Galatians 1 - Paul's Autobiography

Tom Shrader walks through Paul's autobiographical account in Galatians 1:11-24, examining three phases: Paul's zealous persecution of the church before conversion, his dramatic Damascus road encounter with Christ, and his subsequent ministry calling. Shrader emphasizes that Paul's conversion was entirely God's initiative—Paul wasn't seeking Jesus but was chosen by God from the womb for apostolic ministry to the Gentiles. The teaching challenges believers to recognize that their own salvation follows the same pattern: chosen by God, saved by grace, and called to share the Gospel with others.

“If you know enough to believe the gospel, you know enough to share the gospel.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Galatians

Recorded: 2012

Duration: 51 min

Themes: conversion, calling, grace, salvation, persecution, apostleship, ministry, freedom, new believer, questioning calling, pastor, feeling unworthy, struggling with legalism, ministry leader, young adult, missionary

Scripture: Galatians 1:1, Galatians 1:4, Galatians 1:6, Galatians 1:10-24, Galatians 2:1-10, Acts 7:54-8:3, Acts 9:1-19, Philippians 3:4-10, Romans 5:8, Romans 9:10-16, Ephesians 2:8-9, 1 Corinthians 2:1-2, Jeremiah 1:5, Isaiah 49:1, Luke 1, Matthew 5:16

Theological Themes: soteriology, divine election, apostolic authority, damascus road, divine calling, spiritual liberty, justification by grace, predestination

Full Transcript

Open your Bibles, if you would, please, to the Book of Galatians. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand, and if you get a Bible from us, it's page 631.

Let me do a little bit of a reminder summary. We'll use a couple of quotes that we read last week about the introduction to the Book of Galatians. One author wrote, "Galatians has been conferred such titles as the Magna Carta of Spiritual Liberty, the Battle Cry of the Reformation, the Christians' Declaration of Independence. It is clearly the Holy Spirit's charter of spiritual freedom for those who have received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior." So you get that idea of freedom in there a lot.

Another author writes, "The message of Galatians is a message of the Christians' spiritual freedom. It is delivered by Christ from the bondage of sin and religious legalism. It's a message that's particularly relevant in our day." I like this, and again, I had a half a dozen. "Galatians is a letter for recovering Pharisees."

The Message for Religious People

The Pharisees who lived during and after the time of Christ were very religious, so this has great application to you. We've said before, probably the better the church, the more the application for this, honestly. These Pharisees regularly attended their worship. They were orthodox in their theology and moral in their conduct, yet something was missing.

Although God was in their minds and in their actions, He wasn't in their heart. Therefore, their religion was little more than hypocrisy. The Pharisees were hypocrites because they thought that what God would do for them depended upon what they did for God. So they read their Bibles and prayed and tithed and kept the Sabbath as if their salvation depended upon it. What they failed to understand is that God's grace cannot be earned. It's only given freely.

So you get the sense of spiritual freedom. The reoccurring theme, especially chapter one and two of the book of Galatians, but it's the idea all the way through, is the freedom we have in Christ.

Paul's Defense of His Authority

The background is Paul's writing to this church at Galatia, and in this process, he's defending himself and his gospel. So there are all sorts of attacks on him, attacks on his apostleship, accusations were made that he was either self-appointed or he was something less than a real apostle.

So we saw last week, chapter one, verse one: "Paul, an apostle, not sent from men," so he said, I wasn't elected to this, I didn't aspire to this, "nor through the agency of men." There weren't a bunch of guys who got together and sent me out, "but through Jesus Christ, and God the Father raised us from the dead." He's appealing to that authority.

So he's not driven by man, nor the approval of man, by the way. Look at chapter one, verse 10, he said, "For am I now seeking the favor of men or of God, or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bondservant of Christ." So he said, I'm delivering this very hard message, it's not a popular message, I am not motivated by the acceptance of man or the pleasing of man, I'm motivated by loving God, by obeying Him, by presenting the real gospel.

Paul's Displeasure with the Galatians

We're gonna get into that today, but we saw a little bit of it last week, his displeasure. Remember we said that this book is probably the only one of the epistles that Paul writes that has no commendation in it. We cited the church at Corinth last week, that church all messed up, all sorts of ethical, moral problems, so much so that at one point, Paul chastises him because they have someone in the church who's sleeping with his mother, likely stepmother, and they haven't dealt with it. But even to that church, Paul commends them, encourages them. He doesn't here.

