Christ came to cleanse us from sin, so that we could experience the loving embrace of God as adopted sons and daughters. The end game of cleansing is not purity, but purity for the sake of embrace. He doesn’t demand purity before he embraces us, he provides purity so that we can be embraced.

The message of grace is that God makes room for us within himself. He makes personal sacrifices motivated by compassion (mercy) so that we can be included in his family and experience the love of the Triune God. This is what Jesus draws attention to when he says, “Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’” (Matthew 9:13)

The Pharisees had closed themselves off from tax collectors and sinners. There was no room within themselves for those who didn’t conform to their view of “self.” They saw people, sinners, as the contagion and they were wiling to sacrifice those people to maintain a “pure” self.

Modern Christians are often more like the Pharisees than Jesus because our strong sense of individualism shapes our concept of “self.” Instead of developing our identity within community, we see ourselves as self-defined individuals. We create boundaries of self that limit who we let into our world. Anyone we deem “unclean” (whether for behavior, ideology, background, race, etc.) is kept at a distance lest our sense of self is contaminated. We do this with specific groups of people or individually on a case by case basis (you might just exclude people you don’t like).

Sunday, we’ll consider how mercy is the sacrifice Jesus is calling you to make

Sunday we considered God’s work of grace to “purify a people for his own possession.” (Titus 2:14) He purified us so that he could embrace us as his own. As children of God, adopted into his family, we rejoice and worship the Son of God born to reconcile us to God.

The church, cleansed by grace, faces two challenges. The first is what Richard Beck calls the “liberal move” that “collapses the vertical pursuit of holiness into the immanent pursuit of mercy, equity, and justice.” (Unclean, p. 187) In essence, this group shapes its identity around matters of love and human care, disregarding God’s call to purity.

The second, falls on the opposite side of the spectrum, disregarding God’s call to care for others and pursue justice, focusing exclusively on purity and authority. This is best exemplified by the Pharisees in Jesus’ day. The problem wasn’t in their desire for holiness but in how they framed purity in “traditions of men.” (Matthew 15:1-9) In this case, washing their hands before eating.

As believers, committed to “bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God,” we often face the second of the two. We create socio-cultural barriers based on our own ideas of purity (traditions) and build our identity (personally and corporately) around that purity. Those outside those barriers are dehumanized, or “othered.”

Sunday, we’ll begin addressing this and how Jesus’ grace speaks to it.

Sunday we begin a new series entitled “Whiter Than Snow.” The theme comes from Isaiah 1:18, where speaking for God, Isaiah says, “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD; though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall become white as wool.”

The thrust of the passage is God’s faithfulness to his people, providing for their cleansing through the Servant that he would send (Isaiah 42) to establish righteousness on the earth. God’s people thought they knew what that righteous kingdom would look like, but then Jesus showed up and violated their notions of righteousness and purity by embracing sinners, the very people who contaminated their purity.

Like the Pharisees in Jesus’ day, the church can often create a culture of purity that excludes the very people Jesus came to purify. How does the incarnation of Christ reshape our notions of God’s righteous kingdom? How does his ministry reshape the mission of the church as we pursue “holiness in the fear of God”? (2 Cor. 7:1)

Advent Readings For This Week

MONDAY, DECEMBER 2 - Isaiah 1:16-20, What does God want from his people? What is God going to provide for his people?

TUESDAY, DECEMBER 3 - Revelation 19:6-8, What does the bride wear? What are those garments? Where do we get those pure garments?

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 4 - Titus 2:11-14, What did Jesus give himself to redeem? What would he do for those he redeemed?   

THURSDAY, DECEMBER 5 - 1 John 1:8-10, How are we made pure? Who makes us pure?

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 6 - Psalm 51:7-12, What does David pray for God to do with his sin? Who is it that David believed could cleanse him?

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 7 - Romans 3:23-25a, Who needs to be cleansed by God? Who did God offer as a sacrifice for our sins?

Sunday we finish our series through Paul’s letter to the Galatian churches. He ends with a simple prayer that the grace of Christ be with us. That Paul wants us to live in the grace of God is understandable, since that’s been his message throughout, but a couple of items are curious.

First, he focuses the grace of God as coming through Jesus. This brings us back to how he opens the letter, saying, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” (1:3) This comment focuses our attention on Paul’s next statement, “who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age.” (1:4) Is Paul drawing our attention back to the work of Christ to free us?

Second, he prays that grace will be with our spirit. He isn’t referring to the Holy Spirit but to our inner being. This requires that we try to understand Paul’s concept of our inner being.

So come Sunday, and let’s consider Paul’s ending prayer for us to live in the grace available to us through Jesus.

