Return of Throat Punch | Week 1

You know, when when when I was a kid about 10 years old, my dad was my baseball coach.

And back then in little league, they they provided a certain amount of equipment. So you'd go in and the coach would show up, and they'd they'd open up the big equipment locker place, and you go in and you grab the the bats, and the the balls, the helmets, and you put it in that big army green duffel bag like Rambo carried around and stuff like that. So we I went with my dad to get our equipment for the season, and I just bear in mind, I was 10 year old. We were in that 10 year olds at the time. And there was two other dads in there that were coaches of that same age group. And as they were sitting there, these two dads were talking. And my dad walks in, he just starts grabbing the stuff, and they're just yakking away. And and they are pontificating,

like you would think it was baseball tonight analysts going on. And they're talking about stats and numbers and different kids, and their their their RBIs versus this, the velocity of the types of pitches, how often they go, what's gonna happen, and guess what? They were talking about the 10 year old team.

And and they just kept going and going like it was like you expected to be an ESPN 60 special now. And and and as they're going, finally look over, they go, hey, Bush to my dad. What do you think?

And my dad looks up. He hasn't said a word, squints his one eye that he has, and he just says, you know what I think? I think you're both full of more in church, so let's go with it. And and and he goes he goes, they're 10 years old.

What are you trying to do? You need to teach them to love the game and how to play the game. That's it. You guys aren't Billy Martin and Tommy Lasorda. And he goes, let's go Billy, and we left. And it was in that moment I realized that's why I never got nominated for an all star game until I was like 16 years old.

And and and what my dad did in that moment was very truthful. He he gave them the truth. It was a needed truth. He was right. They they needed to know that. You shouldn't coach 10 year olds that way. And and so he was accurate and right. However, he didn't really say it in the right way or the right time.

So I wouldn't call what he did a throat punch. It was more of a truth bomb. Because I grew up, this word throat punch, it's funny how it's a popular thing now. Because my dad was telling me, son I gotta give you a throat punch back in the seventies.

And and and what he meant by it was not that. That was a poor performance of it. And when you try to give someone the right kind of a throat punch, you gotta do it right. It's it's this it basically comes from the bible verse that says to speak the truth in love. So you need to bring truth, but it needs to be in love. So what does that mean? Because we're opening up the series again, we're calling it throat punch. Well, I don't mean to define what a throat punch is, because it's actually one of our core values at this church. And so a throat punch simply means this. It says, to giving the tough truth at the right time and in the right way. So you gotta give the tough truth at the right time the right way. So if you're trying to raise a child or something and you're you're trying to have a throw punch moment, most of the time, you know, dads tend to do this a lot. We usually get the first line right,

and then fail miserably at the next two. You know? And and and and, you know, sometimes moms never get around to it.

They they start punching throats, but it's usually just they're just angry by the time they lose it. It's it's usually the husband's fault as to why they're so mad. So fair enough? This isn't a marriage series, by the way, so I should probably get back to the topic.

It'll it'll affect us. But so this is what we mean by throat it's it's what the bible talks about. And the greatest throat puncher is God and his word. The Holy Spirit can take the word of God and get us the right truth, the tough truth, at the right time and in the right way.

And when I say tough truth, sometimes as we go into this series, we're gonna be going through the book of Galatians. When we hear tough, you think it's it's it's it's it's harsh. It's it's negative. No. What I mean by tough is it's often easy to understand. It's tough to embrace and accept.

And I can understand it, but I don't it's what makes it tough is it's tough for me to to truly believe, to really engage it. It's not tough because it's harsh. A lot of the truths that are the toughest truths for us in scripture is what we're gonna talk about today. One of the toughest truth in scripture for us to embrace is actually one of the most incredibly awesome things we could ever experience. It's not tough because we don't want it. It's tough that we just don't think we can actually believe it.

Another way I would say is the right truth at the right time and the right way. And of in the scripture, one of the the the the the writers of the Bible that was inspired by the Holy Spirit, who was an incredible throat puncher, was a guy named Paul. The apostle Paul. And we are be going through a book called Galatians

in which he wrote. We're going to see how he takes some simple truth, but it's a tough truth, and he tries to correct a twisted truth. It still applies to us today like it did then. And a matter of fact, and we're gonna be going through a chapter a week,

and I'm just gonna be isolating a certain part of it. And I encourage you if you have nowhere else to like, hey, I wanna study my bible. I wanna read. Just start reading the book of Galatians. You can even go to rockpointchurch.com backslash resources,

and one of our our pastor Mark Collins wrote a study guide through Galatians that goes along with this throw punch. You can download it for free and and have that as well. But as we look at this, today we're gonna look at basically the the big idea

that is the overview. The point for today is actually a summary of what the whole book of Galatians is about. And in in honor of this being throat punch, we're gonna call it the throat punch of the week every week instead of the big idea. Okay? So today's throat punch of truth, that hopefully is the is the tough or right truth at the right time, and if I do my job right, hopefully it's in the right way, is is is simply this. The true gospel

is the only way to enter in and live in the kingdom of God. The true gospel. Now if you've been in church for a while, this sounds like Christianity one zero one simple steps, so basic. Listen. Do not shut your brain off. Basically, the whole book of Galatians and today's topic is pretty simple in the truth. It's basically

taking a verse that Paul shares in the e Ephesians where he says, for we are saved by grace through faith, lest any man should boast. Basically, it's we put our faith in the grace of God and that's how we have a relationship with God. So we can't brag about anything we did. Bottom line, that's the whole message today.

