August 24, 2025 | From Hate to Hallelujah

From Hate to Hallelujah | Galatians Part 3

Galatians 1:11–24

For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people, so extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born, and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with anyone; nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia, and returned again to Damascus.

Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James the Lord’s brother. (In what I am writing to you, before God, I do not lie!) Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia. And I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only were hearing it said, “He who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.” And they glorified God because of me. (ESV)

In his sermon "From Hate to Hallelujah" on Galatians 1:11–24, Jed Gillis highlighted Paul’s personal testimony as proof that the gospel is not man’s invention but God’s revelation. Paul once relied on his religious zeal and rule keeping, even to the point of violently persecuting the church, yet God intervened and revealed Christ to him. This undeserved grace turned Paul’s life upside down, showing that salvation is received by faith, not earned by performance. Paul shared his story to confront those who claimed he altered the gospel for popularity and to remind believers that true transformation comes only from God’s grace. The same gospel that changed Paul still changes lives today, giving believers rest, approval, and purpose in Christ alone.

Transcript of From Hate to Hallelujah | Galatians Part 3

Berean Testimonies

George Waller: I'm nine years old and this guy, all I remember is he came from Oklahoma. I don't remember his name, certainly don't remember the passage he was teaching on, but I was sitting in the pew that night and I felt this deep, deep conviction that, uh, I needed Jesus at nine years of age. I didn't know a lot, but I knew I needed Jesus and I knew that I was a sinner.

And he was talking about if you're a sinner and you believe that Jesus died on the cross for you and paid the penalty for your sins, and you want him to be Lord of your life and you think he rose again and you can have eternal life, then I want you to come down.

Well, I bolted down the aisle. I'll never forget it can tell you exactly in that building today where I stopped and uh, a man came up to me. I clarified, I understood what was going on, and I prayed the sinner's prayer and Christ came into my life.

Craig Laman: The doctor came into the room and he said, uh, you know, I told him, I said, I, I'm feeling better. Do you think I might be able to go home? And he said, no, uh, your lab tests are are abnormal and I wanna run some additional tests. And he said, you know, I just had a patient, similar symptoms as you and lab that had, uh, we diagnosed with cancer and he passed away in about three months.

So I just remember hearing that and, uh, that night when my family went home, I was sitting up in the hospital bed and I just thinking all these different thoughts of eternity and I, I prayed to God. I said, God, if you're reveal, reveal yourself to me. And, uh, something just changed at that moment. And then when I got outta the hospital, I went home. And then when I read the Bible for the first time, I started making sense.

Vicki Cannington: I was born into a family that went to Church, Baptist Church in Memphis. And there, uh, at age eight I heard the gospel and walked the aisle, uh, and trusted Jesus.

At that time, I only understood that I was in need of forgiveness, a sinner, uh, and, and that the consequence of that would, without Christ would've been eternal damnation or separation from God. And to have his free gift for what Jesus earned on the cross, I'd be in heaven with him when I died.

I didn't know then what I know now, which is the whole point of Christianity, is a relationship with God, the presence of God in our lives, and any good thing in this broken world is because God's presence is still here on.

Jed Gillis: So I was born into a family where I grew up in church. I grew up hearing the truth of the gospel, but as I grew, I started to wrestle with what does, what do these things really mean for me? And, and it's not just about decisions my parents or my grandparents made, it's about what, what do I actually believe?

When I was six years old, I heard a sermon on hell and it, it was scary to me. And so I, I came and I, I talked to my mom and said, oh. How do I avoid hell?

And my mom wisely she, she heard that, but she didn't just leave me at fear. She took me to the cross and said, here's what Jesus did for you. She talked about how Jesus lived a perfect life for me and how he died on the cross for my sins, and how he didn't stay dead, but he was raised. That any who would trust in him can know they have eternal life. And, and God used that to take me from my fear to loving him more.

Buddy Cooper: You know, I had my own home. I had a brand new car and a, a brand new boat and a, and a park full of money. And I was a single man. Everybody said, well, gosh, you got it made. You should be extremely happy 'cause you got everything a person would want.

