This is the Truth Network. Forever thy word is settled in heaven. Psalm 119, verse 89. I'm Stu Everson. Welcome to this special Wednesday in the Word Leader podcast, where we prepare and equip our leaders of this special Bible study outreach breakfast.
Every week to teach through the scriptures. Thirteen Dario locations. There's a men's group meeting and several of the Locations host the women on Thursday morning. Stay tuned. Be encouraged as we jump into this week's Wednesday in the Word.
Some call it the greatest miracle in the book of Acts besides Pentecost.
Some say this event is one of the most powerful conversions ever recorded in history. the salvation of the Apostle Paul. when the persecutor became a preacher. when Mount Sinai met Mount Calvary. When the law encountered grace It takes up more narrative.
In the New Testament, Than every other subject Except for the Passion of the Christ accounts. It is the conversion. of Saul to Paul and this is Dominating a lot of the narrative in the book of Galatians. Our second. Message As we journey through the word, Dr.
Horne, we are confronted with What Paul was confronted with on that road to Damascus and what happened and where it all came from. And it really nicely. picks up where we le left off last time. In those key verses, opening the book of Galatians, as we look at 11 through 24 today. Yeah, you know, Stu, I think it's a very powerful reminder that the gospel is always personal.
And it isn't just a powerful message from God about his son, but it's a very, very personal one. And we're going to see that come through in our text. Maybe the best way to jump into it is: let me just remind us of what's happening in the book. There are six chapters, and the chapters are all around the gospel of God's grace. And so, chapters one and two are incredibly personal.
Paul is going to talk about the gospel in terms of his astonishment that the people who received it when he came and delivered it to them had so quickly turned away. And he's going to talk about why that occurred and who were the ones that were distracting him. And we saw that in the first 10 verses. He's going to talk about his own personal. experience with the gospel and how powerful that was.
And the private revelation, the private personal instruction that God gave him in that gospel. And then in chapter two, he's going to remind us that this gospel actually was confirmed. It's not just that I thought this up and had this private moment out in Arabia, in the desert of Arabia. I actually went back to Jerusalem and met with the original disciples of the Lord, of whom now I am one, and they confirmed everything.
So it's a very personal section.
So we could look at chapters one and two: the personal aspect of the gospel, grace and the gospel. Chapters three and four are doctrinal: grace and the law. Paul is going to talk about. How the gospel relates to the law, or more importantly, the disconnect between the law and the gospel. Because that's the heart of what these false teachers or these disruptors were bringing.
You got to add Moses into the equation. You got to have Jesus, but you got to also have Moses. And so he's going to take chapters three and four, and he's really going to go doctrinally at the big division, the necessary disconnect that has to happen when the gospel comes between the gospel and Moses. And then the final part of the book is practical. How does the gospel wear shoes?
What does it look like when you strap it on and you put your sandals on and you dress up and you go out the door every morning? How does the gospel function? And that's where we have the wonderful reminders of the fruit of the Spirit and bearing one another's burdens.
So this is a really, really powerful book. And as you said, we're jumping into the second half of chapter one. And I think what Paul is doing here, he's made a really, really strong statement at the end of verse 10 where he literally said, listen, I'm not pleasing. Men here. If I've got to choose, who I'm going to please, that decision's already been made.
I'm going to please God, not men. And on the basis of that, I I have to say a really hard thing. I have to say that if anybody, it doesn't matter who, it doesn't matter if it's an angel, it doesn't matter if it's we ourselves, anybody, including us. If we come and change the message that I was authorized by God to give you in any way, if we change that message, Let him be anathema. Because that new gospel, that adjusted gospel, isn't a gospel at all.
It is an anathematized gospel. A damned gospel because it damns people.
So it's very, very serious.
So as we come into verse 11 and we go to the end of the chapter, Paul is going to back, not back away from that statement, not back away from anything he said, but he's going to put some context to this. He's going to remind them that as I speak to you, I'm not just speaking to you as Paul the man. I'm speaking to you as the authorized representative of that gospel. Revelation six.
