Galatians 2:11-14

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11 When Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles. But when they arrived, he began to draw back and separate himself from the Gentiles because he was afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision group. 13 The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray. 14 When I saw that they were not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in front of them all, “You are a Jew, yet you live like a Gentile and not like a Jew. How is it, then, that you force Gentiles to follow Jewish customs? (Galatians 2:11-14)

In today's text, we learn that it is possible for the believer in Christ to contradict the gospel through the way we treat others. Peter did this by requiring new converts to be circumcised in order to be acceptable.

In v.11 Cephas which is the Aramaic equivalent to Peter, travels to Antioch to visit a very healthy church. Paul informs us he opposed Peter because "before certain men came from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles." (v.12). 

Peter was a Jew who was enjoying the freedom that the gospel brings into a believers life, particularly freedom to eat with the Gentiles. In addition, he was requiring that Gentile believers to become Jews (by being circumcised and keeping the ceremonial laws which were a part of the culture God gave to the Jews).

There is a background story which explains Peter's change. As recorded in Acts 10, Peter shares the gospel with Cornelius, a Gentile. Immediately afterwards, God gave Peter a vision of a sheet which was lowered from heaven with all kinds of animals that the Old Testament pronounced unclean (Leviticus 11). Then the voice of God says, "Rise, Peter, kill and eat." But Peter responds, "No, Lord, for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean." And the voice came back, "What God has cleansed you must not call common."

In Galatians 2:12, we discover the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem criticized Peter, "Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?" Peter's defense is recorded in Acts 11:17, "So if God gave them the same gift he gave us who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could stand in God’s way?”

When Peter ate with Gentile Christians in Antioch, he was enjoying one of the many results of the gospel. He experienced the freedom which enables us to love others freely.

But then certain Jews came to Antioch from James who was in Jerusalem (v.12). Peter feared this group. And, in a moment of weakness he cut off the fellowship with the Gentile believers. He literally stiff-armed the Gentiles.

In v.13 we read, "The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray." Peter and Barnabas and the others sought to avoid rejection from the Jerusalem Jewish Christians at the expense of their principles. 

We are all fallen, and therefore, we are all, to some measure, insecure. And, the battle we are fighting is the battle to really believe the gospel. The gospel tells us that the death of Christ assures us of God's love, and so it gives security to our lives. And, the more we center our lives on the gospel.

Finally, according to v.14, Paul confronts Peter who was not living by the truth of the gospel. The blessings of the gospel are only received by faith in the Lord Jesus, not by works of the law. We do not attain the blessings of the gospel by being good enough. We attain forgiveness and joy and peace and power through daily reliance upon Jesus Christ who loved us and gave himself for us. And that faith creates a lifestyle that is in step with the truth of the gospel.

Galatians 2:7-10

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7 On the contrary, they recognized that I had been entrusted with the task of preaching the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been to the circumcised. 8 For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles. 9 James, Cephas and John, those esteemed as pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the circumcised. 10 All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along. (Galatians 2:7-10)

In today's text, we learn that the early church leaders commissioned Paul to preach to the uncircumcised (Gentiles) and Peter to the circumcised (Jews). In addition, we learn of one of Peter’s failures. This story is not recorded in the book of Acts, and Peter himself doesn’t comment on it in his own writings. 

Before the Apostle Peter became a follower of Jesus, he was a fisherman. After a year of following Jesus and His teaching, Peter then left everything to follow Him. Like us, Peter's relationship with the Lord was one of spiritual raged progress in which God trained him to be dependent on God’s transforming grace. Like all of us, Peter experienced some failures along the way which were useful for his success. 

As the gospel spread to the believing Gentiles, they became a part of the church. And, as a result controversy brewed. The Jewish leaders believed that these new converts should have to become Jews, and one of the BIG teachings in Judaism was circumcision. However, as we have seen in previous blogs, requiring the Gentiles to be circumcised created a BIG problem between Paul and Peter. This is where we are in our text today.

Like I have said before, when we lose sight of what our relationship with God is all about, we will make it about the most insignificant things. The Jewish Christians were afraid of losing their culture. To lose the culture that God has given is not good, but to lose the culture that man gives, well, that's another story. And the Jews had changed the purpose of circumcision.

You see, the heart of God, as spelled out in the scriptures, is always for the needy. In v.10, the Apostle Paul accentuates this value of God, where he wrote, "All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I had been eager to do all along." It is not just the poor, but it is the poor who is crying out to God. (see Matthew 5:3).