But what we're gonna see as we look closer at that is, most of us think of the gospel of putting my faith in Jesus who died for me on the cross and resurrected

as that's like the cover charge to get into the club. I've joined the kingdom of God. I put my faith in Jesus. I'm done. But what we're gonna see in this book and in the scripture is the gospel is not just the way you get in. It's the way you should approach living out your life in the kingdom. In other words,

the gospel should actually affect the way you live in your marriage. It should be affecting the way you live as a parent, as a friend. And if you get the gospel messed up, it will mess with every relationship you have. And we're gonna take that apart right now and I'll show you. So here we go. So Galatians.

The book of Galatians is not written to a town or a city named Galatia. Galatia was a province. It's in what's now today modern Northeastern Turkey. So Paul had got to go to this place. He traveled there, and he got to start some churches. They started a bunch of churches. It was very successful.

Then he went on to another missionary journey, and he found out after he left, a group of people that believed Jesus was the Messiah, they claimed Jesus, but they traveled from Jerusalem and they got to be known as the Judaizers.

They followed him up to Galatia and they went into these churches and they started teaching something different. What they said is, yeah, Jesus is the Messiah. The gospel Jesus did die. That's true. Believe that. We believe Jesus is our Messiah.

But basically, they didn't embrace all the grace and all that. They said, yeah, he's the new Messiah, but Israel is still the ones that God is using. We are still the Jews are the one controlling the rescuing of the world, and so you have to believe us and trust us. We're from headquarters,

so believe in Jesus. But basically they went to all these Gentiles, non Jews, said, believe that, but you have to become Orthodox Jews. We have to act. We have to go back to the law, the way they did it, the ceremonies,

all this stuff. So it was basically, we're gonna live by the law that the Jews at one point thought justified them before God, where Paul even thought that. And then he realized the law was just meant to show us that we can't do the law perfectly. That we need Jesus.

So they were like taking people back to this less legalistic kinda you gotta go earn it and and do all that. And think about what kinda commitment. That was kinda brutal because part of the ceremonial law, what they had to do is that meant all the men needed to get circumcised. Grown men had to get circumcised.

I don't know why any of the churches in Galatia listened to that. How did why did any man sign up for that? That would never fly here. You guys won't even put a mask on to come to church. Could you imagine?

Alright. You don't have to wear a mask, but if you ain't circumcised, you gotta get circumcised before you come in here. That that that's like, nope. It it would be it's only women would be here. I'm telling you. So

that blows my mind, but that's not the part of the passage we're talking about. That's just weird to me. So so so he hears about this. And if you know Paul, Paul was was was a Pharisee. He was great. He was trained under the greatest rabbis.

He even boasted saying, hey, if you wanna talk about trying to be right before God by living out the law, I was better than all of you at this. And then he met Jesus on the road to Damascus and realized the very thing he thought was saving him was only enslaving him. And he was not justified before God.

And he received the grace of Jesus, and it transformed him. Now imagine you go plant all these churches, and then these people come and pull people back into the very thing you know is not the way. And the way they did it was like the original identity politics. They went and shredded on Paul. He's not really an apostle.

He's a nobody. So in chapter one, just to summarize before I dive in and show you this big idea how it plays out, is is is he spent some time right in the first two verses, we'll see that in a minute. And then verse 12 to the end of the chapter, he actually retells his own story, his testimony.

Because what he needs to do is reestablish. He's got a throat punch and say, hey, here's who I am. And he shared his story again. Because he had to reestablish, don't listen to what they're saying about me. It's kind of like sometimes when someone wants to twist something, if if if I can't completely

one of the main ways to twist the truth is to try to twist people up on the person who's sharing the truth. Attack the messenger first. So that's what's happening in chapter one. And what we're gonna see in these first 11 verses is this idea of the true gospel versus a twisted gospel.

And we'll see how it affects us. So so let's dive on in. Verse one of Galatians chapter one says, this letter is from Paul. And here's where you know he's a little throw punchy. He says, an apostle. If you read a lot of his letters, a lot of times you'll say, Paul, a bond servant of Jesus. A slave. A servant. One of this. But this is one of the times he right up just says, I'm an apostle.

He he's defending himself.

And he gets even more throw punchy. He goes, I was not appointed by any group of people or any human authority. See these Judaizers came and said, we're from headquarters in Jerusalem. You need to listen to us. You know, like like they're acting like they they they have some kind of power. He goes, but by Jesus Christ himself and by God the father who raised Jesus from the dead. All the brothers and sisters here join me in sending this letter to the churches in Galatia.

And now where we go. Verse three through five, is he kinda does a summary of what he knows they were taught and what they embraced when he started these churches, and that was the true gospel.

