Paradigm Shift // Is Grace Really That Amazing?

We're going to be in Galatians, chapter 1, and last week we started a brand new series entitled Paradigm Shift.

Galatians 1 · chapter mention

Paradigm Shift Seeing and experiencing authentic Christianity in a world of distortions.

Now here's the big idea of this series.

Here's what we're talking about Is that when you see and experience authentic Christianity, you will find it compelling, life-giving and soul-anchoring.

Now, if I did a little survey, I'd take a little poll here.

I'd ask you, when you hear the word Christianity, what comes to your mind?

I wonder if the words life-giving or soul-anchoring or compelling would come to your mind, or I wonder if it would be like I got to do all this stuff.

Or maybe you think of an experience in your past, or maybe you think of me sitting up here talking, but when you think about authentic Christianity, it's life-giving and it's so anchoring.

Now, what's so hard about this, guys, is all of us bring experiences with us, right, like all of us have some type of a past.

Some of us have religious upbringings that are like huh, some of us church experiences that are a certain way, and what's going to happen is all these things will be floating around in our minds and authentic Christianity can get distorted and we don't even see it.

And last week we said authentic Christianity is trusting in the gospel, the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ for your salvation, and having a growing, vibrant relationship with Jesus.

That is what authentic Christianity is.

It's not all these things you need to do, it's trusting in the gospel and having a growing, vibrant relationship with him.

Now, last time we kicked off this series in Galatians, and what we're talking about is we're talking about a group of people that lived in a region called Galatia and they started their faith journey off this way.

Then they heard the good news of the gospel Jesus came.

He died for me, put their faith and trust in him, started following him.

But then things started getting a little bit wonky, because they knew they needed Jesus, but they started thinking that it wasn't Jesus alone.

It was Jesus plus their rules.

That equaled something.

Yes, jesus was important, but they had to do all these things too, because that equaled something.

And Paul, who knew them?

In fact, paul was the one that gave them the gospel.

Paul knew them.

He writes them this letter and he's like no, no, no.

He says well, jesus plus nothing equals everything.

You have all of God's acceptance and you have all of God's love and you have all of God's grace because of Jesus.

And what Paul does in Galatians 1 is he starts to tell his story.

I don't know about you guys, but I love a good story.

You know what I'm saying.

We all love good stories.

This is what makes movies so good.

This is what makes TV series so good.

This is what causes you to stay awake and watch the next show, instead of go to bed or stay awake and read the next chapter, because you're like in it.

You know what I mean.

You're like at the edge of your seat.

You're like what's going to happen, like is it her, is it him?

And then it's like then you see the credits, it's like next episode, I'm hitting next episode.

I got to find out Paul is about to share his story and he's going to use a word that changed the trajectory of his life.

He's going to use a word that really changed everything about him.

It changed his faith, it changed his direction, it changed how he viewed the world.

And the word that he's going to use he's going to use the word grace.

Everybody say that word together Ready Grace.

What is grace?

This is grace.

This is grace.

It's God's unmerited favor.

Now it's really hard to really understand grace is that we live in a world that there's not a whole lot of grace in general.

So it's really hard for us to understand this idea of God giving us grace, much less experiencing God's grace.

In fact, we live in this world and it's crazy and doggy dog and seems like.

There's all these news headlines of everybody doing something to somebody and it's just like oh man, somebody loves somebody.

It's like there's no grace.

And some of us, even in our minds, when it comes to our Christianity or how we view Christianity, we've heard phrases like God helps those who help themselves.

Or we've heard things like if you don't do this, god's going to get you.

No, we think that well, it's up to us, it's up to all these things we have to do if God's going to be well loving towards us.

And what can happen over a period of time and it's not always at first, but over a period of time is, if we're not careful, we can have a graceless Christianity, when the essence of Christianity is actually grace.

If we aren't careful, we can have a Christianity where we think it's all up to us, it's all up to what we do.

We're the captains of our own soul.

We're the captains of our own feet.

If we want to do something in life, we got to do it and we can bring that into our Christian faith.

If we want something from God, we got to do it.

But grace is God giving you things that you could not earn and you do not deserve.

