GALATIANS 1 GRACE IS A SURE FOUNDATION2019 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Galatians 1 Grace Is A Sure Foundation

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2019. Well, as we continue talking about the foundations for Christian living, we're going to continue here in the book of Galatians chapter 1 this evening and look at verses 10 through 24. And so let's begin by reading through the passage and then we'll jump into the message that God has for us.

Galatians 1.10 says,

For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through his grace to reveal his son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles and

Verse 18. Verse 18.

Verse 24, Here in Galatians chapter 1, we have really an incredible portion of scripture before us this evening.

as Paul recounts some of his history and uses it to establish the foundation of grace, the doctrine of grace. And it's the first of the doctrines we'll be looking at as we work our way through the foundations for Christian living. We started this last week and talking about the gospel of grace and the doctrine of grace. And that's really what the book of Galatians is all about.

The first four chapters, Paul is going to be establishing the doctrine of grace. And then in chapters five and six, he's going to drive home the application. And, you know, since we have this doctrine, since we live in this doctrine, you know, here's how it impacts our lives and here's how we live as a result of it. But we're talking about the doctrine of grace and the gospel of grace. And

Grace can be talked about for a long time, so I'm not going to try to define it every time, but I would just throw out a couple concepts for grace. Grace is unlimited forgiveness for the pursuit of God. That God in his grace gives you what you do not deserve and what you could never earn, and that is unlimited chances, unlimited lives. If you want to seek after God, you have unlimited opportunity.

You can get up after chance, after chance, after chance, after chance, be forgiven and get back into the presence of God and seek him again. You have unlimited forgiveness in the pursuit of God. Grace also extends to us righteous standing before God.

So it's not just that you get another chance to seek after God, but you get to seek after God as one who is righteous in God's eyes, as one who stands before God as if they had never sinned. And that means that you have access to God exactly the same as anybody else. There is nobody on the face of the earth today that has better access to God than you have.

Because of grace, we all have access to God. It's the same access to God by the righteous standing that we have in faith in Jesus Christ. And so grace towards us is God's goodness towards us, granting us forgiveness, granting us unlimited tries, you know, that we get to get back up even when we failed and messed up and we get to have access to the presence of God, to walk with God, to know God, to love God, to serve God. That's God's grace in our life.

And grace is amazing, but in many ways, it's possibly the most difficult doctrine for us to receive. And not because it's complicated, but it's just so contrary to our nature.

And we gravitate towards legalism and away from grace. There's an internal battle that we fight and our flesh fights against us as we seek to walk in the grace of God. And so it's something that we will be considering throughout the book of Galatians to help us in that battle, in that fight, to be established in this foundation of grace.

grace. I've titled the message for this evening, Grace is a Sure Foundation. One of the things that you need to know about grace, especially since it is a doctrine you will struggle with, grace is a sure foundation. It is something that you can count on. It's something that you can stake your eternity upon. The grace of God is that sure. It's that for sure. It's that established. It's that true.

We saw last week as we looked at the Galatians in the first part of the chapter, Paul was marveling. He says, I can't believe you guys have turned away. You have fallen away from the gospel of grace. And we kind of compared the Galatians to the rocky soil and the parable of the soils. That soil that started to spring up, it sprung up with joy, it started to grow, but then it fell away.

And a time of temptation, a time of temptation can be just a temptation to gravitate towards legalism or works. And that's exactly what was happening with the Galatians as there were people among them who were teaching Judaism plus Jesus. That's how you get saved. That's how you have access to God. That's how you get better access to the presence of the Lord.

And so Paul says, you have fallen away. They did not dig deep into grace. They didn't dig deep and lay a foundation as Jesus described in the parable of the wise and the foolish builder. And so we need to learn from their example and make sure we dig deep into grace, that we don't be that rocky soil, that we don't be those who build on the sand and then are wiped out because we were not deeply rooted in the doctrine of grace. And in order for you to really understand

Be able to do that. You need to know, first of all, that grace is a sure foundation. It's worth digging into. If you dig down deep into grace, you will find the rock. You will find the truth. You will find the thing that God will use to establish you and hold you fast so that you are not moved when the storms of life, the doctrine of grace, it's worth staking your eternity upon the grace of God. Can you imagine giving great effort to,

digging down deeply into a doctrine to have a false sense of security that then later on you find out it was wrong, it was incorrect, it was false. Or maybe think about it this way. You're contributing to your 401k at work and you work for 30 years at this place and you come to the point of retirement and you go to cash out your 401k and they go, okay, here you go. And they hand you these stacks of monopoly money.

