Galatians 1:11-24 - From a Persecutor to a Preacher

Thank you for coming to worship with us at Redemption Hill Church.

Thank you, everyone who has served us so well today.

Thank you worship team, production team.

I thanked them last service, so I was like, I better do it again this service too.

Coffee, kids, those ministering the gospel to our kids, I want to honor you.

And I'm excited to preach to you from God's Word, so let's, we got a lot to cover, okay?

If you're new, we've been going through the book of Galatians.

We're not too far in, so open your Bibles to Galatians.

Just in the New Testament, chapter one, we're going to continue to work through this.

We like to work through books of the Bible.

That's God's Word to us.

We believe it is.

So that's how we preach.

We preach expositionally through passages, books of the Bible, passages of Scripture,

verse by verse and chapter by chapter.

So we're in Galatians one, and we're going to work through verses 11 through

24 this morning.

So we're going to conclude chapter one.

As you're turning to Galatians.

Let me ask you a question.

Have you heard of the persecution of Christians that is occurring in other parts of the world,

specifically in North Korea?

North Korea, if you didn't know, is one of the most radical persecutors of the Christian

faith because primarily because of one of the leaders of North Korea, or at least the

leader of North Korea, I guess, we could say Kim Jong-un.

I think I said that right.

Let me tell you a little bit about the persecution that's being endured in North Korea.

And this information is a little outdated.

It came from an article that I found last year.

I found it this week, but the article was written last year.

In May of last year, 2023, North Korea sentenced a two-year-old, a two-year-old, to life in

prison.

You want to know why?

Because that child's parent was found with a Bible.

In another case, a member of the ruling party, a friend of Kim Jong-un's, was sentenced to

execution in front of 3,000 people at a local air force camp because this individual was

in possession of a Bible.

In addition to executions and imprisonment, Christians there are enduring starvation,

dehydration, tainted food, beatings.

They're forced to adopt these agonizing positions like physically for long periods of time,

like torture.

Last year, this information has changed a little bit, 70,000 Christians at least had

been imprisoned or had died for their faith in North Korea under the leadership of Kim

Jong-un.

Now, I was convicted as I studied that this week and learned of those facts.

It's like I know the church throughout the world is being persecuted, but sometimes Sunday

we don't think about that because right now we're not being persecuted.

We got air conditioning.

You got a parking spot.

You've got a Bible in your hands.

You got people pulling the gospel into your kids, but you guys do know the majority of

the world doesn't experience church like we are.

There's a great hostility towards Christians and it should cause us to do two things.

Number one, we should be praying for them.

We should be praying for the persecuted church, praying that the Lord would sustain them,

that maybe the Lord would show some favor to those Christians and get them out of that

situation.

And number two, if it's His will.

Number two, we should be praying actually for those that are persecuting those Christians.

We should be praying that God would change the hearts of men like Kim Jong-un.

He would shine the light of the gospel on him.

Now I know what some of you are thinking.

How could God save a man like that who is so hostile towards His message and His people?

Just with that question in mind, I would like you to see our text today because God saved

a man named Paul who just like Kim Jong-un hated Christians, despised Christians.

His life, His aim before coming to know Jesus was to put an end to Christians.

God rescued this man and changed him from a murderer and made him a missionary from a

persecutor.

Paul was made and transformed into a preacher.

The invitation this morning is to just see how big God's transformative grace is.

Hear it from Paul himself.

Let's read our text beginning in verse 11.

This is God's word, for I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached

by me is not man's gospel.

For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through

a revelation of Jesus Christ.

For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently,

and I tried to destroy it.

And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many, 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 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 into Arabia and returned

again to Damascus.

Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him 15 days,

but I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother, and what I'm writing

to you before God, I do not lie.

Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and I was still unknown in person to the churches

of Judea that are in Christ.

They were only hearing it said of me, he who used to persecute us is now preaching the

faith he once tried to destroy and they glorify God because of me.

This is God's word, amen.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we need Your grace this morning to give us eyes to see and ears to hear Your

word, to receive it humbly with faith, trusting in what Jesus has done for us.

Would You speak through my words?

That is a great mystery, how You can take my words and use them to speak Your word, Your

truth to Your people as we dig into Your word.

Would You do that?

That's a miracle.

We ask that You would do that.

You would soften hearts.

You would convict us of sin.

You would point us to Jesus.

You would show us just how big Your grace is, how it transforms the worst and makes the

missionaries.

You are so good and so kind.

We love You.

Would You bless the preaching of Your word in Jesus' name, amen.

Now, we have to ask ourselves a question here.

What in the world is Paul doing?

Is he just giving us his testimony in these verses?

See, when we approach the Bible, it's important we understand context.

We don't want to just take this passage and divorce it from what comes before or what

comes after.

We know why Paul is writing what seems to be a testimony of what's happened to him.

Paul's point isn't just to give his testimony.

Remember what is happening here.

This is our third week.

Remember I told you in week one Paul's apostleship and Paul's message are under attack.

The two are interconnected.

If you can discredit the messenger, you can discredit the message.

So what's happened is Paul has planted these churches in Galatia.

He's left.

It hasn't been long since he's left.

False teachers have snuck in.

They were Jews.

And what they are doing is telling these Gentile converts who are not Jews, hey, you want to

enhance your salvation?

You want to get a closer seat to the table?

Then you need to live and look like a Jew just like us other Jews.

So yeah, you need to believe in the Messiah, believe in Jesus.

But also remember you got to do that circumcision thing.

And the law is still really important.