So important and as we've mentioned before. This is a letter. This is one of Paul's, the first of Paul's 13 letters, and this is, as you see in verse 2, to the churches, plural.
So, Galatia is not like Ephesus or Philippi or Colosse. It's a region of a bunch of places that he went over the course of his three missionary journeys. And Dr. Horn, looking at these last verses, there's a pretty easy structure to follow. It looks like, you know, from 11 all the way through 24, we hear about how he was called, the authority he got.
We hear about his salvation story, his testimony, which is kind of cool. We hear about what he did after he got saved, after that encounter on the Damascus Road. And then, you know, the response from everyone, how they were, you know, they were astonished at him in this transformation. I really love it because at the end of the day, every believer has a testimony. And we'll touch on this as we get to the end.
And your testimony is basically three parts. I like to call it BC. before Christ? FC, finding Christ, how I found Christ, really how he found me, honestly, right? And then AC, after Christ.
And if you came to Christ as a five-year-old, then talk more about the AC than the BC. Obviously, you may not remember a lot of the BC, but there's just a powerful. To see his testimony and how important that is in the word of God to preserve it in so many places. And all throughout Acts 22, 26, you know, obviously in chapter 9, he's speaking in front of these emperors and leaders and kings. He's sharing his testimony in Philippians 3, here in Galatians, you know, in these different places where he talks about his past and what God did.
So, Dr. Horne, take us through.
Some structure and help us get gear up for this week in our study, will you? Yeah, we're always trying to find ways to help our Bible study leaders. And those of you that are Bible study leaders, can I just say we are so grateful to you and thankful for the way that you lead these studies and you're bringing people to some of the most amazing portions of God's word week after week after week. And that word does its work, that transforming work in the heart of people.
So I want you to know we pray for you, we're thankful for you. And as we do these podcasts and these sessions together, we're hopeful that we can put things in perspective that will be useful to you. That's how I'm always trying to think of it. And so as I looked at this, I think there are four big ideas here that if I were leading a study, I would want to make sure the people in that study had. And big idea number one comes out of, well, big idea number one is an astonishing.
Claim, and that's in verses 11 and 12. There's an astonishing claim that is made here, but it comes out of a reality, and that is. The people that Paul is writing this section of Galatians to know him. He has been with them, he's been in their midst.
So, it's not like he's having to introduce himself. That already happened when he first arrived in that first missionary journey, and he suffered in front of them.
So, it's not like he's having to say, Let me just remind you of who Paul is in case you've forgotten. He's actually laying out. his personal story. And the reason for that is, he's reminding them of something. He's reminding them that he has been authorized.
To communicate and represent the claims of this gospel, he's an authorized representative of the gospel. And we're going to see how that unfolds.
So here's the claim: it's in verses 11 and 12. And so let me read this to you. I'm going to read it out of the message because I think it's an interesting way to read it. He said, Know this, I am most emphatic here, friends. This great message, the gospel, that I delivered to you, is not mere human optimism.
It didn't just come out of human thinking. I didn't receive it through the traditions. What traditions?
Well, all of the traditions that he was taught in Judaism. All of the oral law, all of the added authoritative teaching that the rabbis brought. I wasn't taught it in some school. Paul had gone to school. Paul was a rabbi.
He had studied under one of the two great rabbis in Israel, right? But I didn't get this gospel there. I got it straight from God and received the message directly from Christ.
So here's the claim: the gospel that I'm authorized to teach and preach, and that I announce to you, did not come from man. I didn't get it from Judaism. Yeah. I didn't get it from the oral law of the rabbis. I didn't get it from the great Jewish teachers of the past.
I got it straight from God. And it was revealed to me. By Jesus Christ.
Now, he starts off by saying, I would have you know. In other words, I want to assure you of something. This is, I want to make you. Aware of. This is a solemn certification.
