Sermon Transcript:

So today we're in, we're still in Galatians chapter four. We're starting in verse eight today. And I want to let you know that it's going to be called the unveiled gospel, the unveiled gospel. And so so many times, you know, as children of God, we run around with masks on our face saying we love Jesus, but pretending to do otherwise. Amen, we do. We're all guilty of that. And so I want to talk about this, how we can unveil ourselves before a world that needs to hear about Jesus. You know, visibility is crucial in life. Even those that are visually impaired, they need guidance to for them to see and come to a place of familiarity, navigate. And some of us need to have glasses to see clearly, right? Some of you do as well, and some of you just refuse to wear glasses, even though you just need to go ahead and get some, right? It's okay. You can admit it. When you get to 40, it's like, man, you you can't see. Have the big, giant text on your right.

Let me show you,

kind of like that. You know, everybody can read it from where you're at, you're at the airport and they're all reading your text message. Because we don't just refuse to get glasses, you know, we want to have big text so in times like this, sometimes there seems like there's a veil in front of us so that we can't see clearly, and we don't want that in our lives, as as believers, life can get distorted. It. It happens when a when a bride veils her face before that, she says, I do. The tradition was that the veil was there to remind the husband of the purity that was in the relationship. The veil was you used throughout the ceremony. And it wasn't until the bride unveiled herself that the husband actually saw a clear picture of the beautiful bride that he was about to say, I do too. And that's that picture that we're talking about to do today. In the Bible, it seems as if sometimes the mysteries are veiled to us, and they are truthfully until God opens up the Bible to you, until you have a relationship with God too, you have the Holy Spirit speaking to you. The Bible is veiled to you. It's just a book if you don't know Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, or you can read it and study it. And there's some wonderful scholars out there that do not have a relationship with Christ, that know kind of what the Bible says, but the mysteries, the insight that the Holy Spirit gives us, they're veiled to those sometimes frustration sinks in and we don't understand what God wants to tell us and speak to us. But you know what? Maybe it's not the right time for him to unveil that to you. See, it's when it's his timing. Will that unveiling become more opportunistic in your life as you walk through life? I had a pastor say this one time, and I've never forgotten it.

I think sometimes that the Bible is veiled to us. We don't see clearly, because God is speaking to us at a for a particular time and reason, and we refuse to deal with that subject. We say, God, that must be somebody else. I'm not going to do that. You're asking me to do this, but somebody else can do it better. And God closes the Bible on us until we go back to that and deal with what he's been asking of us.

I hope that's not you this morning, God is asking something in your life. I hope that you'll open up that Bible, go back to where he was speaking to you, and let him unveil that plan for you in your life, you see

so many times, and I'm a proponent of education. I believe in it. I do it myself. I have multiple degrees. I'm about to finish another degree in December, and I'm grateful for that. But too many times, we rely on the education for the scriptures to come at us, when really the best teacher we have is found in first John 227 says the Holy Spirit of God is the greatest teacher that we have for the Scriptures. And too many times we're just studying to see what we can find out about the Word of God, instead of letting God speak to us.

I'm not against. I think we need those. I do. We do need scholarly things going on in our life. But I want you to know that even children can grasp the depths of the scriptures of the Bible, because the Holy Spirit speaks to them as well.

Let's stand with my with me, as we read from Galatians chapter four, starting in verse eight, and we'll read through verse 20.

Paul. Paul's speaking to a group of churches known as the Galatian churches. It's an area multiple churches. And he continues. He said, formally, when you do not know God, you were slaves to those who, by nature, are not gods. But now that you do know God, or rather known by God. How is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you that somehow I've wasted my efforts on you. Could you imagine Paul's.

Heartfelt message to the people going, please let it not be so that we've wasted our time conveying this to you. Verse 12, I plead with you, brothers and sisters, become like me, for I became like you. You did me no wrong as you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you, and even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn. Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ, Jesus Himself, Where then is your blessing of me. Now I can testify that if you could have have done so, you would have torn out your eyes and given them to me, I had have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth.

Those people are zealous to win you over, but for no good what? Then?

What they want is to alienate you from us, so that you may have zeal for them.