And Paul is upset.

So he writes back this corrective word of astonishment.

Remember last week?

I'm so astonished.

It didn't take you that long and you so quickly turned to a different gospel.

Verse six.

Not that there's even another gospel.

The gospel that he preached is what's at stake here.

The gospel.

Because these false teachers have also taught that Paul can't be trusted.

He's not an apostle like the apostles that walked with Jesus on this earth, like the

12, like James, John, Peter, Matthew.

We can go on and on and on.

He's not one of those.

He didn't witness the resurrected Christ hours after the stone was rolled away.

He persecuted the church.

So his apostleship is under attack and therefore guess what else is also under attack?

His gospel.

So the claim seems to be that somehow Paul's gospel didn't come from God like the other's

other apostles.

It came from somewhere else.

It was passed down to him and he's manipulated it and twisted it and made it this free gospel

of grace, which it is.

And he is being accused of pleasing man by preaching this gospel of grace.

And remember last week he ended verse 10 by saying, I'm not here to please man.

And this week he says, I didn't get my gospel from man.

So what is Paul doing with this autobiography?

He is proving his point.

The gospel that they are abandoning, the gospel that saves, the gospel that Jesus himself

gave Paul to preach, the only gospel came not from any man, was never tainted by any

man.

It came from Jesus to Paul and Paul is living proof, not only of the message of the gospel,

but of the power of the gospel.

So let me help you this morning because this is kind of a unique passage because we've

got really what Paul is doing is he's giving his claim and then he's going to defend it.

So if you'll put the slide of the outline on the screen, this will help you guys.

So Paul is going to do two things.

He's going to make his claim.

We see that in verses 11 and 12.

I didn't get my gospel from man.

I got it from God.

And then he's going to prove his point.

His testimony is his alibi, it's his proof that at no time during his pre-conversion,

his conversion and immediately after his conversion was his gospel ever influenced or given to

him by a man.

And the mystery is he's preaching the same gospel that the other apostles are.

The only answer can be that his gospel did in fact come from God.

And there's a lot of implications if it did.

But I do want us to do this.

When we get to the second part, I do want us to look at Paul and see him as a model

for us to see the pattern of grace in his life.

We are going to distinguish some differences between Paul and us because as I said a few

weeks ago, we're not apostles.

Okay?

Capital A, office of apostle, there are none.

And that's a good thing.

But we can trust Paul's words because he was one.

Right?

And so we're going to see grace working through Paul's life and that grace also works in and

through us.

And I'll get to those three workings of grace under part two.

So let's cover part one.

Part one is Paul's claim.

What is he claiming?

We'll look at verse 11.

For I would have you know, brothers, this is Paul's way of saying, listen up, give this

ear.

This is important.

He says, the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel.

The gospel that I preached to you when I planted you churches of Galatia, that gospel wasn't

man's gospel, even if these false teachers are claiming that is the case.

Says I didn't get it from a man.

I wasn't taught it from a man.

Where did Paul get his gospel from?

It's pretty clear here.

Jesus himself.

All right.

So let's go ahead and get this out of the way.

Paul's unique.

Paul didn't learn the gospel like you and I learned the gospel.

Paul didn't sit in a Sunday service and learn the gospel.

Didn't happen.

Paul didn't attend church and learn the gospel.

He didn't have a friend.

Meet with him over coffee and teach him the gospel.

He didn't have a small group, gospel community group, let me correct myself, to go to and

learn the gospel.

He didn't have a Sunday school teacher to go to the, to learn the gospel.

He didn't go to seminary to learn the gospel.

And please keep in mind, Paul's not against those things, but Paul's unique.

Why is Paul unique?

He's done apostle, always remember, pause and apostle.

We're not apostles.

So Paul's got a unique experience that we didn't get.

Now again, their patterns and Paul's conversion that are true for us as well.

Paul's even saying, look, I didn't even consult with the disciples to have them proofread

my paper.

I didn't need them to tell me if my gospel was right or wrong.

Why?

Because Jesus gave me the gospel.

I didn't get it from a man.

I didn't get it from a man.

So let's, let's go ahead and see this.

Paul's salvation experience was unique, not normative.

You need to know that unique, not normative.

Jesus didn't show up to me in a, in a vision or in person as he did to Paul.

Paul's encounter with Jesus in Acts 9 was a physical reality.

You guys know that he wasn't dreaming anything.

None of the apostles had a dream when they saw the resurrected Christ.

If that's the case, Jesus' resurrection can be questioned.

You guys do know that, right?

He physically appeared to the disciples, hence why they can be apostles and to Paul.

So the reason Paul can be an apostle is because he witnessed physically with his own eyes,

not in a dream or a vision, the resurrected Christ commissioning him to be his spokesman.

We talked about this two weeks ago when we talked about apostles to not only plant and

establish the churches and be the foundation upon which every other church is built.

You guys do realize we, a church, are built on the foundation of the apostles, including

Paul, that's Ephesians 2, but to also be the authority for the New Testament so that when

we read the scripture in the New Testament, we can have confidence that what we're reading

is the words of Jesus or are the words of Jesus.

You guys with me?

Okay.

But we ain't Paul.

We didn't, like, like I wasn't saved on my way to murder Christians and Jesus didn't

show up in a resurrected body and save me.

How does, how, the normative means by which Christians are converted are actually through

the words of Jesus through the pins of men like Paul and the other apostles and the prophets.

As we hear the gospel proclaimed or told to us by a friend, maybe we meditate on it and

stir on it for a little while, but something happens in our heart and we turn to Jesus

by faith.

