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A few years back, my wife and I had the privilege of visiting another Asian country and we went back into a fairly remote part of the country and we met with some Christian leaders there and they were all excited about how God was moving so greatly in that part of the country. It was an area that was predominantly Buddhist, but many people were coming to faith in Christ and they were so excited about that. The Buddhist elders in the village, however, did not share their excitement. And the Buddhist leaders came to some of the Christian leaders and threatened their lives and said, "If you don't stop preaching the gospel, there are going to be serious consequences." We left. The people we were working with continued sharing the gospel. And sure enough, after several more months passed, then there was a violent outbreak against the Christian people there. And this went on for a couple of years where the Buddhists were really causing a lot of grief and pain literally to the Christian community. Then the persecution began to gradually die down and two years ago one of the pastors from this area that I had met years earlier came to Malaysia. I was able to meet with him and he said that after the persecution had died down he as a pastor kind of in charge of a large region would be traveling to different church meetings and whenever they had an opportunity for testimonies for people to stand up and share. He said frequently he heard a testimony like this person would stand up and say few months ago I was one of those who was persecuting you you Christians. But as I was dealing with these Christians and I heard what they were saying about Jesus, I was then pointed to Jesus. I was turned to Jesus and he changed my life. And now I ask your forgiveness. Now I'm working with you for the gospel. And the other people in the community rather than being angry at him welcomed him, rejoiced and glorified God because of the work of the gospel in this person's life. Today we're going to look at Paul who was a product of the gospel. And what happens to him is very similar to what I just described that happened in a neighboring Asian country where Paul through the gospel was then confronted with Jesus, drawn face to face with Jesus that changed his life from the inside out and then everyone was able to glorify God because of this inward transformation. Let's go to the beginning of our scripture passage. Paul says,"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." He says, "This is not an invention of mankind." And when we look at his gospel in detail, which we will in just another minute or so, we'll see that no, this is not man-made. Because something that's man-made, if you look at the other man-made religions, it usually will stress my performance. If I do this and this and this and this, if I do this ritual, then I will achieve salvation or I will achieve better karma for next life or whatever religious background you might come from. It's based on my performance. We visited some monuments in Europe where you see pilgrims go and it's a huge long staircase to the top and they crawl on their knees up the staircase and sometimes by the time they get to the top of this long staircase their knees are bloody and on each step they're saying something prescribed something wrote and when they get to the top then somehow they have earned God's favor. If you pray at the right times of the day, if you pray so many times a day, if you fast at the right times in the prescribed amount of time, then you can earn God's favor. If you light candles or incense or jawsticks or place an offering in front of a shrine, somehow this will grant you God's favor. If you repeat the right words, and if you don't know the words, get somebody that does to say them for you. It's based on our achievement. And that's man-made religion. It's a transactional thing. Well, if I do this, then God owes me. Paul said, "What I'm preaching is not man's gospel, but I received it through a revelation from God." Now, what is this gospel that Paul was preaching? We're going to look at that in depth this morning. What was Paul preaching? We already have an idea of it by verses we've already seen earlier in chapter 1. If you remember a couple of weeks ago, we looked at these verses just briefly in the service. Paul is saying, "Grace to you and peace from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age according to the will of our God and father." So just in that brief passage, we get a glimpse of what's involved in the gospel. First of all, we see that the gospel is of the Lord Jesus Christ. And just those names, those titles tell us a lot about the gospel. Jesus is Lord. He is God. He is the rightful ruler of the universe, the rightful master of my life. Jesus, he's the savior. Through what he has done for us, we can receive forgiveness of sin. Christ, another word for Messiah, the promised one who fulfills the promises of God. The one who God said would come to make it possible for us to have reconciliation with him. He goes on and talks about Jesus gave himself for our sins. Well, by talking about our sins, the obvious clue is that means I sin, you sin, everybody sins. The scripture says all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Maybe not the big bad things that we sometimes think of sin, like I've never murdered. I've never robbed a bank. But all of us in one way or another, whether it's in our thought life, whether it's in the attitudes of our heart and even our actions, we do things that do not please God. As a matter of fact, we turn our back on God. As the scripture says, we're like sheep. We go astray. We just go our own way. And we might not be angry at God. Just I'm going to do what I want to do. After all, this is my life. Well, that's sin. Rather than bowing our knee before Jesus and allowing him to rule our life, no thanks. I'll take charge of that myself. So we see that all sin and in this phrase one thing we can see is that sin