A Freedom That Could Only Come From God, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. The Gospel gives you lenses to see how in your life God has put talents and abilities and opportunities that he intends to use to make you a vessel of his grace.

Even your failures and your sins you begin to recognize are something that God allowed you to experience so that you could tell other people who are caught in those same failures and sins about the hope that you have found in Jesus. Welcome to Summit Life with J.D. Greer. As always, I'm your host Molly Vidovitch. So how many of you out there are fans of those fixer-upper TV shows? They take the worst house on the block and turn it into the envy of all the neighbors, right? Well, the truth is our Christian journey in some ways looks like that. After all, Paul's transformation from a Jesus-hating Pharisee to a passionate Christ follower is nothing short of miraculous and beautiful.

And guess what? If you are a follower of Christ, your story is a miracle too. Today, Pastor J.D. explains that your testimony is powerful proof of the truth of the gospel. It's part of our new teaching series called Freedom in the In-Between, and we're looking at Galatians chapters one and two.

So if you turn there now, we'll get started. Often our most persuasive evidence for Jesus's existence is the story, the personal story of what he has done in our lives. Well, see, I share that because in the last half of Galatians one, Paul is going to use his story as his evidence of the truthfulness of his gospel. He says, I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel preached by me is not of human origin.

I did not receive it from a human source and I was not taught it. It came to me by a direct revelation of Jesus Christ. Paul wants to show these Galatians that there is, in fact, only one true gospel, and that is the gospel that he, Paul, is preaching. And so part of his case for that is that only a resurrected Jesus with real resurrection power could have changed Paul's life the way that Paul's life changed. Paul seems to be responding, by the way, to a specific rumor going around Galatia that he had plagiarized bits and pieces of the gospel that he had heard from other apostles. He just needed to take little scraps and reassembled it into a brand new gospel without the apostles' permission, and that Paul's gospel was different than that of the other apostles. And he was twisting it to his own selfish agenda. And Paul says, Galatians one, he said, first of all, I was never even around the other apostles for about 17 years to be able to plagiarize them.

Here's how he explains that. Verse 15, but when God, who from my mother's womb set me apart and called me by his grace on the road to Damascus, was pleased to reveal his son and me so that I should preach him among the Gentiles, watch, I did not immediately consult with anybody. I didn't go up to Jerusalem to those who'd become apostles before me. Instead, I went to Arabia, read that, the desert by myself. And then I came back to Damascus, verse 18. Then after three years, I did go up to Jerusalem and got to know Cephas.

That's a nickname for Peter. And I stayed with Peter about 15 days, but I didn't see any of the other apostles while I was there, except for James, the Lord's brother. I got to meet him. And then I declared to you on the side of God, I'm not lying in what I write to you. Then after 14 years, plus the three of them makes 17, I went up again to Jerusalem and presented to them the gospel that I preached among the Gentiles.

That was the first time 17 years that I really spent any time with the apostles as a group. And it's just impossible for me to plagiarize from them if I wasn't even around them. No, he says, he said, my gospel came straight from Jesus Christ. So it is the real one. And then he's going to offer three lines of evidence to try to prove that his gospel is divine. Now, two of these pieces of evidence are what we would call objective evidence. And one piece is what we would call a subjective evidence. Objective evidence is a, usually it's about verifiable facts. That's objective.

Subjective evidence is where you talk about the effect that the experience had on you. Here we are objective evidence piece number one, Paul makes this claim. Only an actual vision of a resurrected Jesus could explain the conversion of Christianity's number one enemy into its number one emissary. He's going to say this in verse 13, he's going to say, you know about my formal way of life in Judaism. You know that I was a Jew of the Jews.

You know that I hated Christians. And I now, he says, verse 23, promote the faith that I once tried to destroy. Paul says, how else could you explain a conversion as dramatic as mine, except that I actually encountered a resurrected Jesus.

Objective evidence number two is going to be this. He said, my message perfectly aligns with that of the other apostles and the prophets. Paul says, it's amazing.

It's miraculous even. But when I finally got to confer with the other apostles after 17 years, what I was saying and what they were saying, what's exactly the same. Here's how he says that chapter two, verse two, I went up to Jerusalem, presented to them the gospel that I preach among the Gentile.

Watch it, this is amazing. I wanted to be sure that I was not running and had not been running in vain. Even after seeing the resurrected Jesus, Paul said, if what I've been saying had contradicted what the apostles were saying, then I would have known even after seeing the resurrected Jesus, I would have known that I got something wrong. In fact, listen to what Peter says about Paul at the end of his second letter.

I love this. Our dear brother Paul also speaks about these things in all his letters in which there are some matters that are hard to understand. Amen.