And you're like, wait a minute, like this doesn't mean it's not valuable. I can't live off of this. It's fake. It doesn't, but I worked 30 years for this. I worked my whole life for this and it's just monopoly money. That would be terrible, right? Well, in the same way, we need to understand that grace is not like that. There are a lot of things that are like that and you can invest your life in things that will turn up to be monopoly money. But grace is not one of those things.

You learn grace. You get to relate to God by grace. You learn what it means to walk with God in the grace of God. It's not one of those things that will disappoint you 30 years from now. It's one of those things that will hold you fast into the truth of God and into a walk with God. How do you dig that foundation of grace?

We talked about Jesus in that parable of the wise and the foolish builder. He says, here's how you do it. Take my words and then do them. And so I would encourage you to do grace. That's how you lay a foundation of grace. We need to learn the doctrine and understand what it means. That's important, but we also need to do it. And that means no matter how good you've been, no matter how bad you've been, walk with God by his grace.

Even when you failed and even when you've messed up, draw near to God and worship him. Even if you're undeserving and unworthy, serve the Lord and seek to bring glory and honor to his name. Walk with him, know him, love him, pursue him, no matter what. Do grace and you will lay that foundation in the grace of God. And it's a sure foundation. It's so sure that Paul said this very bold declaration twice. I'll recap the phrase.

The thing that he said here in verse 9, it says, As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed. Aside from the grace of God, there is no gospel. If anybody else preaches a different gospel, Paul says, let him be eternally damned. That's how sure the grace of God is. That if anybody tries to teach something else, that, well, it's cursed.

It's an offense that's worth being accursed, being cut off from God for eternity. The grace of God is the way of salvation. It is a sure foundation. And Paul is going to now establish this through some words.

testimony of his about his own experience and it establishes for us the reason why we can trust in grace and know that grace is a sure foundation. So we're going to look at verses 10 through 12 for the first point and that is that grace is not man's idea.

And here's the thing you need to know about grace because, well, in order for something to be a sure foundation, first of all, it can't be man's idea. If it's man's idea, you can rest assured it is never a sure foundation. It is not going to be, you know, of eternal value. If it's man's idea, it's not that valuable. But if it's God's idea, then you can stake your eternity on it. And grace is not man's idea.

Going on now into verse 10, Paul says,

Now Paul's continuing his thought. He's been, you know, marveling at them turning away. He's been marveling at those that they're following this false doctrine that is coming in and these false preachers that have come in. He's saying they should be accursed. And he's saying, look, I'm not trying to just please people. If I was trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.

Sometimes we try to do both, but Paul says you really can't do both. You can't be seeking to please people and be a servant of the Lord. And one example of that is, well, when it comes to the doctrine of grace. Generally speaking, grace does not please man. It doesn't please our sinful nature. It's not what we want. It's not what we gravitate towards. We fight against this idea of grace.

It's often been observed. All other religions, aside from Christianity, present it as man working in order to reach God, right? But Christianity is the teaching that God has reached out to man, not the other way around. But if you look around at religions, at philosophies of life, it is

humanity, it is mankind working to merit, to earn, to deserve, to achieve whatever objective it is, whether it be heaven or nirvana or whatever it is, that there's this pursuit of that by man and it's man's efforts. But what the Bible teaches is grace, which is not man's efforts. It's God's efforts to reach man.

And there's a reason why all of the other religions teach all of these other things. And it's not just because there is an enemy, you know, who is opposing the gospel, but it's also because it is what we gravitate towards. Our own efforts, our works, our pursuits, our earning and deserving goodness from God.

It's often been observed, you know, that Christianity is different than religion. It's not a religion. It's a relationship, we say, right? And we say those things. Sometimes we say them so often we kind of forget what they mean. But it really is. It's not about us being religious. It's about us walking with God because he has made a way by his grace for us to have access to him. Generally speaking, man is not going to come up with this concept, right?

