Facts of Salvation

Transcript

GR 2082
4/23/2017
Facts of Salvation
Galatians 1:15-17
Gil Rugh

We are in the book of Galatians together. Turn in your Bibles to Paul’s letter to the Galatians. As you are aware this is a very intense letter of the Apostle Paul, a reminder that as we join together by God’s grace in ministry it is a battle, it is a warfare. Paul would write to the Ephesians “You must put on the full armor of God.” We have a relentless enemy, the devil and those who follow his leading. Paul experienced that everywhere he went with the truth because in these days where God is presenting His grace in salvation, everywhere that we take the truth the devil is there with his servants to oppose the truth.

So the Apostle Paul is writing with a burden for the churches that he established in the region of Galatia. They are being infiltrated with false teachers, those we call Judaizers who seem to travel around to follow Paul wherever he went, follow up often after he left to criticize and undermine the people’s confidence in him and in the message that he proclaimed.

And the devil is a master. He adjusts according to the situation. Sometimes the opposition is overt like with the physical persecution, the arrests, imprisonments and so on that Paul and others endured. Sometimes it is more subtle with those who are disguised as messengers of truth but they are really corrupting and undermining the truth of God.

So it is a relentless work and we can appreciate and must appreciate how blessed we are to have the Word of God in our possessions because think of what Paul is dealing with. He was being revealed truth as he travelled, as he wrote. He would travel to a region like Galatia and preach the truth and people were saved but he moved on. Those people weren’t left with a concrete copy of the Word. So now false teachers come in and they attack the credibility of Paul. They say “The message he preached was an incomplete message. We too believe in Jesus Christ.” But these Judaizers say, “But that’s not all there is to the message.” The Apostle Paul and it is either an attack on his character or it is an attack on his message but it comes down to the same thing – the Gospel that he preached is not a complete Gospel.

And as we have noted when we went back to Acts 15 their basic argument presented in Jerusalem at the council there but then spreading out was “they must also keep the law of Moses” and they could make a convincing argument and you could see some of the confusion although Paul says, “There is no excuse for it.” But you know when we hear it we come to the Word of God and look and say “That is not what it says.” But they weren’t blessed to have the completed Scriptures yet and they didn’t have more immediate communication. They couldn’t shoot off an e-mail to Paul to ask about this particular point. So Paul is in another part of the world ministering and these false teachers are here and convincingly presenting their position and the gospel that they proclaim which is really not the Gospel and by the time word gets to Paul and Paul can write back to them time has gone by and the influence has grown and begun to get ahold so Paul is intensely concerned for them and he is going to write about himself because at this time what you have is Paul and do we leave Paul or do we leave these teachers? And who is telling us the truth? Who has the truth from God?

So that is the kind of context we are dealing with in this letter to the Galatians and so it is important for Paul to defend himself as a true messenger of Jesus Christ, to make clear that the message that he has, came to him as a revelation, that he has a direct revelation in verses 11 and 12 of chapter 1 of Galatians: “I would have you know brethren that the Gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. I didn’t receive it from man. I wasn’t taught it by others. It was a direct revelation from Christ.” That’s where I got the message.

So that debate here. Well Paul really got it from others but what he got from others had been corrupted. No, this is a direct revelation from Christ. That is the apostle’s claim and tied to his position as an apostle. And for those who would say “Well he might have been influenced before his conversion.” In verses 12 and 13 when he said, “I received it through a revelation. you have heard of my former manner of life” in verse 13. “I was involved in Judaism. I was a fanatic when it came to the defense of Judaism and opposition to the message of Christ.” In I Timothy chapter 1, verse 13, we won’t turn there but Paul said that “before his conversion he described himself as a blasphemer, a persecutor a violent aggressor.” He wants the people to see the dramatic change that came about when Christ took hold of him.

In verse 14 he said “I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries, among my countrymen, being extremely zealous for my ancestral traditions.” In Acts 26:5 he gave his testimony there and he says that “I lived as a Pharisee according to the strictest sect of our religion.” Paul wanted them to understand, he claimed to have a better understanding of Judaism, a clearer view of it have nothing on him and he was more zealous than even they are in the days before his conversion.

