Galatians 1

WELCOME

Pastor Chris Paavola:

Once again, everybody, good morning. My name is Chris Paavola. I’m the senior pastor here at St. Mark. It’s great to be with you. I’m excited today because we are kicking off a brand new series going through the book of Galatians. There’s six weeks of this series because there’s six chapters, and we’re going to take a chapter a week and we’re going to go verse by verse through the book of Galatians. I’m excited before this for a few reasons, but one of them being is that sometimes when we come to church, we can come to church with something in mind. We come to church and I need to hear what God has to say about this thing, or we will open the Bible and I’m like, I’m looking for God to speak to me about this particular topic. And we’ll flip around, find the topic, get God’s word about that thing, and then move on.

It’s a little different or a lot different to just open it up and start reading it for what it is and let God set the agenda instead of us and to just go, okay, you lead the conversation, what do you want to say? And just read through it and it’s a sign of a growing relationship and maturity and just, I want to hear from you. What do you have to say? And so I’m excited from that perspective. But the other reason I’m excited is this book of Galatians. The reason we’re doing this is we ended our last series, the Reason for God with a topic of How can I trust the Bible? And we talked about the assembly process of the Bible and the archeology behind the Bible and the Old Testament, the New Testament. And then we thought, well, let’s read one of the books of the New Testament to kind of really get a glimpse of this early church.

And the reason we chose Galatians is historians and archeologists think that this is the oldest book of the New Testament, that of all of the books of New Testament, Matthew, mark, Luke, and John, acts, Romans to Corinthians, all of these books, Galatians was written first based upon some of the evidence in it internally and externally. So this is the first book of the New Testament written, and it predates Matthew Mark, Luker John, and it gives us a glimpse into the early church and what were the main issues and how did it evolve and what were the doctrinal points in the beginning of the church that they considered essential And the things that they talk about, we might think, oh, this is first century stuff. It’s not that you actually find that there’s a lot of timeless truths in the book of Galatian that apply to us today.

CONTEXT

And so, we’re getting a glimpse into the early church. This book was written around 49 ad, so that’s the composition date based upon some of the elements that we read in it. 49 ad. And if Jesus dies in 33 AD and we believe rises from the dead in 33 AD there’s a 16-year window that for 16 years the church is meeting and gathering together, but there’s no Bible. They don’t have a Bible to read. And then suddenly we get this letter to these churches in this region called Galatia. And that’s fascinating for a few reasons because take a look at this map here, give you an idea of where Galatia is.

That’s modern-day Turkey. And then Israel is kind of down in the far right hand corner there. And so from let’s say, assuming Paul wrote this letter from Jerusalem, it’s about an 800 mile trip to the center of Galatia there 800 miles back in the day using Roman roads.

It’s not a developed road system like we have today, 800 miles, 16 years later. By the way, that’d be like you from where you’re sitting right now taking a walk to Little Rock, Arkansas, it would take about 11 days to get there. That’s how far away we’re talking. And why is that matter? Why is this important? Well, again, for 16 years the church is meeting without a Bible and they’re talking about the resurrection of Jesus and how they can expand the kingdom. And Jesus is coming back, but for 16 years, because sometimes I think we think there’s a guy who wrote something down stories about Jesus and they started passing it around and people started believing it, and then our church started. And that’s not the picture we get. The picture we get is not that someone wrote something down and the church started. It’s the inverse.

The writings did not make the movement. The movement made the writings. And this changes the way we think about the explosion of the church because what would it take? What would it take for there to be enough Christians in Galatia to circulate a letter? This means that the church exploded in spite of intense persecution. There’s no military conquest like you see in other religions spreading this new religion. No, it’s just people talking about, oh, hey, did you hear about this guy who rose from the dead? And the message gets to Galatia in 16 years and this explosion of the church. And when we open the book of Galatians, we’re going to see there’s concepts again, angel Galatians that are talking about the early church gives us insight and enriches our understanding of the early church. But also there’s things in there that are timeless truths that we’re going to be able to draw from.

