The Truth About Grace :Galatians2

The Truth About Grace2:

MAKING GOD LOOK GOOD

Galatians 1:10-24

Let me begin by giving you a quiz. What are the following people famous for?

1.      Zsa Zsa Gabor

2.      Kim Kardashian

3.      Paris Hilton

4.      Nichol Richie

5.      Nadya Suleman

6.      Snookie

The answer is they are all famous for being famous. They are people who get media attention but haven’t provided any worthwhile contributions to society nor are they productive on a regular basis. Yet they are names mentioned a lot and all we can gather is that they’re famous for…well…being famous.

Historian and social theorist Daniel Boorstin originated that term – famous for being famous – to describe the celebrity as “a person who is known for his well-knowness” in a media driven world.

Someone else termed it the “Zsa Zsa Factor” in honor of Zsa Zsa Gabor. They are people who provide entertainment by the very process of living…human entertainment.

The world is filled with people whose entire life seems to be expended in trying to glorify themselves. Not so with the apostle Paul.

In Galatians, Paul is defending the church against those who would alter the gospel…those who would add to the gospel to suit their own tastes and then insist that everyone else adjust to their tastes. Paul begins by emphasizing the gospel is of grace alone.

But wait a minute. Why should the Galatians have listened to Paul instead of these Jews who said you should become a Jew in order to be saved? If someone gives you a message or advice, you want to know what authority they have to give you that advice. Why should you listen to them? What are their credentials?

Some of you may remember Bob and Francis Daniels. After they moved to Florida, Francis called back with a prayer request. She had gone to the doctor and they had done some tests. She was having headaches. I listened to her, assured her that I would be praying and said,  “Francis, that sounds like stress to me.” We talked a bit more and said goodbye.

In less than 10 minutes, she called back and said, “You are not going to believe it! I just hung up from talking to you and the doctor called with the test results and said it was stress!” I said, “Francis, I told you it was stress! You could have saved yourself a lot of money if you would have asked earlier!”

Of course, I was joking with her because if you want advice on a medical problem, I have no credentials to give advice on medical problems. If you are seeking help with your car, you want to know what experience that person has had with automobiles.

One way these false teachers were stirring up trouble in the churches of Galatia is they were seeking to discredit Paul’s apostolic authority. They could not successfully undermine his teaching of God’s gracious gospel until they undermined his divine authority in the eyes of the church members. So they spread the idea that Paul wasn’t a legitimate apostle but only a self-appointed apostle and that his motivation was to build up a personal following.

So many members of the Galatian churches began to doubt that Paul was a legitimate apostle. After all, Paul wasn’t among the original apostles whom Jesus personally called, taught and commissioned. So where did he get his message and authority? Did he get them second hand from the apostles or did he simply make up his own brand of the gospel and grant himself apostolic authority? What right did Paul have to speak for God as he claimed to do?

So Paul spends much time in Galatians giving his credentials…telling why they and we should listen to what he says. He goes back to his conversion experience and his motivation and the result is he says, “They glorified God because of me.”

That is really what you and I are to do in all that we think, do and say: Make God look good because He is good.

Body

I.                   IN YOUR MOTIVATION, MAKE GOD LOOK GOOD. (1:10)

Apparently, they accused Paul of setting aside the ceremonies under the Law of Moses just to make the gospel more appealing to Gentiles. Paul said, “That’s ridiculous.” If he had been merely trying to please men, as he did when he was a devout Jew persecuting Christians, he would have continued in Judaism. Instead, Paul surrendered his life to Christ. Paul points to his experience to show that living as a servant of Christ did not gain him popularity. This outspoken condemnation of false teachers doesn’t sound like a man-pleaser!

Life is a stage upon which we act out our life. Every person chooses what audience to play to. We have 2 choices.

WE CAN LIVE TO PLEASE OTHER PEOPLE. “If I were still trying to please men” refers to the days when Paul did seek to please his fellow Jews by zealously persecuting Christians. Some choose to play to man. The approval of their peers is their primary pursuit. Paul calls them, “Man pleasers.”

