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Don Filcek; Galatians 1:11-24 Called by His Grace
Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service. We're currently studying Galatians in a series called Off the Chain, Finding Freedom in Galatians.
Here's Pastor Don Filsack.
I'm going to introduce the message a little bit here this morning before we come to the music time, but I've been reminded the past three weeks as I've been studying through the book of Galatians just how meaty and thick the letters of Paul really are.
So, I mean, have you read Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians? Have you read some of those? Meaty, dense, really thick. Would you agree with me on that? Every verse could be expounded with all kinds of application points, but I want to point out that that's not the main way that we read letters, is it?
I mean, the main way, like, I'm sure if you get a letter from your spouse, you get an email from a co-worker, you just take one sentence out of it, and you just think about that sentence over and over again, and you just meditate on that sentence, and you think about that sentence.
Then maybe the next day you read another sentence out of that letter and just pour over it. Is that the way that we respond to letters and emails? That's not the way that we respond to letters. I mean, letters have a flow to them.
They have content. They have purpose. They were written for a reason, and the reason is the interconnectedness of sentences. I fear sometimes that in a culture where we text a lot, and we fire off quick emails, that we lose the connectedness of sentences and paragraphs and the flow of thoughts, right?
Would you agree with me on that? A lot of times we just fire off, you know, grammatically incorrect text with, you know, when the autocorrect gives the wrong word in there, and you're embarrassed about it.
You know, I mean, it doesn't even, you know, spelling doesn't really matter, all of those kinds of things. I'm certainly not down on texting. It's just a different mode of communication, right? But when it comes down to it, letters convey content through the meaning of words that are a part of a sentence, that are part of paragraphs, that are part of the entire flow of thought for the point of the letter.
And so we want to try our best, and I'm trying my best as we go through the book of Galatians to get down the idea, the thoughts that Paul is putting into his letter. It was written with a purpose, and so we don't want to just take one sentence out, because when we do that, we can easily start to misunderstand the main point of what he's getting at.
And so this week, Paul is going to share a loaded biography with us. We're going to look at a chunk, a section of this, Galatians 1, 11 through 24, and it's a loaded biography. He's going to tell us how he came to understand the gospel, how he was saved and converted.
But equally, he's going to tell us about his call, and the authenticity of his call to the gospel. He's going to basically defend his authority to tell us what the gospel is, and he's doing so with purpose to those who were in Galatia.
And the reason for this biography in the middle of this letter is that Paul was being accused of preaching only a part of the gospel. People were coming in behind him, following his footsteps in ministry, trailing him by about a half a year, coming into places that he had ministered the gospel and said, well, that's great, Paul told you that the gospel is based on grace, that you're saved because Jesus died on the cross.
Great, you're on the road, you're on the path, but you haven't arrived yet, because what you need to do is you need to follow the Old Testament law as well. You need to jump through some hoops. You need some things that you don't have in your life in order to be okay with God.
You started down the road with Paul, that's okay, that's fine and dandy. But now you need what I have to offer you, as what these former Jews were coming in. And how many of you recognize that that's something that's very applicable to where we live today?
That you can have all kinds of voices say, well, I, you know, voices crying in the wilderness, I am the way, follow my way. Don't, you know, okay, you can start with the Bible, the Bible's a good starting point, but now you need to do this and this or this and this.
Have you heard those voices? People saying that to be really right with God, you need to read my version of the Bible. This translation, you need to do this, or you need to dress like me, or act like me, or talk like me, or not talk like that, or whatever.
And I think it would be valuable to start to clarify a couple of terms that are going to be used a lot in the sermon series. The gospel, that is, the two terms are gospel and law. We're going to be talking about the gospel every week, we're going to be talking about the law every week.
That's what the theme of this letter is, because these former Jews were coming in and saying, you need to live by the law. The gospel is a good start, it's okay, that's okay. So the law, in essence, is a primary feature of the Old Testament, the Old Covenant.
Like, how many of you read the Old Testament, or at least parts of it? You know, you get into Genesis, that's the beginnings, and then you get into Exodus, Leviticus. Deuteronomy are the three books where you find the law.
And how many of you read through Leviticus? How many of you read through Deuteronomy? Or the second half, the first half? How many of you started Exodus, and it's like, this is cool, man, you know? It's like, all these, and they're traveling through the wilderness, and this is all happening, and then all of a sudden, the second half, you're like, what happened?
What happened in the middle of this book, all of a sudden, I'm reading about laws and rules and regulations, and don't sew two types of cloth together, and like, what are all these laws and rules about?
Well, that's the Old Testament law. It existed to both show people the extremely high standard of God, and also to bring us all to the point of recognizing how utterly we fall short of his standard. Now, I want to point out that the law is a good thing.
David talks about the law being sweeter than honey, the law being a good thing in that it shows us the way we ought to live, what we should look like if we are pleasing and honoring to God. And I want to point out that when we read the Old Testament law, we should be looking at it for principles and understanding, something about the character of God in this rule.
Like, two cloths sewn together, what's that all about? Well, it's about God's people looking distinct from the pagan cultures that were around them. The pagan cultures were the first ones in that era and in that area that were sewing different types of cloth together.
And God says, just don't take everything that you do from the people around you. You are to stand off and to be different than them. Do you understand? I mean, so these laws have principles behind them.
They're a good thing. And yet, laws can never make us right with God. All they will ever do is point out that we cannot achieve God's moral standard. Does that make sense? That was silence. Does that make sense?