And what we're gonna see here is is what the true gospel is. And to summarize it before I read it is simply this. The true gospel is grace to us and glory to God. The true gospel is grace to us, which then brings glory to God. Let me show you here. He says, may God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ give you grace

and peace. Jesus gave his life for our sins, just as God our father planned in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live. All glory to God forever and ever. Amen.

He said God gets the glory for that. He's saying that that the way we are rescued from this world, the way we're rescued from ourselves, the way we enter into the kingdom, the way we're made right with God, is because God the father had a plan that God the son went and took care of, and he died on the cross and rescued us, and that's how we're made right to God. It is the grace of God.

100 why we're made right with God. In other words, the Father planned it, the Son did it, and we talked about this in the Holy Spirit series I preached a while back. Is is if when you look at the gospel of how we are made right with God because if you wanna be right with God on your own, you have to be perfectly holy.

Because God is perfectly holy. So that leaves us all in a problem.

So what God did by his grace is the father thought it, the son bought it, and the spirit brought it. This plan to rescue us and save us. Jesus, God the son, came down, became a man, took on the form of man, lived as a servant, went through life perfectly, holy, did everything right, and then he chose to die in our place. Not just took a beating and took a death. He literally took all the guilt of our sin onto his soul and took it, and then died, and then rose from dead, and said it is finished. And the way you are made right with God is by putting your faith completely in Jesus and his grace.

That's it. That's the gospel. And that should not just be the way I become a Christian and punch my ticket to heaven. That should then be the way I relate to everyone else in my life, is through this absolute grace

and love and unconditional that actually brings glory back to God because God's the one that chose to do it. In other words, what he's saying there about how God's grace works, the important part you got to get right here is God didn't love you because of who you are.

God loves me and you because of who he is.

That is simple to hear. I am telling you, that is the tough truth that is so profoundly hard for us to embrace. Because that sounds, in my own world, kind of sad. Like, well, God doesn't love me because of because of me? I'm not lovable? Because we make it about us.

But you got to understand how incredibly encouraging it is to know that God loves us because of who he is. You know why? Because nothing I can do that can make him not love me.

You get it? So it man, I have a freedom when I accept that grace. I have a freedom now to be free to follow him. I don't slavishly come to church slavishly go, better do this or God's gonna be mad. I better do this or it's gonna be I don't follow God out of fear or or out of trying to manipulate and get extra reward or try to do it. I choose to follow him because I can't believe he loved me when I'm unlovable. And I and and I actually rebelled against him and ran from him, and he chose to die for me anyways. And he did it not because of me. It's because that is just who he is,

Which means you never have to doubt his love for you, which would make it easier to follow him. And so he's saying that that is the truth. That that that the true gospel is this,

and that's what you learn. That's what you embraced. And that's that's what it means to have the gospel. And that shouldn't be just something like, okay, God loves me unconditionally. I get to go to heaven. How do you think embracing this type of love that sees beyond

just where a person is? It's not just about what they do. It's just I choose to love because that's who I am, and I can embrace that love of Jesus and start to express that in my marriage. How could that change your marriage? How could that change your friendships? How could that change your parenting style?

If you approach it from it's about God's grace to me and glory for him. The glory is because that is so hard to fathom that a perfect holy God would do that. And it's amazing. In other words, I love this quote. This will kind of throw you off because when you get a twist, we're about to look at the twist,

and the twist is so subtle. That's what makes it a tough truth. Tough truth is hard to kind of embrace sometimes. It's hard to accept, but it's also easy to twist.

And I think we have a hard time accepting this absolute love because look what it says. Warren Wiersbe, one of my favorite theologians, he just died recently, explained what the gospel is and listen to what it sounds like. The first line sounds good, but it's actually wrong.

He says this, the gospel is not follow Christ and imitate his life. I'll say it again. The gospel is not follow Christ and imitate his life. I think the gospel can lead us to following Christ and imitating his life, but that's not the gospel.

He says the gospel is not follow Christ and imitate his life, but receive Christ by faith and allow him to set you free. And when you're set free, you choose to follow him. And see, but we have a hard time with that. You mean the gospel is absolutely 100% I can't do anything except accept it? Yes.

And God died for me in my place, even though I'm the one that's sinned against him.

And only because of his love, he chose to do this for me, and it's absolutely a gift I have to accept. I can't earn it. I can't buy it. I can't try to be a goody person. I can't make deals with God that says I'll just be better next time. I get no.

I get eternal life starting now, going all through this kingdom, all because Jesus just loved me and I accept it. That's what makes this a tough truth. You know why? Because he goes on to say the gospel does not come from mere human reasoning.

The problem with that is we have a hard time really understanding and how to live that out, because we don't see that in this world at all. We have a basic distrust for that kind of a deal. Know, a deal where you get something for nothing.

You you and and you're the one like that'd be like, you know, you're the one that robbed the bank, and then they said, you put faith in me, I'm gonna give you all the money in the bank. Wait. What? We just don't trust that, do we? I mean, think about it. Someone comes up to your door, you can see them with a clipboard,

and and and and and you look on your Ring app, and you see them out there, and you're already thinking, they're sus. They're sus. And and then you go to the door, they go, I got a deal for you. And if they said, I wanna give you all this. Yes. What's it gonna cost? Nothing. It's not gonna cost you anything.

