03 When Faithful Service Looks Like Failure (Galatians 1:11-24)

Krisan Marotta: Good morning. Thank you for listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. I'm Krisan Marotta, and this is my podcast about what the Bible means and how we know. This is the third talk in my series on the Book of Galatians. Today we'll be studying Galatians chapter 1, verses 11 through 24. Lecture notes for today's talk are on the link below this podcast. They contain an outline of the main points of the talk and links to anything I mentioned. You can also find those notes by going directly to Wednesdayintheword.com slash Galatians 3. Thanks for listening today. Well, last week we began chapter 1 of the book of Galatians, and we saw two of Paul's three main themes in the book. Those were his apostolic authority and his gospel. His third major theme is the freedom the gospel brings, and he'll bring that into later chapters. Just a review, he is writing to the churches in Galatia, which is modern Turkey. Paul founded these churches on his first missionary journey, and now they're turning away from the gospel. The Judaizers have come to town and begin teaching that it's not enough to believe in Jesus Christ, you must also keep the law of Moses. These two versions of the gospel conflict and it matters. This is not a philosophical debate on some hypothetical theory. Salvation and how we obtain it is on the line. So, how do you know which version of the gospel is correct? How do you know if the Judaizers are teaching the right one? How do you know if Paul's teaching the right one? Last week, Paul began answering that question by saying, you can recognize the true gospel by its substance and its source. Its substance is a complete and full understanding of the cross of Jesus Christ, and its source is divine revelation. The gospel was revealed by Jesus to his apostles. Paul's going to continue answering that question in the passage we're looking at today, and he's focusing in on the question of how trustworthy he is, and he's going to argue that the Galatians can have utter confidence in the message he preached to them because he received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. We ended last week on verse 10. For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. So remember, the Judaizers have charged Paul with changing the gospel to make it more appealing to Gentiles. They say that Paul neglected to tell the Gentiles that they have to live like Jews because that would be an obstacle for them coming to faith. They would be less likely to believe Paul if they realized they had to keep kosher and be circumcised and live like Jews. Now Paul's going to tackle that claim head on. He says there are only two options, either I'm trying to please God or I'm trying to please men. I can't do both. If I teach the complete full gospel as Jesus revealed it to me, then I am seeking to please God. If I change that gospel to make it more palatable to men, then I am seeking to please men. So now he's going to defend himself by explaining why it's obvious he's pleasing God and not men. And this is the outline of our little section. In 11 through 12, he states his point that his gospel has a divine origin. Then he supports that claim with what happened before his conversion, that's 13 and 14, what happened at his conversion, that's verses 15 and 16, and then what happened after his conversion, that's 16 through 24. And we're going to walk through those point by point. So let's start with 11 and 12. For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached to 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. So that is the main point of this section. That's the point Paul is going to defend. And this is one of the foundations of the Christian faith. God revealed himself to his prophets and apostles. The truth which we believe came from God in a miraculous way. It came by revelation. It didn't come from any human source. We don't believe in a spiritual truth that proceeded from some oracle like those from Delphi in the first century. We have not heard these vague phrasings from horoscope readers who've searched the stars. We do not have information about what is true and wise because elderly priests or monks spent a lifetime searching the universe and then drew some helpful conclusions for us. Our gospel comes by revelation. That is, God revealed himself. God decided to explain himself, and he explained himself through Jesus Christ and the prophets. And now Jesus has revealed himself to Paul and his other apostles. So the truth which we believe comes by revelation from God. Therefore, it's trustworthy. We can count on it, we can judge ourselves by it, and we can stake our lives on it. So in 11 and 12, Paul also tells us what the gospel is not. It is not a message that is according to man. It is not the best attempts by the smartest humans to organize all the thinking that's possible about God into such a way that it is persuasive. It did not grow up among human beings. It is not according to human beings. We never would have thought of it, and we could never have discovered the mysteries of the gospel on our own. Paul says further, I neither received it nor was I taught it by other people. The truth, the gospel he was given, came from God. Paul had a dramatic encounter with the risen Jesus on the road to Damascus, and that changed everything for him. Paul did not acquire this truth as an apprentice. He didn't sit at some human rabbi's feet and learn his teachings. The source and heart of his message came as a revelation from Jesus Christ, which is why Paul can be so certain of it and why he can judge false gospels. And we can have the same confidence. The Lord has revealed himself to certain people, his prophets and apostles, and thus we have a pure and certain message. Now he's going to prove that claim by saying, Look at my life, look at my life before my conversion, look what happened at my conversion, and look what happened afterwards. So first he starts with before, let's look at 13 and 14. 