Galatians #3 - "The Rest Of The Story" - Galatians 1:11-24

 


Paul Harvey, an Army veteran of WWII and ABC radio commentary, would start off his program with "Hello Americans" and would end with "Good Day."  His most popular version of his radio program was the Saturday edition titled "The Rest Of The Story."  You received the front half of the story and then after the commercial break you would receive the back half of the story.  I relate this to our passage as Paul is giving us the rest of the story around his conversion to Christianity to help the Christians of the Galatia churches to see and understand the simple and genuine gospel presented to them.

Paul is making the gospel the focal point of every section.  In the first section it is the explanation of what the gospel is and in a way, what the gospel is not.  In the next section he stresses the importance of holding to the gospel as presented to them.  In this section, Paul will relate the gospel to his very life and also share with his readers the rest of the story on what happened after his conversion on the road to Damascus.  All of this is to help the Christians of Galatia to have confidence in what they have heard and not something that is trying to be added to the message of all sufficiency in Christ alone, Paul's soap box.  He will carry this explanation through chapter 2.

Paul tells us where he was; who he met; who he didn't met; and also the impact of what happened to him on those who just heard the story.  He is giving a detailed account of his movements and human interactions.  Paul is defending himself and later he defends the truth of the gospel shared with them and he is probably wishing he didn't have to spend ink and parchment on this content.  I know it is all God's words and inspired by Him through the Holy Spirit so therefore it has a supreme purpose for them and us to read these accounts.

In the midst of clarifying himself as an apostle with a message given by Jesus and also verifying the true message of the gospel, nothing more and nothing less than Jesus, Paul shares again his experience and reflection of this good news on his life in verses 15 & 16.  I say reflection because I think our understanding of our rebirth or conversion to being a Christ follower changes over time.  At first, it is focused much on me and my sins and my salvation.  Later, after much time with the Lord and His words, we switch our focus to Him and His sacrifice and His salvation to us.  

Paul connects that God not only had a huge part in his physical birth but also his spiritual birth.  His physical birth is tied to his spiritual birth for the glory of God. (v.15).  Paul also ascribes the grace of God in which he was called to was revealed by God to him by opening his eyes to see God's Son, Jesus Christ.  This salvation had a purpose from the very beginning to proclaim Him to the Gentiles (v.16).  God had a plan before Paul had a plan.  When God's plan was revealed to Paul through rebirth and salvation, Paul answered the call with repentance and obedience.  Now Paul is fulfilling God's plan rather than his previous plan of persecuting those who followed Jesus Christ.

I think this is also true of us who have answered the call of Christ on our lives.  At first we see it through our eyes but later we start to see it through the eyes of God and His word.  We realize He had a plan for our lives all along.  His plan always involves us answering the call to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and to follow Jesus.  It is through Jesus that we now see His plan to employ His followers to be proclaimers of Him.  My salvation becomes His salvation provided for me.  My benefit of forgiveness of sins and escape of God's wrath and receiving eternal life becomes a mission to spread the good news to others (Gentiles).  My eyes go from what I am receiving from God to what and why He did all this for me.  

This is why the gospel is needed to be heard by the unsaved and the saved.  The unsaved need to hear the gospel to respond appropriately when called.  The saved need to hear the gospel to respond appropriately to fulfill God's plan for our lives, to be proclaimers of Him.  

Adam



A simple man serving a great God and the local pastor of Stillwater Community Chapel (stillwater-chapel.org). We are in our 38th year of full time ministry. God directed us to this local body of believers on the Western Range of the Rockies to grow with them in mission and mindedness of Christ.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Galatians #15 - Galatians 6:11-18 - "On The Road Again..."

Image
  Another week closer and it involves some more travel for the Wolfgangs.  I feel like the Willy Nelson song, " On the road again... "  I don't know if I agree with the next line though. " ...I can't wait to get on the road again. " One of the members of the church in Wisconsin calculated that I will travel well over 10,000 miles to make this transition.  Traveling mercies prayers please. Last Sunday we will look at Paul's final words to the churches in Galatia.  He brought them the gospel (good news) message of Jesus and what resulted were churches forming throughout the region.  The letter is to defend that message that our salvation comes from and is in Christ alone.  Christ's sacrifice on the cross was sufficient for the forgiveness of our sins.  The summary statement of the letter is found in  Galatians 6:15 (LSB) .  " For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation. "  Translated another way earlie...
Read more

God gave us a good weather window to travel...yeah God!!!

Image
  Berthoud Pass Here we are at the top of Berthoud Pass.  It was a whirlwind week to conduct a " hand off " service in Wisconsin on 3/17 and then preach a Palm Sunday sermon in Colorado on 3/24.  We give God all the glory for this happening.  So there are two video links at the bottom of this blog.  One is for the Wisconsin service and the other is for the Colorado service.  I racked up over 12,000 in the last 7 weeks.   I love to take these pictures sitting from the front row of chairs and listening to the one God has provided for the church I had been serving for 20 months.  I now have 3 and I am so thankful for the opportunity God gave us to serve Him in this type of ministry over the last 5 years.  It has been great to add to our daily prayer list Zach in Maine, Chris in Ohio and now Stephen in Wisconsin. This was our set up for the 2000+ mile trip.  No " hiccups " except for the strong eastern winds in Kansas.  Of course e...
Read more

Resurrection Sunday in a new space...Matthew 27.62-28.20

Image
  Resurrection Sunday has come and gone but it was a sweet day to be with the gathered saints of the Stillwater Community Chapel .  We are venturing through the Gospel of Matthew and this Sunday will take us back to Matthew 1.1 but last Sunday we were in Matthew 27.62-28.20.  It was a lot to cover so the white board was truly a help to keep me on track.  This year in my Resurrection Sunday message, I focused on the contrast of the cover-up story of the disciples stealing the body of Jesus fueled by a bride and the commission of speaking of a risen Lord fueled by boldness . After the service upstairs, we ventured downstairs to the lower level and had a great meal together.  The conversations around the tables allowed us to continue to talk about the passage of Scripture we covered upstairs.  Maybe this is a very informal picture of what happens at the  Waushara Community Church called the " Going Deeper " classes of the Come For More hour following t...
Read more