Remember we saw chapter one, verse one through five, kind of his introduction, and then the gospel. Look at verse four: it's Jesus who gave Himself for our sins that He might rescue us from this present age according to the will of the Father. So there's the gospel, but look at verse six: "I'm amazed, I'm stunned, I'm astounded that you are so quickly deserting him who called you by grace for a different gospel."

The Problem of the Judaizers

So what had happened was this: some Judaizers had come along, the gospel is now being spread, originally it was kind of Jew to Jew, but now it's going out to the Gentile world. In this process, it's created one giant issue, and it's this: can a Gentile become a Christian without adherence to the law of Judaism? So for example, is it necessary for an adult converted male to be circumcised? So we have all of these types of questions.

So these guys had come in behind Paul, and they had said, "Listen, Paul preached this message of salvation by grace through faith, but he neglected to add, no, there's more to this." And Paul's saying, no, here's the gospel, verse four: it's really simple, Christ died for our sins so that He might rescue us.

Your problem, my problem, mankind's problem is a sin problem. It's not an economic problem, it's not a political problem, it's not an intellectual problem, it's a moral problem, it's a sin problem, and there's nothing we can do to fix it. So God becomes flesh and dwells among us, Jesus, and then dies on the cross, rose from the dead, and He did this as payment for our sins. So that's what we talked about extensively last week. If you weren't here, go online, hit play, and there it is. That's the gospel, that's the issue.

The Seriousness of the Issue

And Paul is adamant here. We're gonna look at chapter one, verses 11, through chapter two, verse 10, today, big section. But look at chapter two, verse 11, this is part of next week. Paul is talking about a confrontation he has with Cephas, with Peter. And he said, "When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face." I stood toe to toe with him.

And then, in verse 14, he said, "I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth, and I said to Peter, in the presence of all." So Paul's saying, this is not some frivolous issue here. Paul's saying, we're talking—

Paul Defends the Origin of His Gospel

About the gospel, when he talks to the gospel, we can't alter this at all. What they were doing was not distracting from necessarily the gospel in and of itself. What they're saying is, here's the gospel, but there's more. That's vintage man.

One author writes this, and this is patently true: the centrality of the cross and of the resurrection do not figure in man-made religion. Man always seems to prefer what flatters him and affirms his human goodness. So Voltaire said it this way: God created man in His own image, and man has been returning the favor ever since.

What we do is we create religion, and in essence, it's like this: we create something that says, if I was God, this is how it would work. The God that we create is not a sovereign God. The God we create is really there for our use. Almost all religion is going to have a component of this human endeavor in it.

The Universal Appeal of Works-Based Religion

If we break up and start interviewing people at the food court and ask them this: Do you believe there's a God? Ninety-three percent will say yes. Do you believe there's life after death? Something like eighty-five percent will say yes. Then you'll say, okay, if there's life after death, let's call it heaven for the sake of this discussion. If there's life after death, what do I have to do to go to heaven?

By far, the number one answer is what? Be good, be good. See, it's always about me. All you can say is about me.

So you push back a little, and you start to ask, well, good, well, how good? Most people, and that's why they say, a loving God would never send anybody to hell. If you push people long enough, they're going to go, you know, pretty much everybody gets there. Hitler, no. Gaddafi, no. My ex, no. But other than that, just about everybody else, they slide in there one way or the other. Good enough, they get them in there.

The Gospel Cannot Be Altered

What they're doing here is altering that. Whether you take the gospel and you bring it back and start cutting pieces out, or you add pieces to it, either way, you've distorted the gospel. Either way, it's not the gospel.

What happened to me in preparation for this is I got immersed in chapter one, verses eleven through twenty-four. Here's what I think is going to happen. We're going to get about as far as chapter two, verse five. Then next week, I'll take the balance of chapter two and tie it with next week's lesson, and it'll fit together nicely. But I really want to come and attack the balance of chapter one, beginning in verse eleven.

Paul's Divine Commission

Paul speaks autobiographically. He says this: "For I would have you know," literally, I would make it clear, I would certify, "that the gospel which I preached is not according to man." So this gospel that I'm preaching didn't originate with any man. Nor, he says, was I taught it. I'm not a disciple of somebody who came and gave this to me, nor did I receive it. So he's saying both of those. It wasn't passed down by tradition, wasn't passed down by an individual, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus.

The accusation here is that Paul, you're kind of self-promoting in your apostleship. He says no. In the gospel, he says no. He said this isn't something that I invented or somebody else invented. Its origin is not within a human being. He said I got it through a revelation. It's not a human message.

