Galatians 1:11–17

0:00 Well, good morning again, church. It is truly a joy to be with you. I found myself throughout this week at various times just wanting to be with you. There's only one time throughout my week where I get to be in a room where like 500, 600, 700 people are all declaring the gospel to me in song, reminding me of truth. And it is so good to gather and to hear truth sung to one another and now truth to be preached. I have the great honor to be able to bring to you the Word of God this morning, and it is a joy to do so. We're going to be in Galatians chapter 1, verses 11 to 17. Galatians chapter 1, verses 11 to 17. I think it's on page 972, if you're using those Red Pew Bibles around the church. And you'll want to turn there because we're going to be dissecting this verse pretty good. So let's start with this question. Who, if I were to ask you this question, I want you to put a face. I want you to put a face in your mind, okay? Who is the least likely person that you think would ever be saved?

1:05 Like, I want you to have a face in your mind. Who's the least likely person that you ever think would be saved? For some of you, it would probably be a politician. You might think of a king or a totalitarian dictator of some country, and you say, that guy is so far gone. He's so far off the rails. He would never come to Christ. Maybe it's a far more personal question, what comes to mind is a mother or father, a spouse, a child, and their hardness of heart over the years, even though you love them and have shared the gospel with them, it just gets harder and harder, and you think, this person will never be saved. Maybe it's a friend, maybe it's some other influential person. Second question, second question. How powerful is the gospel of Jesus Christ to save? How powerful is the gospel of Jesus Christ to save? Because the answer to that question, the answer to that question, how powerful is the gospel, depends wholly and totally and

2:07 completely on whether you think the gospel is made up by man, or if the gospel has come down from heaven to us. The answer to that question, where does the gospel come from, from man or from God, is the most important thing. And if it comes from God, it has all the power in the world to save anybody. And that's what we're going to be talking about this morning from the Apostle Paul. Let me give you an on-ramp of the book of Galatians. Paul wrote the book of Galatians in, I take it, somewhere around 48 AD, and it's a letter that he writes to various churches in Galatia that are in danger of losing the gospel. A number of guys who Paul calls the Judaizers have come in and they said, yeah, faith's great, faith's great, but you need circumcision as well. You need to go back to the law you need to you need to add circumcision to faith and Paul is he's having none of it this is like his most aggressive letter he's going to town on the idea that you would add anything to faith at times he's punchy oh foolish Galatians who has bewitched you at times he's fearful and concerned he says I fear I've labored over you in vain

3:12 at times he is angry at those deceiving the church here's one for you he says I wish that those who are troubling you would even emasculate themselves. Something you don't often hear in church, certainly not in scholarly circles. It'd be interesting to go to the Evangelical Theological Society, and that's like the charge that's just, you know, flying back and forth between the debaters. But most of all, most of all, he is fatherly and parental. My little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you. Paul writes this letter because he is terrified that this little fledgling church would abandon the gospel, and he is pulling out everything he has to call them back to true belief in Christ. That's the letter of Galatians. It's broken down to three easy sections, chapters one to two. He argues that the gospel is from God, not from man. Chapters three to four, he tells us

4:13 what the gospel is. It's justification by faith alone. And five to six, he talks about life in the spirit, life in the spirit. Some people say chapters five to six are about Christian ethics, and there's Christian ethics in there, but really the point that Paul is driving at is the great gift that you have, believer, because of the gospel, is that you have the presence of the spirit. You have the spirit now. That's next week's sermon. We'll be looking at that next week, okay? A little foretaste there. This week, we're looking at a portion of the first argument. The gospel is from God, not from man. Let's read the text. For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel.

4:52 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, was pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me. But I went away into Arabia and returned again to Damascus. Main idea I want to explore with you from this text this morning. I think it's pretty clear and plain from the reading. The gospel of Christ comes from God, not man. The gospel of Christ comes from God, not man. And one of the evidences of that is that it

5:53 can save the worst of sinners. The gospel of Christ comes from God, not man. And one of the evidences of that is that it can save the worst of sinners. I'll break that down into two points. Point number one, a God-given gospel. Point number one, a God-given gospel. And point number two, a sinner-saving gospel. A sinner-saving gospel. Here's what I'm going for this morning. This letter to the Galatians is a precious letter to sinners. It's a precious letter to those who feel the weight of their sin. It is also a convicting letter to those who are self-righteous, to those who think that they can obey the law on their own merits and impress God. You should, brother, sister, you should read Galatians over the next two weeks. Give it, it's like 20 minutes, it takes like 20 minutes to read. Give it 20 minutes a day. Meditate on this letter. It will gut punch you, it will encourage you, it will strengthen weak knees, it will crush pride. It will do all these things, and I think even these seven verses or so that we're looking at this morning will do that.

