Knowing Jesus First-Hand

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

Very early in my marriage, like just a few days into being married, I wake up one day, and I'm talking to Christie, and I can tell she's thinking about something. There's kind of something on her mind. And so when I finally get it out of her, she goes, well, if you're crazy, then I'm stuck. Right? Like if you are a lunatic, we're married. I'm stuck. Now, mind you, I did nothing but wake up that morning. Okay. That's all I did. I swear. And the more, the more time passes, the more that doesn't sound like a very crazy thing. Because even though it sounded strange to me just a few days into my marriage, it does happen.

It happens. People get married thinking that they know someone, but that someone turns out to be someone completely different. They've been, they've been tricked. And so for my wife, just a few days into that, into our marriage for her to run that nightmare scenario, you know, I'm not really sure if she's decided yet. if I'm crazy or not, but I think, no, okay, she's still, she's giving me the note. She hasn't decided yet. She's still thinking about it. Some people approach Jesus the same way. They want to follow Jesus, but they aren't sure if he's tricking them. They aren't sure if the people in the church are tricking them. They believe there's going to be a bait and switch. And this idea persists because people use religious coercion. Churches use religious coercion. An example of religious coercion would be, you know, if you want to remain a Christian, then you're going to have to give way more money.

If you want to stay a Christian, you're going to have to up that giving, right? Or hey, if you want to get to heaven, then you have to serve in grade school. This is religious coercion and it is false. And the only reason I bring that up is so that we can see how the gospel is different than that. The gospel works differently. We learned last week in Galatians 1, 3 through 4, the gospel, the simple gospel that Jesus gave himself to set us free. In other words, we weren't coerced into that agreement, into that relationship. And after we're in that relationship, we're not coerced into doing good. Instead, Jesus gives us new hearts, new desires. He gives us the choice to obey or to sin. Today we are continuing our series, Breaking Free, the Gospel in Galatians. And we've learned that Galatians is a circular letter to multiple churches. That's why in verse 2 it says, to the churches in Galatia.

So the letter was written by Paul, given to one church, and then passed on to all the other church. It would be like a church, a letter written to all the churches in Johnson County. And right here is where the Galatian churches were running off course. They were deserting Jesus and turning to a different gospel, it says in verse 6. Right? They were, they were, they may not have been using religious coercion, but they had, they were twisting the gospel into something different. And today we're going to discover another layer to that problem. And by doing so, we're going to learn that the gospel of freedom comes to us firsthand. The gospel of freedom comes to us firsthand. And so let's start by digging a little further into the problem. We're gonna be in Galatians chapter one, verse 10. We're gonna start there, and we're gonna go all the way through to 10.

So we're gonna be mowing through a lot of verses here, but we're gonna see why in a couple of minutes. So Galatians chapter one, verses 10 and 11, It says, 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 to me is not man's gospel. Now remember, these churches in Galatia are turning to a different gospel. So some other teachers, some other people have come in and they are discrediting Paul. That's one part of the problem. These people are coming in after Paul has established these churches, and they're discrediting him. And their accusations, we don't have them, we just have Paul's response to them, but their accusations might sound something like this. Paul, hey, you're just preaching that to find approval.

You're just preaching that to sound dramatic. You're making up that story about how Jesus found you on the road to Damascus. Paul, you're just writing the coattails of Peter and the other apostles with this story. And however those accusations might have gone, the core of those accusations is, Paul, you didn't really meet Jesus. That story is made up, you're writing the coattails, but the core, you didn't really meet Jesus. Now, nobody is going to come out and say that today. However, accusations, um, that come out today are similar. They're just said in a different fashion. I'll give you a few examples.

People today might say something like you only believe what you believe because of your upbringing. You're only a Christian because your family made you a Christian. If I, if I were in your situation, I believe that way too. Or here's, you know, another version of that. Like you were raised in a different time, right? Your parents raised you this way, my parents raised me this way, so that for that reason you're a Christian and I'm not. Or maybe another one instead of upbringing, hey, you believe because you want to see yourself as a good person. You wanna see yourself as a good person, you're naive.

