Freedom’s Influence (Galatians 1:11-24)
Once upon a time, a man walked into a little mom-and-pop grocery store and asked, “Do you sell salt?”
“Ha!” said Pop the proprietor. “Do we sell salt! Just look!” And Pop showed the customer one entire wall of shelves stocked with nothing but salt – Morton salt, iodized salt, kosher salt, sea salt, rock salt, garlic salt, seasoning salt, Epsom salts – every kind of salt imaginable.
“Wow!” said the customer.
“You think that’s something?” said Pop with a wave of his hand. “That’s nothing! Come look.” And Pop led the customer to a back room filled with shelves and bins and cartons and barrels and boxes of salt. “Do we sell salt!” he said.
“Unbelievable!” said the customer.
“You think that’s something?” said Pop. “Come! I’ll show you salt!” And Pop led the customer down some steps into a huge basement, five times as large as the previous room, filled wall-to- wall, floor-to-ceiling, with every imaginable form and size and shape of salt – even huge ten-pound salt licks for the cow pasture.
“Incredible!” said the customer. “You really do sell salt!”
“No!” said Pop. “That’s just the problem! We never sell salt! But that salt salesman – Hoo-boy! Does he sell salt!” (D. James Kennedy, Led by the Carpenter, Thomas Nelson, 1999, p. 46; www.PreachingToday.com)
Jesus calls us, His followers, “the salt of the earth” (Matt 5:13), but salt that stays on the shelf doesn’t do any good at all. Instead, Jesus wants us to be out there as a preserving influence in this decaying world. He wants us to make a difference in people’s lives. He wants us to speak with authority so that people will listen and respond?
But the big question is how? How can we as God’s people be a positive influence on those around us? How can we gain a real hearing among the various voices clamoring for people’s attention?
Well, if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to Galatians 1, Galatians 1, where the Apostle Paul defends his apostleship and gives us reasons why we should listen to him. Galatians 1, starting at vs.11 (read to vs.17)
Paul makes the point that he didn’t get his ideas from any man. He got them directly from Jesus Christ Himself in Arabia. Now, that’s significant, because that’s where Mt. Sinai is, according to Galatians 4:25. & That’s where Moses himself met with God to receive the 10 commandments. Paul is saying, “I got my message from God just like Moses did. Therefore, my words carry the same weight as the 10 commandments themselves!” Paul met with Christ in Arabia.
vs.18 (read to vs.20)
Paul spent time with Christ before he spent time with any other man. In fact, he spent 3 years with Christ alone in the Arabian Desert before he even met the leaders of the church in Jerusalem – Peter and James. And then he was there for only 15 days, not enough time to learn much, if anything, from them, but just enough time to “get acquainted.”
“Later,” Paul says... vs.21 (read to vs.22)
The false teachers who dogged Paul’s steps liked to boast of their close association with the leaders of the church in Judea. They loved to drop the names of important people, but Paul tells us of his close association with Christ Himself. Paul’s authority did not come from his connection to important people.
Paul’s authority came from his connection to Christ Himself. Paul’s right to be heard came because he knew Christ personally, and he had learned from Christ directly.
My friends, that’s where we gain our right to be heard, as well. We don’t gain the right to be heard, because we have studied under great human teachers. We don’t gain the right to be heard, because we have a bachelors or masters degree, or even a Ph.D. We gain the right to be heard, because we have spent time with the Master Himself, Jesus Christ our Lord.
If we want true spiritual authority, If we want to have a positive impact on those around us, If we want to speak in such a way that people will listen, then we must BE IN COMMUNION WITH CHRIST. WE MUST BE CONNECTED TO JESUS. WE MUST KNOW THE LORD PERSONALLY, getting our thoughts and ideas from Him.
You see, God’s thoughts are not our thoughts; His ways are not our ways, Isaiah 55:8 says. “As the heavens are higher than the earth,” God says, “so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9).
What God has to say is a whole lot more important than anything we can say. My opinion, your opinion, is just one of many opinions competing for the attention of people in our world today. & Most of those people don’t see any opinion as any more valid than any other opinion. It’s just a bunch of noise to them.