This is not just, oh, oh, by the way, this is his bona fides, right? I didn't get this from human religion. This didn't come from Any religious teacher, I got this really in the sense of from the mouth of God. I got this. From an unveiling, God unveiled some things to me.
About his son. God unveiled his son to me on the road to Damascus. I saw a great light. And even though my earthly eyes, my physical eyes were blinded, my spiritual eyes were opened. The truth was unveiled to me.
And when the truth was unveiled, I saw the truth about Jesus. I saw Jesus. But now I've been taught. By Jesus about what he came to do.
So, I didn't just get revealed revelation that Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God. I actually was taught by Jesus. The meaning of what he said and what he did when he was on the earth. I was taught by him what the Sermon on the Mount meant. I was taught by him why he had to go to the cross.
He taught me from the Old Testament how he was that servant in Isaiah 53. I was taught. By the Lord, right? And so. There is this astonishing or authoritative claim.
All right, that's the first thing.
Now, I want to say one thing to that. I want you to keep going. We'll hear about the three years that he was with the Lord alone coming up. You're going to touch on that. But it's interesting because that's how long the other apostles were with the Lord.
And how do they learn what they knew?
Well, we have the eyewitness accounts. We have Matthew, Mark, right? We have John. They knew and they learned. from walking with Jesus and hearing his eyewitness account and hearing his teaching.
So Paul downloaded this directly from the Lord, and we've got to be careful because the word apostle means sent ones. It also kind of means messenger. But we got a lot of apostles running around. And I would say all of us are little A apostles in that if you're a believer, you're sent by God to share his word. As the Father sent me, so I sent you, John 20, 21.
But not all of us received direct revelation. We're not big A apostles. Where we authored Galatians and Ephesians and Philippians and Colossians and 1 and 2 Thessalonians.
So it's a very important distinction because you have a lot of folks running around saying, God gave me this word. You know, God gave me this word that some said, hey, I'm an apostle and God told me that this president's going to be elected in 2020. And they didn't get elected in 2020. A lot of folks left the ministry in shame.
Well, don't say that. Just don't. You're not getting revelation from God.
So, anyway, but the key authority is so important, he establishes it right here. Yeah, so I think that's right, Stu. This big A apostle. Is laying out an authoritative claim. And then the second thing that Paul wants us to really catch.
As an authoritative representative, is the astonishing revelation. That he got. And the thing he wants you to realize that is so astonishing is not just what was revealed, but who it was revealed to. And you can see that in verses 13 and 14, right? He says, This: I am sure that you heard the story of my earlier life when I lived in the Jewish way.
In those days, I went all out in persecuting God's church, I was systematically destroying it. I was so enthusiastic about the traditions of my ancestors that I advanced head and shoulders above my peers in my career. Paul is saying, look. If there ever was an enemy of this gospel, it was me. If there was ever somebody who was zealous for Moses, it was me.
Now remember, The error that is creeping in is you got a group of Judaizers who are saying, Yeah, yeah, yeah, you need Jesus. And yeah, he was the Messiah, but don't forget, you also need Moses. And Paul said, don't think for a minute I don't love Moses. I was a Moses freak. For years, if there was anybody who loved Moses, if there was anybody who studied Moses, if there was anybody who was zealous for Moses, it was me.
I advanced in Moses' theology. I had advanced in the zeal of Moses and the zeal for Moses far above all of my contemporaries. If there was a Moses dude... It was me.
Well, Philippians 3, he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. He was of the tribe of Benjamin. I mean, he had this elite pedigree laid out, and he touches on a lot of places.
So, this was the guy. This was almost an equivalent to someone who would be a member of the high priesthood or a member of that great Sanhedrin, the Supreme Court judges. And this guy was a legal. Genius and he was zealous for it. Like he really believed we're gonna go and get converts to this thing.
And but he was going in the wrong direction, and the biggest obstacle. We're Christians in the gospel, and this Messiah that was crucified in an unclean, dastardly fashion on a cross. And we've got to lock these people up and kill them. Yeah, so Paul would have said, listen, if you'd have followed me around in my chariot in Jerusalem, you would have seen a bumper sticker, MMGA. Make Moses great again.
