Know Your Story

But before we, we read from Galatians 1. I wonder if you know a man by the name of John Newton. I've mentioned his name a few times in my time as pastor here. John Newton. He was a navy officer who became a slave trader in the eighteenth century. But his claim to fame was writing a very short, punchy hymn called Amazing Grace.

The hymn is simple and yet so profound. Now this man, Newton, was a man who had a life very unsimple, very complicated, who came to a definitive conversion experience one night while caught in a massive storm on his ship. He knew for sure, he says, that it was the end. It was curtains for him and his crew that night. And as they were battling the storm, he muttered under his breath, Lord, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy. The storm passed and upon reflection and to his surprise at this utterance that he found on his lips that particular night, he made a decision that day to pursue Christ. Now it would still be seven years till he would leave the slave trade and eventually become a supporter to end or abolish slavery in England and to become a minister. He became a pastor, believe it or not. But his journey with grace, his understanding of the power of God's grace, began on that stormy night.

And as a pastor, he went on to write this amazing hymn, Amazing Grace, which at that time didn't make too much of a fuss or a ripple in the Christian community. It became a big, famous hymn two hundred years later in the revivals of the nineteenth century, where people used this to explain the gospel in simple ways, and it's obviously been widely sung since that day. But what makes this hymn so popular and I think so profound is exactly its simplicity and its authenticity. It's the personal story, isn't it? The personal story of someone who has come to understand who Jesus Christ is, who they are and were, and what God has done in their life.

It's raw, isn't it? It's heartfelt. There's no room for pride in that song. You can't hide behind fancy words. It says, amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.

Saved a scumbag like me. There is no pretension here. It doesn't get any more personal or honest, does it? Now, today we're going to look at a similar expression of incredible honesty and authenticity that can't and does not hide behind any pretence. It's the story, it's the testimony of the apostle Paul in his letter to the Galatians.

And we're going to look at Paul's experience of when he came to believe the gospel himself. Now what we do, we're gonna read from verse 10 and what happens is we're picking it up from sort of halfway into his opening statements to the Galatian church. So far, he has just started very, very frustrated and angrily saying, who has messed with your minds that you would believe a message, a gospel other than the one you've received from me originally when you became Christians? Why are you turning away to another teaching? There was something happening there that was taking people's attention away from the simplicity of the gospel.

And he's halfway through these opening statements to a church slipping away from believing that saved by faith alone statement or the message of the gospel that was preached to them. Let's have a look at where Paul goes from there. Have a look with me at Galatians 1:10. For am I now seeking the approval of man or of God? Or am I trying to please man?

If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. 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, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my former life in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. And I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age among my people.

So extremely zealous was I for the traditions of my fathers. But when he who had set me apart before I was born and who called me by His grace was pleased to reveal His Son to me in order that I might preach Him among the Gentiles. I did not immediately consult with anyone 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 to visit Cephas and remained with him fifteen days.

But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother. In what I am writing to you before God, I do not lie. Then I went into the regions of Syria and Cilicia and I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. They only were hearing it said, he who used to persecute us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy and they glorified God because of me. So far, our reading.

We've just read the testimony of Paul. We've just read the story of Paul's life. But apart from what can sometimes happen when we share our testimony, Paul shares his testimony with a very particular point in mind. It's not a story of Paul. It's a story of God's amazing grace.

I want to ask this morning as we sort of pause on this, what is your testimony? Do you know your story? If you had one minute in an elevator to explain why you believe, who you believe in, would you be able to convey that? Would you be able to share that with someone? There's a few points I think we can gain from Paul's testimony here that will help us in understanding ours and being able to explain it.

The first one is that Paul, the first thing we see about Paul's story, is that he came to faith not by his own reasoning, but by God's special revelation. Paul refutes the idea that he came to understanding the truth of the gospel through figuring it out for himself or being very intelligent in order to come to that conclusion. He says to the Galatians in verse 13 that up until his conversion, up until his conversion, he persecuted the church of God violently and tried to destroy it. He was so zealous for this tradition of Judaism. Paul is indicating there was no gradual understanding that was taking place.

