Title: A Life Changed by Christ
Text: Gal 1:13-24
These final twelve verses of chapter one are biographical. They tell Paul’s story. He includes it in this letter as a means for defending his apostleship, his authority and his gospel message.
But practically it really goes beyond a mere defense of his ministry. It in fact becomes his testimony.
Martin Luther commented that this passage was not doctrinal, in other words it doesn’t contain any specific teaching about Christ or the Christian faith, but that Paul cites events from his own life as a defense of his ministry. I suppose in the strictest sense that may be true, but the passage is instructional. From it we learn about the radically transforming power of Jesus Christ in a person’s life, and how to share those same aspects of our own lives with someone else. It tells us not only what Paul did, but who he was and how his life changed when he met the risen Christ. It’s pretty much the standard form for anyone’s testimony. I’ve used the same format on Sunday nights when I’ve encouraged you to prepare your own testimony so if someone were to ask you could share it.
You see God doesn’t require us to become great speakers, although some do; He doesn’t require us to be able to give an impressive sales pitch or defense for Christianity, although some can; He doesn’t require us to be great preachers or evangelist, although some are. But, he does expect us to be able to tell what the power of Christ has done and is doing in our lives. We are all called to be witnesses. You see we talk to people everyday about all sorts of things. We share recipes, we talk about our favorite movies or television shows or books. We talk about sports and the Super Bowl the Huskers. We talk about the weather. The list could go on and on, about the things we talk to people about, but we balk at sharing our faith. I’m no different than you. We all make excuses about why we can’t and why don’t share our faith and all the while people we know are not only living without Christ, but they are dying without Christ as well.
We need to look at what Paul wrote about his own life and see how we can use that same formula to track our own transformation in order to be able to share our own faith with others. That’s important because Jesus’ words recorded in both Mark and Luke say, "For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will also be ashamed of him when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels." (Mark 8:38, NAS) No one wants to hears words of shame, but rather words of faithfulness: "His master replied, 'Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness!' (Matt 25:21, NIV)
In verses 11 and 12 Paul wants to make it perfectly clear the gospel message he preached was not the creation of any man nor any group of men. He did not receive it from anyone other than the risen Christ. It’s not that it’s a different gospel than that taught by the Apostles, it’s the same message, but it’s authority and authenticity are a result of a divine revelation and commission. Then he basically says here’s how it came about.
First of all he writes about his past. His life before Christ.
All of us have pre-Christian pasts. We weren’t born believers. We were born sinners and there came a point in time when we willfully placed our faith in Christ. For some of us it came when we were young, for others it came after we became adults, but we all have a past. Paul shares his past in verses 13-14, he wrote:
“For you have heard of my former manner of life in Judaism, how I used to persecute the church of God beyond measure, and tried to destroy it; and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries among my countrymen, being more extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions.”
(NAS) We can find a more detailed account of his past in the book of Acts chapters 9, 22 and 26.
But Paul’ past life is important for two main reasons. First he was making it clear that he was not a novice when it came to the Jewish religion. These false teachers that were leading the Galatian believers astray were dealing with someone who was intricately aware of the requirements of the Jewish faith and the yoke of legalism they were trying to place on these Galatian Christians. He knew it inside and out and as a matter of fact was convinced Jesus was an imposter and the message of salvation by grace was untrue. He was describes himself as a zealous persecutor of the church, trying to eradicate it from the face of the earth. This zeal made him one of the most respected up and coming rabbi’s of his time.
While Paul can be described as a “religious” man, and a man with good intentions, he was also a sinner. He took part in the murder of God’s servant Stephen (Acts 8:1), he was a man whom the Bible says was breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord (Acts 9:1). He described himself in 1 Tim 1:13, 15 as a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor, one who was foremost among sinners. Listen to his own account recorded by Luke in Acts 22:4:
"And I persecuted this Way to the death, binding and putting both men and women into prisons. (NAS) Not only actively putting men and women in prison he was destroying families, and actively participating in the execution of Christians.
He said in Acts 26:9-11:
9 "So then, I thought to myself that I had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
10 "And this is just what I did in Jerusalem; not only did I lock up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, but also when they were being put to death I cast my vote against them.
