06 Jun 6/9/24 Galatians 1:11-24 “It Is Your Story!”
6/9/24 Galatians 1:11-24 “It Is Your Story!”
I think I must be getting old. I believe that I have mentioned my high school days the last 3 sermons. I’m either reminiscing or I’m getting pretty hard up for stories or maybe I don’t remember telling these stories. Anyway, here I go again. I remember when I was in high school; I had a hard time figuring out why we had to study history. It’s not that I minded it so much; I just wanted to understand why. I was still at an age where I had to know the ‘why’ for everything. Hopefully, I will never grow out of that stage. Now as I’m getting older, I think that history should be one of the most important subjects in school. We like to think of ourselves as quite intelligent as far as the human race goes. However, we are doomed to committing the same mistakes over and over again unless we study our past to see what has worked and what has not worked. Studying history has probably been one of the reasons we have advanced as the human race. If you think about it, why reinvent the wheel if someone has already done so. As good as history is, we still will not study it very much on a personal basis. Our seniors, who graduated this year, will make many of the same mistakes that we did because they won’t listen to our history of experience. This shouldn’t mean that we give up. It should only mean we should have patience that they will eventually learn. Today, we are going to look again at Galatians and see how Paul spread this great message. Let’s see if we can learn from history.
You may not think about this very often, but we all have history. What are some of the things you think about when I say the names Babe Ruth, Helen Keller, John F. Kennedy, George Washington, Mother Teresa, or serial killer Ted Bundy. At the mention of these names we should all get some sort of mental picture and I would guess that each one of us will have a different picture. The point is that everyone has a history and at the mention of your name, we will also conjure up some sort of picture of you in our minds. This is why it is important to try to do our best in any situation. You don’t want to have a bad name. I would guess that no one here had a very nice image of that terrible person, Ted Bundy. However, if you have had a bad history, it doesn’t mean that you have to stay living in that bad history if you have turned our life around, if you have come to know Jesus Christ on a personal basis. I’m a different person than I was 30 years ago and I can only praise the Lord for that. Many of you have similar stories where you knew all there was to know at high school graduation. Then you failed, made wrong choices and things didn’t go well for you until you met Jesus Christ. This is a great story that has been told by various people for centuries. I would consider Paul to be one of the first to show us the way in these situations.
The first thing Paul tells the Galatians is that what he preaches is not something that man made up. You see, the Galatians were having the problem that we all have at times. They had been doubting to the point that they were beginning to believe in other preachers that did not preach the Gospel. These so-called preachers made up their own false gospel. They were following false gods. This is why Paul begins like this. He is telling them point blank that what they had been hearing were things made up by man. Whatever it was they were being taught; it was not the real Gospel message. It didn’t come from God in any way, shape or form. Not only that but Paul got this by a revelation from Jesus Christ.
We talked a little about this last week. We have so called Christian ministers who are going around preaching something that is not from the Scriptures. They get away with it by taking the real message and watering it down. Some will call their new gospel the social gospel. Also, you may end up with something like the feel-good gospel where there is no condemnation, no hell and everyone goes to heaven. You see, it is not hard to distort the Gospel message. You don’t have to tweak it very much to come up with something totally different. Satan is very sly. He knows that we won’t all of a sudden start to worship some pole or idol sitting out in our yard. So he is very patient and will wait decades as he gradually dilutes the Gospel to the point where it is not recognizable.
The best way to counteract this type of brainwashing is to know and believe your Bible. And the best way to detect a counterfeit is to know the real deal inside and out. That is how they spot counterfeit money. If you know your Bible, then you will know when someone tells you a lie. If it isn’t in the Scripture, but is someone’s interpretation, then beware, be very cautious!
Notice the next thing he does. Paul gives a brief personal history. He gives his testimony. Paul wasn’t just some guy who came along and started to follow Jesus. He had been a Pharisee in the Jewish religion. He was one of the up and coming stars of Judaism. As Saul, he had a real future in the Jewish religion. And to top it all off, he was still fairly young when he was a Pharisee. He also took great pride in trying to persecute the Christians. He was there holding the cloaks and encouraging those who stoned Stephen. When Jesus came along and made him blind, he was on his way to persecute or maybe even kill more Christians. And he was proud of this. It is not much different than when we have false preachers in today’s world. They are actually proud of the lies they spread!
Anyway, Paul gives his personal history as to how Jesus came to him. Jesus came upon him to tell him to go and preach to the Gentiles. The rest of the disciples had been preaching to the Jews only so this was something completely different. Once again he is reaffirming that he was not sent by man but by God.