So important: not invented, not a concoction of man. Supernatural. He says in verse twelve, "I received it through a revelation." That word literally means an unveiling of something previously secret. I received it through a revelation of Jesus. So it's Jesus who is probably revealing this to Him, but the revelation, the subject of that revelation is also Jesus Himself.

Paul's saying listen, I'm going to come at this full force. I have to defend myself. I'm telling you, just as he did in verse one with his apostleship, he says it here: this is not something that I dreamed up. This is not something that some guy somewhere in committee concocted. This is not something that happened a long time ago, and these are traditions passed down by men. This came to me from Christ.

Paul's Three-Part Autobiography

Beginning in verse thirteen and through verse twenty-four, Paul speaks autobiographically, and I've divided it into three sections. Verse thirteen and fourteen, Paul speaks of his life before his conversion. Verse fifteen and the first part of verse sixteen, Paul speaks about his conversion. The second part of verse sixteen through the end of this chapter, Paul speaks post-conversion.

I'm going to tell you up front, here's what happened to me: this became not just an academic study, because I'm not that interested in that, but the application of it. When I broke it into those sections—pre-conversion, conversion, post-conversion—I saw this, and it's something that we've contended and I've taught here for a long time: your conversion and mine, this is really important now, is circumstantially different than Paul's, but substantially the same.

You're not, I'm going to guess anyway, that none of you were converted on the road to Damascus. But there was this moment of what we would call radical conversion, which is essentially redundant. Paul is going to say, this is what I was, this is what Jesus did, and now this is who I am.

Your Story Mirrors Paul's Story

I want you to see this, as we look at what Paul was, somewhere it's going to describe you. You were something. Then there's this moment of conversion, then there's this call on your life. So Paul was totally driven by the law. He was totally driven by pleasing God through his works.

Paul's Former Life in Judaism

Paul describes two key aspects of his former life in verse 13: "You have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism." First, how he used to persecute the church beyond measure and tried to destroy it. Second, how he was advancing in Judaism beyond many of his contemporaries among his countrymen, being more extremely zealous for his ancestral traditions.

Let me take them in reverse order. When Paul says he was "advancing," it means literally to chop ahead of, to blaze a trail through a forest. Paul is saying he was moving ahead through the ancestral traditions - not just the Old Testament, but the oral teaching around it, the laws that came around it. The laws that were developed by the Jews to explain the laws, dealing with every little detail along the way.

Remember when Jesus confronted the Pharisees, He said, "You tithe on the mint and the cumin and the dill." He was saying literally, you take your salt and pepper and things around the house, and you tithe off of them, but you're ignoring the big picture of the law. You follow the law and cleanse yourself ceremonially, but inside you're filled with dead man's bones. You go all over the world seeking a convert, but when you get one, they're further away from God rather than closer to Him. Paul is saying, that's what he found.

Paul's Impressive Resume

Turn to Philippians chapter 3, where you get Paul's resume. In Philippians 3:4, Paul is talking about the ability to please God through the law, through obedience, through the flesh, through his own effort. "Although I myself might have confidence even in the flesh, if anyone else has a mind to put confidence in the flesh, I far more." Paul said, "I'm just telling you this - you think you're good, I'm better."

He starts by going through his heritage, saying this didn't even start with him. Verse 5: "I was circumcised on the eighth day." See, he didn't have anything to do with that. That's his heritage. "I'm from the nation of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee." He's saying he excelled in all of these things. When it came to persecution, he was zealous against the church.

What Conversion Meant for Paul

Here's what conversion did for Paul. Here's what conversion means. Verse 7: "Whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be lost, in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." He thought it was all about him, in terms of ritual and obedience, and he was delivered from that.

He said no, what has value is none of those things that he did - those were all his human achievements, they mean nothing. What has value is knowing Christ. Verse 10: "That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection." We talk all the time about relationship - think about a human relationship, how you come into that, how you grow that, and the beauty of that. That's what Paul said it's all about.

Where we are in the book of Galatians, Paul said regarding this ancestral tradition: "I had it. In terms of compliance to the law, I am literally a super Jew." You aren't going to touch him. If it was possible to please God through the law, he would have done it.

Stephen's Martyrdom and Paul's Role

Paul also talks in the Galatians passage about his persecution of the church. Turn to Acts chapter 7. At the very end of that chapter, verse 54, Stephen has been charged and will be killed. He decides to take a stand, so he speaks to the Jews, saying, "You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are always resisting the Holy Spirit, just as your fathers did."