6:49 Because Paul, for all of his aggression in this letter, is at pains to call Christians to a humble embrace of salvation in Jesus Christ, to abandon themselves and their pride for the completely free, no strings attached, God-glorifying gospel. And I want for you, church, to again afresh realize just how otherworldly this gospel is and how utterly powerful this gospel is to save, redeem, and redefine a whole person. So that's what we're going this morning. Let's check it out. Point number one, a God-given gospel. So as I laid out in my intro, Paul spends the first two chapters of this book, making an argument for the gospel coming from God. And that coincides also with Paul making an argument about his own apostleship. So if you just look up really briefly at 1.1 there, it says, Paul, an apostle, not from men, nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father. You see the parallel argument here. I'm an apostle, not from man, but from God.

7:46 The gospel is not from man, but from God. There's a parallel. So Paul's bringing these two things together, and he's running this argument together throughout the first two chapters. You have to understand he's doing that. I think we can take it apart though, and I'm just going to focus on the one, the gospel coming from God, not from man. But if you're trying to understand Galatians, you got to put those two things together. So in verse 11, he starts off and he says, I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached to me is not man's gospel. And don't you love a clear thesis when somebody just tells you, this is what I'm going to talk to you about, right? It's him trying to get our attention, right? It's like my three-year-old daughter, Phoebe, you know, when she's in trouble. The last place she wants to look is, is like into my face, right? So I say, Phoebe, look at me. And she's like, you know, looking and I'm like, okay, Phoebe. And so I take her little head and I like turn it over towards me. And now she's like looking at me, except for that her eyes are like, like trying to like look at her nose. It's like, Phoebe, look at me. Pay attention. That's what Paul is saying. I would have you know, brothers, pay attention. This is the point. This is the thesis. This is what you need to know. The gospel does not come from man.

8:47 It comes from God. It's wonderful to see a clear thesis. This is what he's going for. He doubles down in verse 12 there with two rejections and one affirmation. Rejection number one, I did not receive this gospel from any man. The idea of receive there has probably to do more with tradition. He's saying, look, I wasn't raised in this environment. I wasn't raised in this family. It wasn't in the ethos of what I was around. It wasn't osmosis that I got this gospel from. I didn't receive it from any man, nor, second rejection, nor was I taught it.

9:23 Taught would have to do with learning, with study, with chasing out his footnotes and getting all the way down, with sitting under Gamaliel, his mentor, and maybe learning it from him. So I didn't just receive it from kind of the world I was in, and I didn't figure it out through teaching or somebody teaching it to me or through reading. No, I didn't get it from mankind in any sort of way. affirmation, I received it directly from a revelation from Jesus Christ. That's his thesis.

9:53 That's his argument. I got it from him. Now, he's clearly here referring to his road to Damascus experience when he encounters the Lord Jesus Christ, and we'll talk about that later in the sermon. But Paul's point here is clear. The origin of this gospel is not from the world or from the thoughts and minds of men. This gospel, like Isaiah 55 read earlier, comes down from heaven and waters the earth, bringing forth fruit. This gospel is otherworldly. It's from a different world. It comes from the very mind and heart of God, not from man. Now at first blush, there are many who, and maybe some here this morning, who will look at a line like that, this, I got this revelation from God and they'll say, yeah, that's fine and all, but that's just, honestly, that's just, you know, typical religious hocus pocus. It's just kind of what religions do. They're just people getting these revelations from God and then using those revelations to call other people into obedience to that particular vision. So what's the difference, for example, between Paul getting

10:58 a revelation from Jesus Christ and, you know, Muhammad getting a revelation from Gabriel in a cave or Joseph Smith in a grove receiving a vision or something. What's the difference? It's just revelation. It's just run-of-the-mill religious stuff. And maybe to sharpen the critique a little bit more, make it a little bit more punchy, all religions ever seem to do with these revelations is to enslave persons to a pharisaical legalistic view of the world. Religions just say if everyone got with their program, with their vision, then the world would be a better place.