So there's a distinguishment between Paul and us.

He's an apostle.

But where did he get his gospel?

He says it.

There are revelation from Jesus Christ.

It's clear.

That word revelation means something once hidden, now revealed.

Something once that was unknown to Paul, he actually thought he knew it, but he knew wrong.

He would say, I acted ignorantly.

Jesus one day showed up to Paul.

We know what he's referring to.

Acts chapter nine, that's your homework.

I've given you homework every week, go read Acts nine this week.

We're going to actually go to bits and pieces of Acts nine today.

Jesus shows up to this man who's on his way to murder Christians and he converts him.

He makes him a Christian and he, I would say he gives him the gospel.

Now you can go to Acts nine and you're going to look at it and say, Jesus nowhere gives

gives Paul the gospel on Acts nine.

You need to understand something.

Acts was written by Luke.

Luke's purpose for writing Acts was not to tell us every detail of the apostle Paul's

conversion or life.

The purpose of Acts is really to tell the story of how the church was birthed.

After Jesus resurrected and poured out his spirit, he was faithful to his promise that

the gospel would go out from Jerusalem to Judea to the ends of the earth.

The purpose statements found in Acts one eight, everything that Acts records is a fulfillment

of that.

So you're going to go to Acts nine and you're going to say, I don't know, Jesus never teaches

him the gospel.

We don't know everything that Jesus said to Paul that day.

We have no idea how this flushed itself out, but we do know Paul says, I got my gospel

directly from the lips of Jesus.

He pulled back the covers.

Hence why Paul was blinded on the road to Damascus and the scales later fell off.

He opened his eyes to see.

Okay.

Now Paul's very clear.

My gospel is not man's gospel.

Paul's gospel is the same as Jesus's gospel.

We've talked about that in all of the apostles gospel and the gospel that the prophets predicted

in the Old Testament, the gospel.

And here's what we need to know.

That gospel man could have never come up with.

Think about it.

Every other world religion is what I would call man's gospel.

Man's gospel says if you do enough stuff, good, you try to make yourself righteous enough,

make your good outweigh the bad.

Maybe you can work yourself up this ladder and somehow be righteous enough for this God,

if there is a God, to perhaps accept you.

Or if you don't believe there's a God, in reality what you're saying is you are God.

But at the end of the day, it boils down to human work and human effort.

Every other gospel, Islam, Mormonism, we can go on and on and on.

It's about what you can do at the end of the day to earn a favor with this God.

But none of those can deal with the reality of sin.

So the gospel that was not a man created gospel but has been revealed to us through the pages

of scripture, praise God that he's done that to us, says actually that's flipped.

We can never work ourselves up to God because that doesn't take into consideration the sin

that has separated us from the holy God.

So you know what God does?

He comes all the way down to us.

No other religion says that.

He meets us where we're at.

He takes our place.

He trades places with people.

He becomes a man.

He lives perfectly where we fail.

So he lives for us.

And then instead of us, he dies the death we deserve to die and then rises victorious

to prove to everyone, I am who I said I am.

Believe me, this is the way to have eternal life.

That's the gospel.

No man ever thought that up.

You guys do know that, right?

No man ever came up with that gospel.

And that's what's at stake.

So Paul is now going to shift and he's going to say, here's my proof.

My wife and I lately have been into courtroom dramas.

And here's what's consistent about courtroom dramas.

If ever there is a defendant that is innocent and they take the stand, they are pretty confident

to answer the questions of the prosecuting attorney.

You know why?

Because they've got nothing to hide.

They've got nothing to hide.

They have what I would say an airtight alibi.

Paul gives an airtight alibi.

He's being accused of something that is not true.

So what is he going to do?

Here it is.

Here's the truth.

Here's the defense that my gospel is not a man created gospel.

I didn't taint it.

I didn't get it from the apostles and shift it and manipulate it to please man.

I got it straight from Jesus himself.

Look at what happened to me.

And he begins by telling us of his past.

So here's what I want us to do.

I want us to look at grace in the apostle Paul, God's grace that transformed this murder

and made him a missionary.

Because though we're not Paul, God's grace works the same way in our life too.

Number one, grace covers our sinful past.

Paul says, for I would have you.

All right, for you have heard, I'm sorry, for you have heard of my underlying former

life and Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and I tried to destroy it.

Turn to Acts 8.

Turn to Acts 8.

So Paul says, listen, here's the deal.

If you know anything about me, you know that before I was converted, I was never an inquisitor

seeker of the Christian faith.

Paul wasn't sneaking into churches and leaving before the sermon was over just to get some

information on the gospel.

Paul wasn't finding Christians at the coffee shop trying to have a discussion just to see

if what he believes lines up with what they believe.

He wanted nothing to do with the gospel.

He hated the gospel and wanted to kill anybody that had anything to do with the gospel.

You guys with me?

You first meet this man named Saul or Paul in Acts chapter 7 and into Acts 8.

Acts 7 · chapter mention

Okay, let me go ahead and tackle this.

Is it Saul or is it Paul?

It's both.

There is a theory that perhaps on the road to Damascus, Saul got a new name and his name

was changed to Paul.

I love the theory.

I love the implications of the gospel that he saves us and he gives us a new identity

and a new name adopts us into the family.

I love that but I don't think that's what's happened.

Linguistically we're working with a Hebrew name and a Gentile name.

Saul is his name in Hebrew.

He was a Jew.

Go read Philippians 3, a Jew of Jews.