It's fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good and to be So, and to be so always, not when, just when I am with you, my dear children. For who am I

again in the pains of childbirth, until Christ is formed in you? How I wish I could be with you now and change my tone, because I'm perplexed about you, Father, we pray that You would speak to us this morning, have us have a childlike faith that we could know you in a more deeper way. In Jesus name, I pray amen. You may have a seat. Number one, my first

point is the gospel veiled long ago. The Gospel veiled long ago. You see in verse eight, everyone has a past with God. Even if you become a follower of Christ at a young age, you have a past apart from God. You you were somebody before Christ, and you became somebody after Christ. That past still exists. So Paul tells us that when we did not know God, that was prior to our knowledge of Christ, he I know that he's been saying this over and over in Galatians. If you've been here along this trial, this, this journey, you know, his repetitious dialog sometimes is overwhelming. You know, it just kind of like, wow. How many times is he going to say this? As many as it takes,

as many as it takes. How many times do you tell your spouse that you love them all the time? I hope, I hope you tell them every day. I hope you don't just say, Hey, look at me. You know, listen, you need to speak it as well to your spouse, to your kids, to your mom and dad, to your family, tell them that you love them. Listen, Paul says this over and over, about being a slave to sin, and we have tendency to go back to who we were our former days. We like what we know, right? We don't like to these, these unknown things. You see, we're always dwelling in the past, thinking about what, God, where, who we used to be, but never truly forward moving in life, moving forward in our life. Worse yet, we don't ever really move forward in our Christian walk. You know, a lot of people get saved, and they may even get baptized, and then they just leave it that at that. They just leave it alone. They're like, I'm not going to study the Bible for myself. I'm going to wait till the pastor teaches me something on Sunday, or I'm going to, once in a while, say a prayer over my food. And that seems like that's the Christian walk. Now today, listen, if you have Jesus in your life, there's another part of you that needs to move forward in everything that you do. So what the real, really, the Christian life is all about. It's an adventure every day. There's a lot of unknowns about your walk with Christ. That's called faith. Amen. I had no idea what I was stepping into when I came pastor Moore said, Hey, would you be our interim pastor? In between, they talked about it, you know, I didn't know Life Church. But now I know you. I know you a lot more now. I'm grateful to be here, but it's an unknown. It's a step of faith, even for us that our pastors, it's like we don't really know what we're getting into. I'm grateful to be here. Paul says it this way. He says you were slaves, not that you are. He says you were so I'm here to tell you this morning, you're no longer slaves to sin. Amen,

that's the victory that we get to walk in. That's what who we who we are. We don't have to continue to walk and live in who we used to be, but we get to walk in who we are now. People love this phrase. You know, ignorance is bliss. Have you heard that? You probably used that before, right?

Imma, just do whatever I want, and then I'll ask for forgiveness later, right? Pretend like you don't know. Oh, come on, you know, I know, and you know.

Why is that?

Why do we say that? Because I can tell you, ignorance is bliss. Is a sin, because you know exactly what you're doing. You can't pretend like you don't know.

You see, if God knows you, He knows your heart. That's what Paul said in the text. He said, Not that you know God, but actually he says, But God knows us, and man, that's some that changes the whole dynamic. When he says that it's God who knows us. That's who we're talking about. See, Paul says, we used to be a slave, meaning we're not that anymore. So don't go.

Anymore. Stop going back to the well, continue in who will God want you to be? You see, what kind of gods are you slaves to today or so? I'm not a pastor. I'm not a slave. No, really. Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram, Twitter, or is known as x now your phone, your television, gossip, okay, Pastor, watch it now. Money, the latest clothing, music, your kids, your spouse, your family, your friends, all of those can you can be a slave to as in a sinful way that you worship them and they become your idols. God says, I will not tolerate that.

That's in the past. So leave it there. Leave it there. Jesus has something better for us, amen, he has something greater for us in verse nine. But now that you know God, or yet better known by God, is one thing to know God, but it's a whole new game. When he says that you're known by God,

I tell that to people all the time. I said, because we know his name, we know his name Jesus, but I want to know, does he know your name? Is God speaking your name to his people? Is he saying your name? Does he know you? I know them. It really isn't about you knowing God. It's about him knowing you. You see,

you might say he created all of us. He knows us. That's not what Paul's talking about here. To be known by God is for you to have Jesus living on the inside and giving you guidance when you don't even have a clue where you're going.

