Galatians | Grace Changes Me (October 8th, 2017) - Mike Armstrong

All right, well, you know the drill.

Get your Bibles open.

We are in the book of Galatians and talking about how the gospel changes everything.

The gospel changes everything.

And so we started off in the first nine verses last week.

And so today we are starting out with verse 10.

So as you're getting turned there and getting situated, don't you love hearing people's testimonies?

Right?

There's just something so sweet about that.

There's something so great about hearing of God's work in a person's life.

It's one of the reasons why we love baptism so much.

Because you get people up there in the tank and they are talking about what the Lord has done, right?

The goodness of the Lord.

It's the reason why we love reading biographies, biographies from great godly Christian men and women.

I'm reading one right now and it's so inspiring and just so encouraging.

It's one of the reasons why we just love to connect with each other.

Right?

You go out for coffee with somebody, maybe it's somebody new that you have, you know, just recently met at church and you want to hear their story, right?

You want to hear about what the Lord has done and uh and what he is continuing to do.

We love hearing stories of how people came to faith.

It's so fascinating and it just reminds us again that the Lord is at work.

Right?

He's at work in people's hearts, he's at work building his church.

Now, all of that being said, now have you ever noticed that sometimes when we hear people's testimonies, okay, you hear somebody's story, the emphasis is often on the past.

Right?

This, you know, I used to be like this, but then, you know, God showed up, or, you know, I used to struggle with blank, but then God did a work, right?

And you so you hear, you hear about the past, and and and it feels like maybe sometimes, I don't know, I'm just kind of throwing a number out there, but it sort of feels like about 90%, 98% of their, you know, their story or whatever is kind of framed up from this past tense kind of experience there.

And there's sometimes very little emphasis or real estate, if you will, given to what the Lord is currently doing, right?

Or what the Lord has been doing uh lately.

Now, to be crystal clear, there's absolutely nothing wrong with talking about the past, right?

Do we understand that?

It's really good to talk about what the Lord has done and to continue to remind yourself of that and to hear that from other people.

Again, just encourage us about what the Lord has done and how far you know we have come.

I mean, we're all you know believers here, we're believers who have a testimony.

We've got a conversion story that happened at a certain point, you know, in the past in history.

And again, it is it is awesome, right?

The Lord saved us from sin.

And that is, of course, uh an amazing thing.

But here's the other reality: our stories don't end there.

Right?

Our story doesn't end there at conversion.

God's grace continues to change us in all sorts of ways, in all kinds of profound ways.

So God's grace is not a, you know, it's not just a past transformational thing, it's a it's a continual transformation thing.

It's past, present, and future.

You know, where we're you know learning how to grow, and God is still radically changing us as we learn to absorb the gospel in our hearts, and as we learn to live out of the reality of what Jesus has done and who he is.

All right, so let's just listen here now to the Apostle Paul's testimony as he shares this here with the Galatian uh church.

So take a look at verse 10.

This is chapter 1 in Galatians.

Isaiah 1 · chapter mention

He says, This for am I now seeking the approval of man or of God?

Or am I trying to please man?

If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

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 tried to destroy it, and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers.

But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, love that, was pleased to reveal his son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me.

But I went away to into into Arabia and returned again to Damascus.

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

But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother.

In 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 only were hearing it said, He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.

And they glorified God because of me.

God, we again submit ourselves before you here, recognizing that as awesome as your work of salvation has been in our lives up to this point, you're not done with us.

You are not finished, not even close.

And so, Lord, I pray that as we um sit under your word here today, that your spirit would be showing us how grace changes us, how we continue to transform radically, Lord.

All of that's not in the rear view mirror, it's it's ahead of us as well, and it's happening currently, Lord.

So I pray that we would grab hold of the gospel here this morning.

Lord, I pray that that by your grace you would make us new, you would make us more like your Son Jesus Christ, or that you would free us from uh bondage, Lord, that you would empower us to have purpose and be useful to you in your hands.

God, would you unleash yourself upon us, Lord?

That is what we pray.

We beg for that.

We cast ourselves at your feet, Lord, and we cry out for your grace to continue to change us, Lord.

Please do this, we pray.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Amen.

All right, well, God's grace profoundly changes me.

All right, you know that the Lord's not done with you yet, right?

You know that?

You understand that?