God's grace gives us his acceptance, his love, his forgiveness, his strength, and the reason why grace is so powerful is because God's grace accepts you just as you are.

It gives you what you could never earn and it changes you in the process.

This is what Paul's going to tell us.

You see this guy, paul, he was a zealot.

This is what Paul's going to tell us.

You see this guy, paul, he was a zealot, like religious zealot.

This dude like kept all of the rules.

This guy didn't just come to church gathering on Sunday.

I mean, this guy was like the zealot of all zealots.

This guy kept every rule.

His faith system had no space for grace.

But then something happened.

His eyes were opened.

His eyes were opened from his religious enslavement and bondage and rule keeping.

His eyes were opened to this grace and opened to the fact that God accepted him as he was, gave him what he could never earn, gave him forgiveness, and his life was changed in the process.

And he's going to tell us a little bit about his story.

And if you're ready to hear his story from Galatians 1, would you say amen, this morning?

All right, galatians 1, verse 11.

Galatians 1:11

This is what he says.

He says I want you to know.

He's talking with people at Galatia.

He's like hey, I want all you guys to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel preached by me is not of human origins.

When Paul came, he preached the gospel, the death, the burial and the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

He didn't just come and preach and say you guys need to be nicer people.

He didn't just come and preach and say, man, let's just love each other more.

He came and preached the gospel and from the gospel everything else flowed out of that.

He says I preach the death, the burial, the resurrection of Jesus and it's not of human origin.

I wasn't like walking in the wilderness someday and all of a sudden I just came up with this idea.

I didn't receive it from a human source and I was not taught it.

It came by a revelation of Jesus Christ.

Paul had been on a trip in Acts, chapter 9.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

You can actually read it for yourself Acts, chapter 9,.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

He was going to a place called Damascus to persecute Jesus' followers and he had this undeniable experience with Jesus that changed everything, and this is when he understood the gospel.

This is what he's referring to.

He had this revelation of oh my goodness, this is who Jesus is.

Maybe some of you have this in your life.

At some point You're like, oh my goodness, I see who he is, I see his power, I see his greatness, I need him.

Paul has this In verse 13,.

He tells them he's like you've heard about my former way of life in Judaism.

So these people knew the Paul before this experience.

He says I intensely, I intensely, I persecuted God's church and I tried to destroy it.

So he did.

He said I want to get rid of the church.

No, he was a part of Judaism.

What is Judaism?

Well, judaism is the religion of the Jews, where they believe in the Old Testament law which is good, by the way but they do not believe that Jesus is the Son of God, the forgiver of sins.

These people thought Paul thought I just need to keep all these rules in the church and this whole Jesus movement thing.

We got to get rid of this because this is messing things up.

So Paul went around His name was actually Saul before he went around trying to destroy Christ followers and destroy churches.

I was trying to think this week.

I was like how can I give context about this, about kind of understand the impact of Saul before he had this encounter?

How many of you were alive in Saul before he had this encounter?

How many of you were alive in the 2000s?

2000s, okay, wonderful.

How many were born in the 2000s?

Okay, this mic over some of y'all's heads, all right, okay, so this is kind of a little bit dated, but at least somebody told me that after the nine o'clock service.

Have you guys remember Osama bin Laden?

Osama bin Laden, okay, yeah, yeah, osama bin Laden, right, I remember that guy, remember.

I mean, you heard his name.

You weren't having happy thoughts.

We heard his name.

You weren't like, you know, I think Osama's a nice guy.

He's just a little misguided.

You weren't thinking.

When you heard Osama Ilan, you weren't like, oh well, he probably had a rough childhood.

So we just want to.

You know, he'll figure it out.

The last is hard.

Nah, we're all like we got to get rid of this dude, because this dude's trying to take all of us out Like this guy.

This guy is trying to take out Americans.

I mean, he's like public enemy number one in the 2000s.

You know, osama, stay away from him.

Paul was the Osama bin Laden of first century Christianity.

He was trying to take people out and he was doing it in the name of his religion, of his Judaism.

This is Paul here and he shares a little bit more about kind of how he went through the ranks.

He says in verse 14, he says I advanced in Judaism beyond many contemporaries among my people because I was extremely zealous for the traditions of my ancestors.

