Dance Lessons: Transformation Time
Galatians 1:11-24
Pastor Jefferson M. Williams
Chenoa Baptist Church
02-09-2020
Transformation
We all love a good transformation story. Whether it’s
* Ebenezer Scrooge’s overnight transformation from a miserable miser to a joy-filled giver
* The Grinch’s heart growing three sizes after experiencing the love of Cindi-Lou Who.
Clark Kent taking off his glasses and becoming Superman
Bruce Banner turning into the Incredible Hulk
Or how about the make-over shows that turn your slob of a husband into a stylish hunk or weight loss journeys that show the different 200 pounds can make.
Those are amazing and I love to hear those stories but the best transformation stories are spiritual in nature.
When I was in cub scouts, my father was the Pack Master. After another cub scout tried to throw my brother off a second story stair case, my dad expelled him from the Cub Scouts.
I actually ended up going to high school with that kid and he was in trouble all the time.
My dad always felt guilty about his decision and wondered whatever became of Jimmy.
I was able to give him good news several years ago when I found him on Facebook. Jimmy…was…a….pastor and now is a professor. Just like me!
My dad was overjoyed when her heard this news and it was obvious to both of us that something pretty amazing had happened in Tommy’s life.
That’s what the Gospel does - it transforms us from the inside out. It makes us new - new eyes, new ears, new heart:
Becoming a Christian is not like joining a club it's more like like a caterpillar into a butterfly.
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Cor 5:17)
Paul is going to bring out the big guns today and use his life as a prime example of why the Galatian believers should trust his message.
Recap
So far, we’ve seen Paul assert his authority as an apostle in the introduction of this letter. Usually, Paul would then move on to thanksgiving and prayer for the church he was writing to but not so with Galatians.
In the verses we studied last week, Paul expressing his astonishment at these believers for so quickly deserting the true Gospel. He goes so far as to say that the people that were throwing these baby believers into confusion by perverting the Gospel should be damned to eternal destruction!
Paul is writing to remind them that they are free to dance to the rhythm of grace, freedom, and joy and remember,
“Those who dance are thought crazy by those who can not hear the music.”
I would encourage you to watch the sermons you’ve missed on our Facebook page.
Turn to Galatians 1.
Prayer
Where did the Gospel come from?
The false teachers (Judiazers) that had come behind Paul and Barnabas were questioning Paul’s authority as an apostle and accusing him of making up this Gospel of free grace:
“Gather round everyone. We heard that this Paul fellow came to your region and taught you about Jesus. Now, he claims to be an apostle but we are from Jerusalem and can tell you without hesitation he was not one of the twelve. He just declared himself to an apostle out of the blue. He’s a fraud.”
To this, Paul began his letter:
“Paul, an apostle—sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father, who raised him from the dead…” (Gal 1:1-2a)
Paul was not commissioned by a committee or by one of the leaders of the church (Peter or James), but Wass directly commissioned as an apostle by Jesus Christ when he encountered him on the Damascus road.
The false teachers continued:
“He’s a fake apostle and he came here preaching a watered-down version of the Gospel. Where did he even get these ideas? Obviously, he learned them from the apostles in Jerusalem but then modified the message in order to win more converts.
Here’s the simple truth - you must put your faith in Christ. That is true. But you must also be circumcised, follow the Old Testament dietary laws, and all of the Mosaic covenant rules. In other words, you have to become Jewish before you can become a Christian.”
This caused great confusion among these new believers and they didn’t know what, or who, to believe.
Paul is going to respond by showing the source of the Gospel he preached and then using his own life story to prove that this message is from God Himself.
Let’s start in verse 11:
“I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 1:11-12)
In the NIV, you don’t see this but the verse begins with “for” or “now” in Greek. This is a strong declaration. Paul begins by certifying that what he is about to write is true.
The word “know” means to reveal new knowledge not a reminder of something already known.
The letter started terse and angry but now he softens a bit and addresses his readers as “brothers and sisters.” Paul is dumbfounded by their behavior but still loves them as his spiritual children.
Paul makes three negative assertions and one positive:
“the Gospel I gospeled” to you is not from human origin. Paul assures these believers that the message that he taught them was not a figment of human imagination.
“I didn’t receive it from any man.” Paul did not learn it from Peter or James. It wasn’t passed down to him by the apostles or his family or anyone else.
“nor was I taught it.” Paul wasn’t discipled in the faith by anyone else.
Just as his commission as an apostle, the authority of the Gospel rests in the source in which he received it:
“I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.” From his experienced with the Risen Christ on the Damascus road, he had received direct revelation of the Gospel.
