gospel. Because there will be perversions, there will be distortions, there will be corruptions. It has always been so throughout the ages and it will be so in our day. And we need to learn what it means to defend the Gospel, to hold it strongly in our lives and in our church.

We have been meeting our CG leaders on Zoom every Tuesday now. It's our second week and I really appreciate the time together with our CG leaders to, to learn the Scriptures together, to journey together in serving God's people in a CG ministry. Because CG is not easy. People are not easy.

But we appreciate the time together and I think we have a wonderful group of CG leaders because they ask very good questions. And one of the questions that was asked last Tuesday was based on a sermon last week, how can we defend the Gospel practically in our church?
What do you do to defend the Gospel? I gave a kind of an answer but let me elaborate further today. I, I love sports. I, I love to win hah. I'm a competitive person. So when you play sports, they say the best defence is a good offense. Heard that before? Because when you play a game and you want to win, you cannot be defensive all the time. You cannot be defending all the time. You will lose. Someday, somehow, your defence will leak. The best way to defend is when you .., when you go on the offensive because then the opponent has to defend and you don't have to defend.

It's true for chess. You know, play a chess game. If you're very defensive, you're always defending against someone. It's very hard to win. A good chess player goes on the offensive, claims space, win the pieces and so on. It's the same for badminton. If you keep defending and you don't smash, you'll lose. You've got to smash. You've got to attack the goal if you're playing soccer.

So when it comes to the defence of the Gospel, I think the strategy is a good offense. Now what do you mean by a good offense? It means you don't wait. You don't wait for perversions to come. You don't wait for distortions to come. You don't wait for corruptions to come. But you go on the offensive by constantly, consistently, faithfully teach and preach and remind God's people about what the Gospel is.

You make it explicit. You make it clear. You make it front and centre. You make it obvious to God's people and to yourself. Because if you don't, it's very likely with time, you will lose it.

It was D.A. Carson, a theologian in our day, who says the way you lose the Gospel is not by denying it but by assuming it. What he's saying is, very few people today in church would deny the Gospel right here, right now. Very few of you, I think, would deny the Gospel as to what the Bible has to say about it.

But the best way to lose the Gospel is when you assume it. Ah, we all know lah. Jason, why every week you say Gospel, Gospel, very sian ah? Can you say something new or not? We already know, alright? We assume, we all know, we don't talk about it. And that is the way for the next generation to deny it or to lose it.

He says, one generation believes something. The next assumes it. And the third will forget and deny it. It's true for most things in life. Value systems, cultural norms, you assume something, in the next generation, the third one would lose it. And it is the same for the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Another theologian, preacher of our day, he says, losing the Gospel doesn't happen all at once. It's a, it's much like a four generation process. To Carson it's three, to him it's four, doesn't matter. The point is, over generations you lose it if you assume it. And he says, the Gospel is accepted, the Gospel is assumed, the Gospel is confused and the Gospel is lost.

The point I'm trying to say is, the best way to defend the Gospel is that we keep the Gospel central in our life and ministry. I hope you understand why we do what we do. I hope you understand why every message we preach must aim towards the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Because the Apostle Paul himself said, I determine to know nothing among you except Jesus and Him crucified.

Paul was a brilliant man. But even for him, he says, this is the one thing I do. I determine to know nothing among you except Jesus and Him crucified, 1st Corinthians 2. And I think we will do well. Not that we don't talk about anything else, but this is that one thing we must aim towards all the time.

I recall sharing with you how I was with my wife in Milan, in Italy, we bought, she bought something from a branded goods shop. I was holding on to it and I, I just opened the door to get out of the store, immediately there were some ladies who come in front of me, held out a newspaper, I think, or scrap of newspaper, showed it to me, kind of waved it in front of my face. I was trying frantically to figure out what is being written or what is being shown to me and I realized it's some Italian words I don't understand anyway.

And at the same time, I felt a tug on the bag that I was holding. What these gypsy girls were trying to do was to distract me with an article and at the same time take away that which is precious. But thankfully I'm a tight-fisted man and it's not easy for them to take anything away from me.

But you see, Satan has this same strategy all the time. He comes to you and distracts you from what is truly precious. The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. You take away the Gospel, you take away the church. There's no reason for existence anymore.

But it is so easy, so easy to be distracted by politics, social agenda, wokeism, whatever you have in this world. Pastor, why don't you talk about this more? Pastor, why don't we deal with this agenda? But Pastor why..., there's so many good things to talk about. But we must not leave off the best thing. That one reliable and true Gospel that souls need. Because if you don't share the Gospel, if the church doesn't share the Gospel, no one else will.

The main thing of Gospel Light is to keep the main thing, the main thing. How genius a statement is that? The main thing of Gospel Light is to keep the main thing, the main thing. What is our church name? Gospel Light Christian Church. It's so easy to forget. I hope that we will always keep the Gospel central.

I will come and go, I hope you will. However, keep the Gospel central. If you're here today, this is that one message I hope you'll walk away with. If you do not know Jesus Christ, you do not know what is Christianity, you do not know how to be saved, I say this is the answer. God in His grace sent His Son to die for you. And His Son rose again the third day because it proved that He was victorious over all your sin. And the Bible commands men everywhere to repent and to believe this Gospel. You can be saved. No one is too hard to be saved. If Paul can be saved, so can you. This message is the power of God for yourselves.

Let's bow for a word of prayer together. Father, we pray this morning that You will, by Your grace, touch the hearts of people gathered, that they will see very, very clearly for themselves, everything without Jesus is nothing, but Jesus and nothing else, is everything. I pray that as a church, we will be also crystal clear that Jesus plus something is nothing. May we see the centrality of the Gospel, may we see that Jesus alone is the way to salvation and life.

So we pray right here, right now, open our eyes, open our hearts to look to Jesus who died and rose again. Help this church be faithfully preaching and teaching the Gospel from our Sunday school, to our young people, to our Chinese ministries, to our Filipino ministries, in our Bible study groups, in our church committees, in our decision making bodies, in our various ministries, in our families, in our homes, in our individual lives. Oh, may we learn to be like Paul who says, I determine to know nothing among you except Jesus and Him crucified.

Give us wisdom and tenacity to realise the main thing is to keep the main thing, the main thing. May we be a church that would drink in this Gospel, live out this Gospel and give out this Gospel. May we defend it, may we declare it, may we demonstrate it in our lives. So bless each one, help us send the Gospel Light, for Jesus paid it all. We ask this in Jesus' Name, Amen.

 

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