You're not just kind of in a holding pattern and just waiting till you know the Lord returns or I kick the bucket or something like that.

That's not what it's about.

No, and you might be like, well, how?

How does he change us?

Okay, well, here's the first thing, one of the ways.

From the insecurity of people pleasing to confidence of God's approval.

Okay, done with insecurity, more security, and uh all about the Lord's approval, not pleasing man.

Now remember, okay, last week as we started to, you know, we launched into this book and we were talking about, you know, Galatians, we started to kind of get into the into the thing that had Paul all riled up.

You remember he was like, he was on fire, right?

He was passionate and he was not happy about some things that were happening uh in the Galatian church, right?

He was he was astonished the word said there.

He was astonished that this church that he loved so dearly and and played such an important part of forming uh had abandoned the gospel.

They had abandoned, they they'd walked away from the message of the gospel.

And and remember, he had gone to great lengths to proclaim the gospel to them, the one true message of salvation.

And he wanted to be super clear, crystal clear on all of that, that Jesus alone saves people from sin.

It's a gift of grace that that you and I in this church and Galatians we simply receive it.

Okay, we don't bring anything to the table that convinces the Lord to you know give us or lavish grace on us.

Okay, we do nothing to merit any of it at all, right?

Our our works, our our moral efforts, our religious performance, none of it contributes to our salvation.

None of it does.

Now, maybe you've heard the phrase before.

Our small group was talking about this uh last week on Tuesday, but maybe you've heard the phrase Jesus plus nothing equals everything.

You heard about that before?

That's just such a great and amazing equation.

Jesus plus nothing equals everything.

Okay, unfortunately though, okay, the Galatians were starting to live by a different equation.

All right, they were living by the by Jesus plus something equals everything.

See how they were changing all of that?

And so the false teachers, they were, you know, they were basically coming into this church here and they were essentially teaching that, yeah, Jesus is good, right?

Like he's a pretty good guy and and accomplished a lot for him, uh, for us, okay, but he wasn't quite good enough.

Okay, he wasn't quite good enough.

Okay, uh to be truly saved, to be truly, you know, at peace and forgiven, and feel this sense of you know love and completion as a person, in order to really have all of those things, all right, you need to also perform certain religious duties.

That was the that was the something that they were adding to the gospel equation.

And you remember what the kind of the two issues were?

The issues were were circumcision, right?

You gotta do this, and and the other issue was uh obeying certain food laws, right?

You gotta you gotta stay away from certain foods.

If you kind of add those things to what Jesus did, then you will have arrived as a person.

Then you will have the peace and security that you're looking for and all of that.

And so they were saying Jesus plus circumcision equals everything, or Jesus plus abstaining from meat, you know, equals everything.

Now, do you see how that ruins the gospel?

Do you see how it completely flips it upside down?

Okay, they they were changing the gospel from a, you know, Jesus does everything and you can do nothing, to Jesus does some things, maybe even most things, but it was it was insufficient, his work.

You need to add to it, you need to add to it in order to be again have this sense of value or feel satisfied in life, to be forgiven, whatever, all of that stuff.

And so Paul, is he like, does he handle this lightly?

Does he like not care?

No, the opposite, right?

He's fired up and he's like, you know, he condemns it.

He says, let him be a curse.

He repeats that twice because he knows that this message that was starting to seep in and it was happening kind of kind of subtly was leading people away from Jesus.

Leading them away from the message of salvation.

And all that really brings us to verse 10 here.

So take a look.

He says, This for am I for am I now seeking the approval of man or of God?

Or am I trying to please man?

If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ.

And so, Paul, he's like, listen, listen, church, I love you, I love you passionately, okay?

And I care about you, but at the end of the day, overall, first priority is to serve Jesus Christ.

And if that means calling you to account and calling out this false teaching that you guys have let into the church and have let you uh you know bring, put you astray and all of that, and that causes you to be a little bit upset with me.

Guess what?

I'm okay with that.

He's like, I'm gonna sleep just fine because I'm here first and foremost, not to get you to like me.

I'm here first and foremost to honor Jesus Christ.

And so he comes at it hard, right?

Paul wasn't a people pleaser, he he's not being driven by that, because the grace of God was profoundly changing him.

And he was like, I cared less and less about what people think.