Paul’s apostleship came from Jesus and his Gospel came directly from Jesus. Paul is not a fraud or a fake. He didn’t learn the Gospel from the other apostles and misunderstand it.
The Galatians can truth both the messenger and the message - we are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. If you add anything to the Gospel, it is no longer the Gospel. Jesus + Nothing = Everything.
Paul then uses his own conversion to prove that God was at work doing something extraordinary.
Paul’s Autobiography - Before Jesus
“For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.” (Gal 1:13-14)
The Galatians had heard about his former way of life in Judaism from the Apostle Paul’s own lips. He gives two descriptions of his life before Jesus:
“…how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it.”
Paul’s main mission was to destroy the little group of people that called themselves Christians. He did that mission with a violent zeal, arresting whole families, voting for their execution, and even traveling to other cities to root out this little sect.
The word “destroy” is a strong word that can be used for sacking a city and burning it to the ground. Paul wanted to exterminate these Christians.
When giving his testimony to King Agrippa in Acts 26, Paul wrote:
“I too was convinced that I ought to do all that was possible to oppose the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And that is just what I did in Jerusalem. On the authority of the chief priests I put many of the Lord’s people in prison, and when they were put to death, I cast my vote against them. Many a time I went from one synagogue to another to have them punished, and I tried to force them to blaspheme. I was so obsessed with persecuting them that I even hunted them down in foreign cities.” (Acts 26:10-11)
How did he force them to blaspheme? By commanding them to renounce Jesus as the Messiah. When they wouldn’t renounce His name, Paul would pass them on to be executed.
How many times did Paul hear the true Gospel from the lips of these martyrs? Probably a lot but his heart was hard and his spiritual eyes were blinded to the true Gospel.
We can not white wash his hatred of Christians. He was a first century terrorist. If he was alive today, and he found himself on a plane full of Christ-Followers, he would do his best to blow it out of the sky.
“I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers.”
Paul was a superstar student of the most widely respected rabbi there was. His parents probably had a “my son is an honor student of Gamaliel” on the back of their donkey.
When I was graduating seminary at Reformed Theological Seminary, there was such a superstar student who had just finished his doctorate in Scotland and had begun to teach classes at RTS. He was brilliant and we all knew he would go far.
25 years later, Ligon Duncan is the President of Reformed Theology Seminary. This came as a surprise to no-one!
The word “advancing” means to chop and it paints a word picture of Paul using a machete to chop and slash his way through Judaism.
In Philippians, Paul spells out his Jewish credentials:
“If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless.” (Phil 3:4-6)
Paul was born into the right tribe and had parents that were faithful. Paul was a Pharisee of Pharisees. The Pharisees were a group of Jewish leaders that were very conservative. To the Jewish people, they were the religious good guys. But they had added so many other rules to the Mosaic Law that their teaching had become a burden to the people.
Paul was fiercely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. Notice he didn’t say the Mosaic Law.
The Pharisees recognized the 613 rules of the Mosaic Law but also had come up with other rules to act as fences to protect the original rules. Then they came up with more rules to protect the second rules. It was a mess.
Jesus didn’t tolerate their religious hypocrisy for a minute:
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are.” (Matthew 23:13-15)
Paul was a zealous Pharisee who hated Christians and thought he was doing God a favor by wiping them out. He wasn’t a very good candidate for conversion.
John Stott writes:
“Now a man in that mental and emotional state is in no mood to change his mind, or to even have it changed for him by men. No conditioned reflex or psychological device could convert a man in that state. Only God could reach him - and God did!”
Paul’s Autobiography - Transformation!
“But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was, but I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus.” (Gal 1:15-17)
Whenever we are tempted to give up on someone and think that are too far gone to ever be saved, just remember two words, “But…God.”
Notice, when Paul was talking about his life before Jesus he used the pronoun “I” many times. But in these verses the “I”s are gone and it is all about what God did.
Paul obviously wasn’t seeking for salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. In fact, it was just the opposite. He thought salvation came through obedience to the rules and regulations of God.
But looking back, Paul now sees that God had set him apart from his mother’s womb. This idea echos Jeremiah’s call:
“The word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” (Jer 1:4-5)
Just a reminder, who was the first person to acknowledge the Messiah? John the Baptist while in the womb!
Paul was called by God’s grace. There was nothing in Paul that deserved grace and, although he had been a good Pharisee, he couldn’t earn it.
Paul writes that this was wasn’t a behavior modification program where he would adjust his outward actions. Something happened on the Damascus road that changed him from the inside out:
“But God was pleased to reveal His Son in me…” He didn’t write that God revealed His Son to him but in him to change him from the inside out.
