God's Unlikely Gospel Messenger

Well, this morning we're looking at Galatians chapter 1 verses 13 through 16.

Last time I was able to preach, I preached Galatians 1 .10, a single verse.

And I don't know, maybe it's because of that, as I approach this text and have three verses.

It just seems to me that this passage grew and grew, the sermon grew and grew, but not just in length, in gravity, actually.

It just feels heavier, it feels more important the more time that I've spent with it.

In fact, last night around the fire, I commented, I said, this sermon feels like it has gravitas this morning.

Just a weight and importance for us to hear, to understand, and to process together.

So let me read Galatians 1, 13 through 16, and we'll look at the passage that we are, will be expounding upon this morning.

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 anyone. Now that last little phrase there,

I did not immediately consult anyone, I'm gonna leave for Josh next week as he finishes up chapter one.

And that should be a place for rejoicing as we finish chapter one.

Now, just to recap what Josh talked about last week, was Paul defending his gospel.

And he said, it's not the invention of any man. This gospel that I am proclaiming is unique and it is divine.

Man would never create this kind of gospel. Only a gospel from God begins by telling us that we're wrong, that we are sinners and that we need to repent and believe in God, to believe in him completely for our salvation.

Meaning that we don't get to boast, we don't get to say that we're good or good enough, that our works are anything, because God alone gets the glory.

This makes this gospel that Paul preaches unique among every other cult or world religion, where you have to be good enough, where you have to prove yourself to be worthy.

This is a man -centered gospel and man can't help himself, but to create such a gospel, which is all about him, all about his wants, all about his needs, all about his glory.

I think we've said it before, we tend to be glory hogs and glory as hogs, as pigs.

I like the combination of those two words and the word picture that that creates. That is what we are.

Now, when I was a youth pastor in Austin, Texas, I would often go to one of the middle schools,

Lake Travis Middle School, had some kids over there and I'd have to check in, they would have to request me, it was a big deal to get into the school, but I'd bring a pizza and I'd come and a couple of the guys would be waiting for me.

They would bring some of their friends because they would say, hey, my youth pastor's coming and he's gonna be bringing a pizza, you should sit with us today.

And that's where I met Devin and Devin was Willie Nelson's grandson.

And Devin said to me once, he said, I would come to your church if you showed movies.

And I said, Devin, then my church would not be a church, it would be a movie theater.

And sadly, many churches have become movie theaters, they've become a place of entertainment.

And this is the way that they feel like they have to gather men and proclaim the gospel.

And Paul says, man, I'm preaching the gospel that comes from God, it's unique, it doesn't need anything else and you need to hear it.

Now, not only is it a unique gospel, but our passage this week talks about Paul being an unimaginable messenger of the gospel.

I mean, if you or I were to choose someone to proclaim this gospel, we would have probably counted

Paul out and said, no way, not this guy. As we begin this section,

Paul states to us how unlikely he is to be this messenger from God.

He says, for you have heard about my former way of life in Judaism, that to an extraordinary degree, to an unbelievable degree,

I was persecuting the church and trying to destroy it. Now, literally, from the words that he's using here, extraordinary, and destroying it, to annihilate it, to ruin it, to make it come to nothing, it's not an assumption to think that he used great violence against the church.

It was no secret to anyone during this time who

Saul of Tarsus was. He was an infamous

Jewish religious leader, well -known for persecuting the early church.

And he says, for you have heard about my former way of life. Let's do something fun.

Anyone here have a former way of life that they'd like to talk about this morning? Anyone? No one.

It's wonderful, it's beautiful that Paul has such transparency as he comes and defends himself.

He goes, you know who I am. Acts 25, verse 5, or Acts 26, verse 5, he says, that in accordance with the strictest part of our religion,

I lived as a Pharisee. In Philippians 3, he calls himself a Hebrew of Hebrews, a

Pharisee of Pharisees. Paul had just an amazing resume in Judaism.

He was raised, taught by Gamaliel. He knew the

Halakha, he knew the Mishnah well, and could argue and could present a case that few could stand against.

We also know of the early Saul as he's introduced into the gospel in the book of Acts, as he stands and holds the cloaks of those men who stoned

Stephen in Acts chapter 8. So he has zeal to persecute the church.

