Why Trying Harder Doesn’t Work – Galatians
Why Trying Harder Doesn’t Work: Galatians 1:1-5
Together Church | Pastor Brandon Werner
September 27, 2026 | Series: Galatians
INTRODUCTION
Where is Galatia?
Galatia was the name of a region (not just a city) in Asia Minor in the area of the world that is now modern day Turkey.
What does Galatia mean?
Galatia means “land of the Gauls/Celts.”
It’s a Greek term referring to the Celtic people (Galatia) who migrated into Asia Minor in the 3rd century B.C.
So that’s the people group… sort of.
You see, by the time Paul arrived, the Celtic people had been heavily influenced by Roman and Greek culture through a process called Hellenization. By the first century, much of the region had adopted Greek and Roman language and culture.
Who Founded the Churches of Galatia?
According to Acts 13–14, Paul and Barnabas established several churches throughout this region on Paul’s first missionary journey.
Paul refers to them collectively as “the churches of Galatia” (Gal. 1:2), showing he had a direct role in their establishment.
When did Paul write this letter and where was he when he wrote it?
Scholars debate exactly when and where Paul was when he wrote Galatians… but we do know he was writing to churches he had a personal relationship with! And he was writing to churches where the gospel he had preached was now under attack.
Why did Paul write this letter?
Paul wrote Galatians to address doctrinal confusion about the gospel caused by a group known as the Judaizers.
Let me say that again (repeat).
Galatians is a fight for the gospel… and you won’t understand the fight until you understand the Judaizers and their threat.
Who were the Judaizers?
The Judaizers were Jews who taught that faith in Jesus was not enough for salvation. They taught that Gentile believers also needed to follow requirements of the Jewish Law—especially circumcision.
In other words, they weren’t saying, “Don’t believe in Jesus.”
They were saying, “Believe in Jesus… AND.”
That’s not Christianity. That’s not the gospel.
That little word “and” is at the heart of the problem Paul is confronting in this letter.
What is the main idea of this letter?
Here’s the heartbeat of this letter:
“THE CROSS IS THE ONLY BOAST OF THE BELIEVER.”
In fact, near the end of this letter, in Galatians 6:14, Paul says:
“But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
In Galatians, Paul draws a line between our confidence in the Law or our own works of righteousness and our confidence in Jesus… and that line is the cross.
Paul relentlessly defends the true gospel throughout this letter… that Christ’s work on the cross is totally sufficient for our salvation. Paul insists that the only way you and I can receive salvation and be made right with God is through faith in Jesus and His work… and never through our works, or our ability to keep the Law, or through our own self-righteousness.
We boast in Jesus who has given us His salvation!
But not only salvation!
Paul also makes it clear that, not only does the believer depend on Jesus for SALVATION, but we continue to depend on Jesus for SANCTIFICATION… that what God began through the work of the Spirit is completed through the work of the Spirit! (Galatians 3)
Before we finish this letter, Paul will teach us to walk by the Spirit and to depend on God’s power to change us instead of depending on the Law or self-righteousness for that change. (Galatians 5)
So, from beginning to end, our boast is Jesus and what He has done for us! God has given us a great treasure in the book of Galatians.
What have some great preachers said about that treasure of Galatians?
- For Martin Luther, Galatians was like a “Magna Carta” of Christian liberty. He essentially said he was “married” to it!
Luther treasured Galatians for its powerful defense of justification by faith against works-righteousness.
- For John Calvin, Galatians was a guardian of Christian freedom.
Calvin saw Galatians as a powerful defense against putting believers back under the bondage of the Law.
- For Charles Spurgeon, Galatians was a letter that breaks chains.
Spurgeon preached from Galatians about the freedom Christ gives us from spiritual bondage.
- For J. Vernon McGee, Galatians was the Christian’s declaration of independence.
McGee emphasized the simplicity of salvation by grace through faith and NOT through human achievement.
His conclusion? FAITH + NOTHING = SALVATION!