Or maybe another way to say that in the naivete would be, You haven't seen enough bad things, right? You want to believe that everything's gonna turn out okay. You can't really face the harsh realities of what's going on. You just kind of put a blindfold on and you call it faith, right? All those accusations today are the same as the accusations Paul was dealing with whenever he was leading this Galatian, these sets of Galatian churches. people will say those things and they will say anything to cast doubt upon the fundamental truth that Jesus Christ rose from the dead in space and time. He rose from the dead in history and He personally revealed Himself to you. Let me say that again. All these accusations that Paul is facing that we are facing, all those accusations, all they do is work to cast doubt upon the fundamental truth that Jesus Christ rose from the dead for real and he personally

revealed himself to you. In fact, this is the only thing that makes someone a Christian, is a personal revelation from Jesus. And I don't mean a revelation like you saw the vision and you saw it, you know, I mean Jesus revealed himself to you. Jesus introduces himself to someone. He has a relationship with them. And And Paul affirms this in his response. Look at verse 12, Galatians 1-12. It says, For I did not receive it, the gospel, I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it. But I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. Paul is saying, I discovered the gospel from Jesus first hand. I discovered it from Jesus firsthand. In other words, I didn't change anything about it. I didn't make it up I didn't I didn't do anything to make it more pleasing to people. I'm not trying to win anybody's approval. I received it firsthand However, that does not settle the matter

Right he Paul has to prove a negative if somebody says hey, I saw you a Baskin Roberts You could say, no, I wasn't if asking Robert, but it's gonna help you if you say, no, here's where I was at that time. And so Paul then has to show evidence of not receiving the gospel a different way. He can't just say, no, no, no, I received the gospel from Jesus firsthand. He now has to go through his personal history and demonstrate how he did not receive the gospel in a secondhand way, or how he's not making this up. And so what Paul does is he built a timeline. And this timeline makes up much of the following verses all the way through to 10. And as we follow this timeline, which we're about to do, it is just know that it is a fascinating look at some secondhand sources to the gospel.

As Paul is talking about how he received the gospel firsthand, we also get this front row seat into what a secondhand gospel source might look like. And so let me show you what I mean. We're gonna start in Galatians 1, 13 through 16. It says, 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, and we're gonna stop right there. I know that's the middle of verse 16, but we're gonna stop there for just a second, because Paul is making a point. He's saying his heritage, his upbringing, did not give him the gospel.

Paul's saying, I was as Jewish as they get, but being Jewish, being religious, you know, understanding facts about the gospel, about the God of the Old Testament, right? Understanding those facts did not bring me the gospel. Verse 16, right? Jesus came to Paul personally. Jesus was revealed to him. And our upbringing, right, just like for Paul, it's the same for us, our upbringing can help us know facts about the gospel. And it is a good thing. I mean, this is why we have, you know, children's ministry and grade school and student ministry. This is why we have those things because we want to help people, children in particular, understand gospel facts. And that's good, but at best, at best, that education can make us religious and it can instill morals. Both of those are still good things, potentially, depends on your religion. It can be good. It can help us know facts

about the gospel, but it cannot bring us to Jesus. Our upbringing, our heritage cannot bring us to Jesus. It is not the gospel. How do you know you might be relying on your upbringing? Well, if your testimony ends with, I was raised in church, then you might be relying on your heritage to give you the gospel. Or if you say something like, well I rebelled a bit, but then I came back to my roots. Back in church, you might be relying on your heritage. Because whenever Jesus comes, when Jesus reveals himself to you, when he says follow me, your upbringing doesn't matter. It's useless. Jesus comes to you and he says to you, follow me. He didn't say, hey, your parents followed me, so you know, you kind of get in on that. No, in fact, Jesus says, unless you deny your mother and father.

Right? He pits following him against following your upbringing sometimes. So sometimes upbringing, it can confuse us into being, or we rely on it like a secondhand source for the gospel. Now let me be absolutely clear, because I've said it a few times. When Paul says, and when I say, that we receive the gospel straight from Jesus, right? What I don't mean is that I collected all of my information about Jesus from a vision of Jesus, okay? Where he told me everything personally. Because the Bible actually shows that people proclaim the gospel, right? So I hear about the gospel from people, right? People reason with others about the gospel. People persuade others with the gospel. All those things are true, but there is a moment where you move from gospel information to meeting Jesus.

Let me say it again. There's a moment where you move from gospel information to actually meeting Jesus. And some of that problem, you know, when people are relying on their upbringing, they don't move from the secondhand source to firsthand. Jesus wants to meet us personally. He wants to commit to us personally. He wants us to commit to Him personally. He wants a real relationship with us.