From the tribe of, anybody know?

Benjamin, ah, he would have passed Bible trivia at Small Group Olympics last week.

From the tribe of Benjamin, who else is from the tribe of Benjamin?

King Saul.

He was named after that Saul.

But when he ministered to the Gentiles, his name wasn't Saul.

That was a Hebrew name.

His name was Paul.

So we have his Gentile name and his Hebrew name, often interchangeable.

Even after his conversion, you will see some of that in Acts.

Just to get that on the table, that's what I think happened regarding Paul's name.

We've got Hebrew and Greek.

So we meet him at the execution of Stephen, the very first martyr.

I'm sorry, not a possible, a first martyr for the Christian faith, right?

He's preaching the Gospel.

The Jews hate it.

So what do they do?

They drag him outside and they stone him to death.

And what do they lay their coats, right?

They lay all of their coats at the feet of Saul.

And then we read verse one of Acts 8.

Saul approved of his execution.

And Saul's prominence in Judaism and amongst the Pharisees is gaining reputation.

He's gaining clout and status.

And we see in verse three, Saul was ravaging the house.

He entered house after house.

He dragged off men and women and committed them to prison.

Now let's just stop here and see.

Let's understand Paul's actions.

Paul broke up families.

He pulled parents away from children.

You guys realize that he ruined innocent lives.

Not only that, he caused innocent people to be killed.

He murdered them.

Where do you see that in the Bible?

Go to Acts 9.

This is Paul's conversion.

This is the road to Damascus.

But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples, went to the high priest

and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus so that if he found any belonging

to the way, that's any Christian, anyone following Jesus, men or women, he might bring them down

to Jerusalem and prison them, wait for their execution.

So Paul was an intense persecutor of the Christian faith.

Now why?

Why was Paul a persecutor of the Christian faith?

He was a Jew.

Because Paul thought he was doing God a favor.

Paul didn't kill Christians because he was intentionally rebelling against God.

He just didn't quite know God until Jesus showed up.

Paul actually thought he was doing God a favor.

I mean, you've got to put yourself in the apostle Paul's shoes.

He's a Jew.

Anyone cursed on a tree or hung on a tree, I'm sorry, is a curse.

How could anything good come out of Nazareth?

So for these people to claim that this man from Nazareth, remember this wasn't long after

Jesus' resurrection.

We're talking just a few years, not long at all.

This man is on equal status with God because he's receiving worship just as God received

worship.

This man from Nazareth, this man that was hung on a tree, I mean, could the Messiah

be hung on a tree?

That's a curse to a Jew.

That's blasphemous.

So he thought he was doing God a favor.

But by exterminating any competition, any rival to God, so he said, you know what, I'm

going to squash that.

I'm going to squash the gospel and I'm going to squash anybody that listens to the gospel

or preaches the gospel.

And that's what he gave his life to.

But he did it because he actually thought he was pleasing God.

He would say later, I acted ignorantly in unbelief in 1 Timothy chapter 2.

1 Timothy 2 · chapter mention

So that was his actions.

Now we'll see his attitude, his ambition.

He says, look, go back to Galatians.

He was striving.

He had it all.

Like if you had a picture boy of what it looked like to just be a great man, a Pharisee of

Pharisees, Paul would be the picture boy.

He had his life together, his home together.

Look at her.

I was advancing in Judaism beyond many my own age and among my own people.

So extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my father's.

Go read Philippians 3, a Pharisee of Pharisees as to the law righteous.

Not meaning that he had a righteousness of his own.

He would admit that.

But when it came to obeying the law, you aren't going to find bald breaking it.

Externally he was a good moral guy.

He had it all put together.

Internally though, Paul would say, I was rotting.

I was rotting.

Paul would say that was really just pride.

Had it all put together.

And here's the deal with Paul.

So you might say, God can never love me because of my past.

You know what Paul would say?

Look at me.

I'm probably worse than you.

Some of you might say, I don't need God.

I just got this thing figured out.

I'm righteous enough.

Paul would look at you and say, I'm way better than you.

Like all women are doing a Bible study in Genesis and women bring your Bible every other Wednesday

or Friday.

Because you're going to need it.

You're going to need to see the pages.

You're going to need to see the Bible.

We've got to have that Bible in front of us.

When Paul showed up to a study, Paul didn't bring a Bible.

He didn't bring any paper.

You know why?

It was right here.

Paul was a Pharisee.

Do you know what?

Pharisee memorized verbatim the first five books of the Bible.

And by the way, Genesis is the first book and it's one of the longest books in the Bible.

Paul had it all figured out.

But it was pride, he would say.

It was pride.

Listen to me.

Look at Paul.

What is Paul saying?

If God could save a wretch like me and he can cover my past, he can cover yours too.

Whether it's your self-righteousness and pride or your rebellion, some of you might look

at Paul and you might say, you know what though?

I'm not as bad as Paul.

At least I have it and you would fill in the blank with your past.

The point is not to compare our past with Paul.

You guys do know that, right?

The problem with us is we look at others and we start comparing ourselves and we say, well,

at least I'm not like them.

Do you guys want to know the standard?

It's not your coworker or the other person in your small group or anyone.

It's not another person.

What is the standard?

God, stop looking at someone else, comparing yourself.

No, when you do that, all you're doing is trying to justify yourself and you gloss over

your motives and the stuff that they're eating you away.

If you look at God, he starts to expose those things.

So the point is not to look at Paul and say, well, at least I'm not a murder.

Maybe you were, maybe you weren't.

