Sermon Tone Analysis

Galatians 1:11-24

 

Since I came to faith in 1978, I’ve heard some pretty amazing stories about how Jesus Christ has changed lives.

My own testimony, like most Christians, sounds rather pedestrian.

But some people had their lives so far off into the ditch that their repentance became more notorious than their former life without Christ.

One of these people was a man named “Chuck”.

He was called the “Hatchet Man”.

In his lust for power, /Time/ magazine once described him as blood-thirsty, deceptive and manipulative.

Those who knew him best said /these/ were his “good” qualities!

He himself once said, “I would walk over my own grandmother” if she stood between me and my goal.

But he never set out to live this kind of life.

He became preoccupied with hiding his sins and covering his tracks.

Urgent demands and deadlines on high-pressure assignments seemed to keep his mind from ever thinking about reaping what he was sowing.

That all changed on a rainy Sunday evening in 1973.

It was then that onetime Presidential Advisor Chuck Colson (Nixon’s hatchet man) heard the Gospel from his friend Tom Phillips.

He heard that Jesus Christ was the security he had been seeking through political power and manipulation all his life.

God had gotten Chuck Colson’s attention.

Then came Watergate.

The Watergate scandal was front-page news and Colson’s involvement in it was becoming increasingly more public.

The same man who had been chauffeured to the oval office in a limousine would soon be indicted and carted off to an Alabama State penitentiary.

But it didn’t seem to matter now.

There was a peace about him.

He was a changed man.

But whether your conversion was front page news—or no news at all, the fact is, the gospel changes lives.

Belief in Jesus Christ not only changes our destination, it also changes our journey.

In Galatians 1:11-24, the Apostle Paul describes his own conversion experience.

He tell us what he was like before Christ, then how he came to Christ, then what he did after he came to Christ.

It’s the story of a radically changed life.

Paul needed to make this point clear.

His opponents accused him of being a crowd pleaser.

Some said his conversion came from a fascination with Jewish Christians he was following from city to city.

But he was following them to arrest them.

He was a violent persecutor of the church.

And now before the Judaizers, he’s fighting to distinguish free salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ from salvation by external Jewish rituals in keeping with the Law of Moses.

What he uses to make his point are historical facts from the life of Christ backed by his own first-hand, personal experience.

No embellishment, just the facts.

As we continue our study of Galatians, let’s open our Bibles to Galatians 1:11-24.

In honor of God and His Word, I invite you to stand for the reading of God’s Word.

11 I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up.

12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

/ /

13 For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.

14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.

15 But when God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased  16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man,  17 nor did I go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went immediately into Arabia and later returned to Damascus.

18 Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and stayed with him fifteen days.

19 I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother.

20 I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie.

21 Later I went to Syria and Cilicia.

22 I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ.

23 They only heard the report: “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.”

24 And they praised God because of me.

[NIV]

 

[Prayer] According to his own testimony, Paul was not only “saved”, he was radically saved.

At conversion, he began to love the very thing he once hated and set out to destroy.

As then, so now—the gospel changes lives.

I’ve known the gospel to change alcoholics into clean and sober men and women with a new thirst for life.

I’ve known the gospel to remove the poison of racism from the blood of hate-filled men and women, who now want only to see every race and nation come to Christ.

I’ve known the gospel to add income for food and clothes where casino debts had once eaten that income away.

In a word, it’s FREEDOM.

Paul had been set free!

The question to be answered in this section is: What is the /origin/ of Paul’s gospel?

From where did Paul get all this new information?

Was it from men or from God? Was it something Paul made up?

Did he receive it from the other apostles?

Paul’s answer to his critics is found in verses 11-12:

 

11 I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preached is not something that man made up.

12 I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

Paul was adamant that the Galatians know the source of his gospel.

It was not “made up” by man; it was not “received” from man; it was not “taught” by man.

The gospel Paul preaches came directly by revelation of Jesus Christ.

In verses 13-24, Paul gives us his testimony.

He tells us what happened before his conversion, what happened at his conversion, and what happened following his conversion.

*I.

First, Paul hated the church and tried to destroy it.

(13-14)*

 

Listen again to verses 13 and 14.

 

13 For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.

14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.

Notice the violence in these descriptive phrases: I persecuted, I tried to destroy, I was advancing, I was extremely zealous.

Paul had a one-track mind, but his train was headed in the wrong direction… and it was full steam ahead.

He was up to his eyebrows in religion, but he didn’t know God, because he didn’t know Christ.

Paul was a highly trained religious lawyer, schooled in the teaching of the Torah.

But the only One who was /in/ God and came to explain God was the one Paul despised.

John 1:17-18 tells us: “17 For the law was given through Moses; [but] grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

18 No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only, who is at the Father’s side, has made him known [/lit./

“exegeted”].”

In his fervor, Paul had rejected the only One who provided for him the way to please God.

He says, “How intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.”

Do you know of someone who hates the church?

I mean /really/ hates the church and everything it stands for?

Those people do exist in the world today, but they are rare.

Most people who stay away from the church, don’t /hate/ the church.

They think highly of the church.

They think the church serves a noble purpose.

Or they tolerate the church.

They think it’s fine, but it’s just not for them.

But Paul went further than that.

He made it his personal mission to persecute the church and tried to destroy it.

No tolerance; no middle ground; no grace; no truth.

Paul was advancing in Judaism beyond the other Jewish men of his age.

He wasn’t just zealous, he was /extremely/ zealous for the traditions of Judaism.

There is nothing wrong with good traditions.

Traditions have their place.