DECLARATION

So that’s the book we’re about to read. Now, before we read it, I want to do something a little different. When I was a youth pastor back in the day, before we would have our bible time with the kids, I would have them grab the Bible and then they would do a little prayer before we opened it. And I was like, oh, since we’re just reading through the Bible, we should do that. And we’ve asked you guys to bring your Bible. If you didn’t bring your Bible, that’s fine. For those of you who brought your Bible, good job. Thanks for getting the memo. But you can grab your Bible if you brought one or grab the black book in front of you. If it’s in the pew rack in front of you, hold it in your hands. We’re going to say a prayer and then we’re going to get into the book of Galatians.

Okay? So grab your Bible, hold it up nice and high and nice and proud, and repeat after me:

This is my Bible. This is my Bible, Lord, use it. Use to teach me, to teach me, correct me, correct. Encourage me. Encourage me and change me. Change me. Open my heart and my mind to hear what you have to say. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

GALATIANS 1

Now doesn’t it feel different that we’re about, I mean we’re ready to read this thing? Okay? And the other thing that we’re going to do, it’s a little different today, is we’re going to put the words on the screen.

I got a little iPad here and we’re going to read through it that way. I’m going to demonstrate how I read the Bible when I read it. I mark it up and I make notes in my Bible. And I know some of you are like making notes in my Bible.

It’s the word of God. How could I do that? And here’s what I would say to that. I think that when we mark up our Bibles and stuff, it helps me memorize it. It helps me process through it and ingest it. And I’ll make little notes and remarks. It is just me trying to understand it. But then some things happen. One, I’ll write something or I’ll make a little note or I’ll underline something and then I’ll come back a year or two later and I was in a good season when I wrote it and now I’m in a hard season. And when I read this note to myself that I wrote in the Bible during a good season, it encourages me. And so one, it’s like little notes to yourself. And then two, we will go through Bibles, I’ll mark them all up from Genesis to Revelation, mark up the whole Bible, and then I’ll save it for my kids someday.

And then my kids someday can read the Bible and the notes that dad or that grandpa had, and we can have a conversation long after I’m gone. So I highly encourage people to write in their Bibles, get comfortable doing that. And if you’re like, well, this is my Bible, this is the only Bible I have, well you can buy another one. This is just a good thing to do. It’s a good practice to do. And you’ll be able to see what you were going through in different seasons of life and all that kind of stuff. And so this is it not showing up on the screen. Do you have number three pressed? You do? All right, let me technical difficulties hold please. Let’s see if we can get this. Maybe it done got plugged in correctly.

Try it again. Nope, not working. Lemme see if it’s over here. I bumped something. Oh, there we go. I don’t know what you did, but good job. Anyway, so I’m going to kind of demonstrate how I read the Bible and I’m going to ask you guys to kind of do the same. Don’t mark up the black Bible as the pew Bibles because then we have to buy new ones and whatever. Noah would be able to read your handwriting or whatever. But when I’m reading, one of the first things I do, the simplest thing I do is I will circle names. So let me demonstrate that. So if I see a name and then I’m reading through it and I’m looking for glancing over it, trying to find names, it is just easy way to guide my eye. Okay? So right away in Galatians one verse one, he says, Paul, and this is basically signing a letter.

1 Paul, an apostle –

When we write a letter, we sign it at the end, back in the day they would sign their name to the beginning so that everybody knew who this was and who, who’s writing this letter. And then he says, an apostle. And we kind of blast through this. If we’re just reading this, we don’t think about how or why this is important. But that word apostle, there’s only 12, 13 apostles in history, right? It’s the apostles, there’s not new apostles.

Sent not from men nor by a man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead –

Now the word apostle means sent ones. There’s disciples, we’re all sent by God, but there’s the apostles, the apostles. And the criteria to being an apostle is you were one of his followers. Well, there’s a lot of people who followed him, but then also you were viewed as a leader in the church and then you were commissioned by Jesus directly. You were given authority by Jesus directly to go lead his church to go advance his church and spread it to the ends of the earth.