When the Jews heard this in verse 54, they were cut to the quick, they were laid bare, they were exposed. There was gnashing of teeth at him. But being full of the Holy Spirit, Stephen gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. He said, "Behold, I see the heavens opened up, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God." But they cried out with a loud voice, covered their ears, and rushed at him with one impulse.

I love that picture - they're covering their ears, rushing at him because they don't want to hear this.

The Reaction Against Truth

Someone asked me earlier about Tim Tebow, what I think of Tim Tebow. He seems like a nice guy - if he called me and asked me out for coffee, I'd go. I don't have an issue with him. I think in some ways, he's as much a victim. It seems to me they made more of his faith than he did in a lot of ways.

What I'm intrigued by is not Tim Tebow, but the people who can't stand him. I am absolutely stunned by the people who can't stand him for no reason. You've got the NFL filled with guys who have strippers, and hookers, and drugs, who have killed people, who have done all this stuff, coming out of jail, and we're buying their jerseys. But we get to Tim Tebow, and somehow there's an objection to Tim Tebow.

So I'm with a guy one day and he said, "I hate Debbie Boone." I said, "How can you even have an opinion on that? Why would you waste brain cells?" "I hate Debbie Boone." I said, "Why do you hate Debbie Boone?" And he said, "She's such a goody-goody." And I thought, "Well, yeah, that's what I want my daughter to be like—more like Madonna."

So there's something about Tebow. I think his very presence is an intimidation to people who live lives they know are rotten. That's what I think. That's not to say he's perfect. That's what's happening here. They can't stand to hear this. They're convicted and condemned by just the message that Stephen gives.

Stephen's Martyrdom and Saul's Role

They drove him out of the city. Verse 58: they began stoning him. The witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul. So here's what's happening. They're going out to the city. They're going to stone him. There are witnesses. There are those that are going to do the stoning. They take off their robes. They lay them at the feet of Saul. That's Paul. That's the pre-converted Paul, Saul of Tarsus.

They stone him. Stephen cries out, verse 59: "Falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, 'Lord, don't hold it against them.'" He fell asleep. Verse 1 of chapter 8: "Saul was in hearty agreement with putting him to death." Remember, that's what he said in Galatians chapter 1: "My former life—I used to persecute the church of God."

Saul's Campaign of Persecution

And on that day, a persecution began against the church in Jerusalem. They were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles. Some devout men buried Stephen and made loud lamentation over him. But Saul began, verse 3, ravaging the church, entering house after house, dragging off men and women that he would put into prison.

Now, that word that's translated "ravaging" is used in secular Greek literature to describe a wild animal that's tearing apart its prey. So here is Paul—Saul—going from church to church and house to house, ripping apart, just doing anything he can to destroy that church. He's successful.

Chapter 9, verse 1: "Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked for letters from him to the synagogues of Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem."

Acts 9, verse 3: "As he was traveling, it happened that he was approaching Damascus when a sudden light from heaven appeared."

Saul's Pre-Conversion State

So there's the pre-converted Paul. Some things to observe at this point: Saul is not looking for Jesus. He's not looking for a better way to communicate with God. He's absolutely confirmed in his mind that he is God's instrument, doing God's work. See that? He's not open to conversation. He's not trying to find Jesus. He's trying to destroy Jesus.

Now, keep your finger there, because we're going back and forth between here and Galatians. So let's look at how Paul describes his conversion in Galatians 1:15. We're right back now.

God's Sovereign Call

"But when God"—so now God's going to move—"who had set me apart, even from my mother's womb, and called me through His grace, was pleased to reveal His Son to me, so that I might preach Him"—that's Jesus—"among the Gentiles."

He said this was a calling of God. This was a calling that God placed on my life while I was still in my mother's womb. Jeremiah writes the same thing. The Lord came and said to me, Jeremiah chapter 1, verse 5: "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before you were born, I consecrated you. I have appointed you a prophet to all the nations."

Isaiah chapter 49, verse 1: Isaiah writes, "Listen to me, O islands, and pay attention, you people from afar. The Lord called me from my mother's womb." Luke chapter 1: we hear or read these same things about John the Baptist.

Divine Election in Romans 9

Here's probably the classic passage. You're in the book of Acts, and the book to the right is the book of Romans. Look at Romans chapter 9 when you see this idea of the divine call of God. Romans chapter 9, verse 10: "And not only this, but there was Rebekah also, when she conceived twins by one man, our father Isaac."