And I did. I had everything that people are striving to have. But I was miserable. I was, I was unhappy. I was, had no joy. I had no purpose. So I, one morning I was by myself at my house. I went into my bedroom and I got down on my knees and I said, you know, Lord, if you really are who you say you are, and you really did die for my sin, and you really will forgive me, and you'll give me a reason for living and a, and a hope and a joy for life. I'm asking you to come into my life and forgive me and save me.

I know that something happened and I was, uh, changed. I mean, it was amazing. I, I, I went outside of my house for the first time and I could actually smell the grass and the trees and hear the birds, and I could hear the cars going up and down the road.

I'd never heard that before. It was amazing. I would just feel full of joy, something I'd never experienced in my life before.

Isaias Viñales: Well, it all culminated for me when, um, I attempted suicide. 15 years old. I, uh, I tried to take my life and God just mercifully convicted me of my sin.

And, um, my mom, I will never forget her look. Um, she just looked at me with eyes of compassion, eyes of love, but with firmness. And she just reminded me of John three 16. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him would not perish, would have eternal life. And my mom, uh, reached out after she said that, grabbed my hand and she said. You can call on the name of the Lord and, and he'll hear you and he'll save you.

It was like all the darkness inside my soul was just evicted, you know? And the light of God's grace and love and gospel shown. And, um, in fact, I was so joyful because I had come in try, you know, trying to take my life. And here I'm talking about this joy, this incredible indescribable joy that I found, um, in Christ. And, um. Yeah, I've never been the same.

Introduction

Jed Gillis: The best demonstration of the power of the gospel is the stories of the lives that have been changed by the power of the gospel. This morning, we're gonna be in Galatians chapter one. As we do that, children, if you're headed out the door to Children's Church, you're welcome to do that. You're also welcome to stay in here with us. Glad to have you here.

Paul is Telling His Story

If that wets your appetite to say, I'd like to hear a little more of those stories. There's a fuller version of each of those stories, uh, which we've recorded, which we'll post, we'll send out on email or or post on our social media so you can see the fuller version. But the little snippets of those testimonies gives you one of the main points and really as we get to Galatians chapter one, what we see is that Paul is telling his story.

He's telling the churches that he's writing to, this is what the Gospel did and how the gospel changed my life.

Reading Galatians 1:11-24

I wanna read beginning in verse 11 of chapter one and hear the apostle Paul tell you the equivalent of what we just heard, how the gospel impacted him.

He says, I would have, you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For, I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.

For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the Church of God violently and tried to destroy it, and I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age, among my people.

So extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers, but when he who had set me apart before I was born. And who called me by his grace was pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles. I did not immediately consult with anyone, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me. But I went away into Arabia and returned again to Damascus.

Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas and remained with him 15 days, but I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother. In what I'm writing to you before God, I do not lie. Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia and I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ.

They only were hearing it said he who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy and they glorified God because of me.

Why Did Paul Write This in the First Place?

This is this version of Paul's recounting of his story. You could read in Acts 26, you could read in Acts nine. You could see some other versions of those stories where he describes it for different audiences.

In this case, we need to know why did he write this in the first place? When he is writing to Galatians, he's responding to, uh, people who are troubling the churches of Galatia. I'm gonna call them agitators. 'cause when he says you trouble the church, the Greek word we get that from is, is close to agitate. They're, they're shaking like a, like a, a laundry machine. Shakes up clothes and agitates. That's what they're doing. They're shaking at the church in Galatia.

What Were The Agitators Saying About Paul?

And as we saw last week, Paul is astonished, he's shocked. He has strong words against these agitate, agitators, these people who would trouble the churches of Galatia.

So they're saying things like this. They're coming to the church that Paul gave the gospel to, and they're saying, listen, Paul received the message of Jesus. Yes. And they might say something like, Paul also received the necessity to keep the law. But since Paul's not talking to Jews, he's talking to you all who are Gentiles. He wants to make it easier for you to hear the message. So he's softening this message so that he can be more popular. So that you'll receive it, more likely.

