Sunday Sermon: Called By His Grace (Galatians 1:10-24)

The Gospel Is Not Man's Gospel

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City, Kansas. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this podcast we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a New Testament book.

On Thursday is our Old Testament study and then we answer questions from listeners on Friday. Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. This is the sermon that was preached last week from our pulpit.

Here's Pastor Gabe.

Galatians chapter 1 beginning in verse 10. 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. Verse 14, I apologize, I skipped verse 10. Verse 14, 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 for 15 days, but I saw none of the other apostles except for James, the Lord's brother. In 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.

Testimony, Conversion, and the Transforming Power of the Gospel

Let us come once again before the Lord in prayer. Our great God, as we open up your scriptures today and we read this testimony from the apostle Paul, I pray that we would be able to reflect upon our own testimony, how you drew us out of darkness and into your marvelous light through the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is through the hearing of the gospel that we have come to faith, and it is through the continued proclamation of this gospel that we grow all the more in the knowledge of you and your great mercy and grace that you show to us daily and the steadfast love of the Lord.

Guide us in this truth today, and may our hearts be held steadfast in your truth, that we would not turn from it to the right or to the left, but we would walk the path that has been set out for us in Christ Jesus.

In his holy and precious name we pray, and all God's people said, amen. Thank you. You may be seated. Last night, I was listening to a testimony from Phil Johnson of Grace to You. He said that when he was younger, about 14 or 15 years old, he used to attend a church that was very liberal.

And he said at the time he didn't realize how liberal this church was. But he had this Sunday school teacher that every time they got together to open the Word of God and study it, she seemed to make a point every single Sunday to say to the students in her class, all teenagers and they're young teens, she would say to these teenagers that we really should not take the Bible very seriously.

That even the miracles of Jesus Christ, there's some sort of natural explanation to those miracles. One of the miracles that she used as an example was the story of Jesus healing the man with a withered hand.

And the explanation that was given to Phil about how this miracle would have taken place, likely this man heard Jesus teach in the Sermon on the Mount that if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away, for it would be better for you to enter into the kingdom of heaven missing parts of yourself that had been causing you to sin than it would be to have your entire body thrown into hell.

And of course, Jesus meant this figuratively, whatever is in your life that might cause you to sin or lead you astray from the truth of God's Word have nothing to do with that thing. Get it out of your life.

But some of these people may have taken literally what it was that Jesus said. So this man would have tied his arm to his body so that it would not tempt him to sin or do sin with that particular hand.

And so when Jesus healed the man with the withered hand, it wasn't exactly a miracle, but it was just telling the man that he can release that hand from his body. There's not a reason for him to have to think that that hand is causing him to sin, but that the grace of God is upon him.

There was always a natural explanation for these miracles. But even Phil in his young age, at 14 years old, was hearing these explanations to these miracles and he was saying things, you know, he would say to his pastor, he would say to him, well, isn't that the point of a miracle?

I mean, isn't a miracle supposed to not have a natural explanation to it? And yet you're giving me that there's some sort of logical reasoning that we can somehow conceive of by the mind of a man as to what this possibly meant and that anybody can do this and it wasn't an actual miraculous healing of his hand.

And Phil said, I wish that when I was talking to my pastor about this later, I wish I had asked him, well, then what's your explanation to the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Do you actually believe that he came back from the grave?

But Phil said he never asked. Nevertheless, if this was all that Bible teaching was supposed to be, was supposed to be reading the Bible and then understanding that we're not actually supposed to take it that seriously.

Phil said that I'd rather be staying home and catching the pre-game of the football games before they come on. Like what's even the point of going to church if we're not there to take the Bible seriously?

So that's what he did. And for the next two or three years, he didn't attend church anymore and he just resolved himself to be a good person. He thought if I put my mind into studying deep truths, whether they're spiritual truths or scientific truths or philosophical truths, whatever I can store up in my, in my brain as far as knowledge is concerned, then if I'm just really smart and I really try to be nice to people, then surely God would welcome me into heaven one day.

Well, after a span of time, there was a friend of his who was not a Christian at all. This friend that Phil knew had never shown evidence of faith in his life, but there was an Easter weekend where after the weekend and they came back to school on Monday, this friend showed a remarkable change in his life.