So my pre-conversion days didn’t have any sympathy for the Gospel. It wasn’t a matter even while I was in Judaism I began to get influenced by things so the confusion now comes out in what I am teaching. I didn’t learn about Jesus Christ and the truths concerning Him in those days.

So when you come to verse 15-17 Paul wants to after having laid that kind of background set forth the dramatic, awesome transformation that God brought about in his life when he was confronted by the resurrected Christ. In that context his immediate reaction wasn’t to go and seek out input even from others like apostles, like Peter and the leaders in Jerusalem. This was a unique work that God did in the life of Paul to prepare him for the unique ministry that he would have.

So there is a contrast in these verses. In verses 13 and 14 Paul talked about what he was doing and the focus of his life before his conversion. Verse 13: “You heard of my former manner of life, how I used to persecute the church. I tried to destroy it. I was advancing in Judaism. I was exceeding and going beyond. I was outshining my contemporaries but (verse 15) now let’s talk about what God did in my life that brought about a revolutionary change.” “But when God who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me but I went away to Arabia and returned once more to Damascus.” One of Paul’s, not one of his longest sentences but one of those sentences that these three verses comprise that one sentence.

There is no other explanation for such a dramatic, if you will, overnight change as we would talk about it in the Apostle Paul’s life but the intervention of God Himself.

So verse 15: “But when God was pleased.” And that is the foundation of what Paul is saying when God and then it is the God who was at the end of verse 15, “Was pleased to reveal His Son to me.” That is the connection. It was God’s good pleasure that brought about this change, His kindness, His intervention.

You are in Galatians. Just turn over a few pages to Ephesians, just after Galatians. This word translated at the end of verse 15 in Galatians 1 “was pleased,” the noun. The same basic word in the noun form is used in Ephesians chapter 1. Note what he says in verse 5: “He predestined us to adoption as sons through Christ Jesus to Himself according to the kind intention.” That is the same basic word translated, “was pleased.” Of course you have in the margin “according to His good pleasure.” Down in verse 9 of Ephesians 1, “He made known to us the mystery of His will according to His kind intention,” His good pleasure, according to what pleased Him.

You find out in verse 11, “We have obtained an inheritance having been predestined according to His purpose who works all things after the counsel of His will.” Paul says there is no explanation. There is no understanding this. But what God was pleased in the counsel of His own will, the only counsel that is Himself. Decisions came out of what God determined. It wasn’t about some changes thinking I was having. God was pleased to intervene in my life in a dramatic and special way.

You are in Ephesians. Keep going to Philippians, just after Ephesians, chapter 2. Look at verse 12. What is true of Paul as we just saw in Ephesians 1 is true of every one of us. Not that the circumstances surrounding it were exactly the same but the spiritual explanation is the same. So he says in verse 12 of Philippians chapter 2: “So then, my beloved just as you have always obeyed not as in my presence only but now much more in my absence. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work (and here we go) for His good pleasure.” It is the sovereign work of God that explains the dramatic change that came about in Paul. As he writes to the Ephesians and to the Philippians there is no other explanation for any of our conversions.

Now Paul is bringing about some of the unique aspects. As we see as we move along, he wants them to understand this is how God works. This is the explanation for our salvation and the transformation God brings about in a life.

Come back to Galatians 1. “For when God was pleased” and then how he further develops this “When God who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb.” Paul wants to say “This purpose and plan of God precedes my physical life.” I talked about what it was like in Judaism but you understand the sovereign God had acted on my behalf and set forth His purpose for me even from the time when I was in my mother’s womb.” You see the sovereignty of God carrying this back prior to his birth. “When I was in my mother’s womb,” before Paul could have made decisions or he could have made evaluations, God had set him apart.

Come back to a couple of passages in the Old Testament, Isaiah 49. The principle established in each of these is the same as we are talking about. Isaiah chapter 49, verse 1: “Listen to me, O islands and pay attention you peoples from afar. The Lord called me from the womb, from the body of my mother, He named me.” You see the sovereign purposes of God that go back to before birth.