They would say things like that. They'd say, look, Paul's just making this up to please you so that you'll accept it more easily. And that kind of makes sense because you think if Paul comes in, if you were a Gentile at that time and you had heard about the true God of Judaism, and your response then is to say, I've heard I have to keep all of the Jewish law. And I've heard my Jewish friends talk about how restrictive that is and how they fail to do it. I've heard all these things, and then Paul comes and says, grace to you through Jesus Christ, you can have the favor of God in your life simply by trusting in him without following circumcision and dietary laws and all the things that these agitators were saying you had to follow.

If you're a gentile there, you might be saying this, this feels too good to be true. And so these agitators are, are tapping into that sense that this feels too good to be true. They're saying, of course it's too good to be true. That's 'cause Paul made it up.

And since these agitators happen to have come from Jerusalem, what they do is they say things like, well, Paul learned from Jerusalem. He didn't walk with Jesus all the time anyway. So he learned from Jerusalem and they say, we came from Jerusalem. We're bringing you the whole story.

You could see how, especially in a world where they couldn't call Paul up on his cell phone, they couldn't go check his blog or his Twitter page and see what he really thought. They could hear these agitators and say, wait, I knew it was too good to be true. Now these people are telling me the next step.

What Were the Agitators Saying About the Gospel?

So they come and say either, and we don't really know because it's not like we have a book from the agitators to say what they said. But reading from the way Paul responds, there's a couple options.

Either they're saying, look, there is no gospel, there's no grace for you in Jesus Christ. You just have to keep the law and then God will have favor to you. They could be saying that.

I think it's more likely what they're doing is saying, yes, Paul told you the right thing for how you come into the Christian faith, but in order to have God's posture towards you be one of favor, you have to add something to relying on the gospel. You have to add something that you do some kind of approval from God based on your performance.

Which Gospel Offers True Transformation?

Now if that's accurately representing what they were teaching, we can see why we'd get to verse 10 and right after he said, you can't have another kind of gospel. There is no other really good news other than the gospel of Jesus Christ.

He says in verse 10, am I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Like, whose pleasure do you think I care about? Paul says, do you really think I'm coming to you and making up this story so that you'll like me? When what I'm teaching you is I have the grace, the favor from God, which one's more important?

He writes to them and says like, which do you think I desire? Which do you think transformed me? That's how he gets into his story.

Paul's Testimony

So if we break up his story, we say, where did Paul start? We'll say what happened to him? Then we'll say, where did he go after that and what was the result? So four pretty simple steps. Where did he start? What happened to him? Where did he go? What was the result?

Where Did Paul Start?

The beginning in verse 11, he says, look, I started with a gospel that didn't come from humans. Remember we said the word gospel? It's a category. It's an announcement. It's an announcement that's supposed to be of good news. So it's supposed to be the kind of news that gives your soul relief or rest or comfort. That's what makes it good. It.

Paul says, the gospel that I preach, the announcement that I preach, unlike the ones that these agitators are preaching, the announcement that I preach isn't man's solutions.

We talked about some of them last week, approval. If I can just get enough approval, then my soul can be okay or control. If I can control enough things in life, then I don't need to be afraid or productivity if I just do all enough things, if I can accomplish enough. Then my soul can rest in that. Or maybe we're more crass and we're just money. If I have enough money, I'll be safe. See, humans come up with all kinds and we looked at another probably six, and we can name more. Humans, come up with all kinds of gospels of announcements to say, this is what will make your life complete. This is what will give you rest. This is what will give you relief.

Paul says, I'm not bringing man's solutions. As we said last night, all of these manmade solutions have the same problems. They're never good enough to really give your soul rest, and there's no forgiveness when you fail. So Paul says, that's not what I'm bringing to you in verse 11 and 12. He says, this didn't come from any mere human, including by the way he's saying, I didn't learn this from Peter or James or John who walked with Jesus. 'cause remember the agitators were saying, you learned this in Jerusalem. Anyway, he's saying, no, I didn't.