11:30 If you're not with our vision, then you don't belong. In other words, the critique is that revelation from God is often a power play to contain the masses. Okay. Now, first thing I want to say there is, on its face, I actually think that that happens to be a really wonderful critique of most religions. I would actually link arms with many who say that and say, yeah, I think the history of the world shows that people use revelation, false revelation from God and contain the masses and do all sorts of terrible and wicked and evil things with it. I'm with you. But I also think that that critique fails to account for just how otherworldly and different Christianity is from everything else.

12:15 It's so different. And I want to think about that with you this morning. When Paul says the gospel comes from God, not from man, what makes it so radically different? This argument that I'm going of go through here. I'm just kind of pulling from the Bible as a whole and actually parts of Galatians as well. So let's start looking at this. Let's come at it from this way. If there is a God and he did reveal himself, that would mean he would want to be known, right? If there's a God who says, this is who I am, that would mean he would want to be known by his creatures. Doesn't the idea of revelation itself mean that God wants to be known? We're like this at humans. I apologize.

12:52 I'm from the north, I'm from the north of the Mason-Dixon line, unlike many of you, and yeah, sorry, you know, that means that when I go to a store, I don't really like talking to people, like I'm like headphones in, like I open the door, I know where I need to go, unless it's a grocery store, I never know where to go in there, but anyway, I open the door, I go to where I need to get, I get my thing, I come out, I thank the Lord that there's these like electric checkout things that I don't have to talk to anybody, and I get out, because I don't like being stopped and being like, hey, who are you, what's up? When I first moved to Kentucky, I had just Zeke.

13:23 He was like 18 months old. This never happened to me before in life because I'm from the north. I'm standing in line at a Kroger, and this woman behind me starts like petting his hair and saying like, wow, what's his name? Who are you? I'm like, who are you? What are you doing? I was like confused. What's wrong with the South? Anyway, or like when I come home from work, and Dana asks me every single day, she says, how was work? And I always say three words. It was fine. You chuckle because I've talked to a lot of you, and that's the same experience across the board.

13:54 Like, guys never want to talk about the day. It was fine. And she says, well, tell me about it. I don't want to talk about it because the moment I start talking about it, then it conjures up all these emotions that I don't want to think about. It would be revealing myself more to her. To tell somebody who you are, to reveal yourself is to invite the other in. All right, so a God who therefore reveals himself would want to be known. But if that's true, great, then the very type of revelation that comes would also tell us about who God is, who he is at his core. And it's Paul's argument in Galatians, it's the Bible's argument as a whole, that the revelation that comes from God is fundamentally different than anything that mankind would come up with. Let me give you this illustration, okay. Imagine a young man, young woman got married and he comes home from work one day and she meets him at the door and she's she's beaming she's super happy he's like hey baby what's going on and and she says she says we're pregnant pregnant and he's like oh that's oh that's awesome and they hug each other and

14:56 they're excited for a few minutes and then and then the guy says to her okay this this is what we're going to do i've been thinking about this and i think this is what we should do when the baby's born when our child is born i'm going to get into a plane and i'm going to fly I'm going to leave you and him or her, whoever, and I'm going to fly to the other side of the world. And then I'm going to send a list of instructions back. And as you raise that child, teach them these list of instructions that throughout their days, if they perfectly follow everything and they're here at this point in time when they're supposed to be and they do these certain steps, they may make their way all the way back to me.

15:32 And if they can actually follow all those things and get all the way back to me, then they will earn my favor and my love. now if you're sitting here like you should be sitting here and you say that sounds like a disgusting reprehensible father then i humbly but forcefully submit to you that that is basically what all the religions of the world teach they all teach that god is standing off and waiting for you to figure out how to get there to just obey enough whether it's the five pillars of islam or it's the legalism of Mormonism or the Eightfold Path or whatever.

16:10 You have to do a bunch of stuff to work your way back to him. That's what all the religions of the world say. That's what the Judaizers were saying. You have to do more to earn the favor of God. But what if there was a revelation of God that was 100% completely different than that? What if it's the case that God's like the Father who comes home from work, busts open the door, and just wants to scoop up his children in his arms? What if it's the case that God wants to come home and hug his wife?