I I'm a God pleaser now, as I understand the gospel, and as that becomes saturated more into the you know the deep levels of my heart.

Okay, he was living for God's approval alone.

Okay, but here's the thing, and this is really important.

Paul knew that he already had God's approval.

That's what the gospel teaches us.

He's not like, well, I want to follow him and do all these things perfectly correctly, so that maybe he'll you know throw me a bone and give me some warm feelings of him loving me.

That's not what he's doing, that's not his approach.

He realizes that God approves of him, therefore, he is bold to live for the Lord first and foremost, and above all.

He knew that he already had it.

And that's because, of course, the gospel tells us that God loved us when we were yet what?

Sinners.

When we were sinners.

Jesus paid the price for our sins.

He said that it was that uh that it is finished, and and what happened there is God thereby uh accepted that payment, thus approving of you and I as his sons and daughters.

Okay, we have been adopted into God's family as children of the king.

Listen, you and I, we can't get more approved of than that.

Like you can't step it up, you can't be more than that.

And through the gospel, because it all rests in the work of Jesus Christ, we can't be less than that either.

It's grace that that really allows our heart to begin to live in line with that truth, right?

It really is.

Do you see the the confidence that can come in your life, in your heart as grace begins to change you?

As you start to realize, oh yeah, Jesus, Jesus has done it all.

I I don't need to try and earn anything, I don't need to try and add to the gospel.

In fact, that's all backwards and going in the completely wrong direction.

Jesus already loves me, he's shown me through the cross.

You know, I'm reminded over and over and over again through the scriptures.

Okay, as you do that, you you you lose that insecurity feeling.

Right?

You and I, we we we never have to feel insecure ever again.

Okay, God's God's love for you and I, it doesn't it doesn't waver, right?

God doesn't, you know, kind of grow tired of us or or bored of us because of our because of our failures, even though they are constant and they're continuous.

He's not just gonna like kick you to the curb and say, wow, they you know they didn't live up to it.

No, Jesus lived up before you, right?

He's not gonna toss you aside, he's not gonna dump you because you're not good enough.

That's not the way it works, that's not the way the gospel works, it's not the way our Lord works.

Praise him for it.

Okay, through the gospel we learn that that God loves us perfectly and completely all the time.

Okay, all the time, regardless of how well you behave or how poorly you behave.

You don't change your standing at all based on what you do or don't do.

Man, that's good.

That's so good.

When we're confident of God's approval, what it does is it frees us up, right?

It frees us from the the tyranny of being slaves to what people think.

Do you live with that constant fear of of red uh rejection and that I need to find approval, you know, through what this person thinks of me or or what they say or how they behave towards me?

Right?

Oh, only God can give us that sense of approval that our hearts really crave.

We're never gonna find that in another person.

We only find it through Jesus Christ.

He alone gives us full acceptance, and it's not based on what you and I can do.

So as you again allow the gospel to permeate your minds and and your hearts as you become more familiar with it and your heart softens you, listen, that's grace changing you.

And that is a radical and awesome thing.

Okay, Paul was bold as a lion here, and we see it in this letter to the Galatians because he knew how much God loved him.

He didn't question it, he he was he was solid on it, he was secure in it because he knew the gospel told him that, and he believed it.

He believed it.

So the real the real question for you and I is do we do we believe it?

Some of you have heard the gospel literally thousands of times, but you still don't really believe that God loves you.

Right?

Your heart needs a softening, you need to pray God's grace into your soul and allow the truth of your standing with God, gives you that, give you that security that you're looking for, that boldness, that joy that you're looking for.

And it really comes down to knowing the gospel, believing the gospel, and then watching grace change you.

God's grace profoundly changes me.

Here's the second thing from stuck in empty religion and blatant irreligion to liberated and useful.

All right, this is so good, so good.

Verse 11, take a look.

Okay, it says, 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.

Okay, so why is Paul going here now?

Like what's he saying?

Well, it appears, okay, if you read kind of between the lines a little bit here, as you look at what he's saying through this letter, it looks like he's responding to some false claims, right?

Or or even maybe some just outright personal attacks on him and his character and who he is.

All right, and this is all coming, of course, from from who?

Well, the false teachers, right?

The Judaizers, those, those folks, that crew.

