How good is it that in this country we have the freedom to gather in public worship! We are glad you have joined us to sing and pray and receive God's freedom in Christ. We dive into the first parts of Galatians; Paul's letter concerning the freedom of the gospel we share. It is a dynamite little letter. It explodes with gospel focus and shows up anything that is ‘no gospel at all'. Paul establishes his
authority by mentioning who called him to be this ‘Sent One’ (Apostle) and
then reminds the people of where they live – in the Father's ‘grace and peace'
founded on the resurrected Jesus and his gift of forgiveness. We are already set free to live free!

But then Paul quickly explodes into the issue around which he writes – ‘gospel plus one' teaching which is a ‘different gospel' than the one he taught them, which is really not gospel; not any good news at all for Christians. The Christians back then
struggled with this tendency we all have to believe that our standing before a holy
God is based on the gospel of Jesus – but then ‘plus one'. For the Galatians it
was the gospel + keeping the Old Testament law – food laws, worship/ceremonial law and circumcision law. This may not be our specific ‘+ one'. But I bet we could
think of a few things we add to the gospel as we demand we ourselves and others
must be or do to be a ‘real Christian'.

We begin to unpack these ‘+ one' things and in the process discover the beautiful pure gospel again – and we are free!