16:44 What if it's the case that God wants to be in a relationship with us? You see, the way to tell if something is man-made is to ask the simple question of whether the path to God and the knowledge of God is dependent on the actions and deeds of you, of mankind. And if the answer to that is, yes, it's dependent on you, then it is man-made religion. But the revelation of God from this word, from this Bible, a revelation that's totally different, is that God actually, in our illustration, we're the ones who flew to the other side of the world.

17:24 We're the ones who said, we don't want your fatherhood. We're the ones who have sinned against him. We're the ones who say, don't come. And he comes anyway. He comes anyway in the person of his son, dies death on the cross, rises again for our life, and offers eternal life to anybody. This is a totally world-shaping gospel. It's completely different. It can't be compared to anything else. It's a completely different view of God. If you're at a river and you see a bunch of blue fish, you know, swimming with the stream, okay, that's interesting. You see a little yellow fish, like, getting knocked by them, trying to, you know, swim the other direction.

17:58 You might be interested in all the blue fish. But you're really interested in that yellow one. Why is he going that way? Why is he doing that? That's Christianity. It works against everything else. And therefore, it is worthy of your consideration. Religion, religions invite you into a room of doing their program. Above the doorway says the sign, obey and live. Get with the program. You might make it. The room is filled with people walking around, comparing themselves to one another, trying to prove that they belong, constantly judging one another, constantly wondering if they fit. Christianity invites you into a room of the mercies of God in Jesus Christ. Over the doorway are the words, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The room is filled with people walking around saying, how the heck did I get in here? How am I here? Joe, how'd you get here? I don't know. He came and got me. He saved me. He loved me, and I don't know why, because I was rejecting him. I was pushing him away, and he came and got me anyway. Religion, even humanism, secularism says that you're born neutral with

19:03 a capacity for good and evil. Christianity says you were born evil and you need God to come and intervene. Religion, humanism, secularism says do better, do more, be a better person. Do 12 rules for life. Read whatever document, be better. Christianity says you cannot be better. But God comes to us in grace and love. Okay, do you see what Paul is saying here? Do you see why Paul is desperate for these believers to not flee back to a man-made gospel? Do you see why he is at pains in this letter? He even ends our passage in the end of verse 16 and then 17, just giving a historical point that once he received this gospel, he didn't cross-reference it with like anyone else. But he went away for like three years, and then he gives other historical tidbits that his argument is, I didn't get this from other people. This came from God. He's desperate for these Galatian believers, for them not to leave this God-given gospel, because to flee back to

20:06 the actions and works of themselves is to cast away God himself. It'd be like me coming home from work, eager to hug my children, and they lock the door and say, when we're worthy of your love, we'll open up. Are you kidding me? My children are always worthy of my love. I love them. And that's God towards sinners in Christ. If you're here today and you're not a Christian, here's the invitation. Open up the door. Just open the door. Receive the love and the mercy of God.

20:40 Maybe you're here today and you're younger, say, high school or college. You, friend, were raised in a world of rules. Whether you were raised religiously or whether you were raised in the secular world, which, for all the critiques the secular world has about Christians and rules, it's amazing how many rules they can make. I mean, it's just like, you're not even allowed to blow bubble gum on a street in Tallahassee in the afternoon or something like that. It's just crazy. We just have rules all over the place. It's what we do. This is who mankind is. We just make up rules and rules and rules and rules. say this, don't say that. If you want to fit in, get with the program, et cetera, et cetera. Here's what Paul and the Bible, and ultimately God, are offering you. To not use rules and law to think that you can earn his favor, but to embrace Jesus Christ, who will give it all to you for free.

21:28 That's the offer of the gospel. And it is a gospel from God, not from man. But then what do you say? You say, yeah, that sounds all nice and such. That's great. But I've done a lot of bad things. Like, I've done a lot of bad things. I'm a pretty bad person. Can your gospel do something for me? Can this good news do something for me?

21:59 Well, yeah, it can. It brings me to my second point, a sinner-saving gospel. You see, the gospel is not just a father embracing the ones he loves. It's a father adopting his enemies into his family and calling them sons and daughters. Verses 13 to 16. 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.

22:32 But when he who had set me apart before I was born and who called me by his grace was pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I might preach among the Gentiles. Then he finishes up with those historical accounts. Paul here brings up his first evidence in this letter that the gospel is from God. My first point, I did it a bit more philosophical and across the whole Bible. Here's the first evidence that Paul wants you to have. The first evidence is that he loves Jesus Christ. He, Paul, of all people, Paul loves Jesus Christ.