If you look at Paul, murder doesn't disqualify you from being a Christian.

Jesus's grace can cover murder.

So maybe you didn't murder anyone, but Jesus would say, do you have hatred in your heart

towards another brother or bitterness?

So maybe your past isn't riddled with adultery or maybe it is.

Grace can cover that too, but I guarantee you your past has been riddled with lustful

thoughts about someone else and it's just as bad before a holy God.

Or maybe your past isn't one of theft and crime, but maybe it was, maybe it was coveting

because of the idols of your heart.

Maybe it wasn't outright rebellion and drunkenness, but you know what?

Maybe it was, maybe it was prideful self-righteousness thinking that you could save yourself.

They're both just as heinous before God.

The point is not to compare ourselves.

The point is to say even the worst of sins and even my prideful self-righteousness both

are covered in Jesus if I've looked in by faith.

Grace covers our past.

Paul would look at all of us and say, I'm far worse than you could imagine.

I'm far worse than you.

You want to outstend me?

I'm worse than you.

You think you're better than me?

You think you haven't, you think you've got this figured out with yourself righteousness

and pride?

I'm far better than you.

And Paul would also say, look at me.

If you think you're sin, whatever it is, whatever it is, has disqualified you from grace or

God using you?

Look at me.

Look at me.

Secondly, grace calls us to behold Jesus immediately.

Paul didn't dwindle on his past.

Paul goes immediately into the conversion story that he had with Jesus on the Damascus

Road.

Now, what is important to note about that story in Acts 9 is that Paul was on his way to murder

Christians.

Paul wasn't on his way to the synagogue saying to himself, well, if I can clean myself up,

maybe I can make myself presentable to Jesus.

Paul didn't say, let me go to church a few times and just kind of get into this and see

me.

I think that's a problem with the modern Christian culture is we have this idea.

Yeah, I'll start having a relationship with Jesus, but I've got to clean myself up before

he'll want anything to do with me.

That is not the gospel.

That is anti-gospel.

That's actually a gospel of demons.

No one can clean themselves up enough to approach God.

Jesus is the only one that can.

So you go to Jesus.

He takes you where you're at and he rescues you.

He saves you.

He meets you in your sin.

You know where Paul was headed.

Where was he headed?

Two murder Christians.

Jesus finds him there.

He rescues him on his way to kill Christians and everything changes.

Paul says, look at verse 15, but when he who sent me apart before I was born and called

me by his grace was pleased to reveal his son to me.

Stop there.

There's a lot here.

We see a pattern here.

Paul being called to behold Jesus.

What happened?

Paul said, I'll tell you what first happened.

What I realized is that this thing started well before Damascus.

Mind blown.

Let me read it again.

Just so you see, I'm not making this up.

But when he who had sent me apart before I was born or from my mother's womb.

What?

I realized, I realized like God's sovereignty can somehow cause us to be a bit contentious.

That seems to conflict with sin and human responsibility.

You know what Paul's doing?

He's magnifying God's grace.

He's saying that even before I had come out of the womb, God had a plan to save me and

use me.

And don't say, well that's just Paul.

God doesn't operate that way with anybody else.

Logically think about that argument.

That's not going to hold up when it comes to Scripture.

That's what God does to everyone.

See there's similarities that we have with Paul and there's differences.

This is a similarity.

If you're in Christ, here's the good news of your salvation.

God had set his gaze on you in eternity past.

Before you had even come out of the womb to do good or bad.

God doesn't like pick teams.

He doesn't look at someone and say, man I know this guy is going to be really good for

my team, right?

So I'm going to pick him.

God is sovereign over all things and I realize that this is a great mystery.

That it's somehow been used to say, well if you believe in God's sovereignty then there's

no need to evangelize or pray or act out your faith.

Do you think Paul would say that?

This comforting doctrine to Paul, this idea of God setting apart him and his mother's

womb is actually what's fueling him to go preach the gospel as we see next.

Paul doesn't use that as an excuse to sit on his hands and feet.

Paul would say, if God predestines the end and I use that word because the Bible used

that word, guess what?

He also predestines the means by which the end will happen and Paul wants to be a part

of that.

And Paul's using this doctrine to magnify God's grace.

God didn't look down the corridors of time and see how we would respond until he picked

us.

You know what that would be?

That would be that we earned our salvation.

That's not grace.

Paul's saying before I could even do anything, I was a wretched sinner.

God had already chosen to save me and this is such good news.

Here's why it's good news.

Look at the trajectory of the apostle Paul's life.

Do you think, do you really think that there's anything in Paul that would have led him to

come to Jesus had Jesus not shown up and rescued Paul?

No.

Paul would have been headed for hell.

You and I too.

But Jesus graciously showed up and rescued him.

Let me read this from the London Baptist Confession of Faith, the 1689 London Baptist Confession

of Faith to help us make sense of this.

Listen to this.

Those of mankind that are predestined to life, God before the foundation of the world was

laid according to his eternal and immutable.

That word immutable means unchangeable purpose.

We serve a God who has had a plan and a purpose.

It is a mystery.

It is a mystery.

If you think that I'm going to have the answer to every one of your questions, I will not.

And if you meet a preacher that does, he's lying to you.

The mystery of God's sovereignty and human responsibility and sin, that is a mystery.

I can't answer it.

I can't.

And actually, here's what we need to understand.

God is sovereign and he is the Creator and we are a creature.

His mind is far beyond ours, infinitely higher than ours.

We may never, even when we're saved and we're like around the table with Jesus, feasting

with him and we're asking him these questions.