You just know that's not true, don't you? You know there's a catch to be your own boss. Be your own boss. That means we're gonna take your money, and you don't have to do anything about it.

You know, it's like like how many you've gotten that money from that Nairobi and Prince yet? You know? It's like we live in a world that absolute unconditional love for free, especially when we have not acted in a way that deserves to be loved, is unheard of.

So we constantly are drawn to the twist. We're drawn we say Jesus died for me and I believe it, but we are drawn to live out our faith through the twist that these Judaizers brought that I think yeah. We don't call them Judaizers, but the same twisted gospel still draws us today. So what's this twist?

If the true gospel is its grace to me, to us, and glory to him, it's about him. The twisted gospel could be said this way, ritual from me, reward from him. That really defines the law. It defines you know, to say ritual from me, reward from him, that describes

every religious concept and belief in the history of this planet other than the actual gospel that Paul preached that the New Testament talks about, that Jesus talks. When people say all religions are basically the same, if you've been told that, untrue. They're all the same except for the gospel that Jesus came and brought.

Because it is not anything you earn. Every other gospel is twisted in any way and says, you do something, you get something. You appease the angry God, you're rewarded. You do it right, you get something. You do it wrong, you get bad. And that is every other one.

And this is and so it's some type of I perform the task, the rich some kind of ritual. It's either I go to church, do this, I act like a good person. The ritual is, sometimes in the olden days it used to be literally a lot of ritualistic

activities, sacrifice stuff. Now our ritual is, okay here's the way I'm supposed to act, here's the way I'm supposed to do, Here's the meetings I show up at, and I do this, and and that's what we turn it into. And I do the ritual, I get the reward. Look what he says in verse six.

He says, I am shocked that you were turning away so soon from God, who called you to himself through the loving mercy of Christ.

You're following a different way that pretends to be the good news, but it's not the good news at all. You're being fooled by those who deliberately twist the truth concerning Christ. So he goes, there's this twist fooling you, and it's being deliberate, and it's a twist.

Here's why we fall for the twist. If someone says something the exact opposite of what you think is true, you immediately react to it. But what if they say something that's incredibly similar and sounds almost the same, but it's just slightly askew. Anybody here like to golf?

One person. There's so many liars in this room right now. If you go golf and and and you get up on that tee box, you know you want to keep it in the fairway. That's the best place to hit the ball from. Right? And and you tee it up and you take a swing and you got no power, so you only can hit it 7,500 yards.

If you only hit it 7,500 yards and you're five to 10 degrees off in where you're aiming, in the swing, you're still gonna be in the fairway. You'd be off to the side, but you're still sitting in a good spot. Right? So you're thinking, I hit that pretty good.

What if you do the same five to 10 degrees off and you can hit it three fifty yards? You're out in the rocks with the snakes and the roadrunners. You're out where I spent most of my time when I golfed. I actually had a club. It was one of my dad's oldest wedges. I called it my desert wedge,

because I didn't care if it got all scuffed up and beat up, because I was hacking at it in rocks all the time. And so what happens is the same trajectory up close seems like it's still right. You take it further out, you're out of bounds. That's how a twist gets us.

It takes us slowly out of bounds. And he's saying, I'm shocked. You're letting this twist take you away. And you think you're and you don't even realize that you've been tricked. You don't even realize that you're going down the wrong road. You're going back to the road that leads to death.

You're going back to the road that leads to slavery. You're going back to the road that this type of faith is never going to change much.

And he says, he gets really serious about it. He goes, this is the throat punch to me guys as as as the preacher here for you. Let God's curse fall on anyone, including us or even an angel from heaven who preaches a different kind of good news than the one we preach to you. I say again that we have said it before. If anyone preaches any other good news than the one you welcomed, let that person be cursed. Twice he says cursed. Ananthema, cut off. If they preach anything other than the right gospel.

He goes Paul even said, even if I was to come back and start saying this, you don't listen to me. He said, if an angel showed up, an angelic being, and told you that, don't trust him. They're wrong.

So it's a twist. They use the word Jesus. They claim Jesus, but they turn it into this ritual from me, reward from God. And that's what the law was. That's what the Jews turned the law into. Instead of pointing them to the need for God's grace, they tried to figure out a way to win at the law. They actually made more laws.

The Pharisees, then they ended up like 622 extra non biblical laws. Do you think they made it harder? No. They had to make all those laws to try to have loopholes to jump around and around and around and around this, because they couldn't even obey the 10 commandments. But if they could the 622

laws when Paul said I was the best, he actually could obey those things. He couldn't do the actual honoring of God. He couldn't really stay perfectly pure and moral for God, but he could perform these 622 ridiculous rituals.

So he creates extra ritual so you can say you won and you never realize your sin and your brokenness and you just think you're okay. Or you keep failing at the ritual and then you think you're nothing but a failure and God would never love you. That's the problem with the twist.