Sunday we have the distinct privilege of ordaining and installing new officers (five elders and one deacon). The next passage in Galatians gives us important guidance for interacting with our officers. Paul highlights the “marks of Jesus” that he bears in his body. These “marks” refer to the persecution he endured for serving Jesus by declaring the pure gospel. Josephus tells the story of Antipater (Herod’s father) who stripped off his clothes revealing the scars that told the story of his loyalty to Caesar. In our text, Paul says in essence, “if you could see my scars, you would know that I’m loyal to Christ.”

The lesson is that faithful ministers will suffer. Tim Keller reminds us that those who teach “the false, popular, self-salvation gospel” have no scars because the world loves them and their message. But those who will be faithful to the gospel will suffer persecution.

The most painful scars a minister carries are the ones that come from within the church. Paul is not appealing to the false teachers to stop troubling him, but the believers in the churches. He’s urging them to remain faithful and support him in his ministry. This is an important text for us as we put these men into the ministry.

Sunday we considered Paul’s teaching of the “law of returns.” We always reap when we sow; we reap what we sow; we reap more than we sow; we reap after we sow. If we sow to the Spirit, this is great news. So, patient persistent walking in the Spirit will reap a harvest of righteousness.

In our last full paragraph, Paul directly addresses the false-teachers’ motives for trying to convert these believers to legalism. He mentions two: avoiding persecution and boasting. The exclusive claims of the gospel are offensive to human pride and open views of God. The gospel removes all grounds for boasting except the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Embracing the gospel undermines the power of the performance culture we live in and frees us from pride.

Come Sunday as we boast only in the cross of Jesus Christ.

As Paul ends his letter, he teaches that each of us is called to ministry. We are called to “bear one another’s burdens.” Proper self-assessment in the teaching of the gospel will humble us. This humility frees us from personal and cultural performance mandates and frees us to love one another without boasting in our neighbor.

In our next text, he warns us of the great danger of being deceived. The deception comes through false teaching, but it also creeps into our hearts as we grow tired of our labor. The danger comes as we serve God in a “quid pro quo” relationship. Ultimately, this type of life ends in frustration with God for not delivering what we desire.

Paul’s warning is also an encouragement to continue sowing to the Spirit by doing good to others in gospel ministry. He declares, “in due season we will reap, if we do not give up.”

So come Sunday and consider the fruit of sowing to the Spirit.

John Stott said, “Our conduct toward others is determined by our opinion of ourselves.” When we find personal value in our performance, life becomes a competition and we both provoke and envy one another. This was the situation in the Galatian churches because of a distorted gospel that demanded performance.

In our text, Paul shows us what it looks like to live in community with a pure gospel of grace. First, instead of judging those who sin, we pursue their restoration to Christ, careful to watch ourselves as fellow sinners vulnerable to temptation. Second, is how we bear each other’s burdens out of brotherly love. Both of these examples are determined by how we view and handle our own loads.

My self-assessment before God will either free me to love my neighbor or will give me reason to boast over my neighbor. This is why Christian community must be deeply rooted in the gospel (gospel centered community) and not performance.

So come Sunday to hear the gospel and consider the power of gospel centered community!

The Galatians were biting and fighting one another. Probably not overt fights, but tribal conflicts that centered on “who’s righteous” and “who’s clean.” This was the fruit of their “conceit” or vainglory (weightless weight). Their treatment of each other was based on their view of themselves as superior or inferior.

Can you imagine sinning in that kind of culture of evaluation and judgment? A culture like that would not allow for confession or honesty from sinners saved by grace. That’s the context of Paul’s next statement, “if anyone is caught in any transgression.” How do we respond to brothers and sisters who are captured by sin?

Join us Sunday and consider how a culture of grace affects our battle against the flesh.

The peace of the churches in Galatia are being torn apart by false teaching about the gospel, but there is more at play. The false teaching was a power play from some who would maintain their status in the religious community. They probably didn’t go about this knowing they were in error and motivated by selfish ambition, but they were nevertheless. 

Paul ends this section with a strong admonition, “Don’t be conceited.” Paul warns that exaggerated self-conception has dangerous results: provocation and envy. Whether we’re in the place of power (provocation) or in the place of weakness (envy), if pride clouds our vision the result will be that we “bite and devour” others. 

Paul’s direction is simple, walk in the Spirit. Churches like ours often struggle to live missionally because our self-righteousness creates a culture of “cleanness” that excludes those deemed unclean (or outside the boundaries of who we are as a group). Only as we walk in the Spirit and live in the humility of the gospel will we build a gospel centered community that ministers God’s grace to others.

So come Sunday and seek to understand with me Paul’s direction.