GOOD NEWS FOR YOU: UNCHANGING

We begin our Lent sermon series this Sunday.  It is a companion series to the Lent study, The Explicit Gospel.  The sermon series parallels the study but the title of the sermon series is Good News for You.  Over the last year we have had plenty of bad news.  The word “gospel” means “good news.” The image of the gospel in ancient times was a runner who had been given news to carry throughout the nation, such as the war was over, or the battle had been won.  Everyone likes good news because it is transformative, it changes sorrow into joy, uncertainty into confidence, and fear into faith.  This week the good news of the sermon is, Unchanging.  Our world is changing rapidly but what is our anchor?  What will help us find a sense of strength in turbulent times?  Many things will change but the God’s Good News for will always be an anchor for our souls!  We turn to Galatian 2:12-21, Paul tells of confronting his Jewish brothers and early Christian leaders because they are not following the truth of the gospel.  They were refusing to associate with Gentiles because they were “sinners.” As Paul remembers this confrontation and communicates it to the Galatians, he uses it to help them realize God’s anchor for their lives and for our own!  As you read Galatians 2:12-21, may you sense the unchanging love of Christ comforting your heart and life.  Galatians 2:12-21:  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? ¹⁵ “We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles ¹⁶ know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified. ¹⁷ “But if, in seeking to be justified in Christ, we Jews find ourselves also among the sinners, doesn’t that mean that Christ promotes sin? Absolutely not! ¹⁸ If I rebuild what I destroyed, then I really would be a lawbreaker. ¹⁹ “For through the law I died to the law so that I might live for God. ²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. ²¹ I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!”  (NIV)