And so what they were, you know, likely doing here is they were they were trying to convince the Galatians as they were trying to get their teaching in there, they were trying to convince this church that Paul's gospel was incomplete.

They're like, yeah, what Paul is Paul is saying here to you about Jesus and how you know Jesus is awesome.

Like, all of that is good, but it's it's not enough.

Right?

They were they were saying that, they were they were likely saying that this is just something that Paul kind of made up, right?

Like, how do you know that Paul's message is the real one?

They were also maybe saying that you know his message, he just got that from the other apostles.

Right?

The other ones, he just you know had a meeting with them and they kind of got their stories straight, and and and and and that's how Paul learned it.

And he's saying, We we have the real message, we have the true message of grace.

And so you see, Paul, he's he's responding here.

And of course, getting the message from the other apostles, why that would have been a you know a bit of a uh uh thing for that church in Galatians, because those false teachers were slamming those apostles for abandoning Judaism.

Like, ah, he just got it from those guys, and those guys are already heretics, and those guys are already off base, so you can't trust Paul with what he's saying here.

Like he just he invented it, he stole it from somebody else.

What's Paul's response?

Nope.

That didn't happen.

That's not the way it went down at all.

He's like, I got my gospel the best way ever, through direct revelation from Jesus Christ Himself.

Jesus Himself told me the gospel.

Jesus saved me and showed me the ins and outs of the gospel.

He showed me the ways of grace.

Now I want to read for us Acts chapter 9.

Acts 9 · chapter mention

You don't need to turn there, we're gonna have it up on the screen.

But this is this is where it all began for Paul.

This is Paul's conversion.

All right, he says in verse 1, he says, it says this, but Paul, okay, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, 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, okay, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.

Now, as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed all around him, and falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?

And he said, Who are you, Lord?

And he said, I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting me.

But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.

The men who were traveling with him, imagine this, they stood speechless, hearing the voice, but seeing no one.

And Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing.

So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus.

And for three days he was without sight and neither ate nor drank.

So that's that's Paul's moment of justification, salvation.

Jesus Christ met him on the road to Damascus and said, No, enough going in this direction, buddy.

You're going this direction now and you're going with me.

Right?

That's an amazing and quite a quite a dramatic story.

But now take a look again at our verse, verse 13, here, as Paul kind of uh shares this story from his standpoint.

Okay, he says, For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it.

Okay, not great.

He says, and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers.

Okay.

Two very important things to notice here about what Paul says about his story, about his past.

Okay, first of all, you'll notice that Paul was just a he was a flagrant, outright, sinful, I don't know, dirtbag.

Right?

Is that fair to say?

Okay, you might be like, well, that's a little bit harsh, but you know, I can imagine here if if Paul was like up here standing with me, he'd be, you know, in his in his humility, he'd be like, no, like you got my number.

Like that's nailed it.

But that's exactly uh who I was.

Right?

It says there that he he persecuted the church of God.

What?

How does it describe that?

Violently, right?

Violently.

In Acts it tells us that he was breathing threats and murder against the disciples.

Okay, so he committed, he committed very, very obvious, visible, reckless, okay, sins against God.

Okay, he wasn't, he wasn't trying to hide it.

He wasn't trying to be, you know, none of that.

Okay, this was just outward rebellion.

Okay, that's how he, that's how he was.

But then this is really interesting.

Okay, notice the second thing about his story.

Okay, he was also the most religious guy ever.

He was so, so religious.

Okay, in verse 14, it says, I was advancing in Judaism, okay, beyond many of my own age among my people.

Okay, so he's like at the top of his class, you know, valedictorian in his seminary.

You know, he knew all the right answers, all of that.

He said, So extremely zealous was I for what?

The traditions of my fathers.

Okay, so he was he was also the guy who was trying very, very desperately to you know to impress God with his works.

He's like, I was the guy, again, doing the best out of everybody my age.

I was I was the man.

He's like, that's how I was.

He used his his devout, pious, you know, religious performance, okay, to try and to try and accomplish that which only Christ could, his salvation.

So that's how he approached it.

Okay, and then look at verse, look at verse 15 here.

This is so good.

But butt's a good word to uh circle, okay?

But when he who had set me apart before I was born and who called me by his, what's the word?

Grace, right?

Highlight that.

Grace was pleased to reveal his son to me.

Okay, stop right there for a second.