So here's the background: Rebekah's pregnant with twins, obviously same father. So he's going to say there's no distinction here between the two in terms of heritage. "For though the twins had not yet been born"—so still in the womb—"and had not done anything good or bad"—so it wasn't that one of these kids had done something to earn favor with God, or one of them had done something to displease God. That's not the case.

"So that God's purpose"—here's the motive—"God's purpose according to His choice would stand, not because of works, but because of Him who calls, it was said to her"—God said to Rebekah—"'the older will serve the younger'"—so it's the reverse of the tradition. "Just as it is written, 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.'"

Understanding Divine Justice and Mercy

That's a powerful statement, isn't it? So He says, "Here are these two boys in the womb. Here's Jacob—I'm going to show affection to him, mercy to him. Here's Esau"—the word "hate" there is not actively intervening; He's simply saying, "I'm not going to give him mercy."

Now, when you hear that, something inside of you should cry out and scream, "That's not fair! That's not fair!" Verse 14: "What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.'"

So what Paul's saying is, no one was treated unjustly. Esau gets justice, Jacob gets mercy—independent of them, totally dependent upon God for His good pleasure. It's the same thing that Paul writes to the church at Ephesus, when he says to that church and to all of us believers that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, and He predestined us to adoption as sons. So this is what Paul is saying here.

in your life. You see God's choosing all around you. You were chosen to be born this year, not in 1712. You were chosen to live at this point of time in Arizona, not in India. You see all sorts of natural selection around you. You were chosen to be tall, or short, wide, or narrow, or handsome, or whatever it might be. What he's saying is the same thing is true of salvation, and of ministry. Paul was chosen for salvation, he was chosen for apostleship, he was chosen for a mission. You and I, who are followers of Christ, are that because of God's choosing.

Look at it. This is a wonderful example. I'm not sure oftentimes when we read this account of Paul's conversion that we kind of see this in it. But look at it. It's all God. It's not Paul.

Paul's Conversion Was All God's Initiative

I want to make this point again. Paul's not looking for salvation. He's convinced he's got it. Does he seem indecisive to you? No. Paul's still murdering threats. He's on the road to Damascus.

And as he was traveling, there's a sudden light. Acts chapter 9 verse 4, "and he fell on the ground, and he heard a voice, 'Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?' And he said, 'who are you, Lord?' And he said, 'I'm Jesus whom you're persecuting. Get up and enter the city, and it will be told to you what you must do.' And the men who traveled with him stood speechless. They heard a voice, but seeing no one, Saul got up from the ground, and though his eyes were open, he couldn't see, and they led him by hand. They brought him into Damascus, and he was there three days and three nights. No sight, no eat, no drink."

Now there was a disciple—so God's not just working in his life, He's going to bring this word, this time through a person, Ananias. God appears to Ananias and he says, "Yeah, here I am, Lord." Verse 11, "The Lord said, 'Get up and go to the street called Straight and inquire at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying and he's seen in a vision a man named Ananias, come and lay hands on him so that he might regain his sight.'"

Look at Ananias. This is perfect human response. "Lord, I've heard of many things about this man, how much he did harm to their saints in Jerusalem, and he is here with the authority of the chief priests to bind all who call upon your name." Here's what he's saying: are you sure you got the right Saul? This doesn't make sense.

God's Unlikely Choices

Let me stop. This is what I'm saying. There are all these little points along the way. That's so typically human, isn't it? In your life, you've had people—some of you are married to them. Let's do this. This might even be like picking at a scab, but we'll do it anyway.

Some of you are married today to people who aren't Christians, and you got into that knowing full well they weren't, but thinking they were that close, and if they could just spend time with you, you'd push them over the edge. They've spent time with you and they've been pushed over the edge. But that happens all the time. You'll see these people, you go, "He's such a nice guy, she's such a great gal, she's so sweet, oh my golly, if I just get a chance to explain the gospel to them," and they never respond. And then you'll see these people who are just awful people, despicable people, the most unlikely people. You wouldn't even think to share the gospel with them, and then God saves them.

That's exactly what happens here. "He's a chosen instrument, go, chosen instrument of mine. Here's his mission: he'll bear my name before the Gentiles and the kings, and I will show him how much he must suffer." Ananias departs, he meets Saul, he meets him, scales fall from his eyes, he regains his sight, he took food, and now for several days he's with the disciples at Damascus, and immediately he began to proclaim Jesus.

