The Peace Grace Achieves

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In my message yesterday at CrossPoint I preached from the first five verses of Galatians chapter one.

My message was based on the three basic parts of the letter:

1. The sender – Paul, an apostle
2. The recipients – the churches of Galatia
3. The message – God’s grace

From the passage we learned four more lessons about God’s grace:

1. Grace is about God’s PEACE –3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ…
2. Grace is about God’s SUBSTITUTE – 4 who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age…
3. Grace is about God’s SOVEREIGNTY – …according to the will of our God and Father…
4. Grace is about God’s GLORY – 5 to whom be the glory forever and ever. Amen.

Earlier in the week I had seriously considered preaching this passage another way, and that will be our crumbs from the table this Monday. At first I thought about preaching on peace. Yet the passage kept directing me to grace. So, let’s take a look at what this part of the Word says about peace.

If you want peace, then you must experience the grace of Jesus. His grace always achieves peace. You will never experience peace until you experience grace, and you cannot experience grace until you receive Jesus. It is grace first, then peace. Grace always produces peace.

Peace comes only through Jesus.

And how does Jesus produce peace in our lives?

We have peace because Jesus GAVE – 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, 4 who gave…

We know from John 3:16 that God loves the world so much that He gave His Son. But the Father was not the only One who gave. Jesus gave, also. God the Father is the loving and giving God who gave His Son. Jesus is the loving and giving Savior who gave Himself.

We have peace because Jesus gave HIMSELF – …himself…

What did Jesus give? Jesus gave Himself. Jesus gave the greatest gift ever given. Jesus gave us the greatest gift He could give; He gave himself. Because the very God of God gave Himself, we have peace.

We have peace because Jesus gave Himself FOR OUR SINS – …for our sins…

Jesus gave Himself for our sins. This is why Jesus had to give Himself. Our sins had alienated us from God. If God did not do something to save us, our sins we would have eternally estranged us from God. So out of love, Jesus gave Himself for our sins! God does not love us because Jesus died for us. Jesus died for us because God loves us.

We have peace because Jesus gave Himself for our sins to DELIVER US FROM THE PRESENT EVIL AGE – to deliver us from the present evil age…

That word for evil denotes someone who is not content in being corrupt themselves; they also must corrupt others, and draw them into their same destruction. And the idea behind the word deliver is not deliverance from the presence of something, but deliverance from the power of something. We will not be delivered from the presence of this present evil age until we go to be with Jesus. But we can be experience deliverance from the power of this present evil age right now.

And there you have it, another way to look at Galatians 1:1-5.