Mankind, humanity is not going to present this doctrine from their own resources. This is something that comes from God. Grace is God's idea, not man's idea. And so Paul says, I'm not trying to please people. Leon Morris, the commentator says this, he says, there have always been preachers who have sought popular acclaim above all else. And there are some still.

even those charged with the responsibility of proclaiming the gospel can fall into the trap of trying to be popular rather than faithful. And there is a great temptation for that idea of pleasing man, being popular. Paul says, I am not trying to do that. I'm going to hold fast to the doctrine, to the truth of grace. Now we might be thinking, well, grace sounds so amazing. Why would we be opposed to it? Why would we not gravitate towards it?

If we pursue grace or come up with grace in our own concept, we come up with a perverted type of grace. And that is, it doesn't matter what we do. It doesn't matter, you know, if we seek after God, we can just live in sin and there's grace, woohoo, you know, go party. And that's not grace. That's a perversion of grace, but that's not real grace. And so we can go from one side to the other or be on one side or the other and be seeking to please men, right?

or please ourselves and fall into, you know, legalism or liberalism and go too far in either direction. But it's not seeking to please God. It's seeking to please man or ourselves. Paul says, I'm not trying to do that. If I was trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. But there are going to be those who preach a message that pleases people. Doesn't necessarily please God, but it pleases people. It's appealing to people.

And there is that appeal, that trap of trying to be popular rather than faithful to the message of God. Paul says, I want to be faithful to the message of God. So he goes on in verse 11. He says, but I make known to you, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. This gospel, this message that I shared with you, it's not man's message. No man invented this message or came up with this message.

There are some gospels that are according to man. The guy L. Ron Hubbard famously recorded and quoted for saying, writing a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wanted to make a million dollars, the best way to do it would be to start his own religion. And he later on went to be the founder of Scientology. He was a writer, but he didn't get paid very much for it. So he decided, here's the way to make a lot of money.

And another time he was meeting with some students at a university and he said, you don't get rich by writing science fiction. If you want to get rich, start a religion. And so he later on took his own advice and got rich by starting a religion, coming up with a gospel according to man.

Now it was, you know, his own concept, his own ideas. Well, I don't know if he stole them from somebody else, but you get the point, right? It's not God led him in that or God instructed him or taught him. He came up with his own gospel with the objective of becoming wealthy. That was the purpose, right? And that is something for us to consider. Remember what Paul said to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 11? He said, look, I'm really concerned for you guys. I fear you.

Just like Eve was deceived by the serpent, I'm afraid that you might be deceived and your minds might be corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ. Because if someone comes and preaches another Jesus, how many Jesuses are there? There's a lot.

There's only one true and living Lord, Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins, right? But there's another concepts of Jesus, many concepts of Jesus and doctrine taught in the name of Jesus. That is not Jesus. It's a different Jesus. He says, or if you receive a different spirit, how many spirits are there? There's a lot. He says, if you received a different gospel, I'm afraid that you might put up with it. There's other gospels out there.

They're not the gospel. They cannot save, but there's other messages presented as the gospel, presented as the means of salvation, presented as the way to approach God and know God. And he was concerned with the Corinthians that they might put up with it. He was concerned with the Corinthians that they didn't have good soil. They weren't rooted in the grace of God. And so they might be moved.

Maybe there was thorny soil for the Corinthians. Maybe there was stony soil for the Corinthians. And they had received the gospel, but they were not so deeply rooted that they were firmly founded on the rock. It's important reminders for us. This is why we look at grace and understand it's a sure foundation.

so that we do grace, so that we live by grace, so that we relate to God by grace because it did not come from man. It's not man's invention. There are a lot of messages that are man's invention, but not grace. It's something that God revealed. In verse 12, Paul goes on to say, Paul now is going to begin to expound on his own experience.

He says, look, I did not receive this teaching from man. No man taught me about grace. Nobody told me about grace. And you might like stop and just go, wait, what? Are you really Paul? Nobody told you about grace? Not even Stephen when he was being stoned and you were being a witness. Nobody told you about grace? Paul says, nobody told me about grace. Paul lived his whole life as the religious zealot, right? The Pharisee of Pharisees, right?

seeking to approach God on his own efforts and merits. Nobody told him about grace. You can have access to God by faith, have forgiveness by faith, not by efforts and by works. And he's going to go on to explain this for the rest of the chapter. But he goes on to say, it came through the revelation of Jesus Christ. Here's one of the ways that we can see that grace is not a sure foundation.