A forgiven heart is a compassionate heart. The disciples had seen the Lord Jesus value the needy in His ministry. In fact, in Matthew 25 Jesus said, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.”

In addition, Zacchaeus gave half of his possessions to the poor, and Jesus responded by saying, “Today salvation has come to this house.” (see Luke 19:9). 

The Apostles agreed on the importance of ministry to the poor because it flows from the center of the gospel which is the cross. If we see people with needs and do not respond in some way, a window in our hearts closes.

In response to the question, "why does God allow some to be poor?", Charles Spurgeon responded, "There are many reasons: one is, to give us, who are favored with enough, an opportunity of showing our love to Jesus." 

I have discovered that when I have been most mindful that I need God, I was most blessed. And the opposite is true, when I am least mindful of my need of God, I am most "cursed".

In Deuteronomy 10:16, we read, "Circumcise then your heart, and stiffen your neck no more." And, in Deuteronomy 30:6, we read, 
"Moreover the LORD your God will circumcise your heart and the heart of your descendants, to love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, in order that you may live." A sure sign that we are growing in our walk with the Lord is that we are gaining His heart for the needy.

Galatians 2:4-6

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4 This matter arose because some false believers had infiltrated our ranks to spy on the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to make us slaves. 5 We did not give in to them for a moment, so that the truth of the gospel might be preserved for you. 6 As for those who were held in high esteem—whatever they were makes no difference to me; God does not show favoritism—they added nothing to my message. (Galatians 2:4-6)

The Apostle Paul and his friends went to Jerusalem to confront some false teachers who were teaching the idea that circumcision was a requirement for salvation (for background see Acts 15:1f). If circumcision or any other human behavior were a requirement of God for forgiveness of sin, then that would be saying that Jesus' sacrifice was not enough to guarantee salvation for anyone. 

Of course, the preponderance of scripture teaches that salvation is by faith alone. And, the issue isn't the quality of one's faith, that which saves us is the object of said faith.

In v.5, it is clear that Paul recognized the gospel would have been threatened had he not opposed this false teaching. There would be no gospel, no good news, if Paul gave in to the demand for circumcision. The good news is that God has totally paid the penalty of our sin through the death of Christ on the cross of Calvary.

Like these early Christians, we are tempted to believe we need Jesus plus something else to be accepted by or justified before God. The reason we do this is due to the fact that we project our thinking upon God. Most of us require others to perform in a certain way before we accept them. It is called the BIG LIE in the book Search for Significance by Robert McGee. The BIG LIE says, "my performance plus others' acceptance of my performance equals my value." 

This type of thinking is seen in all walks of our lives. We live in a world where we achieve everything. It is not so with our rightness before God (Justification). This can not be, because we can not perform well enough to gain God's favor. We can not even earn a little of God's favor.

Then there are those who demand that we perform a certain way in order to maintain God's acceptance. They call it "cheap grace" if we take advantage of the grace of God. Well, it is NOT grace if we can not take advantage of it. This is bad theology, but the good news is this is not taught in the Bible. God has never expected us to earn or maintain our rightness (justification) before Him. As Paul points out in Romans 4, long before Abraham did anything meritorious, he was pronounce a son of God by God.

I love the words of Paul in v.6, "God does not show favoritism." Paul writes this because we are of the mindset that we earn God's favor. And, this is Paul's way of saying, no one earns God's favor. In the words of Brennan Manning, "God loves us as we are, not as we should be."

We will never be able to achieve God’s approval by trusting anything else but what Jesus Christ has done for us. All that’s needed is Jesus, and He and His work on the cross is enough. At the cross Jesus did everything that was needed in order for us to be made right with God. Jesus plus something else is a lie that kills and robs us of the truth of the gospel.

Having said all of that, should we obey God? Should we think His thoughts and follow in His ways? Absolutely! But not to gain His acceptance. We think God's thoughts and we walk in His ways because His thoughts and ways are the truth. It would be crazy for us to do otherwise.

There is another quote in Robert McGee's book worthy of quoting at this point. It is: “The focus of the Christian life should be on Christ, not on self-imposed regulations. Our experience of Christ’s lordship is dependent on our moment-by-moment attention to His instruction, not on our own regimented schedule.”

