Galatians

Part 3: Fluency and Gibberish
Pastor Rick Henderson               March 1-2, 2025

With gentleness, Karen just dropped a truth bomb on us. I love it. There’s so much goodness and wisdom in the last words she said. “Your relationship with Jesus it’s worth every minute.” Reading the Bible is a powerful habit, because this [Holding up a Bible] is how God speaks to us. You don’t have to find and tune into some secret spiritual frequency. It’s right here. He wants to speak to you.

This week I was reminded of a study of more than 50,000 people about what causes people to grow in their relationship with Jesus. Do you know what the number 1 thing was that grew people’s relationship with Jesus? It was reading the Bible for themselves, four times a week. I don’t know where you are on your journey of faith, but if I have any credibility and trust with you—I want to push all my chips to the middle of the table right now.

Would you adopt that practice? Would you make this a rhythm of your life? Would you read the Bible four times a week? It’s OK to start small. Start with 5 minutes. Just start. Even if you are not a follower of Jesus, I want to encourage you to do this. If the God who made the universe, if he stepped into the human story, if he loves you, and if he made a way for you to have unlimited access to his heart and mind—what could be the reason or excuse to ignore that?

If what I’m talking about it is a brand-new habit, no worries. Pick the best time of day for you. Pick the best place for you. Take advantage of free resources that will help.

• The Bible Project app
• YouVersion app
• The Bible Recap podcast

This is week 3 of our series on Galatians. Grab a Bible and find this book. You can use one of ours in the seat back. If you don’t own a Bible, take that one home with you. It’s now yours. If you have no idea where to start, hold your Bible like this and open the back third. This is the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, 1 & 2 Corinthians, then Galatians.

For those of you who like to read ahead, you know what’s coming. For those of you haven’t read Galatians ever, or it’s a been a while—it’s about to get spicy. Have you ever been out to a restaurant and you can tell the couple at a table near you is fighting? You know it’s none of your business, but you and your date stop talking so that you can hear what’s going down? How many of you would not only do that, but you’d pull out your phone and start texting a play-by-play to your friends. I’ve never done that because I’m a Christian.

What we are about to read is spicy. It is a real deal conflict. And it’s conflict that is addressed directly. No passive aggressiveness. No pretending it’s fine. No hoping the other side can read between the lines. No telling the other side what they want to hear and then going and telling someone else what you really think and feel. We’d never do that, right?

This is good. Anyone who wants to have healthy and thriving relationship that last, will eventually have to learn how to engage in conflict honestly and directly. If we are people who can’t do that, as long as we are unable to state what think, what we feel, what we need and want, as long as we are unable to state what think, what we feel, what we need and want —as long as we are unable to do that—our relationships may last a long, long time, but they will never be safe and they’ll always be shallow. Are you ready?

GALATIANS 3:1-14 You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified.

Sometimes when we translate something from one language to another, we find that it’s hard to capture tone and nuance. This was originally written in koine Greek. And this translation is accurate and good. When the people of the Galatians churches read this for the first time, it would have been hard, but I don’t think it would have felt harsh.

It would not have read like this, “Hey idiots.” Instead, it would have read like, “You have lost your ability to think clearly about the gospel.” Quite literally, “your thinking has become dull.” They lost Gospel Fluency. What was the cause? Somebody bewitched them. Somebody influenced them so that their mental and emotional energy pivoted away from Jesus. Their mental and emotional energy pivoted away from the good news of the gospel.

This is the gospel.

There’s a massive relational gap between God and people and it’s there because of our morally broken choices, that are rooted in us wanting to be the boss of our lives and not happily trusting in him as the good authority, who loves us. If you’ve got some doubt or skepticism about Jesus, even if you’re a committed atheist—this is the one claim of Christianity that doesn’t need any more evidence. Social media is the greatest modern evidence of pervasive human moral brokenness. We’ve taken brilliant technology that could so easily be harnessed to unite people, and yet, we’ve used it to:

• amuse ourselves into mental dullness
• hopelessly blur the lines between fact and fiction
• unleash our cruelest tendencies on one another
• and instill anxiety and depression in teenagers

We’re the best. That’s the bad news. Moral brokenness is pervasive within all of us. But the word gospel means good news. It starts with bad news, but what is the good news? God stepped into the human story. Jesus is God, who took on fully what it means to be human. He lived a life that was free of moral brokenness and full of love and thriving. And he sacrificed his life on the cross. He paid the penalty and took the consequence for sin and pervasive moral brokenness—all of it. And then he rose from the dead, proving that he was who he said he was and proving that he can give new, abundant, thriving life to anyone who trusts in him.

The more we know the gospel and understand the implications of it and come to experience that the motivation of everything we do or don’t do comes down to this, loving him and loving all others—the more we get that the more we will experience a full and thriving life. The gospel is everything. We can rest in this.

SERIES THESIS: The only thing that COUNTS is FAITH expressing itself through LOVE.