It messes up, and he said, don't even listen to anyone, even if an angel shares this. It's funny, says an angel. There's a church that slaps the name of Jesus on its title that believes it got started because an angel told a guy a story, And he told him about a gospel that says you basically do ritual and then you get rewarded.

Some of you grew up in that church. Some of you say if I mention the LDS church and say that, oh, I'm a jerk. They say Jesus too. They believe in Jesus. Guys, the gospel is twisted. I'm not saying it to be mean. I'm saying because you're lost. If you're trying to save yourself, you don't know the gospel.

And it's funny. An angel? An angel? I mean,

we need the clarity of this simple truth of God's grace to us for his glory.

Because he says this will get just messed up. And he says, you could be cursed. It's like, don't take anyone down that road. And I love it. He knows he's being throw up. I can I can relate to Paul here because I sometimes I feel right now, like, I being extra throw up on you? I don't wanna lose people here. Bore them to death. Last service, someone had a guide dog in here and it fell asleep in the front row. I said, wow.

I know this could be a it's not like, hey. Let's talk about the three things to have a better sex life. That's more exciting. This is boring. But, man, the dog I put the dog to sleep. Felt bad.

So then I feel bad. I think Paul felt he goes, look. In verse 10 he goes, obviously, I'm not trying to win the approval of people. He knows what he already said is obvious. I'm saying you guys are on the wrong track. You're wrong. And anyone who's taught you this is cursed. And you are gonna be cursed if you follow this track. You're gonna be cut off because you're not gonna have the true gospel. It's gonna mess everything up because I'm obviously not trying to win approval,

but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ's servant. I could not agree with that verse as a pastor more than anything I've ever experienced in my life. If I was trying to please people, this would be the last job in the world you'd ever want to have.

I am telling you, I can't even get my family to agree on what restaurant to get food from. How in the world am I gonna keep everybody in here happy? That's not my job. My job is to point us to Jesus. Throat punch. The tough truth at the right time and the right way.

And we cannot get caught in this twisted gospel. It affects our relationships. It affects how we're viewed as a church. It affects the way a church a church that kind of suddenly gets the twist. It can mess it up. It

can mess everything up. Because you know what happens when we fall for this twist that it's about ritual, it's about what I do, I perform, and then God reacts?

Is I get stuck.

I either get stuck or stuck up. That's what happens. When I fall for this twisted gospel, I have one of two results. I'm stuck or I'm stuck up. What do I mean? Stuck in guilt or stuck up with pride. That's the only two places you can go with this gospel. Because the twist is, it's about I'm in control.

The twist is, I'm the center of this gospel. The twist is it's about me,

and it's about what I do. And even if I can't make it, I can fail at it, at least I'm the one that's controlling it. I have the power to do, and then get God to respond to me. I do this and then God gives me what I want. That's kind of this twisted gospel, and we subtly fall for it because we live in a world that we think you don't get anything for free and you have to earn everything instead of accepting absolute love and then following God out of love because you you trust him so much.

We want to we get caught in this twist, and the twist gets us caught up in guilt, stuck in guilt, or stuck up with pride. What do mean stuck in guilt? If you do it as I do the ritual and then I get the reward, what happens when I keep failing? What happens when you just can't keep your act together?

What happens when you come to church, you're like, keep blowing it in my marriage. I keep doing this, and then I'm inconsistent. I don't love Jesus enough. I guess I should serve. I don't give. I you know, I I mean, pastor begged me to wear a mask. I said, screw it. I'm not gonna do it. So then he finally gave in and did this for us all, you know.

I didn't do it that way, by the way. I'm just joking. But you get into this mode that like, what happens when you just keep failing at your faith? You get consumed with guilt. And you get stuck in that guilt. And then you start saying, I don't know what's wrong with me,

because you think the power to live out your faith was about you. So now if you didn't win with your power you failed, that's on you too. And you know what happens when you get stuck in the goat? We do the opposite of what we should do. I see this all the time. You start failing and falling back, you stop showing up.

You pull away from the people around you. You pull away from your community. You pull away from your church. And sometimes I think we do that because I think as a church as a whole, we've kind of subtly accepted the twist also. So you kind of have this unwritten rule that says to come into here, you have to have at least that that irreducible minimum of goodness.

There's a level of you better be this much cleaned up before you come in here. You know, like, hey we love you. We tell you about the grace of God, but don't be too messed up.

If you're too messed up, oh well, and and really especially if you're a young adult or a teenager, stay out of our youth ministry because I don't want that kid around my kid. Because we're afraid. And and and we have this unwritten rule that says, yeah we want you. Everyone's welcome, but just don't be too too weird.

And so we know that. We subtly feel that. So then you come in, carry that twist, and when you start failing you consume with guilt, you pull back. Then eventually you go, alright, I'm gonna try again, and pull back try again. And then some of you go, hey, I've done this so much at this church, it's to find trying to find another church. So you start over in another church. So okay, I burned all those bridges. Now I'm out of here, and I go over and over and over again. Or eventually what you do when you keep doing that guilt cycle and you just can't bear the guilt. We can't handle it, because you're trying to make yourself justified before God. You're trying to self help yourself into a holy person, and you can't do it. You will fail every single time. And that guilt over you will weigh over you to the point that you're gonna say, this is just unfair.