After Isaiah come to Jeremiah chapter 1, verse 4: “Now the Word of the Lord came to me saying, (addressing Jeremiah) ‘Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born I consecrated you. I have appointed you a prophet to the nations.’” And Jeremiah doesn’t agree. He wants to talk about his present condition. You know I don’t know how to speak. I am too young. God says “Don’t tell Me what you are. Don’t tell Me you are just a youth. Don’t tell Me you can’t speak because everywhere I send you, you shall go and all that I command to you, you shall speak.” Now when did this take place? When did this plan of God you know, thought this out? Why didn’t He have Jeremiah as a child prodigy who was giving speeches at ten years of age and showed he was precocious? He had a knowledge and a breadth. Here Jeremiah is a young man and is saying, “You know, I am not a good speaker and I am too young.” God says, “You know, before I formed you in the womb I knew you.”

Now you are aware that word ‘to know’ in the Old Testament carries connotations, not just having information about. There was an intimacy and a closeness. You know it means, “I choose you.” We think of Amos, chapter 3. God said of Israel, “You only have I known out of all the nations and families on the earth.” Well he is the only one He chose. He knows all the nations but in the sense of the word being used you are the only nation that I know, that I placed My favor on. That I have appointed for certain purpose.

So what He says about Jeremiah now Paul says is true of him. He was “set apart from his mother’s womb” as you come back to Galatians you could stop just at Romans chapter 1, Paul’s letter to the Romans and chapter 1. Just pick up the expression. It starts out in verse 1 of Romans 1: “Paul, a bond servant of Christ Jesus called as an apostle, set apart for the Gospel of God;” the God who had set me apart from my mother’s womb. Paul understood and believed that. Through all that went on, the hand of God was directing.

Look at that. There is Saul standing, giving agreement to the stoning to death of Stephen, the servant of God, imprisoning men and women alike. Bent on destroying the church but God had sovereignly set him apart before his birth that he would be an instrument that He would use to bring the Gospel in a special way to the Gentile world. “Set apart from his mother’s womb.”

Come back to Galatians 1. It is important to note here. It is not only our salvation that God has settled and determined before our birth. It is also our service for Him. He doesn’t just save us so we can sit back, prop up our feet and wait till it is time to enter all the glory He has prepared. He saves us to be His servants or His slaves as Paul has referred to himself in Galatians chapter 1, verse 10, the end of the verse: “If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a bond servant (a slave) of Christ.” As we have in Ephesians chapter 2, verses 9 and 10, we are “saved by His grace through faith to do the works that God has appointed for us beforehand.” It is God’s plan so it includes not only our salvation but His plan for us to serve Him.

So what did he do in Galatians chapter 1, verse 15: “When God who had set me apart even from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace.” That is the work of God. “For by grace you have been saved through faith.” It was God who called him. He called me through His grace.

You are aware in the Epistles that God’s call is what we call “the effectual call,” because it is always effective and it is a call that includes the drawing of those that he was calling to the salvation in Christ and that happens in a variety of ways in the physical realm. By that I mean for Paul it was just a dramatic 180 degree turn around on the Damascus Road by the direct intervention of Christ. For us none of us have experienced it quite that way but it always is to the same point. We are brought to the realization that we are sinners and Christ is indeed the Savior and we place our trust in Him.

For some more often than not it is a process but for some it is a striking contrast that they were brought in contact with the Gospel, perhaps through someone who stopped and shared the Gospel with them. “I never heard that. I never thought of that” and they are saved. Some of these would have experienced something like that coming out of paganism but it always is to the same point. We must be brought into a confrontation with Jesus Christ that makes us aware of our condition and that He is the Savior.

So when “God who had set me apart and called me through His grace.” That is the key. It is of grace. There is no other explanation. Remember it is of grace. It is not of works.