Paul will write later in chapter two that was grace not law that made all the difference:
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!” (Gal 2:20-21)
The caterpillar became the butterfly on the dusty stretch of road leading to Damascus:
Meanwhile, Saul was still breathing out murderous threats against the Lord’s disciples. He went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any there who belonged to the Way, whether men or women, he might take them as prisoners to Jerusalem.
As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked.
“I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. “Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”
The men traveling with Saul stood there speechless; they heard the sound but did not see anyone. Saul got up from the ground, but when he opened his eyes he could see nothing. So they led him by the hand into Damascus. For three days he was blind, and did not eat or drink anything. (Acts 9:1-9)
How radical was this change? Paul the fanatic, zealous Jew becomes the missionary to the Gentiles. The Gentiles were non- Jewish people that Paul would have never even eaten with before his conversion. But, after being born again, Paul would be the one to bring the good news of the Gospel to the Gentiles.
Is that a little odd? Wouldn’t have Paul been an amazing effective debater in Jerusalem? He knew the Law better than anyone. In fact, Paul probably had the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy) memorized and most, if not all, of the Psalms.
But that wasn’t God’s plan for Paul. Paul the persecutor became Paul the preacher right there in Damascus!
“Saul spent several days with the disciples in Damascus. At once he began to preach in the synagogues that Jesus is the Son of God. All those who heard him were astonished and asked, “Isn’t he the man who raised havoc in Jerusalem among those who call on this name? And hasn’t he come here to take them as prisoners to the chief priests?” Yet Saul grew more and more powerful and baffled the Jews living in Damascus by proving that Jesus is the Messiah.” (Acts 9:20-22)
He lists three things that happened after his salvation:
I did not consult with any human being. Even though Ananias restored his sight, He didn’t share with him what happened on the road into town.
I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before me. The Judiazers were accusing him of learning his Gospel from the apostles and then changing it when he preached. Dr. Jack McGowen writes, “Paul didn’t catch the first greyhound bus to Jerusalem in order to acquire his credentials from the Jerusalem apostles.”
But I went into Arabia. Later I returned to Damascus. We are not really sure what he did in Arabia, which was a desert region east of Damascus.
It’s obvious that he preached because the Nabatean king Aretas wanted him dead (2 Cor 11:32)
But, it’s also likely he spent extended periods of time alone with Jesus and his Scriptures.
How long did the apostles get trained by Jesus? Three years. So Paul is discipled by the Risen Lord for three years in the desert outside of Damascus.
Can you imagine Paul reading Isaiah 53 with his spiritual eyes opened:
Read Isaiah 53:1-10. I can imagine Paul pacing back and forth saying, “That’s Jesus! That’s Jesus!”
Scripture after Scripture would explode in his head as he began to see Jesus on every page of the Old Testament.
After this intense three year discipleship, Paul was ready to go up to Jerusalem.
Paul’s autobiography - After Jesus
“Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days. I saw none of the other apostles—only James, the Lord’s brother. I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie.” (Gal 1:18-20)
Paul heads up to Jerusalem to meet with Peter, which he calls by his Aramaic name Cephas. He only stayed with him about two weeks. This was a “getting know you” visit. He had a brief encounter with James but saw none of the other apostles.
Two things stand out here.
First, would you trust someone who only went to two weeks of medical school? Of course not. So to say that Paul learned his theology from Peter in two weeks is absurd.
Paul wanted to know Peter. He wanted to hear his story of faith, his encounters with Jesus after the resurrection, and his plans for the mission to take the Gospel to the Jews.
Second, why didn’t see the other apostles? Well, Dr. Luke answers that question for us:
“When he came to Jerusalem, he tried to join the disciples, but they were all afraid of him, not believing that he really was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles. He told them how Saul on his journey had seen the Lord and that the Lord had spoken to him, and how in Damascus he had preached fearlessly in the name of Jesus.” (Acts 9:26-27)
Can you imagine the feelings the believers had toward Paul? He may have put their father in prison, or had their son executed. Many of them were friends with Steven, which he held the coats for the ones that stoned him to death.
But it was Barnabas, Son of Encouragement, that would open the door for him to minister in Jerusalem and would eventually go on to travel with Paul to Galatia to share the Gospel.
Paul uses a Roman court device as he assures the Galatians that what he is writing is true - he says, “behold, note well” that what I am writing is true.
When the believers in Jerusalem learned that there was a plot to kill Paul, they sent him to his home town of Tarsus.
“Then I went to Syria and Cilicia. I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They 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.” (Gal 1:22-24)
Paul could have been a celebrity rabbi, celebrated not just in his time, but maybe for all-time.
But the churches in Judea, the center of the Way, didn’t know him by face. But they did know about his faith - the persecutor is now preaching the faith he tried to destroy. And they glorified God because of the change in Paul.