brings death. The wages of sin is death. Jesus gave himself talking of course about the crucifixion of Christ. The penalty for sin is death. That's really a no-brainer. If we turn our back on the giver of life, what else do we expect? Of course, there's going to be death. If we separate ourselves from the source of life, our fellowship with God is broken. We experience not only physical death, but we'll experience spiritual death in this life. Plus, then after this life is over for eternity, we're still separated from God. Spiritual death. And in this phrase, we also then see the crucifixion of Jesus. how what Jesus did on the cross that paid the penalty of sin paid the penalty of death for our sin. Now in this brief description, the resurrection is not mentioned specifically. I think it is hinted at when it says he will deliver us from the present age. If Jesus just died as a martyr, there's no victory. But he's able to deliver us from evil because with his resurrection, he defeated evil. He defeated death. He defeated sin. And we see in this brief passage that all of this was according to God's plan. It wasn't that God sent Jesus to earth and then Jesus got himself killed. And God's thinking, "Oh my, what do I do next? I wasn't expecting this. Oh, I've got an idea. I'll raise him from the dead." No. No. That's not what happened. It was God's plan all along. From the beginning of the Bible, we see God has a plan to bring salvation through the death and resurrection of Jesus. And what's the result? We receive God's grace. We receive peace, reconciliation with God. And everything then happens to the glory of God. Now, if you were asked, define the gospel in your own words, what would you say? We've just seen one thing from Paul, but if somebody were to come up to you, what is the gospel? What would you say? Many of you might start off like this, those of you that have heard preachers or you learned a little bit of Greek on your own, the Greek word behind gospel is literally good news. And we have taken that word gospel and sometimes we forget that it is good news. But that's what it really is. It means good news. So I want to show you a definition of gospel that a theology professor came up with. His name is Don Carson. He's a French Canadian currently teaching at a seminary in the US. But I mention him because he has visited Malaysia several times. And I know there have been people in the church who have gone and heard him speak. And I heard Don speak a couple years ago and this is how he define gospel. The gospel is good news but not any good news. It's good news about what God has done and more specifically it's good news about what God has done through Christ especially through the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. So that's the basic good news. Don went on to say, "But the good news goes even further than that. The good news is also God's promise of reconciliation with God, forgiveness of sin, and eternal life to all who repent and believe." Now, I think that's a great explanation in just a person's own language. It's not direct quote from the Bible that summarizes the gospel, what God has done through Christ. And when we respond in repentance and faith, we are reconciled with God. Let's go back to scripture. Go back to the words of Paul. Many times he talks about the gospel. And one of my favorite places where he talks about the gospel because it's so clear, concise, easy to understand is in 1 Corinthians chapter 15:es 3 and 4. And before he presents the gospel, he points out what I'm delivering to you is of first importance. This is the most important stuff that I'm saying. This is the crux of the gospel. And what does he say? Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. He was buried. He was raised on the third day in accordance with the scripture. And he appeared to Peter, to the 12, to over 500 people, to James, to all of the apostles, and lastly, he appeared to me. Or to summarize that, he appeared to many witnesses
to help you remember the gospel message. This is the core of the gospel. Just think of the word core. C O R E. And we'll use that as a acrostic. And if we think of one word that goes with each of those letters, if you can remember that, you'll have the heart of the gospel, the core of the gospel ready where you can explain it. The C would stand for the crucifixion of Christ. And we see that Christ died for our sins. The O, this was all ordained by God. We see that he died in accordance with the scriptures. He was raised in accordance with the scriptures. All according to God's plan as prophesied in the Old Testament. The R, the resurrection. He was raised on the third day. And the E for eyewitnesses. He was seen by many witnesses. There's a lot of evidence for the resurrection of Christ. It's not a Hindu myth. It's not a legend that is grown up around the founder of a religion that there's absolutely no proof for. But there are historical eyewitnesses to this. So if you think just co o e, you can think of the core of the gospel, the crucifixion. It's ordained by God. Christ rose from the dead and there were eyewitnesses as evident. Now when Paul proclaimed the core the heart of the gospel, he also showed them how God wanted them to respond to the gospel. I mean, we hear the gospel, but sometimes we ask, "Okay, that's good news, but how does God want me to respond?" Well, we can look at Paul's words again in Acts chapter 20. He's talking to the elders in Ephesus after he has finished his third missionary journey. So, most of Paul's evangelism has already taken place. And he says, "I've testified both to Jews and to Greeks of repentance towards God and of faith in our Lord Jesus Christ." So notice he said, "Everybody I talk to, I tell them the same message. The Jewish people, I tell them they need to repent and believe. The Gentile people, the Greeks, in other words, everybody that's not a Jew, they divided the world into people like us and everybody else. So everybody else out there, they also need to repent. They