23:02 He's embraced salvation by Jesus Christ. Now, Paul is doing a few things by bringing this up in the scope of the letter. For one, he's just taking a massive swing at the Judaizers. Remember, the Judaizers are the ones that were saying you have to add circumcision to faith. And basically, they're looking at Paul, and they're saying, Paul's, you know, he didn't walk with Jesus for three years. He's kind of like this half apostle that got the gospel from the apostles, so you don't really need to listen to him. And part of what Paul is doing here in his response is he's saying, these guys say they're Jews, but they're like half-Jews.

23:34 They're not real Jews. I was the true Jew. I was the one who ran Judaism all the way down. I was the true Jew, not them. So don't even pay attention to them. They don't even know what they're talking about. That's one thing that he's doing. Secondly, he's also making an argument from the greater to the lesser. And this is for you. If God can save Paul, if God can save me, Paul, he can save anyone. Thirdly, though, most importantly, he's using his own extreme rebellion against God and God's salvation of him as a reason that the gospel comes from God, the whole thesis. He's saying, look, Galatians, the gospel obviously has to come from God because it changed me. There was no way on planet earth that any man's argument was ever going to convince the apostle Paul to abandon Judaism. It wasn't going to happen. It's not an option. You don't have the cards for it. You try to take on Paul and he would school you from his Old Testament knowledge. You press further and he might just go about getting you killed. Paul is the least likely convert and therefore his conversion

24:38 is a pure miracle. It had to be from God. Let's look at some of these details here. He says his former life was in Judaism and he says three things about that, that he was a violent persecutor of the church, advancing beyond many of his own age and zealous for the traditions of his fathers. violent persecutor of the church. The word under violent there is just the word extreme. Violent's a good translation. This man was on a rampage to persecute the church. Now, perhaps you're here this morning, you're new to Christianity, and you don't know who Paul is.

25:09 You know, these are names that you might not be familiar with. Well, let me tell you a little background, a little history on the Apostle Paul. We have a couple snippets of the life of Paul before he became a Christian. And the first one concerns the stoning of another man by the name of Stephen. Stephen, I don't have time to tell the whole story, but Stephen was this Christian and he preaches the gospel. He tells a bunch of Jews, you have to repent and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. You have to turn to Jesus Christ. And these Jews get really angry and they say, we're going to stone him. We're going to kill him. This is blasphemy. We're going to kill him. Well, if you're going to stone somebody in the ancient world, you take off your outer cloak first because it's too heavy. Even this jacket, like I wouldn't have a good throwing arm to do anything. So if I'm going to, you know, go throw a football with a friend afterwards, I'm going to take off this jacket because I need to free up my arm a little bit. It's the same thing. You take off your cloaks so that you can start throwing stones really hard. And the text says in Acts that they take off their cloaks that they lay them at the feet of a young man named Saul. Saul and Paul are the same guy. Okay, Saul, Paul. They take off their cloaks and lay them. This is clearly Paul agreeing

26:13 with sanctioning the stoning. Okay, imagine you're there that day. You don't think the stoning should take place. And some guy's like, I'm going to kill that guy. I'm going to ston him. He takes off his jacket and he hands it to you and says, hey, can you hold this? You would say, no, no, don't give that to me. I don't want any part of this. Saul is standing there and he's saying, I'll watch your stuff. Bring it over here. Go kill that guy. Go stone him. Go wipe him from the face of the earth for his blasphemy. That's your first snippet of Saul, Paul. The text in Acts goes on to say of him, Saul was ravaging the church and entering house after house.

26:51 He dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. A chapter later, but Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. Are you getting the pattern here? Our call to worship this morning was from 1 Timothy 1, and right before the passage we read, Paul says this, Though formerly I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and an insolent opponent, this man hated Jesus Christ. This man hated the church of Jesus Christ. Paul is saying to us that his whole program, his whole mission was to stamp out that church.

27:24 I tried to destroy it. It was my sole focus. You have to know this. You have to have this vision of Paul in your mind. He had this one track mind each day to destroy the church of God. He was a violent persecutor. Not only was he a violent persecutor, he was advancing beyond many of his own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of his fathers. The term there, zealous, it's a loaded word. Zeal is a loaded word. It's used sometimes in the Old Testament for some prophets, but it really came to land about 200 years before Paul in something called the Maccabean Revolt, where there was much zeal.

