Do you ever wonder how preaching is supposed to work? Preaching affects us over time. Week after week, sermon after sermon, God shapes us through His Word preached. Almost imperceptibly the themes, ideas, and applications that come from the Bible are meant to soak into our bones. That’s the easiest way for me to explain it, because that’s how I’ve come to understand how preaching has shaped me over the course of my life thus far. There are lots of singularly great sermons we can read in books or listen to online, but to really get the most out of preaching as a particular event in corporate public worship we need to take the long view.
But can the pastors help you in this? Or is it meant to be like your mother’s simple lecture (Now just eat your vegetables!) at the dinner table?
Don and I hope to be more helpful than that when we preach, although we agree with mother’s assessment about vegetables, too. We’ve split the book of Galatians into a 13-week series following an excellent study guide. Right now, we’re in the thick of Paul’s letter and that’s the easiest place to get lost in the overall argument. To that end, I thought it might be helpful to point out a few things about where Paul’s been and where he’s taking us as we continue in the letter. So here are three things I hope will help you as this sermon series continues.
1. Galatians is a book of antitheses. Keep your eyes peeled for how Paul uses this-versus-that language.
Right from the first verse we’ve seen examples of this—Paul, an apostle, not from men but from God. Then there’s the antithesis between the gospel you received versus any other gospel (Gal. 1:8), the Jew versus the Gentile (Gal. 1:14-16), and many more—circumcision vs. uncircumcision, Paul vs. Peter, false brothers vs. true brothers, law vs. promise. The more we see how Paul runs us between these poles, the easier it will be to grasp the whole message of freedom in Christ he presents.
2. Paul really defends two things in this letter—himself, as an apostle, and the gospel—but the most important thing to Paul is that the Galatians (and also that we) understand the gospel.
Why would you listen to Paul if you didn’t think he was an authoritative messenger of God? That’s the opposition he was up against after some people who seemed important came to the church after he left. Paul has to defend himself. He’s not an ego-maniac. But what he wants people to get more than anything else is the truth of the gospel, that by faith alone in Jesus Christ we have freely gained all the blessing of God. We have a right standing before God in death. We have a right relationship with God as we live our life.
3. Paul illustrates his main points with a lot of pictures and examples. Keep in mind how the picture illustrates the point.
We saw that in the first part of the letter when he defends himself he gives the example of confronting Peter. His main point was his authority to preach the message he received from Christ (Gal. 1:12). The example of his authority was his interaction with Peter, one of the chief apostles (Gal. 2:1-14). Currently, our series is moving through chapters 3 and 4. At this point in Galatians, Paul illustrates his main point that we receive God’s promise through faith and not works with four pictures and an Old Testament reference. First, he uses the picture of a last will and testament in Gal. 3:15-18. Second, he uses the picture of slavery in Gal. 3:19-22. Third, he uses the picture of a child-minder (or as Don painted it this week in his sermon, a drill sergeant) in Gal. 3:23-25. Fourth, in Gal. 3:29-4:7, he uses the picture of adoption. His final illustration in Gal. 4:21-31 comes from using an Old Testament passage found in Genesis 15-16 in an allegorical way.
Paul pushes the promise of Galatians again and again. It is the promise that in Christ we are heirs to the promise made to Abraham. How do we obtain this promise? Not by what we do, but only through receiving by faith what Christ has done for us. Look for the poles between which Paul runs us, keep in mind his emphasis on the gospel of grace, and watch how the pictures illustrate his point, and I hope you’ll find that over the weeks of this series God’s good news will soak into your bones as you hear it preached.
In Him,
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