And you're gonna blame God,

and you're gonna finally draw a circle around the dot where you're at and say, I've decided that's a bullseye, and this whole church thing was a scam, and they ripped me off, those people were jerks, and they judged me, and I'm okay with who I am now. Because the only way I can stop those voices in my head from feeling guilty is to say all these things that God it breaks God's heart for us to live because that's not what he intended for you, is fine. And you just call it fine.

You're stuck. The other stuck is the stuck up in pride. And that's those of us like we're like Paul. I'm good at the ritual. I'm a good person. I figure this out. I go to church. I tithe. I serve. I tell people about Jesus. I got it down. I'm doing all the right things.

I don't drink, smoke, or chew, or go with girls who do. I'm doing all the right stuff. You know, I mean, I'm a Cardinals fan. I have my act together. God loves me. You know, and and things are going good for you. And you feel like life is going good for you. And here's the problem.

You might be absolutely completely being totally blessed by God right now, but you think it's because of you. And then you get prideful. And then you start to judge the people around you that aren't as good as you. And you start to look down upon them. I had someone come up to me last night,

and she said, I've been in the church a while. I'm in and out. I I what you were talking about, the guilt part was hitting me because I'm an alcoholic. I've fallen off the wagon over and over and over again. And I actually just months ago, about a year ago, was thinking, I think I should probably find a new church now. I have totally just been consumed with guilt. I I don't know what I'm gonna do. But then

what your first part of your message was, grace to me, glory to God, finally, that tough truth, I embraced it, changed everything. I've been sober for, like, nine months now, and things have been changing. All of a sudden, all the stuff I couldn't force myself to do is slowly starting to happen. And I thought,

I got it. I got the grace. It's awesome. But then I let that twist sink in on the other end. I started to get a little bit stuck up, because now that I got my act together, I'm not drinking, I'm doing all that, it's actually affecting my marriage negatively.

Because I have always wanted my husband to join me because I think he has an issue too. But when I was failing, didn't bother him. But now that I've succeeded, I realized I've actually not done it in the right way. I desperately want it for him, but now I get mad at him.

I'm like, why wouldn't you come do this? Why could and it's like she's judging him. And it's about driving a wedge. See how this affects our actual relationships?

See that that stuck up part makes us holier than thou. It affects our relationships. It affects our witness to the to the community around us. You know, the community around us should know more about what we're for, not what we're against.

That's the gospel. We shouldn't be people that yell at sinners

and are always fighting over, we got to take back our government and make all of our laws the way we want them to. Now don't hear what I'm not saying. If you give me a chance, we're in a free country. We get to vote our conscience. I let my faith vote my conscience. I'm gonna vote ways that I think are good. I have no problem with that.

But when all we send is the message out there, all we're arguing about, all people hear us say, all of our social media posts are nothing but arguing about. I'm sick and tired. I want our laws to be exactly like my faith. What that says to them is, I'm holier than thou. I'm better than you, and I want you to be forced to act like me. And they don't see anything about Jesus' love. You don't legislate heart change, folks.

You love heart change. That's how the gospel is supposed to enter into all the aspects of our life. And that's where that twist the twist is when I make it, I do and God reacts. I become center stage. In second Timothy, Paul called it we become lovers of self. And he's talking to two Christians when he says that, by the way.

And he's saying, we make the gospel centered around us, and we either get caught stuck in guilt or stuck up in pride with it. And it affects everything we do. It affects our relationships. It affects the way we parent. It affects all of those things.

And he finishes. Verse 11 says, Dear brothers and sisters, I want you to understand that the gospel message I preach is not based on mere human reasoning. See, that's the problem. The twist is human reasoning. Like I said, we want to do something for it. There is one example

on our planet that you can get what the true gospel has supposed to work, and we can kind of get it, is if you're a parent. And you've had kids that you've tried to lead them in wisdom and love to make good decisions because you just know like like, to literally keep them physically safe,

and they don't want to listen to you,

do you really wouldn't you appreciate if your kids could understand the sacrifice you made and the fact that you desperately love them so much, and you do have the better perspective, and you do know what's going on, and they can say, I trust mom and dad because I know their absolute love for me, so I'm gonna listen to them. Wouldn't you rather have them do that, than they only listen because of fear and threat of what you're gonna do if they don't?

Because you know if they only listen to you out of fear and threat, what happens the second they're old enough to not live in your house? You know it's a failed experiment.

So as a parent, isn't your heart broke when you see them doing something because they think you're trying to manipulate or control them? Or they're doing it because they're trying to manipulate you. Like, I'm gonna do this to make you happy because this is what I really want.

That's the worst. One of my kids, I won't say the name because they don't like me pointing them out, was really good at doing really good stuff, and then suddenly going, So can I have I'm like, Oh man?