28:02 I won't go into the details, but it means somebody who has a lot of passion, a lot of fervor. The term even zealots was a political term, a political party, basically, in the time of Jesus and Paul that were standing against Roman rule and using violent means to get at it. Simon, the zealot, one of Jesus' disciples, was saved out of that movement. Praise be to God. Paul probably wasn't a zealot, but more likely than not, he's using this term just to get to the depth of his zeal, of his devotion to his passion, his fervor for the traditions of his father and his willingness to stamp out the church. So who is Paul, if you don't know? Well, summary, here he is. He is a man who has ran his convictions all the way down and obeys them at every turn. If this new Christian religion cult is claiming that God became man, that's disgusting. God became man in the person of Jesus Christ and then was hung on a cross. He was cursed.

29:03 so God cursed God on a cross. This is blasphemy, God says, and I will stamp it out. I will go even to the length of public execution to kill it. That's the Apostle Paul. So do you see what had to happen then for Paul to become a Christian? He would have to admit that he was a persecutor of the church and of God, a persecutor of the church of God, which would take enormous repentance and humility he would have to forsake all of his teachings and status which would take enormous repentance and humility he would have to forsake the traditions of his fathers which would take enormous repentance and humility in other words Paul would have to abandon everything he ever believed ever held dear he would have to look at all those who followed him believed in his mission gave him the ability to go on his rampage and say no more he would have to go back on all his teachers his family his friends his reputation he would have to turn from all of that rebellion against God. To say simply, Paul would have to be born again.

30:05 He would have to have an entirely new life. And that's exactly why verse 13 starts with the words, for you have heard of my former life in Judaism. Praise God for the words, a former life. Praise God that you are no longer, if you are in Christ, an old man, the old creation. That's past. You are now a new creation in him. You had, Christian, a former life, and God has saved you from it.

30:42 You know, what's so interesting about the Apostle Paul, if I'm right that this is his first letter or one of his first letters, he talks about this in letter after letter all the way to like his last letters, the letters to Timothy. He keeps bringing up his former life throughout all his years. Why does he do that? He does that because he is still amazed that God would save someone like him, and he's using it as a testimony to say to all of us, to anybody here who doesn't know Jesus, you can have God. You can know God. You can be forgiven of your sins. If God came for me, he can save you. Christian, that means that you have the great joy of telling other people about your former life and what Christ has done for you. You have the great joy even in this church to tell one another about your former life and what God has done for you. When you have people over, you know, in the church, ask them, how did you get saved? It's always encouraging to hear of someone's former life and their salvation.

31:43 It's always encouraging when we have baptisms up here to have somebody stand up and say, I hated God. I hated his word. I hated his ways. I wanted nothing to do with him. I fled him, I fled him, and he came and got me anyway. And I trust him and I love him. Praise God that we once had a former life that Christ has totally transformed. Use your testimony of your former life. So here we have the least likely convert ever, and now we get to ask the amazing, mind-boggling question, well, how then did he get saved? Well, his description here is so powerful, so instructive, so wonderful. He says, but when he who had set me apart before I was born and who called me by his grace was pleased to reveal a son to me in order that I might preach him to the Gentiles, etc., etc. I want to take apart those phrases briefly at the end of the sermon here and think about each one individually. But before I do that, I want you to see the most important thing in this text,

32:43 okay? Look back up at verses 13 to 14 and look at the subjects of the verbs, okay? Verses 13 and 14. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently, supplied, I tried to destroy, and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age. So zealous was I for the just, I, I, I, I, I, I, the subjects of all the verbs. I, I, I, I. Okay. Look at 15 and 16 again. But when he who had set me apart before I was born and supplied, he who called me by his grace and he was pleased to reveal his son to me. It's right there in the text. It's right there. It's my entire first point. The gospel comes from God. It's God acting. It's God who is the one who can do the work. If it's up to I, it's just flying away from God. If it's up to God, he can save.

33:36 You can summarize maybe the entire gospel in three words. Subject, God. Verb, saves. Object, sinners. Not sinners save sinners. Not sinners figure out a program. Not sinners, you know, come to God after he does 99%. God saves sinners. Full stop. Paul is communicating something otherworldly and profound here. It takes an act of God to save someone. We by nature walk in sin.

