Fishkill Baptist Church
Sunday May 17, 2026

      • Isaiah 1:18KJV1900

      • Psalm 66:1–5ESV

  • This Is Amazing Grace
  • In Christ Alone

      • Matthew 15:7–9ESV

      • Isaiah 53:5ESV

  • Jesus, Only Jesus
  • All To Us
  • Doxology
  • Intro: Theme/Topic (What’s the problem, the question, etc.)
    Now, I know that in this room there are Yankees fans. And there are Mets fans. And I also know that most of you are perfectly capable of being in the same room together without it becoming a problem. Most of the time.
    But I want to take you somewhere else this morning. I want to take you to New England.
    Because what you need to understand is that the sports culture up there operates at a completely different level of intensity. In New England, the Red Sox are not just a baseball team —
    They’re an identity. A heritage. They’re practically a religion.
    And the New York Yankees are not just a rival — they are, without exaggeration, the enemy. They are not friendly competition. And this is a way of life.
    You are born into it, You are raised in it, And you do not abandon it.
    So when I was growing up in Massachusetts, there was an unspoken but ironclad rule — you do not show up wearing Yankees gear.
    Not if you want friends. Not if you want to survive the school day.
    If someone had walked into school in a Yankees hat, Without a doubt, there would be an intervention.
    Now — a few years ago, I met someone who genuinely stopped me in my tracks. I met a woman who grew up in the Bronx.
    Not just in New York — in the Bronx. Her home was just a few blocks from Yankee Stadium.
    She grew up hearing the crowds. She lived and breathed the culture of that neighborhood her entire childhood.
    And she was a committed, diehard… Boston Red Sox fan!
    Now for those of you who are Yankees fans — I understand you are probably questioning this person’s poor judgment.
    But trust me — from where I stood, this New England boy was shocked! This was the kind of thing that demands an explanation. I had to know: How does that even happen? How do you grow up completely surrounded by that culture, and tradition from childhood, and somehow end up on the completely opposite side?
    In the end, of course — it's just baseball. And as much as it may pain some of you, her baseball team allegiance had no eternal consequences whatsoever.
    But it raises a question that does carry eternal weight. Because there are moments — in life, and especially in the church — when we encounter something that should stop us in our tracks. Something that warrants not just curiosity but genuine, urgent alarm.
    And the question I want to sit with this morning is this:
    In a church that genuinely values peace and unity — how do we know when a theological disagreement has crossed the line into a genuine spiritual emergency? How do we know when something is serious enough to sound the alarm?
    The Apostle Paul had exactly this experience with the churches in Galatia. People he loved and literally risked his life to bring the Gospel to. And what he wrote in response is one of the most fiery and urgent of all his letters.
    We began preaching through Galatians last time I was here two weeks ago. Today, we pick up where we left off just after Paul’s opening salutation.
    Scripture
    Let’s read it together now. Please turn with me to Galatians 1:6-10. If you need to use a pew Bible, you’ll find today’s text on page 1154. Once you’re there, please stand with me if you are able and follow along with me as I read...
    Galatians 1:6–10 ESV
    I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
    This God’s Word!
    Prayer
    Father, we’ve just opened Your Word. Now we ask that Your Living Word would open our hearts to encourage us and convict us. That we would see Jesus more clearly and that our affection for Him would grow deeper. We ask this in Jesus’ name Amen!
    Intro: Formal (give context to passage, setting the scene, big idea)
    Now before we dive into this text, I want to give you something that will help you feel the weight of what Paul is doing here.
    If you have spent time reading Paul's other letters, you know that he follows a fairly consistent pattern.
    He opens with a greeting, identifies himself, names his recipients — and then, almost without exception, he pauses to give thanks before he brings up the hard stuff.
    He thanks God for the people he’s writing to. He tells them he remembers them in his prayers. And he affirms something genuine and encouraging about their faith.
    Even in 1 Corinthians writing to a church with serious problems of immorality and division — Paul still could write: "I give thanks to my God always for you."
    But not here.
    In Galatians, the greeting ends — and Paul goes straight to astonishment.
    Because nowhere else is the emergency so severe, the error so fundamental, that Paul doesn’t even pause long enough to say thank you.
    The absence of thanksgiving is itself a statement. It tells us before Paul says another word that what has happened in Galatia is not a typical church problem. This is a crisis.
    And when we read verses 6 through 10, we discover what has provoked this alarm. The Galatian churches — churches Paul had personally planted — are in the process of deserting the very message that brought them to God in the first place, trading it for a distorted substitute.
    And this brings us right back to our question this morning:

    In a church that values unity, how do we know when something is serious enough to sound the alarm?