In Acts 26, 9, he says, indeed I myself thought it necessary to do many things to oppose the name of Jesus, the

Nazarene, which I also did in Jerusalem. And not only did I look upon many of the saints in prison, having received authority from the chief priest, not only

I said, look up, but I locked up many of the saints in prison. That just didn't seem right to me when

I was reading that. Not only did I lock up many of the saints in prison, having received authority from the chief priest, but also when they were being executed,

I cast my vote against them. And throughout all the synagogues,

I punished them often and tried to force them to blaspheme. And because I was enraged at them beyond measure,

I was pursuing them even as far as to foreign cities. He was manipulating people to blaspheme.

Paul was a man fueled by religious zeal and anger. Hear him say he was enraged, jailing, executing

Christians. We would call him a religious extremist today.

We would look at him like we look at many terrorists. And yet he received a stamp of approval from the church to go and do the things that he was doing.

And Paul was being rewarded for his zeal. Listen, he said in our passage in Galatians, he said,

I was progressing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my nation, because I was a far more zealous adherent of the traditions handed down by my fathers.

He was progressing. They were promoting Paul beyond his contemporaries, across the nation of Israel.

Positions of power were opening up for Paul, probably being promised to him. And his career path as a

Pharisee was just, it was golden. He was rising to the top, but this is not what motivated him.

He is not someone, as we would know today, who was just doing whatever it takes to get to the top.

He says he was zealous for the traditions of his forefathers, fighting for his heritage, for his people and their traditions.

Jesus, and it's no wonder that he hated Jesus of Nazareth, because Jesus told the

Pharisees, why do you yourselves break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?

And I bet that just burned Paul. You don't understand. Our tradition is important.

We have to uphold it. We can't let it go. And so this,

Saul of Tarsus, this Saul of Tarsus became the messenger of the gospel to the

Gentiles, unimaginable, unimaginable.

And impossible change happens in verse, where is that? Verse 15.

This unimaginable change happens to an unimaginable messenger of a unique gospel, and this is what we call conversion.

Paul tells us about what happened to him that changed everything. Now it's important for us to understand what conversion means, because one, it is the only way that we can have peace with God and be welcomed into the family of God for all eternity.

But secondly, if we truly understand our conversion, it will affect the way that we live.

It will affect our witness for Christ, and we must understand it well enough to be able to communicate it to others and answer their questions.

So if you're sitting here this morning, you're going, okay, I know about conversion. That happened to me, Bart. I'm going to be bored for the rest of your sermon.

That's false, completely false, because unless you can communicate it well to someone who has no idea what it is, this sermon is something that you need to take some notes on.

So you need to put it into your heart so that you can clearly communicate what it means. Paul describes his conversion, which changes him completely from a persecutor of the church and a man who hated

Jesus Christ and his followers into a man who spread the gospel across the Mediterranean. And this is what he says in verse 15, but when

God, when God, that transition, that but is huge there.

I was this, but God. If we take the

Greek and we kind of move things around a little bit, when I studied Greek, that's what we did. We had all these big white boards all over the walls of our classroom, and we would write it in Greek, and then we would just start moving stuff around back and forth, because in Greek everything's jumbled up, and you have to un -jumble it.

And depending on how you un -jumble it, it means different things. So it's crucial that you un -jumble it correctly.

And when I translate this, the was pleased that's later, that he was pleased to reveal his son in me, actually can go all the way at the beginning.

But when God was pleased to set me apart from my mother's womb, to call me by his grace to reveal his son in me.

We see that salvation, genuine salvation has its beginnings in the good pleasure of God.

I was just flipping through my Bible, and I ran across, I was trying to mark up a page, and I accidentally went one page too far into Luke chapter 12, and I saw that I had marked this.

It says, fear not little flock, for it is your father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

Think about that. Your conversion was because God was pleased to save you.

This means that your salvation is not dependent upon your own feeble and fickle decision to choose

God, but on his unchanging will that holds you in his mighty grasp.

If God is pleased to save you, then you are saved. And there is a great degree of certainty and security in that.

He says then, in order to set me apart, and then call me by his grace, and then reveal his son in me.

And it seems like there's an order, well, and then lastly, in order that I would proclaim the gospel about him to the

Gentiles. Now there seems to be an order that is in place here, and I want to look at each one of these parts here, because what it does is it creates a theology of conversion, a theology of salvation, which is similar for everyone who is saved.

