NEW LIFE IN CHRIST!
Galatians
1:11-24
Introduction: We
are surprised perhaps by the escalating unrest in the Persian Gulf, with a
carrier group now in the region. Imagine
what would happen if the Iranian Ayatollah suddenly said that rather than continuing
down the path of radical Islam, bent on the destruction of Israel and the
United States, he was converting to Christianity and began urging others to do
the same! That might have been something
like the shock that both Christian and Jewish leaders felt in the first century
when they heard that Saul of Tarsus, a zealous Jew committed to the destruction
of the “Christ-followers,” was now claiming that he had met the resurrected Jesus,
and was preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.
As he continues this letter to the
Galatian churches, Saul, also called Paul, turns for a moment to his own story,
and he uses an apologetic argument to show the legitimacy of his message and
his apostleship. He had been advancing in
Judaism, an up and coming leader who showed his zeal by doing everything
possible to stop the followers of Jesus.
He gives his explanation of the radical change in his life: a direct,
personal revelation from God, an encounter with the risen Christ, who called
him and set him apart for a special purpose.
The Maine*
Idea:
One of the compelling evidences that God has spoken is the power of His Word to
transform lives.
I. The God who is, the Great I AM, has
spoken (1:11-12). God has revealed himself in his Word. The
source of the Gospel preached by Paul was God himself.
11 For I would have you know, brothers, that
the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. 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.
The phrase, “not man’s gospel” in v.
11 literally reads, “not according to man…”
The idea is basically as the NIV translates, “Not something man made up…” That
is something that people tend to do. They create their own idea of God and
religion, and they decide this is what they believe. Isaiah spoke to the
foolishness of creating our own God when he wrote in Isaiah 44:14-17,
…He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes
it. 15 Then it becomes fuel
for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes
bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down
before it. 16 Half of it he
burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied.
Also he warms himself and says, "Aha, I am warm, I have seen the
fire!" 17 And the rest
of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He
prays to it and says, "Deliver me, for you are my god!
Isaiah is using a little sarcasm there to make his
point! Inventing your own “god” makes no sense, neither does making up your own
ideas and calling it “God’s Word.” Remember the story of Benjamin Franklin who loved
to get into arguments with his learned friends. He would occasionally find
himself unable to answer their points and he would then ask, “Give me a day to
think the matter over, I believe I am correct.” Meanwhile, he would go to his
print shop, set up some type in the style of the Bible, and then express his
position and argument in biblical language! He would then return to his friends
and proclaim, “Whatever you may think you cannot get away from the fact that
the Holy Scripture supports my position. As it says in the Sacred Writ…”
Supposedly, the ruse worked… every time! We can’t make up the answers! Something
isn’t true simply because we say it is… all truth is God’s truth. God’s Word is
truth, and God has revealed his rescue plan, the Gospel, to us. The Apostle
Paul speaks of “revelation” in our
passage in Galatians, a “revealing” or an “unveiling” of something previous
hidden or unknown. He expressed a similar idea in I Corinthians 2:12-13…
Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but
the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us
by God, 13 which things we
also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the
Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words.
That
is what Paul is claiming in our context in Galatians. The Gospel Paul preached
did not have a human origin (11). He didn’t receive it from any other person,
no one taught it to him. People are good at devising their own system of
religion. They think they have God all figured out, and they have a good idea
about what their God expects of
people. The problem is that they appeal to their own imagination or reason,
rather than submitting to the Word of God. Man is his own final authority,
autonomous, and any religion that talks of sin and salvation, heaven and hell,
rewards and punishment, is a false religion of hope that stifles human
achievement! “Eternal hell? My God
could never do such a thing!” Really? The problem is that your god is something
you carve in your own image, rather than recognizing and crying out to the God
who is!
Most people seem willing to admit that
“God,” or, “a god,” exists; yet most people, according to the Bible, are on the
broad road that leads to destruction, they base their theology on what seems
right to them: they think they are as good as anyone else, so in the end they
will make it into heaven. We don’t get to decide arbitrarily on the path to
God. The Bible warns, “There is a way
which seems right to a man, the end thereof are the ways of death…” (Prov
14:12).
Paul says in v.12 tells us what the only
legitimate source of the Gospel must be: “I
neither received it from man, nor was I taught it…” His message was not a
church creed or a doctrinal statement that he received from other mere humans.