Are you getting that? That the law points out our inability to do what God wants. So if you think about it, the law is an all-encompassing, this is my definition, the law is an all-encompassing way of approaching God based on rules and regulations.
And that's the Old Testament. That was the people of Israel. God had called them out from Egypt. Remember, they were slaves in Egypt. He called them out and was giving them the promised land. On the way to the promised land, it's where he gave the law on Mount Sinai.
They're given that in Exodus and Leviticus and then a retelling of it in Deuteronomy. And they're given that as a way of life. That they were meant to be distinct and different from the cultures around them.
But fortunately, that's not where the story ends. And so the gospel of grace is now the central operating feature of the New Testament, where law was the central operating feature of the Old Testament, with the sacrificial system being a part of that law and all of the Ten Commandments and those rules and those regulations.
But now, in the New Testament, the word testament can be translated covenant. Old covenant and new covenant. Covenant being a way of relationship, a way of interaction. And there's a new covenant now, and it's the gospel of grace.
That when enough history had passed under the law to prove our inability to follow it, God sent his son, Jesus Christ. God in flesh who completed the law on our behalf. As a man, completed and fully kept the law, lived a sinless life.
And then he paid the just penalty for our sins by completing that portion of the law that was the sacrificial system in the Old Testament, by sacrificing himself on the cross. So that anyone who acknowledges Jesus as their king and asks him to save them will have eternal life and is reconciled with God.
Is made right, not on the basis of law. Because we cannot keep the law. But Jesus Christ, the perfect God-man, came down in flesh and kept the law for us. And because Jesus met and fulfilled the law, he therefore now sets us free.
This is Paul's reasoning throughout this book. Because he met and fulfilled the law and has sacrificed himself for us, he sets us free from the requirements of the law. So that those who are now his live by faith and not by laws, rules, and regulations any longer.
Now I want to point out that when I'm talking about law, I'm talking about spiritual law. I'm talking about biblical law. I'm talking about that which was revealed through Moses. I'm not talking about the speed limit sign out here.
So try that the next time you get pulled over. Somebody here is probably going to get pulled over in the next couple months. Hope it's not me. Try that when you get pulled over. Cop comes up to the window.
You know you were speeding. Yeah, but I am free in Christ. I think I'm guessing that you end up walking a white line or something or doing some kind of a drug test at that point. He's going to be like, what is going on?
Blow into this thing.
Okay, like free and what's that? What's that got to do with? What's that got to do with anything? You know, it's freedom from spiritual law. And when we talk about law, there's nothing in Paul that's going to rebel against civil law like that, that the government has instituted.
That would be a misunderstanding of what Paul is talking about in Galatians when it comes to law. And I think obviously we all understand that. So in our text this morning, Paul is going to begin his defense of the good news, of this gospel of grace over and opposed to law by explaining that this gospel came from God and is worked out through God.
So I want you to open your Bibles to Galatians 1. We're going to be looking at 11 through 24. If you take the Bible out that's in the seat back in front of you, that's page 832. So easy to find. Turn to 832 there and you'll be right where I'm at.
And we'll read verse 11 through the end of chapter one, which is verse 24. If you get a second there, then let's dive in. For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel.
For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it.
And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people. So extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he, who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me.
But I went away into Arabia and returned again to Damascus. Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him 15 days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother.
And what I am writing to you before God, I do not lie. Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only were hearing it said, he who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.
And they glorified God because of me.
Let's pray.
Father, I rejoice in the gospel of grace, the gospel of grace that can turn a life like Paul's around, the gospel of grace that can turn and has turned my life around and has the power to transform us and change us, because it is truly good news.
And we are set free in a way that the law could never set us free. And just the glory of the end of this passage where it's very clear that they rejoiced and they glorified God because of the transformed life that Paul experienced and they saw it.
And Father, we've seen it here at Recast, and we long to see it more that people's lives would be transformed by your grace that gives a new heart, takes out the old heart of stone and gives us a heart of flesh that beats and loves and cares and desires to follow you.
Father, I ask that for each one of us that we would come to understand grace in a radical life-transforming way, that we would genuinely fall in love with Jesus and recognize his intense, amazing love for us.
And Father, that we would rejoice in our relationship with you as Father through your Son. And it's in his name that I pray.
Amen.
But as we jump into this text, remember we're in verses 11 through 24, and it's helpful for you to have your Bibles open in front of you as we're going through just because it's... I'm going to walk you through the text, and that's what I do every Sunday.
So it kind of helps for you to be able to reference that and look down at it and make sure, I'd encourage you, check and make sure what I'm saying is accurate. So it's in here. But Paul is writing to fellow believers in Galatia.
He says that right off the bat in verse 11, for I would have you know brothers, a generic term that was used often in the New Testament church for followers of Jesus Christ, fellow believers. And so that's who he's addressing.
And the gospel that he preached to them was not man's gospel. He says that right away in verse 11. The good news, what Paul's getting at, is the good news of Jesus Christ, that he died on the cross for our sins and rose again three days later, that anyone who believes in him and puts their faith and trust in that and asks him to save him will be saved, is not a product of human ingenuity.
We didn't come up with that one on our own. It did not originate with humanity. We didn't kind of think of, hey, what's a good story we could come up with? What's a good plan of redemption? Let's run with this.
Paul says it's not man's gospel. Now, if anyone wants to know exactly what the gospel was that Paul proclaimed in Galatia, Luke, the author Luke in the Bible, in the book of Acts, recorded a super long sermon delivered by Paul to the Galatians when he was there.