34:07 God alone is the one who saves sinners. He does it through his son. All right, so let's look at these phrases. First, God set Paul apart before he was born, before he did anything. God set them apart. Now this line gets to one of the more controversial of Christian doctrines, and that's called the doctrine of election. And time does not permit me here to go to the depths of the doctrine, nor does maybe my own brain. There's smarter people than me on this, but it's clearly taught in the Bible. Election is clearly taught in the Bible that God sets some people apart for salvation. For our purposes this morning, to think about that, I just want to remind us of what we just saw of Paul's own admission. Paul would never have come to believe the gospel on his own. And so the only conclusion must be that God had wanted to take someone who was hell bent against his church and God would be the one to pluck him from that rebellion, that fire, that

35:07 hell, that sin, and to raise him up as a trophy of his own grace. That's the only conclusion that you can draw. Is this doctrine of election perhaps offensive to you, that God sets people apart for salvation? Look, I'm with you. It's good to wrestle with this. I get the question, is that fair? All sorts of things like that that we can ask. I can understand that that can be a tough pill to swallow. But the way to get that pill down is not to reflect on the question, is it fair? It's to reflect on the question, what would happen if he didn't? If he didn't come for us, if he didn't set apart, what would happen? And the answer is, we would all go to hell, full stop. Heaven would have not a single human being in it unless God made the first move, unless he came to us. That's what the doctrine of election is getting at. If the Bible is right that no human in the history of the world would have willingly come to God, then the only solution is for God to set people apart and to save them. Mankind will not come. Election is the solution to that problem. It was the only

36:10 thing that could have moved Paul himself. Secondly, God called Paul. Even though God had set him apart, God still needed to call him. The idea of calling in scripture is not, you know, making a phone call to Paul and saying, hey, Paul, you're being really mean to the church right now, and you're hurting people, and I just wish you would stop. And Paul's like, I don't want to stop. He's like, yeah, but I think you should stop? And they just like talk back and forth about it. That's not what calling is in the Bible. It's not a conversation. It's not a debate. Calling is the act by which God actually in real time saves someone and brings them to life. It's Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus.

36:49 It's not a conversation with Lazarus. It's just Lazarus, raise up, get up from the dead, come out, and bam, Lazarus is alive. That's calling in scripture. It's effective. It's effectual. When the call happens, the person comes to life. This afternoon, read Acts 9 and the conversion of Saul. There's not a conversation. There's not a debate. Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Who are you? I'm Jesus Christ whom you're persecuting. Now go into this town. And suddenly, Saul, the persecutor of the church, is obeying the Lord Jesus Christ.

37:21 He was converted at the spot. He was called. Christian, God has set you apart before you were born. And then, in real time, at some point, he called you, he woke up your soul. It's similar in some ways to the doctrine, the glorious doctrine of adoption that Paul will bring up in chapter 4 of this letter. Children who are adopted, if you will, it's kind of like they're called. Our brother and sister, Joel and Brittany Lind, recently adopted Brayden.

37:54 Brayden wasn't born into this terrible situation and raised his hand and said, can somebody get me out? It was just the love and the grace of our brother, sister, Joel and Brittany, just to go take him out of it, just to call him and bring him in. This is the grace of God. It's a picture of it. God calls sinners to faith. God calls sinners to salvation. Thirdly, God was pleased to reveal his son to Paul. God here reveals his son to Paul, and Paul is clearly thinking again about the Damascus road experience when he encountered Jesus.

38:30 You do know that if Jesus wouldn't have met him on that road, Paul would have continued on his murderous rampage. But no, the son was revealed to him. But you know, this text also gets at something that we don't often think about as Christians, maybe especially us frozen chosen types. We don't sit and think about some of these words. We'll argue to the teeth, and rightfully so, about God's right in election. Praise the Lord. But how often do we think about his love or his pleasure in saving sinners?

