Untitled Sermon (4)

THE TESTIMONY OF PAUL.

PG #1031 Red CSB

Galatians 1:11-24

INTRO

As you know, last week we started the book of Galatians, and we said that Galatians is a book for “Recovering Pharisees.” This book was written by Paul who was made an apostle by Christ himself and commissioned to preach the gospel to the Gentiles. We said that the reasoning for Pauls writing is so that he felt the Gospel itself was being threatened and wrote to defend it and also his own apostleship. But more so he wanted to make sure the Gospel was upheld.

We then explained that we often think of the Gospel in a legalistic type way. That if we just do all the things we are supposed to do as a Christian then we are ok. However the true Gospel says, Jesus did everything on our behalf and that it is through His work on the cross that accomplished all the work for us.

We also talked about how this is still an ongoing battle today, we cited Luther and his fight against the Catholic church and selling of indulgences and how we are also fighting this fight today.

EXEGESIS

Paul’s Autobiography - 11-24.

One thing we didn't mention last week about Galatians but will hopefully be helpful for us as we think through this book. Galatians fall into 3 categories. Biography, Theology and Ethics. Today we are going to be back into the biography of Paul, and you might be wondering why we need to know about Paul like this. The answer is simply that Paul's life is going to actually give us a visible representation of God's grace. If there is one biblical character that experienced God's grace and loved it more than anything it's Paul. Having this in our mind lets let Paul tell us his story and I would bet a paycheck that everyone in this room can find themselves relating to Paul on some level.

GOSPEL ORIGINS - V.11-12

So, Pauls starts with his timeline, he again reminds the readers of this letter where the Gospel comes from. He says plainly and right out that he did not receive this message from any human source. He wasn't taught it, he didn't make it up, he didn't have a weird dream, no he was given this message straight from the source of the message itself. The question then should arrive in our minds as to why should we know this? Why is getting the message straight from the source such an important detail? Because if man invented a system of getting to God it would no doubt be a scoring system wouldn't it? About 2 years ago we did a month long event for the students at Rivertree we called it Color Wars. You essentially divide up teams and they get points for winning games, bringing friends or bringing something that related to the mission project we were working with. Each task had different tiers of points you could gain. So we had students doing all this work to get their friends to church in July, bringing canned goods, becoming gladiators to win these games. Basically all good works, but you know what they didn't get points for….sitting at home watching TV?

I'm telling you this to let you know that if mankind was to come up with a type of salvation or way to get God on our side this is how we would do it. Paul’s argument here is that the Gospel says you get points because God gives them out. Paul is saying that Jesus is the one giving out points. He wrote the system and when I explained this to you this is what I said. Jesus is the one who told me and I relayed that message straight from the mouth of God himself. So, Paul is saying that this message holds weight and authority not because of me but because God said it. Those that have kids can understand this. There are plenty of times where I might use my kids as a mouthpiece for me while I am sitting in the chair. It's lazy I know but you all have done. I might tell Molly Ruth to tell her brothers to clean their rooms, and sometimes she being the sassy pants she tries to have weight and authority with her own words. So she goes into their room and says with as much volume, bravery and authority she can muster up…..BOYS CLEAN YOUR ROOM. You know that the boys usually do when she says that…..Go away Molly. So then Molly does what any young child does she tells Daddy. So, then I send her back into the room with a different message….You tell those boys that Daddy says clean their room. Now that message has way more authority than a 5 year old. No matter how much UMPH she puts on it. So then Paul is saying if you're not believing the Gospel you're not disbelieving me, but rather disbelieving God Almighty.

THE NEED FOR GRACE - V 13-14

Now that we have the origin of the message Paul is preaching we can dive into the life of Paul and how Paul experienced this grace and wants to share it. Remember before Paul was Paul his name was Saul. What we know about Saul is that he was a very good Pharisee. He was a Bible teacher, he was the guy who was at church every time the doors were opened. He went to student ministry and completed his “read the bible in a year” program. He led prayer meetings, he led mission trips, he tithed his 10 percent, all the things you think about when you think about what it means to be a Christian Saul did it. Not only did he do all those things he then turned and judged others for not doing them. He judged the church skipper, the one who just could get through the book of Leviticus in the Bible plan. The students who didn't raise their hands in worship. The ones who didn't give above and beyond in monterey gifts to the church. He would go so far as to say that he was actually doing God a favor by attempting to stamp out this little Christian flame that was starting. Listen to Paul's words himself, this him standing before King Agrippa giving his testimony.

