What would your life have been up to this point if you had never become a Christian? Pastor Ray and I have talked about that question numerous times as we reflect on how Christ has changed us. What would our marriages look like? Our vocations? Our children? Our attitudes and perspectives? Who would we be right now and what would our lives be like right now had Christ never been in our lives?
Testimonies are a powerful encouragement to the Church. Hearing the way some other Christian came into the faith and how Jesus changed them is powerful. And its not powerful only in those gutter to glory stories – its powerful in those quiet grew-up in a Christian home stories too. They’re powerful because in all testimonies its Christ who is the center of the story.
This was true for Paul. In verses 13-24 he describes the road he was on and then how Christ put him on a completely different road. READ
The title of our sermon today is “Christ In Me.” It comes from verse 16 where Paul says that God “was pleased to reveal His Son in me…” He is not who he used to be anymore because Christ is now in him. This is the transforming power of his life – Christ in him. “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live but Christ lives in me” he will go on to say in 2:20.
Paul’s concern is grounding the Galatian Christians in the Gospel he taught them. This effort had him condemning those false teachers that destabilized them (8-9) and then to assert to them that the Gospel he gave them was what Jesus personally and directly revealed to him (11-12). He now moves into his biography and the reason makes sense: his own life was transformed by the gospel he now preaches. The validity of the Gospel is seen in its divine power to transform a person’s whole life. Furthermore, as we’ll see, Paul’s intention is also to establish his apostolic authority in the minds of the Galatians so that they would know he is the man they need to listen to – and not those false teachers they were hearing from.
THE PREVIOUS LIFE (13-14)
Christians are not only people who are IN Christ. They are the people whom Christ is in. If Christ is in me, then I have a “previous life.” Look at verses 13-14 with me. Verse 13 describes his aggression to Christianity, and verse 14 describes his advancement in Judaism. In verse 13 he was aggressive – he intensely tried to destroy the church of God. He did everything he could to exterminate Christianity. Acts 9 says he was “breathing out murderous threats” against Christians. He stood giving authority to the stoning of Stephen. He never grew tired and he never took vacations from his one commitment of crushing this new movement of Christ-followers.
In verse 14 he alludes to his advancement in Judaism. He was unmatched as a young Pharisee. He was the Rookie of the Year, the MVP, and the older Pharisees saw him as the future of the Pharisees whom they could go to their deaths confident their party would be in good hands.
Here’s the thing: His religious prowess and his hatred of Christ was all in his past. As he said in Philippians 3, “Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of gaining Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things.”
APPLICATION: Is your past truly your past? Is your previous way of life actually “previous?” In other words, is the sin you were saved from in your previous life, like Paul’s was? Or do you keep it with you still? Are the worldly and fleshly ambitions you had before you had Christ in your life still ruling you, or is your life now ruled by Christ and living for Him? If Christ is in you then you have a past.
APPLICATION: Do NOT stop praying for that person in your life to get saved. No one is out of God’s reach. Paul would have been the last person anyone thought would get saved. He wasn’t soul-searching, he wasn’t curious about Christ, he wasn’t open to new teaching, he wasn’t uncertain about his own religion and beliefs, he wasn’t asking questions. He knew who he was, what he stood for, and was so consumed by his religion that the perceived threat of Christianity stirred up a fiery hatred that made him unable to sleep until he destroyed it. We talk about people being so close to getting saved. But, sometimes the closest people are the furthest away, and those who are the furthest are closer. So what I’m saying is do NOT stop praying for that person to get saved that your heart is so burdened for.
CHRIST REVEALED IN ME (15-16)
The next point is “Christ revealed in me.” Notice verses 15-16….
He would say it again in that famous verse that so many of us find worth memorizing: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” Colossians 1:27 says God has chosen to reveal the glorious riches of a mystery, which is “Christ in you, the hope of glory.” Jesus prayed in John 17:26, “I will continue, Father, to make you known to them so that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”
To be a Christian is to have Christ in you. His word, His Spirit, His life, and in some way, He himself.
What’s interesting to note is verse 12 and verse 16. In verse 12 Paul said that Christ was revealed TO him. In verse 16 Paul says Christ is revealed IN him. Christ was revealed to him so that from then on Christ would be revealed to others through him. His transformed life would display Christ and his preaching would reveal Christ.
APPLICATION: If we have “seen” Christ, then Christ will be seen in us!