need to place their faith in Jesus Christ. It's a message for everybody. Repentance towards God. That's not just I'm going to try to turn over a new leaf and try to live a little bit better, not steal quite so much, not lie quite so much. No. Repentance is where we let God change our thinking. We let God change our heart because we've been exposed to the truth of the scripture and because God's Holy Spirit is working within us. And we say, "Yes, God. Let your will be done in my life." And there's a change on the inside that brings a change in the direction of our life. Yes, there will be outward results, but it starts with the inside where God changes us on the inside. And then when we turn, we turn in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Faith, repentance go together. They're inseparable. They're not identical, but they're inseparable. If a person repents and is sorry for their sin or sorry they've gone the wrong way, but they don't turn to God in faith, repentance does no good. And there's no true saving faith unless a person experiences that inward change and is willing to turn from whatever is keeping them away from God, from whatever else they're worshiping, from whatever else is the center of their life, unless they're willing to then turn in faith to God. So the repentance and the faith go together. So this is the message that Paul was preaching to everybody. He preached the core of the gospel and he said when you hear the gospel the response God wants is repentance and faith. By the way this message that Paul preaches is not original with him. If you remember in the text it says this is the message I receive from Jesus himself. Well, let's look at Jesus words and see if Jesus said the same thing Paul did. After the crucifixion, three days later, Jesus was resurrected. He appeared to his disciples and some of his very last words on earth, the last words is recorded in the Gospel of Luke. Jesus speaking to his disciples said, "These are my words that I spoke that everything written about me in the law and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled." Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. And he said to them, "Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations. You are witnesses of these things." Here in this passage, we see the same gospel that Paul was preaching. We see the core of the gospel. Let's review. We said the C on core stands for what? You remember crucifixion of Christ. Verse 46. Christ should suffer. Talking about the crucifixion. The O. What did we say that stood for? And where do we find that in this passage?
Yeah. Verses 44 and 45. The Old Testament scriptures. Every section, the law, the prophets, the psalms, every section of the Jewish Bible pointing to Christ, crucifixion, resurrection. This is God's plan. The R, I just said it, resurrection. Where do we see that? Verse 46, the E, remember what that stands for? Y'all are good. Eyewitnesses. And we find that where verse 48, you are witnesses of these things. And then what did Paul say people should do when they hear the gospel? Same thing Jesus talked about repentance. Turn in faith to the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul preached this. Jesus preached this. I could look at if I had time, I could look at three different sermons that Peter preached in the book of Acts and show you all of these same things where Peter preaches the core of the gospel that Christ died for our sins. He was resurrected. This was according to God's plan. And there were eyewitnesses that verify this. And then Peter told the people and you need to repent. And Peter emphasized the importance of faith in Christ who alone can bring salvation. So this is the message of Paul which is the same as a message of Jesus, the same as the message of Peter. And that's why we preach that today. This is the only gospel. This is the gospel we want to believe. This is the gospel we want to respond to in repentance and faith because this is the crux the heart of the gospel.
Now Paul had not always believed this but this was presented to Paul and he points out now this is the gospel that I'm preaching and I'm preaching it because I have received it as a revelation from God. So the gospel message will point us to Jesus. It will turn our heart to Jesus. And the gospel is then going to transform us on the inside. It's going to change our life from within. And we're going to see that happen with Paul. But before we see the change, we need to look at the way it was before. And then we can see how big a change it was that God worked in Paul's life. Paul says in verse 13, "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 father. It's easy just to quickly read those verses and then go on to the next verse. But there's really a lot here about Paul's former life that we're wanting to contrast in a moment with what happens to him after he meets Jesus. Notice in this passage that Paul was persecuting the church violently and he was trying to destroy it. Now why was he persecuting the church so violently? These are all his fellow Jewish people. Jewish people who had accepted Jesus as Messiah. That's why he didn't like it. Jesus cannot be the Messiah. After all, the Messiah is going to be a political leader. He's going to come and free us from bondage to the Romans. The Messiah will be a powerful military person who will be spreading his ideas with the sword. Some kind of a religious warlord. The Messiah is going to bring economic prosperity to our country. And look at us. We're still suffering. And above all, from a Pharisees point of view, the Messiah is going to be somebody who keeps the law in every letter of the law. And Jesus has the gall to think that it's more important to help a sick person on the Sabbath day than it is to follow our little rules over here about what's legal and what's not legal on the Sabbath. How can a Sabbath breaker be the Messiah? So Paul totally rejected Jesus as a Messiah. The Christians were also proclaiming that Jesus is the son of