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Galatians 2:1-3

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1 Then after fourteen years, I went up again to Jerusalem, this time with Barnabas. I took Titus along also. 2 I went in response to a revelation and, meeting privately with those esteemed as leaders, I presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentiles. I wanted to be sure I was not running and had not been running my race in vain. 3 Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek. (Galatians 2:1-3)

Three men: Paul, Barnabas, and Titus traveled from Antioch to Jerusalem. Paul, a former terrorist of the church. Titus, a relatively new Gentile convert. And, Barnabas, a man with deep roots in the Jerusalem church. They were coming to see the church leaders in order to make their testimony clear. They did not know what sort of reception they would get.

Just like the believers in Jerusalem and Paul and his two companions, Antioch and Jerusalem were two very different cities. It was
in Jerusalem where the gospel had first been preached, believed, and uncontrolled. But these events had occurred more than fifteen years earlier. 

In the meantime, the believers in Jerusalem had suffered tremendous
persecution. It had become a very poor church. The cutting edge was now in Antioch. There, Gentiles were coming to faith, and a commitment to missions was beginning that would send gospel travelers across the
Roman Empire. Antioch had become the center of vitalized Christianity. 

So imagine now, Paul, Barnabas, and Titus coming to tell of God’s work among the Gentiles through them. How will the leaders of the older, struggling Jerusalem church receive them? This is the theme of v.3-10. Tomorrow, we will consider v.4-10, but today, let us consider v.3.

Paul writes in v.3, "Yet not even Titus, who was with me, was compelled to be circumcised, even though he was a Greek." Paul points out that Titus, a new believer, didn't feel "compelled to be circumcised." The Greek word used by Paul here for "compelled" is "ēnankasthē."  Only used 9 times in the New Testament, this word is translated "made", as when Jesus made the disciples get into the boat. 

In our text for today, Paul is making the point that Titus did not feel compelled for himself, by the Lord or by Paul and Barnabas to be circumcised. Why? Because circumcision was an object lesson from the Lord, nothing more. It was not a sign that a person had faith, it was a daily reminder that the Lord was with the believer. God gave this reminder to Abraham as an encouragement to his faith. And, the Jews that followed changed it to be a requirement for salvation, but God didn't mean for that to be it's purpose.

While the Scripture does not tell us as much about Titus, we do know that he shows up when a cool head and a courageous heart are required to deal with turbulence and hassles in the church. Titus seems to have the knack of putting things right. Titus also ministered extensively in Corinth during the time when the Corinthian church was in turmoil and rife with factions and jealousy on every side. When Paul needed someone to minister in Crete, where he expected some difficult problems to arise, Titus was the man he picked for that assignment too. Thus Titus was a good man to have around in times of problem and difficulty.

Finally, I say it all of the time ... "If we do not know what the faith is about, we will make it about the non-essentials, which is what kills the life-giving movement of the Holy Spirit. Perhaps this is why the Jerusalem church was struggling and the church at Antioch was thriving.

"Spirituality isn't about being finished and perfect; spirituality is about trusting God in our unfinishedness." Yaconelli

Galatians 1:18-24

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18 Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days. 19 I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother. 20 I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie. 21 Then I went to Syria and Cilicia. 22 I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 23 They only heard the report: “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” 24 And they praised God because of me. (Galatians 1:18-24)

After being separated to God and taught by God for three years, the Apostle Paul went to Jerusalem to spend 15 days with Cephas which is Aramaic pronunciation for Peter. While he was visiting Peter, Paul saw James, the brother of Jesus.

As our text informs us, it is the power of the gospel that transforms us. And, God's transformative working in our lives works always from the inside out. 

In our text, Paul establishes how the gospel came to him from God. As a result of hearing the gospel, belief is given a chance. When we embrace the gospel for what it is, God reaching into our lives, offering us hope, we celebrate it for ourselves. 

As is indicated in Galatians 2, after some time, there was the need for Paul to confront the Galatians and Peter, for they had lost sight of the grace of God. This happens to all of us: we all lose sight of God's grace. And, when we do this, pride is always there to jump back into the driver's seat of our lives.

In today's text, Paul’s point is the gospel is a message from God. It is proven as such because it has the power to transform us. If the gospel was invented by men, then, when challenged by the hard realities of life, it would be found lacking. Yet, that is not the case, it does the opposite.  The gospel has the power to embolden us when things
get complicated. The gospel delivers the life of God into our sin-lured lives.

Paul says that the gospel has everything to do with who we associate with. The gospel gives us God's heart for all people, no matter how different they seem to be. It transforms the way we think
about each other and the way we relate. The authenticity of the gospel is measured by its ability to change hard-hearted people who are willing to be changed.