Lets notice two quick points from verse 15
First, Paul was set apart. He was set apart by God as far back as when he was in his mother’s womb. The word set apart means to separate, or to mark off with boundaries, or to be assigned to a certain purpose. All this was true in this sense: Paul was set apart from all other humans to be part of that small group known as Apostles, he was marked off from living a normal life, not even a normal Christian life, because he was assigned by God to the task of preaching the Gospel to the Gentile nations.
We are not set apart to be apostles in the same way. But we are told that in how we live our lives we are to set ourselves apart. God says for us to “Come out from them and be separate” (2 Corinthians 6:17). There he is speaking of us not being mixed up with idols and darkness and evil and sin. We are to leave it all and be set apart from it. The same word is used to describe Peter in Galatians 2. This is the moment when Peter was hanging out with Gentile believers but when Jewish believers showed up he “separated” from them. He set himself apart from them, and acted like he had nothing to do with them. That’s how we’re supposed to be with sin – have nothing to do with it.
APPLICATION: Set yourself apart from sin by setting yourself apart TO Christ.
Notice secondly that Paul was called (15) Paul was called by God. He was set apart in his mother’s womb, but the call for him to step into that life God had for him did not begin until the call came. It happened on the road to Damascus in Acts 9, when Jesus personally appeared to him and said, “Saul, Saul. Why do you persecute me?” In that moment the call of God came to Paul and his life was never the same.
While Paul is speaking of his call not only to salvation but also to his apostleship, we all are also called by Christ. Not to apostleship, but to salvation. In verse 6 he rebukes them, but look at what he says specifically: “I am astonished that you are so quickly turning away from the one who CALLED you to live in the grace of Christ…” We are called by God the Father to a new life that is lived in the grace of Christ. In 5:8, speaking of following the law, Paul says, “that kind of persuasion does not come from the one who called you.” Jesus called us to live in his grace, not in the law.
APPLICATION: Let each of us live out our calling. Our calling is to grace and holiness.
MAKE THEM PRAISE GOD (15-24)
The final point today is “Make them praise God.” We Christians should make each other praise God. I want quickly note the arc of Paul’s early history and land on this sermon point of making people praise God as we see in verse 24. Paul is launching into his testimony, as he did numerous times in his writings (Acts 22, 23, 26; 2 Corinthians 11 & 12). Here in Galatians is probably the most detailed account he gives of the arc of his ministry. He says he was the most religious man of his day, and driven by his Judaistic zeal he persecuted Christians. Then he says God had planned from the time he was in his mother’s womb to call him and commission him to preach the Gospel – similar to John the Baptist. This all happened in Acts 9 when he was on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians.
Now, combining Galatians 1 with the book of Acts, we can put Paul’s journey together like this: he began to preach Jesus in Damascus alongside the Christians he originally went there to arrest. A plot to kill him forced him to leave, and he went into Arabia for a time. We don’t know how long he was in Arabia, but afterwards he returned to Damascus. Then, after three years of being in Damascus he went to Jerusalem and had a private introduction with some apostles . Then, because of another plot to kill him he left Jerusalem and ended up back in his home town of Tarsus, in Cilicia. And that is where Paul is at the end of Galatians chapter 1. We’ll find out later that while he was there, Barnabas would fetch him and bring him back to Antioch to help preach to the church that was exploding in growth there (Acts 11). But notice specifically what Paul says in verses 23-24, …..
The churches went from praying for protection FROM Paul to praising God FOR Paul!
APPLICATION: Be the reason God is praised. Be the reason others around you praise God. Start at home. Husbands – would your wives praise God because of you? Would your kids praise God because of you? Do your brothers and sisters praise God because of you? Or do we make everyone have to practice Colossians 3:13 when it says “bear with one another…?” Don’t be the reason everyone else has to patiently bear with you, but instead be the reason people praise God. How can you do that?
- Give practical help (meals, shoveling, raking, driving to appointments)
- Kindness – cards and letters, visits, befriending, meeting for coffee, or breakfast or lunch or other activities
- Build your stamina for listening. Take time to ask people about their lives and listen to people rather than talk
- Don’t tell people you’ll pray for them – pray with them right there
- When you go through trials, stand firm in your faith and don’t change your convictions to please people. Nothing is so impressive and emboldening than a man who stands under fire.
- How else can we make God be praised?
CONCLUSION
Silent reflection:
- Do others praise God because of you?
- Is your previous life previous?
- How has His grace and the life-changing power of the gospel transformed you? If you name his name, do you live his ways?
- If you have not yet believed in Christ then you are being called today to do so. Make today the day you begin in the grace of God.