Your Salvation Is God's Work Too

That's your call and mine. We're saved by grace through faith. We're called by grace. Paul writes in Romans chapter five, verse eight, "For God demonstrates His own love toward us, and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us."

Your salvation, your relationship with Christ is generated by, initiated by, continued by, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not human incentive. You're no more looking for Jesus, in all likelihood, than Paul was. If you were looking for something spiritual, it was something other than Christ. It had something with your flesh in it. But God called you. He gave you mercy.

We say it again: Paul is not looking for God. He's not looking for Jesus. He's not looking for the church. He's not looking for truth. He already has it. And it's an amazing picture of God's grace and mercy, isn't it?

Salvation Comes with a Call to Service

Now, here's something that's huge. With the call of salvation comes a call to service. Remember what we said at the beginning now? We're looking at these aspects of Paul's life. So you see him right here. His pre-conversion: hates the church. God saves him, totally a work of God. But then God says, "I save him for a purpose."

We said your salvation is circumstantially different, substantially the same. So you have some story, whatever it was, that's before you were converted, then a story of conversion. Not sure what that looks like. You may be able to go date, place, time. You may say, "I don't know that I know date, place, time, I just know that." Doesn't matter. But there's that moment in time where you turn from your efforts, your religion, whatever you were, and you turn to Christ, and Christ alone. You believed in the crucifixion, the resurrection. That's your story. You were at war with God, now you're at peace with Him.

And He saved you for a reason. "I'm saved by grace through faith, that not of myself, it's a gift of God that no man should boast," Ephesians 2:8-9, "and I'm saved for good works." Not that result in my salvation, but result from my salvation. That's the gospel. That should be your life.

Paul, the whole basis of his ministry becomes what he tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter two, verse one and two, that "I preach Christ and Christ crucified."

Go back and keep your finger there on the book of Acts, as we'll be back. Go back to the book of Galatians. So Paul now is saved and he preaches.

Let me make this a gigantic point: If you know enough to believe the gospel, you know enough to share the gospel.

Sharing What Impacts Us

I'm here this morning, and a guy comes up and says, "You don't go to many movies, do you?" I said I go to some. He said, "Did you see Iron Lady?" I said no, I haven't. "You need to see it." By the way, he never even really told me it was good. He just said Meryl Streep was amazing. Isn't that interesting? I wasn't looking for a movie recommendation, and he felt compelled to tell me this.

I ate at a restaurant the other day, and I was talking to somebody. I said I ate at this place, and it was really good. You read a book, you know the drill, right? Watch a movie, watch a TV show. I was talking to somebody the other day, and he said, "Do you watch any TV shows that are on?" I said I watch Castle and the Mentalist. "Oh, I love those two!"

Think about this. Nobody has to tell you to share that. You just do it because it's had such an impact on your life. Now here's Jesus. Shouldn't that be like the same thing? Maybe even more so? I believe that's the norm.

When God Uses Us

So you've got to ask yourself if that's not happening, why is that not happening? It's not that there aren't people around you that are hurting, right? When's the last time God used you like an Ananias here? When was the last time God used you as the instrument to deliver the gospel to somebody in which He converted them—you didn't? He converted them. When was the last time He did that? Because there's a whole bunch of—my assumption would be there's a whole bunch of people all around you.

I'm talking to a guy one day, and he's an attorney. He said, "I want to get out of—I want to get into ministry." I said, "Why do you want to get into—" "I want to help people that are hurting." I said, "Well, tell me about your law practice." He said, "Well, it's family law." Yeah, exactly. Really? So all day, what's your day? "Well, all day I'm dealing with family disputes and marriage—" I said, "Well, I don't understand that. It seems to me like God's placed you in this perfect opportunity for ministry. And they pay you. That's really good. And they pay you for it." Isn't that interesting?

That should be the norm. There should be something consistently in your life that draws people to you.

People Recognizing God Through You

Look at Galatians, look at the end of this. We're jumping all around, but look at verse 24. Let me read it to you from the Message from Eugene Peterson. He pairs a phrase this way: "Their response was to recognize and worship God because of me."

Who's walking around the valley right now recognizing and worshiping God because of you? How many people are there? How many people are there—100, 50, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1? And if you're sitting here right now going, "Okay, okay, talk faster, move on because I'm feeling really guilty"—okay, here's what I want you to see. That's good, because if I just hit your number and one, two, three, four, you should feel guilty. You're walking around saying, "I've known Jesus for 30 years and I can point to two people?" Okay, listen up now. Love you, man, love you. Something's wrong with you. Something's wrong.