So that’s only a select group of guys. And Paul, when he’s saying right out of the gate, I’m an apostle, he’s telling people right away I’m about to say something authoritative. This is me speaking with authority. But there’s a problem. Paul became an apostle later on after he had a direct encounter with Jesus. And so you’ll see this, there’s some people who try to discredit what Paul is saying because he’s not an apostle. He’s not one of the original 12. And Paul’s going, no, no, no, no, I am an apostle. And he’s about to prove and give his case of why he is an apostle. So what he’s about to say has a lot of authority, and then he backs up that authority in the following hyphenated kind of clause there. This is an authority not from men nor through men, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father.

And so he’s saying, here’s the authority I have. I’m an apostle by Jesus Christ and God the Father, everything you’re about to hear is the inspired word of God and he’s about to come just guns blazing. He’s about to throw the hammer down. Something he’s about to say is really important because he’s making an appeal to his authority as an apostle. That’s what he’s saying in the first verse there. And then we get this little line, really, really interesting. Who raised him from the dead you guys? This is the first verse of the first book of the Bible. And he mentions the resurrection. I spelled that right, I think I did. And then sometimes in my Bible I’ll draw a little picture. So here’s a picture of a tomb, like whatever there it is. And so now when you’re looking through and you’re like, oh yeah, the resurrection, right?

It is just we’re visual learners. So I draw a little pictures of my margins, I get journal bibles now where you can get where there’s space to write all these notes. But why does this matter? Because like I said earlier, the message of the early church was not, Hey, here’s a new idea about God. Here’s a new idea about humanity. The message of the early church was not, Hey, here’s a new moral code. You are a bad person. We’re good people. You should be like us. That’s not the message of the early church. The message is, Hey, did you hear this guy rose from the dead?

That’s it. That was the conversation. That was the icebreaker. Hey, a man rose from the dead and it changes everything. Can I tell you about them? And how much have we make evangelism to something much more complicated or difficult than just a man rose from the dead and it changed my life. And again, this is not an idea that developed over centuries. The resurrection is right here in 49 ad it’s the reason he’s about to write this letter. Fascinating stuff, fascinating stuff. And it changes our perception of the growth of the church. This is not a myth or a legend that developed over time. We’re talking 16 years from the resurrection and he talks about it. Huge, huge. All right, moving on, verse two.

2 and all the brothers and sisters(a) with me, to the churches of Galatia.

 And all the brothers who are with me to the churches in Galatia, so there’s this idea, there’s a bunch of churches in Galatia and they’re all going to circulate this letter.

I’m writing this letter. All of you guys need to start circulating. And then he goes, grace, in peace to you from God or Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself, he likes that line in other letters that he writes, gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age, this present darkness according to the will of our God. And Father, there he is again. He mentions a few times to whom be the glory forever and ever. All men, Paul often does this. He makes these salutations like this, brothers and sisters in Christ, grace, mercy and peace be unto you from God, our Father. He does that a lot. And so this is just kind of a standard thing that we see in the 13-ish Pauline letters of the New Testament. You’ll see these kind of salutations and then he gets into the actual content.

So why did he make this appeal to authority? Why did he lay down the hammer that I’m an apostle not by man, Peter didn’t commission me, you didn’t give me permission. Jesus Christ himself gave me permission to do what?

6 I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you to live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel. 7 Which is really no gospel at all.

And then he writes it. “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you o live in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel.” And if there’s any gospel, a different gospel, it is no gospel at all. And he’s about to explain this, the gospel and the good is the good news of Jesus. A man died. That’s not the news. A man rose from the dead. That’s the news. And why is it good? Because he did it in your place. That’s the gospel. And the gospel is that Jesus Christ rose from the dead in our behalf. And now you have a right standing with God, not based on what you do, but on the works of Jesus Christ alone, the works of Jesus Christ are sufficient to give you a right standing with God.