Come back to Romans. I could have told you to stay there but Romans is easy to get to. Romans chapter 8 and you will note verse 28: “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are (here we are) called according to His purpose.” God called Paul through His grace. Those who love God and are loved by God are the ones He has called according to His purpose. Why did God save you? Why did He save me? Well, I guess He saw me searching for Him, longing for Him. You know it was God calling, drawing as we would say, us to Himself. Why did I have that interest and desire stirred my heart and mind? Someone else didn’t. Well I guess I wasn’t as bad as them. No, it is God’s grace.

Those who were called according to His purpose. It is always tied back, His good pleasure, His purpose. There is no other further explanation. It is not in us. It is in Him. That’s way Paul told Titus, “Remember, remind them” because sometimes after we have been believers for a while we begin to look at the lost and see them as so terrible, so awful, no vile and our own form of spiritual arrogance sets in that we were never like that. Paul tells Titus, “You remind them that we were just like them in our heart, in our true spiritual condition. We were no better but God, for His reasons known only in the counsel of His will for His good purpose, for His good pleasure, He called us.”

So “All things work together for good to those who love God.” And why do we love God? Because He called us “according to His purpose.” “For those whom He foreknew,” and there is our word, that means more than just He knew ahead of time what we would do as we have studied this on other occasions. It was His sovereign, foreordained choice. “He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son so that we would be the first born among many brethren. Those whom He predestined He also called.” That brings us into time but you see behind that call that drew us because when the call went out to us it had within it that drawing that we could not resist. It may have seemed like it started in my heart and in my thinking but it was that God had called. It is like that irresistible drawing that I was drawn to it but it was God’s work according to what He had determined beforehand that that would happen. Why did it go through this? Why did Stephen have to be stoned to death with Paul there encouraging them? Why did so many people have to suffer? Some had to die because Paul was a crusade to destroy the church. That is the way God choose to work. Believers lost a loved one like Stephen and then Paul gets saved and becomes an apostle. Couldn’t God have saved him without even dying?

You know what you see is that what God is doing is in the counsel of His own will, like we talked about in our earlier study. He is God and we are not. Some of those things we leave with Him. I can’t tell you that I have an answer to everything in that sense. I know He is “causing all things to work together for good for those who love Him.” And His perfect, beautiful plan for Stephen was to die that terrible death of stoning but when everything was said and done the Apostle Paul and Stephen will be hugging in heaven and well, God’s plan was perfect.

So here we have it. We were predestined to become conformed in Romans 8:29 so that ”Christ would be the firstborn among many brethren and those predestined He called, those He called He justified. Those He justified he glorified.” “What can we say to these things, If God is for us who can be against us?” Look what He’s done. Why do we gather together this evening as the redeemed, chosen and called by God? And don’t you love it when He sets in motion what He has determined will happen? It is finished.

So the end of verse 30: “He also glorified us.” Using the same aorist tense that is used for past tense things just like He called us, He justified us, He glorified us. Wait a minute. That hasn’t happened yet. It’s sorta like we talk about in the Old Testament, the prophetic past. Often God gave His prophesies of future in the past tense because it is as good as done when God says it will happen. And so Paul is sharing his testimony.

You are in Romans 8, come over to Romans 9 and here you have the choice made between Jacob and Esau showing God’s sovereign actions. Verse 11 of Romans 9: “For though the twins were not yet born and had not done anything good or bad so that God’s purpose according to election (His choice) would stand. Not because of works but because of Him who calls. It was said the older will serve the younger. Jacob I have loved. Esau I have hated.” You see it is God’s sovereignty so that you would understand that He is sovereign in choosing. And we say, “Well that’s not fair,” exactly. What shall we say then, verse 14. “There is no injustice with God is there?” That can’t be the answer. “May it never be! Megenoito. King James translated it, “God forbid.” The word God is not used there but it means such a thought is inconceivable. That cannot be a possibility. He says, “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” It is God’s sovereign choice among sinful human beings to sovereignly select some for salvation. That goes against our idea of our own independence. It doesn’t change Paul’s passion for carrying the Gospel to the lost but it doesn’t blur his understanding that only the sovereign gracious intervention in a life will bring about the salvation. Why did he work so hard to bring the Gospel because he was a slave of Christ doing what he was told to do with a desire to be pleasing to God, but he knew, “I endure all things for the sake of the elect,” those that he has chosen that they may come to the salvation which is in Christ. He sees that it is a matter of God’s grace from the very beginning and foundation to the ultimate culmination.