First of all, man didn't come up with the concept, but now Paul is going to go on to explain, I received this directly from the Lord. And then we'll get into it more in chapter two also. And it lines up exactly with what the Lord revealed to his disciples who are with him on the earth for, you know, the three and a half years of ministry. And so we have this doctrine of grace that Paul says, nobody taught this to me, but I received this directly from the Lord and

Jesus revealed it to me. Jesus taught it to me. It's not man's idea. I didn't get fooled or deceived by some person telling me God directly revealed this to me. It's the doctrine of grace. Grace is difficult for us. Again, it's probably one of the most difficult doctrines for us to receive, not because of its complexity, but grace strips man of pride. Grace will strip us of pride.

Because we have nothing to boast about if we approach God and walk with God and live with God by grace. And so it's offensive to us because we like our pride. We don't want to be stripped of our pride, but grace strips us of our pride. Not only does grace strip man of pride, but grace strips man of power over others. You think about that guy who founded a false, you know, religion. Think about all the other false religions that operate not on the grace of God, but

One of the motivations, without slandering anybody individually, but one of the motivations for leaders in those religions is, hey, if I'm the mediator between you and God, I get to have the power in your life. You have to come to me. You can't hear from God on your own. What are you, crazy? You're not that smart. You don't know Greek. You don't know Hebrew. You're a sinner. I'm holy, and I have prayed over this water, and so I can sprinkle it on you and bless you because I'm

I'm the mediator. I stand in between you. You come to me. And there is a great motivation for perhaps money. I want to be wealthy, so I invent a religion or power or influence. And the grace of God cuts through all of that. It strips man of power over others because there is no mediator between God and man except for Jesus Christ. And if Cisco's been telling you that stuff, don't believe him. He does not have special access to God.

Scratch that. He does have special access to God, but he has the same special access to God that you have. He doesn't have better access to God. Even if he, you know, looks better or sounds better or is more impressive or does more things, you know, for God or religiously or whatever. Grace strips us of all that. It puts us on the same playing field in desperate need of God's goodness towards us.

It's so different. It's not man's idea. It's not the way that we work. And that's why Paul said, not Paul, but God says in Isaiah 55, my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are my ways, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. That's a good description of grace. The way that God's grace is, it's not man's idea.

It couldn't be because it is so far above whatever we would come up with. So different to whatever we would invent or write down. This is something that God has done and it's radically different than the way that we would operate. It's not man's idea. Moving on to verses 13 through 20, we get the second point this evening and that is the gospel of grace has been independently verified. The gospel of grace says,

Well, there was an audit that was done to see if the gospel of grace was true. By Independent, there was a recent article. I don't know if you guys have been following some of the news, but there was an article that accused a specific manufacturer of computer devices of

of being used by the Chinese government that China was planting and they were hiding chips inside the devices so that China could spy on companies and nations. And the company that was accused denied it and all the other companies, you know, named in the article, you know, they denied it as well.

But it developed in the tech community. Well, who do you believe? All these people are saying no, but then all these people are saying, yes, it's there, you know, trust us. And who do you believe? Well, there's a lot of, you know, investigations still to be done. But one of the steps that the company that was accused of being used by China in this way, they hired an outside firm to investigate. Because, hey, if a company is accused of something at this level, you don't just believe them when they say, no, no, we promise we're not doing that.

Well, you know, we've heard that from companies before, right? So no, no. Yeah, we need someone who is not in your company to come and verify this really is the case. This really is the truth. When it comes to the doctrine of grace and the gospel of grace, this is what we have in the Apostle Paul. It's independent verification of the truth of the grace of God.

And Paul explains here why he's able to be trusted. Now, a lot of this correlates with chapters 8 and 9 in the book of Acts, where we see Paul, before he's the apostle Paul, when he is Saul of Tarsus, taught by the famous rabbi Gamaliel, full of incredible potential and great zeal, a Pharisee of Pharisees. And so he persecuted the Christians, thinking he was doing God's work.

convinced God wanted him to wipe out the Christian church. In verse 13 and 14, Paul explains, Paul says, look, I started out opposed to

to the doctrine of grace, to the Christian doctrine, to the teachings of Jesus. I tried to destroy the church of Jesus Christ. I did my best at every effort. And so Paul is not just an objective, independent, you know, verification, but he even takes it a step further. He was the enemy of these teachings. And he was firmly convinced that

that it was God's will and God's work for him to destroy this doctrine and the teachings of Jesus. Saul had a promising career as a Pharisee ahead of him. And so he's explaining here, he was not looking for another message. You know, some people are seekers.