It doesn’t matter how good you are, it doesn’t matter how bad you are. The gospel is is that you are right with God because of the works of Jesus. And it’s not Jesus plus something, it’s Jesus plus nothing equals everything. You have a right standing with God because of what Jesus has done. And when you put your faith in him, that’s it. It’s not like he opens the doorway and you walk through it and now you have a right standing with God. You can’t do anything to make God love you more. That’s the gospel. And if there’s any type of message that compromises that or twists that or distorts that or adds onto that, it’s not the gospel. And what was happening in Galatia is there’s a group of Jewish people who became followers of Jesus. So Paul goes and he plants the church and then he spends a few weeks months with them or whatever, and then he goes to another church and plants the church and then he goes to another city and plants the church and he goes to another city and plants the church.

Word gets back to Paul that hey, one of these churches in Galatia, there’s Christians who are following you, but now some Jews are starting to follow you as well or follow Jesus as well. And so this church has gentiles and Jews worshiping together and these Jews are trying to twist the gospel into something else. They’re called Judaizers. They’re trying to make Jewish this Christianity by insisting that the Christian Gentiles follow Jewish customary laws. So yes, Jesus makes a way for us with God, but we also have to stop eating pork. We also have to let this stop shaving our heads or start shaving our heads or whatever it might be. Or now we have to get circumcised because all Jews are circumcised and the Gentile men are like, wait, what do I have to do to follow Jesus? Are you kidding me right now? I’ve got to be circumcised in order to follow Jesus.

And Paul hears this and he’s like, no, it’s not Jesus plus something. It’s Jesus pleasant. Nothing. There’s nothing you can do, nothing you cannot eat, nothing you can cut off that will make you love, make God love you anymore. Nothing. Stop it. And that’s what he’s about to talk about in this entire letter of Galatians. We’re going to see this theme throughout. It’s this idea that there’s nothing you can do to make God love you more. It’s Jesus plus nothing that’s the gospel. And doing anything to that twisting it at all makes it not the gospel.

Evidently some people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the gospel of Christ. 8 But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let them be under God’s curse! 9 As we have already said, so now I say again: If anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let them be under God’s curse!

And then he kind of expounds on that, not that there is another gospel, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. And then verse eight, but even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be a cursed during the reformation.

Martin Luther would quote this verse all the time because what was the Pope trying to do? The Pope was trying to add onto the gospel. He would say, oh, you’re saved by grace through faith, but then also you need to do penance. You need to do certain prayers to get out of purgatory or you need to make a pilgrimage or you need to give money to the church or whatever it might be. And then that would give you a better standing with God. And Luther was like, are you kidding me right now that’s adding onto the gospel. Either Jesus is sufficient for us with God or he’s not, and if we can do something to earn our salvation, then Christ died for nothing. And then Luther would quote this all the time, he would say, even if we or an angel or the Pope himself should preach to you, gospel contrary to the one you’ve heard, let him be a cursed.

And he would quote this all the time, and then we’ll get in verse nine, as we’ve said before, and you kind of get this idea that Paul knew what he just said. Let him be a cursed. Let him be damned to the depths of hell is what he just said. You distorted the pure gospel, you should be damned for doing this. And he knew when he wrote this, people would be like clutching pearls like Paul, tone it down a little bit. That’s a little harsh. And he doubles down. He like repeats himself to bold it, to highlight it, to reemphasize it. As we’ve said before we say it again. If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be cursed and he doubles down. I have a friend who lives in Utah. He’s a pastor out in Utah, and when he goes to a hotel, there’s the bible, the Gideon Bible in the hotel nightstand, but then also there’ll be a book of Mormon.

And he writes Galatians one, six through nine in front cover of the Book of Mormon because it’s a different gospel. Joseph Smith in second Nephi, he says in second Nephi, you’re saved by grace after all you can do. And that’s a complete contradiction to Ephesians two. It says, you’re saved by grace through faith and not by works. And it’s a different gospel. It’s saying again, there’s something else you can do. It’s added onto the word of God saying there’s something else you can do to get a right standing with God. It’s not you’re saved by grace through faith. After all you can do, you’re saved by grace through faith. Period, end of story. And it doesn’t matter if it’s Joseph Smith, it doesn’t matter if it’s the Pope, it doesn’t matter if it’s the Judaizers in Galatia, it’s a distortion of the gospel. So it almost feels like Paul knows that when he’s writing this, he’s like, man, sitting in that living room, there’s going to be these Judaizers.