God. They were proclaiming that he was Lord. And Paul would say, "No, that is blasphemy." And if he had been in that council of the Sanhedrin that tried Jesus, he would have voted for the death penalty. No, Jesus is not son of God. No, Jesus is not Lord. You see, the word Lord in Greek is the word that they used, the Jewish people would have used for the name of God in the Old Testament. Same thing with their Hebrew or Aramaic language. They would not say God's proper name. They would use Lord. That's our English word anyway. But Lord is what they would say. And so to say that Jesus is Lord, that means he's divine. He's not an ordinary man. To say he's Lord means he's the one at whose feet we should bow who we should allow to run our lives. So Paul was totally opposed to the Christian message that Jesus is Messiah, that he is son of God, that he is Lord. So he was trying to wipe the Christians off the face of the earth. There's another thing that we see about Paul's former life in verse 14. 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. Now that's important, the traditions. Now that would have included, of course, the Old Testament law, some of the things that we have in our Bible, but it included a lot more. I mean, you think Moses had some good laws? Wait till you hear what the Pharisees came up with. Or they could add several hundred more to it and then they could be proud of themselves because they could keep the laws that they wrote. The other common people couldn't keep it. That shows we're better than they are. But he was zealous for this. Everything Jewish is better was Paul's view. And externals is what describes a person's piety. a transactional type of religion. I'm going to do this and this and this and this and then when I achieve it all, everybody will see what a great spiritual person I am. So Paul as well as the other Pharisees would have been filled with pride because after all they earned their standing in God's eyes. But yet as Jesus pointed out, their heart was far from God. Everything in an other culture was bad. Everything in our Jewish culture, that's divine. And the Jewish people were the epitome in those days of people with ethnic pride and prejudice towards other people. Now, you may have met some people that have some kind of an ethnic bias or racial prejudice or have the view that people like me are better. I could give a few examples. I'll start personally. A lot of people from my country think Americans are the best. And of course, we come by it honestly because we were settled by the British and you probably know from the British time in Asia. No, the British are superior to everybody. But everybody here that's Chinese. No, no, no. All of the Westerners are foreigners. Even in your own country, you're a foreigner. We're from the Middle Kingdom. We're the best. But you can't say that too loud in Malaysia because no, no, no. the boommy putra. They're the ones that are on top. And the world has always been like this. We're at the top. Everybody else is down below. And so Paul was so zealous of his Jewish culture. Oh, we're great. Everybody else is terrible. And everybody else was lumped under the category gentile. Gentiles were considered to be unclean. You don't even get close to them. You don't talk to them. You definitely don't sit down and drink a cup of coffee with them. You don't go into their home. If you even touch them, you become ceremonially defiled. And that means you're not qualified to do all of your little religious duties to make you right with God. I gave you a few other background information that I've read from historical sources that talk about the Jewish view of Gentiles. The Jews had a deep-seated hostility toward the Gentiles, and they looked at them as dogs. They said, "God loves only the nation of Israel. Out of all the nations he has created on earth, the only one he loves are the Jewish people." Why did he make Gentiles? Well, there's one reason he made Gentiles. He needs fuel for the fires of hell. So, we create Gentiles and we have somebody to burn in hell. That's what the Jewish leaders like Paul were saying about Gentiles. It was against the Jewish law, their tradition to help a gentile woman who was having trouble in childbirth. Because if you help the gentile woman in childbirth, what's going to happen? She might bring another Gentile into the world, which is going to pollute the world even more than it already is. If a Jewish boy married a Gentile girl or a Jewish girl married a gentile boy, the family would have a funeral for their son or daughter because they no longer exist in the eyes of the family. Josephus, Jewish historian, talks about the fact that around the temple there were these many courtyards that we can read about in the scripture. But between the courtyard for the Gentiles and the rest of the temple complex, you had to go up several steps to get to the next courtyard. But then there were two huge walls separating. And every few meters there were signs written in both Latin and Greek. So all the Gentiles could read it that said any foreigner, any Gentile who goes beyond this point is responsible for his own death. And they meant it. If you remember reading the story in Acts chapter 21, Paul is mobbed at the temple. Why? Not because he's a gentile. He's not. But they said this man brought a gentile with him into the temple. Therefore, he deserves to die. So they were serious about this. Gentiles deserve to die if they even get close to the temple. So we've seen in these verses that Paul is describing his hatred toward the church. Why? Because he has rejected Jesus as Lord, as Messiah, as son of God. And we see his deep prejudice, his disdain, his hatred of the Gentiles. God must have some kind of an ironic sense of humor, don't you think? When we see what God does next, it's almost funny to see what happens here based on Paul's background. So, we'll go ahead and read with verse uh chapter I mean verse 15. But when he, God, 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.