    Here is Paul's answer:

    It’s time to sound the alarm when the gospel is under attack — because when that line is crossed, we lose everything.

    This is the line the Galatians were crossing. And I want to show you three things Paul teaches us about that line.
    How the Line Gets Crossed.
    Why the Line Cannot Move.
    Who Will Hold the Line.
    Let's get started.

    How The Line Gets Crossed

    Look at verse 6. What disturbs Paul is not just what the Galatians are doing — it's how quickly they are doing it. They have barely received the gospel before they are trading it away.
    And Paul is not alone in his astonishment. Because this pattern didn't start in Galatia. Think about the Israelites:
    Freshly delivered from four hundred years of slavery in Egypt,
    Having just walked through the Red Sea on dry ground,
    Having watched God himself fight for them…
    And within weeks they are at the foot of Mount Sinai, worshiping a golden calf while Moses is still meeting with God on the mountain.
    This is not a Galatian problem. It's not an Israelite problem either. It is a human problem. It's why the old hymn writer could confess what most of us are afraid to:
    Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it — prone to leave the God I love.
    That wandering instinct runs deep in all of us. And in Galatia, it has led entire churches to the edge of a cliff.
    But before we shake our heads at the Galatians, we need to ask the harder question: Why?
    What made them vulnerable?
    What was the appeal of this so-called "other gospel" — this substitute that Paul says isn't even a gospel at all?
    Let me describe an attitude that is more common in churches than we might think.
    It's the assumption that the gospel is essentially beginner material. Milk for newborns. The ABCs of the faith.
    Important for getting people in the door — but eventually, if you are serious about growing, you need to move on to something deeper. Something more substantial. The gospel got you started. But maturity means leaving it behind.
    Now — do you see how that assumption made the Galatians sitting ducks?
    Along come these false teachers with an offer that sounds exactly like what serious believers would want.
    You want to really please God? Get circumcised. Start keeping the Law of Moses. Stop settling for elementary grace and start doing the hard work of obedience.
    It had all the appearance of depth. It felt like progress. It looked like the next level.
    But here is the truth: the moment the Galatians decided they were ready for something beyond the gospel — that was the exact moment they became vulnerable to losing it.
    Because the gospel is not the door you walk through once and leave behind. It is the very air you breathe inside the house.
    It is not just the milk — it is the meat and everything in between.
    It’s not the ABC’s of the faith — it’s A through Z.
    Because here’s the truth: The most mature believer in this room does not need the gospel less than they did the day they were saved. They need it just as desperately. They simply understand it more deeply.
    So what exactly did they trade it for? Look at verse 7. Paul says these false teachers were distorting the gospel. That word means to reverse something — to turn it inside out.
    This is helpful because there is a very specific order to the true gospel. Paul lays it out plainly in Ephesians 2:8–10
    Ephesians 2:8–10 ESV
    For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God,…For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works…
    Do you see the order? There is a cause and there is an effect.
    The cause: God saves you by grace through faith — as a gift, not a reward. The effect: You are now freed and empowered to live a life of good works.
    Grace produces works. That is the true gospel.
    The Galatian error simply reversed the order:
    Perform the works first — get circumcised, keep the law, prove your devotion — and then God will love and accept you as a result.
    Here is the clearest way I know to say it:
    The gospel is Good News — not Good Advice.
    Good News is the announcement of something that has already happened.
    Think about the moment a war ends and word reaches the families back home — it's over, they're coming home. — This is good news!
    Think about a phone call telling you that a crippling debt has been paid in full by someone else. — This is good news!
    You don't have to do anything to make it true. It's already done. All you can do now is receive it and respond.