Come back to Galatians chapter 1. What was God pleased to do? “He set me apart from my mother’s womb, He called me through His grace, He was pleased to reveal His Son in me.” It was that revelation that came that opened Paul’s spiritual eyes and all of a sudden he understood what he didn’t understand before. He saw what he didn’t see before in the blindness that was part of the work of Satan who ” blinds the minds of the unbelievers lest the light of the glory of the Gospel of Jesus Christ would shine in.” But now the light comes on and He revealed His Son and every one of us could testify of our salvation. There came a time when I realized, it became clear to me. We express it in different ways. Paul says what really was happening is God revealed to us what had been hidden before, blinded by our own sin, by the work of the devil but now God was pleased to make clear to us, make known to us what it seemed we couldn’t see before.

How often do you hear people give a testimony who say, “I don’t know why I couldn’t see it before? I don’t know why I couldn’t understand it before? How often it happens we hear testimony of young people raised in Christian homes and often they go through lives of rebellion or whatever but by God’s grace they eventually are saved. Why didn’t they see it before? Why did God work this way? He is sovereign and we acknowledge that and our confidence is in that.

So “God was pleased to reveal His Son in Paul.” That is the new birth. What happens? It was revealed within Paul. It occurred on the Damascus Road in Acts chapter 9. Paul will give his testimony later before rulers in Acts 26 and he will share some of that but the blindness is gone. Remember Paul will have three days of blindness following the confrontation with Christ on the road and there you have the physical side of picturing what is happening spiritually. So Ananias comes and opens his physical eyes and you see the transformation that has been brought about spiritually in Paul. God’s work is done.

When God saves us as we talk about it is for a purpose. Paul had been set apart for God to serve Him but to serve Him in a special way, to serve by divine appointment. So “He revealed His Son in Me (verse 16) so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles.” Paul, the content of what? “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” he told the Corinthians and to preach Christ but more specifically among the Gentiles.

Oh he preached to the Jews. We find him in Acts going more to the synagogues and so on but he had a unique ministry. It would focus primarily on the Gentiles. That is what God had appointed for him to do. He would go and preach Christ. Not to the Jews primarily but to the Gentiles. He is not going to preach the law. He is not going to preach that the Jews are special in this new work that God is doing. The Jews are under judgment. It will happen dramatically. There will come a time when he says, “You have counted yourselves unworthy of the Gospel.” He shakes the dust off from his feet. I will go to the Gentiles and that is according to divine appointment.

Come back to the book of Romans, many places in Romans. Come to just chapter 15 of Romans for time. We will take the end. I had some other verses in Romans but we will just do chapter 15. What he says in verse 15 of Romans 15: “I have written very boldly to you some points so as to remind you again (note this) because of the grace that was given me from God.” Not only a grace that brought him salvation but with that salvation comes now his appointment to serve, “to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles ministering as a priest, the Gospel of God.” So that is what is going on with the Romans and he is reminding them, “God chose me to be, if you will, the go between between God and the Gentiles bringing them the Gospel for the first time.” So that is what he means, “Ministering as a priest” because the priest was the one who stood between God and the people but Paul was bringing the Gospel from God to the people. That is what he emphasized in Galatians 1. “I received this Gospel from God. Now I have given it to you.” You know this is the ministry God has given me, the grace of God. Verse 16: “Minister of Christ to the Gentiles, ministering as a priest the Gospel of God, that my offering of the Gentiles might become acceptable, sanctified by the Holy Spirit.” I want to tell you “what Christ has accomplished through me (the end of verse 18) resulting in the obedience of the Gentiles by word and deed.” This is not my power but it is the power of God at work in and through me, the Christ that I serve.