Perhaps Pilate is the clearest example from the Bible. He consented to crucify Jesus even though he was convinced Jesus had done nothing to warrant being crucified, but he wanted to please the Jews who were accusing Jesus.

Living to please other people means being afraid of what others will think. We do or don’t do certain things because of a fear that we will be judged or gossiped about by others. Standing firm in our freedom in Christ means we resist the urge to live by the fear of what others think.

There was a cartoon that is a takeoff on one of the Campus Crusade’s Four Spiritual Laws. A wife, speaking to her husband, who was obviously a minister, said, “God loves you, and people have a wonderful plan for your life.”

Other people will want to tell you how you should live the Christian life…what you shouldn’t do and what you should do. I’m talking about things outside of the Bible…not things directly addressed in the Scripture. I have shared before how the first church I was pastor of was a small country church. Those people believed it was wrong to go to a restaurant to eat on Sunday. That was making people work on the Sabbath. The next church I was pastor of many people in the church went to the same restaurant to eat on Sunday.

This doesn’t mean we should ride roughshod over other people’s convictions. We are called to a Body, and we all need to live and minister as members of the Body. But ultimately we are responsible to God, not other people. He is the One who puts us in the Body as He pleases.

In the light of what he taught and the way he had lived his life since his conversion, the idea that he was still trying to please men was ridiculous. If that were true, he would not be a bond-servant of Christ. Paul had surrendered his life to the lordship of Christ and that surrender had cost him dearly.

One way we can live our life is to be motivated by pleasing people. By nature people pleasers are not martyrs. They are marked by their desire to escape ridicule and trouble.

Are you seeking human approval? Do you need others to affirm you and tell you that you are doing well? Do you crave praise, and, on the other side of the ledger, do you hate to be criticized? It is an important question, because if your need to be approved runs too deep, you will find that you aren’t you anymore! If you have to have others’ approval for everything, you’ll end up trying to please everybody and you won’t even know what you think or what you believe any longer. In fact, if your life consists in little more than seeking human approval, you will have left God out of the equation. You will no longer be concerned with doing what God wants, because you will be so preoccupied with doing what you think others want.

That is not living to glorify God.

YOU CAN ALSO LIVE TO PLEASE GOD. Others choose to play to God as their audience. The favor of their heavenly Father is what they are interested in. Paul’s first purpose was “to be pleasing to Him.” (2 Cor. 5:9)

Every one of us tries to please something or someone. It may be man. It may be God.

Those who stop striving to please people become unintimidated without.

Those who seek to please God ONLY become invincible within.

God is glorified…God is made to look good…when our motivation is to please Him first and foremost.

II.                 IN YOUR MESSAGE, MAKE GOD LOOK GOOD. (1:11-16)

                                                                                                    

Paul declared that his message was no second-hand tale or man-created story, but a message that came from God.

That was a startling claim that demanded some strong proof. Paul found the proof in his own life.  Paul shared his circumstances before, during and after his conversion to prove this.

Christianity is supremely a religion of conversion. Everything we say and everything we believe is built upon one fundamental and revolutionary premise: You don’t have to stay the way you are. Your life can be radically changed by God.

Conversion is a miracle that happens when the life of God intersects with human personality. Once God enters the picture, your life will never be the same again. Until then, you may be religious and you may be a very good person, and you may obey all the rules of the church, but you have not been converted.

Conversion is the certainty that what you were does not determine what you are, and what you are does not determine what you will be. Long-held prejudices can be overcome. Life time habits can be broken. Deeply ingrained patterns of sin can be erased over time.

Of all the conversion stories in the Bible, none is greater or more profound than the conversion of a man called Saul of Tarsus who met Jesus Christ on the road to Damascus and his life was so totally changed that his name was changed to Paul.

Paul shares his story here. If you go to an evangelism class, you will be taught to use a 3-point outline in giving your testimony. Paul uses that here.