If you remember the story, he's riding down the road and God knocks him off his horse and he sees Jesus, and Jesus speaks to me. He says, look, the gospel I got came from Jesus. It didn't come from Peter. It didn't even come through Peter. So he starts with that. This came from Jesus.

And then he says, remember who I was? Verse 13 and 14. He says, I was the ultimate religious rule keeper. That's what he was trusting in. You heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the Church of God violently.

Why Did Paul Persecute the Church of God?

Notice he doesn't say he was against Judaism 'cause he wasn't. He doesn't say he was against the Pharisees 'cause he wasn't against them either. He calls it the Church of God, the, the group of people who are gathered by this gospel that he preaches.

When you have a group of people whose eyes are truly open to the grace of God through Jesus it, it forms a group. And he said, that group, that's the one that I persecuted.

And we might say, well, I wonder why. Why did he persecute them? Probably the same reasons we see in the gospels that the Pharisees were against Jesus. He stood over here as a religious law keeper, saying, I'm pretty good. I don't break most of the rules. And he looked at the church in the community that's formed by the gospel and he said, there's sinners over there, there's tax collectors. There's people who I don't want to associate with.

It says if, if this group says we can have the grace of God, the favor of God towards us through Jesus alone, and they don't have to clean up all those things before they have God's favor, then I have to associate with them. They didn't like that. He says, I was the religious rule keeper and I persecuted the church shaped by the true gospel.

He goes on to describe verse 14. I was advancing beyond many of my own age among my people. So extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. We can kind of hear the prayer of the Pharisee and the tax collector when the Pharisee says, thank you that I'm not like this other guy. I'm better than him.

Paul's like, that's exactly who I was, but I wasn't looking at the tax collector. I was even looking at the other Pharisees. It's like I was advancing beyond them. In other words, he's saying he was the best religious rule keeper you could imagine. He wasn't the rebel out there trying to get away with everything. He was the best law abiding rule keeper.

And he was zealous for the Old Testament law and tradition. Ask yourself this. Imagine one of the things that's good for us to do is to imagine, to think like Paul's a real human. So what would he have thought? Why would he have said, I am zealous for this Old Testament law and tradition? If you asked him before his conversion, he probably would've said, I'm loving God.

That's what Paul thought. He probably would've said, in some sense, God's gonna approve of what I'm doing.

You Cannot Serve God by Striving to Earn His Approval

He would've said, I'm serving God by my zeal in persecuting the church. That's what Paul thought he was doing. But the nature of the gospel and what we see going through Galatians is that you cannot serve God by striving to earn his approval.

I said it that way on purpose, you cannot serve God that way. I wanna read a little bit of a quote from Tim Keller. He says this, the gospel frees us from fearfully trying to earn approval to be enough. He says, we discover that trusting in Christ brings God's full and complete favor and approval.

Imagine a father watching his beloved son play baseball for the team his father coaches as he sits in the dugout. He loves his son fully and completely. If his son forgets his father's instructions and strikes out, it will not change his love for him or his approval of him one bit. The son is assured of his father's love regardless of his performance.

But Keller continues. The son will long to hit that home run, not for himself to gain his father's love, but for his father because he is already loved. If he doesn't know his father loves him, his efforts will be for himself to win that love because he knows his father already loves him. His efforts are for his father to please him.

Now that's the story of the Christian life, and the thing that's most striking to me is the way Keller brings out if you don't know you have the love and approval and favor of God, then when you try to earn it, you are actually serving yourself, not God. You're trying to gain the thing that you want.

It's much like if a spouse out of insecurity says, I'm gonna try to gain their love. I'm gonna do all these things and manipulate things so that they love me. Who are they really serving themselves?

It's not something where we can choose another path and find God that way. It is that if you come to God saying, I'm going to do these things in order to earn God's favor. You're ultimately trying to get the thing that's good for you, you're trying to serve yourself.

But in the gospel, we are assured of his complete love for us, which means we want to please him, not to serve ourselves, but to love and please the one who loved us.