And he said to his friends that he found Christ and that he was a Christian. He heard the gospel preached and he repented of his sin and now he was a follower of Christ. And Phil said, I wish I could explain it to you, but there was a noticeable difference in this man's life.

He was a different man on Friday and he came back to school a different man on Monday. There was something different about him. And when I realized that the gospel could have that kind of transformational change on a person, I realized I needed to be taking it more seriously than I had been taking it.

So he came back to his Bible, this Bible that his Sunday school teacher one day told him that you shouldn't take very seriously. And he came to his Bible and he opened it up to a book and he decided he was going to read an entire book.

He had never read an entire book of the Bible before, but this time he was going to do it. And the book that he opened up to was 1 Corinthians. So he was like, well, let me see here, how many chapters we got?

Okay, it's not too long. I could probably knock this out in half an hour. So it's not too taxing to have to read all of this. And it was when Phil got to chapter three that he said that he was just messed up.

He was broken apart by the word of God that he was reading, because here is what he read in 1 Corinthians 3 verse 19, for the wisdom of this world is folly with God. And Phil realized, I've been trying to be holy and received by God by doing good things.

I've been trying to be acceptable to God by storing up all this knowledge in my head and learning from all these people in this world. And here I read that the wisdom of the world is folly with God. Phil realized in just the first three chapters of 1 Corinthians, where is the wise man?

Where is the sage? Where is the prophet of this age? Has God not made foolish the things of man? Phil realized, I can't get into heaven by learning from the wisest philosophers of this age. They're nothing compared to the knowledge of God.

It means nothing without his word. And he was convicted in heart and realized that he was a sinner in need of repentance. He was in need of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he turned from his sin, his selfish pride, his belief that he could do it his way and get into heaven like that.

And he turned his life over to Jesus Christ, asked forgiveness for his sins, and he's been a follower of Christ ever since. I've had the pleasure of meeting Phil, and he is a wonderful, kind man. And some of these persons that I meet that have a testimony like this always wonder, what were you like before the gospel changed your life?

I've met people in my life who speak of these wonderful testimonies, and when they tell about who they were before they came to Christ, you don't even see it. Like, oh my goodness, I can't believe you were that kind of person before you became a Christian.

How transformational the gospel is on a person's life. And you may have a story just like that. You may have a testimony in which you could say, before Christ, I was this, but in Christ Jesus, I have been washed.

And that should be the testimony of every believer. Even if you spent your entire life growing up in church, you were not saved because of the faith of your parents. You were saved because the Holy Spirit impressed upon you to turn from your sin and unrighteousness and become a follower of Jesus.

I've shared with you before from my own testimony that I don't really know exactly what day it was I became a Christian. I know that I prayed to God when I was four years old and said, God, I want to follow you.

But how deep was my knowledge or understanding of sin at the age of four? Growing in a knowledge and an understanding of that as I would progress in maturity, still I was a very stubborn, prideful, selfish young man, even when I was in high school.

And everybody, for the most part, thought I was squeaky clean. I had one of those squeaky clean resumes. I didn't go out and drink. I didn't smoke cigarettes. I wasn't sleeping around with girls, that none of that was going on in my life at all.

So everybody would have looked at me on paper and thought, well, that's a good young man. But I was still very selfish at heart. Came into a lot of sin when I was in college. And then the Lord broke me at a point about my senior year of college, and I realized just how far from God I really was.

And so repented of this, and one of these verses that I've shared with you before regarding my own testimony is Psalm 119, 109, I hold my life in my hand continually, but I do not forget your law. I was raised on the scriptures.

So even in those moments where I went astray and I was trying to do it my way and doing my own thing and chasing after the passions of my flesh, the Lord didn't let me go too far. And that is by his grace that I was kept near to him, that I remembered the words that I had been taught so that he might keep me close to him, though I was trying to go my own way.

And again, that is all by the grace of God. You no doubt have a testimony about how in Christ Jesus, I have been made a new creation. As Paul said to the Corinthians, the old is passed away and the new has come.

In Christ, you are a new creation. But I want to share something regarding your testimony. Your testimony isn't the gospel. And there are teachers today that will say, when it comes to sharing the gospel with somebody else, all you have to do is share your testimony.

If you share your testimony, then you're preaching the gospel to somebody else. Your testimony is not the gospel. Your testimony is how the gospel changed you so that you might share with another person.

