A Certain Calling

First in a Series on Galatians: living by grace

Texts:  Acts 22:2-16; Galatians 1:1-5

Pastor Phil Hughes, American Fork Presbyterian Church, UT

April 16, 2023

If you are tired of religious effort,

…if you are worn down by the weight of things you imagine you have to do to be a good Christian,

…if you feel like faith is about keeping a checklist,

…if there are times you feel you aren’t good enough for God or his church,

...if your faith seems more burdensome than freeing,

…then the small book of the Bible called Galatians is for you.

This letter written by the Apostle Paul to the churches in the ancient area called Galatia, is a letter insisting that we live by grace.  In the sixth verse Paul speaks of living in the grace of Christ. The message of Galatians is one of freedom.

One commentator calls Galatians a letter for recovering Pharisees.[1] Pharisees were very devout, very religious believers in God during Jesus’ time who thought that what God would do for them depended on what they did for God.  They were legalistic. They insisted on keeping the laws of Moses to the “nth” degree. God was in the minds and actions of the Pharisees, but not in their hearts.

Pharisees can still be around today. Let me ask us this:  Do you think that God will do good things for you if you do good things for him – kind of a holy trade off…a spiritual give and take?

Do you, even subtly, think that if you do things that you know aren’t what a Christian should do that God turns his back on you?

Do you kind of keep a spiritual scorecard in the back of your mind about how many good things you are doing to please God and earn his favor?

If you answer “yes” to any of those questions you might be a recovering Pharisee. Because, like the Pharisees, your standing with God depends on what you do and the effort you put forth and how well you do it.

Many people think that religion is about performing some holy checklist.  They think that God’s love for them is about their performance.

I have some of that in me, and I could use a good reading of Galatians because this letter tells me that my performance isn’t what makes me OK with our Heavenly Father I am loved by him and I can have confidence that I have a good standing with my Father solely through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Grace is the undeserved favor of God. And that grace is freely given from a God who is more than I can comprehend, with a heart that is bigger than I will ever know.

The late Christian writer Brennan Manning said, “For the Pharisee the emphasis is always on personal effort and achievement.  The gospel of grace emphasizes the primacy of God’s love.” The Pharisees values impeccable conduct.  The child of God acts because he/she knows they are loved by God.

If me or anyone else ever leads us to believe that we have to come to church, read the Bible, pray, serve the poor, give our time and finances, serve in this church, agree with Pastor Phil, or do any number of other religious things to be right with God, don’t believe it because that is not the gospel.  That doesn’t mean what we do doesn’t matter. But the gospel of Jesus Christ is that we are saved by grace.  And we live by grace.  That’s what the sermons in Galatians are going to be about.

The fact that we don’t have to do anything, that we can’t do anything, to make it with God is hard to digest for a lot of people.  Sometimes we say we trust in grace but we really live trusting in our own efforts.

A therapist once said that after meeting with many people he,

            “…was driven to the conclusion that the two major causes of most emotional problems among evangelical Christians are these: the failure to understand, receive, and live out God’s unconditional grace and forgiveness; and the failure to give out that unconditional love, forgiveness, and grace to other people…We read, we hear, we believe a good theology of grace.  But that’s not the way we live.  The good news of the Gospel of grace has not penetrated the level of our emotions.”[2]

It's true, parts of the Christian church say grace but don’t always show it.

Grace is what sets apart Christianity from every other religion, philosophy, or system of thought.

The pastor and writer Gordon MacDonald said, “The world can do almost anything as well as or better than the church.  You need not be a Christian to build houses, feed the hungry, or heal the sick.  There is only one thing the world cannot do.  It cannot offer grace.”[3]

And so we are going to go through Galatians and learn or be reminded how to live by grace.

Galatians is a letter from Paul to the churches in the region of Galatia.  Today we know this area as Turkey.

The way information and instruction was passed along in the earliest days of Christianity was often through letters.  Much of the New Testament is made up of letters written by Paul to churches in various places.  Some of his letters are to specific people.  It was how Paul guided, encouraged, instructed, and sometimes chastised churches. His letters would be delivered to a church and read out loud for all to hear.  Then they would be passed along to other churches for those people to read and hear.

We don’t know the size of the churches Paul wrote to.  We don’t know how large the church in Galatia was.  The various churches might have been about the size of our church.  Maybe larger.  Maybe smaller.

Christians would meet in houses, or outside, or in hidden places like caves if the local government was especially suspicious of followers of Christ.

Christianity was a new thing, only decades old.  Everyone was still figuring out what they were to do, how things should work, what was vital and what was maybe secondary.  They were coming to understand what they believed and how they were to live for Jesus.

The faith of Jesus came from Judaism.  Jesus was Jewish.  His twelve apostles were Jewish.  They practiced the sabbath, went to synagogue and the temple.  They prayed the Jewish prayers, and paid attention to the laws and customs handed down by Moses.

But as the message of Jesus was spread by the disciples and apostles to non-Jewish areas, more and more Gentiles came to believe. And a big question was do Gentiles have to become Jews before they can become Christians?