And so when it comes to upbringing, it's a secondhand source. It might be able to, you know, instill a few things in us, but it's not the same. Upbringing is a secondhand source. What's the next source? We can find it in Galatians 1, 17 through 2, 2. Sorry, we're going to start in 16, Galatians 1, 16 through 2, 2. And so, remember, he's talking about how he was pleased to reveal his son to me in order that I might preach him among the Gentiles. It says, when that happened, at the very end of 16, it says, I did not immediately consult with anyone. Okay? So, Paul is saying, when I learned about Jesus, when he revealed himself to me, I didn't go and check my story. And look, he keeps that going. Verse 17, nor did I go to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me. Okay, so he's saying I didn't go to the apostles. I didn't go to the original guys and say, okay, hey, I'm checking my story here.

He didn't do that. What else did he not do? Verse 22, it says, and I was still unknown in person to the churches of Judea that are in Christ. And so he's going to bring up Judea and Jerusalem often. He said, I didn't know those guys. And then lastly, chapter 2, verse 1, it says, then after 14 years, I went up again to Jerusalem with Barnabas taking Titus along with me. Okay, so he's saying, I didn't get the gospel from these apostles or their churches. I didn't receive Jesus at a Damascus Road experience, right?

I didn't have that experience and then go, okay, I'm not sure I believe all this. Let me go check my story against what the apostles are teaching over here. I didn't go to the church in Jerusalem. I didn't go to Judea. In fact, I wasn't even close to them. In fact, what Paul builds here is a timeline that consists of more than 17 years. He said, I didn't go after the apostles, listen to their teaching and fall in love with that. I wasn't taught by some influential religious leader. Paul's saying, I met Jesus. In fact, what Paul is saying, he's kind of going a little further and he's saying, look, I realize that it is uncanny that I am preaching the exact same gospel that these apostles are preaching. I get that. However, the only reason, the only reason that we preach the same gospels, not because we were in the same town, it's not because we were from the same church,

it wasn't because we talked to each other, it wasn't because I checked my story against them, it's because the same way these apostles met Jesus, I met Jesus. That's why we preach the same gospel. It's not because I'm writing anybody's coattails. And sometimes we can make the mistake of falling in love with a set of theories and not falling in love with Jesus. We can make the mistake of worshiping some influential religious leader and not worshiping Jesus. Now religious leaders, pastors, et cetera, they're great. And if they're doing their job, they can help us understand the gospel. But at best, at best, A religious leader can help us learn deeply spiritual truths, and that can even sometimes feel like growth. But leaders, those religious leaders, they make terrible mediators between us and God. Religious leaders aren't going to bring you salvation. They would be crushed under that weight.

They should be. do you know that you are relying on a religious leader? Well, this is kind of a difficult one. It's more nuanced, but you know it when you have it. Your relationship with God depends very heavily on your relationship with that leader. And if they fail, then in your mind God fails. If they fail, God fails. Which is a pretty crushing thing to experience. That when you believe that God has failed you when you believe that you can no longer trust Him, that is a despair that you would not wish on your worst enemy. Now I want to be careful here because spiritual leadership is real but there's a difference between following someone's spiritual leadership which is commanded in Scripture even. There's a difference between that and worshiping that leader. And when Jesus shows up, other leaders will pale in comparison. When Jesus shows up, hopefully those religious leaders will bow in worship. I'm up here whenever we

do our response time and I'm up front. I hope that you catch me worshiping. I'm not too busy leading to worship with you. I'm not too busy wondering when the service is gonna end or what's gonna happen Next, I wanna be able to worship with you. It's because I wanna set a good example, but it's also because I'm not Jesus. I worship like everybody else. And when Jesus shows up and says, I want you to follow me, it is an entirely different endeavor than following a religious leader. Religious leaders are a secondhand source of the gospel. upbringing, like we talked about earlier, is also a second-hand source of the gospel. Let's look at a third, our last one, second-hand source, and it's Galatians 2 6 through 9, but we're gonna read just kind of parts of it.