    This is the gospel.
    Jesus fought and won the war against sin and death! The soul crushing debt you owed a holy God — Jesus paid it in full!
    The announcement has been made. The only question is: Will you receive it?
    Good Advice works completely differently.
    Advice tells you what you must do to see results. Advice says: here is the formula, here is the program, here is the performance requirement — now get to work.
    And the moment you mix advice into the announcement — the moment you attach a performance requirement to the gift — the Good News evaporates. You haven't improved the gospel. You lost it.
    It's like stepping onto a treadmill — running hard, sweating, straining — and after three miles you look up and realize you haven't moved an inch.
    Trading Good News for Good Advice will exhaust you and get you nowhere.
    Now it would be easy to point outside the church and say — this is obviously how the cults get this wrong. And they do. Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses — they trample on grace and give you a to-do list instead!
    But Paul wrote this letter to churches. So where do we see this reversal inside the church today?
    In more theologically liberal churches, the advice sounds like this: it doesn't really matter what you believe as long as you are a good, loving person.
    Your Buddhist friend will be in heaven because he is so kind, moral, and sincere.
    Here is my response to that: I don't doubt that there are deeply moral people in other religions. But morality is not what saves you. What we need is not just goodness — we need perfection. And in all of human history, only one person has been perfectly righteous. His name is Jesus. It is his righteousness we need.
    But what about those who are so devout and sincere? Think of a runner who is completely committed, totally devoted, running with everything they have… But running in the wrong direction!
    Sincerity doesn't change the destination. It just means you get there faster.
    Here’s the truth church: Morality will keep you out of jail. But it will not keep you out of hell.
    And if morality could save anyone — then Jesus died for nothing!
    In legalistic churches the advice sounds different but the logic is the same:
    To truly feel right with God, you need to follow all the rules. Dress the right way, talk the right way, never miss a Sunday, volunteer, and check every box.
    But let's be honest — we don't have to be in a legalistic church to fall into this.
    How many of us measure God's approval of us by how our quiet time went this week?
    How many of us feel closer to God after a good spiritual performance and further from him after a bad one?
    How many of us are more confident in an old conversion experience or a moment of spiritual intensity than we are in the finished work of Christ?
    When we do that — even subtly, or subconsciously — we have stepped off the gospel and onto the treadmill.
    And here is what that does to a person: it makes you radically insecure.
    Because your standing with God is only ever as stable as your last performance.
    And out of that insecurity flows pride when you're performing well and crushing shame when you're not.
    Defensiveness when you're questioned and envy when someone else seems to have it more together than you do.
    That is not the freedom the gospel promises. That is the bondage the gospel was designed to break.
    So this is how the line gets crossed: You reverse the gospel — trading grace for performance, Good News for Advice.
    And when you do, you are not just abandoning a theological idea. You are deserting a Person. The God who called you in the grace of Jesus Christ.
    Paul says they are "deserting him who called them." That word — deserting — is not the word you use for a fan who switches teams. It is the word you use for a soldier who defects to the enemy in the middle of the battle.
    The stakes are not merely intellectual. They are relational. They are eternal.
    The speed of it adds to Paul's horror — "so quickly." They barely had the gospel in their hands before they were letting go of it. Before they were letting go of Him.
    And that is why Paul is astonished. Not because they got a theology question wrong. But because they walked away from the God who loved them enough to call them by His grace.
    So the line has been crossed. But here is what Paul wants us to understand — nobody had the authority to cross it in the first place. And in verses 8 and 9, he makes this unmistakably clear."