It's interesting to see how this passage of scripture starts. The passage right before it, Paul was saying, I did this. I did that. I was advancing. I was zealous. Then that key word that changes the whole direction. But but God, but God who set me apart. But God who called me, but God who revealed his son. It's great to see how God is working here in this life in Paul's life
when he who set me apart before I was born was called by his grace. This reminds me a little bit about something that I heard just recently about two or three weeks ago. My wife and I were visiting with a small group of people that we've been meeting with on a regular basis. These people are from another country. They all come from a different religious background, a non-Christian religious background. And it was like the light came on in this person's mind, a young adult, early 20s, just like a light came on and this person said, "We are truly blessed by God. We're blessed because God chose us to be able to hear the gospel. We're blessed because God chose us." This person realized many many people from that country have never had the chance to hear the gospel. Many many people from that religious background have never had the chance to hear the gospel. And this person is now saying God has blessed us because he chose us to hear. And I thought, my goodness, has this person been reading Galatians or Ephesians where it talks about how God chooses us? Well, no. But this person realizes that God is the one that is orchestrating everything. Yes, there have been Christians that have shared, many different Christians that have shared. Yes, they had an open mind, an open heart. They were willing to listen to the message. But this person realized it's all God. Those that shared with me, it's because of God. The fact that I have an open heart, it's because of God. And that's what Paul was realizing. God did not reveal himself to Paul because Paul had finally achieved a certain level of accomplishment. God did not re reveal himself to Paul based on Paul's performance, but rather on his own grace. God extended his grace to Paul despite Paul's sin, despite Paul's self-centeredness, despite Paul's self-righteousness. And Paul could look back at his life and he could see God has been at work in my life all along. Even when I didn't know it, even before I was born, God has constantly had his finger on my life. And now he finally realizes that. He realizes he has been going the wrong way. He realizes he's going against God. He needs a U-turn. He needs to repent. And he opens his heart to God so God will change him on the inside. And these big changes that are going to take place in Paul happen not because Paul decides he's going to reform his life, but rather because he lets God transform him inside. Now, let's look at some of the changes that are going to take place in Paul's life. Remember why Paul hated the church? Because they were saying Jesus is the son of God. And now Paul uses that very phrase. God revealed his son to me. Paul who had rejected the divinity of Christ. No, Jesus is not Messiah. No, he is not Lord. Now he has accepted the truth and he recognizes yes Jesus has fulfilled the prophecies. He is the Messiah. He is divine. He is the Lord. And we can see that more clearly when we look at Paul's account of what happened to him. How did Paul have such a big turnaround in his life? Well, he says, "I was on my way to Damascus." And some of you will remember the story. He had been sent to Damascus to do what? Persecute the Christians. Arrest them. Bring them back. ready to kill him if necessary. Well, he was going to Damascus to persecute Christians. And about noon, a great light from heaven suddenly shone around me. And I fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to me, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" And I answered, "Who are you, Lord?" And he said to me, "I am Jesus of Nazareth, whom you are persecuting." And Paul says, "What shall I do, Lord?"
Paul had refused to acknowledge that Jesus was Lord. And now here, when he knows that it's Jesus is talking to him, he addresses him as Lord. Now, some people might think that the title Lord was just a title of respect and possibly so the first time and he says, "Who are you, Lord?" Of course, you're going to speak respectfully if you hear a voice from heaven. But then when the voice identifies itself, I am Jesus, Paul in a flash realizes, I've been going the wrong way. What I thought was true is not true. And there's this interchange, this repentance that takes place. And he acknowledges Jesus as Lord. And he basically surrenders his life to Christ right here when he says, "What shall I do? Here's my life, God. You tell me what to do. I will follow. And then Jesus tells him, "Go on to Damascus. I'll give you further instructions when you get there." But Paul then takes a step of faith obeying Christ. And then he goes on to do what God calls him to do later. And we know that Paul was very convinced of the divinity of Christ because now we see that he himself is going around proclaiming that Jesus is the son of God. And he's going around telling the Jewish people that Jesus is the Messiah. Things that Paul had rejected earlier, now he's proclaiming them because he has had a face-to-face encounter with Jesus and he knows that it's true.