When Paul said, I'm zealous, for I was zealous before his conversion for the traditions of his fathers. What we can read as Paul talks here through this chapter is he realizes now what he was doing was in fact, not to please and serve God. In fact, if we look at verse 10, it was about the pleasure and it was about the approval of man, if we look here, it was zealous not for God. That's what he thought at the time, but it was zealous for the traditions of the fathers.

Paul says, I was the ultimate religious rule keeper, and really I was serving myself living for the approval of humans, not actually serving and living for God because I was not resting in what he had given me, but trying to earn it myself.

What Happened to Paul?

So that's where he starts. What happened to him?

Notice the way he describes it because you can describe it a lot of different ways. Verse 15. When he who had set me apart before I was born and who called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles.

And he goes on to say what he did afterwards, but just notice the way he describes what happened to him. He says, before I was born, he can't have earned anything 'cause it was before he was born. He can't have lived in a way that somehow made God like him better. He says, before I was even born, here's what God had done for me.

That also means notice. He says, before I was born, he called me by His grace. He set me apart. That means when Paul was persecuting the church, he was set apart. The worst things that Paul was doing were actually part of God preparing him to write Galatians.

Think about while he's persecuting the church, what's he doing? He's studying the Old Testament. He's pursuing righteousness by the law. And when God transforms him, he's able to say all of that knowledge I had of the Old Testament, now let me tell you how it applies to Jesus. And when he goes and talks to other people who are trying to earn favor by their approval, he says, let me tell you, that doesn't work.

Paul is recognizing God had been at work even in the worst times of his life, to prepare him to preach the gospel. He says, he called me by his grace.

So I want you to remember the story a minute. I mentioned it before. He's riding on the road to Damascus, on his way to persecute the community of people who trust in the gospel. He's on his way to persecute them, riding along, thinking he's loving God, thinking he's serving God. Maybe patting himself on the back, even saying, I'm doing pretty good, the religious rule keeper, and God shines this bright light, knocks him off his horse.

Kicking Against the Pricks

And then we're told in Acts 26, Paul doesn't mention it in Acts nine, but he does in Acts 26. Jesus says it's hard for you to kick against the prick. The picture is like if you have livestock, you have a cow, and you want to get them in the right place. What they would do is they'd use goads. They'd use sharp, thick sticks, and they would poke 'em in this way so that if the cow started to go the wrong way, it would press against that and go, oh, that doesn't feel good. I want to come back this way.

What had been happening with Paul, evidently, is as he was pursuing zeal and religious rule keeping, he finds conviction. He finds unrest in his soul. He goes, it's never good enough. I'm gonna try harder. It's never good enough. I'm gonna try harder. Every time he feels it's never good enough, this won't really satisfy my soul. This doesn't really gimme rest. Those are all goads. They're pricks. He keeps trying to say, I'll keep the law, and God's like, Nope, that doesn't work. Okay.

God has brought him in this place. Paul's been seeking favor, trying to be good enough and feeling this unrest and deep down he eventually learned it's never gonna work.

Before we go on in that story, think about your life. Is that how you feel sometimes? Do you feel like God graciously shows you the emptiness of manmade gospels? It doesn't always feel like graciously in our experience.

But when God shows you, I mentioned some of 'em earlier. When God shows you that approval and productivity and popularity and power and money, when he shows you those things won't really solve the rest in your soul, that's God's grace poking you back towards Jesus.

So Jesus literally calls him, he used the phrase here, he called me by his grace. Literally here, Paul's knocked off his horse and Jesus says, why are you persecuting, persecuting me, Saul? He calls his name. Why are you persecuting me? He says it's hard for you to kick against the pricks. And then he says, rise, go into this city.

Paul's Life Turned Upside Down

Now, at that point, Paul, bright light, he's lost his sight. He's blind. He's sitting here going, wait, what just happened? Can you imagine? I'd need more than three days to process that?

But if you are sitting in the dark, can't see anything that's happened, they led you into the city. Now you're sitting there, you're going, okay. I know my whole life is turned upside down. I know that. I'm not sure how yet.