He was zealous, he was intellectual, he was charismatic, he was articulate and he rose up the ranks and was the leader of this Judaism.

He was a Pharisee, but something happened, and he tells us what it was in verse 15.

But when God, who, from my mother's womb, set me apart?

See this, that God had a plan for Paul, where was it at?

It was in his mother's womb.

God has a plan for people.

He has a plan for him.

In his mother's womb he set me apart and he called me by his what's that word?

Together?

By his, by his grace.

God called him okay.

So he had this way of Judaism.

He had this way of persecuting the church.

If you're a Jesus person, he's going to get you Paul's after you.

God called him by his grace.

He was pleased verse 16, to reveal his son in me.

God's son God, the Father's son, jesus, so that I could what's that next verse?

So I could preach.

Preach him among the Gentiles.

Gentiles are non-Jewish people.

I did not immediately consult with anybody.

He wasn't like should I do this?

No, all of a sudden, paul goes from being a Jesus hater to being a passionate Jesus follower.

Go back to the Osama illustration.

Okay, this is like Osama bin Laden repenting of all of his hatred towards America and saying I want to be an ambassador for the greatness of America.

That's literally equivalent to what's happening here.

Paul has this dramatic conversion by grace, and you know what this shows us.

This is what shows us God's grace can change anybody.

This is what shows us.

Some of you.

You walk in the room.

Maybe you're not a Jesus person, maybe you are-ish, maybe you do follow Jesus, but you hear a song like miracles after miracles, and you're just like that can happen for them, but that can never happen for me, like that's good for them.

I've heard stories about how God has changed people.

I saw this video and that video was undeniable like God's changing people.

But if you knew my childhood, if you knew my background, if you knew my struggles, pastor Nate, you would understand that God's grace can't change me.

I'm too far, I've done too much, I've lived this way for so long.

This is just who I am.

Maybe you're even like I don't even deserve God's grace.

Maybe you think I'm not good enough for God's grace.

Maybe you think I'm not good enough for God's grace.

And I would say, the moment you realize you don't deserve God's grace is the moment you become a candidate to receive it.

The moment, the moment you realize you don't deserve God's grace, is the moment you yes, you and your baggage and your issues and your addictions and everything else, you become a candidate to receive it.

Because it's only those who realize they need God's grace are those who receive God's grace.

Only those who realize they're not good enough, they're not strong enough, they're not powerful enough, those are the ones that receive it.

James, chapter 4, verse 6, says this.

James 4:6

It says God resists the proud but gives grace to the.

Let's say that next word gives grace to the humble Doesn't say that God gives grace to those who have themselves together.

God gives grace to those that have a perfect background.

God gives grace to those who know every book of the Bible.

There's one prerequisite to receiving God's grace Humility.

And when you look at this scripture of the people that received God's grace and the people that God used, it's mind-boggling In fact.

I want you to listen very carefully to some of the names and some of the things they've done and hear how God still accepted them.

Rahab, she was a prostitute.

Moses, he was a murderer.

David, he was an adulterer and a murderer.

Murderer.

David, he was an adulterer and a murderer.

Zacchaeus, he was a thief and a perpetrator of injustice.

Mary Magdalene, she was demon-possessed and had major trauma in her past.

And we could go on and on and on, and you read some of these names and you go through scripture and you read some of the people that God chose and you're almost like God you got bad taste, god.

Is there any other options?

Why?

I'll tell you why Because God's grace supersedes our sin, and God's grace supersedes our sin, and God's grace supersedes our problems and God's grace supersedes all the things that the world says, no, you're no good and no, you have no hope and you don't deserve this.

And God says, oh, if you'll just humble yourself, I'll show you what I can do through you and in you.

And your path isn't something that actually disqualifies you.

It's the very thing that's going to allow me to use you, because it's your path that has shown you how much you need me.

And now your path that has humbled you, has brought you to me, and now I can do what I want to do in you and through you.

And the thing about God's grace that we got to know is that it only flows in one direction Downward to the humble, downward to the humble.

You realize you don't impress God.

You realize that Sometimes I wonder if we think that God's impressed by the fact that we're obedient to him at times.

He's not impressed by that.

In fact, romans says it's our reasonable service.