“…BUT…”
(strong adversative) “I received it by a revelation of Jesus Christ…” This seems to be an
objective genitive, the revelation was Jesus himself (see v.16). In other
words, Jesus was revealed to Paul, and He alone became the source of Paul’s
message. His Gospel, the heart of the doctrine he preached, was not the party-line
of a particular sect of Judaism, it was not the “seminary position” he had
learned at the “school of Gamaliel,” it came from no mere human. It came
directly through the words of Jesus Christ.
We have his Word, the Word of Life, it is his God-breathed revelation,
given to teach, correct, instruct, guide and grow us. On Paul’s second
missionary Journey, in Acts 16, he was heading south on the Macedonian
peninsula and started preaching in a town called Berea, they received his
teaching, then went and searched the Scriptures to so if it was so.
Of course, we need pastors and
teachers, God has appointed elders to lead us and guide us, but we need to be
more like the Bereans, “searching the
Scriptures daily to see whether the things they were taught were so…” Its
because its not clever presentations or good story telling that save, but only
the Word of God. I love the story of a Polish
actress, Madame Modjeska, who was a guest at a party. Some of the guests pressed her for a
recitation from one of her plays, finally she agreed, saying she would do a
part in her native tongue… Her dramatic soliloquy moved some of the guests to
tears with its power and emotion. When she ended, someone asked what part she
had recited, the actress said, “I just counted to one hundred in Polish!” Oh
well, for some people its not what you say but how you say it! This
is at times the case with charismatic speakers, we get caught up in the
eloquence, but there is no substance. Contrast Paul’s approach summarized in I
Corinthians 2:1-5…
And I, when I came to you, brothers,
did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or
wisdom. 2 For I decided to
know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness
and in fear and much trembling, 4
and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in
demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
5 that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in
the power of God.
Yes,
the words of people can be moving, but it is the Word of God that changes
hearts: Faith comes by hearing, and
hearing by the Word of Christ. The God who is has spoken. We can take Him
at His Word. It grips the soul and changes the heart, and ultimately the lives
of those who believe. One of the compelling evidences that God has spoken is
the power of His Word to transform lives. Glory to God!
II. God’s Word is powerful; it can reach
into any heart (1:13-17). Did Paul look like an
impossible case? From a human perspective, he was! The truth is, so were you and I. We see in his
conversion the truth that humans are lost apart from Christ,
without hope. But praise the Lord, nothing is impossible for God!
…you have heard
of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently
and tried to destroy it. And I
was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so
extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was
born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in
order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult
with anyone; nor did I go up to Jerusalem
to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned
again to Damascus.
First of all, notice Paul’s former
life (13-14). Paul’s “former life” was well known: He was not an obscure
fisherman from Galilee. He was an up and
coming rabbi, a native of Tarsus, he studied in Jerusalem under one of the most
prominent teachers of his day, Gamaliel.
His former life was well known, especially among prominent circles of
Judaism. Paul was zealous for the traditions of the fathers. He was not in any
way discontented with the traditions he had been taught. He was certainly not a
rebel looking for a change! Rather, he was a zealous advocate of first century
Judaism (c.f. Phil 3:5,6).
Note also that Paul in his former life
was not simply indifferent toward Christianity, he was zealously opposed to it.
The verb tenses indicate characteristic,
ongoing action, “…persecuting…” “…continually bringing destruction…” Paul
was not neutral concerning Jesus, willing to consider and discuss the possibility
that he might be the promised messiah. No, his mind was made up, and this
heresy had to be expunged. But God
spoke, and in the midst of Paul’s rejection of the Truth, God essentially pointed
to Paul and said, “This one is mine, I have a mission for Him to carry out.” And
Paul’s life was changed, completely. Consider what that means. What did it
take for this zealous persecutor of the church to become a proclaimer of the
Gospel? Divine intervention! What does that mean about the person and the
message Paul preached? It is a powerful testimony to the truth of the Gospel. In
my own experience, As I served on jury duty and heard the story of a woman
who’s life had been changed through faith in Christ, God got my attention, the
life changing power of the word was evidence that demanded a verdict. Read
carefully the 15-16, who is the initiator in salvation?