There was no moment where he sort of sought his way into this gospel understanding. His message was not the product of his own thinking. In fact, it was the very opposite. Before his conversion, Saul, who he was known as, was so violently opposed to Christ that he could stand by as Stephen became the first Christian martyr, stoned at the feet of Paul. And it wasn't, he says, until a shattering moment where God reached into his life, where he met the risen Christ on the road to Damascus.

At that moment, that intervention is where Paul came to cling to this message. Paul defends the message of the gospel based on the fact that he didn't get there by himself. Does that make sense? He couldn't have gotten there by himself. He was so opposed to it that nothing in him wanted to go that way.

C. S. Lewis once wrote that Christianity, in his understanding, must be from God because who else could have thought it up? Now I don't intend to tell you what your story is. I don't intend to tell you how to interpret your testimony, but this is a biblical truth for every believer.

We don't come to the gospel by our intellect or by our reasoning. We came to believe through a radical intervention, divine intervention that reached us, that gripped our hearts. We may have eventually rationally understood, but there is a moment where God is the one that steps into time and space and reveals Himself to us. The second thing we see is that the message, the gospel message, is not thought up by the church. It is a special revelation through God's word.

Paul refutes the claims in verses 16 and 17 that this gospel message is simply a message that he's heard from the other apostles and is sharing now. It was not created, he says, by a group of powerful men who wanted a religion that they can use to control or oppress people into serving them, to pay them, or to worship them, as a lot of our non-Christian friends may claim. Paul explains that there was three years of this special intervening moment of God, three years between that and finally going and meeting the apostles where he disappeared into the wilderness of Arabia, the desert country, and eventually into Damascus, and he learned and he grew and he understood the message of the gospel in that time. Paul, someone might claim, if he had come from Peter or if he had come from James, they could have said, well, Paul heard it from so and so, but now that, you know, we have this new revelation, this new gospel, maybe Paul didn't hear the other apostles quite right. You know, Paul maybe misunderstood what Peter had to say because we know in Galatians 2, Paul actually rebukes Peter.

Paul corrects Peter for his flawed theology in removing himself from Gentiles, keeping to ceremonial Old Testament laws. And Paul says that is not the gospel either. We've been set free from all of that. Paul has the authority, and I dare say the guts to reject a teaching from the leader of the church, Peter. No one could claim that Paul had simply parroted the gospel from Peter and that now he had gone way off track.

He simply misunderstood Peter. Paul says he learned the gospel himself. How? Well, Paul didn't rely on the authority of the church alone. He went to Scripture.

He was a man that went and studied the Old Testament and found that this authority, this radical new teaching was there all along. It wasn't something that was now made up. It wasn't something that these apostles, again, invented for their own authority. This was something that was there all along and his eyes were open to see it. The gospel's authority, in other words, rests within its own powerful message.

And this has so many implications for us as Christians. If your faith is crushed by a pastor failing, if your faith is crushed by and you say to yourself they call themselves Christians, how dare they act in a way opposite to that, and your faith is influenced, your understanding of the gospel is influenced by what those people have done, then your faith is built on the authority of the church. Your faith is built on the supposed holiness and perfection of a church which is imperfect. Your faith rests on the faith of someone else, not on the sufficiency and supremacy of the Bible itself. The gospel, Paul says, is not thought up by the church.

Therefore, its power is not contingent upon how well the church can live by it. Paul draws the authority of the gospel from God's word. That's what he spent three years doing first, studying the Old Testament. Then he started teaching it, we know, in that area. And then finally, he went to Jerusalem.

And that leads us to the third point. The gospel did not divide, Paul says, but reflected a common story shared among believers. So while the gospel didn't have the authority, didn't rest with the apostles in Jerusalem, it did, however, square up with the message of the other apostles, and that was worth something. Before anyone could accuse Paul of breaking away from the church and perhaps preaching heresy not in line with what the other apostles had learned from Christ himself, Paul says that after these three years in the wilderness, he did go to Jerusalem. He did meet with Peter and the other apostles.

And it's true that he didn't receive his mission or his message from these apostles. His message, however, did check out. It did stack up with their message. There was a consistency with his message that spread across all different walks of life. From Peter the fisherman to Paul the Pharisee to the Gentiles that had come into the early church at that time, everyone had experienced and had tasted the same grace and could testify to its power to transform them.