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. Paul starts his argument by saying, Before my conversion, I had everything you Galatians are now attracted to. You want to be like Jews? You want to live like Jews? You think that to be a Christian you need to keep the Mosaic law, you need to look like Jews and act like Jews? Well, I am a Jew and I was particularly good at it. I was better than everyone else around me. In fact, I was outstripping my contemporaries in my pharisaic zeal to succeed. But look where that got me. I was a persecutor of the Church of God. I was extremely good at the things you want to do right now, but I was out of control, without bounds in my desire to persecute Christians. Well, that combination ought to have chilled his readers. They're being told that keeping the law will make them pleasing to God. And Paul's saying, look at my life before I met Jesus. I kept the law better than almost anyone alive. Did that make me pleasing to God? No, it made me a murderer. I was so zealous about the law and keeping it that I rounded up anyone who believed in Jesus so that they could be executed. So he's saying, Don't you see you can have all the advantages of law keeping on the outside, but still breathed fire and hate on the inside, not to mention being a killer on the outside. So before his conversion, he was such a zealous law-keeping Jew that he persecuted Christians, but then God changed all that. This is 15 and 16. 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. Now notice the pronoun shift. Paul has been talking about I persecuted, I advanced, I was zealous. Then he says, But God set me apart, God called me, God was pleased to reveal to me. And in 115, he echoes the language of the call of Jeremiah, he who had set me apart before I was born. I think that's to emphasize the idea Paul had nothing to do with it. God chose to make Paul an apostle before Paul was even born. God called him from his mother's womb before he had a chance to keep the law, before he had a chance to do anything good, before he had a chance to compete with anybody, impress everybody, learn anything, or pass any tests. Before he had a chance to even keep the law, God gave him this calling. Paul contributed nothing. Now he turns to his post-conversion experience, and he offers three, I'll call them alibis for lack of a better word. Three alibis to prove that no human being taught him the gospel. He didn't spend time with other apostles, he didn't spend time with other teachers, and therefore his gospel did not come from other people, it came by revelation from God. So his first alibi is in 16 and 17. He says, I went to Arabia. He says, 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. All right, let's walk through Paul's conversion story in Acts 9, so we know what Paul's referring to here in Galatians. And remember, Paul is still called Saul at this point. We looked at Acts 9, 1 through 9 in the introduction, and there we learned that while Paul was on his way to Damascus to arrest Christians, the risen Christ appeared to Paul. Paul was blinded by the encounter, and Jesus told him to continue on to Damascus and wait for further instruction. I'm going to pick up the story in 9 10. Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, Ananias, and he said, Here I am, Lord. And the Lord said to him, Rise and go to the street called straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold he is praying, and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay hands on him so that he might regain his sight. But Ananias answered, Lord, I have heard from many about this man how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem, and here he has the authority from the chief priest to bind all who call on your name. Bind means to arrest them or take them into custody. Going on, this is verse fifteen. But the Lord said to him, Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel, for I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. So Ananias departed and entered the house, and laying his hands on him, he said, Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me, so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. And immediately something like scales fell from his eye, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized, and taking food he was strengthened, for some days he was with the disciples at Damascus, and immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, He is the Son of God. Let me pause there for a minute. The Greek word immediately in nine twenty, and immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, that tends to throw us off. It does not mean immediately in the sense of the very next minute in time. It's more like how the British might say straight away, it has the idea of the next significant event. It's more of a logical marker than a temporal marker. The next logical event, the next thing of significance that happened is Paul began teaching the gospel. When we put Galatians and Acts together, we can see that there's a time gap between Acts 9.19 and Acts 9.20. In Galatians, Paul tells us what he did in the time gap. Luke doesn't mention Paul's years in Arabia as part of his story in Acts, but Paul tells us in Galatians 1.16 and 17, 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 to Arabia and returned again to Damascus. So after this visit from Ananias, Paul spent only a short time in Damascus, maybe telling a few people what happened to him, but he stayed there only briefly and then he went to Arabia. Now some scholars think that he went to Arabia as a missionary to preach the gospel there, but most scholars think he went there as a type of retreat, that he went there to learn and study the scriptures, because he has to rethink everything in light of the fact that God raised Jesus from the dead as proof that Jesus is the Messiah. In the next verse, Paul's going to tell us that he stayed there three years, and some scholars speculate that Paul's three years in Arabia were his time praying and learning the gospel from Jesus in the same way the apostles had three years with Jesus during his earthly ministry. Others think that he just studied the scriptures on his own and the Holy Spirit gave him understanding in the same way the Holy Spirit gives everyone understanding. Paul could describe either of those methods as a revelation