First, he shares HIS LIFE BEFORE CONVERSION. (1:13-14) These verses tell a chilling story. Before Paul came to Christ, he was perfectly happy in his career as a rising Jewish leader and an avid hater of Christians. He felt no remorse over persecuting the followers of Christ. In fact, he regarded it as his service to God. He had no desire to come to Christ and felt no need in his heart. He was satisfied in his religion in every way. He saw no need for anything else.

Paul was like those people who some years ago when the

Campus Crusade for Christ started a campaign with signs saying, “I found it” responded with their own signs, “I never lost it.” Paul wasn’t interested in becoming a Christ. He was a bigot and a fanatic, wholehearted in his devotion to Judaism and his persecution of Christ and the church. A man like that is in no mood to change his mind or to have it changed for him by men. He wasn’t looking for Christ…but Christ was looking for him?

Imagine Osama Bin Laden calling a worldwide press conference to say that he met Christ, was wrong in every way regarding Christianity and now has given himself as a follower of Christ to plant churches, preach the gospel, love the brothers and sisters in Christ and to see the Kingdom of God grow for God’s glory. This was the magnitude of Paul’s hatred and his conversion. Only God could save a man like Paul…and it turns out, that’s exactly what God did.

Perhaps your story of your life before conversion is that you were religious and a good moral person but you realized that was not enough to get you to heaven and to God. Perhaps you could play, “Name that Sin” with anyone. You would say, “You would not believe it if I told you, but I was as bad as you could be. But when I hit bottom, I looked up and found the Lord waiting on me.”

That is the good news of the gospel of grace. No one is so far gone that they are without the hope of grace and no one is so good that they don’t need grace.

Next, he shares HIS CONVERSION (1:15-16). Notice Paul’s focus moves from “I” to “He”. In verses 13-14, it is, “I persecuted…I tried to destroy…I advanced…I was zealous.” Then there was a great interruption and all that happened in Paul’s life came because of the one little word, “But”.

Paul was a sinner, but God…

Paul hated Jesus, but God…

Paul tried to kill Christians, but God…

Paul wanted to destroy the church, but God…

Paul enjoyed being lost, but God…

Paul wasn’t looking for a new life, but God…

Paul intended to kill more Christians, but God…

God moves into action. God came into Paul’s life without permission. He didn’t wait to be asked. While Saul was on the road to Damascus, the Lord Jesus just barged right in. He didn’t ask permission because if he had asked, Saul would have said no. He came in where He wasn’t wanted or expected and took over the situation.

Why did He do it? “God…was pleased to reveal His Son in me.” That is pure, sovereign grace. You might say, “That’s not fair!” Paul would never say that. Paul was lost just like Lazarus was dead. It’s not as if Lazarus was sitting around in the tomb saying, “I wish someone would raise me from the dead!” No, he was dead and Jesus came along and raised him without his permission. Salvation begins with God and not with us!

Now, as Paul looked at his past, he sees that God was at work through his entire life, pressing, moving, and pushing him towards this moment when he would shower him with grace. God was watching his every step. During his rambunctious teenage years, God kept him in sight. During the long years of rabbinical training, God was calling him to salvation. Paul didn’t know it, didn’t feel it, was totally unaware of it, and couldn’t see it at all until after he came to Christ. Then he could look back and see God’s fingerprints in every area of his life.

Don’t we have freewill? Absolutely! I believe that God gives us choices to make and then He holds us accountable for those choices. But God overcame his reluctance, knocked down all his excuses and drew him to Christ.

We aren’t aware of it. From our side, we are “accepting Christ” and “believing in Christ” and “trusting Christ as Savior.” Sometimes we say, “I found the Lord.” But remember that if the Lord didn’t find you first, you would never have found Him.

Then, he shared HIS LIFE AFTER CONVERSION (1:16b-24). Paul was now seeking to spread the message of Christ.

How can that drastic change be explained? Only God can bring about that kind of change in a person’s life. Paul’s life was the proof that his message about Christ was from God and not from men.