A second thing that we can see in Paul's conversion, he says, "When God was pleased to reveal a son to me, in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles." Now remember, this is Paul the Pharisee who thought the only reason Gentiles are there is to light up the fires in hell and get them hotter. Gentiles are dogs. They're not real people. And now God is saying, "Paul, I'm sending you to these people that you thought were dogs. I'm sending you to tell them how much I love them. And I'm sending you to show by your life and your relationships with them the love of Christ through your life." Imagine how humbling that must have been for Paul. Somebody who' not even talked to a gentile, definitely not sit down at a meal with them. Now, that's what he's going to be doing full-time, hanging around Gentiles, treating them as equals, treating them with respect because he knows that God loves them every bit as much as he loves me. The text continues and Paul says that I did not immediately go up to Jerusalem to visit with the apostles, but instead I went to Arabia and then returned to Damascus. And then after three years, I went to Jerusalem. When you read this account in the book of Acts, chapter nine, you don't realize that there's a three-year gap in there someplace between Paul's conversion and his meeting with Peter in Jerusalem. But here we see that during this three years, part of that time, he went to Arabia. Now, what he did there, the scripture doesn't tell us. But more than likely, he spent a lot of time in quiet time with God. He spent time praying. He was already a scholar of the scriptures, the Hebrew scriptures, our Old Testament. So, undoubtedly, he was reading those scriptures through many times, but with new eyes, eyes that had been opened by God and letting Jesus show him how throughout the entire Old Testament, these scriptures are pointing to Jesus. And it was during this time that he would have been able to then know the scriptures that would prove that Jesus is indeed Lord. He is indeed the Messiah. He is indeed divine. And during this time he was probably also aware for the very first time that many scriptures in the Old Testament talk about the fact that God loves Gentiles. The scriptures talk about the fact that Gentiles are to be included in God's family. Prophet Isaiah talks about a light to the Gentiles. Psalm 67, there's a prayer, "God, bless us so that your name might be known among the heathen so that your salvation can be spread to all nations." That's the Gentiles. So Paul is now reading this with new eyes, and he realizes, man, I thought I knew something about the Bible, but I was all wrong. It's all about Jesus and the gospel. The message is for all people. It doesn't matter what their ethnic or religious or racial background is. God wants all people to hear and respond. Now, Paul seems to have a better understanding of the fact that the gospel is for all people than did some of the other apostles. Now, the other apostles had heard Jesus say, "Go make disciples of all people. go into all the world and make disciples. They'd heard him say, "Start in Jerusalem. Go to Judea. Go to Samaria. Go to the rest of the world." Jesus is not just talking geography. Who lives in the rest of the world? Gentiles. He's saying, "Go to the people you don't like. Go to the people you hate. Go to the people you do not trust. Go to the people with a different religious background. People with a different ethnic background." But for some reason, some of the early apostles, I guess like some of us today, did not fully understand the implication of what Jesus was saying. Paul probably during this time in Arabia was able to realize how much God does love Gentiles and how much there is in the Old Testament about reaching them. You see, the problem that Paul was facing in Galatia was based largely on the fact that the Jewish people thought they were superior to everybody else. It's not just that they had false doctrine. Yes, they had false doctrine, but their false doctrine was based largely on their idea of racial superiority. So, when we go to Galatia, we need to inform these people, no, no, no, you can't stay a gentile and become a Christian. You've got to first of all become like us. You've got to be a Jew, man. That means circumcision. Everybody else, that means no more pork. No more cheeseburgers. I mean, you can't have a milk product and a meat product in the same meal. If you have a job that makes you work on the Sabbath day, you got to quit it. You've got to plan your vacation time around all of the Jewish feasts. Now, for the Malaysians, that wouldn't be so bad, would it? plan vacation time around food, but the Jewish religious feast had to be observed or else you're not right with God. And so they were preaching, not only you've got to be circumcised, not only you've got to follow these laws, they were saying, "You've got to become like us because God doesn't love people like you. You can't stay and keep your culture and your way of doing things because God won't accept you. But when you finally get up to our level, then the cross of Christ will have some effect in your life. So they're totally undermining the gospel message that says Christ's death on the cross is all sufficient for our salvation. theological problem that we see with what the Judaizers were doing is that they're placing all of the emphasis on external things. Circumcision is important. Keeping the law is important. Following all of our traditions, that's important. And you begin to evaluate a person's Christian life by strictly external things. And your heart can still be far from God.