Paul’s conversion and appointment to ministry happened together which happens to all of us. Now there is a time of searching out and finding but you know what happens when you believe in Christ? You are indwelt with the Holy Spirit. What is the evidence and manifestation of the Holy Spirit’s presence in a life, His giftedness as we have studied in I Corinthians 12 and other chapters as well, same thing.

Now sometimes there is a time, we have become slaves of Christ. How will we serve Him? Well initially we may not know what our gift is. Paul was told at the beginning what he would do. Others of us, it is a matter of well, we are slaves in the house of our master. We look around for what needs to be done. I can do that, I do this and over time usually we become more comfortable, more aware of where we are more effective. For some of us there is a breadth. We have the gift of serving in a broader sense and in a broader sense we find ourselves being used by God is helping in a variety of ways. For others it is more narrowly focused as it was with Paul, as teaching or administering or those gifts but it is all tied together and all part of the divine call and appointment.

Back in Galatians 1. “He called me through His grace. He was pleased to reveal His Son in me so that I might preach Him among the Gentiles,” verse 16. “I did not immediately consult with flesh and blood.” My first reaction wasn’t to look out, look for some people I could talk to. This was a key point in his previous argument. He didn’t learn the Gospel from others. It wasn’t something that he got taught. It is important at this beginning stage because much of the revelation of our New Testament is going to come through Paul. It is important that we understand he is an instrument that God has chosen through whom He will reveal much truth; so this stress.

I didn’t try to search out Peter or James or John or others and tell them you have to instruct me. He is going to get it directly from God even as Peter did, even as John did. Now they got much of it through their earthly contact with Christ but that continued on then afterward.

We are studying the book of Revelation. That revelation came what? It came directly from God through John, simplify it and now we benefit from it.

So Paul making that point there. He didn’t consult or receive his information so they can’t say he got it corrupted because you realize these Jews and they are perhaps coming from Jerusalem have reason to say, “Well you know, Paul got confused. He got bad information. Those who taught him didn’t have it straight. They got parts of it right. It’s true, Jesus is the Messiah. You have to believe in him but Paul was confused by those who taught him. They taught him that meant now we are done with the law.” No, no, that’s not right. God intended that the truth concerning Christ be added to the law and now we have the combination and this is the kind of confusion.

Paul said, “I didn’t get confused. I didn’t talk with men and maybe there was some miscommunication or false teaching to me.” And he also adds here, verse 17: “Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me.” And you might think that would be the reaction. I better go down to Jerusalem. That’s where the apostles and those who walk with Christ. I am not saying there is any conflict there. The Gospel that Paul preaches is no different than the Gospel that Peter preaches.

The point is – Paul is independent and he is himself a unique apostle and has direct revelation from God because you have to establish the authority of Paul because he is getting new material and you can’t let these false teachers now come in and say, “What Paul is saying is not true.” How much of our New Testament then would be invalidated if that got ahold?

So that is his point why he didn’t go to Jerusalem, not that he is going to be superior to them but he is going to be on the same level and the revelation that he gets is just as authoritative as the revelation that Peter gets and he doesn’t have to get revelation through Peter. He gets it directly from God but there is no conflict in the truth that is communicated to them.

So “I didn’t go up to Jerusalem.” What did he do? “I went away to Arabia.” So Arabia is broad. The region we have is Jordan now would be included in that. It goes from the north to the south. That whole region would be called Arabia so it doesn’t have to be a long distance from Damascus and probably wasn’t that long of a distance. We don’t know where in the region he went. We don’t have any record of the time there. It might fit in that period in Acts.