- For John Stott, Galatians was freedom through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Stott emphasized the freedom Christ has purchased for us. He emphasized that freedom does not mean living however we want, but true freedom is life lived through the power of the Holy Spirit!
- For R.C. Sproul, Galatians was a defense of the gospel without additives.
Sproul’s teaching of Galatians emphasized the purity of the gospel: we are justified by faith in Christ, not by adding our works to the work of Jesus.
Different generations. Different traditions. Different preachers.
But they saw the same treasure in Galatians: the gospel of grace!
Galatians keeps the church anchored to grace, freedom, and the power of the cross. IT IS…
The Gospel Without Additives.
BODY
So, let’s dive deep into this incredibly significant book.
Today, we will exposit the first five verses… Paul’s setup for his letter.
Listen very carefully to what the Holy Spirit is saying to you personally. Verse 1…
Galatians 1:1-5
1 Paul, an apostle (not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead),
Paul begins his defense of the gospel with a declaration of his apostolic authority and where that authority came from…
- Not from men nor through man
- But from God the Father through the Lord Jesus Christ
- Who the Father raised from the dead (sign, power, authority)
What’s an apostle?
Through Jesus, God appointed a small selection of men to carry apostolic authority in Jesus’ Church.
These men were entrusted with the responsibility of establishing the foundational truths and doctrines of the church.
Paul was one of those men.
Not by his own will or choosing, but because Jesus chose him.
Paul was the last apostle personally chosen by the resurrected Jesus. Jesus chose Paul while Paul was on the road to Damascus carrying out his mission to persecute the church.
And when the apostles finished their work, that office was finished. The Apostles’ Doctrine has been preserved by God in our Bibles.
Jesus is not continuing to appoint apostles with the authority He gave these men for the establishment of His Church!
That said, throughout history, there have been many people who have claimed to speak for God with an authority God never gave them.
Some are easy for Christians to recognize because they stand clearly outside historic Christianity…
- Muhammad claimed to receive revelation from God that became the foundation of Islam.
- Joseph Smith claimed new revelation from God that became the foundation of Mormonism.
- Charles Taze Russell helped establish the movement that became the Jehovah’s Witnesses, teaching doctrines that rejected historic Christian beliefs about Jesus.
Those outsiders are pretty easy for us to spot!
But the most dangerous false teachers aren’t always that obvious.
Sometimes they use our language.
Sometimes they affirm many things we affirm.
Sometimes they operate INSIDE the church.
And Galatians is a powerful example of that.
The Judaizers were operating among professing Christians!
They weren’t telling people to abandon Jesus.
They weren’t denying Jesus or His resurrection.
They weren’t denying His work on the cross!
But they taught that, for Gentiles like us, faith in Jesus is not enough.
These false teachers said Gentiles also needed to be circumcised and submit to requirements of the Jewish Law in order to be saved.
So Paul begins this letter with a powerful declaration of his apostolic authority, reminding these churches who they should be listening to when it comes to understanding the one true gospel of Jesus Christ.
So this letter is first from the Apostle Paul, and it is also from…
2 and all the brethren who are with me, to the churches of Galatia:
The “brethren” with Paul when he wrote Galatians were his ministry companions.
Paul isn’t standing alone in his defense of the gospel!
“All the brethren who are with me” are standing with him as he writes to these churches.
Church has always been and will always be a team sport.
Even the great Apostle Paul recognized his need for others in the body of Christ in order to grow spiritually and to complete the mission of making disciples.
This letter was a big deal.
The region of Galatia contained multiple cities with populations in the tens of thousands. This wasn’t one isolated little church dealing with a minor disagreement.
Paul was writing to churches spread throughout an entire region—and false teaching was spreading among them!
In fact, later in this very letter, Paul will warn them:
“A little leaven leavens the whole lump.” (Galatians 5:9)
A little false teaching can spread through a church like gangrene.
Paul had the apostolic authority, but he didn’t depend on himself alone to do the work. He stood with others to fulfill the mission of Jesus and to proclaim and defend the gospel.
3 Grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ,
The reason Paul begins his letters with “Grace to you” is because he is announcing the entire gospel in one word. Grace to you is not just a polite greeting… it’s a theological declaration!