Lucy and I, my wife and I, we lived away from El Paso for 34 years. Never in 1000 years that we think that we were going to come back and move back to El Paso to do ministry. We left here in 1985 and came back in 2019

grateful for it, but we really didn't know what to expect. And I believe that's the Christian faith, that's the walk is we don't have to understand everything you see when he knows you, you listen and you obey Him. Amen.

John said it clearly in his Gospel, and he said, My sheep know my voice. They listen to me and they obey me, because we're loved unconditionally by him. See, Paul says one more time to all of us today,

since God knows you as if you have a personal relationship with him, it's how you keep turning. Why do you keep turning back to the past? He calls our past weak and miserable in our text, he's like your past is weak and miserable. It doesn't it doesn't have any power. And verse nine, he says, Do you wish to be enslaved by your past all over again? What would you what would your answer be? I would hope you would say, No, of course not. Pastor, no, we don't want to do that. I'm a new creation, according to second Corinthians, 517, the old is gone, the new has come. That's who I am. I'm never going back to who I was. That's our battle cry as believers. I don't want to be that person anymore. I want to be the new person. I want to be who God has created me to be everything that he has in store for me, verses 10 and 11. Paul reminds us that everyone, when we observe or we make more out of special days, like Christmas is coming up, Thanksgiving is coming up. We make so much of those holidays we leave God out of the equation.

I pray that on Thursday, when you gather around the table with your family, that each one will say what they're thankful for. Will say, I thank God for what He's doing in my life. Could you imagine the witness you would be to those that don't follow Christ in your midst? Oh, I know they're going to be there at your table, right? We're all going to be together. And then Christmas, it's all become about all this other stuff. The world has gravitated toward making Christmas something that it's never meant to be. I'm all about gift giving. I like to decorate. I think it's great. But when Jesus is left out of the equation, it's not Christmas anymore. Do you know the word Christ is in Christmas?

Keep Christ in Christmas so that we can understand what's going on, so we don't have to listen to what Paul's saying. It seems that people get lost in all the hoopla of the parties and festivals and the celebrations. We got to be careful not to make more of a holiday than it's supposed to be. Every day is a reason to celebrate Christ every day. Every day is a gift from God every day. Paul reminds us in his audience in verse 11, I don't take it as condemning, but it may sound like that. I believe Paul wanted to make sure that when a person comes to faith in Christ, they have to be disciplined, they have to be discipled. It's difficult to watch somebody that comes to Christ, and maybe if it goes through the waters of baptism, and in six months, you see him, and where are they? What happened? It should be an indictment on the church as leaders, we have to disciple people in their faith. Why do you think every single week we take time to make an announcement about life groups, so you get plugged into a small group, so you can help be get discipled, or maybe you're going to disciple somebody else. You see, he just hopes that he didn't waste his time on you see that what Paul said, and I hope I didn't waste my time on.

You. That's the that's the hope of every pastor, that everything that we put in and pour into you is something that's fruitful for your life. So I want to talk a little bit about Exodus. It's a

little bit of a journey. So bear with me. Put your attentive ears on if you're writing notes when we began to live, or give the law to Israel, when God did he, he did so, and he accompanied by an overwhelming atmospheric display of thunder and lightning and smoke and fire and the sound of the trumpet on top of mountain Sinai. This was to warn the people that he's holy and He should not be approached.