I think we tend to down play our testimonies when they are the most powerful evangelism tool we have. To demonstrate this, I would like to tell you about our baccalaureate services one year. I spoke at both of them as I was serving two school districts. I had done 3 or 4 of these in the past so I really didn’t know what to say this time. I love to talk to this age group but I wanted to make sure that I was saying something that was worthwhile. While I was deciding what to say, I was also reading from Paul’s writings. I decided that I would do what Paul did when he talked to a new audience. I gave my testimony.
You have all heard it before. It is nothing fantastic as far as testimonies go. But it is very special to me. Jesus Christ saved my life. So I gave my testimony at the beginning and I followed it with why those 18 year olds should be following Christ. One man came up to me after the service and told me that I had hit the message out of the ballpark. A graduating senior came up to me the next week and said something to the affect that her class got to hear something great. And yet I hadn’t done anything special except tell my story. These people were not used to hearing a testimony in a message like this. Jesus was doing the talking. Jesus does all the work in these situations if we let Him. I just told it like I do on any Sunday morning. It was nothing special. I’m just a regular old person like anyone else. And yet Jesus made His baccalaureate message special for at least 2 people. So please remember just how important your own personal testimony can be.
Testimonies are important. I read a great true story a few weeks back as I was preparing for another sermon. It seems that this well-known atheist had challenged a pastor to a debate over whether God existed or not. The pastor said he wanted to bring people as witnesses and the atheist could do the same. The day of the debate came and 100 witnesses to the wondrous works of Jesus Christ showed up and not one witness for the atheist. If you were scoring that debate it would go something like this: Jesus-100, Satan-0.
Testimonies are very important in spreading the message of Jesus Christ and Paul gives us some classic examples as to how in his writings. This is what I would like us all to do. Think about your testimony. It may be just as plain as mine or it might be even plainer or it might be very exciting but think about it. You might even want to write it down. If your memory is like mine, you might want to write it down and then come back and revise it every few days as you remember more things that happened. Then I want you to learn it so you can tell it in a simple way. Then memorize this story. It is your story and it is important. I would guess that God will open an opportunity for you to use it. It might be on your family or friends or a stranger but God will have you use it.
Notice that Paul doesn’t just talk about his past before he knew Jesus Christ. He tells the Galatians what he has been doing since he came to know Jesus. First and foremost, he has been called by God and not any person. Once again, this is important to the Galatians because other persons had been coming to them and preaching a false gospel which Paul says is no Gospel at all. They had been duped by people. We get duped by people all the time. We have talked about the various false religions out there. We have talked about how some of our main line denominations don’t preach the real Gospel anymore. Our government is becoming the biggest false religion of this country with the press right behind it. We live in dangerous times.
Then Paul tells how he didn’t just start preaching right after his conversion. It would take Paul several years before he was ready to be preaching among the Gentiles. Through Paul’s training as a Pharisee, he knew that you just didn’t become an evangelical preacher overnight. It would take time, prayer and study to get there especially after all the horrible things he had done to Christians. So he went to Arabia and then back to Damascus to do this. He tells us that he didn’t even use the existing disciples as consultants. Even later, he only consulted Peter and James. He learned all he could through prayer and then meditating on that prayer.
There are several lessons for us to learn here. Probably the most important is something that we talk about a lot. When you are praying, you have to be still and know the quiet voice of God. Then you need to meditate on what He has told you. We do not have a silent God. He is talking all the time. It is us who don’t know how to listen. If you have trouble with this, then ask God to help you listen in your prayer time. He will give you an answer.
Another thing to learn here is that pastors aren’t made overnight. It takes time to learn. It takes even more time to digest what there is to learn. In our modern times we also have to be able to discern that what we read is Scriptural or not. It is not very often that you can send a 25 year old out into ministry and they are successful. They have not had the time to know how to be successful with Jesus. Even as a 55-year-old rookie pastor I needed time to get some of it together. I think I am just beginning to understand after 18 years.
The bottom line to all of this is your story. Your testimony is probably the most powerful tool you have to help others know Christ. Lee Strobel talks about this when he says, “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 five 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. Five 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! She had lived his story and now she wanted more.
People will want that from you also. Let them know your story. Let them know how you feel about Jesus. Then be prepared for some big changes, some good changes in your life as Jesus uses you to help others come to Him. Jesus does this because He not only loves you, but He loves all of you, all people. He doesn’t want anyone left behind when the time comes. And thank you, Jesus, for first loving us. Let’s pray.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.