The sermon is an introduction to the book of Galatians, explaining its significance in relation to the law and the gospel. It emphasizes the importance of boasting in the cross of Jesus Christ and how studying the book can lead to personal transformation.

Please open your Bibles to the letter to the Galatians. You're turning to a book that is of enormous significance for us. You're turning to a book that explains an enormous passion of God to bring grace and peace to his people. You're turning to a book that helps us put so many things together regarding the law and the gospel. In this book you find some of the most urgent language to love something and we have entered into a study of Galatians because in the midst of our studies in Deuteronomy, we wanted to try to place these things in their context with the gospel.

In the law, we find a shadow of the gospel And here in Galatians, the Apostle Paul helps us understand so much of what is in the book of Deuteronomy. And they're very well connected. In chapter 21, we just read that, in cursive, it's he who hangs on a tree. The Apostle Paul quotes this in Galatians chapter 3 and makes a connection with the Gospel. We're coming in our studies in Deuteronomy to the curses of the Law.

What does that mean? What does that mean? Galatians helps us understand that. And so what we are doing now is taking a sort of a parenthesis in our studies in Deuteronomy of several weeks in the book of Galatians to help us understand the law, the Gospel, the curses of the law, and all the things that are there. And then we'll come back into Deuteronomy where we left off in just a few weeks.

What is the heart of the matter in the book of Galatians? We'll be learning this over the next several weeks. Here's what we're going to do this morning. I'm going to give an introduction to the book. We're going to walk through the whole book and then we're going to read it.

It'll take us about 22 minutes or so to read the book and that will be our morning. So we'll try to set it in its context and you have an outline before you that gives you a number of the stepping stones through the book to help us see the flow of the thought that's there. You know, I've been poring over, you know, dozens of outlines of the book of Galatians, and they all seem to be so different. And so this one is different as well. It didn't come out of a textbook, but as I read it, this is how I saw the flow of the argument that the Apostle Paul is making for the Gospel.

Consider that in the last paragraph of the book is the keystone for understanding everything that's there And I would say actually there are probably two or three verses that really summarize everything in the book. But consider this one that the apostle declares in the last part of the last chapter of the book. God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Consider that as the heart of this urgent message that the Apostle Paul is bringing to his people. Why is this so important?

Well, it's about boasting. And, it's not bad to boast, the apostle says. But what do you boast in? And the truth is that we only boast in the things that we love. We only boast in the things that we're attracted to.

We only speak highly of and beautifully for the things that we like. And the Apostle says, if you boast in anything, if you like anything, if you love anything, if you want anything, if you want your life to be centered around one thing, here's what it is, the cross. The cross of Jesus Christ. And so the apostle is leading us to what we ought to learn how to love, more than everything else in the world. What do you love?

What do I love? The older I get, the more I realize how worldly I am, how much I love this world, and yet the apostle is going to take us further here. He's going to take us to the cross that we can say with a genuine heart, God forbid, that I should boast in anything but the cross of Jesus Christ Now there are a number of questions To ask about this book, and I've listed a number of them on your outlines here The first question is what effect will this book have on us whenever we study a book of scripture it changes us It really does here's one of the most wonderful things about being in this congregation is that when the word goes forth people change. They're challenged by it. Lives are changed.

Thinking is changed. A whole world is opened up and that'll happen with us here, I know, because your hearts have always said, oh Lord, I love, I love what's here. Help me, help me to be a mirror of it. So I'm so, I'm so thankful that we, that we're taking this break from Deuteronomy to go into a whole new world to help us understand it, but it'll change us for sure and I pray that what the effect this book will have on