But I think the kinds of things you would start thinking is, I've been persecuting the church and Jesus didn't crush me. Like he should have. I've been persecuting his people. I've, he said I was persecuting him, but he didn't.

Not only did he do that, he also said he has something for me to do. Like he called me by grace to do something. He didn't just say, you've been persecuting the church. Forget you. I'm gonna put you on a shelf somewhere, but at least you now know what was right.

Paul Experiences Unearned, Undeserved Favor

I can imagine the seeds of this start going in his mind to say, wait, I was persecuting him and he showed me favor. It can't be about what I earned. I was persecuting him and he didn't just show me tolerance. He showed me favor.

As he's thinking about this, he's gotta say, this wasn't cheap grace. It's not like God patted Paul on the head and said, oh, it's okay. As if it's unconcerned forgiveness. Like he's, he's not going, yeah, it's fine. Whatever. You, you wanted to kill those people, no big deal.

No, it wasn't that. It wasn't half grace. I'll tolerate you, but I'm gonna put a stop to this and I'm gonna be kind of angry.

It also wasn't legalism. Paul had tried that. That's where you try to manipulate the favor of God. You do something to gain it, to earn it, to strive for it. It wasn't any of those things.

Paul's sitting there and I imagine it started when he was blind. He's going, this was totally undeserved favor. And then when God gives him his sight back? If I'm Paul, I'm saying like, God, did you. Did you really mean to do that? Because I've been persecuting your church. I mean, I, I deserve to sit here in shame and blindness and punishment. And Jesus says, I know.

But notice in Galatians one, he described it. He who called me by his grace. Paul doesn't view his conversion as God calling him by the power of this bright light that knocked him off the horse. It's the power of grace coming into his life.

We Experience Grace so God Can Display Grace

And he says it pleased him to reveal his son so that Paul could preach grace to the Gentiles. This is always God's pattern. God displayed the glory of grace to Paul so that he could display the glory of grace through Paul. That's why he gives us grace. One of the reasons is so He shows his grace to us so that we can display it to others. That's the way Paul describes it. God was pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles.

That's one of the reasons our stories like we saw in the video, are so powerful because only people who have experienced grace can really preach it. Only people who have experienced grace can really say, here's how you come and find grace.

And that means just like with Paul, our past failures are not just reasons for shame. In grace, our past failures are only reason for shame if we refuse to let them go.

Instead, our past failures become ways to lift up the beauty of the grace of the gospel. Paul says, yeah, I did persecute the church. I'm not hiding that it was wrong, but let me tell you how good grace is. That's where I started. Here's where I am.

Where Did Paul Go?

So where did Paul go? And he goes on to describe, he says, I didn't go consult and learn from Jerusalem, because remember, he's responding to these agitators who are saying, you learned from Jerusalem and now you're not telling the whole message.

So he says, no, I didn't go to Jerusalem and learn this. It's not that. I learned it and adjusted it to be more popular. And then he describes verse 18. After some time he did go up to Jerusalem. He met with Cephas, that's another name for Peter. He goes and talked to Peter and James, but he says, I was already teaching this gospel. They didn't add something new to me. He wasn't dependent on Jerusalem because he received the gospel of grace from Jesus himself.

What Was The Result?

So what was the result down in verse 23? He says, look, the church in Judea, they didn't even know me. Really, they knew this: he who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy. They knew the same faith Peter teaches, that's what Paul is teaching, and because of that, they responded with worship.

Paul didn't invent salvation by grace. He can't have invented salvation by grace 'cause he was trying to destroy it when God opened his eyes, called him by his grace.

What's Paul's Goal in Sharing His Testimony?

So why does Paul share his story? Why is this even here? Like why do we get De Galatians one? I mean, we know, okay, he's trying to defend that he wasn't too dependent on Jerusalem, but he preached the same faith. He's doing that. But what's his goal?