And they're interested. Well, let me go, you know, hear what these people have to say. And then let me go here and hear what these people have to say. And I'm still not satisfied. And I still think that there's more for me to learn. And so let me go hear what this group has to say. And there's this, you know, going around. Paul was not like that. Paul wasn't like, you know, Judaism is really lacking. And I'm a Pharisee of Pharisees, but I'm really just, you know, it's not enough. I feel like I need something more. You know, I need to find out more about God. Let me hear what the Christians have to say.

That was not Paul's standing. He was not unsatisfied with his religion. He was not seeking after something else. He was exceedingly zealous for the traditions of his fathers, he says in verse 14. He was in full-out pursuit of Judaism, legalism, so much so that he persecuted the church of God. Paul says, nobody taught me these things, but God intervened in my life. Verse 15 says,

But when it pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through his grace to reveal his son in me that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went to Arabia and returned again to Damascus.

Here Paul refers to what we find in Acts chapter 9 verses 1 through 4. As Paul is on his way to Damascus to persecute and kill Christians in Damascus, God interrupts. He shines a light and knocks Paul off his horse and says, hey, I'm the Lord who you're persecuting. It pleased God who separated me from my mother's womb and called me through his grace to reveal his son in me.

Nobody came and taught me these things. Nobody came and introduced me to these things. I didn't go seeking them out. I was firmly dead set against the things of Jesus until I came face to face with Jesus. And he began to teach me. He called me, notice, through his grace. Paul, he's not just teaching.

Oh man, I can't remember the saying now. What was that saying from the guy, you know, the commercial where he was like, I'm not just the CEO, I'm a customer, whatever, you know, the bald commercial. Anyways, that's from 30 years ago. But Paul's not just a proclaimer of grace. He is the recipient of grace. He was called by God's grace. He experienced God's grace as God revealed himself to Paul and

who would never deserve it, who was so unworthy of God's revelation and serving the Lord and preaching the gospel. But God intervened and God called him to preach. And notice he says, I did not confer with flesh and blood immediately in verse 16. I didn't go sit down with Russell and say, what do you think, Russell? I mean, I had this experience and this vision and the Lord appeared to me. And what do you think about grace? I want to hear what you say about grace, Russell. You tell me. That's not what Paul did.

He didn't go confer with other people. I'm kind of thinking that grace might be something that the Lord wants to speak to us about. What do you guys think? Go call a meeting of the Sanhedrin and say, let's talk about grace, guys. And that's not what happened. He didn't confer with flesh and blood. Now that's not counsel for us to always live our lives in that way. But what Paul is establishing here is man did not teach this to me. This is something that God directly revealed.

And so Paul says, I went to Arabia in verse 17 and then went back to Damascus. So the logical thing to do, you become a Christian called to be an apostle. You go down to where the other apostles are in Jerusalem. That would be probably the most likely direction for someone in that position. But that's not what Paul did. Paul has an encounter with Jesus on his way to Damascus. So what does he do? He goes to the desert, to Arabia.

And he spends three years in Arabia alone in the desert. You can think about it this way. The disciples, Peter, James, John, all those guys, right? They had three years with Jesus in his earthly ministry. Paul had three years with Jesus out in the desert, in the deserts of Arabia. He was re-schooled, re-trained. All those scriptures that he knew really well because he was, you know, zealous in the scriptures, they had new lights.

Because now he'd had an encounter with Jesus and he understood the grace of God. Albert Barnes says this. He says, he was not appointed by man, nor did he have any human instructor to make known to him what the gospel was. He had neither received it from man, nor had he, nor had he,

nor had it been debased or adulterated by any human admixtures. He had received it directly from the Lord Jesus. So nobody came and messed with the message and kind of gave them their version of what they wanted Paul to hear and know and believe. He was not appointed by man to be an apostle. Remember back in verse one, when Paul introduced himself, verse one, Paul, an apostle, not from men nor through man, but through Jesus Christ and God, the father who raised him from the dead.