Christ can change your life too. Look at who I used to be and who God has made me now in Christ Jesus. So that we may not, in our sharing of the gospel with others, come across in any way high and mighty or better than somebody else, for we all were once sinners.

As it says in Ephesians 2 .1, and you were once dead in your sins and your transgressions in which you once walked. And Paul is talking to a church when he says that to them. You were dead. You walked in sins and transgressions and you were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

None of us has any reason to boast that we have done better than any man for we were just like the rest of mankind under the wrath of God and facing judgment on that day. But it is by the gospel of Christ that came to us that we heard and we have been changed now from that one who is walking in darkness to someone who is an inheritor of the kingdom of light.

So this is the thing that leads a person to salvation. Your testimony can help to show how the gospel has changed you, but the gospel is the thing, the good news that Jesus died for sins, that He rose again from the grave, and that by faith in Jesus, your sins are forgiven and you have right standing with God.

As Paul said in 1 Timothy 1, the gospel is this, that Christ Jesus came to save sinners. And then it is sharing in your own testimony how Christ has done that for you so you can share with somebody else that He will do that for them.

This is what Paul is sharing here in Galatians 1. He is sharing his testimony. This is a very autobiographical section, verses 10 through 24. But one of the things that Paul is setting out to affirm here is his authentic apostleship, that he is as much an apostle, a carrier of the word of Jesus Christ, as any of the other apostles that came before him.

But nevertheless, part of this case that he is making that he is an apostle of the word is his testimony, how he came to know the Lord. We read about that story in Acts 9. Let's start in verse 10. We'll go down what Paul is saying here.

For, am I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Now in your Bible, you might have a little reference there down at the bottom.

It says that that word servant is actually translated slave. I'm not sure why, like the NASB, the ESV, the NIV, actually, Tom, you might be able to tell you, does your NASB say slave there or servant?

Oh, okay. You've been following me on the ESV on your tablet. There are some translations that will translate that as slave, but I'm not sure why many of the English translations will translate that as servant.

I kind of wonder if the reason is because of the negative connotation that that term slave has in our American culture. But Paul is saying that he is a slave of Jesus Christ, meaning that Christ is his master, meaning that he has given everything to follow Christ.

Now, Jesus said to us in John 8, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free and you will be free indeed. So in Christ Jesus, we're indeed free. We're free from what? We're free from sin. And we're free from the wages of sin, which is death.

The chains and the bonds of sin that were upon us before we became followers of Jesus Christ have been broken by the power of the gospel. Romans 1 16, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.

It has the power, as Paul said to the Corinthians, 2 Corinthians 10, to break strongholds. And that's what the gospel did for us when we heard it and when we believed it. It broke away the bonds of sin.

And so as Paul says in Romans 6, you must no longer be slaves to unrighteousness, but you must become slaves of righteousness. See, even Bob Dylan got this, though the man doesn't fear God, Bob Dylan says you're going to have to serve somebody, right?

Everyone serves somebody. So as the point Paul makes in Romans 6, you're either going to become a slave to unrighteousness or you're going to become a slave to righteousness. And Paul says he became a slave to Christ Jesus.

And he says, as he uses this illustration in Romans 6, I speak because of your natural limitations. Why does Paul use the word slave? Because you're limited in your understanding as to how this is supposed to work in a spiritual sense.

We think of slave as being bound in chains or put in a dungeon or being forced to work in a field. Paul is saying spiritually, you are no longer slaves to doing sin. You should be slaves to doing righteousness.

The love of God controls us, as Paul also said to the Corinthians. If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a slave of Christ. He would be a slave of man. And so if we have been transformed into that new creation, if the old is passed away and the new has come, then we're no longer a slave to the passions of our flesh.

Our flesh doesn't control us anymore. But it is the Spirit of God in our hearts that controls us to do the righteous thing, to be obedient unto the Lord, to show love and affection for God and for His people, and be growing in these things day by day as we walk as Christians in this world.

You must put away the old passions of the flesh and walk in the newness of the Spirit of life. Paul goes on in verse 11 to say,. For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel.

Now remember what we're coming off of here. In Galatians 1, 8, and 9, Paul had been rebuking the Galatians for believing in a different gospel, for deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ.

And he says in verse 8,. Even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one that you received, that you heard from the apostolic revelation of the apostles of Jesus Christ, let him be accursed.