So if we’re going to speak in such a way that people will listen, we cannot declare our own opinions, we must instead speak the thoughts and words of Christ.
That means we have to know Him personally. We have to spend time with Him, so we can know His thoughts. Then, and only then, can we speak with any authority at all.
Sandy and I love to watch Antiques Roadshow when it comes on PBS. It’s especially fun when people learn that the stuff they had sitting in around in their living rooms, bedrooms, attics or garages is worth a lot of money.
In one episode, an elderly man from Tucson, Arizona, brought in an old blanket he had inherited several years previously. He knew the old blanket was worth a little something, but when he got it he simply threw it over the back of a rocking chair in his bedroom until he brought it to the Antiques Roadshow.
With the blanket hanging on a rack behind them, the expert appraiser told the old man that his heart stopped when he first saw it… [The appraiser explained] that the item was a Navajo chief’s blanket that had been woven in the 1840s. In wonderful condition, it was one of the oldest, intact Navajo weaves to survive to the twentieth-first century, and certainly one of only a tiny handful to exist outside of museum collections…
Because of its rarity and significance, the appraiser had no trouble telling the man it was worth somewhere between $350,000 and $500,000.
As the man walked out of the convention center… the blanket he had carelessly carried in with him was now cradled carefully in his arms. He walked out of the building with security guards on either side of him, drove straight to a bank, and placed the blanket in a safe deposit box.
What had been “junk,” a mere accent to an old rocking chair, had been instantly transformed into a precious treasure. (Tim Challies, The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment, Crossway, 2007, pp. 30-31; www.PreachingToday.com)
How often do we treat the Word of God like that man treated that old blanket? We know it’s got some value, but we just throw it on our coffee tables as a mere accent to the furniture.
Oh that God would open our eyes to love and appreciate the supreme treasure that we have in His Word. Not that we would then lock it away in a safety deposit box, but that we would begin to lock it away in our hearts, so we could begin to think the way he thinks and speak the way He speaks.
Now, I’m not talking about just an academic knowledge of the Bible. I’m talking about a personal knowledge of Christ Himself, through His Word,
so that His words begin to live and breathe in us.
More than 30 years ago, A. W. Tozer made an observation about our evangelical churches that explains why we have lost any significant influence in our world. He said, “There is today an evangelical rationalism which says that the truth is in the Word and if you want to know truth, go learn the Word. If you get the Word, you have the truth. That is the evangelical rationalism that we have in fundamentalist circles: ‘If you learn the text you’ve got the truth.’
“This evangelical rationalist wears our uniform. He comes in wearing our uniform and says what the Pharisees…said: ‘Well, truth is truth and if you believe the truth you’ve got it.’ Such see no beyond and no mystic depth, no mysterious or divine. They see only, ‘I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth; and in Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord.’
"They have the text and the code and the creed, and to them that is the truth. So they pass it on to others. The result is we are dying spiritually. To know the Truth, we must ‘know’ the Son.’" (A. W. Tozer in Power for Living, Oct. 16, 1977; Christianity Today, Vol. 33, no. 13; www.PreachingToday.com)
If we’re going to speak with any authority in our world, then we must know Jesus personally. We must spend time with Him just like Paul did.
Now, I doubt that any of us can spend 3 years in a desert communing with Christ like Paul did, but we can spend 30 minutes a day in his presence. We can spend 30 minutes a day listening and talking to Him.
My friends, we must spend time with Christ if we are going to be heard. If we want true spiritual authority, if we want to have a positive impact on those around us, if we want to speak in such a way that people will listen, then we must be in regular communion with Christ.
More than that, WE MUST ALLOW CHRIST TO RADICALLY CHANGE US FROM THE INSIDE OUT. WE MUST DEMONSTRATE A TRANSFORMED LIFE. WE MUST SHOW THE WORLD THAT WE ARE DIFFERENT IF WE WANT TO MAKE A DIFFERENCE.
That’s what happened to Paul. He was a zealous persecutor of the church, a very religious man, whose fanaticism led him to kill Christians wherever he found them. But then, God got a hold of his life.