And the worst is they'll do something super nice, like dross, like do something really cool, and act like they love me so much, and then here comes the request. And I know this had nothing to do with your love and trust of me. It was, I can work the system. That's

what the Gospel is. When we get the twisted Gospel we're doing that to God. The ritual is, hey God, drew you a picture. I love you so much. Can I have this car? God, I just really love you. Can you please give me a wife or a husband, or can you give me a different one than the one I'm married to right now? Because

can you please do this? That's what the twist does to us. It it it changes everything. Let me give you a few examples, just to kind of summarize this up before we before we're done here.

I want to give you three examples of twisted gospels, and this is why the twist is so subtle. Because all three of these things are actually part of living out our faith in the kingdom. So it's not that you reject these things, it's that they have to be in the right place.

What I mean by these twists is these three twists are things that are a part of when we know God's love and we follow him. The twist is when you make them the priority. This is the way you live you get into the relationship with God and the way you live it. The first one is what we do. Moralism.

Of course, if I know the love of Christ and I embrace his grace, what I do starts to change. It should. But the the idea of the twist is what I do is what drives the relationship with God. If I act, do the right thing, I'm in the right relationship.

This, honestly, to give you a little history, last time I was a youth pastor for ten years. This is where most youth ministries have been driven to act like. You know why most youth pastors create a moralistic youth ministry? Because the parents, what you want out of a youth ministry is make my kids do the right thing.

They won't listen to me. Tell them they need to go to school. Tell them they need to do the homework. Tell them they need to do this. Tell them to stay off drugs.

Most of us parents, when we take our kids to a youth ministry, you just want the youth pastor to get them to do what you've wanted them to do. So we we inadvertently show our youth that the whole idea of following Jesus is do these things. Doing these things is not a response of of absolute trust

that God knows what he's calling me to because he has loved me so much. It's I better do this or I'm I'm wrong. The second one is what we believe. Intellectualism.

And that's that idea that we have to have the right set our doctrine, you know, our doctrinal statement needs to be the perfect one. Once again, don't hear what I'm Sound doctrine is something to fight over.

Don't get me wrong. What I'm saying is some people think that I have the right list of doctrines. I believe the right things about the Bible in the right way, and just because I have this list, I'm right. And then the last one is what we feel. Emotionalism, experientialism.

This is like, I'm driven by if it feels right, then I know I'm doing the right thing. That's exploded in our culture today. Is this idea. Like, I I have talked to so many people that'll be like, you know, God's word talks about a relationship, and someone's like, you know what? I'm moving in with this guy. I'm like, okay. Well, why are doing that? Well, because I love him, and he loves me, and I go, but are you both believers? Right? Yeah. Wouldn't you want to wait and get married and do it the right No, it just feels right. And I go, why would I go, no. Prayed about it. I have a peace.

And I'm like, if you pray about it, the Holy Spirit would never contradict the word of God. There's a reason God says, don't get the cart before the horse. And if you trust God's love for you, you would trust that. But if you say, oh, it felt right. We get all about how we feel.

And then the the cousin to that is experientialism. So so we want to come to a church that gives me the feels and the experiences.

That's part of our faith. We have moments that feel good. We have experiences. I'm not denying them. I'm saying that you let that lead your way. That's the way you're right with God. That's the way you live the life is through that.

And and and I would tell you that this you guys young adults here, here's a little throw punch for you. This is where you guys are stuck the most in your culture right now. It's all about the feel and the experience.

But can I tell you why I think why a lot of of of of you guys have had a struggle and a lot of your age group has left the church?

It's because if you grew up in church, you grew up with a moralistic ministry that trained you to just do the good things and believe this list, and you realize that doesn't work and it frustrated you, so you left.

The problem is, instead of going back to the true gospel, most of the young adults have said, we'll just go down to the next thing on the list. And the reality is these things should be byproducts. They're not the target. So like with young adults and stuff like that, emotionalism and feel good experiences,

we've replaced the gospel with the social gospel again. Of course we should be into social justice, and activists, and going out there and feeding the poor, and standing up for equality,

and all those things. But I've seen some younger people, some people turn it to where they don't even talk about Jesus anymore. They've made the God the goal of the churches only this thing.

And the problem is that's a great thing. You could change that. It's like my dad when he fought in three wars. He was proud. I go, we saved the world in World War two. Is it still saved? I mean, it's a temporary thing. The gospel is a permanent eternal thing.

So these are pieces of it that our responses to. They're not the way in, they're not even the goal. They're the byproduct of a deep personal passionate embracing of the absolute unconditional love, grace, and mercy of Jesus Christ who died on the cross for us to make us right with God.

And that's not only the goal for us to get into the kingdom, that's the goal to live out the kingdom, And that's actually the mission that we're supposed to be about, is pointing other people to that. But when we get the twist, guess what we end up fighting about in church all the time? People aren't acting right.

I don't know about that belief. I don't feel this the right way. Why don't we do this? Why didn't we do that? Why don't we believe? Why Does that make sense? Now imagine when you take that into your marriage, in your home, in your relationships.

We can turn our marriage into this, you do the ritual, you get the reward. The sad thing is we then do that a lot with our kids.

Ten years as a youth pastor and family pastor, guys, I'm telling you the number one thing that chased Christian kids out of the church is you twisted the gospel in the way you let your kids see it.