    Why The Line Cannot Move

    Go back to verse 6 for just a moment. Paul says they are deserting "him who called them in the grace of Christ." Notice — it is not Paul who called them. It is not Paul's grace that made it possible for them to come.
    God called them. God's grace drew them in. And that means this gospel is not Paul's message to edit.
    It is God's message, entrusted to human messengers who have no authority to alter what they have been given.
    The line was drawn by God. And what God draws, no man can move.
    Now these false teachers in Galatia were almost certainly impressive people. They probably came from Jerusalem — the mother church, the epicenter of the faith.
    They likely had connections to the Apostle James himself. They knew the Old Testament Scriptures deeply. They were devout and serious. From the outside they looked like exactly the kind of people you should listen to.
    And to that Paul says: it doesn't matter.
    "Even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you — let him be accursed."
    Here is the principle buried in that statement, and I want you to hold onto it:
    It is not the credentials of the messenger that validate the message. It is the message that validates the messenger.
    We naturally assume that impressive people carry impressive truth.
    We assume that titles, degrees, platforms, and reputations are signals that someone can be trusted. But Paul completely inverts that logic.
    The gospel is not true because an apostle preaches it. An apostle is worth listening to because he preaches the gospel.
    The moment he stops — the moment he reverses it — he has disqualified himself, regardless of his resume.
    And notice who Paul includes in this hypothetical: himself. A capital-A Apostle. A man who personally encountered the risen Christ… Who received his gospel directly from Jesus, And who planted churches across the known world.
    And he says — if I ever stand before you and preach a different gospel, let me be accursed. Don't follow me. Don't defend me. Measure me against the message, and if I fail the test, kick me out!
    So hear this clearly: It is not a seminary degree, A pastoral title, The size of someone's platform, Or the number of books on their shelf that gives anyone authority over the gospel.
    A line has been drawn by the hand of God himself — and no Bible study leader, no pastor, no priest, no Pope, no church council, nor decree has the authority to move it. Not one inch.
    This is also why the church does not sit in judgment over the Bible. The Bible sits in judgment over the church.
    If you hear something from me, from a fellow elder, from some well-known preacher on YouTube or a podcast — do not simply receive it because of who said it. Take it back to Scripture.
    Measure it against what God has clearly said in His Word. That is not disrespect for your pastors. That is exactly what faithful church members are supposed to do.
    The Bereans in Acts 17 examined the Scriptures daily to see if what Paul was teaching was true — and Luke calls them noble for it.
    Pastors are not the standard. The Word of God is the standard. And every pastor — including me — is accountable to it.
    But Paul goes even further. He doesn't just say "even if we" — he says "even if an angel from heaven."
    Today it is not uncommon for people to claim a special word from God — a dream, or a vision. And these are experiences that can feel very real and significant to a person.
    But here is what Paul is telling us: your experiences cannot judge the Bible. The Bible must judge your experiences. No matter how vivid, how emotional, how seemingly supernatural —
    An experience that leads you away from or beyond the gospel of grace is not from God.
    This is not a theoretical warning. The history of false religion is littered with claims of angelic visitations that turned out to be something else entirely.
    Remember, Paul warned the Corinthian church that Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So, remember: while the packaging can look heavenly. The content is what matters.
    Test everything against the Word. Everything.
    Now look at what Paul does in verses 8 and 9. He doesn't just pronounce the anathema once — he says it twice. Deliberately.
    Anathema. It is the strongest word of condemnation available to Paul. Devoted to divine destruction. Set apart for the judgment of God.
    And he doubles it because he wants there to be no ambiguity about how serious this is.
    To preach a false gospel is to play with eternal life and death — and Paul wants everyone in Galatia to understand the stakes. A reversed gospel is no gospel at all. And those who continue in it, who cling to it without repentance, do not stand under grace — they stand under a curse.
    So the line is fixed by God and the stakes are eternal. Which raises a very practical question — what does it look like to actually live on the right side of that line? Who is willing to hold it when it costs something? Paul shows us the answer in verse 10.

    Who Will Hold the Line

    A double anathema is not what you say if you are trying to win friends and influence people.
    Which means the person who can say it — and mean it — is someone whose allegiance runs deeper than the approval of the crowd. That is who Paul was. And in verse 10 he shows us exactly why.
    Galatians 1:10 ESV
    For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.
    Notice that word still. There was a version of Paul before he met Christ, who lived for the approval of the right people, who climbed the right religious ladder, who curated his reputation with great care. But after he met Jesus, the crowd lost its power over him.
    Because here is what Paul understood: you cannot be a slave of Christ and a slave of the crowd at the same time. The two allegiances are simply incompatible.
    The moment pleasing people becomes your primary motive, you have already disqualified yourself from faithfully serving Christ.
    And the moment faithfully serving Christ becomes your primary motive, you have already freed yourself from the tyranny of what people think.
    That freedom is what makes it possible to say what Paul did in verses 8 and 9.
    A people-pleaser could never have written Galatians.
    But let’s be honest:
    How many of us have stayed silent about something that mattered because we were more afraid of the conversation than we were committed to the truth?
    How many of us have softened something that needed to be said clearly because we couldn't bear the thought of someone being upset with us?
    The approval of people is one of the most powerful forces in any church. And it is one of the most dangerous — because it can silence the very voices the church needs most.
    Now for the few of you who might get excited about conflict — Hear this:
    Holding the line on the gospel does not mean treating every theological disagreement like a five-alarm emergency.
    It requires wisdom — the wisdom to know the difference between the convictions we must hold and the preferences we can release.
    There are many things we can disagree about and still worship together as brothers and sisters in Christ.
    Musical styles. Bible translations. The age of the earth. The details of the end times.
    These are real differences — and they sometimes create friction. And sadly, too many churches divide over these things.
    But the gospel is not on that list.
    Because when grace is being traded for performance — when Good News is being dressed up as Good Advice — silence is not wisdom. And it’s not keeping the peace. Silence is a failure to love God and the very people who need the gospel most.
    We must sound the alarm. We must speak. We must hold this line.
    And if that creates division — if standing firm means someone leaves, or a relationship becomes strained, or things get uncomfortable — remember this:
    The evil is not in the division itself. The evil is in the error that made the division necessary.
    Paul did not want conflict in Galatia. He wanted a church that treasured the gospel of grace. The conflict was simply the price of protecting something worth more than his comfort.
    Healthy churches need men and women who are willing to fight when the gospel line is crossed — not because they love conflict, but because they love Christ and His people more than they love their own comfort and reputation.
    Conclusion/Response (Gospel & Repent/Believe)
    Do you remember the woman I told you about at the beginning? Who grew up in the Bronx, a few blocks from Yankee Stadium — and became a diehard Red Sox fan.
    Here’s how that happened…
    She married a man who had been college roommates with Red Sox legend Manny Ramirez. And through that relationship, she crossed over. She took off one jersey and put on another. And here is what strikes me — it wasn't an argument that changed her. It was a relationship.
    And that is exactly what the gospel does.
    We started this morning with a question:

    In a church that values unity, how do we know when something is serious enough to sound the alarm?

    Paul's answer:

    It's time to sound the alarm when the gospel is under attack — because when that line is crossed, we lose everything.

    We saw how the line gets crossed — when we treat the gospel as something to graduate from, we become vulnerable to trading grace for performance and Good News for Good Advice.
    We saw why the line cannot move — because the gospel belongs to God, not to any messenger however impressive, and those who try to redraw it stand under God's judgment.
    And we saw who will hold the line — the person whose allegiance to Christ runs deeper than their need for people’s approval.
    But I don't want you to leave here thinking this sermon was only about defending something.
    It’s also about receiving something.
    None of us chose grace on our own. We were drawn in by a God who called us and loved us before we had any interest in loving him back. And when he got hold of us, something changed. We took off the old jersey — the one that said team earn it — and we put on a new jersey that says team grace.
    Some of you have been in church for years but you are still wearing the wrong jersey. You’re still on the treadmill. Still measuring God's acceptance by your spiritual performance.
    That is not the gospel.
    The gospel is the announcement that your debt has been paid and the war has been won.
    You don't need to perform better or get your life in order first. You just need to receive what Christ has already done.
    The line Paul is holding is not a wall to keep you out. It is a boundary drawn to protect the only message that can bring you in.
    So receive it. Rest in it. And never let it go.
    Prayer
    Father, we thank you that the gospel is Yours — that You are the one who draws the line, and You are the one who holds it.
    Forgive us for the ways we have treated Your grace as something elementary — something to graduate from — when the truth is we need it just as desperately today as the moment we first believed.
    Forgive us for the times we have reversed it — trading the announcement of what Christ has done for the exhausting performance of what we think we must do.
    And Lord, for anyone in this room still on the treadmill — still straining to earn what you have freely given — would you draw them to Yourself to receive not good advice but Good News.
    That the debt is paid. The war is won. And the invitation is open.
    We ask all this in the name of the one who paid it all — Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
    Closing Song: My Faith Has Found a Resting Place
    Closing Words:
    My Faith Has Found a Resting Place.
    That is not just a hymn. That is the story of every one of us who has stepped off the treadmill and rested the full weight of our souls on what Christ has done for us!
    That is the resting place the gospel offers.
    Next Steps
    before I end the service I want to give you an opportunity to take a next step in your faith. Because the gospel is not just something to believe and walk away from. It is something to respond to.
    Maybe this morning is the first time the Good News has truly landed for you — and you want to receive the grace of God for the first time. If that is you, I want to invite you to come and pray with someone up front here after the service. We would love nothing more than to walk with you in that decision.
    Maybe you are already a follower of Christ — but you have never been baptized.
    Maybe it's time for you to become a member.
    Or maybe God is moving you to join a discipleship group, to help deepen your joy in following Christ.
    Whatever your next step is — don't leave here without taking it. The gospel is not meant to be admired from a distance. It is meant to be lived.
    Sending Charge
    And now as we go — hear this.
    You are about to into a world that is desperately in need of Good News. People in your neighborhood, your workplace, your school — people who are exhausted from the treadmill, who have been told their whole lives that if they just perform well enough God will accept them, or that if they are sincere enough and moral enough everything will be fine.
    They need to hear what you heard this morning.
    So go and be witnesses to the grace that found you. Go and share the Good News like it actually is good news — because it is.
    And trust the God who called you in His grace goes with you.
    BENEDICTION: Romans 15:13
    May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. ~ AMEN
    Church you are sent — Go in peace!

      • Galatians 1:6–10ESV

      • Ephesians 2:8–10ESV

      • Galatians 1:10ESV

  • My Faith Has Found A Resting Place
Fishkill Baptist Church
lori@fishkillbaptist.org
845-896-9386
http://fishkillbaptist.net
15 members