There was a consistency in their story. And there is something powerful to that, friends. The gospel message is that much more believable in a church that is so diverse as the Christian church. Contrary to what the Australian media may tell us or society at large, Christianity is not a white Anglo-Saxon religion. There are more believers now in China and Latin America than in Australia, Britain, and America combined.

And we see that starting in Paul's time, don't we? The gospel isn't just for the Jew. Paul is called specifically for the Gentiles. Paul is called to preach this news to the non-Jews. Why?

Because it is the truth, and the truth is relevant and applicable to anyone regardless of race or ethnicity. Yet the power of the gospel, the power that is felt by us is that people who are so often, so often divided over lines of race, so often divided over culture and tradition, that these people can be the deepest of friends. They can even invite you to their brilliant home on New Year's Eve to go and look at the fireworks. People that aren't generally meant to be friends can be the deepest friends. They can even call one another brother and sister.

That has something powerful to it. That carries with it, I think, a motivator. It's something that makes you question whether it may be true. So Paul points out these three things to show the Galatian church why they need to reevaluate, why they would reject this message that Paul had preached to them initially. And this morning, I think it is worthwhile for us to reflect on that as well.

What does your faith rest on? Will you be like one of those people that leaves the church entirely because one Christian dared to sin? What does your faith rest on? Does it rest on the authority of a pastor Bob or pastor KJ or church council? Does the good news rest on your ability to reason and understand it perfectly?

Does it rest on that you are able to think your way into believing it? No. Your faith rests on the God who at one point stepped powerfully into your heart and your mind. He breathes life into your sin-filled, spiritually dead bodies. And by His mercy, gave you the power, the ability to believe in the first place.

Just like Paul, every Christian, therefore, has a story. Every one of us has a story. Even if you don't think you have a story, you have a story. Because every true Christian has the markings of grace. We must get to know our story, friends.

We must become far better at reflecting on it. It can be as simple as retelling what you've gone through in your week. It doesn't have to be your testimony from beginning to end, but what God has been doing and showing and teaching you in the last amount of time. It can be as simple as talking about what you've read or heard from God's word, a sermon that you've listened to, or what you've been taught at Sunday school. Those are all testimonies.

And testimonies is what Christians tell. It actually shows us the critical difference between a true Christian as well and a merely religious person. Why? Because a religious person understands Christ. A Christian experiences Christ.

Does that make sense? A religious person can tell you who Jesus is. A true believer that walks with God can tell you what He's done for them. So testimony, therefore, is not a rational argument when we talk to our non-Christian friends. It doesn't have to be.

It is actually very emotional. It is actually very personal. And more than ever, people around us need to hear these testimonies because they are powerful.

They are powerful. Why do you think Paul used his testimony? Because he was trying to convince people of its truth. He was trying to use it to change people's hearts and minds. And so just a few things as we close off.

Two things that I want to share, I think that we get insights of in terms of these testimonies, is to include in our testimony two things: who I was and what God did. Who I was and what God did. Paul firstly tells his story honestly and personally, and that's what we should do as well. Paul was a man who had done terrible things, we read. A man very, very zealous, a man very determined to persecute the church.

He said that he had outpaced almost everyone of his own generation at being morally upright. Paul had been a great rule keeper, he says, and he knew it. And yet despite all of this, despite all of this, he needed to be saved by Christ, he says. And this is the point. There is no clearer example than Paul that salvation needs to be by faith alone.

It wasn't through moral performance that he was saved, but through radical love, the radical love of God. So Paul wanted to stress that no one is so good that they don't need the grace of the gospel nor is anyone so bad that they can't receive the grace of the gospel. How can he say this so persuasively to the Galatian church? It's because he was both very good and very bad. And despite both, God was pleased to call him His.

So Paul reflects on who he was. But then secondly, he also says what God did. Paul doesn't stop with his story. Paul doesn't say, and then I got my life together and I pulled myself up by the bootstraps and everything was fine. He pays attention to what God was doing.

