No Other Gospel | Sermon | The Grove Church, Port St. Lucie

What You Might Be Getting Wrong About Christianity

Christian Freedom: Galatians, Week 1 | All sermons

"Grace plus anything is no longer grace."

Summary

Most people who reject Christianity haven't actually rejected the real thing. They've rejected a bent version of it. In this message on Galatians 1:1-9, David Hancock, pastor of The Grove Church in Port St. Lucie, Florida, works through the letter Paul wrote furious, because that is exactly what was happening to a whole church he started. False teachers slipped in behind him preaching grace plus law. Jesus is the door, they said, but circumcision and the rest are the house. It sounded like more devotion. It was actually treason. The gospel is news, not advice about what to do. Something already happened, and the way you know you have it right is simple: it sweeps you off yourself and into worship.

Key Takeaways

The gospel is news about what has already been done, not advice about what to do.
Tetelestai, the word Jesus spoke from the cross, means paid in full. Nothing is left owed.
Grace plus anything is no longer grace, which is why Paul calls adding to it desertion rather than a mistake.
The most dangerous lie is the one that sounds close to the truth.

Read Galatians 1:1-9 (ESV)

Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead, and all the brothers who are with me, to the churches of Galatia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen. I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.

A Bent Gospel: What Did the Judaizers Actually Add?

Paul started the Galatian churches preaching radical grace. Salvation by faith in Christ alone, with Paul himself, a former persecutor of Christians, as living proof. After Paul left, a group called the Judaizers slipped in behind him with a "better" version: Jesus is the door, but the law is the house. You're not fully in until you've added circumcision, dietary rules, and the rest. The Galatians fell for it, thinking they were going deeper. Paul calls it desertion.

Talk about it

1. Where in your life or your past have you encountered a version of Christianity that turned out to be a bent one? What was off about it?

2. From the sermon: the Judaizers' message felt like "more devotion." Where do you see the appeal of grace-plus-something even today?

How Movements Die: Why Is the Most Dangerous Lie the One That Sounds True?

Paul says we live in "the present evil age." There's a spiritual force at work in the world that doesn't bother with frontal attacks on the gospel. It bends it. C.S. Lewis pictured a senior demon writing to a junior demon: don't put up signposts that say you've gone wrong. Just a gentle bend. Almost true. Just enough off-center to be fatal. The Roman Empire didn't fall from a foreign army. Caesar wasn't killed by an enemy. Both went down from within. That's how movements die.

THE BEND The most dangerous lie is the one that sounds close to the truth.

Talk about it

3. Where have you watched something true and good get bent over time, in a friendship, a workplace, a church, a family?

4. From the sermon: false gospels usually come through "credible, biblically literate" voices. How do you guard your heart without becoming suspicious of everyone?

It Is Finished: What Does the Gospel Actually Announce?

The word gospel means good news. Not advice, not a strategy, not a challenge. News. Something has already happened. Jesus came into the present evil age, fulfilled the law in our place, took the judgment we couldn't take, and on the cross said one word that takes us three to translate: Tetelestai. It is finished. Paid in full. Nothing left owed. Every requirement, every debt, every accusation, settled.

DO OR DONE The gospel isn't do, it's done. It's not obey to be accepted, it's acceptance produces obedience.

THE BABY IN THE WATER The gospel looks like a baby dropped in the ocean off the side of a ship. The baby can't save itself. The baby doesn't earn the rescue. Christ enters the water, goes down into death, and comes up holding you. To try to add your own swimming to that rescue is to push Him away and say, "I've got this."

Talk about it

5. Where in your faith life do you tend to live like the gospel is "do" instead of "done"?

6. From the sermon: "Faith produces fruit. Good works are proof of salvation, not a requirement to get it." How does that hit you, freeing or unsettling? Why?

7. If grace plus anything is no longer grace, what are the small "plusses" you tend to attach to it: effort, performance, knowledge, your story?

Spotting the Bend Today: How Do You Know You Have the Gospel Right?

Paul says even if he himself, or an angel from heaven, preached a different gospel, let them be accursed. That's how serious the bend is. The present evil age is still running the same play, just with different costumes. The most common bent gospels today: grace plus religious performance, using shame as the motivator, which works fast but is behavior modification rather than transformation; grace plus political alignment, where you can't be a Christian and belong to that party; and grace plus cultural or ethnic identity, where Jesus becomes the champion of my group instead of the Savior of every tribe and tongue.