They’re going to be in that living room hearing that I just said that there’s no other gospel and they shouldn’t be adding onto this. And they’re probably questioning who I am. They’re probably questioning, do I have the right to say such things, know what I should do? I should explain, give a little bit of the backstory of how I am an apostle.

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

And so in verses 10 and on verses 11 and on, he starts talking about who he is and how he got to be an apostle. And he gives this backstory and it’s a backstory that we can then read the book of Acts and see how these timeline of events, it gives us a little bit of a framework to understanding the book of Acts and we’ll see what we’re talking about here. So he says, for I would have brothers, meaning there’s people in the living room reading this right now who don’t know that I’m an apostle.

Let me explain how I am that the gospel was preached to me is not man’s gospel. I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it. I like that word. I received it through a revelation from Jesus Christ. You have heard in my former life in Judaism how I persecuted the church of God. I persecuted it and I violently tried to destroy it. You can read about this in Acts seven and eight. You could read about this in Acts seven and eight. But Paul before he was a follower of Jesus, he was a high ranking Jewish Pharisee. He was a Jew of Jews. He was like the top gun of Jews. And he devoted his life and he gave himself headlong into this idea of becoming the best Jew he could be better than all the other Jews.

And he talks about this extensively in other letters. And as such, when he heard about Jesus, he was not just angry, he was incensed because in his mind, Jesus was not a completion of the Jewish scriptures. Jesus was a corruption of the Jewish scriptures. And this angered him and he sat about destroying the church.

13 For you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted  church of God and tried to destroy it.

Paul, the guy writing this letter, ran around, rounding up hunting Christians, imprisoning them and murdering them, killing them. And we can read about this in detail in Acts seven and eight. Paul is murdering Christians, and this is the guy that God chose, and we’re going to get into this in just a moment, but when he says he persecuted the church violently, tried to destroy it, that’s like underselling it. You can read about it later on.

14 I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my fathers. 15 But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb

Here he’s referencing Psalm 139:13

and called me by his grace, was pleased 16 to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being. 17 I did not go up to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was.

And then he kind of explains how who he was in the Jewish faith, starting in verse 14, I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my own people.

I was a prodigy in Judaism. So extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my father’s, which it gives us an insight into Paul’s character. If he’s this zealous persecuting the church, well of course he’s going to be the most prolific evangelist for the church when he begins following Jesus. This is just in his character, he throws himself headlong into whatever he sets his mind to verse 15. But when he who had set me apart before I was born here, he’s kind of quoting Psalm 1 39 that says, before I was born when I was in the womb, you knew me and set apart before I was born. And who called me by his grace verse 16 was please reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles. So among you, Galatians, I did not immediately consult with anyone. I didn’t go get permission from Peter.

but I went to Arabia

I didn’t go get permission from other leaders of the church, nor did I go to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away to Arabia and again to Damascus. And so we’re going to circle those two things here and I’ll kind of draw a bad picture, but give you an idea and I draw my Bible’s maps and all this kind of stuff all the time. So let’s say this is the Mediterranean Sea right here, and you’ve got Israel and Turkey and all that kind of stuff and all of this. Oh yeah, we’ve also got, this is Egypt down here with the River Nile, and then this is Sea of Galilee, dead Sea, Jordan River right there. All of this is happening in Jerusalem and Damascus right here, okay? This is where this is all happening. What happens is Paul is persecuting the church and then you can read about in Acts 10 where he’s persecuting the church and then he has this encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus where he’s going to go find more Christians and imprison them.

