This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

I want to welcome you to day four of our look together through Galatians chapter
one. We're talking in this passage about good news and Paul is sharing with us
some important truths about how this good news is to be handled in our lives. I
can experience the good, so I can experience the news.

Yesterday we talked about the fact that I need to handle it with conviction. In
verses 11 and 12, Paul reminds us of a second way I'm to handle the good news.
I'm to handle it with reverence.

Let me read those verses. I want you to know, brothers, that the gospel I preach
to you is not something that man made up. I did not receive it from any man, nor
was I taught it.

Rather, I received it by revelation from Jesus Christ. We treat, you and I
treat, this good news with reverence because it is a revelation. It's received
not from man.

It's not something some person made up. That's what that means, but it is
communicated to us by God. And Paul's argument here is that God's revelation
doesn't come secondhand.

It was straight from God. Jesus come into this world and then he reveals it to
our hearts. It doesn't come secondhand.

It's not a garage sale gospel picked up from here and there. It's not a thrift
store truth bought cheaply around the corner. It is Jesus Christ coming and
giving the price of his life for you and I.

Paul's saying it's not a secondhand gospel. He's saying it is a firsthand
experience. Would a secondhand gospel, something that man had just made up, some
philosophy of man, have worked the changes it did in Paul's life?

Absolutely not. The gospel is revealed to us by God. And as a revelation, then
it's revealed in us by God.

That's the power of it, is that God personally comes to reveal the good news in
my life as I grow in him, as I understand him better and better. What Paul is
saying is this. Good news is God's news.

It's not my news. It's his. I'm privileged to pass it along.

I'm privileged to experience it in my life, but it is God's news. Now you might
ask somebody on our research team asked, well, how do you know the difference?
How do you know if it's man-made or God revealed?

Because there are preachers who speak with great passion and authority, but when
you really check out what they said, it has nothing to do with the Bible. It
might not even have anything to do with God. How do you know the difference?

The way you know the difference is the Bible, God's word. God has written this
love letter to us, his word, and I can check whenever anybody says against the
truth in his word. Does it match up?

Does it not match up? Just because somebody speaks with conviction doesn't mean
it's true. And by the way, just because somebody speaks sort of timidly, doesn't
mean it's not true.

You check it against God's word. Don't allow yourself to be caught up in the
emotion of believing everything that has a good story with it or believing
everything that has people speaking with really strong words. Check it against
God's word.

That's how you know whether it's man-made or God revealed. It's good news. And
this good news, you handle it with conviction.

You handle it with reverence. And then there's a third way to handle the good
news. The good news, you handle it with clarity.

A clear teaching of what this news is and what it's mean in my life. And
sometimes that means you have to even defend the good news in your life. Defend
what it's meant to you and how it's come into your life.

Sometimes you have to clear up a few things in order that people understand how
good the good news really is. You're a new believer in Christ and somebody says
to you, "Oh, you're following this church thing now. " Why is that?

Because you're feeling guilty and you've got to clear that up. Why is that?
Because you feel like you're going to buy your way into heaven, you've got to
clear that up.

Paul had to clear a few things up. Listen to what Paul had to say beginning in
verse 13 and going down through verse 23. For you've heard of my previous way of
life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the church of God and tried to
destroy it.

I was advancing in Judaism beyond many Jews of my own age and was extremely
zealous for the traditions of my fathers. But when God, who set me apart from
birth and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his son in me so that I
might preach him among the Gentiles, I did not consult any man, nor did I go up
to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was. But I went immediately
into Arabia and later returned to Damascus.

Then after three years, I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted with Peter and
stayed with him for 15 days. I saw none of the other apostles, only James, the
Lord's brother. I assure you before God that what I am writing you is no lie.

Later I went to Syria and Cilicia. I was personally unknown to the churches of
Judea that are in Christ. They only heard the report, "The man who formerly
persecuted us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy.

" Now in these verses, why all these details? Where Paul went, who Paul talked
to, he is defending with clarity the truth of the gospel. Don't let go of the
one truth, the one gospel, not for anything.

And because we cannot let go of it, sometimes you have to fight for the truth.
The way you fight for the truth of the gospel is with the truth. And Paul needed
in these verses to tell the truth of the gospel once again.

He also needed to tell the truth about his own life because there were people
that were spreading rumors that were designed to damage the gospel. Some were
saying, "Well, Paul followed the law in his previous life, so you should too.
He's an example to you.

" And Paul writes and says, "That's not what I said. " Some said, "Paul got his
message from the apostles, and we're getting our message from the apostles, and
so we have equal authority. " And Paul writes about seeing Peter, one of the
early apostles, and James, the Lord's brother, who was not an apostle, but Peter
and James were the leaders of the early Jerusalem church.