If you're taking notes, you can jot this reference down. I'd encourage you to read it sometime this week. If you wanna know in depth, what was the gospel that was proclaimed in Galatia? But it's Acts 13, verses 16 through 47.
You're looking at 31 verses. That is a direct quotation from a sermon given by Paul in Galatia while he was there, proclaiming the gospel. But there's one line that I wanna highlight from that sermon that he was proclaiming in Galatia.
And it kind of really dovetails with this message that he then now is speaking back to them as he's left them now and is removed by over a thousand miles and is writing them a letter because people are challenging that very gospel that he proclaimed.
But this is what he said when he was with them. Now, this is obviously in the middle of a long explanation of who Jesus Christ is, what Jesus Christ has done. And then he says this in verse 39 in Acts 13.
And by him, that is by Jesus, everyone who believes is freed from everything from which you could not be freed by the law of Moses.
End quote.
That the gospel that in Jesus, you can be set free from that which the law of Moses could never set you free. He declared those words while he was there present with them in Galatia in a town called Antioch.
So he was there in that Roman district of Galatia saying those words. And so while he was there, he clearly and loudly proclaimed a gospel of freedom that cannot come from the law. He was very blatantly direct with them.
You cannot be set free by the law of Moses. You need a freedom that comes beyond that and it's only found in Jesus Christ. That was his good news. And that very gospel is the one that Paul says, I did not receive that from man.
I was not taught that gospel, he says. But go ahead and look at verse 12. For I did not receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of the spirit. Paul received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ himself.
So Paul is appealing ultimately in this text to a higher authority when people were challenging him. People were coming in and saying, on what basis do you proclaim this good news apart from the law? How many of you know if you were raised in the law, you were steeped in the law, your entire life and entire concept of approach to God was based on law, that Paul's gospel might strike you as a little strange.
What's this no law business? That's how, that's the whole way of, the whole Jewish way of relating to God. And he comes in and radically says, no, you can't do it by law. It's based on grace by a gift from God to you.
And people were coming in and challenging that. And in reality, many people even challenge today the authority of Paul. They're saying, on what basis, on what authority do you base these things? Why are you coming in just radically saying this thing about no law, all grace?
And I have to confess that it takes faith to believe that the gospel that we see in Galatians comes from God, right? I mean, really, isn't Christianity, when it comes down to it, an issue of faith? Isn't it whether we believe this is true or not?
At any level, at any turn, it is based on faith that we believe that Paul had it right, that he was genuinely receiving this revelation from Jesus Christ. Now, some modern scholars have even accused Paul of hijacking Christianity and inventing the gospel.
Have any of you ever heard that before? An accusation against Paul that he kind of came in as like a 13th apostle that came in and transformed it and radically moved it? And you see, for me, that's actually, it struck my life at a very personal level.
One of my mentors in college, and actually the man who performed my wedding ceremony that married Linda and I, started delving into this very issue. And he would say that the reason he walked away from his faith, he was a pastor, and he walked away from his faith based on just some notion, some scholarship out there that says Paul hijacked Christianity and didn't really know what he was talking about, and it really should be more Jewish.
And that just radically, just like, oh, whoa, that blew, you know, and he had a brain bleed on that one. But that just ignores something that is just significantly glaring throughout the New Testament.
And I just wanna say this one thing, and obviously, if there's any of you that's struggling, I don't wanna be sarcastic about this because some of you out there may be struggling with this, and I'd encourage you to please come and talk with me.
If that level of like historical evidences and things like that is kind of the realm where you're rolling right now, that's where the rubber meets the road for you, and you're really wrestling with it.
And I don't mean to minimize that because that can be a significant struggle. But think about this. The gospel that Paul preached, Paul is not the only one who preached it. You have significant corroboration.
You have significant unity in the New Testament. It is the gospel that Peter proclaims in his letters. It is the gospel that James proclaims in his letter. It is emphasized by John in his multiple letters and in his gospel.
It is emphasized by Matthew, by Mark, by Luke, by whoever wrote Hebrews. It's very abundantly clear. It is amazing. It is glorious. It is just crazy how lockstep and how tight all of the New Testament books fit together on this one thing, that the gospel is a gospel of grace, that it comes to us as a gift from the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Paul didn't have the ability to change it. It was already, things were already being written about it. The other apostles were already there. And I'm convinced that the reason that these various gospel accounts or accountings of the good news of Jesus Christ, one of the reasons that they all point to one good news, one solid theme all throughout the New Testament, is because the gospel is based on not man's authority, not Paul's authority, but it is based on the Lord Jesus Christ himself and his revelation to these men.
It is not based on the authority of Paul or on any other person. The gospel does not rise and fall on the authority of any one individual. That's what Paul's getting at right here in our text today. It's not that, he's not appealing to his own authority.
Whose authority is he appealing to? Jesus Christ, a revelation that Jesus Christ actually appeared to him. And now from verses 13 through 24, Paul is gonna share a short biography with us that the Galatians already knew in part.
If you look at verse 13, he says this, for you have heard of my former life in Judaism. I think they knew something about his history and his past. He had visited with them. He had spent some time with them.
He proclaimed the gospel to them. He had worked with them and encouraged them. And so they knew some of his story, but they didn't know it in detail. And he's gonna say, what you know in part, I'm gonna fill in some blanks for you here.
I'm gonna give you a little bit more detail in my history and where I come from.
He says,.
I was raised in Judaism,.
Right?
Raised as a Jew. And he had persecuted the church of God. And verse 13 gets really intense. Look at what he says of himself. For you heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God.
Violently.
