you know you really gotta

get right with the Lord

A sermon from Galatians:

All you have is your reputation; and Paul’s had seen better days…

Paul founded the congregations in Galatia. 

While he was away working with other congregations, though; some other missionaries showed up…

And when they found out Paul had been the one to start those congregations, they couldn’t hold their tongue. “Oh Paul. You know, he isn’t authorized from HQ, right,” they ask rhetorically. Paul’s pedigree didn’t cut the mustard…

But that wasn’t all. Because it wasn’t just Paul’s bona fides that troubled those other missionaries. It was his entire message…

The infiltrators said Paul’s message was too simple. 

They accused Paul of telling the Galatians what they wanted to hear. That Paul made the Gospel easy, because he was trying to gain the favor of his audience, the Galatians. That Paul was a people-pleaser.

All you have is your reputation, and these other missionaries were suspicious of Paul’s and they figured they had beeter help the folks in Galatia to gin up their reputation. 

As far as Paul’s interlopers were concerned, these Galatians needed to get serious. If they wanted Christ and his resurrection, they had better start acting like it. The Galatians didn’t have much, or anything for that matter, to show for their new found faith. They needed to get to work!

After all, all you have is your reputation.

Not that anyone needed to tell Paul.

That’s what he’d been trying to warn the Galatians about all along.

Paul’s opponents said they were simply filling out what had been deficient in Paul’s message. That they grace Paul was always talking about is fine, but the Galatians needed to dig in to the real stuff. 

Which got Paul’s goat. 

It got Paul’s goat because the Gospel doesn’t work like that! It can’t! There’s nothing to add to The Gospel. It can’t be altered that way. In fact, whenever you try, you always wind up replacing the Gospel!

That’s what Paul’s letter is about.

Paul’s invaders accused him of leaving out the demanding parts of God’s call. Paul’s response was to proclaim thats precisely how the Gospel comes, with no strings attached. And anytime you try to add any, you’re not talking about the Gospel. 

The Gospel isn’t easy, it’s free! That’s nature of the Gospel! 

And if it isn’t, you’re being sold something else; railed Paul.

Reading Galatians it’s easy for us to fall into merely repeating slogans. Let us try to avoid that temptation for now, though.

 Because this letter is passionate. It’s not some abstract meditation. It’s not a guidebook to passing confirmation (although it couldn’t hurt). This letter is about God. It’s about how you’ll ever approach this God.

Paul knew the terms we approach God on, matter.

For folks like Paul, folks stunned by what God has done in Jesus, there’s the Gospel, and then there’s everything else. 

And Paul can’t believe the Galatians would chose anything else. Especially as quickly and lightly as they did. 

All you have is your reputation, though… 

Paul’s opponents were just doing what they could to help the Galatians get their’s up to snuff. Paul though, was up to something else completely. He proclaims to the Galatians a reputation they can finally hang their hat on, a reputation they can actually trust. 

When Paul heard about his opponent’s project, he realized with stunning clarity, that nothing less than the heart of the Gospel was at stake. 

The interlopers said they were just rounding out Paul’s message. Paul understood, though, that there’s nothing to round out. For the Gospel to be “The Gospel,” it must be able to stand on it’s own. It must be complete.
To try and add anything to it, is to discard the Gospel. 

So Paul’s reply to his opponent’s suggestion is terse. If his message is true, and it is; it can’t work like that!

All you have is your reputation. And that’s the trouble, isn’t it?

We spend our entire lives trying to shape up our reputation. To prove to the world, to God even, but mostly to ourselves, that our reputation is good. Deep down, at least. Despite all our shortcomings, and we all have them. Despite those marks against us, and we all have those, too; our reputation is worthy.

Sometimes, we can even fool ourselves. 

The trouble, however, is the moment you place your trust is something other than the Gospel, you’ve lost it all. And I mean all of it. 

The Gospel, yes. But also is your relationship to God. In fact, your relationship to every person you know, will be destroyed. Your relation to yourself, even!

It will all be lost because from then on, everything will be built on the rickety foundation of your reputation…

What astonishes Paul isn’t that the folks in Galatia failed to realize this. It’s that anyone would trade in the Gospel, for something as suspect as a reputation.

All you have is your reputation. Not that it’s doing us much good…

Here’s the thing about Paul’s letter to the Galatians, it isn’t some ancient document. It’s about you; us. It’s about why you’re here today. It’s about why we need God. It’s about why, despite it’s flaws, this matters.

We all know, deep down, our reputation has serious flaws. Despite those well-founded reservations, it’s still so hard for us to trust this Gospel. We’d rather try to get our reputation up to snuff, than call on Jesus.

And that’s the rub. 

When push comes to shove, we think we have to be the ones to get our reputation in order. We just can’t bring ourselves to believe Jesus would simply give us his reputation. That we could just exchange our battered reputation, for Jesus’.

Like the Galatians, we’ve all turned traitor on this Gospel, haven’t we?

It seems too simple. Which Paul knew perfectly well.

And there’s the heart of it. That’s what Paul was after. It’s why this letter will always be the heartbeat to The Faith.

The same reason we can’t bring ourselves to believe this message, is the very reason why we need it. Need it so desperately. 

Those flaws in our reputation point to broken relationships. Broken relationships with those we love, with ourselves, with God. The trouble is we can’t figure out how to fix those breaks. Worse yet, all our attempts only seem to make matters worse. 

Which is Paul’s point. All our efforts, are just one more way we try and add to the Gospel. The Good News of the Gospel, though, is that there’s nothing to add to the Gospel. God has taken the matter and put it squarely on Jesus’ shoulders.

So here it is:

God’s has come to you. God has overcome the broken relationship between you and God. You don’t have come to God. You don’t have to get your reputation in shape. 

In fact, there’s nothing you have to do. It’s too late for you. God has decided to give you his son. To take the consequences of your reputation and die by them, so that you might live with God.

No longer do you only have your reputation. In fact, that’s dead. It died long ago. Now, all you have is Christ.
And that’s the Good News.