Acts 26:5–11 (CSB)

5 They have known me for a long time, if they are willing to testify, that according to the strictest sect of our religion I lived as a Pharisee. 6 And now I stand on trial because of the hope in what God promised to our ancestors, 7 the promise our twelve tribes hope to reach as they earnestly serve him night and day. King Agrippa, I am being accused by the Jews because of this hope. 8 Why do any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead? 9 In fact, I myself was convinced that it was necessary to do many things in opposition to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. 10 I actually did this in Jerusalem, and I locked up many of the saints in prison, since I had received authority for that from the chief priests. When they were put to death, I was in agreement against them. 11 In all the synagogues I often punished them and tried to make them blaspheme. Since I was terribly enraged at them, I pursued them even to foreign cities.

Paul no doubt saw himself as some kind of hero. He thought his sincerity to the Law and his supposed devotion to God would be all he needed to do in order to make his penance with God Almighty.

But listen church sincerity to God and strict obedience doesn't cut it, it's not good enough. Listen to this quote from Tony Merida.

“Paul is a classic example of a person who was sincere in his misdirected beliefs before becoming a Christian. Sincerity cannot bring you to salvation if you do not sincerely believe in the truth. You can be sincerely wrong. You can be consumed with religion and miss Jesus. Paul was in a desperate situation; we would perhaps look at him and say, “He is beyond the hope of the gospel.” - Tony Merida

Paul is giving us all this information to show he actually lands on 2 spectrums. Both of which are the worst kind of people. The one who tries to earn his way into heaven by being a legalist, so much of a legalist that it leads to him being the second kind of person, the one who is willing to commit murder in order to uphold this standard. So, not only is Paul guilty in the sense of trying to be everything, he's also guilty in the sense that he is actually breaking the law given by the God he claims to love.

That brings me to my first thinking point for you today. What about you? Are you trying to do all the things with all sincerity and think this is it. This is enough, if I do these things I’ll be ok, or maybe you’re in here today and you’re just a rule breaker. You’ve decided that you are going to live your life the way you want to live it and that’s just the way it is. Maybe you have a problem with authority and no man or even God is going to make you submit. I am here to tell you both are in desperate need of God’s grace. You need to submit yourself to the Lordship of Jesus Christ and be saved today.

GOD'S GRACE - V 15-16

So the next question that should be asked is this, “If I can't achieve it and I can’t earn it, then how does one receive God’s amazing Grace?” The answer is that God intervenes in a person's life and changes their hearts desires. Therefore, it is God who does the saving and this has always been the plan from the very beginning. Look at verse 15 here. Paul indicates that before his birth he was set apart to be called by God's grace. I can't think of a better picture of helplessness than a baby. Paul’s point is that it was always the plan of God to save sinners and it was always the plan of God to do it without the help of any human act. The grace of God has to first involve the intervention of God. Essentially the intervention of God to save people is a rescue mission. There are so many verses we can reference here i'll give us 2.

Ephesians 2:4 (CSB)

4 But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us,

Titus 3:4–5 (CSB)

4 But when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, 5 he saved us—not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy—through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit.

These 3 verses being the 2 I just read and Galatians 1:15 the small conjugation word BUT is a huge theological word. It indicates that there is some bad news BUT the good news is better. James Montgomery Boice, a great commentator of Scripture says that the phrase BUT GOD is the most important phrase in the Bible.

We were dead in your sins BUT GOD. We were slaves to our own fleshly desires BUT GOD. We followed our master Satan BUT GOD. But God INTERVENED in our life in our timeline and snatched you from certain death and torment. Think about it like this, let’s say you see a person walking down the road and they are about to cross the street and aren’t paying any attention to oncoming traffic, so you being a good person yell at them to stop but they keep walking. You yell again and they keep walking. You then realize they can't hear the oncoming traffic because they have headphones and the music is too loud. So, then you, being the person you are, take off running and push them into the grass just before a truck hits them. That's the type of intervention that God uses, He saves us from destruction with no help from us at all.