And I tried to destroy it. Strong words that he uses. Paul did not candy coat or sugar coat his story of his former life before Christ. He was a bad guy. I think sometimes we kind of just kind of, even in our minds or in our Sunday school classes, or when we were raised as a kid and hearing these stories, you have a tendency to gloss over how bad of a dude Paul really was.
He was a murderer. He was seeking to destroy the one thing that God was in the process of setting up as his institution on this planet for the furtherance of the good news. And his goal, the end game for him was, the best case scenario for him was the destruction of the church.
Pretty rough. Pretty rough guy. That's where he comes from. And did you catch the phrase? Cause he's like burying himself by some of these statements. Did you catch the phrase in verse 13 of who owns the church?
Whose church was Paul persecuting? The church of God. His church. God owns the church. And now a lot of times we get the word church confused in our mind. Church as recast church or the first congregational church or variety of churches, the first Baptist church.
The church used generically in scripture is those who have been purchased by the blood of Jesus Christ, who have asked him to save you. How many of you know that there are people in most all churches who are part of the big church?
Do you get what I'm saying?
And there are some people who are not attending church this morning that are a part of the church and they should be in a local assembly. But are you getting what I'm saying? But I would say that there was a time, kind of a confession on my part.
There was a time in my personal history when I was pretty discouraged about the local church. And I'm guessing that some of you have come from that kind of a background where you've gone through seasons or times where it was like the church just felt like a lot of hypocrisy to you or you saw a lot of hypocrisy.
Have some of you been there before? You've actually seen that with your own eyes.
You've lived it.
You've experienced it. That can be a tough place to be. I would have maybe even gone so far at a time in my life of saying that a Christian, I don't know, take it or leave it with the church, you know, as a group meeting together.
I don't know if any of you've ever gone that far, but I would have thought at some point that it was really just a lot of hypocrisy. But as God has shown me over time through the pages of scripture, how much he loves his church, I've had to repent and to apologize to God for the way that I bashed the one that he loves so much.
Think about your own lives. I really am, I really work hard now at being careful about the way that I speak about the church. And I'm even careful when I use phrases and I'll say it sometimes. I think I said it a few weeks ago.
The church is a beautiful mess. And I mean that. And I think I'm thoughtful when I say that. Is the church a mess?
It is, it is.
Are we people?
Yeah, then it's a mess. Are there hypocrites? Yeah, like us, right? People who, and I'm gonna be, you know, part of that is because of this whole law of grace thing, right, is there a standard that God desires for us to live at?
Is there legitimately a standard? Is there something he desires your life to look like? You better believe there is. Are we matching it?
Are we meeting it?
No, so that's by definition, if we desire to meet this standard and we don't, isn't that kind of what hypocrisy looks like? The hard part is when you then in turn love to and relish and delight in pointing out that standard to others as if you've arrived at it.
Isn't that kind of what really fuels our feelings of hypocrisy when somebody isn't meeting that standard? They know they're not meeting that standard, but they're driving everybody else to that standard and saying, you've gotta meet that too.
And I think that's a lot of what was going on in Galatia. There was a lot of these Judaizers, these people who wanted everybody to adopt the Jewish laws and the ceremonies and the dietary laws and all of that stuff and eat like us and dress like us and make sure you keep the Sabbath like us and all of that when they themselves were not meeting God's standard, even in some of the little things.
So I've had to repent of that because the church is the people that Jesus Christ has died for and he loves us like crazy. I love the church now. I love it. I love you guys. And in all honesty, I think we even get it mixed up in our minds like this building is the church and I'm going to church.
No, we're going to be the church. When we gather together like this, if this building is empty, it's not a church. It's as we gather together that the church arrives. The church comes here every Sunday.
I love that. It's the people. And that church, the church that belongs to God, that is who Paul had been opposing with his life. It's kind of scary when you really think about it, isn't it? Paul was advancing, he says, in Judaism.
He was like a rising star. He was on track to be like the poster child for the hope of a new generation of Jews. He studied under the most prominent rabbi of his age, Gamaliel. Like to study and to be tutored by this dude was to be somebody.
That means that his parents saw promise in him. The leading rabbis of the day saw promise in him. They were hopeful that he's going to be the new dude in Judaism around Jerusalem. And he was extremely zealous, the text tells us, for the traditions of his fathers.
Now there's a word for law and there's a word for traditions. How many of you know that legalism and laws tend to this type of thing? You have the law, like keep the Sabbath holy. But what happens is if we follow that as a law, all of a sudden you have some questions that crop up in your mind, right?
Do you have some questions when you're told, keep the Sabbath holy? Which Sabbath?
What day?
For what duration? What does it mean to keep it holy? Don't work on the Sabbath. Okay, so what does work mean? And how many of you can relate in your own heart that when you hear a rule, you can quickly, like maybe some of us are gifted at this, at finding the loopholes.
Like how do I get out from under this one? Okay, I've heard it actually said, and this is a funny joke, I don't know if it's really true or not, but I've actually heard it said that occasionally because Jews are not supposed to travel.
On the Sabbath,.
Unless some of the technical traditions that we're talking about here that Paul was zealous for, some of the traditions actually say, unless you're traveling over water. In other words, the letter of that law would be like, if you're on a boat, I mean, you can't control if you're traveling or not, like the wind is carrying you along, so you can't really follow that, so you can't abide by it because you're limited to a certain amount of distance on the Sabbath.
So I've actually heard of Jews taking a bottle of water and putting it under their airplane seat. So they're traveling over water, okay? Because I mean, you can look for loopholes, right? You can try to figure out how can I keep this law, keep the letter of the law without really understanding the spirit engaged in it.
