Jesus said “If anyone would come after me, he must DENY HIMSELF and take up his cross daily and follow me.” Luke 9:23

 “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.” Philippians 2:3-4

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2)

ILLUS: “The colder it gets outside, the more we huddle together for warmth; but the closer we get to one another, the more we hurt one another with our sharp quills.  And in the lonely night of earth’s winter, eventually we begin to drift apart and wander out on our own and freeze to death in our loneliness.” – German philosopher (Schopenhauer) 

Galatians 5:15 Paul warned them “if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.” And in 5:26 Paul writes: “Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”

“Brothers, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Keep watch on yourself, lest you also be tempted.” Galatians 6:1

“As we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” Galatians 6:10

The point is: You and share an identity with others, especially the Household of faith.  That identity is to be a servant TO OTHERS.  WE vs. ME.

 “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.  Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave—just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”   Matthew 20:25-28

I John 3:16-19 “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.”

“…you know the house of Stephanas, that it is the firstfruits of Achaia, and that they have addicted themselves to the ministry of the saints.” 1 Corinthians 16:15 KJV

“All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them.”   Acts 9:39

Acts 9:40-42 “…he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning towards the dead woman, he said, “Tabitha, get up.” She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up.

  He took her by the hand and helped her to her feet. Then he called the believers and the widows and presented her to them alive. This became known all over Joppa, and many people believed in the Lord.”

“Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.  – Galatians 6:2

Before he was president of the United States, John F. Kennedy served in the Navy in World War II, where his brave actions led to injury and he was awarded the Purple Heart. | Photo credit John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum Photograph by Frank Turgeon Jr.

In August 1943, Lt. Kennedy and his crew were ordered into combat near the Solomon Islands and, one night, their boat was rammed by a Japanese destroyer and cut in half. As the pieces of the boat began to sink, several men were killed, and others were flung overboard into a sea of burning oil. Kennedy dove in after them, rescuing three men. For 12 hours, Kennedy and the remaining surviving crew members clung to the ruined hull of their boat in the water, hoping to be rescued. During these perilous hours, Kennedy famously asked his men to vote on what they would rather do – fight on or surrender to the Japanese.

“There’s nothing in the book about a situation like this,” Kennedy reportedly said. “A lot of you men have families and some of you have children. What do you want to do? I have nothing to lose.”

The crew voted to press on and started to swim to shore. Kennedy refused to let his back injury from the collision stop him from towing a badly burned crew member to safety. He placed the man in a life jacket and then swam with the life jacket strap clenched between his teeth, dragging his crew member behind him for three miles. They eventually reached a nearby island, bringing the man – and leading the rest of his crew – safely to shore, where they were later rescued.

Kennedy was awarded the Purple Heart, as well as the Navy and Marine Corps Medal, for his incredibly brave actions, with no thought to his personal safety.

Invitation:
1. Blessed be the tie that binds

Our hearts in Christian love;

The fellowship of kindred minds

OPEN: Harry Truman

https://www.oregonlive.com/history/2020/05/harry-r-truman-still-believed-in-love-as-mount-st-helens-eruption-loomed-refused-to-leave-the-mountain-that-gave-him-everything.html

WELCOME: TO TRUE IDENTITY #5:

UKRAINIAN OPINION:  Opinion: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a war between tyranny and freedom. War rages in Ukraine, but it’s not merely a war of Russian forces against Ukrainians. It’s a war of two competing visions — fundamentally different concepts of what makes a nation great. One is a vision of national greatness defined by a free and peaceful society in which individual citizens can build their lives. The other is a vision of national greatness based on power and the ability to instill fear.
https://www.detroitnews.com/story/opinion/2022/03/17/russia-attack-ukraine-war-between-tyranny-freedom-vision/7053461001/?gnt-cfr=1

1943 Dietrich Bonhoeffer  “It was the teaching of cheap grace. Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance; baptism without church discipline; communion without confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.”  – Cheap Grace is described in “The Cost of Discipleship”
https://www.gotquestions.org/cheap-grace.html

        Galatians 5:13  “For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do NOT use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.”

Galatians 5:19-21 “Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these…I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Acts 2:38 tells us when we “repent and are baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sin” you receive “the gift of the Holy Spirit.” “Grace is NOT a license to sin; grace is the power of God to overcome sin.” (Can’t find the origin of this quote.)

Grace is the free opportunity to fight for God, for people, with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, & self-control. – Anonymous

WELCOME: To our Third week in the Galatians Identity Series:

Galatians 3:27 tells us “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.”

Colossians 2:12 says: we’ve “been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him THROUGH FAITH in the powerful working of God, who raised Him from the dead.”

https://www.louisianafolklife.org/LT/Articles_Essays/creole_art_river_baptism.html
https://catholicdos.org/disposal-of-religious-items

“I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel” (Galatians 1:6)

“For all who rely on works of the law are under a curse; for it is written, “Cursed be everyone who does not abide by all things written in the Book of the Law, and do them.” ¹¹ Now it is evident that no one is justified before God by the law, for “The righteous shall live by faith.” ¹² But the law is not of faith, rather “The one who does them shall live by them.” ¹³ Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.” – Galatians 3:10-13

True Identity #1: Your Choice

Galatians 1:1-12

WELCOME: Welcome to Central Church of Christ, not a place, not building, not a creed, or religious system, but a people called out by God in the Upper Cumberland to Show God’s Love, Tell God’s Story, and Be God’s Family.  Today we start our new sermon series called, TRUE IDENTITY as found in the book of Galatians.