You taught them it's believe this list, do these actions, you'll be a good person,

instead of connecting them to the absolute love of Christ in a way that they would start trusting him.

That's why this is important, because it affects everything. Everything. Because all of these are man centered. These are things I can do to control it, and that's where we get stuck.

That's really the heart of this thing called the prosperity gospel in our culture right now. It's funny. Do you realize the prosperity gospel and the Judaizers are incredibly similar in the depth of what they're doing, even though they look nothing alike on the surface. Prosperity gospel teaches,

yeah, Jesus loves you, but he loves you so much because basically, it almost implies because you're so lovable.

And all you gotta do is you perform ritual. You do this and you do that, then God will love you. Because you know what? God never wants you to be sick or tired or sad or or upset. He always wants you happy and perfectly this, and and and so he's saying everything we want. We wanna be happy and go, but so if you give, you serve, you do this, you follow this, God will give you what you want. Here's the problem. You know how that plays into it? What happens if you do all those things and you're still suffering and you're still not? You know what the prosperity gospel teaches you? You didn't have enough faith,

because it's all about you. That's the exact so you if it doesn't work, God didn't fail. You failed God. And if you actually are successful, it's because wow. Look at how much faith you had. You had so much faith that you got all that stuff. It's still about you.

That's the twist. That's what the enemy does because that's what Satan is like. And you realize Satan is not an original artist. He doesn't write new songs. He just remixes them. For every every generation, he remixes it and gives it the trendy new beat. But it's the same old song.

He probably dances better than me, though.

Let me just sum it up with this because that's really the idea that we're trying to get here is, guys. What would happen if you could truly embrace the true gospel in your life? And not just think of the gospel of Jesus dying for me and his absolute grace as a way that I get into heaven, but a way that I live out my life.

How would that change everything?

And try to pay more attention to the subtle twists.

Let me close with this. I want to give you I found a meme on the interweb that I think sums up everything I said. It's sad that I can sum up everything I just said in a meme, but take a look at this meme.

People are laughing. More people are laughing. The sad thing is some of you in this room don't understand why people are laughing. If you don't, read it again slower. If you still don't get it, go word by word.

Have you seen some of these things before? Did it get you? Did this get you? If you hadn't seen them before, it probably got you. You didn't realize how badly written that was, did you?

When you first read it, you read it normal, didn't you? When you first looked at it, said, here's to the one guy that read the top line correctly. And if you're really smart, you saw that the second line's wrong too, and you read wrong again. But it doesn't say that, it says here's to one that guy who read top the line correctly.

Why do we do that? There's something in our brain, the way we process information when we learn how to read, that it kind of saves space and stuff. We get more efficient

and in that efficiency we've learned that we see words, we recognize words, we see all the right words even though there's some wrong words in the wrong order, but our brain naturally just puts it in the order and we read it how we think it should be, and we just see it that way even though that's not what it says.

That is what Paul's talking about this twist that we buy into in the gospel. You see these words, you hear these messages, you see something, and it has a lot of the right words and jargon, but it's not really right. But we just quickly read it and we see oh that sounds similar. That's the same thing. That's okay and we buy into it and we live in a culture right now guys that you have so much access to like on social media and other preachers and stuff that you could watch somebody else. I'm surprised any of you comes and watches me. There are so many better communicators out there on the Internet. Here am I hacking away showing a Leonardo DiCaprio meme to try to sum up my sermon. What do I know? But I'm just trying to do the best to say, don't get fooled by the twists.

Don't get fall for it. Pay more attention. When you read that little simple phrase like those they're really popular. The Instagram little simple sentences that make you feel so good. It's like sometimes read some of them. I've seen some of the ones that we post and like if you play that out past the 75 yard marker,

that is terrible truth. It's wrong. It's humanistic. It's us centered. It's filling into this twist that traps us in the guilt or the pride. And you're never free, and the true gospel is where we get freedom. Amen. Father God, thank you Lord. Thank you for your word. Thank you that you love us enough to give us a throat punch.

And Lord, I pray for myself and everyone in this room that as we we we try to grow in understanding, and I read your word, and I try to grow as a follower of you, Lord, I may I never get past this simple depth of what the gospel really is. And Lord, may it be the driver of everything else for me and everyone in this room.

And Lord, just feel led to pray for this group of young adults over here, because they live in a weird world right now. That to just absolutely trust in the unconditional love of Jesus completely, and the truth of his word is not really popular right now.

So Lord, I pray that this generation can turn the tide by simply pointing people to you.

I thank you, and I pray this in the mighty name of Jesus. Amen. Hey guys, thanks for being here. Awesome. If you need to pray with someone, our prayer room's open. And did somebody clap? That's good. Hey, yay. Let's celebrate. That was good. Not me, Jesus. But

if you need to pray with someone online, you just hit the need to talk at Rock Point dot I o tab and

hey, if you get a chance, we have a tent out there for Operation Christmas Child. If you don't know what is, it's a great opportunity to help underprivileged kids have a great Christmas. You can go be part of that. It's one the ways we love the community. And last thing, go Cardinals. Amen.