God's grace also involves God's calling. The last part of verse 15 Paul says God called me, here’s what that means. Any one of us in this room that is a Christian you sensed something, you sensed the Spirit stirring you, maybe that was after a sermon, or at VBS as a kid. Whatever the circumstance that caused you to realize oh man I am lost and I need God to intervene on my behalf, that's calling. Listen, God's calling is a lot different than our calling. As I was studying for this sermon the commentary I mostly used brought this to my attention and it really gives you a different perspective on the powerful calling of God. It said God's calling is not like the way we call our kids to dinner or to clean their room. We already cited this earlier but if you dive even deeper into it, our calling to our Children is a call of desire that oftentimes does not bring about the desired outcome we wanted. I mean how many of us have said or thought this, “Why do I have to say _____ more than once?” Our calling to our children often results in us going into their space and making them move. God’s calling is a call of action and reality. Think about this, God said Let there be light and there was light, God told the sea to be formed and it was formed, God told the land to rise up and rose up. When God calls He calls with a call of results. Now we can chat about this later on, as I think this is a mystery we cant comprehend fully, we do however and should however believe that no man, woman or child can come to Christ with God's calling and wooing of said person.

I think there is an answer as to how God calls and woos us, and that is verse 16. Paul says God reveals His Son to us. This means that when we hear about what Jesus has done for us, that He sacrificed himself on a cross on our behalf should 100 percent prompt us to say we are not worthy and thank you Jesus for what you have done. You and I got saved because God called us and showed us the true sacrifice of Christ, we see the true Glory of Christ and how much he loves us and how he has a purpose for us. Our calling and revealing of Christ probably looks a lot different than Paul’s. We may not have the type of conversion that Paul had that we had this incredible light that blinded us and spoke to us and commissioned us. I am not saying that can't happen, I am saying that the large majority of us won’t have that. However the thing we will and do have in common with Paul is the process is still the same. God set Paul apart, He then called him, and then showed him the glorious risen Christ. Let me show you

Acts 9:1–7 (CSB)

9 Now Saul was still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. He went to the high priest 2 and requested letters from him to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any men or women who belonged to the Way, he might bring them as prisoners to Jerusalem. 3 As he traveled and was nearing Damascus, a light from heaven suddenly flashed around him. 4 Falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”

5 “Who are you, Lord?” Saul said.

“I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting,” he replied. 6 “But get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”

7 The men who were traveling with him stood speechless, hearing the sound but seeing no one.

This is Paul’s story, he was called, set apart and saw the risen Christ. Our stories are different but the same. We are called, set apart, and see the risen Christ through what a preacher said, a song we heard, or maybe a Bible study we attended. God’s grace is incredible. It is often so hard to explain and I'll be honest I had a hard time typing this sermon out and hoping that I explained this to you as best I could. But what I began to realize is actually how amazing grace is. That I did nothing BUT GOD did it for me.

A GRACE CHANGED LIFE - 16-24

Now, as we move to conclude the sermon, we need to see what Grace does? We see that it saves us from certain death, and saves us from our sins. But is that all it does? The answer is no, even the text gives us a “What's next” after a person is converted. In verse 16 we say that a changed life is sharing that life with others. Look he says he went and preached among the Gentiles. This is an incredible transformation for a guy who once approved of killing of Christians, that now he is the very thing he wanted to stamp out. Even in verse 17 we see Paul went back down to Damascus, a place he was on his way to commit Christians to prison.

C.S. Lewis, a British author and thinker, once was a very staunch atheist. Lewis set a course for his life to disprove that God was real. However upon his study he came to the realization that he was wrong and God was in fact very real and then he became an apologist and defender of the faith, a faith that he once knew was wrong he now believed it. What about you today, if you are a Christian it is your duty to share your faith with others, you may not be like Paul or Lewis and knock on doors, but we all know someone who we have a good enough relationship with to share Jesus.

Last thing a Grace changed life is found in verse 22. Everyone knew about Paul and his brigade to stop Jesus from being proclaimed. Then also everyone heard of his conversion and look at what they did. Verse 24. Glorified God because of Paul. What a transformation and listen Paul didnt deserve this at all, you know what he deserved hell and punishment. But instead God extended grace to him by no merit or works of his own, all on the grace and sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

What about us? It's easy to stand back and throw rocks at Paul and others like him for what they have done. But the sad reality is that we are no different, we aren’t any more worthy of God's grace than Paul was. The hero of Paul's story is the hero of all our stories and that is Jesus. You might be sitting in here today saying to yourself, Josh I am just not good enough, God can't save me and he probably doesnt want too. Well the reason this story of Paul is in our Bibles today is to show you that yes God can save you and yes He wants too. Will you come to Him today, we have a prayer team that would love to talk with you, I would love to talk with you. Will you come and be saved today? (CALL WORSHIP TEAM….PRAY)