That's who I was. I mean, that's how zealous I was.
So, for me to be talking the way I am, for me to be talking about the gospel. Being by grace alone, through faith alone, and the finished work of Messiah alone, and Moses has no part. That's stunning. There is this astonishing revelation, right? You heard of my former life, how I persecuted the church violently.
And did my best to destroy it. I was trying to destroy the very thing that I'm now giving my life. To establish. He was the church's worst enemy. He was the absolute.
It says, and what does it say? That it says, now Saul, verse 9, verse 1 of chapter 9 of Acts, now Saul was breathing out. Curses against the church and terror. He was literally terrorizing the church. They were scared of him.
Women, men, children, locking him up, heading to Damascus to hunt Christians, and suddenly he became the one who was hunted. Yeah, he was zealous. To destroy the church because he was zealous for the traditions of his fathers. And all of a sudden, You meet this man three years later. And he is zealous for a very different cause.
He is zealous not for Moses, but for Messiah. And so that's what's going on here. There is this astonishing revelation, and it results, Paul said, in an amazing conversion. And the conversion is Paul. And you can see this, right?
But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to unveil, to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles. I didn't immediately consult with anyone, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me to be taught by them. I went away into Arabia and then I returned again. to Damascus. I love how the message Talks about this.
Notice, What it says in verse 15, even then, even when I was zealous for the traditions of my fathers, even when I was persecuting the church and doing it violence, even then, God had designs on me. God had chosen Paul before his birth. to this mission And that's a great reminder. You know, whoever you are, and whatever your past, it doesn't get in the way of God's call for your life. Right.
In fact, it becomes a huge part of God's call for your life. Paul was very zealous for the Old Testament scriptures. He was very zealous to be taught. In the traditions of the law, he excelled far above all his contemporaries. How do you think?
He was able to write the way he wrote and In Galatians three and four, and five and six, about the law. He understood that law. How do you think he was able to write what he wrote in Philippians and Colossians and how he wrote in Romans about the law? How do you think he got so adept at laying out the connections between Abraham being a son of faith? And the rest of us living by faith.
How do you think he got there? And the answer is his past. God will always redeem us from our past, and then He'll use that past. In the ministry of the gospel, there is this amazing conversion that happens.
Well, if you think about your past, so many are out there thinking, man, I don't ever want to talk about it. And we're not to live there, dwell there, but isn't it remarkable what God brought us from? You know, think about the guy that wrote Amazing Grace, Isaac Newton. He was a slave. John Newton.
John Newton was a slave, I always want to say Isaac Newton, but John Newton. John Newton was a slave trader. He was brutal. He was vicious. He was profane.
Like you talk about cussing like a sailor.
Well, John Newton invented that, probably, that description. And yet he was saved and wrote this great book and helped set slavery free. He and he joined with Wilberforce and they helped end slavery in London, in England. But Dr. Horne, you know, imagine going to bed at night and you wake up and you think, about you see the images of people that you had executed.
Because they were Christians. Here you are, a Christian leader. Imagine the devil, Paul, gets up to preach in front of all these people, and the devil comes before him and says, Hey, who are you to preach to these people? You murdered their relatives. There are relatives of people you had executed and stoned who are in this group that you, because of your.
Awful hatred of Jesus. And so think about the PTSD. But instead of that, instead of going into depression, A guilt trip, instead of shutting up, he opened his mouth wide for the gospel and he leveraged that to bring more people to Christ. In these verses, Dr. Horn, you touched on it so well.
15 and 16, I think, are some of the greatest. descriptions and depictions. Of our salvation, yeah. You have it, you have before, you have God's sovereign knowledge, you know, separating me from my mother's womb.
So, this is God planning. You have God Called me through his grace, which is God's grace in time and space, revealing his Son in me.