of Jesus Christ, whether he learned of the gospel more supernaturally through an appearance or multiple appearances of the risen Lord, or whether he learned it less supernaturally through the work of the Spirit, Paul's point is he didn't learn the gospel from other people. After this steady time in Arabia, he returns to Damascus, and we pick up the story in Acts 20, and immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogue, saying, He is the Son of God, and all who heard him were amazed and said, Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon his this name? And has he not come here for this purpose to bring them bound before the chief priest? But Saul increased all the more in strength and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ. So Paul returns to Damascus after his study time, he confounds the Jews who live there until they've had enough. Going on with the story in Acts 9, 23 to 25. When many days had passed, the Jews plotted to kill him, but their plot became known to Saul. They were watching the gates day and night in order to kill him, but his disciples took him by night and let him down through an opening in the wall, lowering him in a basket. So this is the timeline we see. After Paul's conversion, he went to Arabia for three years, then he returned to Damascus and began to preach and teach. He caused so much trouble that his fellow believers had to lower him over the wall in the middle of the night in a basket to save his life. And it seems all he managed to do when he came back to teach was stir up trouble. It's interesting to note that Paul's been a believer about three years, and now he finally gets a chance to proclaim the gospel, and he seems to have accomplished nothing significant. All we really know is that he had to run for his life. We never hear him refer to this time in Damascus as ever having amounted to anything. There's no record of any churches he planted, any leaders he trained, nothing. The only thing Luke tells us is that people were amazed at the radical change in Paul, but Luke suggests his main accomplishment was annoying the Jews, not converting them. So in Acts, Luke tells us Paul went to Jerusalem, and in Galatians, Paul also talks about this trip to Jerusalem, and this is alibi number two. So after three years he went to Jerusalem, but only briefly, and while he was in Jerusalem, he saw only two apostles. This is Galatians 1, 18 through 20. Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Cephas, and Cephas is another name for Peter, 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. Now most scholars think that Paul is referring to the trip in Jerusalem that's recorded in Acts 9, 26 through thirty. Let me read that to you. And when Paul had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples, and they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple. But Barnabas took him and brought him to the apostles and declared to them how on the road he had seen the Lord who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus. So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord, and he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists, but they were seeking to kill him. And when the brothers learned of this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. So Paul records his first post-conversion visit to Jerusalem. It's three years later. His understanding of the gospel is fully formed at this point. He sees only Peter and James, the Lord's brother, and he stays only fifteen days, which is hardly enough time to be schooled by them or taught by them. But significantly, he meets Barnabas, who recognizes the hand of the Lord on Paul. It is Barnabas who introduces Paul to the other apostles, and it is Barnabas who later pulls Paul out of obscurity and brings him to Antioch in Syria. Barnabas is a wonderful character in the New Testament. I have another talk on Barnabas. If you follow his life through the Gospels in Acts, it's amazing what this man did. And he's one of the unsung heroes of the faith. But that's another story. I can put a link to that in the lecture notes. So Paul is in Jerusalem, but there is another plot on his life, and he has to flee, and he goes to his hometown of Tarsus. And this is what he speaks of next in Galatians. And this is his third alibi. He says, Then I went to Syria. So picking up in Galatians 1 21 through 24, 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. Tarsus is in the region of Cilicia, and it's Paul's hometown. Paul says he went into the regions of Syria, so he may have revisited Damascus on his way to Tarsus. He spends several years in Tarsus before Barnabas comes to get him and asks him to join him in Antioch and Syria. So if we put the timeline together, Paul has about 12 years from his conversion on the road to Damascus to the time he really fully begins his ministry in Antioch. Then he's in Antioch about two more years before he goes on his first missionary journey. But his point here is that he was far away from Jerusalem and the other apostles. He spent only 15 days with Peter and James, and he could not have learned the gospel at their feet because that wasn't enough time. He had only that brief contact with the other apostles, and he was almost totally isolated from them. And all of that is to make the point that he received his gospel firsthand as a revelation from the risen Lord. He didn't invent it himself. He didn't even learn it from the other apostles. He learned it from the scriptures and from Jesus Christ. So he is offering his lack of contact with the other apostles as proof of the divine origin of his message. Paul's going to continue his defense in chapter two, and we're going to look at that in the next podcast. I want to stop here and look at Paul's life. To this point. Paul's been a believer about twelve years now, and he has nothing to show for it except study. He spent most of those years in obscurity. But I can't imagine that he was silent or spent all his time on his profession of tent making or something. I expect he spent a great deal of time pouring over the scriptures and rethinking everything he had thought was true because now he has the answer key. Now he can restudy