His life was the message that made God look good. What about your life? On June 1, 1953 a boy named David was born in New York. David had a troubled childhood. From his earliest memories he was tormented by suicidal thoughts. Fast-forward 22 years you can see a trail of anger, violence, depression, and suicidal thoughts that was about to erupt. David writes,
In 1975, however, I met some guys at a party who were, I later found out, heavily involved in the occult. I had always been fascinated with witchcraft, Satanism and occult things since I was a child. When I was growing up I watched countless horror and Satan-type movies, one of which was Rosemary’s Baby. The movie in particular totally captivated my mind. Now I was age 22 and this evil force was still reaching out to me. Everywhere I went there seemed to be a sign or a symbol pointing me to Satan. I felt as if something were trying to take control of my life. I began to read the Satanic Bible by the late Anton LaVey who founded the Church of Satan in San Francisco in 1966. I began, innocently, to practice various occult rituals and incantations. Eventually I crossed that invisible line of no return. After years of mental torment, behavioral problems, deep inner struggles and my own rebellious ways, I became the criminal that, at the time, it seemed as if it was my destiny to become. Looking back it was all a horrible nightmare and I would do anything if I could undo everything that happened.

David crossed the line – he began to kill. Donna Lauria was the first young woman to lose her life. David used a .44 caliber hand gun to take the lives of six young women. He wrote letters to the media and police department explaining how “Sam,” a demon who spoke through a dog, was instructing him to kill. Finally, in 1977, David Berkowitz, the “Son of Sam” was arrested and sentenced to 365 years in prison.

When David Berkowitz entered Attica Prison to serve his sentence, Robert Alexander, was a prison guard. Twenty year later, Judge Alexander has written about his experience with David Berkowitz. Let me read his account for you.

I spent many, many hours talking to David. I saw his struggle with the occult forces that plagued him. Have you ever looked into the face of evil? Not many people have ever scared me physically or spiritually, but David scared me spiritually. I wasn’t a Christian and had little knowledge of the occult and Satanism but I could see the effect it had on David. When he first came to Attica he struggled but was able to control the demons within him. He would show me the letters that Satan worshippers would send him. Most of the letters had the blood of people – including babies sacrificed on satanic altars. I was there when an inmate cut David’s throat. In fact, I comforted him at our prison hospital as the nurse stitched his throat. Over a period of two years I saw David slip into satanic despair and torment. He would howl and was engulfed in porno literature. He digressed out of control. ."
David was transferred to another prison and there the Lord had another inmate waiting on David. The inmate gave him a Gideon’s New Testament, but David mocked the man for some time. Finally, at the end of his rope, David began to read the Psalms. One night in his cell, he was reading Psalm 34 when he came to verse 6 and it melted his heart. David read, "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him, and saved him from all his troubles." David remembers that night so well. He writes,

It was at that moment, in 1987, that I began to pour out my heart to God. Everything seemed to hit me at once. The guilt from what I did... the disgust at what I had become... late that night in my cold cell, I got down on my knees and I began to cry to Jesus Christ. I told Him that I was sick and tired of doing evil. I asked Jesus to forgive me for all my sins. I spent a good while on my knees praying to Him. When I got up it felt as if a very heavy but invisible chain that had been around me for so many years was broken. A peace flooded over me. I did not understand what was happening. But in my heart I just knew that my life, somehow, was going to be different.

David Berkowitz leads Bible studies inside the walls of his prison. He is up for parole next year, but he wrote the governor and told him that he did not deserve parole. David said that he deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison because of the heinous acts he committed. He also stated that he believes the Lord has placed him where he is so that he can reach out to other prisoners.

In the motivation and the message of your life, make God look good.

III.              IN YOUR MINISTRY, MAKE GOD LOOK GOOD. (1:16b-24)

Paul said that God had set him apart, even from his mother’s womb, that he might preach Jesus among the Gentiles. His ministry was not man-created or man-conceived. It was of divine origin.

Paul’s emphasis in these verses is on what he didn’t do. He didn’t immediately go to Jerusalem to be trained by the apostles. And he didn’t start an evangelistic ministry right away. What did he do? He dropped out of sight for 3 years by going to Arabia. We would have put him on Christian radio and TV. We would have had him write a book and hit the Christian talk-show circuit. But that wasn’t God’s plan.