11 "And as I punished them often in all the synagogues, I tried to force them to blaspheme; and being furiously enraged at them, I kept pursuing them even to foreign cities. (NAS)
We have a lot of ideas about Paul being a super Christian, but I doubt if we ever see him or think of him in the way he described himself. As I read his account one word kept crawling into my mind and I tried to shove it back because I was thinking of the apostle Paul but I couldn’t shake it. It’s a word that’s common today. It might even have jumped in to your mind. We may be repulsed by the thought, but Paul was a terrorist, a person who uses violence and intimidation especially in the pursuit of political aims and that’s what Paul did.
Paul didn’t recount these things to brag but to remind the Galatian believers how much he was a part of Jewish legalism that they were turning to. But there is a second reason for his telling his story. It’s important because it demonstrates that no one, not even one who terrorizes and murders God’s people is beyond the scope of God’s grace. God’s grace was sufficient even for one so violent.
But something happened to this zealous, murderous, persecutor and terrorizer of Christians. What could have made such a dramatic difference in his life? He met Jesus on the Damascus Road. The one whom he was really persecuting revealed Himself as Paul describes in him, not just to him. It wasn’t just a physical encounter it was a spiritual encounter. Not only was Paul’s mind changed, Paul’s heart was changed as well. He was transformed. It wasn’t just a changed life, it was an exchanged life. Paul describes it 2:20 by saying "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the {life} which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.” (NAS)
Paul wasn’t just reformed Paul was transformed. Paul pointed out in these verses that God did it,(15a, 16a) He did it by grace, (15b)He did it through Christ,(16a) He did it for the sake of others (16b) and he did it for His glory (24). He was a new man. In the period of just a few days he went from being Saul the persecutor of the church, to Paul the proclaimer of the gospel. “God revealed Christ to Paul, in Paul and through Paul” (Wiersbe, Born Free, p. 29) For them to reject his message was to reject his conversion and Paul believed the evidence of his past conduct as a Jewish Rabbi coupled with the dramatic change after his conversion proved his message and his ministry were God given.
Paul then shares the result of that conversion on the Damascus Road. What happened after he encountered Christ and was transformed. Paul’s not intending any disrespect to the Jerusalem church or to any of the other apostles by what he writes. He not in any way insinuating his message is any better or any different than theirs. Instead he is making the point that it was received by a direct revelation from God. Grace was experienced by Paul through this intentional revelation from and the message of grace he now preaches was also by revelation expounding on that experience.
After his conversion Paul went on to Damascus spent three days there blind before Ananias came and laid hands on him after which he regained his sight, was baptized and immediately began to preach Jesus. Acts doesn’t distinguish between his two visits to Damascus. Acts 9:19 says he was in Damascus several days, then apparently went to the Arabia which was a Gentile region for a period of time before returning to Damascus which Acts 9 picks up in verse 22. He remained in Damascus three years then Acts 9 tells us of the plot against him and he fled the city and went to Jerusalem, where he got acquainted with Peter and James but didn’t meet with the church leadership. He then went to the area of Syria and Cilicia far away from the mother church where he continued to preach the same message independent of them, and he says the churches of Judea, didn’t condemn him nor his message. Rather they glorified God because they heard the reports that he was preaching the message he once tried to destroy.
After his conversion Paul went to work for the Lord, and his testimony was that he was still following the Lord’s will.
How about you? If someone were attacking your faith would you have a testimony to share. You should if you have trusted Christ. All of us have a past life before Christ. It may not be as notorious as Paul’s, some of us became Christian’s early in life and have had the good fortune of following him most of our lives. Other’s came to Christ later in youth or young adult hood and some came when we were older. But we were all sinners before Christ. Then something changed our lives, we encountered the Savior. I don’t know of anyone who has had an experience like Paul’s. For most of us it was the still small voice of the Spirit speaking to our hearts. It may have come in a church on Sunday morning or a revival meeting or even Vacation Bible School. For other’s it happened somewhere other than the church, but we each encounter the same Christ who transformed us just as he transformed Paul by grace. Then hopefully you went to work for the master not in the same way Paul did but obedient to what the Lord called you to do and He went to work in your life. But not only went to work then but still working today, still being obedient today, still following today. Some times we get off the track a little, sometimes we take a wrong turn follow a wrong path, but when we do the Lord still waits on us and still calls us back to the right path. Maybe you’ve wandered away from His leadership and need to come back, maybe you’ve never responded to that still small voice and you need to answer. What ever your need is this morning softly and tenderly Jesus is calling you.