THE DIAGNOSTIC How do you know you've got the gospel right? Paul's answer in verse 5 is worship. When you really see what Christ did, you stop thinking about yourself and break into praise. The moment your attention is back on yourself, whether self-congratulation or self-condemnation, you've slipped.

Talk about it

8. Of the three bent gospels, performance, political, and cultural, which one tugs hardest on you?

9. Who in your life needs to hear the gospel as news this week, not as another set of rules?

10. In light of this study, what's one thing you will do this week?

Questions This Sermon Answers

What does "deserting" mean in Galatians 1:6?

The Greek word isn't a soft one. It isn't drifting or doubting; every mature Christian questions God. This is a word for a soldier defecting to the enemy, a citizen transferring allegiance to a rival king. Treason. The Galatians thought they were adding to their faith. Paul says they were changing sides.

What is the "present evil age" in Galatians 1:4?

It is the world as it currently runs: wars, murder, hatred, jealousy, suffering, and disaster. Believer and skeptic alike know something is wrong. But underneath the physical and emotional damage is a spiritual evil that does its best work from within, corrupting what is true, good, and beautiful rather than attacking it directly.

Why can't you save yourself?

The gospel looks like a baby dropped in the ocean off the side of a ship. The baby can't save itself. The baby doesn't earn the rescue. Christ enters the water, goes down into death, and comes up holding you. To try to add your own swimming to that rescue is to push Him away and say, "I've got this."

How do you know if you have the gospel right?

Paul's answer in verse 5 is worship. When you really see what Christ did, you stop thinking about yourself and break into praise. The moment your attention is back on yourself, whether self-congratulation or self-condemnation, you've slipped.

Vision for the Christian Life

The Grove is a community where weary people lay down their self-salvation projects and find rest in the finished work of Jesus. We refuse to bend the gospel toward performance, partisanship, or tribe. Because Christ alone is our righteousness, we are free, free to obey out of joy, free to love across every line, and free to live as a worshiping people whose first instinct is, "To Him be the glory forever and ever. Amen."

Discussion Questions for Small Groups: Galatians 1

Where in your life or your past have you encountered a version of Christianity that turned out to be a bent one? What was off about it?
From the sermon: the Judaizers' message felt like "more devotion." Where do you see the appeal of grace-plus-something even today?
Where have you watched something true and good get bent over time, in a friendship, a workplace, a church, a family?
From the sermon: false gospels usually come through "credible, biblically literate" voices. How do you guard your heart without becoming suspicious of everyone?
Where in your faith life do you tend to live like the gospel is "do" instead of "done"?
From the sermon: "Faith produces fruit. Good works are proof of salvation, not a requirement to get it." How does that hit you, freeing or unsettling? Why?
If grace plus anything is no longer grace, what are the small "plusses" you tend to attach to it: effort, performance, knowledge, your story?
Of the three bent gospels, performance, political, and cultural, which one tugs hardest on you?
Who in your life needs to hear the gospel as news this week, not as another set of rules?
In light of this study, what's one thing you will do this week?

Related Messages in This Series

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Pastor David Hancock is the Lead Pastor of The Grove Church in Port St. Lucie, FL, a church where believers and skeptics wrestle honestly with faith and doubt.

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Read the full sermon manuscript

Something I've noticed talking to people who've rejected Christianity or walked away from it: most of them didn't reject Christianity itself but something they mistook it for. They rejected a distorted version of it. The question worth asking is, what if the Christianity you accepted or rejected isn't the real thing? Today we find out that a whole church in the Bible, who once understood rightly, was tricked into accepting a distorted version of Christianity. If it could happen to a whole church, it could happen to you. Today we get very clear about what Christianity is.

We are starting our new series today in Paul's letter to the Galatian church called Christian Freedom. Through the series we are going to be breaking the invisible chains that have imprisoned you far too long, and I'm going to fight to help you become not just free, but fully alive. And today we see it all starts with getting the truth of Christianity right, because if we have a distorted version of it, no matter what we do, we stay in chains.

Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead, and all the brothers who are with me, to the churches of Galatia: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Paul, the writer of this letter, is arguably the greatest movement leader in history. His letter is to the churches in Galatia, central Turkey today. This church is important to Paul. He started it, labored over them, loved them, and now he is furious with them. This is the only letter Paul wrote that doesn't start with thankfulness for the church. He starts off spicy, offers a quick greeting, and gets spicier. What has this great movement leader's blood boiling and heart broken? To understand it, we have to know Paul's story.