He spent 3 years in Arabia – evidently in personal study and meditation. He went back to Damascus. He made a brief trip to Jerusalem to meet Peter. He went north to Syria and Cilicia to preach the gospel.

In all of this, we see 3 attitudes emerging:

1.      A NEW ATTITUDE TOWARD OTHER BELIEVERS. He went to Jerusalem to meet Peter. The verb means, “To swap stories” with Peter…to come to know him. It is the word we get our word, history, from. Paul didn’t go to Peter to lecture him, to report to him, or to enlist Peter to contribute to the Paul’s save the world organization. He went to visit. The 2 men put their feet up in front of a few coals of fire and traded stories. “How did God get hold of you, Peter?” “Well, it was a day when I was working on the beach on the Sea of Galilee…” “How about you, Paul? Tell me your story.” And Paul recalled that wonderful day on the Damascus Road when he met Jesus.

2.      A NEW ATTITUDE TOWARD THE TRUTH. He declares in verse 20 that he is not laying.

3.      A NEW ATTITUDE TOWARD THE GOSPEL. He now preaches what he once tried to destroy.

Once he hated believers. Now he seeks their fellowship.

Once he hated the truth. Now he lives by the truth.

Once he hated the gospel. Now he preaches the gospel.

Once he was called Saul. Now he is called Paul.

Same man, new man. Everything is different now.

Once he was a terrorist. Now, he is an evangelist and missionary. Christ has made all the difference.

So he ends by saying that the churches in Judea (which, he once terrorized in his pre-conversion days) recognized the amazing change in his life. And they glorified God because of Him. His life pointed people toward God.

It leads me to a simple and profound question: IS ANYONE GLORIFYING GOD BECAUSE OF YOU? IS YOUR LIFE POINTING PEOPLE TOWARD GOD?

In your motivation, in your message and in your ministry seek first and foremost to make God look good. You have a story and your story is to glorify God in all that you do.

Lee Strobel was one of the editors of the Chicago Tribune. He was an atheist and proud of it. Then his wife started going to church and met Jesus. Then he started going and met Jesus. Now, he is a pastor and author.

He said, “How can I tell you the difference God has made in my life? My daughter Allison was 5-years-old when I became a follower of Jesus, and all she had known in those 5 years was a dad who was profane and angry. I remember I came home one night and kicked a hole in the living room wall just out of anger with life. I am ashamed to think of the times Allison hid in her room to get away from me.

5 months after I gave my life to Jesus Christ, that little girl went to my wife and said, ‘Mommy, I want God to do for me what he’s done for Daddy.’ At age 5! What was she saying? She’d never studied the archeological evidence regarding the truth of the Bible. All she knew was her dad used to be this way: hard to live with. But more and more and more her dad is becoming this way. And if that is what God does to people, then sign her up. At age 5, she gave her life to Jesus.

God changed my family. He changed my world. He changed my eternity.”

I read a statement this week. God does not recruit heroes. No, He doesn’t. Not many mighty are called, not many noble, not many powerful, not many great as the world counts greatness. God doesn’t go for the big names to populate heaven. He takes ordinary folks and then does extraordinary things through them. But even that isn’t the full story. When God wants to recruit frontline soldiers for His army, He goes into the enemy camp and rounds up a handful of the orneriest, meanest, toughest, roughest, and wildest looking sinners He can find. Then He draws them to Christ, saves them, justifies them, converts them, sanctifies them, cleans them up, fixes them up, dresses them up, and then sends them out to do battle in the service of the King of Kings.

That means no one is beyond the reach of God’s grace…no one. That was Paul’s story…that is my story and your story…the story of grace that is absolutely amazing and makes a wonderful God look good because He is.

Gary Harner, sermon, “How to Make God Look Good.”

Ray Pritchart, sermon, “How a Terrorist Became an Evangelist”

Brian Harbour, Brian’s Lines

John MacArthur, Galatians

John R.W. Stott, The Message of Galatians