As indicated in v.24, the result of this change is that others are directed to God and they subsequently praise God because of that change. This is the point of our change: that people would be drawn into a personal relationship with God. If the opposite is happening, people will follow people who have ill motives and reflect the fact that they have no authentic relationship with God, as was the case in Galatia. 

I want to close with that thought that Paul leaves us with at the end of v.23: "...the faith he once tried to destroy.” Down through the years many have tried to stamp out this faith. The Lord Jesus told us, "the gates of hell shall not overcome it." 

The enduring nature of God's truth underscores the believable nature of God's truth. Take, for example, the perpetuating nature of that little nation called Israel. Opposed by most on the face of the earth, surrounded by enemies, yet they are still there. There is coming a day, perhaps soon, when she will be surrounded and seemingly defeated in battle. But, God will raise her up. You can read more about this future war in Psalm 83.

The veracity of the Christian faith is found in its ability to endure. This kind of faith builds the greatest strength in those of faith in the God of the Bible. It is to our advantage to be defined by God's definition of all things, even when they appear most bleak.

Galatians 1:15-17

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15 But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. 17 I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus. (Galatians 1:15-17)

God's desire to tell us about Himself is revealing. It is striking that He speaks directly to us. The humility displayed speaks of His holiness for He is lacking nothing. We should not be surprised that the Supreme Being is not proud, arrogant and demanding of His subjects. Such is the nature of humility. Perhaps the greatest display of strength is humility.

The Apostle Paul underscores the fact that God called him by His grace. The structure of the sentence is such that it is by the grace of God one is called. Grace is the means by which God calls us. In today's text, grace is the means by which God causes us to have purpose.

What is it about Grace that couches the call best? Grace is not threatening, it is gentleman-like. Grace is inviting, risky and unfair. Grace says, "I love the bad, not just the good." Grace has been known to be well-known in the slums. “Blessed are the poor,” said Jesus.  "Blessed are the desperate", is one way of interpreting that first Beatitude.  Unless we face our own failings and weaknesses and desperations, we may never appreciate and/or receive that gift of grace.

In Galatians 1:16, we discover why the grace of God calls us: to reveal His Son in us. The usage of the word "in" is very instructive. Paul did not write "to", he wrote "in." The Son was unveiled directly in Paul so that Paul would have the most intimate understanding of Him. My friend, Dan Veldman likes to say, "Intimacy is feeling without touching." God uses the word "in" here to communicate intimacy. Intimacy, as underscored in the middle of v.16, is essential for the authentic reception and delivery of the message.

Notice the words in the middle of Galatians 1:16. "... so that I might preach him among the Gentiles." God nustled up to Paul so that Paul could deliver this message of grace to those in the slums. Implied here is those with the most authentic and intimate relationship with the Lord Jesus are those who deliver the gospel to the hopeless best.

The obvious question here is: how do we get the most intimate and authentic relationship with the Lord? Look at what God did for Paul who wrote, "my immediate response was not to consult any human being. 17 I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus."

God separated Paul to Himself for three years (see Galatians 1:18). It was during this time that Christ revealed Himself to and in Paul. I would imagine that humanly speaking this was a difficult time for Paul. However, his effectiveness in ministry largely depended upon it. It was through this three year trial that God gave to Paul His heart for Him and others. 

We lack depth with God and others because we do not embrace God's purposes through our sufferings and trials. We would rather find a scapegoat or just complain in some way.

If we are going to be intimate with God and authentic to those we want to help, we must embrace our trials and sufferings. But, we must not end there; we must embrace God through these two unwanted allies. It is hard, but we must evaluate in the context of eternity.

Galatians 1:13-14

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13 For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. 14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. (Galatians 1:13-14)

In our text today, the Apostle reflects on his way of life before he came into a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus. Before his eyes were opened to the truth, Paul terrorized the church, throwing men and women into prison for being believers in Christ. And, think of it, Paul was one of the most accomplished religious leaders of his day. Being religious and knowing God are not congruent.

Notice that v.13 reads "For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it." These words clearly point out that Paul was very religious. Yet, there obviously, came a point in time when he was intercepted by the Lord Jesus Himself. 

Before becoming a believer in the Lord Jesus, Paul was a persecutor, one ready to kill Christians. To Paul, the Christian message was a threat to everything he stood for. In fact, it was such a threat to him that he wanted to stamp Christianity out of existence. That should have been his first clue that he didn't have the answer yet. Had he, he would not have been defined by that which he feared.