As a young man, Paul was a brilliant student learning under a famous rabbi named Gamaliel. Gamaliel was one of the most respected scholars of the first century. He held the title Rabban, which was a step above rabbi and reserved for the most honored teachers. Essentially Paul went to the Jewish Harvard and was one of the best and brightest students. The theological crew Paul ran with was called the Pharisees. These were Jews who kept a very strict observance of the law of the Bible. They followed rules, and added rules that functioned as safeguards to keep them from breaking God's commandments.

If you are a checklist kind of person, you would love them.

If you have ever worked for an extreme micromanager, this is the religious version.

Paul was a man who devoted his entire life to getting the truth about God right, and following the law correctly.

Paul would have probably known Jesus well as an adversary. Paul was maybe fifteen years younger, or even the same age as Jesus.

I can imagine Paul listening as his older teachers debated Jesus, and hearing the boos coming from the mouth of Paul as Jesus spoke. Maybe Paul even entered the debates.

After Jesus died, the movement of Christianity exploded on the scene. Paul stepped up as the main enemy of Christianity.

Paul began traveling around hunting for Christians and having them arrested. You can imagine Christian parents being ripped from their children and thrown in prison, as Paul gave the order and felt he was honoring God in all of it. Paul even approved the death of a Christian leader, Stephen.

But one day on his way to a city called Damascus, where he was going to arrest more Christians, on a dirt road, a bright light shone upon him and a voice rang out: Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Paul seems to know this is God, but he realizes he doesn't know him. He's missing something. So he says, who are you, Lord? Then the words ring out: I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting.

All the while Paul thought he was serving God but was working against Him, and now God is confronting him. Paul is probably thinking that the same way he put Stephen to death, God is about to strike him.

But instead, God called him to be an apostle.

A leader in the movement he was just hours earlier trying to destroy.

This is what Paul is referencing in verse 1 when he says he is an apostle not through man but through Christ and God the Father. His authority doesn't come from an institution, a group, nor from the endorsement of any man, but from Christ Himself.

And after a few years of preparation Paul began moving from city to city, no longer persecuting Christians but starting Christian communities that would later be called churches. His message was simple: radical grace offered by God through faith in Christ. To demonstrate this radical grace, Paul told his own story. A rebel, a murderer, the worst of all sinners, he called himself, who was saved by the grace of Christ. This salvation wasn't based on moral performance; it couldn't be, after what Paul did. It was nothing but faith in Christ. Paul is proof, a living message of extreme grace offered by God to a rebel sinner.

The Galatian church is one of those communities he started with this message of grace. This letter is likely the earliest writing we have of Paul.

But why is he so mad at the Galatians he loves so dearly? He called them deserters. What happened to them that he called them this? There is a group of people, Paul's enemies you might say, called the Judaizers. They were organized, strategic, winsome. They were possibly dropping the name of James, Jesus' brother, to give their message more authority, though they didn't have the blessing of James in what they were teaching.

Their strategy seemed to be to come behind Paul after he started a church with a false message about what it means to be a Christian.

The message went something like: yes, Jesus is the savior, but there is more you need to do to be delivered and saved.

The Judaizers were saying faith in Christ was the beginning, but full membership in God's family required entering the Mosaic covenant, which would be circumcision, dietary laws, festival observances, and the entire sacrificial system that went with it.

They were saying Jesus is the door but the law is the house, and you're not fully in until you've done both.

They hear this and it sounds like the Judaizers are taking God more seriously than Paul did. It sounded like more devotion. True devotion to Jesus requires all this other stuff you must do. And it worked. The Galatians started falling for it.

I'm astonished you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ.

The Greek word for deserting isn't a soft word. It isn't drifting or doubting. We all struggle with doubt; even the most mature Christian questions God. This is a word for a soldier defecting to the enemy. A citizen transferring allegiance to a rival king. Treason.

They think they are adding to their faith, making it better, but they are deserting the one who died for them. How could this have happened to them, to a whole community?

I want for a moment to consider how movements die. The Roman empire didn't collapse from a foreign army but from within, by economic, political, and moral decay.