Now, the way that we're saved, and we're going to look at Paul's conversion, which is very unique, it's very dramatic, it's not typical, but whose salvation is typical?

I think it's wonderful as God creates us individually, each one different from one another, that he chooses a different means of saving us, a different way.

Sometimes it's really quick, sometimes it's dramatic, other times it's slow, other times it's quiet, but it still has some similarities.

And I think Paul is unpacking these for us, so let's begin with who set me apart.

So God was pleased to set Paul apart. Now, I do believe that there is an order here, like I said, and it begins here because he gives a point in his life.

He says, when I was set apart from my mother's womb. And this is a bit of a

Hebraism, that means before he could choose right or wrong, before he could do anything right or wrong, before there was any kind of clue about what kind of person

Paul would be, God set him apart. Now, that creates some interesting implications later, and we're gonna get to that, but you'll hear him say a similar thing in Ephesians 1, verses 3 through 4, blessed be the

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

And hear this, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.

Paul is not shy about teaching the electing, predestining work of God.

He puts it out there. And it's something that is hard to understand, but we can't deny that it is in the scriptures.

And so we must work hard to figure it out. It's from this passage and similar passages that we understand the doctrine of election.

And when we talk about doctrine, we're just talking about a core belief or conviction, a teaching about election, that God chooses or sets apart some based solely upon his sovereign will, not based on our works, not based on our worth or our potential, not even based upon his foreknowledge that we would one day choose him.

You've probably heard it before that God, in his foreknowledge, looks down the corridor of time and sees

Lanny and he goes, well, I know Lanny is going to choose me someday, so I'm going to choose him. That's not the basis on which he chooses us.

He chooses us solely based upon his sovereign will.

It pleased him to choose you. That's it, which means that there's nothing in us that deserves what we've been given.

God chooses us as undeserving recipients of his grace. He does his work of election before the foundation of the world.

And Paul says, this impossible change in me is because God set me apart from before I was born, from my mother's womb.

Let's look at the, well, let me answer a question here because some will, as I say this, as I teach this, as I explain this, some say, why does

God only choose some? Why doesn't he choose all? Because that seems really unfair of God.

I'm really glad that God is not fair because if he was, we would all face judgment and destruction because that's what we deserve.

Again, we don't deserve salvation. No one who is saved got there because he was deserving.

The wonder of the gospel is not that God chose some, but that he chose any at all.

Paul is saying, God was pleased to save me long before I met him on the road to Damascus, before I could choose right or wrong.

Again, God's eternal sovereign kindness is why

I am saved. I am what I am because of Christ. And yet still, that just doesn't,

I still feel like, ah, it doesn't really answer that question of why God doesn't save all.

And the logical assumption then is that God not choosing some people damns them, that he chooses some to be condemned.

And the Bible doesn't say that. The Bible puts it differently. And let me just read you some passages from the

Bible that kind of present a different case. Remember Jesus and Luke, I'm going to go to Luke 13,

Luke 13, 34, listen to what Jesus says.

Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it.

How often I would have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not.

You would not. You would not choose me. You were not willing.

Or we could look at Ezekiel 33, oh, I was just there, verse 11.

Listen to what God says through the prophet Ezekiel.

Say to them, as I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked men would turn from his way and live.

And then he just pleads with them. The almighty God of the universe pleads with man and says, turn back.

Turn back from your evil ways. Why will you die? Oh, house of Israel.

Or let's look at Acts 17, 30, 17, verse 30, 22, 26, 30.

The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent.

God is calling mankind to repent and believe. He's calling mankind to choose

God, to cry out to God for mercy. Oh, or let me look at Romans 10, verse 13, 10, 13, for everyone who calls on the name of the

Lord will be saved. Man, these are powerful verses. He says, but let's continue in Paul's breakdown of his conversion.

He called me by his grace. Not only was Paul set apart, but he was called by grace.

Now in the Reformed camp, we call this the eye of tulip, the doctrine of irresistible grace.

I'm looking at Brady right now because he and I are meeting together every week and we're talking about some of these deeper theological truths and trying to sort them out and come to a place of understanding.

But this idea of irresistible grace, this doctrine of irresistible grace that Calvin put forward is that God through the

Holy Spirit works to bring about effectually the salvation of individuals through spiritual regeneration without cooperation from the individual.

What he's saying is the Holy Spirit must regenerate man because man is spiritually dead.