“Grace” is the unmerited favor from God that Christians have received because of the work of Jesus Christ. Grace is also what creates in a disciple of Jesus the desire and power to do the will of God.
Look at that in light of what we learned about Galatians…
- Grace in salvation! His work alone.
- Grace in sanctification! New life and a desire to do God’s will.
For Paul, grace is the reason we are saved and it is the source of all spiritual strength.
Grace is the spiritual air that Christians need to constantly breathe.
Grace is the spiritual water that satisfies their thirst for God.
Grace is the spiritual meat that causes all Christians to grow.
Grace is the power every disciple of Jesus needs to live victoriously.
Everything we have in Jesus is God’s GRACE.
Our boast is not in ourselves or our works,
It’s in the power of the cross. GRACE.
And when we receive God’s grace instead of depending on our own power, grace produces something else in us: PEACE.
That’s why Paul says, “Grace to you and PEACE…”
PEACE because he is declaring the result of the gospel of grace—reconciliation with God and the end of spiritual hostility and spiritual anxiety.
Just as “grace” is the cause of salvation, peace is the effect.
When we understand what the apostle is saying, we realize there’s no better way to greet Christians than to say, “Grace and peace to you.”
Grace is a one-word summary of the gospel that moves Paul into this next line. Don’t miss this one! It’s the summary of the entire gospel of grace in a sentence! Grace and peace from the Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ…
4 who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,
Paul was ready to get right to it.
This is the theological core of the whole letter.
Every major theme in Galatians flows out of this one verse! Watch…
- Paul declares the purpose of Christ’s death:
“who gave Himself for our sins”
This is substitutionary atonement. Christ didn’t merely die as an example of love… He died in our place, bearing our sin and shame.
Paul is saying that the gospel begins with Christ giving Himself as the sacrifice for our sins.
He’s already confronting the Judaizers and their heresies!
Salvation is not by works
Salvation is not by law
Salvation is not by circumcision
Salvation is not by human effort
It is by Christ giving Himself for our sins.
This is Paul’s opening blow against legalism.
- Paul declares the result of Christ’s death:
“that He might deliver us from this present evil age”
This phrase is LOADED with meaning. The gospel declares…
- Deliverance from the power of sin
Christ rescues us from the dominion of sin that characterizes the fallen world.
- Deliverance from the world’s values
The “present evil age” is the world system opposed to God—its beliefs, its moral corruption, its spiritual blindness.
- Deliverance from the curse of the Law
In Galatians, “this present evil age” includes the bondage of trying to earn righteousness through the Law.
- Deliverance from spiritual slavery
Paul is preparing the argument of Galatians 3–5: Christ frees us from slavery to the Law, the sins of the flesh, and the world.
Paul is saying that Christ didn’t just forgive you… He rescued you.
From what? From this present evil age! According to what?
- Paul declares the divine source of salvation:
“according to the will of our God and Father”
What a gospel!
My salvation is not by my initiative or of my own will!
If I have received salvation at all, it is only because of the initiative of God and according to the will of our God and Father!
We could say it this way…
Left up to me, I would not be saved.
The source of my salvation is divine:
I have been saved by the will of God.
Can you see what the apostle is doing? His case against human effort as the source of salvation is building!
He says this to show us that…
- Salvation is not human-initiated.
The Judaizers taught that salvation required human effort. Paul insists that, left up to human power or human will, none would be saved.
- Grace has been God’s eternal plan.
Grace is not a new idea God just came up with. Left to ourselves, God knows what we deserve and what we will receive for sin: death and eternal separation from Him.
Grace wasn’t God’s reaction to our sin. Redemption was in the heart and plan of God before the foundation of the world.
- There is unity between the Father and Son.
The work of Jesus wasn’t the result of a persistent Father forcing His Son to the cross, nor was it the result of a persistent Son persuading a reluctant Father.
It was the will of God. In love, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit agreed.
Theologians have called this the Covenant of Redemption.