The untaught and the unstable twist them to their own destruction as they also too. The rest of the scriptures, two things you got to see there. One, you're discouraged because you find the book of Romans and Galatians sometimes hard to understand.

Be encouraged. Peter did too. Second thing, most important thing you should see is that Peter considered Paul's letters to be scripture. Peter recognized that the letters that Paul was writing were not just the letters of a Christian zealot, they were the word of God itself.

There is one unified witness that came out of the apostolic community and it was a gospel that was exactly the same preached by all the apostles and Paul. So again, objective evidence number one is that Paul gives only a resurrected Jesus could explain the conversion of Christianity's number one enemy into its number one emissary. Objective evidence number two, Paul says my message aligns perfectly with that of the other apostles. Now we come to the subjective evidence and the subjective evidence is Jesus changed my life.

Jesus changed my life. Paul is going to explain three ways that he experienced Jesus in his personal life. Listen, you probably have not experienced or probably haven't seen a visible manifestation of the resurrected Jesus like Paul did. But if you've actually met Jesus, if you've actually met Jesus, these three things, these next three things that Paul says about how Jesus changed his life will also be true of how he changed yours.

So this part of his story will be similar to how you can tell your story. First thing he says is number one, I can see how God pursued me. Verse 15, when Paul starts talking about his conversion, he talks, listen, as if God were the one who was doing the acting and Paul was the one who was being acted upon. You see this verse 15, but when God who from my mother's womb set me apart, called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his son to me. Who's the one that's doing the actions in that verse? God is doing the acting. Paul is doing these the one who is being acted upon. Somebody who has had a genuine experience with Jesus usually feels like it was less about a decision that they made for Jesus and more like something that happened to them. Less something that they took up and more something that took them up. Every person I know who has had a serious walk with Jesus for any length of time, not always a brand new Christian or a child, but if you've walked with Jesus for any length of time, you can look back and recognize that God was the one who was at work in your salvation. You start to see how God was putting people in your life, putting questions in your heart, putting you in random conversations, sometimes even putting you in painful situations as an attempt to draw you to himself and you can see how God himself was the one that drew you into the truth of the gospel.