He might try to explain it.

I don't know, but guess what? we might not ever make sense of it.

But this is what the scripture teaches.

God is sovereign, but yet I understand we're responsible.

But that's actually supposed to be comforting for a Christian.

Let me keep going.

So according to his eternal and immutable purpose in the secret counsel and the pleasure of

his will, have chosen in Christ into everlasting glory.

Notice this, out of his mere free grace and love, without any other thing in the creature

as a condition or cause moving him there unto.

In other words, there isn't anything in us that God saw and said, I'm going to save you

because of that.

Do you guys understand that would be man's gospel?

God's gospel says there's actually nothing that merits grace.

It wouldn't be grace.

The only answer we can give to why God saved us is he saved us because he loved us, not

because I feel in the blink.

That's the wrong answer.

Now don't miss this.

Notice the next thing is, Paul says he called God, was pleased to call him to reveal his

son to him.

Anything that brings God pleasure is something we need to take note of.

What pleases God to reveal Jesus to sinners, to murders?

And he shows up and he reveals Jesus to him on the Damascus road.

And Paul was changed.

But think about it, he wanted to murder Christians and now what does Paul go do?

He makes Christians.

He wanted nothing to do with Jesus and now what does Paul do?

He gives his entire life to Jesus.

I'm going to give you an illustration and I know it's going to be somewhat, somewhat

difficult to compare what I'm about to say to Jesus.

But before I was married to my wife Emily who loves coffee, I did not like coffee.

I didn't understand why my parents drink it.

I didn't understand why anybody would drink that bitter stuff.

I met my wife.

She has a love for coffee.

So guess what?

It didn't take long.

I had a love for coffee.

I had a love for cream at first, creamer, flavored creamer, which is a little bit of

coffee.

Now it's all coffee.

In fact, if you know me, you know, if it's before noon, probably the only drink that

I'm going to drink is probably coffee.

Two, three cups, I don't know, after the second or third cup I lose count.

It doesn't matter.

There's no shame in that.

I need it.

I see it.

It was once disgusting and now I've embraced it.

Now here's where it falls flat.

Jesus is so much better than coffee, isn't he?

For what the gospel does, what grace does is not only does it cover your past.

Something in you changes where you look at Jesus and he didn't seem beautiful.

You didn't really understand him.

You didn't get it.

And all of a sudden you get it.

Right?

You behold him.

Now you weren't called like Paul.

Jesus didn't show up on the Damascus road and put scales over your eyes.

Spiritually though, the fog's been lifted.

Spiritually your eyes have been open and he's called you to himself to see Jesus and

behold him.

In a way you never did before.

So now as a Christian we see his love for sinners.

We see his mercy.

We didn't understand that before but we see it and we grasp it now.

We see his tenderness and his kindness.

We see his long suffering with us and his patience.

We see his forgiveness that is new for us every morning.

We see his head crowned and not with a golden crown, not with a silver crown, but with

what a crown of thorns pressed down to his brow, blood dripping out.

We see his hands and we realize those hands and those feet could have been propped up

on his royal golden throne in the conference of the throne room with the angels giving

him praise and him basking in the praise of angels.

He could have just sat there for all eternity.

You guys do know that, right?

And Jesus would have been just to sit there.

But no, no, no, no.

What do we see?

He would have his hands and his feet soiled in blood with nails driven into them.

And we behold him like, you would do that for me?

We see his body that's not covered with a royal robe of splendor beyond our imagination.

No, no, no, no, no.

What is his body covered with?

The robe was off.

What happened on the cross?

He hung and his body was beaten and disfigured and broken and bloodied and marred beyond

the cross.

This figure the Bible says as he took upon himself the judgment for sin instead of you

and I.

If we beheld Jesus, we look at Jesus what was once something that was obscure, maybe even

disgusting to some of y'all.

Everything has changed and we now see him as beautiful.

That's what grace does.

So we can look at Paul and see that.

Now we've got to keep moving.

We've got a lot of ground to cover.

So Paul gives a timeline, right?

Paul gives a timeline next of what happened after his conversion.

So remember, his point is to prove that no time before I came to know Jesus, when I came

to know Jesus, or after I came to know Jesus was my gospel touched or tainted by any other

man the whole time my gospel came from Jesus.

Here's the evidence.

Look at what he says next.

Notice Paul says Jesus did this.

He revealed his son to me in order.

There's a purpose clause that's important in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles.

Paul the apostle to the Gentiles.

Notice what he says.

I didn't immediately consult with anyone and I didn't go to Jerusalem to find the other

apostles and have them prove for you my gospel.

That's important.

That's an important statement in interpreting this passage.

Why?

Because Paul's saying I was so confident in the gospel that Jesus revealed to me, I didn't

need to go ask anyone else.

I know what I saw.

I know what he gave me.

I didn't need to go down to the other apostles.

It came straight from Jesus.

It came straight from me.

Now what he's going to do is he's given his timeline.

What happened immediately after Saul was converted?

Go to Acts 9.

Go to Acts 9.

Let me read the text first then we'll go to Acts 9.

He says, but I went away into Arabia and returned again to Damascus.

That's kind of confusing.

Was it Arabia then Damascus?

Because it says I returned again to Damascus.

That word, the way that's worded actually means he went to Damascus, Arabia, and then

back to Damascus.

Okay?

Where was Paul headed when Jesus showed up to him?

To Damascus.

As a murder, Jesus changes everything.

Now what is he?

Not a murder.

Let's see what he is.