The gospel that was preached to me, the one that I came to you preaching, is not man's gospel. I didn't get it from man. I didn't get it from an angel. It is from Jesus Christ. It is God's gospel. Verse 12,.

For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. And if you know the story of the apostle Paul, if you know the story of his conversion, then you'll know that this begins in Acts chapter 9 with Paul, who at that time was called Saul, and actually he had both names even then.

This is one of those things that comes up in debate every once in a while. Did Jesus change Paul's name from Saul to Paul? Did Paul change it himself? Well, both names applied to him. Saul was his Hebrew name.

Paul was his Greek name. When he went out with the gospel to the Greeks, he went by Paul because that's the name that they would have received him by. When he spoke to the Hebrews, they knew him as Saul.

So Saul, the Hebrew, the Pharisee, is on his way to Damascus to round up Christians. That's what he's going there for. These Christians who he believed were perverting the law of God. They believe Jesus is the son of God.

They believe that it is by faith in Jesus that you have eternal life. How absurd that is. It is a corruption of the law of Moses. That's what Saul believed. So he goes to Damascus to round up Christians, bring them back to Jerusalem so that they might be tried and some of them even put to death, as had already happened in the martyrdom of Stephen.

Thank you. I wanted to say Philip. That was a different story. The martyrdom of Stephen, which Saul was present at. He was present at that execution. So he's on his way to Damascus to round up Christians and the Lord appears to him and says, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

And he said, who are you, Lord? And the Lord replies, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. Now Christ is up in heaven. He is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. How is it that Saul is persecuting Christ?

Because Jesus so identifies himself with his followers that as you do to one of the least of these brothers of mine, he said in Matthew 25, you do also unto me. And so Saul's persecution of the church was a persecution of Christ himself.

Why are you persecuting me? But rise and enter the city and you will be told what you are to do. And the men who were traveling with Saul stood speechless. They heard the voice, but they saw no one. Saul rose from the ground and although his eyes were open, he saw nothing.

So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And for three days he was without sight and neither ate nor drank. So Saul was in this moment of fasting, in this moment of blindness, where he was seeking the Lord for these three days before Ananias came to him, baptized him, laid hands on him, and the scales fell from his eyes and he could see.

And Saul was no longer persecutor of Christians, Saul had become the apostle of Jesus Christ. As the Lord even said to Ananias, he 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 the sake of my name. That was the word of Christ to Ananias. So the apostle Paul says, I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

Starting with that appearance of Christ on the road to Damascus, but I would even put to you that Christ appeared to Paul yet another time. Let's continue reading in Galatians 1 .13. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and I 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. Paul was a student of a man named Gamaliel. You read of this man in the book of Acts, and Paul in his knowledge and his understanding of not just Jewish law, but many other philosophies and teachings that were even outside of Judaism, his knowledge of things that were being taught and philosophized about among the Greco-Roman world.

Paul was so knowledgeable in all of these things that his intelligence, even at such a young age, even at about the age of 30, 35, somewhere in that timeframe is where he was at the time of his conversion.

Even in his knowledge, he had already exceeded the knowledge of his teacher, Gamaliel. Paul was very likely one of the smartest men on the planet at the time that he was converted from Saul, the persecutor of Christians, into Paul, the apostle of Jesus Christ.

But it was not this knowledge that saved him. In fact, when Paul even goes on to detail all of the accomplishments that he had as a Pharisee in Philippians 3, he said, I count all of these things as rubbish for the surpassing greatness of Jesus Christ, my Lord.

And so it is the gospel of Christ that brings a person to salvation and the knowledge of him. And Paul even says to the Corinthians, as smart and as knowledgeable as Paul was, as intelligent as a man he was, as educated a man as he was, he said to the Corinthians, I came to you and claim to know nothing except Christ and him crucified.

You want to know what kind of blessing that is in a testimony to share that with somebody else? I claim to know nothing except for Christ and him crucified. He's saying to his audience this, you don't have to be a brainchild in order to be saved.

You don't have to know deep intricacies of vast mysterious myths or store up all this knowledge or memorize all these textbooks or pass a theology exam in order to be a Christian. You must know Christ and him crucified for our sins.

That's it. Anyone can believe the gospel. And the reason why anyone can believe the gospel, whether a king or a pauper, is because our belief in the gospel comes about by the power of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.