Are you getting what I'm saying on this? And so that kind of legalism is very easy for us to get into. That's what Paul was doing, traditions. The traditions are the added rules to help you keep the rules.
How many steps can you take? Can you light a fire on the Sabbath? All of these things were legislated carefully. Could you pick grain on the Sabbath? What about just a couple? What if they were within arm's reach?
What if your ox falls in a ditch on the Sabbath? Can you help it out or is it gonna just have to starve to death and die down there? What if somebody's injured and somebody has to set a broken arm? Can you do that on the Sabbath?
Are you getting what I'm saying on this? So all of those traditions, and it says Paul was extremely zealous for the traditions, the additional laws, the extras. You getting a picture of where Paul was at in life?
Opposing the church of God violently, a violent man, hostile to what God was really doing in the world, and at the same time, zealous for these minuscule details of the law. So far we have Paul in a pretty rough state, but then in verse 15, this glorious thing happens, and this glorious thing happens, and I pray that it happens for you like it has happened for me, like it happened for Paul, and it's the turn in his life.
Every life needs a turn, a change, a conversion from one direction to another, and you can analyze as I talk about this, has that turn happened for you? But this is what it was for Paul, and in verses 15 through 16, there's something just amazing here, because really verses 15 and 16 are the turn, and they are so loaded with intense theological nuggets of yummy goodness that I could preach a sermon on verse, I could preach a sermon on verse 15, I could preach a whole sermon on verse 16, and then we might as well wrap it up with verse 17.
It's like there's so much intensity in these statements that Paul makes about his conversion, about the revelation of Jesus Christ, about God meeting with him. The turn came for Paul when the one who had set him apart before he was born, let's camp on that thought for just a minute and think about God in terms of the one who set Paul apart before he was born, the God who is all-knowing, the God who's all-powerful, the God who knows how, he knows the beginnings from the ends, the alpha and the omega,.
That God,.
The one who set him apart from before he was born, and that God acted. Paul teaches a theology here that God sets apart before people are even born. David said in the Psalms that God knit us together in our mother's womb.
We are known by God before we are even born. Given birth. And so God set him apart, but he also then called him by his grace. He didn't just set him apart and then hope that Paul achieved some sense of calling and eventually was led into ministry.
He set him apart for ministry and then at the proper time, he called him to ministry by his grace. And grace means that Paul acknowledges he did not earn his calling. It wasn't because he was so good that God called him.
It wasn't like God looked down among humanity and said, this guy's got promise. And this guy's got it going on. He's he look at look at him. I need one of those. I need me a Paul. Going to grab one of those.
That was not what was going on here. It was just strictly by his grace. As a matter of fact, he was so violently opposing what God was doing that nothing but grace, nothing but a free gift could explain that calling.
It's like God picked the one of the worst so that we would be confounded in our minds about the way that God calls people. Now there's some good intention teaching. I say good intention because I think it's often it's often preached this way.
Or taught this way.
With good intentions to put yourself out there,.
Work hard,.
And maybe God will use you to do great things. But Paul here is a spokesman for the other side. God will call you and use you when he's good and ready.
To call you and use you for real.
So I would say it this way. You might as well prepare yourself,.
Pray,.
And be ready because God is going to use you for something. And one of my prayers is that God does not use me as a huge case study in what not to do in life.
He could.
I pray that that's not the end game for me is that he uses me for that ultimate like, oh man, at my funeral they're like, this is the example of what not to do. But what God chose to do for Paul was literally, the text tells us, the turn for Paul was the revelation of his son when his eyes were opened to who Jesus Christ was.
He received a miraculous vision. I dare say that nobody in this room when they came to faith in Christ received a miraculous vision and Jesus came to you on the road and you were blinded and you saw Jesus Christ himself.
But it's no different. The turn comes in our lives when Jesus Christ is revealed and we see him as he is. The loving savior who gave himself for us and that is when the turn happens. No revelation of Jesus Christ, no understanding of who he is, no conversion, no change, no turn.
Same old, same old. Maybe it takes on different forms. Maybe we try to improve our lives. Maybe we try to follow more rules and more laws or take on some more religious activity or give more or go to church more.
But without an encounter with Jesus Christ, without him being revealed to us, without our eyes open to his supremacy, to his glory, to his beauty, there is no room for change. No real, long-lasting, internal heart change can happen without meeting Jesus Christ.
That is the good news. And he received. He did not only have that turn, that change, that conversion, but when he actually saw Jesus on a real date in real history, encountered Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus, he also received a calling straight from Jesus Christ to preach the gospel to the Gentiles.
A very clear, audible voice to him. How many of you would like that kind of calling? Wouldn't that be awesome? I'd like one of those every morning, like Jesus just telling me what he wants me to do today.
I don't get that,.
But I would love it. But that's what happened for Paul. At this point, he didn't go to Jerusalem, he says. I didn't go to confer with the other apostles. There wasn't a conference to get their story straight, make sure that their gospels all lined up.
As a matter of fact, Paul immediately went off into ministry in Arabia, seeking to fulfill his calling to the Gentiles immediately. In context, I've heard some people say that he went out to Arabia to basically study or to learn.
There's nothing that indicates that in the text. As a matter of fact, what is more likely in the text, because it comes right after his calling to preach the gospel to the Gentiles, that what he did is obeyed.
What he did immediately, he's in Damascus, he encounters Jesus Christ, he's blinded, Ananias comes to him, prays for him, he's healed, he's baptized, he reckons with this new truth and immediately says, I'm called, Jesus Christ told me I'm supposed to go to the Gentiles.