Sometimes we know those testimonies. If you've ever heard them, the people telling it come out like the heroes of that story, don't they? They look like the ones that have rescued themselves. But in verse 15, Paul says that God is the one who had His hand on him the whole time. This was all God's doing.

Look at verse 15, he says, when He, God, who had set me apart before I was born. God was involved in my story before I even existed. And Paul is so strongly in this time resisting God. His heavenly Father, he says, eventually overruled all his intentions and used his experiences to prepare him to be the greatest preacher to all the Gentiles. All his Old Testament knowledge, all his fierce determination and his absolutely single-minded personality, his Greek upbringing, all of it used by God, what? For the building of God's church.

And we know if we read the Bible that the Bible is just full of these dramatic plot twists, isn't it? Where you just see God coming through and He just flips the situation upside down and it all ends up being for His purpose. Simply put, Paul says, this is who I was and this is what God did in my life. It's an excellent way to prepare our testimonies, to think about these two movements: who I was and what God did. So in conclusion, there's just a few questions you may want to jot down or take a photo of that you might ask yourself.

What was your understanding of your need at one point? In talking about your testimony to your colleague or your family member, what was your understanding of your need? It could be for your salvation, but it could just be for help in a situation. It could be for getting more understanding or for growing in patience. What was your understanding of your need?

How and when did you first understand this need? What was the circumstance that made you realise that, man, I need help? Then how did God solve this need? And then fourthly, what have you done in response to Him solving this need?

Did you grow closer to Him? Did you give your life to Him? Did you thank Him? What have you done in response to Him solving this need? And then lastly, and this is where we have to finish in our testimonies.

How has this made you feel? You may think that's a funny place to end, but that is the power of the testimony. How has this made you feel? As we close this morning, notice what Paul says with the reasons for all of these things having happened to him. Did you see it?

It's just a word. What was the plot? What was the motivator behind this story? Well, was it because Paul had been so good that it satisfied God to heal him? Was God pleased with his earnestness or even his misguided passion?

No, verse 16 says this. It was simply because God was pleased to do so. Why was Paul chosen? Because God was pleased to do so. Friend, God doesn't need your talents. God doesn't need you and your skills.

God doesn't even accept or take you because you are so passionate for Him. Why does God choose you? Why does God love you? Because He is pleased to do so. Because it delights Him and it glorifies Him to turn a wretch into a saint.

And this is the greatest comfort in our life. His love is the only love that you can be secure in because it is the only love you cannot lose because it doesn't depend on you. It doesn't depend on you. That is grace. Unmerited, undeserved favour.

Charles Spurgeon, that great preacher, once said, we can learn nothing of the gospel except by feeling its truth. We will not truly hold and cling to the gospel unless we have felt its power. Until we realise this sense of incredible gratitude and humility in our life now, in our heart now, is the power of the gospel. A testimony is simply explaining how you have felt the truth of the gospel. God was pleased to have set you apart from birth.

And so that includes from then on all your victories and all of your failures. It includes all your mistakes and your good fortunes. And so your story is God's story. A John Newton story of amazing grace. And as that hymn cries out, 'Twas grace that brought me safe thus far.

It will be grace that leads me home. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, help us to know our stories. Help us to live these stories and Father, ultimately help us to love these stories because You are writing it. Father, help us not to be blasé or nonchalant about these things.

Help us to recognise and see Your work in us, Your hand all throughout it. Because, Lord, we rob You of Your glory if we don't reflect, we rob You of Your glory when we become so self-absorbed. Father, we may not be very good at these testimonies. We may not feel capable of sharing it.

We don't think perhaps we have very good testimonies. But Lord, the fact that we are sitting here in this church, the fact that we can open Your word, the fact that we can sense Your Spirit interceding and speaking into our hearts right now is testament that we have a story to tell. Father, help Open House be a church that does this proudly and boldly to any and every ear willing to hear. We pray, Lord, that we will have the courage and find the opportunity and the motivation to do that. And ultimately, Lord, that motivation comes from a deep gratitude for what You have already done for us in Jesus Christ, who was pleased to save us.

Thank you for this grace. Thank you that You will bring us home. In Jesus name, amen.