And this is totally a work of God. Think about the thief on the cross.

What did he do to get ready for the grace of God?

Did he go to church? Did he teach a Bible study? Did he give money to the church?

No, he did nothing. Yet God had mercy on him and called him by his grace.

The thief on the cross and Saul, the persecutor, were both dead in their transgressions and sins.

They were spiritually dead. And that's how we are without Christ.

And there are no degrees of deadness, okay? There's not some people who are just kind of dead and other people, that guy's really dead.

No, dead is dead, right? Dead people do not choose.

Dead people cannot understand or think. Dead people cannot respond.

Think about Lazarus. This is the picture that we have of him being raised. Jesus stands and the tomb is opened up and he calls

Lazarus forth. Lazarus couldn't do anything until he heard the command of his creator.

This is what we call the effectual calling of God. That God's calling produces what it commands.

And if God, through his Holy Spirit, calls you as he did Paul, by his grace, your heart cannot help but respond.

In fact, without God's sovereign election, without God choosing some to be spiritually alive, the reality is that no one would be saved.

Because the natural response of unregenerate man, the natural response of man in sin is to reject

God and to run from him. But with the man whom

God calls, there is a certainty of salvation, even though, and to Christ.

So you would, some people would say, well, then how do I know that I'm called? How do

I know that I've been chosen? Should I just wait for it to happen to me?

What should I do? I love this passage in John 6. In fact, what

Jesus says in John 6, some of my most favorite verses in all the

Bible, because I go, whoa, how is he saying this stuff? With John 6, 37, all that the

Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me, I will never cast out.

Let me just say that, let me read that again, because it's, all that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me,

I will never cast out. I would say to the question of how do

I know that I'm called or chosen, should I wait for it to happen, as I would say, don't trouble yourself with that question, and don't delay being stuck in that thought.

Simply come to the Father. Come to the Father. Jesus beckons all those needing salvation.

He says in Matthew 11, 28, come to me, all you who labor and are, who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Come to me. I like what

Paul says in 2 Thessalonians 2, 13 and 14, because he puts these two things together for the

Thessalonians. Verse 13, but we ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, beloved by the

Lord. He was pleased to save you, because God chose you as the first fruits to be saved.

And here, these two things, through the sanctification of the Spirit, that's what we've just been talking about, when the

Spirit makes you alive, and belief in the truth, you believed to this

He called you through our gospel, so that you may obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul says the impossible change in me is because God has called me by His grace, and He's made me alive.

He says this very clearly in Ephesians 2, 4 and 5, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which

He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved.

The next point that he brings us to, not only was he set apart in his mother's womb, not only was he called by grace, but it says that God was pleased to reveal

His Son to him. Now, it's interesting, how many of you have...look

at that verse, verse 16 in your Bibles there. How many of you have to Him in there?

So, was pleased to reveal His Son to me. To me? I got two to me's, three, four, okay.

How many of you have in me? Okay, look at that. Actually there are more translations that translate that as in me, and actually if you go to the

Greek, it is in me, so it is in me. But somehow my

ESV has let me down, okay. And the NIV, which just is the bane of my existence, actually gets it right, so.

That's why I don't promote a certain translation. But he says, so Paul was set apart, then effectually called by God's grace, then on the road to Damascus, the

Son, Jesus Christ, was revealed to him, okay. So I wanna investigate the to Him, and we're gonna look at Acts 26, 12 through 18, to hear

Paul's story. Now this is Paul before, I think it's before Agrippa here, and he is recounting his story before kings, before magistrates.

Now listen as he describes his story. In this connection, I journeyed to Damascus with the authority and the commission of the chief priests.

At midday, O King, I saw on the way a light from heaven, brighter than the sun, that shone around me and those who journeyed with me.

And when we had all fallen to the ground, I heard a voice saying to me in the

Hebrew language, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.

And I said, who are you, Lord? And the Lord said, I am

Jesus whom you are persecuting, but rise and stand to your feet, for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you as a servant and as a witness to the things in which you have seen me, and to those in which

I will appear to you, delivering you from your people and from the Gentiles, to whom

I am sending you, to open their eyes so that they may turn from darkness to light, from the power of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me.

So that is how Jesus was revealed to Paul, okay?

So that's clear. But that literal, in me, what does that mean?