I hope that you give yourself the gift of being honest with yourself. If there is any part of you that hesitates when you hear this, if there is any part of you that thinks, “Yeah, and” or “Yeah, but.” If there is even the tiniest voice in your mind whispering, that there’s more to it than that;” is it possible that something or someone has captured your mental and emotional energy, pivoting you away from Jesus, dulling your ability to think clearly about the gospel? When that happens, instead of thinking clearly about the gospel, we downgrade from this [pointing to screen] to this.

SERIES ANTITHESIS: The only thing that COUNTS is SELF-RELIANCE expressed through LAW.

Believe it or not, that’s both the religious approach and the irreligious approach to life. Both the religious and irreligious person are the same at their core: The thing I’m counting on to make sure my life counts is my ability to live up to a standard, my ability to achieve for me. If you believe that your significance is rooted in sexual fulfillment, relationship status, your career, financial status, being a parent—whatever, you will live your life according to the rules that come with that. That will be your law. You will use it to evaluate yourself and rank yourself and others. That’s why religious people and irreligious people are equally judgmental. That is miserable.

In the religious approach, people become convinced that their significance is rooted in a set of religious expectations. If that’s you or me, we will live our lives according to whatever rules come with that. That will be our law. We will use it to evaluate ourselves and rank ourselves and others. We will be viciously judgmental. That is miserable. That’s not the gospel.

SERIES THESIS: The only thing that COUNTS is FAITH expressing itself through LOVE.

What we are reading now, is Paul loving them enough to say directly to them, “You’ve lost the gospel, and the gospel is everything.”

I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain? So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham.

He's referencing some stuff from the Old Testament. You can’t skip over the Old Testament.

Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” So those who rely on faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. For all who rely on the works of the law are under a curse, as it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.” Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because “the righteous will live by faith.” The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, “The person who does these things will live by them.” Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a pole.”

We’ve got this cross out on the stage today. When we look at that we should remember: Jesus took what we deserve so that we can have what he deserves. He took on the weight of all our sin. He took on the weight and penalty and curse of the cumulative effect of our all our self-reliance. He paid the price so that we could be free. And instead of being self-reliant, we can now live by faith, which means trusting in him. Relying on him. Following his lead in all things. Relying on his supernatural work at in our lives, through the Holy Spirit.

He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.

The heartbeat of God is to bring freedom and blessing to all people. Not some people. All people. He wants freedom and blessing and joy and peace and thriving for you. Believe it or not, he wants that for you more than you want it for yourself. And he’s happy to just give it away to you. The only way to receive it is by faith. It’s by trusting him, giving our allegiance to him. We stop relying on ourselves to achieve a life of significance and we now 100% trust in him. That’s it.

SERIES THESIS: The only thing that COUNTS is FAITH expressing itself through LOVE.

These churches experienced undeniable miracles when the gospel was preached. If you’re wired like me and your default reaction to miracles is to feel weird and skeptical—you’re among friends. And yet, if we think about, this should be expected. The gospel message is that God has stepped into the human story. This good news is supernatural and should result in supernatural impact in our lives.

It was normal for people to experience supernatural, miraculous events when the gospel was first preached. It is one way to validate that this supernatural message is true. When I’ve been on the other side of the world, in a country with very few Christians, I’ve seen miraculous events coincide with the preaching of the gospel.

But we don’t have to around the world. The supernatural, miraculous power of God is not for other people, in other places, at other times. The supernatural, miraculous work of the Spirit of God is for us right now, at Autumn Ridge Church today. There are miracles all around us. And we let the whack-a-do TV preachers define what a miracle is—we’ll miss it. If our understanding of miracles is calibrated to the wrong definition—we’ll miss it. It’s a miracle anytime that the Spirit of God intervenes and works in our lives.

The Holy Spirit of God is active and at work. He’s not done here. There are miracle stories all over this room.

Every time someone comes to faith in Jesus—that’s a miracle.

• I know a woman who was baptized here over a year ago and God is using her lead here and to help people in other churches rediscover the gift of the gospel—that’s a miracle.
• There are people in our church who were prayed for years. And in these past 5 years they’ve joined with us, are following Jesus, and are now leading others—that’s a miracle.
• There are people in our church who came here broken by the hurts of life, barely holding it together, and they’ve found healing and new life—that’s a miracle.
• Some of you never envisioned yourself as a leader, but you now leading others—that’s a miracle.
• Some of you showed up here cautiously, believing that you could never trust a church again, but you found community and peace—that’s a miracle.
• Some of us used to believe that church existed for our preferences, and we’ve discovered the joy of not living for ourselves—that’s a miracle.

This place is popping with miracles. That doesn’t come from your best effort and my best effort. Experiencing the real, miraculous, life-changing power of God does not come from this.

SERIES ANTITHESIS: The only thing that COUNTS is SELF-RELIANCE expressed through LAW.

In this passage, the Apostle Paul contrasts living by means of the Spirit or living by means of the flesh. Over the next few weeks, what that means will become more and more clear. If that terminology sounds a bit strange or confusing, let’s start here.

FLESH: We follow rules, not the way of Jesus, through self-reliance and reputation management.