I mean, just look at how grace transformed that guy.

Right?

Jesus was pleased to reveal his grace to me, and I began to change.

And I'm still I'm different than I was.

It it profoundly changed him from stuck in in empty religion, kind of just going about doing some duties, and it also rescued him and changed him from blatant irreligion.

The grace of Christ, the the gospel, it sets us free from both extremes.

Sets us free from both.

And listen, we all struggle with both.

At least to some degree, uh, we do.

Grace liberates us.

It liberates us from that crushing, you know, burden that we feel on our souls from you know trying to earn our salvation and get God to approve of us, you know, through our empty religious acts, you know, coming to church because maybe God will be impressed.

Reading my Bible because I guess that's what Christians do.

I don't know, praying, even though they're they're kind of weak and lame prayers and all of that.

Listen, it does all of that and and it liberates us from our you know, shame-filled, you know, guilt-ridden, rebellious outward sin.

It changes us from all of it, all the blatant, irreligious things we do.

You're starting to realize the power of grace?

It is, it's enormous, right?

It is huge what it can accomplish in our hearts.

So listen, are you the are you the type of person who struggles with you know the kind of a legalistic, kind of mechanical and robotic faith?

Right?

Your your heart's not in it, there's not you know a whole lot of joy.

I've kind of, you know, my heart has forgotten why I'm even here today.

You know, I don't really care.

I'm just kind of you know punching the clock, sort of thing.

Is is that you?

You know, how you know you get on that you know, religious duties, hamster wheel, right?

And it's exhausting just over and over again.

And you know, is it is it gonna be enough today?

No, no, it's not.

I don't feel secure yet, so maybe I'll jump back on it and maybe it'll be more again next time.

And nope, still not quite feeling like the Lord loves me and approves of me, so better jump on that wheel again.

And you feel the exhaustion and all that?

That's an awful existence.

It's horrible, it's it's joyless, it's frustrating, it's it's brutal.

Hey, maybe that's you, maybe that's kind of how you lean, and those kind of describe some of your tendencies.

Okay, or maybe you're the kind of person that has that rebellious streak in here.

Right?

You, you know, you've never met a rule that you don't love to break.

Okay, you you know, you read the scriptures and you're like, I'm going against that.

You know, the idea of submitting to God and you know, doing what he wants, any kind of authority, you're like, nope.

Right?

I will stiffen my neck, I will say, forget it, and I will do what I want, regardless of the consequences, regardless of the pain that I might experience down the road, or someone else might experience through my actions.

Okay, irreligion, that's your game.

Maybe that's your tendency.

Or, third option, maybe a little from column A and a little from column B.

Right?

And again, at the end of the day, we all struggle with both.

You may lean one way or the other.

I know which way my heart leans.

My heart leans towards the religious duties.

My heart leans towards the legalism, trying to earn a salvation that's been earned for me.

Okay?

Maybe for you though, you're the rebel.

Question for you, no matter which way your heart leans.

Are you tired of it yet?

Are you exhausted enough?

Are you sick of experiencing the pain of poor decision after poor decision?

Do you see how awful both paths are?

None of those bring us what we're what our hearts truly yearn for and want.

If you are tired of it and you want change and you want to be made new, and you want your heart to function properly, what's the answer?

What are we supposed to do here?

I can tell you, it's to throw ourselves at the grace of God.

Throw ourselves at his grace, recognizing that you can't figure it out, you can't manipulate and change your own heart, you can't, you can't think your way through this properly.

Your heart's the thing that's a mess.

And only Jesus can change your heart.

And so, God, would you would you change me?

Lord, it's by your grace, would you, just because you love me, begin to help me to operate in a way that is responding to the gospel?

That where I love you, your your love for me is sweet to my soul.

Lord, would you liberate me for one or both of these tendencies that I have?

Lord, would would you allow me to be riveted by your grace again?

We're gonna pray about this.

Not right now, but I'm gonna pray about this later as again as we you know just throw ourselves at God's mercy and throw ourselves at the grace of the Lord.

Okay, but before we get into any of that, just notice here Paul's response as he's changed, as he is liberated by grace and you know, the you know, the religion, the irreligion, all of that starts to lose its grip on his heart as he realize how awesome the Lord is, how much the Lord loves him.

Okay, and just and just look here at what the gospel frees Paul to do and to really to be.