So Paul is establishing here, you've heard this doctrine from Peter, James, and John and the disciples and the apostles. Here I am, I'm completely separate, the same message, but I didn't hear it from them. I heard it from the Lord Jesus directly. It's an independent verification. It's a two or three witnesses type of situation where you can trust it's a sure foundation because this gospel, Paul had the same message, had the same gospel, but

but not taught from them, but received from the Lord directly. And there in the wilderness, Paul had this training experience with the Lord, learning, relearning the scriptures that he already knew so well. Remember Jesus said in John 5, 39, he said to the Pharisees, you search the scriptures for in them you think you have eternal life. And these are they which testify of me. And so Paul was able in the wilderness to go back and go,

over all of these scriptures and go oh my goodness how did i miss that all this time this is talking about jesus this is teaching me about the grace of god this is teaching me about the reality of the messiah in the book of romans paul you know elaborates on this even further he he looks back to abraham as the example talking about the grace of god and righteousness that comes by faith abraham believed god and it was accounted to him for righteousness no man taught that to paul

He knew the scriptures. He spent time with the Lord in the desert and the Lord revealed those things to him. That scripture I just shared a few moments ago, Isaiah 55, my thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways aren't your ways. As high as the heavens are above the earth, right? We all familiar with that verse, but you know what that passage is talking about? It's talking about grace. And Isaiah 55, seven says,

That's right before my thoughts are not your thoughts. God says, let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. Let him return to the Lord and he will have mercy on him and return to God for he will abundantly pardon. Abundant pardon, unlimited forgiveness for drawing near to God and walking with God. That's grace and that's radical. It's different than what we would come up with, than what man would invent, than

But God says, my ways are not your ways. They're higher, as high as the heavens are above the earth. That's how much higher my ways are above your ways. I will abundantly pardon those who draw near to me. Well, going on in verse 18, it says, then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter and remained with him 15 days. But I saw none of the other apostles except James, the Lord's brother. Now concerning the things which I write to you, indeed before God, I do not lie. Notice that in verse 20, Paul is taking the witness stand.

in a courtroom and saying, I'm an eyewitness. I'm testifying. I swear this is the truth. I'm not lying. I did not receive this doctrine from anybody else. I received this from the Lord. And he's walking through the timeline, the timeframe of the things that happened. And just to kind of help like paint that picture, I have this chart here for you. So 36 AD is a rough time period of when Paul was converted in Acts chapter nine.

around the same time of course ananias comes and prays for him but then paul goes out into arabia and for three years he's he's out in training with the lord in the desert the lord's ministering to him and that's what he's been describing here in chapter one that we've been reading then paul goes back to damascus and as he's in damascus after returning from the desert

He has to flee Damascus because he's preaching and the Jews don't like it and they try to kill Paul. And so Paul flees Damascus and heads down to Jerusalem. This is about 39 AD or so, about three years after he's been saved. And so this is what he's talking about in verse 18. He went up to see Peter and remained with him for 15 days. And so three years after Paul's become a Christian and gone through Bible college, now he meets Peter. He spends two weeks with Peter, but then he's rushed out of Jerusalem and

You can read about it in Acts chapter 9 verses 26 through 30. Because as Paul is preaching the gospel in Jerusalem, the Jews try to kill him in Jerusalem. And so they sneak him away and send him back to his hometown in Tarsus. He spends some unknown amount of time in Tarsus. And then Barnabas goes and seeks him out and brings him to Antioch. It's probably around 43 AD.

And then in 45 AD, Barnabas and Paul take relief to Jerusalem. So they go and visit Jerusalem just to bring relief. In 48 AD, Paul goes on his first missionary journey, Acts chapter 13 and 14. And then in 53 AD is when Paul spends some significant time in Jerusalem as recorded in Acts chapter 15. And then next we'll see that in Galatians chapter 2.

So this kind of outlines here what Paul is saying. He was converted. He had an encounter with Jesus. He went in the desert. He didn't go to Jerusalem. The apostles didn't teach him. The apostles didn't appoint him. He was already established in the truth and the doctrine of God before he had opportunity to spend time with the apostles.