Anyone who tried to come up to the mountain would be killed. Read it in Exodus, 19. Hebrews 12 alludes to it as well. When God delivers the 10 Commandments, the people are so frightened that they're afraid to speak to God. They're afraid to have God speak to them. That's why they asked Moses to go and get the 10 Commandments delivered to him. That's in Exodus. 20 Moses approaches God and receives the law in Exodus 21 and he delivers it to his people to affirm their willingness to obey. That's in chapter 24 of Exodus. Then we hit the Exodus. 25 to 31

Moses goes up to the mountain, receives the plans for the tabernacles and the Tablets of the 10 Commandments. They're engraved on a stone tablets the 10 Commandments. Upon his return, to much to his dismay, in the Israel camp, the people are worshiping a golden calf. Could you imagine going and Pastor goes on to a retreat, and he goes and he's spending time with God, and he comes back in his his church, all of a sudden, is worshiping some fake god. Something happened while he was out, and here's Moses. They asked him to be the one that went to God and bring the message back. In anger, Moses smashes the tablets

because he's so ticked off about the sin and it had to be dealt with. And so God invites Moses back up to the mountain to receive the law again.

It's like, wow, it do we serve a God of second chances or third chances or four chances. Could you imagine what's going on there's like, these people just turn their back on. God Moses gets ticked off, smashes the tablets, and God says, okay, come on back again. Let me. Let me give you the 10 Commandments one

more time. That sound like us. Come on back again. Is what God says. I'll worship with you. I'll speak to you, I'll deliver my message to you.

You see,

he begs for a pardon for the nation when he meets with God, God, would you forgive them for what they've done? And that's what we do as believers, is we beg for pardon for our families that don't know God in a personal way, and we ask God to forgive him. In Exodus 31 one through 27 Moses spends 40 days and 40 nights with God on the mountain, and during that time, he didn't eat or drink.

It seems that the glory of God sustained him, and he comes down from the mountain, and his face is shining with the glory of God. We don't know exactly what that looked like, but it was frightening to his brother, Aaron and the high priest and the rest of the people. They were afraid because something happened. He was transformed on that mountain.

You see,

everyone's so afraid to come near Moses in verse 31 and it says he wore a veil over his face, to shroud, to veil the glory of God.

We're not told that this lasted long, but presumably this is what happened. The glory of God started to fade. But, you know, Moses kept that veil over his face because they didn't. He didn't want the people to know that God's glory was fading. You see, when you spend time with God, everybody knows it. You shine for him, but as you don't spend time with God, everybody knows it as well, right? You stop shining for him. And so many times, we still want to hide that veil over our face so people don't know that we're not spending time with God. We wear masks all the time.

The Old Testament is pretty straightforward, but Paul mentions this veil of the New Testament has caused some to take a second look at Moses, and why did he choose to wear this veil? Second Corinthians 313 says this, we're not like Moses,

who would put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was to passing away. You see, that makes it sound as if Moses was beginning to fade, but it wasn't. It was his glory that was beginning to fade. Moses's veil was designed to make people think that he was still shining for God, don't you like that? We, we like to put on our you know, I wore a jacket this morning because I thought, well, I better look good. For these families, we're doing baby dedication, and I just thought it was appropriate, you know, but I'm not wearing it to hide anything. I just wanted to look good. But sometimes we put on our best and we pretend to be followers of Christ when we're not.

You see, we find ways to do what.

Want to do in verse in Second Corinthians, verse three Paul has this contrasting glory of the Old Testament and the New Testament. And so I want to, I want to, I want you to listen to this. The old covenant was written on tablets of stone, but the new covenant is written on the tablets of our heart.

What a difference. Huh.

The old covenant is the letter of the law. The New Covenant is the spirit of the law. You see, the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. It says in verse six of Second Corinthians three, the Old Covenant brings condemnation, the New Covenant brings righteousness. The old covenant had a glory that was fading. The New Covenant has a glory that remains, in fact, surpasses all that the Old Covenant appears to have, and it does no comparison.

You see Second Corinthians, Corinthians, 312, 13 says ministers of the New Covenant are unlike Moses. New Covenant ministers proclaim an unfading glory to avoid

not showing God. We want to show God. We don't wear a veil. He's not giving us any new insight to what Moses is doing. There's no new information. The main point is the Old Covenant was temporary. The New Covenant is permanent. When Jesus came to town,

unlike Moses, who wore a veil to conceal the temporary glory. We boldly proclaim Christ and we unveil the gospel to those that need hope. Amen, we unveil the gospel you see

the New Testament. Believers beheld the glory of God and are transformed into that glory. Second, Corinthians, three, 318,

is the gospel still veiled to you?