In verse 16, Paul says, “God, who set me apart from birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the gentiles...”
It’s only as Christ was revealed in Paul’s life that he had any authority to speak at all. Without a changed life, his words meant nothing.
My friends, if we want to speak with any authority whatsoever in our pluralistic society, then we too must speak with the authority of a changed life.
First, like Paul, we must realize that we have been “set apart.” The word literally means “devoted to a special purpose.” My friends, that’s what we ARE as believers in Christ. We are “devoted to a special purpose.”
Ephesians 2:10 says, “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
God has set apart each and every one of us believers for a special purpose. He has prepared in advance good works for ALL of us to do.
There are no useless people in God’s Kingdom. Oh please, let that thought grip your heart: God set YOU apart for a special purpose,
no matter who you are.
Then like Paul, recognize that you have been “called by his grace.”
According to Romans 8:30, every believer has been called of God.
You and I have been set apart and called by God, primarily so that Christ could be revealed in us. You see, God wants our lives to demonstrate the character of Christ.
Keith Miller, in his book A Second Touch, talks about a Christian businessman who was in a hurry to catch a train. In his hurry, he bumped into a small boy with a puzzle in his hand, and the puzzle pieces ended up scattered all over the sidewalk.
So, instead of rushing on, the businessman stooped down and helped the little boy pick up his puzzle pieces while the train moved out of the station. After he had finished, the boy looked up into the man’s face and asked, “Mister, are you Jesus?”
Oh, that people would mistake us for Jesus every day! And that can happen as we allow God to transform our lives. The compassion and character of Christ WILL shine through.
Christ WILL be revealed in us, so that we can “preach Him among the Gentiles.” So that we can speak with the authority of a changed life.
In verses 23-24, Paul says, “[The churches in Judea] only heard the report: ‘The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.’ And they praised God because of me.”
God was glorified because of the change in Paul’s life. & God is glorified when we allow Christ to change our lives, as well.
In 1972, a young Egyptian businessman named Farahat lost an $11,000 watch. He was stunned when a garbage man dressed in filthy rags found it and returned it to him. Farahat asked him why he didn’t just keep the watch.
The garbage man said, “My Christ told me to be honest until death.”
Farahat later told a reporter: “I didn’t know Christ at the time, but I told [the garbage man] that I saw Christ in him. I told [him], ‘Because of what you have done and your great example, I will worship the Christ you are worshiping.’”
Farahat studied the Bible and grew in his faith. Two years later he visited the garbage man’s village outside Cairo, where between 15,000 and 30,000 people were living in the squalor. There was no electricity or running water. Alcohol, drugs, and gambling were pervasive. Men, women, and children sifted through huge mountains of garbage, looking for something of value that could be sold for cash or traded for food.
Farahat found himself reflecting on the words of Jesus: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” He also remembered the words of the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 4:13: “We have become as the scum of the world, the dregs of all things.” It was soon thereafter that Farahat and his wife began ministering to people’s spiritual and material needs. They preached the gospel throughout Egypt, and thousands of people turned to Christ.
In 1978, Farahat was ordained by the Coptic Orthodox Church and became known as Father Sama’an. Now, about 10,000 believers meet in a large cave outside the garbage village. It is the largest church of believers in the Middle East.
Just a few years ago, in May of 2005, that church held day of prayer for Muslims to turn to Christ. More than 20,000 Arab Christians gathered. A Christian satellite TV network also broadcast the event, and millions more were watching. All this, because one garbage man chose to humbly return a watch that would have made him the richest man in town. (Joel C. Rosenberg, Epicenter, Tyndale House Publishers, 2006, p. 206; www.PreachingToday.com)
That’s the power of a changed life!
Oh, we might not reach millions like Farahat did, especially here on Washington Island. But all we have to do is reach one or two like that garbage man did, and who knows what can happen from there!
We CAN change our world for the better! All we have to do is commune with Christ and allow Him to change us from the inside out.
Let’s make this our prayer today: Make me a servant, humble and meek; Lord, let me lift up those who are weak. And may the prayer of my heart always be: Make me a servant, make me a servant, Make me a servant today.