Go to Acts 9.

Verse 19.

Okay?

He goes to this guy Annias' house.

Annias clarifies some things that happened on the road that day.

Scales fall off of his eyes.

He's strengthened, he starts to eat again, he's baptized.

For some days, this is verse 19, he was with the disciples at Damascus and immediately

he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues saying he is the Son of God.

All who heard him were amazed and said, is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem

of those who called upon his name?

And has he not come here for this purpose to bring them down before the chief priest?

What did Saul do as soon as he was converted?

He preached the gospel.

Again something unique to Saul.

We probably need a season of preparation, but we're not apostles.

We didn't have that encounter with Jesus.

Not Saul.

Immediately he wasted no time and what's important to see is Jesus did not change his destination.

He didn't change his trajectory.

What did he change?

He changed his mission.

He wasn't going to murder.

What was he going to do?

Preach.

We can take something from this here.

Now listen, sometimes you're converted and Jesus does change your job.

He might need to.

There's certain industries and certain fields and if you have questions, come ask me that

would lead someone to sin or you to sin.

You probably don't need to be in.

But oftentimes he doesn't change your job, does he?

He changes you though.

He changes you.

He changes the way you see things.

He changes the ambition of your heart, doesn't he?

He might not change your circumstances.

He might not change your finances, but what he does change is you, just like Saul.

So Saul continues on his journey, but now he's a missionary.

He goes to Damascus.

We can read about this in Acts 9.

Then he goes to Arabia.

Now that's mysterious because Luke doesn't record anything about Arabia in Acts.

That doesn't mean it didn't happen.

That just means that wasn't Luke's purpose.

Remember, that's not his purpose.

His purpose wasn't to fill in the gaps of everything that happened with Paul.

It was to tell the story of the birth of the church.

Paul fills in the gaps.

So he went to Damascus.

Now where is Arabia?

I don't have a map for you this week.

I apologize.

That might have been helpful, but it's right beside Damascus.

It's not far.

The kingdom of Arabia in Paul's day was actually encompassed Damascus.

That was the northernmost city.

So Paul really didn't go that far.

Now some people have said, well, some people have asked, and we also need to ask, what

was Paul doing in Arabia?

What was he doing in Arabia?

Well there's two theories.

Either Paul was getting more revelation from Jesus, perhaps meditating on the scriptures,

deepening his understanding of the gospel.

I don't know if that's the case because remember what was he just doing when he first arrived

to Damascus preaching the gospel.

So I don't think that he was getting more education.

I think he had enough.

In a moment, remember he's unique.

He was converted.

I think he was preaching the gospel.

Right down 2nd Corinthians chapter 11 verse 32 and 33.

I don't have time to take you there.

There are hints in that passage that Saul went back to Damascus because we know he did.

And he was fleeing from people that wanted to persecute him, which is ironic.

Paul goes from one persecuting to one being persecuted.

And the people that wanted to persecute him were actually of the Arabian government.

He mentions a king in 2nd Corinthians 11 who would have been the king of Arabia during

that time.

Why were the king of Arabia confined Saul in Damascus because he was stirring up trouble

in Arabia?

So I lean towards Paul.

Now was he strengthening himself in the scriptures?

Of course.

We should always do that.

But he wasn't trying to improve his gospel.

That's his point.

I already knew it.

Jesus gave it to me.

He was preaching the gospel.

Then what does he do?

He goes back to Damascus.

He says he goes back to Damascus verse 18.

Then after three years he goes to Jerusalem.

Now why is Jerusalem so important?

Where is the very first church in the New Testament?

Jerusalem.

It was where the apostles first ministered apart from Paul.

So Paul has been independent of the Jerusalem church this entire time.

Keep that in mind.

He wasn't sent out by that church.

He was the apostle to the Gentiles.

The Jerusalem church is kind of the mother church for all of the churches in Judea.

Where the church was birthed.

Where the other apostles ministered at least to start.

So that's why there's so many references there to Jerusalem.

What is being communicated here is Paul was independent of the Jerusalem church.

But yet the Jerusalem church actually validated his message.

In fact he's going to say later that he actually had to correct Peter, one of the apostles

from the Jerusalem church because he wasn't living in step with the gospel.

It's not like they were preaching a different gospel.

That's the mystery here.

So he goes back to Jerusalem.

We can corroborate this with Acts 9.

Barnabas takes him in.

He introduces him to...

Acts 9 says the apostles.

Here it seems like he introduces him to Peter.

He meets James, the brother of Jesus.

They hang out for 15 days but that's not all they're doing.

Paul's not checking his gospel against Peter's gospel.

Again, he's only there for 15 days.

He's not having him proofread it.

And he's not just kicking back telling stories with Peter.

Cephas is Peter by the way.

It's for the right hand of fellowship.

It's for unity and the faith to say, hey, I'm the gospel.

The gospel I'm preaching, Peter's the same as your gospel.

Will you support me and I'll support you?

We see that.

What's just happening there?

So he's there for 15 days and then he says, what I'm saying?

I'm not lying to you.

Verse 20.

And then he says I went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia.

Verse 21.

He was preaching there.

Cilicia is where his hometown was.

Saul of Tarsus.

Tarsus is in Cilicia.

So he went back to his hometown and he preached the gospel for a season.

I know we like to think of Paul's missionary journeys beginning in Acts 13 and 14 at Antioch.

But I would argue they began as soon as he was converted really.

He was a missionary because the gospel or grace commissions us for God's glory.

Did I give you the third point?

That's it.