And so I began to think, and I even had the discussion with Josh on, what was that,

Friday night? I was like, what do you think this means? What does that mean? Is Paul saying that the

Son was injected into him and revealed to him after the fact? Like, whoa,

I just suddenly discovered that Christ is in me. How did that happen? It's like in some movies, and I told this to Josh, this is what comes into my mind.

Some of those mystery movies, you know, somebody comes home into their apartment, it's dark inside, and they open up the door, and then they close it, and then suddenly they stop because they realize they're not alone.

And then the lamp across the room turns on, and somebody's sitting underneath this shadowy figure there.

I'm like, is that what's happening here, that suddenly, like, Christ is just there? It's like, where did you come from?

I don't know. Later in Galatians, he talks about the Galatians, he says he's in the pains of childbirth until the gospel is born in you.

As Jesus sits with Nicodemus, Nicodemus is told he must be born again.

Nicodemus is like, how do I do that? I don't even know where to start with that idea of being born again.

I can't do this. So does God's work of salvation come void of human response?

That's my question, because that would seem to be what that's saying, or perhaps it's better translated, within me, that Christ was pleased, or he was pleased to reveal his

Son within me, in my innermost soul, by the

Holy Spirit. Listen to Paul in Galatians 2 .20, I've been crucified with Christ, it is no longer

I who live, but Christ who lives in me. Or 2

Corinthians 4 .6, for God, who said, let light shine out of darkness, has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

Shining in our hearts, the light of Jesus shining in our hearts, in the face of Jesus.

Man, what begins by being a revelation of Christ to Paul, has now become a revelation of Christ in Paul, as the

Spirit is now producing fruits in the soil of Paul's life. As Paul preaches to the

Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ, so Christ is revealed through, or in,

Paul. From this point on, Jesus is living in Paul, and Paul is in Christ.

Now, this is getting a bit confusing, either, and I've heard this growing up, either

God's a perfect gentleman and he doesn't force himself upon any man, right, have you ever heard that?

Nice sentiment, but it doesn't really hold much water when you think about the sovereign

God who created the universe, when he purposes to do something, nothing stands in his way, and nobody says to him, hey, what were you thinking about, that over there?

In fact, Psalm 115 .3 says, our God is in the heavens, and he does what he pleases, and when it pleases him to save someone, he saves them.

So, are we just robots?

And maybe you've gotten this, if you had this conversation with people, are we then just robots following our programming?

Future for us is completely determined because we cannot act against the will of an omniscient

God who does whatever he pleases. See what I'm saying? Are we confused yet?

Which is it? Is it the sovereign will of God that brings salvation, or is it our response to him?

Hmm, that's a good question. And before I answer that,

I also have one more question to add to that. So if God allowed

Paul to do all these horrific things to the church, why didn't he reveal

Christ to him earlier? Because if he could have prevented the evil that Paul did and didn't do it, it seems like he would be responsible for causing that evil, that sin, and therefore

God would be evil. Okay, to answer both of those questions,

I'm gonna go to the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter 3, verse 1. This is what we call the doctrine of concurrence, and there's a lot of doctrine this morning, but it's important for us to kind of wade through this because it tends to answer some of those questions, those hard questions that we get.

And this is what it says. God from all eternity did by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will freely and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass.

God chooses whatever happens in the world because he is sovereign over all his creation.

Yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established.

Okay, so he said, thereby, so God who creates everything, makes everything that comes to pass come to pass.

He is neither the author of sin, nor does he do violence to the will of his creation.

And then he says something about second causes not taken away, but rather established.

Second causes include these two things, the forces of nature or the free actions of God's created beings.

So what you and I choose to do, those are second causes. God is the first cause, okay?

He alone is the first cause. But God in his mighty power uses the secondary causes, what you and I choose, what happens in nature, as means to accomplish his eternal will.

This is like my brain is starting to swell right now. God ordains the means as well as the ends.

And while secondary causes shape what happens in the world, they do not operate outside of God's sovereignty.

So whatever you choose to do, if I were to raise my arm over here, and I have a little bit of trouble with that because I fell off a ladder, if I choose to raise my arm and God says, no, that's not in my will, somehow this,

I love how, this is actually an illustration that's just come to mind from R .C.

He said, something would happen in my synapses of my brain, and as those muscles elongate, that would stop.

God would be able to do that. Even though I was trying to do that on my own will, I cannot operate outside the sovereignty of God, and neither can you.