C.S. Lewis allegorizes his conversion through the story of one of the characters in the voyage of the dawn treader which is one of the chronicles of Narnia. The character's name is Eustace and Eustace is a young boy who has developed an evil heart and that is symbolized in him by him taking on the hard and scaly skin of a dragon all over his body. Well about halfway through the book he comes to his senses and he wants to get rid of his dragon skin and wants to become a boy again so he goes to Aslan who is the lion who represents Jesus and says Aslan can you change me back into a boy and Aslan says yes and he takes him to this fountain of pure water too so that he can bathe in this pure water and Aslan says this water will change you back into a boy but first but first you got to scrape off that dragon skin before you get in the water and so Eustace takes his claws and begins to scrape off the skin and it works he's able to get down and below the scales and get back to his the skin of a boy and he just scrapes it off one so there's a big pile of dead dragon skin beside him and then he he goes to step in the the fountain of pure water and when he does he notices that his skin has all changed back into dragon skin so he does it again he rips the skin off again he says it's uncomfortable and painful but I got it off and I tried it a second time again before I could get my foot in the water it changed back to dragon skin he said I did it a third time and then a fourth time he said every time before I can get the water it changes back to dragon skin and finally he looks at Aslan and says Aslan I can't do it I can't change my skin and Aslan said I know you can't I just wanted you to see that he said but I can do it and so he said come here and Lewis says he reaches out his lions paw to peel away Eustace's scales and here's what he says the very first tear that he made was so deep that I thought it had gone right into my heart and when he began pulling the skin off it hurt worse than anything I had ever felt in my life but when it was done it was done and the skin stayed off Lewis is describing his own conversion Lewis said God put things into my life to tear me down to try to demonstrate my need for God he put me flat on my back so I finally be looking the right direction that's what God does with you and you start to see that there's a guy who's part of one of our prison campuses every weekend we have two campuses in the prison who join us each weekend and we love you guys and ladies are there at way correctional and they're a part of our church family but one of the guys it's just an incredible story that I that I heard this guy is let's call him a white collar criminal who's been in prison now for 14 years all signs point to him being innocent that he was set up by others in power in the pretty prestigious company he worked in he had a high paying job he was set up by others in that company to take the fall for some shady dealings the company was doing and so they they framed him so that he would get the route for it and they would be able to go three and when he when he was convicted he lost everything I mean the story when you hear it is absolutely heartbreaking and he says listen he says but still even though I am innocent I thank God for this wrongful prison sentence because before this happened I thought I was God so God let this happen to me to show me I wasn't God and in here in prison I found the real God and I wouldn't trade now what I found in God for all the freedom and all the riches and all the world can you look back into your life and see how God was writing your story how he was drawing you getting your attention moving you to look to him part of that by the way is recognizing how God has shaped you to be a part of his mission did you see where Paul tucked that in when God was pleased to reveal his son and me so that I could preach among the Gentiles Paul recognized that he'd been given opportunities and experiences and talents that God intended to use in his mission you could almost say that that Paul saw that God revealed Christ to Paul so that he could reveal Christ through Paul the same thing is true of you when you have experienced the gospel the gospel gives you lenses to see how in your life God has put talents and abilities and opportunities that he intends to use to make you a vessel of his grace even your failures and your sins you begin to recognize are something that God allows you to experience so that you could tell other people who are caught in those same failures and sins about the hope that you have found in Jesus so that's the first thing Paul says about people who've really met Jesus that they'll be true in your life is you can see the evidence of God's drawing work in you the second thing he says is God became even more real to me when I was alone God became even more real to me when I was alone after Paul met Jesus he said I didn't spend time with anybody I went off into the desert by myself but during that time during that time Jesus worked in my life and he was so real to me now listen to me I would never counsel anyone particularly not a new believer to separate yourself from other believers but one thing is true if you have genuinely met Jesus when you are alone your relationship with Jesus is just as real if not more so as when you're with others in fact I would say that sometimes being surrounded by excited Christians all the time can keep you from realizing that you've never really had your own experience with him that all you're doing is you're caught up in the excitement of other people's excitement but see listen you cannot piggyback off of somebody else's experience with God there's a story I often tell our staff to illustrate something else but it applies here the story of a grandfather and a grandson sitting on a porch out in the country and the grandfather's home there's 10 dogs under the porch and all of a sudden one of the dogs they're all taking a nap one of the dogs kind of perks up lets out a single yap a bark and tears off across the field when that happens all the other dogs snap up out of their slumber they all start barking and yapping and chase off after that one dog the grandfather looks at the grandson and says let me tell you what is about to happen he says in just a minute in about 10 minutes one by one those last nine dogs are going to come back one by one with their tongue out and their tail between their legs and they're going to get back under the porch and they're going to go back to sleep in about 10 minutes they'll all be back he said in about 30 minutes the first dog will come back and he'll have a rabbit in his mouth he says you want to know why he's going to have the rabbit you want to know why he's going to endure for 30 minutes and not 10 it's not because he's more athletic or better it's just that he's the only one that actually saw the rabbit now here's how i would describe our church it's great to be a part of a church like this when there's a lot of people excited about jesus but there are some of y'all that are just barking and yapping because somebody else is barking and yapping just like the grandfather said they're all barking and yapping just because the one dog saw the rabbit and they don't know why they're barking and so they'll get tired and they'll come back you see there's a real danger when you're a part of a church like this one that you get swept up in a movement but you have no real experience with jesus on your own and see that's proven by the fact that you don't actually meet with him in private it means you don't actually read his word a lot and cling to his promises you don't gain insight into decisions you're making from his will through his spirit you don't have times where you regularly lay down the burdens of your heart at his feet and begin to trust him with them when you've really had an experience with jesus he is as real to you if not more so when you're alone as you are when you are with others beware of christianity overshadowing you but not penetrating you and that is a real danger in a church like this one third thing paul says god took away jesus took away my hate and my fear that's what my experience was he took away my hate my fear you see that in verse 23 and i now