And that's what he's laying out here. He's laying out this timeframe saying, look, I'm independent. I'm separate from those guys. But we have the same message because it's the truth of God. Because it is the only means of salvation. Because it is the doctrine of God. It's the gospel of grace. That's the way of salvation.

It's been independently verified. You can trust it. It's a sure foundation. It's worth digging deep into. It's worth staking your eternity on. It's so sure that you can count on the grace of God with your very soul. Warren Wiersbe, to finish up that point, says, no matter how you look at it, the conversion of Paul was a spiritual miracle. It was humanly impossible for Rabbi Saul to become the Apostle Paul apart from the miracle of God's grace.

He is a walking testimony of the grace of God, not just as the one who preaches it, but as the recipient of it and the demonstration that the grace of God reaches to the worst of the worst, the chief of sinners, the one who is radically opposed to God has been transformed into the one who preaches the message of God independently from those that the Lord had revealed it to previously. Well, the final point for this evening found in verses 21 through 24 is grace brings glory to God.

Here in these verses, Paul is still explaining that he did not receive this gospel from others. In verse 21, he says, Paul says,

They didn't train me. Now, Judea was the region that was around Jerusalem. I wasn't in that region, Paul is saying. They didn't know me. I wasn't hanging out in their churches or schools. They didn't teach me. They had heard about me. That's all. That's the only relationship that we had. They had heard about me. The one who previously persecuted now preaches the faith that he tried to destroy. And so Paul is just establishing this truth.

I did not receive this from someone else. It's not man's idea and I didn't receive it from man. I received it from God. This is the truth. You can build a foundation on this. It's a sure foundation. But pay attention to the results. Paul says in verse 24, and they glorify God in me. I think this is a key element in the authentication of the gospel of grace.

This is a key part of what grace is and the doctrine of grace. Listen, any other gospel glorifies man. Any other gospel glorifies man. But the gospel of grace results in the glorification of God. This is a great test for doctrine. This is a great test for a message. Who gets the glory? Well, if I get the glory because, well,

I was this terrible and I was involved in so many things and I did all of these atrocious things. And then I did all of these amazing things to make up for it. Then who gets the glory, right? No, but then Jesus, you know, knocked me off my horse and showed me grace and called me to preach. He gets the glory, not me.

That's what Paul is saying. They glorified God in me. This is an important part of grace. Grace brings glory to God. This is one of the reasons why grace is grace. Because if salvation was any other way, if forgiveness was any other way, if God's work in our lives was any other way, we would have something to glory about. We would have something to boast of. If it's grace, we have nothing to boast about except for God's grace.

That's what Paul said, right? I have nothing to boast about except for the cross of Christ. I can boast about that. God is good in his goodness and what he has done, but it's not my efforts. I don't get a boast in what I did and my great accomplishments and my great achievements and my great discipline and determination and understanding of, you know, this doctrine or I don't get to boast because all that I received from God, I'm unworthy of.

I can't read my Bible enough to be worthy of God's blessings in my life. I can't pray enough to deserve for God to work in my life and even answer my prayers. I can't preach enough or serve enough or run enough laps around the church to get anything from God that I deserve, that I earn. No, that is not the way that we relate to God. It's grace.

God giving us access to him, offering us forgiveness because of what he has done, because he wants to do good things for us. He wants the best for us. You know, that famous saying, right? Jesus loves you and has a plan for your life. It's true. But again, sometimes we say it so much, we kind of forget the meaning. He has a plan for your life, not because, wow, you're so talented. I mean, I just can't imagine what God could do if you would just surrender to him. It's just so amazing. But

He's just been wishing he had someone as talented as you. Well, that's not entirely accurate, right? Because then you would have something to boast about. Oh man, God is so happy he found me. Boy, is he happy. He's happy because he loves you, but it's his grace. It's his work. Grace glorifies God and not man. And along with that point, grace opens the door to

for every man. Listen, if it's not by grace, boy, there is a steep hurdle to have access to God in eternity. Not everybody will have the opportunity to have access to God in eternity if it's not by grace. This is one of the things that I think about whenever, you know, there's false teaching and cults and those kinds of things. And it's like only we have the true message. Okay, well, what happened to everybody else who lived for the thousands of years before you came on the scene?

See, if now there's a new message that's different, if now it's always been the same. Abraham believed God, it was accounted to him as righteousness. The grace of God is not something new to the New Testament. It's revealed in a much more clearer way, but God still operated by faith through grace from the beginning of time.