the scriptures with the certain knowledge that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah and that God proved that by raising Jesus from the dead. With that knowledge, he can go back and study the scriptures and see the plans of God. Now I'm certain the Holy Spirit gave him both revelation and understanding. And I like to think that the risen Jesus also appeared to him and taught him in person, but I have no way of really knowing if that's true. I imagine he spoke to as many individuals as he came in contact with. Well, what does that teach us? Lack of visible results does not mean you have the wrong message or you're on the wrong path. We're going to see in 2-2 that Paul wonders if he has run his race in vain because the Galatians are turning away from the gospel. He wonders, I finally get to preach and teach, go on this missionary journey, and was it all worthless? Was it all pointless? Did it did it amount to anything? And that's an important question when you think of the stature with which we now regard Paul. It's kind of incredible to think that maybe twelve or fourteen years perhaps when he's writing this letter, 14 years after his conversion, Paul could be wondering if his contribution to the cause of Christ was going to be meaningless or empty. Clearly, he's not beginning to wonder if the gospel was true. That's impossible given what he just said about cursing anyone who teaches something different. I also don't think he was questioning his calling to preach either. From the beginning, he had been commissioned by the risen Lord. That was confirmed by Ananias, and also verified by the others who heard the voice on the road to Damascus. So the reason he feared he was running in vain can't have been he doubted his calling. What I think he was wondering about is whether God would allow him to make a mark in his own generation. He's asking, is the Lord going to give me the honor of establishing anything that will last? The question occurs to him, am I just called to be a voice shouting in the wind? Has the Lord called me to preach what I know to be true, and yet I will see no lasting response to my message? Is that my assignment from God? I think that's what he's wondering. After all, Jesus had that kind of ministry. When Jesus went to the cross, he didn't have a large following. He hadn't founded hundreds of churches, he hadn't written any books or founded any schools. He had a motley band of eleven followers, all of whom scattered like sheep when he was arrested. But Jesus understood that was his lot. He understood that the real explosion of faith was going to come through the work of the apostles after Pentecost when God graciously poured out his spirit in a new way. And Jesus wasn't the only prophet who faced a lack of response. Look at the prophet Jeremiah. He was called by God to tell the truth to Israel, to declare the sins of its people, to warn of the dire future that was coming, and no one ever listened to him or heeded his message. Jeremiah wasn't given the honor of establishing anything that would last in his own generation. And I think Paul is wondering the same thing. After 14 years of serious study, after a clear announcement of the truth, a clear calling to preach the gospel, am I going to do anything that will last? And at this point, when he writes this letter, Paul has little to show for his ministry. When he preaches, he just seems to stir up controversy and everyone tries to kill him. And now he's finally planted some churches on his first missionary journey, and what's happening, they're turning away to a false gospel. The irony is at this point in Paul's life, he has very little to indicate that he's going to be a success at all. And yet, here we are, 2,000 plus years later, studying his letter. Paul's letters have influenced thousands of Christians over generations. And yet Paul didn't know that, and he couldn't know that. From his vantage point, at this point in his life, he says, I don't see any results. Am I running this race in vain? Paul knows he's on the right path. He knows he's running the right race because of his calling. He knows he's going to suffer for that calling. But Jesus didn't tell Paul he was going to succeed in the way we think of success. And I think that's something we can all take to heart. Lack of numbers, lack of outward success in the way the world measures success is not an indication that you are running your race in vain. We like to measure success in terms of numbers, applause, financial gain, the praise of our peers, and yet God measures success in terms of have you faithfully done what I asked you to do. You may not see the results you'd like in your prodigal children's lives. You may not see great change in your workplace. You may not see thousands flocking to your church or your Bible study, but God isn't finished yet. His plan may be that you reach one person, or his plan might be that you reach thousands. As Paul says in Ephesians 4, our job is to faithfully use our gifts and service of the Lord and let God worry about the results. And if you're listening to this message, then your journey isn't over yet. God's plan for you is not finished until Jesus returns or God calls you home. You may have many times where you wonder, is it all in vain? You may have many times where you look at faithful service and think this accomplishes nothing but trouble. And so did Paul. And we, like Paul, need to keep running the race and trust God for the results. You've been listening to the Wednesday in the Word podcast. My mission is to explain not only what a passage means, but show you how we figure it out. If you've been blessed by what you heard, please rate and review this podcast wherever you listen. All previous episodes in this series are available on my website, WednesdayInTheWord.com. You can also find many other series there. Our theme music is graciously provided by Reggie Coates. His music is available on heartfeltmusic.org. Thank you for joining me today. I'm Krissan Morata, and I hope I'll see you next week at Wednesday in the Word. In the meantime, please try to visit my website, Wednesdayandheword.com, and take advantage of some of my free Bible study materials.