January 18

Lesson: Galatians 1.11-24

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INTRODUCTION

The following conversation, involving a U.S. Navy ship off the coast of Newfoundland, was cited in one of the Montreal newspapers.

"Please divert your course 15 degrees to avert a collision."

"Recommend you divert YOUR course 15 degrees."

"This is the captain of a U.S. Navy ship. I say again: Divert your course."

"No, I say again: Divert YOUR course."

"This is an aircraft carrier of the United States Navy. We are a large warship. Divert your course at once!"

"This is a lighthouse. Your call."

1. Its your call!

   1. It is always your call.

   2. How do you make your call?

   3. What authority do you use?        

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MAIN BODY:

1. Its all about authority.

1. It is always about authority.

1. Who has it, who doesn't.

2. Who is exercising it properly.

3. Who is seeking to manipulate.

1. Just before he died of AIDS, Michel Foucault, one of the greatest intellectuals of the 20th century, gave a lecture at the College de France. ⁽¹⁾

The response and discussion period that followed became quite animated, even heated. In exasperation, someone asked Foucault, "What is your intellectual authority for these assertions, these interpretations? What are you, anyway? Are you a historian? A philosopher? Or something else? How can you legitimize your conclusions?"

Foucault responded with a simple and gracious modesty: "I am a reader."

2. Percentage of Americans who say they never read books: 47.

2. What are the challenges to authority?

1. Elected Authority

1. We elect people to represent us.

2. The challenge is to serve the people

2. Appointed Authority

1. Police are appointed

2. They are charged with upholding the law.

1. You are speeding along on the highway somewhat over the speed limit.

2. You see the flashing lights of the Bubble Gum Machine? (My pet expression for a police cruiser.)

3. Immediately speeders slow down.

4. But then, when it is out of sight, the speeders speed again.

3. Assumed Authority

1. We work for people.

2. One major lesson that I had to learn is that the "Boss," is always right.

1. You work for someone they make the decisions.

2. They may share the decision making ability with you.

3. But ultimately they are to be respected and obeyed.

4. Stolen Authority.

1. The "Bully" steals authority.

2. It is usually exercised with intimidation or force.

5. Final Authority

1. We recognize that no matter what we may think, believe or do, there is a final authority.

2. You don't mess with this authority.

Mother Nature is telling the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. And Papa Bear says "Whose been eating my porridge?"

A voice asks, "Mother Nature was this on the porridge?"

"Yes lots of my delicious butter."

Mother Nature "That's Chiffon Margarine, not butter."

A perplexed Mother Nature replies "Margarine, oh, no, it's too sweet, too creamy."

When the narrator tells her "Chiffon's so delicious, I guess it fooled even you, Mother Nature," the perturbed woodland goddess lets loose lightning and thunder to express her anger.

Her trademark catchphrase was "It's not nice to fool Mother Nature!"

3. There is a higher power than Mother Nature.

4. You don't mess with God.

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2. This is what the Judiazers were doing.

1. They confounded the believers in Galatia with the rule that you had to observe the law as well as the gospel.

2. But more than then this they challenged the authority of Paul.

1. They challenged his credibility.

1. He is not an Apostle.

2. He is not one of the original Twelve.

2. They challenged his credibility.

1. He does not have the authority to preach and teach.

2. He is misrepresenting the truth.

3. They challenged his beliefs.

1. He does not know what he is talking about.

2. He is misleading you.

3. He is a liar.

3. Paul offers no excuses for his position or authority.

1. He does not rationalize

2. He does not justify.

3. What Paul does is rehearse his call and learning experience.

1. ¹⁰Am I now seeking human approval, or God's approval? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still pleasing people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

1. Paul is not a "people pleaser."

2. People Pleasers have one or more of these characteristics:

3. I try to be who someone wants me to be.

4. I am afraid to rock the boat.

5. It is hard for me to know what I want.

6. I avoid speaking my mind.

7. I find it easier to go along with what someone wants or with their opinion.

8. I fantasize about a strong person taking over my life and making it work.

9. It is hard for me to express my feelings when they are different from someone I'm close to.

10. It is difficult for me to say No.

11. I avoid getting angry.

12. It is hard for me to take initiative.

13. I try to be nice rather than expressing how I really feel.

14. I want everyone to get along.

2. Paul's vindicates his apostleship by rehearsing his history.

1. ¹¹For I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel that was proclaimed by me is not of human origin;

1. ¹²for I did not receive it from a human source,

2. nor was I taught it,

3. I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

2. ¹³You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism.

1. I was violently persecuting the church of God

2. (I) was trying to destroy it.

3. ¹⁴I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors.

4. ¹⁵But when God, who had set me apart before I was born

1. called me through his grace,

2. pleased ¹⁶to reveal his Son to me,

3. so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles,

5. I did not confer with any human being,

6. ¹⁷nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me,

7. I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus.

8. ¹⁸Then after three years I did go up to Jerusalem

1. to visit Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days;

2. ¹⁹but I did not see any other apostle except James the Lord's brother.

3. ²⁰In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!

1. ²¹Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia,

2. ²²and I was still unknown by sight to the churches of Judea that are in Christ;

3. ²³they only heard it said, "The one who formerly was persecuting us is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy."

4. ²⁴And they glorified God because of me.

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CONCLUSION:

1. The challenge we face is one of authority.

1. Whose authority will we accept?

1. Will we accept to be our own authority?

2. Or will we accept the authority of God and God's Apostle Paul?

2. Majesty by Jack W. Hayford

Majesty, worship his majesty,
Unto Jesus be all glory, honor, and praise.
Majesty, kingdom authority flow from his throne unto his own;
His anthem raise.

So exalt, lift up on high the name of Jesus,
Magnify, come glorify Christ Jesus the King.
Majesty, worship his majesty;
Jesus who died, now glorified, King of all Kings.

2. If we do that we may have the strength of an unknown Zimbabwean pastor martyred for his faith who in his final journal entry wrote:

I am a disciple of Christ. I will not let up, look back or slow down. My past is redeemed, my future secure. I am done with low living, small planning, smooth knees, mundane talking and small goals. My fate is set; my goal is sure! My road is narrow and rough. I am a disciple of Christ. I must go until he comes, speaking of all I know of him and work until he stops me.

Amen!

1. As quoted in Michael Kammen, Salvages & Biases: The Fabric of History in American Culture (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1987), 61-62.

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