It's not dependent upon us to grasp something that would otherwise be beyond the mind of a natural man. My friends, the gospel is not just difficult to believe for the natural man. It's impossible. 1 Corinthians 2 .14, Paul says, for the naturally minded man cannot discern the spiritual things of God for they are spiritually discerned.

They are folly to him. Colossians 1 .18, the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing. But to us who are being saved, it is the power of God. How could it possibly be that a carpenter crucified on a thief's cross could be the saving message of the gospel of Jesus Christ?

But it's by the power of the Holy Spirit that we come to believe it and so be saved, which is why anyone can believe the gospel. Because the Holy Spirit will work in anyone's heart to come to a knowledge of this and receive saving faith.

Paul says, I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my own people. So extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. In other words, Paul is saying I was too good for my own good.

I had too much smarts. I had convinced myself that I was better than everybody else. And it was because of all this knowledge that I'd stored up in my flesh, I was incapable in my intelligence of understanding the gospel until the Lord appeared to him on the road to Damascus and blinded him and then opened his eyes to see the truth.

And Paul became a Christian. That's how you were saved. You once walked in blindness to the truth of God and his gospel. And it's the Holy Spirit that has changed your heart to understand the gospel when it was preached to you so that you would turn from sin and you would believe this thing that is otherwise considered absurd by the world standard.

And regardless of what the world will say to you or the persecution or ridicule that you might endure for the sake of the gospel, you hold steadfast because we have a sure anchor of the soul and that is our Lord Jesus Christ.

Set Apart by Grace Before Birth

Verse 15, Paul says, 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.

So before going on there, it's in verse 15, Paul says, when he who had set me apart before I was born. This is very similar to a statement that's said in Jeremiah 1, verse 5. God says to Jeremiah when he calls him to be a prophet, before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.

That's similar to a statement that David prays unto God in Psalm 139. The Lord continues with Jeremiah, before you were born, I consecrated you. I appointed you a prophet to the nations. Paul said that to Jeremiah.

Or I'm sorry, God said that to Jeremiah. It was understood of the apostle Paul as well. When he who had set me apart before I was born. Consecrated, that's what that means. Consecrated means to be set apart.

So as God said this to Jeremiah, before you were born, I consecrated you. So the same thing was said of the apostle Paul. When he had set me apart before I was born and called me by his grace, I was consecrated for this work.

God had chosen me for this before I was born. Could Paul have refused the work that God was calling him to? No. By the grace of God that he was called out of sin and to serve as an apostle of Jesus Christ.

And who can resist God's call? Now, sometimes when I explain these things, we come into passages of scripture like this, I might hear from somebody. And in fact, there was a teacher I was talking with recently who made this very explanation.

He said, well, you know what? God will call prophets and he will call apostles and he will set them apart to be teachers. But that's just the apostles and the prophets. That doesn't apply to everybody else.

So Jesus says to his own disciples, remember, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you may go and bear fruit, right? Well, that just applies to Jesus' disciples. That doesn't apply to everybody else.

Oh, no? 1 Thessalonians chapter one, beginning in verse four. For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction.

That's the church that Paul is preaching to. God has chosen you and has even set you apart before you were born that you would be consecrated and appointed for this work, bearing fruit, sharing the gospel in the world.

We've all been called to this. How do you know that a person has been called and chosen to hear and receive and understand the gospel? Because they believe it. We do not have the power or the authority to determine of anybody who's going to be a Christian and who's not.

That's not our job. God does that work. As Voddie Bauckham has said, I'm just in communications. My father is the one who is in sales. He's the one that closes the deal. So as good, obedient Christians, we go out with the gospel of Christ and we share it with the world as we have been commanded to do.

But we do not decide who's going to be a Christian and who's not. The Lord determines that. It's the work of the Holy Spirit on a person's heart. But there is no one from whom we should withhold the gospel.

Paul makes that clear in 1 Timothy 2. Pray for kings and all who are in high positions that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life in this present age. This is good and pleasing in the sight of God our Savior who desires all men to be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth.

So again, whether we're talking about king or pauper, everyone must hear the gospel and the Holy Spirit will change anyone's heart to come to believe it and be saved. That is our role. That's the job that we have been called to do as Christians preaching the gospel in this world without prejudice, showing partiality to no one.