preach the faith i once destroyed throughout this throughout this book paul's going to explain how the pride and the fear and the hate that used to characterize his life and drive him are gone you see that always happens to a believer when you don't know god you're filled with all kinds of insecurities and fears let me just use paul as an example because your story is not the same as his but it'll have similarities before paul came to know christ paul had been in constant competition with others driven by the pride to show that he was superior to them you can see that in what he says i advanced in judaism beyond all my contemporaries i was a jew of the jews his desire to prove himself made him constantly jealous of others because the pride always comes out of insecurity you're trying to show everybody that you're something and that jealousy made him hate other people and that hate ultimately led him to murderous violence it's like cs lewis said pride's like spiritual cancer it eats up the very possibility of love because pride listen is inherently competitive pride when i'm proud it doesn't matter that i'm smart it only matters that i'm smarter than you right it doesn't matter if i'm good looking or athletic just that i'm better looking and more athletic than you it doesn't matter if i'm a good christian it only matters that i'm a better christian than you are that's why lewis said proud people can never get along people with other vices they can get along drunks like to get drunk together immoral people like to get together and swap stories about immorality but proud people he says they always hate each other in fact the quickest way to know that you have pride is that somebody else's pride ticks you off he's like how often do you get mad when somebody disrespects you or snubs you or doesn't care about your opinion or or you know doesn't treat you with the respect you deserve it doesn't take any notice to you or shows off in front of you he said the reason you're mad is because they're trying to demonstrate their something and their somethingness is getting in the way your somethingness and the reason they're something that takes you off or they're boasting about it's because you want other people to think you're something that's why you hate it when they show that they're something pride comes out of insecurity because you feel like you have to demonstrate that you're something so you'll be considered worthy of love and acceptance that was paul's life by contrast he said the gospel the real gospel gave me security because the real gospel showed me that i was not saved by how good i was i was saved because of what jesus did in my place the real gospel taught me that god doesn't love me anymore because of what i've done he doesn't love me any less because of what i haven't done he's his love is a gift he gave me in christ and that in christ i had the absolute approval of the only one whose opinion really mattered anyway and that gave me security and that security led me to humility rather than make me proud it made me humble because i didn't do anything to set myself apart and when i was secure and when i was humble then i began to feel love toward others and i became generous i was saved as a desperately lost sinner by a sheer act of kindness on god's part how could i ever show pride and hostility to others it's like we say here at the summit church people who really believe the gospel become like the gospel they become generous instinctively how could they not become generous god saved them by an act of generosity paul said that's the evidence that i met the true god my hate and my fear are gone and when people encounter my story all they can do is shake their head and glorify god because of me their attention is directed to the greatness of the god who saved me not an impeccable life that earns salvation by the way for paul that's like his like trump card that his message is from god it's a mark of the true gospel is that his story in his gospel glorifies god not man all other religions you see glorify man all of them you say how so well every other religion teaches you that you save yourself by how good you are when you keep the eightfold path of buddha or the five pillars of islam or you do the sacraments enough or you're good enough to get good karma or whatever then you'll be saved well they all got in common is that if you're saved it's because of what you did you're the savior you get the glory the gospel turns that on its head and says no god saved you when you were unworthy solely because of his grace and therefore he alone deserves all the glory and in fact rather than raising up and crushing those who sinned against him and and rewarding the victorious righteous god lowered himself for his enemies and died for them and that is a special unique kind of glory that is particular to christianity and demonstrates that the gospel is different than every other religion of the world that consistently glorifies man christianity is the only religion that celebrates a god who humbled himself therefore when you hear the often repeated claim that is made by people like i just heard the other day by that great prophetess of our time queen latifah when she said and i quote the gods of the religions have different names but when you peel back the layers all the religions are teaching the same thing just love others and be kind when she says that know that she cannot possibly be talking about christianity because christianity teaches a reverse message and that is you're not saved by your goodness you're saved by god's grace and god alone gets the glory which is why c.s lewis said of course christianity is from god for who else would have thought it up so see there it is there it is through your objective and subjective evidences for the truth of the gospel the objective our gospel is given to us by a resurrected jesus christ and nothing else explains the events of the first century besides that objective evidence number two is that all the apostles are saying the same thing as with all the prophets that go back through history subjective evidence is jesus changed my life and see that's the two questions i want to present to you the gospel is objectively verifiable have you believed it not a gospel you're making up but the gospel the apostles believed and died for and it's this let me make sure you understand it you couldn't do anything to save yourself you were doomed because of your sin you the verdict on your life was death death in hell forever and god in his mercy and compassion loved you and did for you what you couldn't do for yourself by sending his son to die in your place so that if you would repent of your sin and receive jesus the savior he would give you heaven and salvation in his righteousness as a gift and there's only one way to come to god as a broken humble desperate dead sinner black-hearted wretched and say god i need to be saved you alone will get the glory my salvation because i got nothing to offer that's the gospel it's objectively verifiable have you believed that number two it's subjectively evidenced have you experienced it can you point to those things in your life and say i see the evidence of god working in me i can see i can see how god is getting the glory from my salvation i can see i can see how how all these things that are true of paul took away my hate and my fear it's he's real to me in my private life have you experienced it if you've never experienced that never been transformed by the power of the gospel we'd love to help you learn more about what it means to be a follower of christ send us a note while you're on jdgrier.com or give us a call at 866-335-5220 you're listening to summit life the bible teaching ministry of pastor author and theologian jd greer our message today is part of a new teaching series in the book of galatians called freedom in the in-between these daily broadcasts are available because 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or cds that go along with these studies sign up at jdgrier.com i'm molly vidovich be sure to listen monday when pastor jd explains how the gospel sets us free from superficial differences we'll see you monday here on summit today's program was produced and sponsored by jd greer ministries