Julius Caesar, the most powerful man in the world, wasn't killed by a foreign enemy. He was assassinated by his own senators. People he trusted. People who sat beside him. His friends. The best way to kill a strong movement is from within.

Here is what I want to reveal to you.

Paul says in verse 4 that we live in a present evil age. What does that mean?

Look around our world at what's happening: wars, murder, death, hatred, jealousy, suffering, and even natural disasters. That's the evil age. Something is wrong with this world, and we all know it, believer and skeptic alike.

But under the physical and emotional problems, there is a spiritual evil at work, and that evil does its best work from within, unseen among us, corrupting from within what is true, good, and beautiful.

Behind the Judaizers is a spiritual force that still reigns to this day.

C.S. Lewis, in his book The Screwtape Letters, imagined what it would look like if a senior demon wrote letters to a junior demon about how to do the most harm to the human it was assigned to. The strategy went something like: don't make evil look like evil. No signposts that say you've gone wrong. Just a bend away from truth.

That's exactly what Paul is alarmed about. Not a frontal assault on the gospel. A gradual bend. Almost true. Just enough off-center to be fatal.

And it worked. The Galatians, while thinking they were more devoted, lost their allegiance.

These Judaizers aren't just wrong in their teaching. Knowingly or not, they are instruments of the present evil age executing a surgical strike against the one message that delivers people from it.

Today, this unseen evil isn't sending atheists or Satan worshippers to corrupt the message of Christianity, but Bible teachers. Credible, biblically literate, with some kind of authority, whether real or made up, carrying half-truths. You don't need to destroy the gospel, just bend it enough to look like something with more devotion to God.

The most dangerous lie is the one that sounds close to the truth.

So let's make sure we understand just what Christianity is. At the center of it is this word gospel. It literally means good and joyful news.

It's news so good that if you hear it and don't think, this is the greatest news I have ever heard, then you have likely misunderstood it.

It's not advice, it's not a strategy to get God's approval, it's not a good challenge you should take on. It's news. Something has already happened.

The picture this word is meant to make us think of is an ancient runner who runs to the gates of a city with an announcement of good news.

What is the good news? The King of Heaven came to deliver us from the present evil age. It's done.

Past tense, accomplished, finished. He didn't come to show us a better path; he came to do what we couldn't. He came to fulfill the law, the requirements of us. He accomplished it all.

When Jesus hung on the cross he said a single word we need three words to translate: tetelestai. It means it is finished. It was a declaration of completion. The word was like a stamp that said paid, nothing is owed. Every requirement, every debt, every accusation the present evil age holds over you, Jesus paid to free you from every debt.

Paul's issue is that as soon as you add a requirement to grace, then it isn't grace. It's not good news anymore. Grace plus anything is no longer grace.

Paul says in another letter that His grace is sufficient; it is enough. There is nothing else for you to do. Nothing to add to it.

The gospel is not a self-improvement program, a religious identity, or a political alignment.

Christianity is a rescue put together by God, where He comes and saves those who can't do anything to help themselves.

The gospel looks like a baby, a newborn infant dropped in the waters off a ship. That infant must be saved by someone else. You are the baby in the waters, and Christ is the only one who can enter into that death and come out risen with you in His arms.

Let me make this ultra clear.

The gospel isn't do, it's done.

It's not obey to be accepted, it's acceptance produces obedience.

Faith produces fruit. Good works are proof of salvation, but not a requirement to get salvation. Salvation isn't faith plus fruit. Faith gives a salvation that produces the fruit of goodness.

Christianity is faith alone, in Christ alone, by grace alone. Nothing added, no more requirements, nothing left to do. It is finished.

This is serious for Paul. He says anyone who distorts this message is accursed. He doesn't say they are mistaken. He doesn't call for a committee to study the issue. He says twice, let them be cursed.

We have to make sure we are watching closely what we are hearing.

We can easily be tricked. It wasn't just the Galatians; it was other churches as well.

It's tempting to add to what Jesus did. It makes us feel like we have done something to be worthy. Like we earned it and are even more devoted to God.

But every act of adding to what Jesus did to earn salvation is defection. It's a treasonous act against the king who died and rose to give life.

When you try to add to it to earn it, it's like saying he didn't do enough.

That's like saying to someone who died for you, that wasn't enough. The resurrection wasn't enough.

You might think you are being more faithful by trying to earn it, but you are actually switching sides and losing it all.