As pointed out in our text, Paul was, in his former life, " extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers." Paul admits that he was not zealous for God, he was zealous for the traditions of his fathers. This made him legalistic. And, due to the fact that Paul himself was a Legalist he was harsh like the law which can only curse man. (see Romans 2-3). Wherever grace is denied and the legal principle is made prominent, harshness and intolerance result. 

I find Paul's words in v.14 " I was advancing in Judaism." Paul was advancing, yet he was regressing. All who knew Paul, saw him as a success, yet he was breathing out threats against Christians. When the Lord Jesus met Paul on the road to Damascus in Acts 9, Paul was in need of conversion. And, conversion is a change from thinking that you can run your own life, to an acknowledgment that God calls your shots. Don't you find it interesting that with God, we progress by regressing. Or, as John the Baptist put it, "may I decrease and may He increase."

We have all known religious people. Perhaps, you have been religious. Religion is man's attempts to earn God's favor. The problem with this approach is that the chasm between us and God is way too wide. It takes a god-like effort to bridge such an chasm that our sinful condition has created. Such a divide has created hopelessness, that is until the Lord Jesus came to solve our hopelessness problem. He solved this problem by laying down His very life, becoming THE bridge to get us back to God.

I trust you have trusted in His finished work which earned for you the forgiveness of your sin. If you have not trusted in Him, click here to go through the steps which will usher you into a personal relationship with God.

Galatians 1:11-12

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11 I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. 12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1:11-12)

The heart in our text today is our adventure with God every day. Paul wrote, “the gospel I preached is not of human origin ... I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.” 

God revealed Himself to mankind through His Son, Jesus Christ. This is nothing new for God. In the Old Testament, He revealed Himself to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses. They didn’t always understand everything He said, nonetheless they had been found by God, and given a story with Him to declare to those who would listen. 

This is what our life of faith in the God of the Bible is about: receiving a story from Him and telling others. The truth that Paul references in our text today came from God by revelation. It did not come from any human source. Our gospel is a story of hope whereby God is calling all peoples from all walks of life into a personal relationship with Himself. This relationship comes by revelation, by that process of God explaining Himself to us. 

In this process, the corner piece that God uses to reveal Himself to us is His word which is the truth. The Bible is His revelation to us and it is pure and trustworthy, and we can count on it. 

In Galatians 1:11-12 we see what the gospel is not a message that is “from any man.” It is not the best attempts by the smartest of humans to organize all the thinking that is possible about God in such a way that it is persuasive. We could never have thought of it. 

In v. 12 Paul writes, "I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.  Paul is saying, “I didn’t have a human teacher, a Rabbi at whose feet I sat. It was miraculous, frightening, unbelievable. It was the opening of the curtain that hid God from us, in a revelation of Jesus Christ. That is the source and the heart of my message."

This is why Paul can be so certain of it, why he can judge false gospels. The truth he was given came from God. And our confidence is in the same thing: the Lord has revealed Himself, thus we have a pure and certain message.

Finally, let's take a look at that word "revelation" before we conclude our analysis of our text for today. The Greek word that Paul uses here is 
apokalypseōs which means revelation, what is revealed, disclosure, to make information known with an implication that the information can be understood. 

At the heart of a personal relationship with God is this word revelation or apokalypseōs. This very word is used of Paul in Ephesians 1:17 which reads, "I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better."  

John Calvin wrote, “Till the Lord opens them, the eyes of our heart are blind. Till the Spirit has become our instructor, all that we know is folly and ignorance. Till the Spirit of God has made it known to us by a secret revelation, the knowledge of our divine calling exceeds the capacity of our own minds.” 

Are you experiencing the revelation of God to you? If not, ask Him to reveal Himself to you. Don't be surprised when He does it. The adventure awaits us every day.

Galatians 1:10

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Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ. (Galatians 1:10)

The third word in this verse is really the first word in the Greek sentence. This word  “now”  draws attention to the authenticity of the Apostle Paul's conversion. You see, there were other Jews accusing Paul of throwing out the sacred Old Testament requirements that made anyone right with God. But the problem with their theology is that it had been long incorrect and not biblical.

These people from James in Jerusalem were teaching that one is saved by believing in Jesus plus certain good works. On the other hand, Paul was teaching that all men, including the Gentiles, are saved by simple faith in the LORD's Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing else can make one right in God's eyes but the perfection of Christ applied to the helpless believing sinner.