God is still on his throne, and this is, and his creation, in his creation, nothing happens apart from his divine knowledge or governance.

So to summarize that, God, the primary cause, works in and through nature and the will of man to achieve his will.

This is called concurrence, okay? It happens at the same time, it is simultaneous. God's intention always is accomplished, and it's always good, even though secondary causes of men's heart are evil and sinful, okay?

That's a lot. If we go into the Bible and we look at the story of Joseph, right?

Beautiful story in Genesis. How Joseph is taken by, well, he has this beautiful coat, his brothers hate him because he's his daddy's favorite, and then he says the wrong thing, they throw him in the pit, he gets taken to Egypt, right?

You know the story. And he's falsely accused by Potiphar's wife of, you know, messing around, and he gets sent to prison, he's in prison, all of this, he meets these two guys, and one of them gets out and remembers him, and brings him before the king because he interpreted a dream that he had, and the king's had this dream and he can't figure it out, and he's looking for somebody to do that, they bring

Joseph, he interprets the dream, Joseph becomes second in command in all of Egypt, and then this famine comes, everybody's starving except they've got food in Egypt.

So Joseph and his brothers, they're headed to where the food is, they get there, they don't recognize their brother, and their brother has this little masquerade thing that goes on with them, he's not telling them who he is, but he's giving them some food, trying to get his younger brother to come up there, they come up there.

And then Joseph, at some point, reveals himself to his brothers, he says,

I'm Joseph, I'm the one you threw in the pit, and they go, man, we're gonna die, we are done for, this guy has power, he was our brother, but,

I mean, he's justified in throwing us in the pit and selling us to a foreign land.

But instead, Joseph says in Genesis 50, 20, he says, as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring about that many people should be kept alive as they are today.

Do you see how God can use even the evil intentions of man to bring about good? This is crazy.

We can also look in Psalm 22, which Jake read for us last week in communion, love this Psalm, what a great example that we have in the

Old Testament, as King David writes 1 ,000 years before Christ is crucified, and he says this about the people around the cross, he says, they mock me, and they make mouths at me, they wag their heads, he trusts in the

Lord, they say, this is in quotes, he trusts in the Lord, let them, let him deliver him, let him rescue him, for he delights in him.

And then if we go into Matthew, it says this, and those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads and saying, you who destroyed the temple and rebuilt it in three days, save yourself, if you're the son of God, come down here from the cross, so that also the chief priests and the scribes and the elders mocked him, saying, he saved others, he cannot save himself, he is the

King of Israel, if he is the King of Israel, let him come down from the cross, and we will believe him, and then they say this, which comes straight out of Psalm 22, 1 ,000 years before, he trusts in God, let

God deliver him now, if he desires him, for he said, I am the son of God. Did they choose to say that?

In their evil hearts, mocking the son of glory, did they choose that?

It was written 1 ,000 years that they would say those exact same words, 1 ,000 years earlier.

Or Matthew 6, 11 -6, or we can just look at the crucifixion. What evil men did to Christ has become our salvation.

God has used that for the ultimate good, and we are recipients of it. Did they choose to do that?

Yes, they did, and God used it. Oh my goodness, this is amazing.

Matthew 6, 11 -6, John the Baptist is in prison.

He's hearing about Jesus doing all these wonderful things, and he's thinking, man, when is he gonna get me out of here?

So he sends his disciples to Jesus, and Jesus responds to him, tell John what you see, the blind see, the lame walk, and blessed is he who is not offended by me.

What happens when God's plan is different from our plan? What happens when it feels like God's plan, he's just allowing the evil.

He's allowing that evil. And yeah, I believe that there's a good intent, but that's hard for me.

That's hard. What do I do with that? Lastly, he says, in order that I would proclaim the gospel about him to the

Gentiles. Not only is the gospel not an invention of man, but Paul, as the messenger of the gospel, is not an invention of man.

This is what God has sovereignly designed. Paul is not rebranding or remaking himself.

It's not an inspiring story of self -examination or transformation. It's God and his plan for Paul.

He's the one responsible for setting him apart, for calling him and revealing Christ to Paul. And it had to be

Paul. It pleased God to choose Paul, not just for salvation, but to make him an apostle who would refute those who add

Jewish traditions to the gospel, ruining the freedom purchased by his son, sacrificed on the cross.