Another problem that we see is not only the theological ramifications where they're adding things to the cross, but we see this cultural superiority saying you've got to adopt everything in our culture. You've got to become a Jew or else God will not accept you. And to be honest for us today it can be quite difficult to distinguish what is gospel message and what is culture. When you think of how you have responded to the gospel you want to ask yourself have I truly responded to the gospel or have I just accepted a quote Christian culture. You know it's easy for a person especially if they're born into a Christian family. Well, okay. I'll go to church with my mom and dad. I'll get baptized at an appropriate age. I'll read the Bible. I'll pray. I'll go to an alpha course. I'll go to a gamma course. I'll take the Lord's supper. I'll do all of these Christian things. And then based on external things, we think our life is right with God. Well, you can't judge your relationship with God strictly on externals. Yes, if you've had a change of heart, there will be changes in your lifestyle, but it's got to start within, not with the external things. And to be honest, some of the problem in not being able to distinguish between the Christian gospel and culture is because of Western missionaries. The missionaries of the 18 and 1900s especially, unfortunately some even till today, they were as intent on spreading Western culture as they were on spreading the gospel. And I can remember just a couple years ago, I was up in northeast India in a state where the largest tribe there is predominantly Christian, at least culturally Christian. And it's amazing after traveling through parts of India where I see things that's obvious by looking at it. Hindu or things that obviously by looking it's Buddhist or Muslim. Then I get to this part of India and I can tell oh this must be a Christian area. Not because I've met anybody and seen the change of heart but because I see the external things. Why? There's a building that looks like it came out of 17th century England. I've seen buildings just like that in England. And you go inside, I recognize that architecture just like those churches I saw in England. And it was kind of interesting. It was a deja vu experience really for me. This one town I was in, capital city of this state. Sunday morning, all of the stores are closed and you see people walking down the road dressed just like me. Not dressed like Indian people, frequently dressed, but nice white shirt or light blue shirt, a tie, carrying their Bible, walking to church. And I thought, man, that looks just like the 50s or 60s in the US. Now, on the one hand, this is great. I would much rather per see people going to church with the stores closed than just going around as if, yeah, God doesn't exist or worshiping idols. But on the other hand, I was talking to some of the leaders there and they were saying, "We've identified a problem, especially with our younger generation." Oh, on the outside, they look like they're Christian. They say the right things. They do the right things, but it seems like there's something missing on the inside. There's not really been a life transformation. And the problem is we begin to confuse being Christian with the externals. I was teaching a class at a missionary training center in northeast India where some of these tribal Christians had come together that are wanting to go and serve in missions in various parts of India as well as other parts of the world. And I was talking about the fact that you don't have to look like a westerner to be a Christian. You don't have to adopt Western culture to serve God. As a matter of fact, in some situations, you will be much more effective in sharing the gospel if you don't come in as a westerner. Because if you come in looking western, people are going to say, "Christianity is a western religion. I'm not interested." Well, Christianity is not a western religion. Where did Jesus live? Was he from New York? No. He was from Asia, and the only continents he set foot on were Asia and Africa. Never in Europe, never in the Americas. But yet people think Christianity is a western religion because of the way they look. And I can still remember talking in that class and one boy raises his hand and says, "But how do we know they're Christian if we can't tell by looking? If we can't tell by looking at the externals, I suggested, well, you might look at their life. You might listen to them talk. The externals don't make you right with God. In another state of northeast India, and I won't mention the name because all over northeast India, several of the different states, there are different tribal groups that have formed rebel armies that are trying to overthrow the government. So the government of course sees them as rebels. The tribal people think we're freedom fighters. So anyway, I met a man who used to be in his view a freedom fighter. and he was opposed to the Indian government but not only that he was opposed to everything western and he was definitely opposed to the Christian religion why that's a western religion