There is a mentality, common among many Christians, which suspects grace to be too easy. This mindset distrusts anything that appears to be too tolerant and not sufficiently difficult and demanding to gain God's acceptance. The underlying assumption is the more demanding and higher the price of piety, the more likely it is to be of God. Pride is at the root of the comment that suggests that one can preach too much grace. Contradictory to this attitude is the fact that biblical Christianity is founded upon the unmerited and undeserved grace of God for those who have no ability to please God. 

The grace of the God of the Bible is distinct to the Christian faith. You may be surprised to know that Jesus never used the word itself. He just taught it and lived it. No other religion emphasizes grace the way the Bible does. Grace is such that it releases us not only from sin but from shame.

“Grace” is the most important concept in the Bible, and the world. Donald Gray Barnhouse once said, " "Love that goes upward is worship; love that goes outward is affection; love that stoops is grace." Grace is most needed and best understood in the midst of sin, suffering, and brokenness. We live in a world of earning, and deserving, and these result in judgment. Only grace makes us alive.

Paul wrote in Romans 5:8, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Understanding this foreign expression of love is what frees us to fling caution to the wind in serving Christ. When we have become the recipients of this radical and life-changing reality, we will be stirred by a heart that has been set free from self in order to serve the very One who laid down His life for us.

Grace is the opposite of karma, which is all about getting what you deserve. Grace is getting what you don’t deserve, and not getting what you do deserve. Christianity teaches that what we deserve is death with no hope of anything else.

In v.10 here, Paul turns the tables on his opponents. It was not that he had begun to be a man-pleaser since his conversion, but that he had ceased to be so. As a zealous Pharisee he was a man-pleaser. Had he not been converted, he would still be a man-pleaser. When the grace of God arrested his life, he radically corresponded to the radical One who now defined him by this radical concept known as grace.

Why not be defined by grace 24/7? The options are to be defined by that which is less substantive. The liberating grace of God frees the believer from having to worry about pleasing anyone, including God. It brings wholeness to our lives, so that we are no longer looking for something else to satisfy or fulfill us. 

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Galatians 1:6-9

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6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— 7 which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse! (Galatians 1:6-9)

One of the many results of the Fall of Mankind is: we look to define ourselves by comparing ourselves to others. The Jews of the Old and New Testaments used the gift of the Law to socially stiff arm the Gentiles. Instead of following the Law as a way of being defined by God and pointing others to Him, they used it legalistically. 

The Jews created a caste system even in their own culture. Those who followed the Law the closest were treated as true believers and those who didn’t obey the Law as well were treated as less than. By the time Jesus came on the scene, certain people had become professionals at this. These were the Pharisees of Jesus' day.

When Jesus came on the scene, He changed everything. He didn’t take notice of the “in” group. In fact, he criticized them. And, He wasn’t bothered by the “out” group. In fact, He genuinely love them. Jesus redefined life and He offered all mankind eternal life, including the Gentiles.

This background helps us understand what was going wrong in the Galatian churches. Jews and Gentiles were worshiping together as a result of responding to the free gift of eternal life from Jesus Christ.
But after Paul left, someone else came in to teach Jesus' death and resurrection wasn't enough to make us right with God. They taught Jesus plus good works equals salvation. This is why Paul wrote this letter ... to address this problem. 

In today's text, the main idea is: there is only one true gospel. In v.6, the Apostle Paul says that he is astonished or shocked or perplexed that the Galatians were turning away to a “different gospel.”  The mind blowing part of their departure is they were turning away from the One who is Jesus Christ, the One who laid down His life for them. 

The “different gospel” in the churches of Galatia was not a religion from a foreign place, it was a close counterfeit to the real thing. Those in v.7 who were perverting or reversing the gospel were professing Christians. They reverse the order from grace changes us to obey in order to get grace. They were deforming that which reforms us. These distorters were probably from the church in Jerusalem. 

While the church in Galatia was turning to a different gospel, they were turning away from the grace of God. In v.8-9, Paul writes, "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!"

These believers were turning away from the One who was abandoned by His father, the one who demonstrated His love for them while they were His enemies. They had lost sight of the fact that Christianity does not overestimate human goodness nor does it underestimate human need. No it screams God came to our rescue when we were at our worst.

The word repeated here for "cursed" is "anathema" in the Greek describes us as doomed to eternal punishment. Paul is announcing a terrifying prospect because of the torment and never ending permanence. 

Someone once said, "grace can only be received with open hands." It is the fallen human nature that causes us to revert to the idea that I have to earn God's favor, but this is not correct theology. In the book of Galatians, Paul sets out to correct this.