Grace commissions us for God's glory.

As soon as Paul was converted, what did he do?

He preached the gospel wherever he went.

Wherever he went.

And he's proving that.

I never had my gospel tainted.

I never had it proofread.

The gospel I got was from God.

And everywhere I went, I took it.

Actually later we read in Acts 15 that there are churches that existed in Syria and Cilicia,

probably from Paul's journey there soon after he was converted.

And then he says, I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ.

They were only hearing it said, he who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith

he wants trying to destroy.

So I didn't come back to Jerusalem just yet.

Now he will go back to Jerusalem, but not just yet.

But he's known in Jerusalem, his reputation.

The murder is now a missionary.

The one who persecuted us is now preaching the gospel that we believe.

And what did that lead them to do?

Glorify God because of Paul.

So here's where we can make a connection.

Grace does that to you and I too.

It commissions us.

Now you might ask, what does it commission me for?

That means send out.

What does it send us out for?

Yeah, to make disciples, but ultimately at the end of the day to glorify God.

Like before you came to know Jesus, I would argue the ambition at least of my life, and

I was really young, but now I see it.

It doesn't matter what age you are.

The ambition of your life was not to glorify God because you didn't truly know God.

What was it?

It's to glorify yourself, isn't it?

What can I pursue that's going to make much of me?

Status?

Money?

What can I send my kids to school?

And none of those things are, it's not wrong to make money.

It's not wrong to send your kids.

What was your ambition?

Ask yourself that.

But when you meet Jesus, everything changes, doesn't it?

Every day as a Christian, because we should be so amazed and enthralled by the grace that

has rescued us.

You know what we should do every day?

We should pray the same prayer when we wake up, Lord, today.

Wherever you may have me, how can I use my life so that others would look at my life

and give God the glory, give you the glory, just like Paul?

Wherever it is, wherever he may have you, that is your aim now, right?

It is not self-glory.

It's not robbing God of his glory.

It is deflecting glory off of us and on to him.

We're the little trophies of his glory.

That's who we are.

That's what we are now that we've been saved.

That's what grace does.

It changes our ambitions, our pursuits, and our desires.

We're commissioned everywhere.

Yes, taking the gospel, but radiating this transformation of God's grace for his glory.

So you have to ask yourself right now, we're confronted with this text.

We have to ask ourselves a question, is that my aim?

I pray it is.

And if it's not, let the Holy Spirit change you.

Let the Holy Spirit change you.

We gotta keep going.

We gotta close this out.

So what's the point here?

What's the point?

The point is this, Paul's apostleship is from God.

I mean, think about it.

The miracle of Paul's apostleship.

He never walked with Jesus, like Peter, or John, or Matthew.

He didn't witness the resurrected Christ hours or minutes after the stone was rolled away.

He hated Christians.

But yet the same gospel he preaches, if you go to 1 Peter, or 2 Peter, or John, or Matthew,

you can corroborate it.

It's the same gospel that they preach.

What's the answer?

How can this be?

God's the answer.

And here's what Peter's saying.

You can corroborate my gospel because you can look at my life.

You know what the greatest apologetic for the gospel is?

And I love apologetics.

We all do.

Yeah, you can have a great argument, but you know what people want to see?

Does your life back what you preach?

If you're preaching this gospel of transformation and grace, do you live it?

Not perfectly.

We're not Paul.

It's not going to be an instantaneous shift there.

You guys do get, we're not apostles.

It's going to be slow and progressive.

They're going to be balanced.

There's grace there.

But is your life reflective of the gospel that we declare?

Because here's the point of the text.

I've waited until the end.

Grace doesn't just tweak our behavior.

Grace transforms who we are.

Paul goes from a murder to a missionary.

You might have not gone from a murder to a missionary, but some of you in the room have

gone from a covetor to one content in Jesus.

You might have went from an adultery in your heart to a lover of Jesus and therefore a

right lover of other people.

You might have went from a liar to a lover of truth.

Maybe you did go from a murder to a missionary.

The point is this.

The gospel of God that God would condescend all the way down to us, live the life we couldn't

die the death instead of us in our place, rise victoriously and dwell us with his spirit

so that we progressively start transforming into the image of Jesus.

One day coming back to make all things new, that message of the gospel isn't just news

that we store up here, it's actually news for right now.

It changes us and transforms us just like it did Paul.

Let me close with three questions.

Number one, are you living as if grace has transformed your life?

You're your best apologetic.

Are you?

Has grace transformed your life?

Look at Paul.

When people saw it, people took note of it.

Number two, is your aim that your life would cause others to glorify God?

You're not living for your own glory.

It's not about how many social media likes I get.

It's not about my status, my job.

I'm not working towards an income.

All of that changes, right?

Our perspectives change because we've been commissioned for his glory, not ours.

And if the ban will come up, number three, is there anyone you view outside of the saving

grace of Jesus?

Because if Paul's not, then whoever you think is, isn't.

Whether that's a co-worker, a friend, a family member.

So this week I would challenge you to pray for them that the same grace that encountered

the apostle Paul would encounter them, the same grace that you've experienced, they

would too.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word.

Transform us into the image of Jesus.

Be glorified through our lives.

Thank you for what Jesus has done, coming all the way down to sinners, taking upon himself

our sin, imputing his righteousness to us so that we stand in him by faith alone, because

of his work alone.

You look at us clothed and covered in righteousness, and that message changes.

May we take that message to our neighbors, to the nations, to our neighborhood, and may

we glorify you with every ounce of our being in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.