Now why didn't he see any other apostles? Well, they may not have been there.
They may have been out on a missionary journey.

Who knows? But those are the people that he saw. But Paul writes and says, "I
didn't get my message from them.

I was a follower of Christ for three years before I even met them. " But the
main charge that they were bringing against Paul was this. Paul is not a real
apostle.

And because he's lying about that, his gospel is not a real gospel. It's all a
lie. So Paul writes to defend himself.

And as he writes to defend himself, you get some interesting history of Paul's
growth as a believer that you find nowhere else in the Bible. You don't find it
in the book of Acts. God had a very unique job for Paul to do.

He was going to be the apostle to the Gentiles. He was going to share to all the
non-Jewish people the truth that Jesus Christ loved them and was inviting them
to a relationship. And because God had a unique job for Paul to do, Paul had
some very unique experiences with Christ, beginning with his salvation.

You remember he was marching down the Damascus road, going to go destroy some
churches, and he sees this blinding light. He falls to the ground and he hears
this voice, "Jesus Christ, why are you kicking against the goads? Why are you
kicking against the truth that I'm trying to bring into your heart?

" On that Damascus road, Paul, you remember before he was a believer, was named
Saul, and he changed his name to Paul. And so on that Damascus road, Rabbi Saul
began to become the apostle Paul. And Paul says, "You know how it happened?

It happened by revelation. " Beginning on that Damascus road, he met personally
the resurrected Christ on that road and the light that he saw and the words that
he heard. "He appeared to me," Paul says in these verses.

Now, a close look of study of the Bible shows that this was probably not the
only time that Jesus personally appeared to Paul. During the three years that he
went away and then came back to Damascus to begin to preach, most people believe
that Paul had a lot of personal experiences with Jesus Christ. He learned what
it meant to follow him.

He learned what it meant to be an apostle, just like the other apostles have
been with Jesus for three years of public ministry. Paul has these three years
of seemingly private tutoring from Jesus Christ. Now, you and I read this and
think, "Wow, what an experience.

I want God to do great things in my life. How can I make that happen for me? "
You can't.

You think, "Well, maybe if I prayed enough, I could make that happen for me. "
Remember, Paul was an enemy of Jesus Christ when this began to happen for him.
It wasn't a matter of him having a great prayer life, and so God allowed this
experience with Jesus Christ that none of us have had.

It was the fact that God had a unique job for Paul, and God gives you what you
need. There was no Bible yet. There was no way for Paul to learn the truth of
who Jesus was except from Jesus personally.

You and I today, we have the Bible, and through our study of God's Word, we can
learn. We can read the words of Paul. We can read the words of the other
apostles and see how to follow Jesus Christ.

Remember that Jesus did this in Paul's life, not just for Paul's sake, so he
could have some great spiritual experience. He did it for the sake of those whom
Paul was going to serve. Now, we're going to get into a little bit more
information next week about Paul and his story, but as we end today, let me
bring it back to us.

What about you? As someone who passes the truth of Jesus Christ along, sometimes
you, like Paul, are going to be called on to defend not only the gospel, the
truth of what you've been taught, but also to defend yourself as a messenger,
and that may not seem right. That may seem like, "No, I just need to talk about
the Bible, not talk about me.

" Paul defends himself here under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He defends
himself as a messenger. Now, you don't lie.

You don't pretend to be something you're not. You say, "I'm not perfect, but I
am called, and this message that I brought, I brought it not because I want to
control your life, but because God has changed my life. I'm passing this message
along because of God's call, not because of some fault in me or some need in my
life, but because of what God has wonderfully done for me.

" If you think differently, let me just clarify that. Let me just clear that up.
As a follower of Jesus Christ, you're going to be called upon to do that from
time to time in your family.

Why are you sharing this good news in your office, at your school? When God
calls upon you to do that, do what Paul did. Just say the simple truth.

"Here's what happened. Here's what God did in my life, and here's why I'm
passing it along. " You don't have to make up anything beyond that.

How do you defend yourself? Your defense is your testimony. Your defense is
telling what God has done in your life, and then let that speak for itself.

So as we pray today, take a few minutes to talk to Jesus. I'd encourage you just
to remind yourself of the good news that Jesus has brought into your life.
Remind yourself of the fact that through that good news, he wants you to
experience new life every day.

Ask Jesus today, "Help me to experience the good that you want to do in my life
through the salvation that you've brought into my life. If someone calls upon me
to defend that, help me to not become defensive, but instead in a positive way
to let them know that you have really brought change into my life. Let people
see your love in me, even as I have to share with them in a powerful way what
you've done in me.

When I ask this, Jesus, in your name, amen. " Well, tomorrow, we're going to
look some more at how you and I can treat the good news, and we're also going to
look at how to be sure to not fall to a false teacher.