God isn't impressed by things that we do when we compare ourselves to other people.

No, god's grace flows in one direction downward.

And sometimes what God does is God will put you in a situation that you don't want to be in, so he can show you something that you will not learn any other way, he will show you that you need him.

There's a man.

Right now he's in North Carolina.

He's sitting in a prison cell every day of his life.

White collar professional 15 years ago, sentenced to jail, went to prison.

All signs point that he's innocent, but there was a power scheme and some power dynamics and he took the fall for the different things that happened and he went into that prison and lost his livelihood, lost his reputation, lost his life savings, lost his family.

Heartbreaking is the story.

Tear-jerbreaking is the story.

Tear-jerking is the story.

And this is what he says about his experience in prison.

But still, I thank God for this Because before this happened, I thought I was God.

So God let this happen to show me I was not God.

And in here in prison I found Him.

I wouldn't trade what I found in God for all the freedom and all the riches, by the way, which he had in the world.

It was prison that caused this man to realize I need God, because when he was humble enough to come to God, god met him right there at his knee.

God met him right there.

I'm talking to some of you in the room that you just are like man, god, I just don't know if you even hear me, if you even listen to me, if you even want me.

God does.

I'm talking to some of you in the room right now where you think you have a family member or you have a child or you have a friend and you just feel like they're so far gone and you're like there's no hope for them.

There is, god's grace can change anybody.

If God's grace can take the first century Osama bin Laden and turn him into an ambassador, he can work in your family's heart, he can work in your friend's heart, he can work in anybody's heart, because that's what God's grace does.

And did you notice that while God's grace changed him, god's grace didn't leave him the same?

Do y'all see that God's grace called him from something and it called him to something?

God's grace number two it called him from something and it called him to something Paul said.

God told Paul you're no longer going to persecute the church, now you're going to preach.

You guys see the verses right there.

I intensely persecuted the church, tried to destroy it Verse 16, so that I could preach among the Gentiles.

What's the space?

The space is when he experienced grace, when he trusted Christ, he went from doing this to doing this over here.

In fact, in Titus, chapter 2, it says this.

Titus 2 · chapter mention

It says the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, instructing us to deny godlessness and worldly lusts and to live in a sensible, righteous and godly way in this present age.

So what grace does?

It causes us to deny certain things and to live for certain things, to go away from this and to go to this.

Now, what religion does is religion it's all about surface, like.

It's about this surface change.

Right, I'm just going to do this behavior thing and it's like I'm just going to grit it out and do it.

What grace does in the gospel is grace changes us at a heart level and it changes us at a motive level.

So, for example, a religious person that's all about outward behavior and somebody that really understands the gospel and is resting in grace they may do the same things outwardly, but their motive is completely different.

Things outwardly, but their motive is completely different.

Let me explain.

Last week there was some great dialogue after the message last week.

It was awesome.

People asked a question in different ways and it was kind of like this we said that Jesus plus nothing equals everything.

And if Jesus plus nothing equals everything.

Then where does obedience to God come in?

Like, where does that come in?

I think, yeah, we put up on the screen Such a good question.

So we know that obedience is important, but if I don't obey to get God's acceptance and I don't obey to get God's favor and I don't do these things like, what's the motive?

Help me understand, where does obedience come in?

And it was some great, great dialogue and I loved it.

I want to put a couple phrases on the screen that clarifies a really important distinction that I think will help us understand this.

One religion says that if you obey God, you'll be accepted by God.

The gospel says I obey God because I'm already accepted by God.

Just let it rest for a second in the room.

Religion says I obey God so I'll be loved by God.

The gospel says I obey God because I'm loved by God.

You guys see the distinction here.

It's so different.

Grace changes my motive for obeying God, so I don't obey God just so I'll feel a certain way about myself.

I've heard it said and I understand it.

Some people are like I obey God because it makes me feel good.

If your motive is feeling good, you've got to be careful, bro, because there's a lot of things you can do that you probably shouldn't do.

That's going to make you feel good, right?

If your motive is I'm scared because I don't want God to get me, it's not a very good motive.

It's a shame.

If your motive is well, I don't want to disappoint other people.

I ought to do this over here.