Again, over the next few weeks, it will become clearer. What’s most important right now, is that the means of the flesh is reducing the way of Jesus to the rules of Jesus; and we try to live the Christian life based on our own effort. But when we know and believe the gospel we will live by means of the Spirit.

SPIRIT: We follow the way of Jesus, fully relying on the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

I’m going to take the risk of sounding like a broken record to you. That’s fine by me as long as it’s a good record. The only way to know the difference between living by means of the flesh and living by means of the Spirit is to be Gospel Fluent.

GOSPEL FLUENCY

• Know the content of the gospel
• Understand the Implications of the gospel
• Apply the motivation of the gospel

I’m not making any assumptions about you. I just want us all to be aware. It’s so easy to think we have Gospel Fluency when what we really have is Gospel Gibberish.

GOSPEL GIBBERISH

• Know the Christian lingo
• Understand the expectations of church culture
• Apply the motivation of good intentions

This is a life of no power. There are no miracles here. This is why I think more and more Americans are saying, “I’m out. I don’t need church.” This is why people get to a place where they whisper to themselves and eventually say out loud, “This doesn’t work for me.” This is not the gospel. Gospel Gibberish makes us more vulnerable to the subtle and boring lies. The whole time we think we are trusting God, but we are just trusting ourselves.

Let me show you how Gospel Gibberish plays out every day in the lives of church people.

How many of us have ever struggled to forgive? Sure. We try and we try to forgive, but we can’t. If we bump into that person when we didn’t expect to, our chest tightens up, we feel our blood boiling. We imagine conversations where they come up and say just the right thing, that gives us a license to really let them have it. You can tell that I have no experience with this. When that happens, we must admit that we are walking around in a prison of bitterness. A Gospel Gibberish person will pray, “Jesus please give me your power to forgive.” They’ll try as hard as they know how. But the feelings and freedom of forgiveness never come. The bitterness stays, flaring up from time to time. What’s the problem? We haven’t yet trusted the good news of the gospel.

If we know the gospel we pray. Definitely pray. And when we pray, we can say, “Jesus, you freed me from the need of this person telling me I’m right. There’s still a part of me that wants to believe that I need them to affirm my rightness for me to feel OK. Jesus, I want to confess that I’m reverting to way of living that believes that I need their approval for me to feel good about me. And I’m choosing to remember that you freed me from that. I acknowledge that my problem is not fundamentally a lack of forgiveness. My problem is a lack of belief that you have approved me. And even if they never say what I feel desperate for them to say, I trust in you. By the Holy Spirit’s power, will you help me to remember that you are enough, so that I can forgive?”

That’s the difference between Gospel Fluency and Gospel Gibberish. That’s the difference between means of the flesh and means of the Spirit.

Let’s talk about the Christian who’s struggling with pornography. They’re trapped in a cycle of resisting, praying desperately, giving in, feeling shame, repenting, and then the whole cycle repeats. That cycle will repeat for as long as you in the Gospel Gibberish approach instead of developing Gospel Fluency.

A Gospel Fluent person can pray, “Jesus, I know that my deep-down problem isn’t lust. My deep-down problem is that I’m looking to this for a sense of escape, but you’re the only who provides rest. I’m looking to this for a sense of significance or comfort, but you’ve provided that for me by what you did. Will you help me to remember that, by the power of the Holy Spirit?” And that person can open up to other believers who will encourage them, and they won’t have to walk alone. If that sounds crazy to you, hear this. There should be no shame in the church family. And if you can’t be honest with someone else, it’s because you still believe that your acceptability is based on your performance. That’s Gospel Gibberish.

The Gospel Gibberish parent is controlling of their kids and controlling of outcomes because they’re significance is rooted in their performance as a parent and other people seeing them as enough. They will pray. They will pray faithfully for years. And yet, for all the good intentions, it can drive their kids away from Jesus.

A Gospel Fluent parent will pray, “Jesus I’m tempted to use my kid’s performance at school, my kid’s behavior at church, my kid’s faith as a source of validation that I’m enough. Jesus, I repent of that. You have made me enough by what you did on the cross. Jesus, give me the power to model this joyfully for them so that they will see your goodness and freedom in my life. Please protect me from the lie that I can control whether my kids trust in you. My kids are gifts and I’m grateful. I will do my best to pass along my faith because I love them. But I’m trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit in all of it.

The problem with a Gospel Gibberish approach is that it’s a pretty convincing fake. It sounds right, it looks right, it might even feel right—but it’s just a wobbly, Jenga tower. For all our efforts, for all of self-reliance, it will never be as sturdy as the Gospel.

With all the love and urgency I can summon, there are way too many well-intentioned people who are living like this—trying to build a good life through self-reliance, and their missing out on this. And eventually, the events of life will conspire in such a way to leave no doubt that best just isn’t good enough.

[Push it down]

And it all comes crashing down.

Let’s be people who refuse to settle for Gospel Gibberish. I want you to know the gospel. To understand the implications of it and to be set free and motivated by it.

Jesus gave us the practice of communion. For two thousand years, followers of Jesus have practiced this together. This may be the most profound way for us to practice Gospel Fluency together.

Communion.