Are you seeking God through your behavior,

you'll never get there. You can't behave your way to heaven.

You must have faith to get to heaven and trust God to be your Lord and Savior. Release your heart to Him today, let God put the glory on your the hat, a tablet of your heart. Secondly, the unveiled gospel by Jesus in verse 12 through 16 of our text. Have you ever asked someone to be like you?

Just be like me. We do that to our kids, right? We come from the old school as parents that were, I was born in the 60s. You know,

don't have any people in the 60s, alright, yeah, see two young people. There's a lot of young people here.

Do as I do. We say a lot of times, why not? If your lives reflect Christ, you should ask people to be like you. You should ask your kids to follow you, not because we want them to follow us, but we want them to follow Jesus. We want them to do everything we're doing because we're following Jesus, right? Our lives should point them to Christ. You see, we don't like people to follow us, because we're not pointing people to Christ. When we follow Christ, it's okay to have people. It's called a personal involvement, a personal investment in somebody when they follow you. You see, we can't be too busy.

That's the motto of the day. Even in the Christian life, as long as we're busy, then we're more we're apt to be more believable. Well, he's doing lots of stuff. Eternal investment is far too value, valuable for us to be busy. We can't just be busy in verses 13 and 14 of our text, he went to Galatia first because he was sick. Who knows what it really was, but scholars have a good idea that Paul probably had an eye problem. Something was wrong with his eyes. Later on, in one of his letters he writes, look at what large letters I write with. And he even talked about it in this text that they would gouge out his eyes and give him new eyes so that he could see better. You see, they respected his messenger

of God his position.

This is because when an ambassador of Jesus comes in the spirit of truth, the unveiled gospel is undeniable. It's represented. You see, Paul wasn't just Paul. He was representing Jesus in the flesh. Did you know that you may be the only Jesus that people see? I know that that's hard to take, because we go, man, I don't want people to see all my faults. Then stop showing them your faults, and start showing them Jesus. Start showing them who you are. You see, we have to be his representatives as we walk this, this earth, we unveil the gospel to them in verse 15 and 16, Paul says some really sad verses for today, even though Paul was received well, they considered Paul an enemy because they didn't like that. Paul would come to them and smash their toes while he was preaching the gospel, right? I know you've all had your toes smashed since I've been here since September. I'm not afraid to tell you the truth of the gospel. I hope you take it as I receive it, and what can I do with it. But the gospel sometimes is very condemning. It's very convicting. And we need that. We need to know, we need to understand what it means to follow Christ. You see Paul in many ways, and the scholars giving away that Paul obviously had bad eyesight. This case, Paul was preaching the truth.

And they didn't like it. The same can be said for ministers of the gospel today. You see, we sometimes tell the truth in a way that can be demeaning. I get that the real truth is most of the time, if a pastor is sticking to the unveiled gospel, the truth will hurt and the truth will convict us. But in the long run, I hope that we come to faith in Christ because we understand what it means to have a relationship. You see, the Holy Spirit of God is preaching through His Word is meant to convict us of our sin. It's not meant for us to hang on to our sin. You see, we're we use that conviction before a holy God so that we can confess him. That's why, at the end of every service, we give an opportunity to come forward and confess Jesus as their Lord. When Jesus came to Calvary to die a cruel death, for us to be forgiven of our sins, He did it in public.

He didn't do it in secret. You see, we offer the gospel openly in public. Come to faith in Christ publicly, because our Jesus went to a cross, and He hung publicly for people to see, for them to come to the cross and go, I believe this. He didn't go and hide himself when he was being condemned for the world's sin. He unveiled who the father was in heaven by saying, I received the penalty of death by forgiving all of the nations of this earth, their sins. Are you still in the closet about your sins? Are you still in the dark? Real, genuine transformation comes when you bring it into the light. Do it today. And lastly, the unveiled gospel today, and our last four verses,