We won’t turn there for time but in Acts 9 verse 20-17 you have verses 22 and 23 there where evidently he could have gone to Arabia, perhaps in light of the fact he is talking about what he knows. That might have been a time when God sent him apart and revealed things to him directly. Remember there was a time when he was caught up to the third heaven and saw more than he was allowed to reveal as he told the Corinthians. He could have shared the Gospel there as well because we know there was some conflict that centers around Paul from the king of the region of Arabia, the Nabataeans but we just don’t know about that but he puts it in the context here that you would think that at least a major part of what was going on is God communicating information, revelation to Paul because he is contrasting it. I didn’t get it from the leaders in Jerusalem for example, from other men. In fact I went off. It didn’t mean he couldn’t have had a ministry in Arabia but probably it was a time of receiving revelation. We don’t know exactly how long he was there. He returned to Damascus and then he will go to Jerusalem but that is after some time.

It’s three years when we get down to verse 18. We won’t be going there now but it says, “Three years after his conversion he went to Jerusalem.” So we are not given a precise breakdown that he spent most of those three years, two of the three, two and a half, we are not told but the point is it was some time before he went to Jerusalem. The point he is making is I didn’t get the truth I communicated to you.

It’s just like when we do the communion service. In I Corinthians 11 Paul said what, “I received from the Lord which I also then communicated to you that the Lord on the night in which He was betrayed.” Now there were apostles that were there that night. He could say, “I learned from Peter or John that this is the last night but I received it as a revelation from Christ.”

So important to understand that Paul has authoritative truth from God and it will give a fullness and a clarity that he doesn’t necessarily reveal through others. So the message to them.
Alright let me just wrap this up. I want to highlight in a summary way what he has said about his testimony here and about our salvation because some certain things are unique about Paul because he was an apostle, he was going to receive direct revelation but certain things are true about everyone who is saved by the grace of God.

I am going to just note some of these truths about our salvation. So we will walk through. I have eight points about the facts of our salvation. The first is foundational. It is the work of God. Paul picks that up in verse 15 “When God was pleased.” It is God’s sovereign determination. That is why we continue to pray. We pray for friends and family members, our children, our parents. We pray for God’s grace that we don’t give up on them. God in his time, “Lord my prayer is that You in Your grace” and if you are praying for them God burdens you to pray for them you want to be praying for them and we don’t give up.

We think, “Well after Paul got on a crusade in destroying the church and killing believers I can take him off my prayer list. He is doomed to hell and deserves it.” But you know, that is not the plan of God. That is not what God had planned. So we want to understand, it is the work of God, salvation. It grates on people, even some believers.

I remember when I went off to Bible College. I got involved in discussion with one of my professors in theology class and I was ready to die on the hill of it is our choice but you know he kept hammering me with the Scripture. It wasn’t fair. We could have debated this in a different way and I would bring my Scripture and he was very gracious. Well you know Gil, what about this? Look at this verse. You come back and tell me what you think about that. There was a time when finally I had to go in and say, “I yield. I understand. It is God’s work.” It goes contrary to human thinking where we think somehow it’s us but it’s the work of God.

Second point about our salvation, it is founded in “His good pleasure.” It is “according to His purpose.” It is His good pleasure. How do explain that some people get saved and some people don’t? Well it’s easier for me to explain why some people don’t get saved. They refuse to believe. The amazing thing is some people do get saved and the explanation is not that they are not as bad, they are not as vile, they are not as sinful. They were better people which if it begins in me that would be the explanation because humanly speaking it is a better thing to believe, right? That means I am a better person than those who didn’t believe. No, it is the work of God. It is founded in “His good pleasure.” That is as far back as I can go. Again if we have a Biblical perspective we are not amazed that people are going to hell because we are sinners. God is not obligated to show the same mercy to everyone and in His sovereign good pleasure in the counsel of His will, counselling with Himself, the three persons of the Trinity decisions are made. So it is founded in His good pleasure.

Third point – it includes our service for Him. So God not only saves us to rescue us as verse 4 of Galatians 1 said from “this present evil age from God’s condemnation from eternal hell, He saves us for service.” So our salvation includes what? You have to understand I got out a Lexicon and looked through. You know we are called slaves. The use of the word slave is used numerous times. That’s what we are. We are His slaves. We are called to serve Him. That is a privilege, that is an honor but it includes our service. So if He saved you, he intends for you to serve Him.