If you try to earn it, then the evil age wins. It swallows you.

Guilt, shame, and death all win, and you fall to the bottom of the ocean. You tried really hard to prove to God you are worthy of being saved by good things. But in trying that, you rejected Christ, the one who came into the waters to save you.

It's like the baby in the waters saying, I've got this, leave me alone, I don't need you.

Give up your self-salvation project. In Christ, death is dead. Sin's power is gone. Guilt and shame are a thing of the past. You are free from them all.

What I have found is that many don't want this grace and rescue. We want to believe we have earned it. There is a part of me that wanted to have a successful church without God's help so I can prove myself. I have to put that to death. There is nothing I can accomplish here that is greater than what Christ already accomplished.

My identity is not found in what I do but in who He is and what He did on my behalf.

As soon as I go to God and say love me because I did this, or that, I lose Christ.

The present evil age is still running the same strategy today. What are some of the false gospels around today? The most common:

Grace plus religious performance. In these churches, shame is the tool to motivate people to change. And shame works really well. Shame will change people. In fact, it often works better than the gospel for quick change. But it's only behavior modification. Real transformation of the heart takes time. Why does it take long? It's like you have to download a whole new operating system for the way you walk through life. Nothing to prove, nothing to earn. It's not natural for us. All our lives we have been told we must earn all that we have, and if we don't we are spoiled and undeserving. But every Christian is someone who admits, I am spoiled by grace and don't deserve any of it.

Some churches make you feel like it must be grace plus political alignment. They will say you can't be a Christian and a Democrat, or a Christian and a Republican. This is a bastardization of the gospel. It's Jesus alone. That doesn't mean Christianity doesn't have something to say about sexuality, abortion, care for the poor, immigration, or taxes. Christianity confronts us all, and over time God's ways become clear as we train ourselves in the ways of God. But don't require someone to be trained in the ways of God to become a Christian. You can't expect someone to live like a Christian before they are one. If you are an honest Christian, you yourself have a hard time living like one, and you have the Holy Spirit in you, the same power that raised Christ from the grave. If you can't do it, how can you put that burden on someone else as a requirement to become a Christian?

Grace plus ethnic or cultural identity, where Jesus is claimed as the champion of a particular group rather than the savior of every tribe and tongue. The gospel crosses every barrier and breaks down every wall. The gospel is for the rich and poor, prisoner and free, young and old, no matter your political affiliation, no matter how bad your sins are, or how clean cut you are. All of us need it, every one of us, and nothing is required but faith.

You are saved by grace alone.

Morality matters, politics matter, justice matters, but the present evil age tries to move these things to the center where only Christ belongs. Later we see that this grace doesn't remain alone. Fruit and change happen, but the change isn't what gets you in.

Here is my challenge to you today. Know the gospel well enough that you can recognize when it's being bent.

Paul says even if he, or an angel of heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to the true gospel, recognize it and say, nope, that's not for me.

How do you know if you are getting it right? This is a big deal, so how do we know we aren't distorting the gospel?

Look at Paul. After he talks about the grace and peace that comes from Jesus Christ, what does he do next? In verse 5 he breaks out into praise and worship.

That's the key. When you get the gospel truly right, you stop thinking about you and whether you got it right. All you are thinking of is Him, to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

You look at Christ and what He did for you, and you can't help but thank Him, praise Him.

As soon as you start wondering about you, questioning yourself, you know you have slipped from the true message. Because the true message sweeps you into worship.

It sweeps your attention off of you and onto the King who came into the present evil age.

He crossed into enemy lines because you were on the wrong side. We all were.

And there in enemy territory, he found us, being prepared for the cross. That is what the present evil age does: it condemns you, throws you upon the cross for your sin, and chants for your death so it can swallow you.

So he came into this present evil age.

And just before we are thrown up upon the cross, He trades places with us.

And there, he died holding every mistake, sin, and failure, and rose to rescue us from this evil age that condemns us to death.

He delivered us from the age of guilt and shame by being judged in our place.

He delivered us from the age that demands we prove we are worthy, and gave us the freedom to say I'm not, but He is, and He did everything required of me.

He delivered us from death to bring us one day into an age of perfect life where pain, tears, and death are gone.

When you come before God right now in this moment, don't hold up all you have done as proof God should love you. Hold up Christ, and be free in His love, and respond in worship.