Okay, take a look at verse 15.

It says, But when but when he who had set me apart from before I was born and who called me by his grace, awesome, was pleased to reveal his son to me, okay, we read that, in order that I might preach him to the Gentiles.

Okay, so what do you see here now?

You see now that Paul has this amazing purpose in life.

He's incredibly useful in God's hands now because his heart has been changed.

And the Lord has kind of come in and he's he's done that surgery and is continuing to do that surgery in Paul's life, and now he's like, I'm gonna set you off to accomplish great things for my kingdom.

Right?

That's what he's doing.

That's what he wants to do in you and I as well, but keep going here.

He says, I did not immediately consult with anyone, okay, nor did I go to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away to Arabia and I returned again to Damascus.

Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas.

Okay, that's Peter.

Okay, I had to visit Peter and remained with him 15 days.

But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother.

And what I'm what I'm writing to you before God, I do not lie.

He's like, I do not lie.

Maybe, well, why is he saying this?

Why is he explaining sort of the timeline here of when he did this but not that?

And you know, what's he what's he getting at?

Well, he's explaining here to to this church the timeline of you know when he got saved and how he learned the message of the gospel and you know the direct revelation that he had from Jesus Christ.

And so he's trying to explain to them and show them I didn't learn my gospel from you know the other apostles in Jerusalem or anything like that.

He was he was he's showing us here that he was already spreading the gospel for about three years or so, you know, before he even went and met a couple of those guys.

He was already doing fruitful ministry, he was already being used powerfully by the Lord.

Okay, God's grace in well, let me just say this.

Verse 18 before we get to that.

Verse 18 says this, then, okay, then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and I was unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ.

They didn't really know him super well yet.

They only were hearing it said, He who used to persecute us.

Okay, look at the change here, right?

It's dramatic.

He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.

God's grace in Paul's life means that he's no longer stuck in this, you know, empty religion, but neither is he also stuck in this blatant irreligion and rebellion.

He's changed.

He he he's been set, he's been set free.

And now, of course, he's incredibly useful to the Lord.

And I mean, we know already, you know, most of us here would know how how incredibly used the the apostle Paul was uh by the Lord.

I mean, he planted, you know, so many churches, he you know, discipled so many, he wrote a lot of the New Testament that you're holding in your hand right uh right now.

I mean, to say that by God's grace Paul became quite useful is like the biggest understatement of the day so far.

Right?

He really was.

This guy was a machine.

Okay, but really it's it's it's the same, it's the same thing for us.

Okay, the gospel changes us so that we're you know we're liberated from legalism and wickedness, okay, both ends of that spectrum, so that we'll be useful to God in ministry.

It's not just to make you feel like, all right, I feel I feel great and I feel at peace, and you know, now I can now I can just kind of rest and kick my feet up.

No, he's he wants to put you to work, man.

Right?

He wants you to, he wants you to be a blessing to other people.

He wants you to, he wants you to disciple other people, he wants to use you in ministry.

He's starting to get the get the feeling here.

Like, man, I've got there's stuff that needs to happen here in my life, right?

And there's something that the Lord has has planned for you.

And some of you are you know are starting to realize this, some of you have realized it before.

You've been serving faithfully for so long and you know already doing incredible things in our church.

And some of you are maybe been kind of sitting on the sidelines thinking that this is what life's all about.

It's not.

Right?

Hopefully you're getting the idea.

There's a there's work to be done, church.

Right?

So let's get let's get going, let's get after this.

Let let let's serve, let's, let's disciple, let's bring glory to the Lord who deserves every shred of it.

Right?

And that's really the that's the last thing here.

God's grace profoundly changes me from driven by a desire for my glory to the conviction that God gets it all.

God gets it all.

It says, and they glorified God because of me.

They glorified God because of me.

Now you definitely get the sense here that Paul was good with that, right?

He's not like, oh man, like God got the glory.

That's kind of a bummer here.

I haven't been sweating and toiling and just hoping, you know, that God would throw me.

He's not saying that.

He's excited about that.

That's his, that's that, that's the desire of his heart.

He wasn't in it for the the fame of his name.

He wasn't out for you know the great reputation and you know, uh, for people to say great things about me and talk about what an amazing case I am.

I used to be like this.

Now I'm this.