This is the same way that God has related to us and invited us to him and his presence. The same way through Adam, through Moses, through David, through all the way through the New Testament. And if it's another way, then not everybody has access to God. Paul says it this way in Romans chapter four, verse 16. Therefore, it is of faith that it might be according to grace so that the promise might be sure to all seed.

not only to those who are of the law, but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham, who is the father of us all. If salvation is only by the law of Moses, boy, there is nobody who is saved because they don't keep the law of Moses. But even if you just pretended for a moment, keeping the law of Moses could save you if you could keep it. Let's pretend you can't. There's only a select few who have access to the law of Moses in that way.

If only the Jehovah's Witnesses are saved, which that's another Jesus, okay? But if it's only that cult, or if it's only that doctrine, if it's only that teaching, if it's only this group, then everybody else in all of history, they're lost. For sure, they didn't even have an opportunity. But with grace, every man, every woman has opportunity.

That doesn't mean every man and every woman is saved. Again, we'll get into the more details about how grace works as we go forward in Galatians. But the point is that it opens the door for every man. That's what God cares about, right? You think God would bring a doctrine that would just cut off, you know, half of humanity from the get-go? They didn't even have opportunity? Some people do think that. It's so contrary to the nature of God. It's by grace. And God established it by faith that

so that it could be according to grace, so that everybody would have that opportunity to have that sure foundation, to have that hope of eternity. Grace is a sure foundation. It's not man's idea. The gospel of grace has been independently verified. And so you can count on it. You can stake your eternity on it. It's not what we would come up with. It strips us of pride. It strips us of power over controlling others and being the mediator between God and man. And so

gives us all access to God directly by faith in Jesus Christ and gives every person the opportunity to be forgiven, to know God, to walk with God, to hear from God, to serve God, to love God, to worship God, to be used by God for great things. And so again, this evening, I encourage you to do grace. How do you lay that foundation? How do you be established in that sure foundation? You need to start doing it. And that is walking with God, even when you've messed up.

Even when you failed, even when you've deliberately sought after things that are not of God and ran the other direction from God, even when you've blown it royally, come back, approach God by faith in Jesus Christ, his finished work upon the cross. Even if it's 30 seconds after you committed that atrocious sin against him, come back and draw near to God and call out to him.

And ask him for forgiveness. Not because you deserve it. And don't try to earn your way back. Don't put yourself on time out and say, all right, you got to sit here for three weeks because I did really bad. You know, last time I was only two weeks because I didn't do something as bad. But now it's three weeks because I did really bad. And I knew better. And so, oh yeah, three weeks. I can't come to church. I can't talk to God. I can't ask God for anything for three weeks because, you know, you're putting yourself on time out. And so,

That's not grace. That's a different foundation, guys. You're going to be swept away. No, no. You need to establish yourself on the doctrine of grace and approach God even though you don't deserve it, even though you're completely unworthy and draw near to God anyways and ask God for help anyways and ask God to bless you anyways and seek to love God anyways and seek to walk with God and serve him and worship him no matter how good or bad you've been, no matter how deserving you are, no matter how worthy you are. You need to do grace.

and really pursue God no matter where you're coming from, no matter what you've been doing. You call out to God and walk with him and seek after him. That's what God invites you to do with his grace. That's God's idea. It's not man's idea. I'm going to finish with this quote from David Guzik. He says, does your Christian experience come from God or have you made it up yourself? Only what comes from God can really save us and make a lasting difference in our lives.

I encourage you to think about your experience and your walk with God. Where does it come from? Does it come from God? Is it God's grace that you are living out in your life? Or is there some other source? Something that you've generated perhaps? Some set of rules and regulations and list of things that you operate by and this is how you approach God and it's your ideas. Or is it something that someone else has told you but doesn't line up with the word of God? And we'll see that next in Galatians chapter 2.

The incredible thing about, lots of people can claim like Paul, I received a direct revelation from the Lord, but then it doesn't match up with the rest of the word of God. But the independent verification is that Paul received it directly, independently, and it matched exactly. It's the grace of God that brings salvation. And it's what teaches us to live soberly and righteously in this ungodly and evil age. It's the grace of God that we need. Amen.