Where are the Gentiles? I need to find me some Gentiles. And Arabia was full of Gentiles, a bordering area right next to Damascus, a Roman province at the time, and he's gonna head down to Arabia and meet up with some Gentiles.
Now, what fruit came of that ministry? We don't know. It's amazing. It'd be cool someday on the new earth to sit down with Paul and talk about the things, the gaps that we don't know. Like what was the result of that ministry?
Maybe he had three years of fruitless ministry in Arabia. We don't really know. Maybe churches were planted there and maybe that's where some of the seeds of the Coptic church that still exists today came from.
We really don't know. But after returning to Damascus, after hanging out in Arabia for somewhere around three years, Paul finally now goes down to Jerusalem. Now remember, he's already been ministering the gospel during this time.
He's already been proclaiming the good news. And he now, for the first time, meets the apostles and he meets up with, the text tells us Cephas, which is the Hebrew word for rock, which is the Greek word Petros, which is Peter.
So Peter is sometimes called Cephas, by his Hebrew name. Sometimes he's called Petros, by his Greek name, Peter. But even there, he only spent 15 days with Peter in Jerusalem. He actually is going to encounter some difficulty there by these same Judaizers who it's likely some of the same group were following him around and some of them actually are going to threaten him.
But he says, I was only there 15 days. I did not meet with any of the other apostles except for James, the Lord's brother, who had become the lead elder of the church in Jerusalem. Can you imagine having the brother of Jesus as your pastor?
Like for real, like that's the way it was in Jerusalem during this era. Like the guy who was raised.
Like with Jesus.
I would step aside real quick if the brother of Jesus wanted to pastor this church, I'd be sitting out there with you just kind of soaking it in.
And he's like,.
Yeah, when we were 13, we were hanging out and I was like, mom, it was Jesus' fault and he was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, nah, nah, nah, you know better than that. I don't know. I mean, what would his sermon illustrations.
Be like, right? Like, hey,.
Jesus and I were hanging around and that would be pretty sweet. But the mention of James here is historically true. So what really happened, he really did encounter James there when he was in Jerusalem.
He met with him, but it's also important that he mentions it here in the letter because it's got an important point for the Galatians that could be missed on us if we don't read the letter as a whole, we don't understand the flow of it.
Because in the next chapter, we're going to find that some men were traveling around to churches in this day and age and were claiming the authority of James. These men who were saying that the law must be followed to be in with Christ, were saying James told, we come based on the authority of James.
Now, I think it's quite unlikely that James actually endorsed.
Their travels,.
But they were trying to pull one over on people. They were claiming authority that was not really there. I don't think James would have said, you need to follow the law too in order to be okay with Christ.
But do you see what I'm saying? So they're appealing to the authority of James and he's like, no, no, wait. I met with James. I talked with James. I know the gospel that James proclaims. I spent 15 days with him back a few months ago or a couple of years ago.
And you know what? He endorsed my ministry, this gospel that I'm proclaiming, but I was already doing that ministry beforehand. I didn't get that authority.
From James.
We both got it from the same source. We both got it from Jesus Christ. Verse 20 highlights how heavily under attack Paul was. He did not even believe that the Christians in Galatia would believe his claims of authority and that they were not conferred that his authority didn't come from the apostles.
He feels compelled to shout, I'm not lying. And it's an exclamation point in the text. I'm not lying, people. Listen to me. It really was this way.
This is the way.
That it really went down. And so after these 15 days in Jerusalem, according to Acts, he went up to Tarsus in Cilicia, his hometown. Now Acts says he went to Tarsus. This account says he went to Cilicia.
Cilicia is the region. Tarsus is a specific city. And then it also says then he went into the regions of Syria, Syria being the region, Antioch being the city. So Acts tells you the cities that he went to.
But here in our account, we're actually getting the districts. All of these travels and events line up with a section in the book of Acts that we covered a couple of years ago because I preached through the book of Acts for a couple of years here.
And the reference is Acts chapter 9. And having preached through the book of Acts, it has been really beneficial in my personal study throughout the New Testament. I'd encourage you to study the book of Acts so that you can understand how these other things come in together.
How does the book of Galatians fit in with the history, the life of Paul and all of that? And it's awesome to see how well the stories and the letters hold together. But in reality, some have posed challenges to reconciling Acts chapter 9 with Galatians chapter 1.
And if you're one of those people who tends, I doubt that many of you have taken Acts chapter 9 here and Galatians chapter 1 here.
And went,.
How does this all, how does this history fit together? And maybe some of you have. And if you have and you've struggled with that, then come and talk with me. And I'd love to talk with you because it actually does fit well together.
But there are some difficulties because in Acts it says, he went down to Jerusalem and met with the apostles. And then what does it say here in our text today? He went down and he met with Cephas and James, but none of the other apostles.
Some people, it doesn't say in Acts he met with all 12. And so you have to understand that it's thoroughly appropriate for Luke to say that Paul went down and met with the apostles. He just happened to only meet with two of them.
He didn't meet with all 12. And he's now here saying, I didn't meet with all 12. I met with just two of them.
But you see,.
I mean, if you want to really wrangle and you want to get difficult in it, then people can see what they want to see. And if you want to disagree.
With scripture,.
I mean, you know, if you want to disagree.
There's plenty of room for that.
I mean, there's plenty of things.
That you could grab a hold of.
If you come to it and approach it with a disagreeable attitude.
To begin with.