Wow, Paul, Paul, Paul.

It wasn't about that.

He's about the glory, the glory of the Lord.

It was the drive of his heart now, it was his deepest longing and desire, it was his conviction, right?

It it grabbed him and propelled him forward.

How did he get that conviction?

Well, it came as a as a result of knowing just how sinful he was on every level.

But he wasn't trying to hide that, he wasn't unwilling to face his sinfulness and and his brokenness.

No, he he understood that because when you understand that and you humble yourself and you call sin for what it is, all of a sudden what Jesus Christ did on the cross for you looks pretty incredible.

And you're like, wow, that that is amazing.

I realize now how how how little I deserve all of this, and the fact that Christ would save me is astounding to me.

And of course I want to give my life to following him.

That's all I want.

And you see that here, that that willingness to be used by God however God saw fit.

And and listen, the Lord put him through some tough times, didn't he?

He was beaten, he was mocked, he was scorned, he was shipwrecked, he was he was thrown in prison, he ultimately died for all of it, but it was his joy to do it.

He's like, it's the least I can do.

The least I could do is give my all, my life, for this mission, the mission of the church.

This is the same mission today.

It's the same mission for our church.

This is the mission of uh of Harvest Bible Chapel to glorify God.

Okay, we don't just say that because it looks kind of nice on a banner.

That's not all we care about.

We want this to be the conviction, the thing that is driving each person sitting here today.

We that's why we teach our kids and our high school kids and our young adults and gather as small groups throughout the week to continue to remind ourselves of who God is and that the glory all belongs to him.

Because we are glory hogs naturally, and we want it, and we want it to be about us, but it's just flat out not.

It's about glorifying God.

And the way, of course, that we frame this in our church is just by fulfilling the great commission.

That's how we glorify God.

That's Matthew 28.

We're not we're not making that up.

Jesus Himself said it.

The Great Commission is disciple making.

If we're not disciple and making disciples, if we're not pushing each other towards greater Christ-likeness and greater usefulness, then what are we doing?

What are we doing?

We're wasting an extraordinary amount of time.

That's that's one thing.

And so listen, that is the mission of our church.

That is the mission of Harvest Newmarket.

But guess what?

You're the church.

You're the church.

The church isn't Muloch secondary school, it's not the stage that we own that I'm standing on, it's not the truck and trailer, it's not the office, it's not bricks and mortar, it's none of that stuff, it's us, right?

We are the church.

This is our mission to glorify God.

So let me ask you this simple but important question.

Is it your mission?

Okay, is it your mission?

Is this the drive of your heart?

Are you convicted in your soul deep down that, hey, listen, it's about glorifying the Lord.

It's about Him.

I I don't want to rob the Lord of glory and claim that for myself.

At the end of the day, it's it's fleeting anyways.

It doesn't, it doesn't satisfy me.

It's not it's not good, it's not it's not right.

I want to encourage us, as we do so often here, to just be astounded by the truth of the gospel again.

Again, as we think about you know, this you know, this just this first chapter in this in this letter in the Bible.

Do you sense that your heart is welling up with like, wow, the Lord is amazing?

Right?

And I I really do want to allow that the truth of grace, the truth of the gospel to just drive me and propel me forward to bringing him glory no matter what.

Are you committed to grace changing you?

Okay, it's not just something that he did back in 1992 to save you, right?

He's doing it now, he's doing it in the future.

You all about that?

You fired up about that?

Okay, if you if you're committed to those things, the the effect, the the result is gonna be nothing less than than profound in your life, in your in your kids' life, in our in our town's life.

You know, as we you know, you read in the New Testament about the you know the apostles in Acts, how they you know turned the world upside down.

Do we have any less of a vision for New Market in this area?

Hopefully not.

Hopefully not.

That's what we want to go for again to the glory, to the glory of Jesus Christ alone.

Hey, I'm gonna pray right now, and I would encourage you as I pray that you would just I would encourage you to just agree along with me.

Because the thing that's holding us back here always is some area of sin.

Right?

Some area of sin that we are holding on to or blind to or enjoy too much and all of that.

And because of that, you know, we we don't see the grace of God change us as much as we would like.

And so it always comes back to just you know laying these things before the Lord.

Lord, would you would you take my heart?

Would you heal me?

Would you change me by your grace to the glory of God?