Perhaps the first major question and area of conflict in the first years of Christianity was this: if you believe in the Messiah, do you still have to abide by all the Jewish laws of Moses in order to be right with God?  This was a cause of huge debate and in some cases major division.

The apostles, after much thought, prayer and debate, came to the conclusion that a person wasn’t right with God by continuing to keep the law, but solely through the saving grace of Christ, and trusting in his death and resurrection.

There were still some who said you had to keep the Jewish system even if you were Christian.  They had influenced the church in Galatia. Paul’s letter is against the influence of these people.

Often Paul begins his letters by telling a church how much he loves them, prays for them, is inspired by them.  He begins with warm greetings. Not Galatians.  Paul is hacked.  He is furious that the Galatians, who he helped bring to Christ, were now believing those people that were insisting that they had to be fully Jewish in order to be Christian.

Paul is stressed out.  He is not only upset that the Galatians have stopped living under grace, but he is ticked off at the preachers and religious leaders who are guiding them that way. Which is why be begins his letter in very strong terms, “Paul, an apostle – sent not from men, nor by man, but by Jesus Christ and God the Father…”

Why would he need to say this? The reason Paul does this is that certain leaders were saying that Paul’s calling was really his own invention and that he could not be trusted.  So Paul begins the letter by stating that he is sent by Jesus Christ, not by any person.

What’s an apostle?  The word literally means “one who is sent”.  Jesus chose twelve apostles out of a larger group of disciples.  They had a special and unique calling. An apostle needed to be a firsthand witness to Jesus, including seeing Jesus after he had risen. Paul became a late apostle, we might say.  He became an apostle some years after Jesus was raised and had ascended to heaven.

Paul had previously been named Saul.  He was a Pharisee before his conversion to Christ.  He was deeply zealous for the Jewish law.  He was a religious hot head and absolutely hated Christians.  He saw them as a threat to Judaism, Moses, the Temple and all things of his religion – so much so that he led a campaign of severe persecution of Christians which included arrest, torture and even putting them to death.

We read about Saul’s conversion and call in the book of Acts.  It is repeated a couple of different times when Paul retells the event. The Lord Jesus Christ appeared to Saul in such a dramatic and powerful way that it changed him forever.  Literally, he was knocked off his horse.

As he was on yet another mission to arrest Christians, the resurrected Jesus appeared to him, blinded him, knocked him off his horse, and called him to be his witness.  God changes his name as a symbol of a changed person. Acts 22 is one of the places we read of this experience. As we get further into Galatians we will hear more about Paul say more about how he is the real deal when it comes to being a true apostle of Christ.

Paul did not presume upon his calling from Christ. Listen to what he writes to one of his young protégés named Timothy:

“I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service.  Even though I was once a blasphemer and persecutor and violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief.  The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

“Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst.  But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life.”[4]

Paul knew what he had been and how he had been changed.  And that he was sent by God.

What are the marks of a Christian leader who has a genuine call?

We don’t get life-shattering visions of the risen Lord like Paul did.  In our tribe – called the Presbyterians – we believe that it takes the larger church to recognize if someone is called to a particular ministry.  We don’t just stand up and become Lone Rangers for Christ.  There need to be others who through prayer and the leading of the Holy Spirit agree and say, “Yes, he or she has a calling from the Lord.”  It is a process of discernment.

Going to seminary, having lots of knowledge, publishing a book, or having good looks and a good presentation don’t by themselves qualify someone to represent the Lord.  No one can just “run and speak on their own.”[5]

Someone is sent from God when he or she has the gifts to handle the gospel by preaching and teaching it clearly,

…has a sense of call from the Lord and is willing to ask other who are wise and discerning about that call, not just presume they know,

…humility,

…spiritual and emotional maturity,

…there is evidence of the Spirit of God on that person,

…and a strong conviction that the calling only comes by the mercy and grace of God, not by right or deserving.

Paul wants the believers in Galatia to know that he is the real deal.  It sets up everything he is going to say in this letter.  Because Paul is truly called by God what he says carries authority.  They should listen to him, not to those who are speaking against Paul.  And he is going to be confrontational.

Above all, someone who is sent and called to speak for and represent the Lord Jesus Christ must have the right message which is the gospel of grace.  The message of grace is an authentication of being sent by Jesus Christ.  And Paul wastes no time spelling out the message he represents and speaks:

Jesus Christ raised from the dead.  Jesus Christ who gave himself for our sins.  Jesus Christ who rescues us from this evil age. And it’s all God’s work. We are merely the recipients.  Therefore, it is all grace.  Undeserved.  Given and done for us out of the merciful heart of the Lord.

Really it’s a gospel beyond belief.  “You don’t make it happen. It’s done for you!”  There’s nothing to earn.  There is just a life to be lived secure in the love of God. That is what Paul is writing to these people.  And that is what we are to live by.  That is what we are going to learn more in the sermons over the next several weeks.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, as we hear what Paul wrote to the Galatian Christians, help them become words to us.  Help us to know and live by the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and live in the freedom of the children of God.  Amen.

[1] P.3

[2] Found in “What’s So Amazing About Grace?” by Philip Yancey, p.15

[3] ibid

[4] 1 Timothy 1:12-16

[5] Martin Luther’s phrase.