I love this. There should be people who are glorifying God and worshiping God because of an encounter with you. Jesus commands, "Let your light shine in such a way that people see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." That's this second part of Paul's testimony.

Paul's Three Years of Preparation

We'll go back, we'll back off the gas a little. Second part of verse 16: "I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood." He said I didn't run out and start talking to other believers at this point. "Nor did I go to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went to Arabia and returned once more to Damascus. Then three years later I went up to Jerusalem."

So he's in this place for three years. He's in this place for three years where it's just him and God primarily, where God is teaching him. Remember what he said? He said this gospel's not of human origin. "I didn't get this as a man. Wasn't passed down as a tradition." His seminary faculty was Jesus.

So we see as the guys after Jesus has been crucified and rose from the dead, guys are on the road to Emmaus and Jesus comes alongside. They don't know it's Him, and He opens up the scriptures and He teaches. That's what happened to Paul. Paul's being prepared here for ministry.

Paul's Visit with Peter

Three years later, verse 18, he went up from Jerusalem to become acquainted with—it means literally to visit with the purpose for getting to know someone. He became acquainted with Cephas, with Peter, and he stayed with him for a little over two weeks, 15 days. Didn't see any other apostles except for James.

So he said I went up there. I became acquainted with him. Obviously, he talked about spiritual things. But this is after this period that God's given him this. My sense would be that Peter and Paul are having this discussion and Paul's sharing what he's known. I would assume there's something that is stunning to Peter at this point.

Verse 20, a bit of an oath. He says, "Now in what I'm writing to you, I assure you before God, I'm not lying." So again, here's all the accusations that are against him. He said, "Listen, I'm telling you the truth. This is how this happened."

Returning Home with Your Testimony

And then he goes out to the other regions. Now this is interesting. He goes to the regions that include his hometown of Tarsus. So again, another one of those hit the pause button moments. Thinking of sharing your testimony, it's one thing, I think, to share your testimony with somebody who you don't know. Or for me, it's really easy when you are invited into a situation and that's the whole point of it. They invite you to come in and speak. I mean, that's fairly easy. But now you begin to share one-on-one. Sometimes—

that's more difficult. Sometimes it depends. I can tell you this. We did this probably 15 years ago. I was teaching this Bible study and I got carried away. It was one of those moments where I got a little carried away and I said, let's do this. Let's pray and ask God to bring somebody into your life this week. Somebody with whom you have the opportunity to share the gospel.

I came in the next Wednesday morning. This guy came up to me and said, here's what happened to me this week. My wife and I were having a couple over. We're done eating. The gals were talking. I'm talking to the guy, and we're talking about baseball or cars or something random. The guy looked me in the eye and said, can you tell me about Jesus? And the guy said, I took that as a sign of interest. Sharp. Love that.

Praying for Gospel Opportunities

Now, I'm not suggesting that'll happen, but that should be a concern. Let's do that for this week. You pray this week that God brings somebody in your life and you're gonna have to be perceptive. You're gonna say, God, give me the problem. Let me know. So they may be coming to you and saying, how is it you handle all of this stuff? Or I've been watching you or your family's this or you had this health problem. How do you do that? Well, you gotta hear. So they're saying to you, tell me about Jesus. So you pray, God, bring somebody in my life, give me a sensitivity to it, and then give me the courage and the words to speak. So we're gonna do that. You can pray that this week. And we'll see what He does.

Personal Evangelism Challenges

So he goes to the target. So I remember, so God saved me. I get this idea one day, I'm not sure where this came from, to call my three brothers. So I decided I would call my brothers and tell each one of them what happened. So the first one I called, I said, hey, how are you? And we talk about all those things. And then he said, what's new? And I said, well, here's what's happened. I tell him the story.

There's a long pause, and then he started to laugh. And he said, do you remember, and I know I'm screwed at this point. Do you remember the night that you'd been drinking all night and passed out, and the pizza delivery guy picked you up and brought you home? Do you remember that night? I said, well, I remember the night. I remember a morning waking up smelling like pepperoni, but I don't remember the details. Remember all of the details. And it was very interesting. And I said, why don't we have a conversation? And I don't operate under any illusion at that point, other than you open it up, and then they get to watch it from there. But families even, I mean, that's really hard.