So God, and then you have what God said, He saves us to send us. That I might be preaching to the Gentiles, and then you have this beautiful thing: it's all for his pleasure when it pleased God. It's all for his pleasure. It's all in these verses, and I think how you encounter Christ. Is a part of his plan, but he ordains not just from the ends of you coming to Christ, but the means.
Who invited you? Who shared the gospel with you? How is Stephen's testimony in Acts 8 a part of Paul coming to Christ? Those seeds planted by so many?
Well, when you think about it, that's why I love how the message puts this. When I was still in my mother's womb, he chose me and called me, there's the salvation, out of his sheer generosity. That's the problem with the Judaizers. Moses. Was a man of great talent and great ability and great love and great compassion and great tenderness and great mercy.
But The law was not generous. The law was exacting. Gospel is generous. And out of the generosity of God's heart, he sent his son. And now this amazing convert has come.
And God says, even more than being generous with me, he has intervened and revealed his son to me so that I may joyfully. Tell non-Jews. I used to hate non-Jews. I despise them. I couldn't stand them.
I looked down on them. But now I joyfully want to go and tell them about the gracious generosity that I've encountered that is also extended to them. This is the beauty of the gospel. This is how you know Paul was different.
Now, the final thing we want to talk about, and that is this: there was this authoritative claim, there is this astonishing revelation, particularly to whom it was revealed. There is this amazing conversion, and now there is this astounding preacher. And that's how the passage ends. He says this: immediately after my calling, without consulting anyone around me and without going up to Jerusalem to confer with those who are apostles. I went away to Arabia and later I returned to Damascus and was there for three years before I went up to Jerusalem to compare stories or narrative with Peter.
I was only there for 15 days, but what days they were. Except for our master's brother James, I saw no other apostles. And I'm telling you the absolute truth about this. Then I began my ministry in the regions of Syria and Cilicia, and after all that time and activity, I was still unknown by face among the Christian churches in Judea for the very reasons you talked about. There were people whose whole families had been destroyed.
You want to pack out a crusade? Don't invite Saul to come preach because he was the one that hunted us down and packed us into the prisons.
Now, here's what is so astounding about this: those very people in Judea who. whose families had been decimated, whose churches had been ruined. And by decimated, I mean there were really people who had lost their lives because of Paul. He said, I was unknown by face among the Christian churches in Judea, those churches that had been ravaged by me. This was, there was only this report.
This is all they knew. This is all they heard. the man who once persecuted us. And Paul said, Remember what I said earlier? I was violently persecuting them.
I was hunting them down. the man who once persecuted us is now preaching the very message he used to try to destroy. Mm.
So that is what they came to know. That is what they heard, and here was their response. To recognize and worship God. Because of me.
Now, think about how you would have responded if your wife or your children. Or your family members had been put to death in a violent way because of this man. And then all of a sudden you heard, oh, by the way, remember Paul? Remember Saul? She got saved.
And he is going everywhere. preaching the gospel, how would you respond to that? You might say, well, fine. But don't bring him here. I want nothing to do with that man.
I still have to go home every day and miss my wife. or my wife and I have never gotten over what we watched happen to our son in the arena. Or we never forgot what happened to Stephen. We were standing there watching it, and this man was standing there arrogantly making sure it happened. And it's fine that you tell me he's preaching the gospel, but that's not the response.
The gospel didn't just have a powerful effect. In Paul, it had a powerful effect in the men and women he persecuted, in the churches he persecuted, and they were worshiping God because of him. That is a stunning, stunning statement. The guy that was the enemy's Tool. to to weaponize against the Christian, became God's chosen servant.
to bring the gospel. To the Gentiles and to the Jews alike. And what a transition. What an amazing story. And here you have.
His whole testimony. You know, before he met Christ. how I met Christ, and then after meeting Christ, You know, the word immediately is in here, but it's also in Acts chapter 9. It's one of my favorite words in Acts 9 because if you read closely, right after his amazing. Amazing conversion.