The Covenant of Redemption is the eternal agreement between the Father, Son, and Spirit to accomplish our redemption through the all-sufficient work of Christ.
What a power-packed gospel summary!
4 who gave Himself for our sins, that He might deliver us from this present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father,
Why does Paul put this at the front of his letter?
Galatians is a crisis letter. The gospel is under attack.
So Paul begins this letter with this gospel summary.
It’s Paul’s way of saying,
“Before I correct you, let me remind you of the gospel of grace some of you are abandoning!”
This gospel is SO GOOD. Why would anyone want to leave it?
The answer? Human pride. Human arrogance. Human dependency.
But if we boast at all, our boast will be in the cross of Christ!
And that’s why Paul ends his opening gospel statement with verse 5…
5 to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
Come on, now! Those of you who are saved, do you want the glory for your salvation? Or do you want all the glory to belong to Christ!
Galatians 1:4 just told us that Christ did the work in accordance with the will of the Father!
Christ gave Himself!
Christ delivered us!
Christ fulfilled the Father’s will!
Paul’s laying it out there with authority!
Don’t you dare give glory to human effort, human works, or human righteousness. Your salvation is unto the glory of God!
There’s a movement in America that makes ME the object of the gospel. The movement is well-intended, but it is a truth mixed with error.
The truth?
God loves me so much that He gave His one and only Son so I could be saved!
The error?
Therefore, I am the great treasure or the object of the gospel.
And when we preach a gospel that’s about us, we shouldn’t be surprised when it produces self-centered Christians.
Here’s the bottom line…
The gospel we preach will determine the disciples we make.
The gospel is not about me or you.
The gospel is about JESUS and the glory of God!
When we believe this gospel Paul is defending, it changes our perspective on everything, including our purpose.
When we believe this gospel, we will stop looking at God as a being who exists to fulfill my desires and make me happy!
And we will start to see the glory of God, who He is, and what He has done for us. With spiritual eyes wide open, we start to realize something very important…
We are not the heroes of the gospel, Jesus is!
All we, like sheep have gone astray
We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God
Without Christ, we are all dead in our trespasses and sins
And apart from Christ, not one of us could save ourselves.
And yet, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. How?
Paul said this in 2 Corinthians 5:21…
“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
Now come on. What are you going to glory in? Where’s your boast?!
CONCLUSION
The gospel Paul proclaims is the one true gospel of God.
This gospel fills my heart with awe, and reverence, and gratitude, and a desire to worship! He is worthy to be worshipped and praised!
He deserves all the glory forever and ever, amen!
**TO GOD BE THE GLORY**
INVITATION
The cross is the ONLY boast of the believer!
If we glory, we will glory in Christ.
But maybe you’re here today and you’ve never placed your faith in what Jesus has done for you.
Maybe you’ve never believed this gospel.
SHARE THE GOSPEL
INVITATION TO BAPTISM
COMMUNION
And for those of us who have believed this gospel, we’re going to finish today by doing exactly what Jesus told us to do:
We’re going to remember.
In just a moment, we’re going to hold in our hands the symbols of the body He gave and the blood He shed.
And as we do, there’s only one place for our boast:
The cross of Jesus Christ.
COME FORWARD / RECEIVE ELEMENTS
- Communion is for the BELIEVER
- If you just became a believer, this is for you, too
- Parents, make this call for children
- Exit isle to your left, visit the table in front, return opposite
- Gluten free in back… everyone participates
BEFORE PARTAKING
Before we partake, let me ask you… where is your boast?
What are you depending on to make you right with God?
What are you depending on to change your life?
Is your full trust in Jesus and His sufficient work?
Are you trusting Him for salvation? For sanctification?
“Why would you want to abandon this gospel?”
If you’ve been striving in your own strength, come back to grace.
Stop trying to add your strength to a Savior who is already sufficient.
As we hold these elements, we remember:
Christ gave Himself for us.
Christ is sufficient.
The cross is our only boast.
PARTAKE
PRAY (Jerry)
CLOSING SONG: THIS THE POWER OF THE CROSS