this man came from a Hindu background and a high cast Hindu background at that and he was very strongly identified with his people group his tribal group in northeast India and he didn't want to become a westerner so he was a post Christianity. I don't remember exactly how it happened, but somehow he came into contact with the truth of the gospel, the core of the gospel like we mentioned earlier. And he realized, I don't have to become a Brit. I don't have to become an American. I can remain a part of my tribal people group and accept Jesus into my heart and let him change my life. Don't confuse the culture with the core of the gospel. This man after he was saved, I was privileged to go and observe a worship service that he was leading. He leads a house church. And his worship service, if you just looked at it, you would think, "Oh, this is Hindu." They were all sitting on the floor with their legs crossed. They had a lamp burning that was very similar to what the Hindus use. Of course, in our churches, we sometimes light candles. Very similar. They had flowers. Well, we have flowers. Are our flowers okay in God's eye? And their flowers sinful. They also had this nasty practice of burning incense. And I hate incense. I don't like the smell. It bothers my lungs. But if you look in the scripture, we see incense being burned even in the temple. How do I know it's Christian? Not because of the outward things, but I know it's Christian because of what he said. And he was doing this service with English translation. So I know what he said. And he's preaching when he looks at that light. He's preaching Jesus as the light of the world. No, that's not Jesus. But when we see the light reminds us of Jesus who is the light of the world. And he talks about how Jesus is the way for forgiveness of sin. And Jesus is the only one we worship. And no, we no longer worship any other gods. So his message was distinctively Christian. His lifestyle had been totally transformed by the grace of God in his life. That's how I know he's Christian, not by the external things. And I know some of you, especially if you come from a Buddhist, a Dowist, a traditional Chinese background, you wrestle with some of these things. As a matter of fact, after the first service, a lady came to me and told me about an experience she had just had a few days ago where it was yeah, really difficult knowing what to do in certain circumstances. Last weekend, we were in another country in Asia, but ran into a man there, Chinese, ethnic background, and we were there on the 15th day of Chinese New Year. So, we had gathered as a group. I was going to be sharing the gospel message that night. But before the message, big meal, wonderful food, prawns this big. I kid you not. Great food. And I was talking to this one man and I was saying something about, "Hey, this is Chinese New Year, isn't it?" Or 15th day of Chinese New Year. And he said, "Well, I'm a new Christian and I really don't know what I can keep from my old culture, what's Christian, what's not Christian. So, I've just decided I'm not going to celebrate Chinese New Year. Well, I realize that many people in this congregation look at it differently. We even had a Chinese New Year celebration here in the church. That's something we got to struggle with. But in every culture, there are things that are good and things that are sinful. If it's sinful, whether it's western or some other culture, we got to get rid of it. If it's idol worship, whether it's an idol that you actually see or if it's a western idol like money, success, etc., we've got to turn away from idol worship. But we have not spread the gospel when we turn people into good little westerners. Ah, now in Africa, you're sitting there with all your clothes on. You're a good Christian now. Oh, you're wearing shoes now. You're a good Christian now. Oh, nice white shirt. You're a good Christian. No, no, no. That's the problem Paul was facing in Galatia. False theology, but also this topdown, our culture is better, give up yours, adopt ours. And Paul's saying that's man-made religion. We need to hear the core of the gospel, respond in repentance and faith. And when we actually are confronted with the gospel and we respond to God, he will transform us from the inside out. As we finish this passage, Paul talks, I'm sorry, when we finish the passage, then we see that Paul goes up to Jerusalem. After that, he goes back to his home territory. And there he says, "I was still unknown to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They were only hearing, he who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy." And what was the result? They glorified God. Not Paul, you're really a great man. Congratulations, Paul. Great sermon. They glorified God because they saw the gospel in action as his life had been changed. This morning, before we close, think a moment about what gospel have you responded to? Have you responded and adopted a Christian culture? Or have you really responded in faith to the crucified Christ and the resurrected Christ? Is Christianity for you just rules and regulations and rituals? Or is it a personal relationship between you and God? And when you share the gospel with others, are you just sharing, "Yeah, you can't do that anymore or stop doing that." Or are you sharing with them how they can come into a faith relationship with God? Also, look at your life. Have you experienced transformation? We may not experience as drastic a transformation as Paul did, but if we're in Christ, we'll experience something new inside. No, we won't ever live perfectly. Don't beat yourself up if you sin. We're all going to sin, but there's going to be a change on the inside, a change in direction, a change of focus. Now, we have that desire. We want to ask God, "What should I do, Lord?" like Paul did. And my prayer for each of us would be that through our lives, through our words, that God would be glorified. And that when people see your life, they would say, "Yes, that's evidence of God's grace. God has been at work. Praise God." Let's pray together.
Almighty God, we give you praise and we give you thanks that you are working in our world. We thank you that you have chosen us to hear your gospel. And Father, I pray now that we have heard the gospel that we would not harden our hearts, not turn our back on you, but that we would open our hearts and open our minds, receive your word in our lives. Let your spirit come in and transform us. Father, I pray that our relationship to you will indeed be a relationship based on love, based on your grace. Pray that we would allow you to lead our lives and not just respond to rules and regulations but live a life where we want to glorify you. May everything done be done for your glory. In Jesus name I pray. Amen.