But it does fit together. And if you want to talk to me about that, we can wrangle through that. But Paul was still personally unknown, the text tells us, to the churches in Judea. Though he had spent just a little time in Jerusalem, he spent most of his time in the synagogues preaching to them.
He didn't spend a lot of time with the churches and he didn't travel around to Judea. So he was unknown to those churches. But word even reached as far as Judea. Now he's miles removed up in modern day Turkey, in Cilicia and in Syria.
But word is spreading that the one who had persecuted the churches was now boldly proclaiming the faith that he had once tried to destroy, the text tells us in verse 23. Now that's the power of a testimony.
That's the power of a changed life. That people are bringing honor and glory to God because they see the transformation in somebody's life. They see God grab a hold of a heart, change a person from the inside out.
And they're like, wow.
Have you guys seen that? I've been around Recast for three years and I've seen that time and time again. It has been glorious to see God changing people's lives and his glory to him. It's the reality that he is real and moving and changing people from the inside out.
And the result, of course, here in the text, verse 24, and they glorify God, Paul says, because of me. Because they had seen that the one who once had tried to destroy them was now preaching and trying to build the kingdom of God.
So what we see in a nutshell here in our text is a man who was changed. We have heard the testimony of Paul a few times before and yet here Paul re-shares it with the Galatians with a specific purpose in mind in this letter.
He's defending his calling. He's defending the authority of the gospel that he has preached and ultimately he is there proclaiming it again to highlight the grace of God that is found in Jesus Christ.
He wants to show that. And there are dozens of application points in this. I mean, has anybody here already thought of an application point to your life as you've been going through? My prayer for you is that the Holy Spirit, I'm about to read you off three different applications and it's possible that none of those meet you where you're sitting and you might think you're off the hook because, oh good, Don didn't catch me in the one that God wants.
My prayer is that the Holy Spirit grabs you through this text and that as we're walking through it he might point some things out in you that you need to take on. Some things maybe you're not believing to be true about God that you need to believe.
Some things that you're maybe not doing in life that you want to give over to God and ask for his help and his assistance by his spirit to change. But there's a couple of them here. A general one, there is the power of your testimony.
If you are in Christ, then you have a story to tell others. Do you see Paul telling his story here? You see the way he tells a story in a way that brings honor and glory to God and also draws other people in?
I mean, this was in my encounter with Jesus Christ. How many of you are in this room and you've encountered Jesus Christ? Your eyes have been opened to the reality of who he is and you've experienced the grace that he has to offer.
Then you have a story to tell. It doesn't matter if you're five years old when that happened in your life or if you were 55 or 60 or 70.
When that happened.
It doesn't matter. And maybe you lived a pretty good life.
Before that.
Still, there's a conversion that happened.
There's a change.
Where your allegiance went over to Jesus Christ and you're now walking with him and you love him and know he loves you. If you're in Christ, you have a story to tell. And then there is in this text, that God calls those who we might not call if you think about it.
And so a potential application is don't give up on people, right? How many of you think that it might have been easy for the church to give up on Paul? How many of you would have wanted to be the first person to go to Paul and proclaim the gospel knowing that he would just as soon.
Slit your throat?
I think he would have been an easy person to give up on. There's certainly no way for him, right? The letters of Paul are full of applications. And those three are just, those two are just freebies. Here's the three that I really want to highlight.
So these are three and then we'll conclude. First one is, there is an appropriate time to defend yourself. It might sound weird at first. Paul is setting out a defense of his ministry among them. That's what this text exists for.
It's a defense. And how many of you would say that kind of rings untrue? Like defensiveness does not become a follower of Jesus Christ, right? Would you agree with me on that statement? It's kind of like, defend what?
But I want to point out his defensive posture centers around the good news of Jesus Christ, his central and core belief. I think if someone had criticized Paul for being bald, for having a long nose, or talking with a funny accent, I'm not sure that it was shown up in a biblical epistle.
I'm not sure he would have written a letter defending himself. For those things. Are you getting what I'm saying? I don't think they would have been there. But when the good news that he proclaimed came under fire, he was ready and eager and quick.
To give a defense.
You're seeing what I'm saying here? And we need to be cautious. I think we need to be cautious about how defensive we are as people. Because how many of you know that if you're defensive about everything that somebody else says about you, you become a defensive person.
So then when it comes time to defend something that's worth defending, you've lost your voice. Nobody really cares anymore what you have to say because you're just that person who's just gonna be defensive at every turn.
And what I guess I'm encouraging you to do is to pick your battles wisely. And I think Paul chose his battles wisely. And when somebody attacked Jesus Christ, when somebody attacked the gospel of grace, he was heard.
And he was heard loud and clear. Are you getting what I'm saying on that? We can defend all kinds of things. We can defend, you know, we can be that person at work who has to call out every filthy word we hear or every filthy joke or has to tell people how they, why they shouldn't be out drinking on Friday night.
Or pick your battles. Pick the battles that matter the most. And sure, don't hear me saying it. Those can sometimes be, when you're included in those conversations, sometimes those can be times for the truth, right?
Sometimes that is a time. Somebody's asking your advice. Or what about the coworker who says, man, I am just so hung over from last night. It's crazy. My life is miserable. Is that an opportunity for some truth there?
They're opening themselves up wide when they say things like that. Or I've mentioned before that somebody says, man, I'm going through this nasty divorce with my spouse and it's going horrible and my life just stinks right now.
I want you to know that's a cry for attention. That's a cry for some help, a cry for you to speak some truth into their life. And the only thing that we mentioned last week, really the last couple of weeks, there's only one good news, right?