God
does it (15a, cf. 16a). “But, when it
pleased God…” This verse brings a strong contrast. Paul had been going in
one direction, but God intervened and changed the course of Paul’s life. But, when it pleased God… Notice
that God is the subject of the phrase, He is the initiator. It wasn’t
Paul’s will to change, it was God’s will to deliver Him from the way of death. We
cannot save ourselves. Christianity is not about turning over a new leaf, or
about choosing to live morally. It is a rescue story, and God is our Rescuer.
And so he alone gets the glory!
God does it by grace (15b). “And he called me through His grace…” Paul
was keenly aware that he deserved nothing from God, nothing except judgement.
And yet God intervened, and called him
through his grace… The word is frequently used by Paul, the root idea is God’s
unmerited favor, or, as the acrostic for the word G-R-A-C-E, God’s Riches At Christ’s
Expense. We come helpless, unable
to choose good and unwilling to choose God. There is nothing good in us that we
should deserve it. Yet God reached down, and broke through our stony heart, and
gave us life… “It is mine but to believe…”
Someone described it as “The hand of a
beggar reaching out to receive the gift of a King.”
God does it through Christ (16a). “…to
reveal his Son in me…” John 14:6; Heb 1:1… Paul encountered the resurrected
Jesus on the Damascus road (Acts 9:3-5)! Jesus bought our salvation in His blood,
and we receive it through faith in Him.
God does it for the sake of others (16b). God saved Paul for a purpose: “…that I might preach him among the gentiles…” We are saved to serve. As our brother Herb
Mullen used to say, “God saves us on purpose, for a purpose.” Note that for Paul, the conversion and the
commission go together. God saved Paul, he reached down and took hold of his
life, for a purpose.
Can I ask, has God saved you? Has he taken hold of your life and given you
the reality of a “new life in Christ”? Then
he saved you to serve. He has gifted
and called you to have a part in His mission, starting right where you are:
your family, neighborhood, workplace. Your changed life is a testimony to your
neighbors that God is real, and that He intervenes in human lives. A compelling
evidence that God has spoken is the power of His Word to transform lives!
III. Believers are transformed by God for
His Glory: The life-change power of the Word of God testifies to
its source and so brings glory to God (1:18-24).
18 Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained
with him fifteen days. 19 But
I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord's brother. 20 (In what I am writing to you,
before God, I do not lie!) 21
Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. 22 And I was still unknown in
person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. 23 They only were hearing it
said, "He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once
tried to destroy." 24
And they glorified God because of me.
First Paul takes pains to establish that
he did not spend a lot of time with the disciples in Jerusalem. For many years
he was virtually unknown, by face, after His conversion, to the church in
Judea. He wants the Galatians to know, as he said in 1:1, that His authority as
an apostle came directly from Christ, as did his message.
We see in vv. 22-23 The Confirmation
– the testimony of a life transformed circulated in the churches. The changed life of Paul was a powerful
testimony to what he had experienced. He
was a zealous persecutor of the church, how he had become a zealous proclaimer
of the Gospel. How do you explain that?
V.
24 shows the Consequence – The ESV gets the sense here: “And they glorified
God because of me.” Only God could make
such a change! Glory to God!
What is God saying to me in this
passage? One of the compelling evidences that God has spoken is
the power of His Word to change lives.
What would God have me to do in response
to this passage? If you are an inquirer, investigating the
claims of Christianity, I would invite you to consider the evidence of the life
of the Apostle Paul, and for that matter, the lives of the other apostles as
well. If one of the Islamic leaders in
the Mid-East suddenly announced he had converted to Christianity we would be
shocked. What about Kim Jung-un? That would shock us! Among the Jews of the
1st century that is the kind of impact the conversion of Saul must
have had. A zealous rising star of
Judaism, was suddenly preaching the faith he had once tried to destroy! For over 30 years Paul preached Jesus as
Messiah – despite persecution and imprisonment and eventual martyrdom at the
hands of Nero. How do you explain such a
change, a man willing to die for the faith he once hated and persecuted? That is
compelling evidence that calls for a response. Paul’s testimony gives the answer – he encountered the
resurrected, living Christ, and put his faith in him. The Bible is not just
about moral living or doing good to our neighbor. It is about Jesus, God the
Son, who took upon himself a human nature, so that by His sacrifice we could be
reconciled to God. AMEN.
No comments:
Post a Comment