Sunday 16th February – Amazing Grace – Pastor Adrian Kitson

Amazing Grace, Galatians 1:10-24, pastor adrian kitson, Set Free to Live Free

¹⁰Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

¹¹I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I preached is not of human origin. ¹²I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it; rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ.

¹³For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. ¹⁴I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. ¹⁵But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased ¹⁶to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. ¹⁷I 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.

¹⁸Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas and stayed with him fifteen days. ¹⁹I saw none of the other apostles – only James, the Lord’s brother. ²⁰I assure you before God that what I am writing to you is no lie.

²¹Then I went to Syria and Cilicia. ²²I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. ²³They only heard the report: ‘The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.’ ²⁴And they praised God because of me.

Someone once told me that when it comes to really understanding a book or quote or article, there is nothing like actually knowing the author to get a much deeper understanding of what is being said. This is true of the Bible. Knowing the author personally, makes the Bible come alive!

Here we get a sense of Paul’s as he shares some details of his own story. He does it not to boast in himself, but to try and call the people back to the gospel he originally taught them.

Right off the bat, Paul has named the issue he is wanting to help the Galatians deal with well. It is the issue of departing from the good news of Jesus as the only source and hope of forgiveness and new life by adding something else to it – in this case, the demand from some in the church communities to also take on Old Testament Jewish Law practices (dietary rules, ceremony rules and circumcision) in order to be a ’real’ Christian or a ‘more mature’ Christian.

Paul says he is astonished at what is happening in the Galatian network. No doubt he is also astonished at how lowly they now seem to view him and what he taught them.

Paul planted this network of churches. He preached and taught and loved these people, and now they are departing from him as they depart from the good news of Jesus he gave them!

Why is Paul now ‘on the nose’ to these people who once loved and respected hm?

Three reasons it seems.

The gospel Paul taught only came from him; his own self-reflection, reasoning and thought. If that is true, then Paul’s message was nothing any more unique or special than what these other people are saying about the ‘gospel +’ law stuff.
The gospel Paul gave us was just him ‘towing the company line’ from HQ in Jerusalem. Maybe Paul’s limited understanding got us going, but now these other teachers who were also trained at HQ are moving us onward and upwards by helping us understand more of where this Jesus and his promises originally came from.
Paul is just another maverick who is a bit soft on the Torah. He is saying that it is OK to trust the gospel of Jesus without any adherence to the time and tested Law. These other people are righting that.

Paul responds:

He admits he was a hard-liner to the max. He as a hate-filled and Law-fuelled man before meeting Jesus on that Damacus Road. He wanted to destroy this Jesus’ movement. There was no slow process of quiet contemplation in the mountains listening to one hand clapping! There was no calm quiet process listening to the Rabbis in the synagogue gradually shedding light on things that convinced him to change his ways.

You want to talk Jewish Law-man? Paul was as hard as they come. So oblivious to the grace of God that watching the faith in action of people dying for Christ had no affect on him (Acts 7:54-8:1).

No, this moment of conversion was sudden, completely transforming and definitely not a product of Paul! (Acts 9). Jesus was actually present in time and space that day. Other people with Paul heard him speaking too (Acts 9:7). This was Paul’s commissioning day as a ‘capital A’ apostle.

Neither was Paul’s gospel message just derived from the apostles at Jerusalem HQ. This is his big point here

No one is so good that they don’t need the grace of the gospel, nor so bad that they can’t receive the grace of the gospel” (Tim Keller, Galatians for you, ch 2, p3)

Paul has been ever so ‘good’ in Law terms and ever so bad in human terms. In all his ferocious goodness he needed gospel grace, and in all his badness he needed the same.

His point is that they and we all do.

Which are you? ‘Good’ or “bad’, or both? You don’t need the gospel + anything else. You do need the gospel, whether you estimate that you are being very good (you’ll never be good enough) or whether you judge yourself to be too ‘bad’ for God (could you be worse than Paul?).

Quite astonishingly, Paul then says that this gracious God had been shaping his whole life in this gospel of grace and at the same time, his calling to proclaim it to the Gentiles. Paul says he,

‘was set apart from birth” (v15)

That is quite a statement of belief! Think about it. In all of that high-end Pharisee formation under the great Gamaliel, all that violence and hatred, all that anger, all that high end judgmentalism … God was overruling all Paul’s foibles and bad intentions and using those experiences and failures preparing Paul to be broken, blinded and believe Jesus, so that he could then speak Jesus to the world.

Is that you too? There’s some prodding for you to go to Arabia for three years:

Has God been preparing you.
Is God preparing you?
How has he been preparing you – and not just in the holy high moments, but more probably when you are at your worst.
Your baptism was your Damascus Road. What were you commissioned for?

This is grace. This is all God and all grace. The God of grace set his grace on this sinner not because Paul was worthy of it, but because God took great delight in doing so. This is always how God ‘rolls’.

Remember Moses and those desert wandering people? In Deuteronomy 7:7-8 we hear

The Lord did not set his affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than other peoples, for you were the least of all peoples But it was because the Lord loved you” (Deuteronomy 7:7-8)

Luther reflects on this grace in his own chequered past.

Daily I crucified Christ with my life as a monk. I blaspheme God with my false faith, in which I lived continually. To all appearances, I was not like other men; deceiver, pernicious. Instead, I practiced celibacy, poverty, and obedience. I was also free from all the stresses of daily life. I gave myself over to fasts, vigils, prayers, saying mass, and such things. Meanwhile under that mantle of presumed holiness, I nurtured confidence in my own righteousness, which constantly doubted, fearing, hating and blaspheme God. And with this, my righteousness, I was noting more than a cesspool; the kingdom of the devil himself, for Satan loves such saints, spoils them as his favourite children, those who destroy their bodies and souls and deny themselves all God’s gifts. Meanwhile notwithstanding wickedness, blindness, scorn for God, despising the gospel, profaning the Sacraments, blaspheming Christ and abusing all the benefits of the gits of God. These reigned without measure. In brief, such saints are slaves of Satan. …… But to all appearance they seem to be way above all others I good works, holiness and self-controlled lifestyle”

(Luther, Galatians Lecture five, July 17, 1535, M. Horton, p88)

But then;

When God fixes his gaze on our guilt due to similar sins through his pure mercy and because of Christ, he not only forgives our wickedness and blasphemies but also overwhelms us with great spiritual benefits and gifts”

(Luther, Galatians Lecture five, July 17, 1535, M. Horton, p88)

The death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth the Son of God is the beginning of that great benefit and gift for everyone – Jew and Gentile, uncircumcised and circumcises, black and white, slave or free, male or female (Galatians 3)

This hotch-potch community of Jews and Gentiles is the sign of God’s new creation taking root in this disunified and dark world, changing one human heart at a time.

Paul is one. Luther is one. How about you?

Friend, are you merely a ‘religious’ person or a ‘Christian’?

A religious person has an intellectual belief and a great care for the outward shape and rules of things. Or as Luther put is, “An outward appearance of being way above all others in good works, holiness and self-controlled lifestyle’ while underneath “…. nurturing confidence in my own righteousness, which constantly doubts, fears, hates and blasphemes God?”.

But a Christian? A gospel woman; a gospel man? I know I can be all of that bad stuff, but because of the gospel + nothing else, I also trust that I have all of which Luther and Paul speak in Jesus.

God is gazing on you in all your guilt now in the pure mercy of the crucified Jesus overwhelming you with great spiritual blessing and extended benefits!

Like those first ‘Capital A’ apostles with Paul,

We;

‘… praise God because of you.

… it was because the Lord loved you” (Deuteronomy 7:7-8)