GALATIANS Background:

Where are we?

Upon arriving back in Antioch from his first missionary journey after eighteen months on the road, Paul received a report that the churches he had started in Galatia had fallen into hard times—specifically, they had fallen into error. A group of Judaizers—those who sought to make living under the Mosaic Law a requirement of the Christian faith—had gained an influence in the Galatian churches. Paul wrote the book a few months before his attendance at the Jerusalem Council in AD 49, a meeting where the apostles would take up this very topic (Acts 15:1–30).

Why is Galatians so important?

In advance of the Jerusalem Council, Paul’s letter speaks wisdom and clarity into the first real controversy that plagued the church in its early years—the relationship between Christian Jews and Christian Gentiles. Paul’s aggressive tone shows just how important it was to him that the people embrace unity in Christ, no matter their racial distinctions. For him, this was no minor issue, as he went so far as to call the Galatians deserters of Christ, people turning from the truth toward a gospel contrary to the one they had received from Paul (Galatians 1:6–9).

What’s the big idea?

When the Galatians fell away so quickly from the gospel of grace Paul had preached to them, they also made clear their disloyalty to Paul’s authority as an apostle. Therefore, Paul began the letter to the Galatians by spending two chapters defending that very issue. Only in chapter 3 did he begin to get to the heart of their error; namely, that these Galatians sought to be justified by the Mosaic Law. In contrast, Paul presented his argument that justification comes to people by faith in Jesus Christ, not by their works under the Law.

In Galatians 1:10 he writes: “am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

  John said it this way: “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” 1 John 2:15

“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other….” Matthew 6:24

Galatians 3:27-28 Paul told them “For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.       (i.e. you don’t need to do anything else) There is neither Jew nor Greek (i.e. you don’t have to become a Jew 1st) there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”

“even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed.” Galatians 1:8-9

Roughly half of Americans believe they will go to heaven if they are “generally good” or “do enough good things” (2020) https://www.christianheadlines.com/contributors/michael-foust/wakeup-call-for-the-church-half-of-americans-say-good-deeds-get-you-to-heaven-poll-shows.html

Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of NY https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/michael-bloomberg-i-have-earned-my-place-in-heaven/437457/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share&fbclid=IwAR0HxuonfPAuO2vHR9RSK2Rkg34u1fLmmJtIOLmESoFVkP4mMAHYzW2cETw said it this way: “I am telling you, if there is a God, when I get to heaven I’m not stopping to be interviewed. I am heading straight in. I have earned my place in heaven.”

Romans 3:10 Paul writes: “as it is written: ‘None is righteous, no, not one’”

“I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I RECEIVED IT BY REVELATION from Jesus Christ.” Galatians 1:12

“our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do THE OTHER SCRIPTURES.” II Peter 3:15-16

Jesus described it in what we’ll talk about in our growth group meetings tonight.  “Why do you call me ‘Lord’ when you don’t do what I say?”  – Luke 6:46

CLOSE: I want introduce you to a person who has chosen their identity in Christ.

Preaching Minister – Sasha Prokopchuk

The minister says he gets a bit embarrassed when people in this eastern Ukrainian city recognize him as “that preacher on TV” who walks around town in a turtleneck, talking about the problems that vex Ukrainians and offering free Bible lessons.
Standing in the TV ministry’s “response center” — a converted apartment in a crumbling, Soviet-era building — Prokopchuk takes a letter from the top of a stack and reads it. A viewer wants to receive a magazine produced by the ministry and is interested in what the Bible says about love and marriage. Similar requests come, via letters and e-mail, from across the country — and from other former Soviet nations, including Russia.
For Prokopchuk, who has preached on the airwaves of Ukraine for more than a decade, those requests make the notoriety worthwhile.
“I don’t feel like I’m a TV guy — never,” he says. “God created this.”
Prokopchuk grew up in the Soviet Union as an atheist. He and his wife, Victoria, were newlyweds when his government called him to serve in the Red Army. He later worked in a Soviet hospital but earned little money. He tried coal mining and truck driving to support his family. When the Soviet Union collapsed, they lost what little money they had.
Frustrated and depressed, Prokopchuck read to take his mind off his problems. One night, unable to find a newspaper, he picked up a “black book with a cross” that his wife had bought from a beggar woman in a train station. He flipped through the pages and found a passage in which the author lamented that all of his life’s pursuits — from drinking wine to amassing riches — had proved meaningless. “I realized, ‘This book is about me,’” he said.  
He kept reading the Bible, and found encouragement in Jesus’ teachings about prayer and repentance. His relationship with his family improved — including his mother-in-law, who was housing them at the time.
After two years of studying on his own, Prokopchuk and his wife met Denny Kruse, a U.S. missionary in Donetsk. Kruse baptized Prokopchuk on May 2, 1995, and encouraged him to preach.
Prokopchuk served as minister and elder for the Petrovsky Church of Christ in Donetsk, which grew to nearly 400 members, he said. In 2004 he helped plant the Transfiguration Church of Christ, where he now ministers, in the city’s downtown.
He launched the TV program in hopes of reaching more lost souls. The episodes are filled with the life lessons he learned from studying the Bible. In 2001, Kruse helped secure funds to broadcast the show nationally.
“People like the episodes about human emotions,” Prokopchuk said. “We go through conflicts and worry … the Kingdom of God, peaceful life.” A key focus is making God’s word understandable, he added.