And he has this Damascus road encounter, this really dramatic and a light shines from heaven and people all around him are terrified and he goes blind for three days and he has a conversation with Jesus who tells him, you’re going to go preach to the Gentiles. This all happens on the road to Damascus. And he becomes after this conversation with Jesus going from the biggest opponent of Christianity to the biggest proponent, biggest advocate for Christianity, and this all happens on this road to Damascus after this happens, he spends three years off in Arabia. So Arabia is over here in Jordan, so he crosses the Jordan River, goes to Arabia for three years. Why does he do that? Well, when he was in Damascus, the first thing he starts doing is telling people about Jesus. That Jesus rose from the dead and Jesus is the promised Messiah and everybody in Damascus, all these Jews are incensed because this guy is now a turncoat.

He went from that team to this team. This would be like if Ryan Day, the head coach of Ohio State suddenly left Ohio State and became the head coach of Michigan. All the Michigan fans would be like, first of all, they’d be like, we beat him all the time. We don’t want Ryan Day to be our coach, but they would be like Ryan Day and then Ryan Day, okay, Ryan day’s now on Team Michigan, but then all of the Michigan people or Ohio State people would be like, Ryan Day, how dare. He’s dead to me. He would be Benedict Arnold, he’d be a turncoat. And when this happened with Paul, Paul becomes a Christian. Everyone is astonished. Like, wait, the Christians doubt him. They’re like, is this just he’s trying to get on the inside and all of the Jews are like, why would he do this? And they were so upset they wanted to kill Paul after just a couple days, his life was in danger.

And so you can read about it in Acts 10, they put him in a basket late at night, this big weave basket, woven basket, they put a lid on it and they lower him from the walls surrounding the city of Damascus late at night so he can escape for his own safety. And he goes off to Arabia for three years just waiting for the dust to settle.

Later I returned to Damascus. 18 Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Cephas

And then he continues kind of his journey. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem. So that’s this little star area here to visit fuss. This is Peter. And then it’s just another way of saying Peter and remained with him for two weeks.

And stayed with him fifteen days. 19 I saw none of the other apostles – only James, the Lord’s brother. 20 I assure you before God that what I am writing is no lie.

But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord’s brother. I love pointing this out. James is Jesus’s brother, meaning that after Jesus is born, Mary and Joseph have other children.

She’s not a perpetual virgin, at least according to scripture. So there’s other children and Jesus is their half-brother, and Mary and Joseph have other children including James. And James becomes one of the leaders of the church. James becomes an apostle, and James eventually loses his life declaring that his brother is the son of God. And I love this little fact toy because it kind of gives a credence to the scripture even more. I think it’s just great external evidence. Think about it. What would your brother have to do to convince you that he was the son of God? What would he have to do? And James is willing to give his life for this message. I think that’s astounding. So, they meet with James and then he goes, what I’m writing about is not alive.

21 Then I went to Syria and Cilicia

Verse 21. Then I went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia.(29:54): So here’s the deal. Syria and Cilicia are up here, Syria and Cilicia, and he’s writing this letter to Galatians.

22 I was personally unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ

Okay, so Syria and Cilicia are up here in the Mediterranean. You’ve got Judea down here, you’ve got Egypt over here. And you start to get this picture as he’s describing this, that of how the church expanded, right? They have this geography in their mind. We read this and it’s just a bunch of names, but when you put a map up there, you get this picture of the gospel goes out from Jerusalem and Damascus to Arabia and Jerusalem and Damascus down to Judea and down to Egypt, and then up to Syria, and then up to Alisia, and then up to Galatia. And you get this picture that it’s expanding, this expanding network. And it’s just like they’re hopscotching from church to church to church. And in 16 years there’s now hundreds of churches, meaning all throughout the Mediterranean, all throughout the Roman Empire, across the Mediterranean Sea.

Here, there has to be at this point close to if not more than a hundred thousand Christians all throughout the region. Why do I say that? Well, we know a historian, Rodney Stark has used methods like seeing the names of people and people being named after the apostles. And then we know in the year 311 AD Christianity became the official religion of Rome. When Constantine realized it was politically advantageous to do so. There were so many Christians in the Roman Empire that making it Christian just seemed like a majority rule kind of a thing. The only way you get millions of Christians by 311 AD is if there’s this amazing rapid explosion of Christianity beginning here from Jerusalem and Damascus. You need hundreds of thousands of Christians and hundreds of house churches spread all across the Mediterranean in 16 years in mathematically in order to arrive at millions.