There's only one gospel. There's only one good news. There's only one thing that really their heart is longing for. Acceptance by their Father through Jesus Christ. So we need to think about that. I want to admit that that's easier said than done, right?
When it comes to defensiveness. It's very easy to jump to defensiveness. I see it in myself. But ask God by His Spirit to assist and to help and to keep attentive to the defensiveness that you see in your own heart.
The second thing, the gospel is God's. I mentioned this last week in a different way, but Paul identifies that it didn't start with humans. It isn't dependent upon humans and it will not be finished by humans.
It's God's gospel. He is the one doing it, our calling then. What is God asking from us regarding the gospel? It is to proclaim that which He has revealed. That is our calling. Obviously, our methods and the way that we explain that and the way that we show the truth in love, there's some methods, would you agree with me, that are up for grabs.
How you present it, but that you present it in truth according to the way that it's revealed in the Word is important. Leaving things out is not an option. Adding things to it is not an option. It's revealed for us.
Our job and our task is to proclaim it. I've seen that happen here at Recast over the last three years. Having a meeting with somebody, having opportunities to meet with people and explain the gospel and asking them to consider it throughout their day and finding that a couple days later in the evening, before they went to bed, they prayed and asked Jesus Christ to forgive them of their sins and asked Him to save them.
I've experienced in the past few years a growing freedom to allow God to be the one responsible for the results of the gospel and seeking more and more to just be faithful to explain it to people. It's when we think that it's up to us that we start to think about changing the gospel to help people like it more.
Are you getting what I'm saying in this? Our job is to proclaim it, to explain the truth, and then just leave the results up to Him. I think that there was a time in my life where I would have, if we had started Recast Church 10 years ago, probably every service would have ended with an altar call.
Come forward and give your life to Jesus or raise your hand and give your life to Jesus. And I'm not saying that that's wrong. I'm not saying that that's bad, but I am so much more comfortable now than I was seven years ago, leaving the results up to God.
I could have come in very heavy-handed and I did many times. As a matter of fact, I'm concerned that there are kids that were in my tribes and when I was a counselor at camp that may have given their life to Christ out of fear of me.
I mean, today is the day of salvation.
Repent!
The fires of hell are licking at your toes. Do you know what I'm saying? And I mean, how many decisions for Christ are based on the preacher and his inspiration of fear versus genuine true faith? How many of you know you cannot make somebody else believe?
It is a work of the Spirit of God. Share the truth, pray for them, and then leave the results up to God. I sleep well at night as a pastor now. I don't think I would have 10 years ago as a pastor. But I do now because I trust and I rest in the sufficiency of the gospel.
It's his work. But that does not take away the fire and the enthusiasm and the desire and the drive to share it with others. Are you getting what I'm saying? We need to be proclaiming it. That's step one.
If we're not doing that, that needs to be the point of challenge for us. Proclaiming the truth as it is revealed and preaching it to ourselves so that we proclaim it right. I want the gospel to be clear every message that I preach because I want to make sure that we're getting it right, that we're understanding it correctly.
Galatians is going to help correct some of us in this understanding of grace. The third thing, I see in this passage the awesome truth that it is God who calls and sets us apart. It's God's work. And he has done so since before we were born.
I'm convinced that the calling of God extends to all of us, not just the Apostle Paul and his calling towards our salvation. Those who are in Christ were called. The calling is not just for presidents, not just for kings or queens or pastors or missionaries.
He has worked in our personal histories to bring us to this place in life where you are now,.
Where you work, where you live.
He has orchestrated things in such a way. And Paul was able to look back at his life and see the hand of God weaving him to the place of his calling and his gifts and his abilities. Paul did not shrink back from seeing the grace of God as a trust that was given to him that needed to be shared.
God has given each one of us,.
Sitting here,.
Gifts, talents, abilities, resources, relationships, networks, places of employment, neighbors. Raise your hand if you have some of those. Those are a trust that he has given to us. Those are things that he has entrusted with a spouse's children,.
Parents, relationships.
It's a trust. And he has brought us to a time and a place for a purpose to bring honor and glory to him. And so I would encourage you to go out from this place asking for the power of the Holy Spirit to take those gifts and bring honor and glory to him through them.
When we come to communion, we're together in unity, remembering the sacrifice of Jesus Christ for us. And if you believe the good news that Jesus came to set you free, to set all of us free from sins by dying for us, and you've asked him to save you, then rejoice as you take the cracker.
And you take the juice.
But if you're here and you have not asked Jesus to save you, I'd encourage you to just sit this one out, but spend this time considering what it is that would keep you from asking Jesus Christ to save you from your sins.
What's holding you back? Just like Paul had a dramatic turn in the middle of his story, today could be that turn for you.
Father, I rejoice in the gospel. I rejoice in the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf. I am so grateful for even the testimony of Paul that reminds me of this awesome turn, this awesome change and transformation, this conversion that can happen in our hearts and that I've seen time and time again.
I've seen it in myself and I rejoice in the way that you have turned me around and I rejoice as I see others whose lives you have radically saved and turned around. Father, I pray that you would help us to grasp more of your grace each day, more understanding of the way that your Holy Spirit guides us rather than law guiding us, that it is by relationship and it is based on your great love for us.
And Father, that great love is remembered as we take part in this communion, as we take this cracker and remember the body of Christ that was broken for us, as we take this juice and remember his blood that was shed for us.
He suffered perfect and sinless that we who are sinful and corrupt might live. I rejoice in that in Jesus name.