It says he's baptized. Picture this before the water is even dry from his body, after Ananias baptizes him. It says immediately he starts preaching the gospel in Damascus. What a statement. The one that came to bind them in chains and haul the Christians away is preaching the gospel of Christ who came to set the captives free.
and give you new life. And so, what a picture. It's all in here. Dr. Horn, this is rich.
And this is really sacred ground. You know, and he's establishing a case to these people. Who How could you s be so I Enamored by, and how could you be so? Tempted and seduced away from the true gospel. This is the gospel.
Look at what gripped my life. Look at what transformed me. And here you are flirting with these Judaizers who are coming in and putting a little bit of leaven that's going to ruin the whole loaf, right?
Well, I think as we close, Stuart, maybe the best way to close is just to recognize something. Paul is giving this testimony not just to establish his own bona fides, but to paint a contrast. There are other teachers that have shown up to teach a different gospel. And they are not kind. They are not generous.
They are exacting. They are cruel. They are harsh. They are going to be very, very detrimental to Paul. and and they're going to stir up things against him.
And Paul, by contrast, is very different to the enemies he used to have. He's giving his life to those people.
So, there are three things I think we could take away from this that I want to end with, and then we can pray. One, our past. cannot produce grace in us. But grace can redeem that past. That's what we were talking about.
Paul's zealousness for the law, his zealousness for being taught by the religious experts in that law did not produce grace, but grace redeemed that. Right. So our past is not. What produces grace, but grace is what redeems our past.
So that's big idea number one. Big idea number two is this: before God can reveal His Son through us, He has to reveal his son in us. Christ has to be manifest in us. People have to see a different Samhorn. They have to see a different Stu Efferson, just like these people had to see a different Paul.
And once Christ is revealed in us, then he can be revealed through us.
So our past does not produce grace, but grace redeems our past. Before Christ can be revealed through us, he has to be redeemed in us. And then, number three, live so people glorify God because of you, right? Live in such a way that when people spend time with you, they glorify God because of what they've seen. and heard and experienced.
Through you. Before you pray, I jumped in. By the way, we're in person today. Isn't this nice to be talking face to face? We don't get to do this very much.
Hey, pray us out of here before you do. I just want to ask a couple probing questions that I think are really important. I went on a missions trip, a pro basketball team in 1990. And every one of us, and I've been a Christian for a while, and I went voluntarily. I wanted to go.
Some of the guys actually got saved on the trip because they weren't believers, but they wanted to do a mission trip. They wanted to get back. They wanted to do something good. We went and played in Poland and Greece. We were required to write our testimony out before we went.
It was the most helpful things I've ever done. Very helpful. I wrote out my whole testimony, one page. I want to challenge you: if you've never written your testimony, write it out. When's the last time you gave your testimony?
And then the biggest question per your point: when's the last time people glorified God because of your story, because of his story and your life transforming you? Pray us out of here. Lord, thanks for our time. What always a blessing to talk about your word anytime, but especially to do it with Stu week by week. I pray that what we've said today would reflect carefully and thoughtfully what you put in this text and that it would be encouragement to your people.
Lord, we're thankful for the gospel. Thank you that you were gracious to us and you were generous to us and you had designs on us even before we were born, knowing everything you know about us. Everything, every sin we would commit, every mistake we would make, every sorrow we would cause you, every pain we would bring to you, you still chose us. You still had designs on us. And Lord, use us, we pray, to bring other people who you are choosing and you are, and you have designs on, like the Apostle Paul did.
May we live that way. Lord, don't let our past get in the way. Of the ministry you have for our present. Lord, before we talk about you, Lord, may you reveal yourself in us. And Lord, may we live in such a way that people would glorify you.
In Jesus' name, Amen. Thank you, Dr. Horn, and thank you for joining us for this Wednesday in the Word podcast. Learn more at wedintheword.com. Follow us on YouTube, Facebook, and all social media, including in Stu Graham.
And be encouraged, stay in the Word. Read it. Share it, study it, memorize it, and meditate on God's Word. Every word of God is pure. He is a shield to those who put their trust in him.
Proverbs 30, verse 5.