Paul is addressing those that are trying to produce agendas on their own, a way for the church and people should worship the way they they do it. Worshiping God has taken all whole new meaning today. Right? Paul was aware of a group trying to sway believers into a different gospel, which is really no gospel at all. You see, that's why, as your father, as your pastor, for this in between time, excuse me, it's my passion to make sure that each and every week, we leave with the truth of who God is in the word that's proclaimed Amen, there's only one gospel, and that's the Jesus of the Bible. That's the only Gospel we have. Paul teaches it to us to have good passion, but that passion can be misplaced. In the body of Christ, you see worship, if you haven't noticed, isn't about you, it's about him, and it's only about him. When you pray, we pray to Him. When we sing, we sing to him when we hear the word God proclaim. It's for you to hear the word so that you can do something with it. Don't listen to anyone who leads you to believe otherwise. You see, I don't care how great a communicator or speaker or presenter they are, if they desort The distort the gospel in any way, move away from them quickly. That is not the true teaching of the gospel.

Verses 19 and 20, Paul describes his actions and motives as false teachers. They're easy to spot.

Here's how you know. I'm going to teach you how to spot a false Proclaimer of the gospel. If a teacher, preacher or speaker, speaks more about themselves than of Jesus, they could be a false teacher.

They are more interested in building up their own personal kingdom than the kingdom of God. You see, they want everybody to know about them

when we should know about Him. Amen,

as a pastor of the gospel, I wish the best for everybody that I get that privilege to preach to.

I want everybody to come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. I want everyone to go through baptism, as we saw last week. I want everybody to dedicate their babies to the Lord. But I know there'll be those that walk out of here and choose to disobey the unveiled gospel, but God is unveiling the gospel to you, and you'll walk out of here without Christ in your life

because somebody has told you something different, or somebody has said, if you do that, something may happen with your family, or may this or whatever. Listen, I can't unveil the gospel for you. I wish I could. I wish the best for you. I wish I could open up my mouth and say Jesus is Lord in your place so that you can have a relationship with him. But I can't you have to do that yourself. You have to present yourselves as a living sacrifice to God. See it happened to Paul. He asked Jesus to be the Lord of his life. It happened to me. I asked the Lord to be my the Lord of my life. And it can happen to you as well. You see in Acts, chapter nine, verse 17 through 19. And I'll close with this. Listen to these verses.

Then Ananias went to the house of the Lord and entered it, or excuse me, went to the house and entered it, placing his hands on Saul, he said, Brother Saul the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road.

As you were coming here has sent me that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Immediately, something like scales fell from his eyes, and he could see again. You see, he got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his strength

has the gospel been unveiled for you? Yet?

Have you had scales removed from your eyes? That's what will happen when you come to faith in Christ. The scales will be removed, and the gospel will be unveiled, and you'll be able to say yes to Jesus. Maybe you want to do that this morning, and again, like I said, Jesus publicly was on display for the world to see that he forgave you over sins. But you have to receive it personally. You have to ask Jesus, can you come into my life? Romans 10, nine and 10 are very clear that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, He says, you will be saved, and it's with your heart that you believe and are saved, but it's with your mouth you confessed and are saved for eternity. In verse 13, Paul goes on to say to the church at Rome, and he says, for all of those that place their faith in Christ, they will never be put to shame.

You don't have to be ashamed of what God wants for your life. He wants to unveil his plan for your life so that you can live for him. I'm going to say a word of prayer, and after I pray, we're going to sing a song. And if you would like to come to faith in Christ, would you come and just kneel here at one of these

altars and just ask Jesus to be the Lord of your life? Maybe you want to reconnect with God and say, God, I want to come back to you. I've been living a fake life. I put on my best, but it's really not what my heart shows. We should have a tuxedo over our heart.

We should have God's word written on the tablets of our heart.

And maybe you're here today and you just say, I don't know what God wants for me, but I want to know.

And those are the unknowns that you step out on faith. As we say yes to God, He reveals His plan to us, Father, this is your day, and we thank you for it. We thank you Lord that we get to come to the altar and express our faith in you. And so today, God, during this time of what we call an invitation, Father, God, would you bring those that need to come, would you convict those that need to have an unveiled gospel in their life? God, thank you for showing us Jesus. Thank you for sending your son that he would take up the penalty of our sins and give us new life in Christ's name, I pray, Amen, let's stand and we'll sing to this song to him. Amen.