This is the most dangerous false gospel for the Jews, because it's so easy for them to believe.

We just want to take a bit of our heritage, our way of life, and this is all we've ever known.

We just want to add this to what you're saying. That can't hurt too much, can it?

But what it does is it destroys grace. So it had to be

Paul, brilliant Paul, Paul who knew the Scriptures, that Paul who could argue every point of Jewish tradition in a way that you couldn't challenge him.

And he took that and he pointed to Christ. He alone could prove from the Old Testament the promise of Abraham through Israel as his chosen people was to bless the nations.

That gospel was now available to the Gentiles, and it's so scandalous, right?

Paul is the chosen instrument. Oh, well, he says this in Acts 9, 15 and 16, this is

God speaking to Ananias, he, Paul, is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the

Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel, for I will show him how much he must suffer for my sake, for the sake of my name.

So let's wrap this up, a bit of application. Paul is the poster child for an unlikely transformation.

My pizza's ready. What we think is impossible, when we think about someone's salvation, when we think about people who we would judge and say,

I don't think there's any way that they will ever follow Christ.

Or maybe, perhaps you might think, I don't know how

God could save me, because you don't know the terrible things that I've done. When we think that, we need to think about Paul.

Salvation is easy for God. No, it's not cheap. It cost him his own son, but it is easy for him to lavish grace upon those who he chooses.

Remember, those who are dead are dead. There are no degrees of deadness. No one is just a little dead.

If God can raise the dead, then he can raise the dead. So the application, three things, they're simple today.

First, what is the condition of your heart? If you are spiritually dead, even though you do religious things, but you're honest and you say, man, there's no love in my heart for God, I have no love for his commands,

I don't love his people, if you find that you're in love with the world, 1 John says that these dispositions of your heart indicate that you're still dead in your trespasses and sins.

But if you feel the command of God in your heart right now, calling you to repent and believe the gospel,

I would say cry out to God and beg him to give you new life. Ask him to reveal his son in you and to you.

Ask him to reveal the beauty of the gospel. And I would say do it right now. Don't wait a single second.

Call out to God. The second thing is if God is the one who gives spiritual life and sight, how dependent are we on his work as we share the gospel with those around us?

Man, we are so dependent upon him. Our hope is not in a button -tight argument nor eloquent stories that sound like Pixar that pull at people's heartstrings.

That's not my hope this morning. No, election undergirds the message that we proclaim.

We are God's means of salvation, but he has to be pleased to set men and women apart before they were born.

Remember, dead hearts are unresponsive. You can't argue them into the kingdom.

Therefore, we pray for the lost. And that goes hand -in -hand with sharing the gospel, sharing the good news.

Think about who you should be interceding for. Think about those people in your circle of friends.

Think about those people who you work with. Think about those people that you run into.

Man, we should be begging God to give us eyes to see and hearts that are motivated by every divine opportunity for us to proclaim him.

And then last, think about those who we've decided are too gone to come to Christ.

And guess what? You might be right. You might be right. But who can know

God's will or his timing? That is for God to decide. And even if they are, our prayers and our faithful witness is a mercy and an act of love towards them, and God is glorified in our faithful proclamation of the gospel.

Think about, I'll close with this, I think about John Wesley and his conversion at Aldersgate.

He says himself, as he recounts that evening, he said,

I was unwilling to go to the meeting at Aldersgate where someone was, the pastor wasn't even there that night, and someone got up and read the preface to the book of Romans, and God got a hold of John Wesley.

He says, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ, Christ alone for salvation, and an assurance was given to me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and he saved me from the law of sin and death.

From the preface of the book of Romans, from some deacon who stood up because the pastor couldn't make it.

That is the power of God to change people's hearts. Charles Wesley, I'm sorry,

John Wesley became a great evangelist. He wrote a lot of the hymns that we sing. God did amazing things in his life, but God did it.

Let's pray together. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for what it says and how it teaches us.

There are a lot of difficult things here for us to understand and sort out, and maybe, oh well, surely, there are still questions, even after I spent 55 minutes talking about this, and Lord, I pray that you would reveal in your time,

Lord, your wisdom in salvation, your wisdom and your good pleasure in saving us.

Father, I pray that it would encourage every heart in here this morning, and I pray, Lord, that we would be well -versed in knowing how to describe conversion and what you do in the hearts of men.