Grace Needs Nothing More

This Sunday we opened a new series, The Gospel of Grace, and a new letter, Paul to the churches of Galatia. The thread that runs through all six chapters is one line: grace received, never achieved.

Received is something done for you. Achieved is something you do yourself. The whole Galatian mistake is dragging grace from receiving to achieving. And it is ours too, every time we try to earn what God has already given.

Two movements in chapter 1.

First, the Galatians had deserted the gospel. Not with a dramatic exit, but with a quiet addition. Grace plus rules. Christ plus a checklist.

Paul is so alarmed that he skips the thank-you that opens every other letter he wrote and goes straight to “I am astonished.” Desertion is a soldier’s word, leaving your post, and he says it in the present tense, which means there is still time to turn around.

And notice what they were deserting. Not a doctrine. Him, the One who called them. To walk away from grace is to walk away from the God of grace.

Second, the gospel is received by His grace. Paul proves it with the last story you would expect him to tell, his own.

The chief persecutor becomes the chief preacher, not by climbing but by being seized. God set him apart and called him by grace before he had done a single thing, good or bad. Grace ran out ahead of everything.

The same grace the Galatians were deserting is the grace that made Paul an apostle. A chapter that opens with Paul defending himself ends with God getting the glory.

Something to sit with this week:

Where are you adding to grace, turning the gift back into something you owe? Grace ran ahead of Paul before he had done anything at all. What would change if you lived like it ran ahead of you the same way?