It's religion, man, a grace-centered, gospel-centered motivation is I love him because he loves me.

I obey him because he already accepts me.

My love for God, which fuels my obedience for him, is fueled by the fact that he loves me, like God's love for me fuels my love back for him, which fuels my obedience to him.

No-transcript.

So our motive is not guilt.

Our motive is not shame.

Our motive is that you are loved by God.

I love God, I want to serve God.

That is authentic Christianity.

That's what it is.

That kind of a motivation of love isn't one where, like, your arm has to be twisted or you have to feel pressure.

No, it's like this.

Maybe I'll be able to illustrate this.

So me and my mom have a super good relationship.

My mom lives in Southern California and I love my mom to death.

I'm telling you, if my mom said Nate, you need to jump off the bridge.

I would say the Golden Gate or the Bay Bridge.

I prefer the Golden Gate, it's a little nicer, you know.

But I love my mom.

Okay, I'd do anything in the world for her Moms.

You know this.

Okay, my mom loved me and accepted me before I even knew she was around.

She loved me, she cared about me, she unconditionally I mean, she still loves me and accepts me unconditionally.

I look back when I was a teenager.

I'm like mom, how'd you do it?

Because I wasn't the most lovable teenager and she loved me and she accepted me.

And even now, man, my mom isn't like you got to do all these, she just loves me like fiercely.

I'm like I don't understand it.

Mom, why do you love me so much?

Why do you accept me so much?

This is what it does.

It gives me security and it gives me peace and it causes me, because I know how much she loves me, to just want to honor her in any possible way that I can.

And I know this.

I don't have to do anything for her to accept me.

I don't have to do anything to get her to love me.

It's just her.

Now I'm thinking man, how can I honor my mom?

What can I do this week to encourage her?

What's going on?

I call her all the time and she's always like I'm so glad that you called, it means the world to me.

I'm like well, we just talked like two days ago Like relax, you know we do this all the time.

Yeah, but this and this will happen.

Her love for me and her acceptance, her unconditional love and acceptance of me, fuels my love for her and my desire to honor her.

Now here's what happens Some of us in our lives, in our relationship with God.

What we do is we think we have to do all these things to get God's love and God's acceptance and God's favor of our lives.

And what happens is we almost stand up.

Okay, this is good.

And so what happens is we kind of like think we can like almost.

It's almost like we're in bondage to God because we can't do enough things over here.

So it's like okay, man, I was singing in worship, I read the verse of the day.

I went to church three weeks in a row, I did this over here.

So now God accepts me, missed church a week or two, wasn't actually sick, I just wasn't feeling it.

I cussed a few times.

I did this over here.

God don't be mad at me, I'm going to go back to church.

I'm back at church.

God, you accept me, let's go.

And our relationship with God it's like we bounce back and forth between a beloved child of God.

Instead of living like a beloved child, we jump back and forth between God accepts me based on what I, or God's really mad at me, and what it is is.

This is no way to experience a relationship with God, because God does not operate this way.

He doesn't operate this way.

God, some of us, we spend our lives trying to get God's acceptance and God's favor and God's love.

And here's the reality is that God's already given it to us.

The moment you came to Jesus Christ by faith, the moment you realized you needed him and you trusted him as your savior, you had all of God's acceptance.

And this is what it's going to do.

It's going to give you meaning in your life.

It's going to give you purpose in your life.

It's going to fuel your love for God and passion for God in ways that guilt and shame never could.

So here's my question Guilt and shame never could.

So here's my question.

I want you to think about this when it comes to your relationship with God, are you trying to earn something that you already have?

Do you think that you're getting brownie points with God because you're here this morning?

Are you trying to earn something that you already have?

Here's my heart as a pastor.

I said this in one of the services last week.

I don't know which one, so if it's 1030, just forgive me.

I want to free you as your pastor.

I want you to understand that you don't have to live in this bondage.

You can embrace the fact that God fully accepts you and God fully loves you in Christ, and this is what it's going to do.

It's going to fuel you to serve him passionately.

I honestly think that's probably why, like percentage-wise, we have more people in our church serving than any church that I know, because you guys get this, and this is what's going to happen.

When you understand all that you have in God, you're going to have joy in your life.