Then remember, He reminded us. When you have done everything that you are supposed to do, say we are at best unprofitable slaves because we have only done what we were supposed to do, He expects total commitment, total service. He includes our service for Him.

The fourth point was it was planned before our birth. It goes back to the womb and then Ephesians 1 would take us back before that. This is the sovereign plan of God. He is the one who works all things after the counsel of His will. Again, I just know what the Master says. We are slaves. We don’t have to know everything. We are responsible to know everything the Master has told us to know. There are things that He has kept hidden in the counsel of His own will and I could never grasp everything anyway because I have a finite mind and I serve an infinite God but it was planned before our birth.

I don’t like to think about that. What if one of my children, one of my grandchildren aren’t included in God’s plan for salvation. That bothers me. If it bothers you come to the throne of grace about it. If it doesn’t burden you, bother you enough to pray about it maybe we don’t care that much anyway. Model your unreserved commitment to serving God with every ounce of your being to be pleasing to Him. Being indifferent hardly provides the model, do I really care? I care enough about their eternal destiny. I want them to see in me this is the passion of my life. this is my commitment to please Him in everything that God might use not only what I say but the example I have and in His grace saves them. You know I don’t want to lose my perspective on my position. I can’t take God’s seat. But He tells me to come with confidence to the throne of grace, to bring my desires to Him. He tells me what I am to do. So I get caught up and lose perspective instead of being occupied fully with what I am supposed to do. I get all tied in knots about what God says He does. I know what He does is right. I’ve got to concentrate on what He tells me to do as His slave. One is to be pleasing to Him so He can use me in the greatest possible way. But our salvation, our service was planned before our birth. It is initiated by God. Some of these overlap. Now understand what we are saying. We talked about it is the work of God. It begins with His work. It is planned in eternity past but then He is the initiator. Why did that person respond? What happened? God intervened as He did. Maybe not as dramatically as He did with Paul but that is what happens in every one of our lives. God takes the initiative to begin His call that draws us.

It is the result of His grace. It is the result of His grace. There is no explanation. I can explain why people are going to hell but the only explanation why people are not going to hell is God’s grace, right? It is all of grace that He provided redemption for unworthy, undeserving sinners. It is focused in His Son. “He was pleased to reveal His Son in me.”

Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the message of Christ. No one will ever get saved that you don’t tell about Christ. I would have never gotten saved if someone hadn’t told me about Christ. When you tell me about Christ you tell me why I need Him. He is the only Savior. You understand you are lost without Him. You are under condemnation that will result in ultimate judgment but when Christ is revealed in us, the light of the glory of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the light comes on in our heart and mind. Then by the grace of God His power transforms us.

Number eight, it includes our specific ministry. You note under point three it includes our service for Him. There is a generalness about our serving Him. We want to serve Him in every way we can but God says He has gifted each one of us. So for Paul it would be an apostle to the Gentiles but he is involved in a variety of things in ministry and in service but the specific focus was on his apostleship to the Gentiles.

And so us. We want to serve in any way that we can. We say there is a need here, there is an opportunity here. I am going to get plugged in. I can help there. I can be used there. Over time we begin to realize there are specific ways I see God using me in specific areas and I concentrate and devote more of my energy there but all of our life is about serving Him. That’s what He called us for, to bring honor to Him by serving Him. And He has not only called us to serve but through His giftedness He has specified and included in our salvation the specific ways He is going to use us. How gracious God is.

So what is true about Paul is special ways is true of every one of us and how blessed we are to have this salvation.

Let’s pray together. Thank You Lord for the riches of Your Word. Lord a salvation so great, so awesome yet sometimes we do settle down, settle in, become rather passive, somewhat indifferent and the zeal, the passion that is to characterize us from day one to the day of our death gets lost along the way. That zeal, that consuming desire to honor You, to serve You, to be pleasing to You. Lord may that never cool in us individually or in us in our service for You as the local church. Pray You will use us in the days of the week before us and in the many ways that only You can bring honor to Yourself, we pray in Christ’s name, amen.