Galatians 2:1-13 and John 8:28-32
October 15, 2017
preached by Doug Cooper
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Time of Reflection Quotations

“The Bible is alive, it speaks to me; it has feet, it runs after me; it has hands, it lays hold of me.”

~ Martin Luther (1483-1546), German theologian, composer, author and seminal figure in the European Protestant Reformation.

“Truth is now simply a matter of etiquette: it has no authority, no sense of rightness, because it is no longer anchored in anything absolute.  If it persuades, it does so only because our experience has given it its persuasive power, but tomorrow our experience might be different.”

~ David F. Wells (1939-present), Author and Senior Research Professor at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary

“The things we really need, come to us only as gifts, and in order to receive them as gifts we have to be open. In order to be open we have to renounce ourselves, in a sense we have to die to our image of ourselves, our autonomy, our fixation upon our self-willed identity.”

~ Thomas Merton (1915-1968), American Trappist monk, writer and social activist

“Revelation is the activity of God by which He unveils or discloses or makes known what is, to humanity, otherwise unknowable…It is a divinely initiated disclosure, not an effort or endeavor or achievement on the part of mankind.”

~ Sam Storms (1951-present), American pastor, theologian and author

“The very idea of freedom presupposes some objective moral law which overarches rulers and ruled alike. Unless we return to the crude and nursery-like belief in objective values, we perish.”

~ C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), British writer, theologian and Christian apologist

“Freedom is not the absence of limitations and constraints, but it is finding the right ones, those that fit our nature and liberate us.”

~ Tim Keller (1950-present), American pastor and author

Sermon Passage

Galatians 2:1-12 (NIV) and John 8:28-32 (ESV)

Galatians 1

¹ Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead— ² and all the brothers and sisterswith me,

To the churches in Galatia:

³ Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, ⁴ who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, ⁵ to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

⁶ I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— ⁷ which is really no gospel at all. Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. ⁸ But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! ⁹ As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!

¹⁰ Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

¹¹ I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin.¹² I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

John 8

²⁸ So Jesus said to them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he, and that I do nothing on my own authority, but speak just as the Father taught me. ²⁹ And he who sent me is with me. He has not left me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to him.” ³⁰ As he was saying these things, many believed in him.

³¹ So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, ³² and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”