You're going to have joy in your Christian life.

You're going to find yourself just like praying.

You're going to find yourself wanting to read the Bible.

You're going to find yourself wanting to grow.

Your desires are going to change.

You're going to like what's happening to me.

I'll tell you what's happening to you.

Grace is changing you and you're understanding what God's given you and you're like God.

I just want to serve you.

I just want to do that and while grace can give an instant change to us, sometimes there's a process of changing that happens in us, which I want to read the last few verses here and we'll be done.

That shows this.

Paul says he didn't go up to Jerusalem to those who had become apostles before me.

This is after his conversion experience when he trusted Christ.

He said instead, I went up to Arabia and I came back to Damascus.

Then, after how many years does it say?

After three years?

This probably was three years.

I did go up to Jerusalem to get to know Cephas.

That's Peter.

Hold on, this is blowing my mind.

Dude was in Arabia, in the desert, for three years.

I don't want to spend three years in the desert.

I went to college in the desert for three and a half and it was terrible.

I spent three years in the desert for three and a half and it was terrible.

It spent three years in the desert and you know what was happening in those three years.

God's grace was forming him, god's grace was molding him, god's grace was changing him while he was waiting.

Oh, I wish I could have more time to talk about this, but some of y'all, right now you're in a holding, you're in a waiting season.

Can I just say hold on, because God's grace might be forming and molding and working in you right now, and you may not see it right now on the front end, but I promise, by God's grace, you'll see it on the back end if you hold on, if you hold on.

He's in Arabia.

God's forming him.

He's spending years in the desert.

Then what does he do?

He goes to Jerusalem to get to know Cephas this is Peter.

He stays with him 15 days and then he's getting involved in relationships.

He spent time with Peter.

It's so important that we don't just come and gather and you guys hear me talk for 30 minutes or whatever, and we sing some songs.

It's important that we have relationships with each other and this is one of the reasons why today, after the 1030 service, we have Connect Lunch.

If you are newish, we want you to come to Connect Lunch.

By the way, if you're not newish, we have, like, I think, 25 people or something.

Rsvp for Connect Lunch.

Like we had to move it from the upstairs cafe to down here.

Look, it's going to be awesome.

If you're new, just come to Connect Lunch.

Why?

Because we want you to be a part of a grace-centered community.

This is why we have growth groups and community groups happening in May.

There's like 12 of them.

We just want you to find one little fit for you.

Why we want you to be in community.

I know people are scary and people are weird especially church people for crying out loud, I get it, but like we don't even community.

This is what Paul did.

We're formed in community.

Then, in verse 19, paul says this I didn't see any of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother, talking about when he was in Jerusalem.

But I declared in the sight of God I'm not lying in what I write to you.

He's like guys, I'm telling y'all the truth.

This is who I am.

This is my story.

Afterward I went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia.

I remained personally unknown to the Judean churches that are in Christ.

They simply kept hearing he who formerly persecuted us now preaches the faith he once tried to destroy.

This is what they did.

They glorified God.

Because of me they just kept hearing.

Grace has changed that guy's life.

Grace has changed that guy's life.

His life has been changed and God's glorified.

So three questions to you.

We'll be done this morning.

Will you humble yourself so you'll receive God's grace?

Maybe you finally admit that you don't have yourself together as much as you try to give the impression that you do.

Yes, you, the thoughts that you have that nobody knows about the things that you feel, that nobody knows about the things you don't even want to admit to yourself those are the things that you bring before God.

Like God, this is where I am.

In that moment, god meets you with His grace.

Are you trying to earn something that God's already given you by His grace?

Is the motive of your Christian life, of your obedience God I have to do this for you so I can have more of this from you or is the motive, god?

You've given me all of these things so, out of joyful obedience, I just want to serve and follow and love man.

This would free some of y'all and would give you passion you've never had for Jesus.

And number three you need to take the next step into grace-centered community with others.

Maybe for those of some of us that are new, it's like I need to.

I should come to Connect Lunch about an hour after the service or so.

Maybe others of you.

It's like I need to be in a group.

Coming up Starts the first week of May.

Why I need to get in community with other people.

Why, so we can experience this grace together, wherever you are.