And again, Christianity didn’t grow by military conquest. Christianity didn’t grow by killing people and spreading this religion like you see in other religions. Christianity grew because they were being killed. It stupifies historians today, it defies logic. And yet when you read these writings, you can’t deny it. Something miraculous was happening across the world.

23 They only heard the report: “The man who formerly persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” 24 And the praised God because of me.

Then as he continues to preach, everywhere he goes, people are like, wait a minute, aren’t you Paul? Aren’t you the Paul we heard about who was like hunting Christians down and killing them? Isn’t that you? And then I love this how chapter one ends, I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They were only hearing it and said, he who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy. He used to do this, now he’s doing this. He used to kill us and persecute us and imprison us, and now he’s like preaching the gospel.

And then I love this last line, and they glorified God because of me. This testimony, this story that God can use even me to reach the world, they glorify God. They praise God because of me. And I hear that and I think it’s a great ending and we’ll kind of wrap it up here, that we should never finish someone’s story. I know there are people in this room right now who you have tried to talk to the people in your life about Jesus. I know it. I know that you have tried to talk to people about Jesus and you are so tempted to finish the story. Just give up. Stop inviting them to church. Stop talking to them. Whenever you get an opportunity about the resurrection, it’s not worth it. They’ve given. They are so calloused against the idea of it, they’re so opposed to him.

It’s never going to happen and you just want to stop praying for them. Let me tell you this morning that the word God has from us, from Galatians one, one of the key things I think we need to take away from this, from chapter one of Galatians, never, never, never give up. Don’t finish someone’s story for them. You have no idea if or when God is going to reach them. Keep praying for them. Keep reaching them, keep inviting them. I know they tell you, no, I know they ghost you. I know they leave you unread in your text messages, your DM’s or whatever. Keep asking, never finish someone’s story for them. Never say someone’s no for them. Keep inviting them because we see in the story of the life of Paul and the story of the explosion of the church, that God is on a wild passionate pursuit for each and every one of us, you included.

You’re here today. I believe you are sitting in this room today or you’re watching online in this exact moment. I believe you’re here today. I’m talking to the camera right now. I believe you are here today and listening to the sound of my voice because God is still chasing after you. He still wants to be in a relationship with you. And so that’s my encouragement for you guys today. Wherever you are on your faith journey, just know that God wants to have an incredible relationship with you. Let me pray for us.

PRAYER

Heavenly Father, thank you for this opportunity to just dig through your word and let you set the conversation, let you set the tone and forgive us for all the times we come to you and we have an agenda and it’s refreshing to let you set the agenda. And I just pray that the words that we’ve just heard from the book of Galatians would continue to resonate with us this week.

The idea of the growth of the church or the gospel, the doctrine of the gospel or the purity of the resurrection, or just this idea that we should never finish someone’s story. That you can save and redeem anyone, and you do it again and again. And I pray for the people in our lives, God, right now, the people who we, we’ve given up, we’ve given up trying to reach them. It might be our cousin, our neighbor, our child, our sibling, our waiter, our hairstylist, whoever it is, God, continue to remind us, we make ourselves available to you and your Holy Spirit. Continue to remind us to reach out to them, to seek them out, and we continue to pray for them, even right now this morning, Lord, for the people who are having it on our heart, hear us now as we whisper their first name. The people that you want to reach, God, give them faith.

Give them that Damascus moment where they’re knocked off their high horse. Your light shines and they go from being apathetic to you or antagonistic to you, to believing in you. This is what we ask in the name of your son, Jesus, that we might rejoice in that day, that day of salvation where they begin to advance. They belong to your kingdom and advance your kingdom with us. Save Lord, it is in Jesus’ name. We pray all of this and we pray now the prayer your son taught us to pray, saying together, our Father who arts in heaven, Hollywood be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.