39:02 It's like Ephesians 1 says that in love he predestined us to adoption as sons. Praise the Lord. But this text picks up that diamond of the facet of the love of God and just turns a tiny little bit. And suddenly you see a new facet that you just haven't thought enough about. And that's the facet that God took joy. in your salvation. God took pleasure in your salvation. He delighted to do it. He was happy to save Paul. Like, like, you know, think of it like you would. I would think, do you think God maybe had some, you know, hang-ups, maybe some regrets about thinking about saving the apostle Saul, the apostle Paul? Like, Paul's on this rampage to imprison, execute God's adopted children, it's very church. And maybe God was just like, well, I did, you know, I did set him apart, so I have to do it. So I'll just hold my nose and save him. I'll just hold my nose and bring him in.

39:58 In our fallenness, we could see God saying that, but that's you. That's me. Let's not go. God delights to save sinners. It's a joy to him. It's pleasing. This word used here is the same word used at Jesus's baptism. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. Christian, do you understand when you probe the deep things of God of your salvation, do you have the category of God's absolute joy and delight and happiness in your salvation? Does God hold his nose when he looks at you or does he have a fatherly smile? You know, years ago before I knew Isaac Stiles, we knew of each other, but I didn't really know him. But every single time I would see him go pick up his kids in the nursery, he would like jump into the door and be like, Sully! And she'd be like daddy and they would like run to each other and he'd have this huge smile on his face that's a picture that's a great picture of how God thinks of you of how God feels towards you in salvation

41:01 and here's the thing if God was pleased to save you from the worst of who you are do you think that now God begrudges his salvation of you look I've had many times when my children have frustrated or angered me. And by the word many there, I mean a lot, many, big, many, okay. But never once, never once, by God's grace, have I wished that they were not my children. And I'm a sinner. Like, I'm not a perfect dad at all. God is a perfect father in all, and he delights in his children. He rejoices over you with song. You know, we're often reminded, rightly, that the reason we will inherit eternal life is because God will not break his promise to you. Hallelujah. Amen.

41:47 But I want you to think of something else here. Maybe part of the reason that you grace the gates of heaven and spend eternity with God is because God wants to spend eternity with you. Because God actually delights in his children. He wants to have a face-to-face relationship with those that he has set apart. God is happy with your presence there. In the pastoral prayer, I prayed for our brother Shane, who by all accounts will pass from this world into the next this week.

42:23 What is the look on Jesus' face when Shane breaks into his presence? Is Jesus just saying, well, I made a promise, or is Jesus saying welcome? Is it an embrace? Is it love and joy and happiness, or is it just bare promise? You see what Paul is saying here. It pleases the Lord to save sinners. Once again, if you're here and you're not a Christian, does this sound like anything that you have ever heard from the world, from secularism or other religions? Does anybody have a loving God who takes joy and delight in calling enemies to himself?

43:09 Does anybody have anything close to that? And if not, isn't it worthy of your consideration to think, maybe I want to know more about that God. Grab somebody after the service. Grab me. I don't care. I'll get coffee with you. We'll read the Bible together. I'll happily do it because this God delights to save sinners who've rebelled against him. Come to him and believe. lastly god had a purpose for paul god was going to use paul for the ministry to the gentiles now for one paul is saying this because he wants these galatians these gentiles to know that his very calling from god was to them judaizers couldn't claim that i came to you because god told me to why are they here i don't know but i came here because god that was part of my very calling to go to the gentiles and to suffer for god's name he wants to set himself over against the Judaizers there. But on a grander scale, God saved Paul because God wants his gospel to reach

44:09 the ends of the earth. He wants to use wretches, sinners like you and me and Paul to tell other sinners that there is a fountain of eternal life and it is to be found in Jesus Christ, in Jesus Christ alone. And Christian, this is for you. Brother, sister, you have a gospel that's not man-made. It doesn't come from this earth. You have a gospel that comes from God and it can save the worst of people. So who's that person that you thought of at the beginning of the sermon?

44:43 You know God's hand is not too short to save. It's not too short to reach even them because the gospel that we believe comes from God and it can save anyone. Go and tell people of his great love in Christ. Let's pray. Father, we thank you again for this morning. We thank you for your word. We thank you that it comes down from heaven and waters this earth and brings forth a fruit. And we pray this morning that it would do that. We pray that it would encourage the saints here to continue to trust this gospel and to cling to Jesus Christ.

45:16 We pray for anybody here that does not know Jesus Christ, that this word would fall on them and that they would admit, yes, I don't deserve the grace of God, but Jesus Christ can give it to me. We pray that you grant faith to everybody here this morning. We pray you do it by your great grace. We pray it all in Jesus' name. Amen.