It's not just to be generally inspiring. Although it might feel that way, it's not to put the spotlight on him. Paul shares his story so that he hopes it will help others find Christ. Paul shares his story so that they can see the beauty of the gospel and how it changes people. He shares it so they don't pervert the gospel by putting something else alongside. In effect, he says, I chased the religious answer for earning approval as hard as anybody could do it, and it didn't work. It never gave me true rest. So don't add your performance alongside this incredible grace from Jesus. That's why he shares his story.

But, My Story Isn't Like Paul's Story...

So I wanna address two things you might think hearing that. First you might say, that sounds lovely, but my story is not Paul's story. Like, I don't have this persecuted church transformed into a amazing apostle and church, church planter story. So what? What am I supposed to do?

That's why we started with the video that we did. There were six people and none of their stories sound exactly the same. And none of them sound really like the Apostle Paul, and probably none of them sound exactly like yours unless you were one of those people. The point isn't that there, here's this cookie cutter story that's real power of the gospel, and if you don't have that experience well, okay.

No. The point is that the gospel breaks into our lives in different ways, at different times, and when we are called by God's grace and we respond with faith in that grace, it may not look exactly like anybody else, but it is a beautiful trophy of God's transforming grace.

If you're a believer in Jesus today, you could sing I once was lost in darkest night. I thought I knew the way the sin that promised joy in life had led me to the grave. That's what Paul said in different words. I had no hope that you would own a rebel to your will. And if you hadn't loved me first, if you hadn't called me before I was born, called me by my grace. If you hadn't done that, I would refuse you still.

That song is just taking the themes that are true and all our stories, flesh them out differently. But say the grace of God saves people. It changes people. So your story may not sound like Paul. That doesn't mean your story is not a trophy of grace.

But What Does the Gospel Do in My Life Now...?

Or maybe you think. I know the gospel story of coming to faith like we saw on the video. That's powerful. It's wonderful.

But what does the gospel do in my life now? Like, sure, in the past, and I look forward to heaven, but right now, does the gospel work powerfully to transform me?

I would say, first of all, that's exactly why Paul wrote this book. If you look at chapter three, he says, having begun by the spirit, are you now continued by the flesh having started by grace through God's spirit? Are you now going to live a totally different way?

He's like, no, that doesn't work. So he's really writing the whole book to tell you this isn't just about initial salvation, it's how the power of the gospel works in your life as a believer continuing.

My Story of Finding Rest in God

So I want to tell you a little bit about why I'm excited about going through the book of Galatians. Really, it's a story about how God has used the gospel as I've prepared this. To transform my life. About a year ago, God drew me deeper into the gospel. He, he revealed in me, uh, some patterns in my life that I don't think I'd ever really wrestled with.

Whatever I did. I always felt like it never measured up. It was never quite good enough. I knew nothing I'd do would do would be perfect. But it was like my soul could never just rest.

It didn't matter if it was a task at home or a sermon, or a conversation, or a song or a school assignment. It felt to me like nothing was ever good enough for my soul to just say my heavenly Father is pleased.

Now, I didn't think about it that way until God opened my eyes to more of that.

So I would resolve to try a little bit harder, to do a little bit better. I had gotten used to those feelings 'cause that was a long pattern in my life. But the fearful thing was I started to realize it would never be good enough. I always thought I could make it.

But God knows how to take those sticks, and when you start turning this way, you poke into it and say, oh, that doesn't work.

So I tried my other regular pattern. If I can't do anything well enough, I'll just try to do more things. So if I can't do one thing or three things well enough, I can do 40 things. And my soul can rest there.

Unsurprisingly, that didn't work. So like I think all of us get at different times. I felt this unrest in my soul and I had to find a refuge that would solve that.

And when that was hard to find. I find myself then fighting sinful patterns of thoughts and words that I know are really coming from the fact that my soul can't rest over here.

Graciously and gradually God convinced me that my to-do list could never be the refuge for my soul.

That seems so easy to say. Right? We could all say, well of course it took you that long to figure that one out? I, but I could use it in so many different ways. I could say, I'll get, I'll have refuge 'cause I did it well.

Oh, that doesn't work. I'll have refuge 'cause I did a lot of things. Okay. That didn't work. Well, I'll have refuge 'cause I'll take more things off my to-do list.