Paul's Credibility Challenge

Now, Paul's going into Tarsus, where he's been leading the charge against the church, where they all know all about him. And now he's coming in there, and he's preaching to them Christ and Christ crucified. So what did he hear? Verse 23: "Isn't he the one who persecuted us and now is preaching faith, which he once tried to destroy?"

And I'm sure that there's some natural hesitancy in there. There's a tendency to be suspicious, which I totally get. But it's not about Paul. It's about the message. And apparently, as they looked at that, that message and that life matched up, so they're glorifying God.

The Jerusalem Meeting

I want to just look real quickly. We're gonna take like three or four minutes and just look at the beginning of chapter two. After an interval of 14 years, still Paul, I went up to Jerusalem with Barnabas, and I took along Titus. And it was because of a revelation that I went up. So he said, I'm going up. The traveling squad is Barnabas and Titus, and I'm going because God revealed that I should go.

So I submitted the gospel to them. So he's talking primarily to Peter, James, John. The gospel which I preached among the Gentiles, because the charge was that this was somehow a different gospel. And I did so in private, so those who are of reputation for fear that I might be running or had run in vain.

Verse three, and I don't know Greek. Those who translate and the experts say, verse three, four, and five are an absolute mess in Greek. That it's pretty hard to kind of unpack all the subtleties of it, but we can grab a big point out of it. Not even Titus, who was with me, though he was a Greek, was compelled to be circumcised.

The Gospel Vindicated

So now there's this discussion, and Titus is along, and Titus becomes exhibit A. Because the issue was this. Paul's preaching a different gospel. And my guess is the Judaizers had gone to James and the big boys and said, Paul's preaching a different gospel. And I'm sure as the Judaizers have gone around, they've said to those in Galatia and around, Paul's preaching a gospel different with those guys. Those guys don't approve of them. They even kind of present in one case kind of false credentials and say, we're from James.

So now this is the big moment. And so they have this discussion. We may look at it a little more in depth next week. They have this discussion, and Paul and Barnabas have the opportunity to talk about what God's doing in the Gentiles, the miracles that have been done, but then the message that's been distributed. And Peter speaks, and James declares that the gospel that Paul's preaching is in fact the gospel. They're the same gospel. That it is Jesus plus nothing. That salvation is utterly, incompletely, wholly, entirely an act of God.

And here's old Titus. He's got a little invested in this deal. Here's Titus, the uncircumcised Greek, who when they declare this, in the room you could hear this: whew. That was him, that was Titus in the back. Stakes were high for him. But see, that's what they're saying. They're saying, no, Titus is one of us. That gospel is the gospel. Christ and nothing more.

The Takeaway

So the takeaway to me from this is to look at Paul's life and to see that pre-conversion, conversion, and subsequent, that you're saved by

God, from God, for God. When God delivered you, He delivered you from your sin, but He delivered you into freedom. The call to salvation is accompanied by a call to service, whatever that is. This gospel cannot be changed, must not be changed.

Next week, what we do is in essence just pick up that story and develop it a bit more. I'll pick up somewhere in there next week. We'll get through verse 14.

The Gospel as a Prism

I will just tell you this—the following week is essentially the same. We were talking about it in the preaching collective. There is a glorious repetition to these three weeks. My hope is, and I trust God because I know I can't do it, my hope is that God takes this gospel like a prism and just kind of tweaks it a little bit. You see Jesus all through this and you become convicted.

Maybe you're here and go, "I don't have a clue what you're just talking about." Okay, there's a bunch of people who are in the front of the room here when the service is done and they want to meet with you and talk to you and talk about this.

A Call to Self-Examination

For those of us who know Christ, I really do think the mess—at least one of the takeaways to me—would be our people rejoicing, recognizing, worshiping God because of encounter with you. Because if they aren't, you need to take a hard look at your life.

Jake's going to come and if you're in the conference center, he's going to close your service over there in just a minute here in the chapel. He's going to lead us in a time of communion and then a time of worshiping the Lord through song.

Closing Prayer

Let me pray as he comes. Father, thank You for this amazing truth. God, we would pray that You would take this message and drive it deep in our heart. God, here's our prayer and we mean it humbly, but certainly boldly: we beseech You and ask You to bring someone into our life this week—one person with whom we have the opportunity to share the good news.

Maybe a family member or somebody at school, somebody at work, somebody at the gym. Maybe a casual conversation on the plane, in the store, whatever it is. God, will You bring that person into our life? Then give us a sensitivity to see it and then give us the boldness and the courage to communicate Your love.

Father, we ask it of You in Christ's name.