6 and 7 it says, and from those who seem to be influential, what they were makes no difference to me. God shows no partiality. Those I say who seemed influential added nothing to me. On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised, just had Peter been entrusted, just had Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised. And then you skip down to verse 9, it says, And when James and Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to Barnabas and me, that we should go to the Gentiles and they too, the circumcised. Okay, sorry, That was a bit choppy, but the main idea is that when Paul finally does get to Jerusalem, when he does talk to these people, he's saying they didn't add anything to me in the end of verse 6. Verse 7, actually what happened is that

when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel the same way they had been entrusted to the gospel, they extended the right hand of fellowship to me. In other words, they welcomed me as a brother, me and Barnabas, as brothers. And so he says the only difference in our, in between us and the Apostles is our mission, right? And so what he's saying is the Apostles mission is different than mission. I didn't get the gospel from their mission. I'm not writing the coattails of this movement. Jesus met me, revealed himself to me personally, and gave me this mission to the uncircumcised, to the Gentiles, people not Jews. And sometimes for us, it is easy, it is easy to let a worthy cause become a secondhand source for the gospel. Paul's saying the worthy cause of what the Apostles are doing, that wasn't where I learned the gospel. I learned it from Jesus. And so a worthy cause is good. It's worthy. And it can actually

help us understand the gospel because it demonstrates what it means to follow Jesus. It actually brings joy to our souls to serve another person. And those things are good. But serving a worthy cause is not the same as an encounter with Jesus. They're very different. So how do you know that you're relying on a worthy cause instead of Jesus? Well, and if you've ever been here, if you've ever done this, you'll know it kind of immediately.

When you are serving that worthy cause, you will have a day when it inevitably dawns on you that the difference you're making is only temporary. Now, again, I call these things worthy causes for a reason. They are worthy causes. However, if you're looking for that worthy cause to be the gospel, to be salvation for you, it won't hold up. That cause is going to crumble underneath that weight. The difference you're making is only temporary. For example, let's just say we start attacking homelessness in Burleson. Okay, and we're getting real excited like, hey, let's make homelessness non-existent in Burleson. Okay, great. We're, you know, we're going to do that. Well, what we will realize quickly is that we can't help every homeless person. And that sometimes when we, even when we help a homeless person, they end up homeless still just later. And it's going to feel over time like we aren't making any difference or that we're just

reshuffling the deck, but it's the same hand every time. Right. And it's not to say that these causes aren't worthy. It is to say though that they cannot, do not function as a savior. They will crumble underneath that weight and you will set your life on a course for despair if you rely on a worthy cause. Because when you have an encounter with Jesus, a personal face-to-face encounter with Jesus, that worthy cause finds its actual value. So if we're serving the homeless, if we're reaching out to single moms, if we're trying to attack poverty, if we're trying to do all of those things, right? Even if we're endeavoring toward race relations, like reconciling people of different races together, if we're trying to even go there, all those things are worthy causes. However, they are not the gospel. And in Jesus, when we encounter Him, all those things make sense.

Jesus, His mission, He has one mission and it's an overall overarching mission to redeem people to Himself. And when you find out that you're the prison ministry that you're that you're working on, the single mom's ministry, the women who are in danger of having an abortion ministry, all of those things, right, they're all really important things, but they find their ultimate value in Jesus's mission, not in their own. A prison ministry is only valuable in that it helps reconcile all things to Jesus. And the same goes for any other worthy cause. It's not the same as meeting Jesus. And you know with secondhand sources, with upbringing, with religious leaders, and with worthy causes, they can seem really safe at first. Right? But there's a moment when you need to move on. There's a moment when you need to recognize your upbringing as something good, but it's not the gospel. Recognizing that religious leader is

somebody that you respect, but they're not Jesus. Or that worthy cause is something that is valuable and worth your time, but that it is not your Savior. And you need to meet Jesus first hand. And when you do that, your heart is changed and you find true and lasting freedom. And this freedom that we find, I want to be real clear, it's not just a mentality. It's not just a perspective. We don't just make it up. This is not the power of positive thinking. This freedom is something that is real and comes to you personally and powerfully from Jesus Himself. Christianity begins and stays in a personal relationship with Jesus. During our time of response, I want you to consider what you're doing. I want you to consider, do you have some secondhand sources of the gospel that you're relying on instead of Jesus? Are you relying on your upbringing? Are you relying on a particular

religious leader? Are you relying on that worthy cause? Are you kind of getting lost in those things and not really sinking your teeth in that relationship, that personal relationship that Jesus invites you into. That is the first hand experience of the gospel and everything else that is second hand. It is ultimately, it's death. It's falling short. It's not what Jesus has called us to do or to be. Let me pray for us. Jesus, we ask for the strength to respond. We ask for you to stir our souls as we sing,

as we pray that you will stir our souls and help us. Help us see what you're doing. Help us to perceive what you're saying to our hearts and help us to respond. Give us the courage. That's your name that we pray. Amen. Thank you.