None of those things were enough to give me peace because I never felt like I could really rest in God's approval for me. And if I'm honest, just like Paul says, I wasn't really chasing God's approval. I was really chasing man's approval.

That's the truth for me too. It was never good enough to rest. I was never good enough for me. It wasn't God's approval. I was chasing at all.

And God didn't work the way I thought he would. I thought, you know, I'll kind of figure out how this would all work out and then it'll all make sense to me and then I'll step into it and that's how it'll change me.

And sometimes he does that. That's not the way it worked. There were days I'd cry out to God and I'd say, I know you're the only refuge for my soul, but I don't feel like that right now.

I remember kind of the culmination where God had been working this in my life. I remember one night I felt the stresses of life particularly strong. I felt the unrest. I felt like I had done things that weren't good enough and probably there was legitimate reason to feel that way.

And I remember in my soul I thought, I just want God. I don't want to chase any of that other stuff that I would normally run to. I don't want to pretend like I can do it. I just want God. I just want to sit down with the Psalms and cry out to my father.

And I tasted rest in a deeper way. I knew his appro approval was the only favor I wanted. I had tasted rest in God before, but not in a way that was so clearly the truth of the gospel speaking to the way I experienced this struggle. It wasn't that the gospel was out here somewhere else, and then I would struggle here and try to figure out. It was no. The approval of God in Jesus Christ was directly the thing that my soul longed for.

Luther's Journey to Finding Rest

And at the time, I hadn't really connected that to Galatians, but a few months later, I was riding in my car, thinking about this next sermon series, I started thinking, started thinking about Martin Luther. Famously, he struggled with depression, spiritual anxiety, turmoil. He was terrified. He felt guilt over his sin and he doubted God's goodness and love.

That sounds a lot like what I would say is unrest. He called it [German] 'cause he spoke German. So it was different. But he had this angst in his soul. He was incredibly restrictive to himself, harming his body, saying, I'm gonna keep all the rules. And he came to the conclusion he could never be a good enough monk to solve his unrest.

And how did God solve that for Martin Luther? Through two books, the book of Romans and the book of Galatians, and I just rejoiced in God's goodness that day. I said, God, you gave me an experience of Galatians before you led me into studying it.

Like Luther none of us rest because we're good enough for ourselves. We are approved by our father's undeserved favor, or in other words, we are justified by grace through faith.

The Gospel Radically Changes Your Life Now

Nobody can look at me and say, he who used to persecute the church is now preaching the faith, but I can say he who soul did not have this kind of peace now has a better rest through the gospel of Jesus.

The Gospel's not something that happens in the past. It's something that radically changes your life right now.

And when God's people see changed lives, the result is what he says in verse 24. They glorified God because of me, they worship. The best way to know the truth of the gospel is to see stories of how the gospel works. And God's spirit works powerfully through those in our hearts and draws us to it. The gospel destroys our man pleasing, our desperate search for approval. That's because it breaks into our lives and it shows us the emptiness of every false gospel.

That's one way to describe it. And it sounds aggressive, right? It breaks in and it destroys. We need that perspective. We also need this perspective. The gospel is the only true refuge for your anxieties and your unrest and your fears. And if the gospel truly solves those things, your unrest and your fear, it cuts at the heart of every sin you fight against.

Do you experience the power of the gospel at the heart of your battles against sin, or does it feel like it stays on its theological shelf somewhere else? Do you experience the power of the gospel at the heart of your struggle for peace? Don't leave the gospel in the past at your conversion. It is the power of God for your transformation.

So wherever you are in your spiritual journey, press into the gospel of grace of God's unmerited favor for you. Because Paul says in Romans, the gospel is the power of God for salvation. I wanna invite you just to close your eyes and respond to God in prayer. As we heard in the video, as I referenced maybe where you are, as you say, God, if you're real, I want this power in my life.

That's okay. Come to God that way. He delights to show his power through his grace, so I invite you to respond to him and then we'll sing to close.