I quote John Stott again:
“The fanaticism of his pre-conversion career, the divine initiative in his conversion, and his almost total isolation from the Jerusalem church leaders afterwards together combine to demonstrate that his message was not from man but from God.”
Applications
Courser writes,
“After the resurrection of Jesus, no single event affected the course of church history so much as the call of Paul. Other individuals were converted, Constantine even baptized an empire. But the change which occurred for Paul caused reverberations, many of which are still resounding to this day.”
Do you have “a former way of life?”
Becoming a Christian is not like joining a club. It is not so much about information but transformation.
David Platt writes, “We need more than a minor adjustment when it comes to Christ, only the Gospel can transform someone from the inside out.”
John Newton understood this. He was a slave trader, a violent man given to drunkenness, but found himself praying in the middle of a storm for God’s mercy.
He became a pastor and an ally of William Wilberforce in the fight for the abolition of slavery in England.
I love what he had written on his tombstone:
John Newton, clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long labored to destroy. Grace did not free him to serve no master, but a new Master.
He later wrote these famous words about that grace:
“Amazing Grace how sweet the sound / that saved a wretch like me / I once was lost but now I found / was blind but now I see.”
Or how about George Wallace, who was a racist white supremacist who ordered the protesters fired on that Bloody Sunday to a born again Christian who denounced segregation.
Or Chuck Colson, who was one of the most powerful men in the world as the hatchet man for Richard Nixon to being one of the greatest prison evangelists this country has ever known.
Or Brian “Head” Welch, lead guitarist of the rock group Korn, who went from a crystal-meth addict who was going to die, to a clean and sober daddy who loves Jesus.
Or Kanye West, who went from calling himself “Yesus” to sharing Christ with thousands at his Sunday Church services.
Or Jeff Williams, who went from an angry, depressed, sexually compulsive atheist to a pastor, a professor at a Christian college and Christian counselor!
But, not all stories have to be that dramatic. I know people who say that they just never remember a time when they didn’t love Jesus. Or it happened over a period of time.
And while the crazy stories make the headlines, it is the religious people getting saved that really are the miracles.
I’ve shared this story before. One of my professors, Dr. Doug Kelly, told the story of how hard is was to stand for Christ at Oxford in the 1960s. A lot of the students were denying the virgin birth, the divinity of Christ, the supremacy of Scripture but Dr. Kelly didn’t flinch.
Forty years after college, he receive a call from a fellow classmate. This individual thanked him for standing for Biblical Christianity all those years ago and relayed that he had gotten saved the week before.
What had he been doing for the last forty years? He was a pastor! He preached sermons, baptized, buried and married. And yet, he didn’t know Christ.
Or the story I heard this week from a pastor who had a Sunday school teacher come to him and tell him that she had been saved the week before. She had been teaching Sunday school for 30 years but she realized, with the help of the Holy Spirit, that she didn’t have have a relationship with Jesus. It was all information with no transformation.
Have you been changed by the Gospel? Have you been born again? Do you have a pre-Jesus / Jesus / post Jesus story?
I’m not asking you if you went forward at the camp fire when you were 12 at camp. Where are you spiritually today? Has God intervened in your life and convicted you of your sin? Do you realize you can never earn your way into heaven? Have you felt that hopeless and helpless feeling knowing that without rescue you are doomed?
Do you remember the joy you felt when you found out that God gave His Son, to die for you, in your place, to absorb the wrath for your sin, and give you a way back to relationship with God?
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! (2 Cor 5:17)
2. Share your story
Peter wrote:
“But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect…” (I Peter 3:15)
Chuck Swidoll gives us some direction when sharing your story with others:
Don’t preach - just talk. Have a conversation. Don’t Jesus-juke people. It’s hot outside. It’s hot in hell too!
Don’t generalize - be specific.
Don’t be vague and mystical - be clear and simple.
Don’t defend yourself - just deliver your story. It’s easy to argue theology . It’s much harder to argue with a changed life.
Be brief, logical and, most of all, be humble.
Some of you have people in your life that you think are far too gone to ever become a Christian. Some of you have been praying for years with little to no results. Don’t…give…up! The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes…
Todd Wilson writes:
Sometimes we domesticate the Gospel and forget it is itself the power of God. The gospel is not a flannel graph illustration to charm children; it is the power of God to transform the life of even the lost hardened criminals. The Gospel is not a mere formula for how we get saved; it is the divine power that brings about our salvation from first to last. The Gospel is not simply a message about how to get right with God; it’s the very presence of Christ Himself enabling us to be right with God and to live rightly before God…it’s the power of God. ?
Video: Brian “Head” Welch - I am Second
