This transcript was generated by whisper.ai.

Welcome back to Daily Drive Time Devotions, this is Pastor Tom Holliday and
we're looking at Galatians chapter 1. Today we're going to finish our look at
how you and I handle the good news in this first chapter. We've been talking
about the fact that you need to handle it with conviction and you need to handle
it with a sense of reverence.

You need to handle it with a clarity of life that lets people see how that good
news is working through your life. How do you handle the good news? Well, in the
verses we looked at yesterday, there's another way to handle it.

You handle it with grace. Verses 15 and 16, right out of those verses of Paul's
testimony yesterday, here's what Paul said, "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. " Right in the
middle of talking about how God had worked in His life, there is this powerful
statement of grace from Paul.

First he says, "He was set apart by God, but when God, who set me apart from
birth," God did it. Paul is saying here, "I was set apart and it wasn't by some
decision of mine or some other person. " God is the one who did it.

Now there's a question behind this. If Paul was set apart from birth, why did he
wander for so long? Well, the fact that God had set him apart did not mean that
Paul recognized that choice that God had given him to his life.

And just like you, when you're set apart by God for His call to salvation or His
call to something specific He wants you to do in your life, God makes the
choice, but He also has patience with us. He has patience that allows us to
choose what He has chosen in our lives. Paul is saying here very powerfully is
that God did it.

He was set apart from God. And then he says, "God did it by grace. I was set
apart from birth," and then he says, "He called me by His grace.

" He was set apart not by works, not by something He had done, but by grace,
something that God had done. Set apart by grace. And then he says, "He's pleased
to reveal His Son.

" He set apart by grace through His Son. The grace, the gift is given through
Jesus Christ. And then he says, "So that I might preach the gospel.

" Set apart by grace through His Son so that I might serve others. God did it by
grace through His Son so that I might serve others. That's the good news of what
God wants to do in my daily life.

If I can get a hold of that phrase and live it out, I'm going to live a more
joyful life. God did it by grace through His Son so that I might serve others.
Whenever I start feeling like I've got to do it, the joy goes right out of my
life.

Whenever I start feeling like it's by works, by things that I can do, the joy
goes right out of my life. Whenever I feel like it's through something other
than Jesus Christ, even through something good, through some good organization,
through some good person, whenever I try to get my needs met, my deepest needs,
through someone other than Jesus Christ, the joy goes right out of my life. And
whenever I think it's just to serve me, God saved me just to serve me, the joy
goes right out of my life.

If I want to experience joy, here's what I need to realize. God did it by grace
through His Son so that I might serve others. That is the good news that you
handle with grace.

And then Paul has one final way to handle the good news in these verses. You
handle it with praise. The very last verse of Galatians chapter 1 says this,
"And they praised God because of me.

" I'd love for that to happen in my life. I'd love for that to happen in your
life. That someone would praise God because of me.

Praise God because God had done something in my life. Paul is saying here that
the result of good news is glory to God. It's not about glory to me, it's about
glory to God in the end.

The good news has come into your life for His sake. They praised God because of
me. Paul is talking here about the miracle of a changed life.

And I would love for my family. I would love for the people that I've known down
through my life to be able to look at my life and see this kid who at a certain
point in life thought the way to God was through my own works, the good
religious things that I did, being a good enough person. And then saw that Jesus
Christ changed me, Tom Holliday, by my recognition that Jesus Christ is the only
way to salvation.

And then if only one or two people could look at my life and say, "And He's
changed. He's a different person than He would have been. He has a different
eternity than He would have had.

" That would be glory that came to God because of my life. And I want that for
you as well. God wants that for all of us.

That your story of how Jesus Christ has changed your life would bring glory to
God. They praised God because of me. Not because I did some great thing.

Not because I had some great accomplishment. That would be praising me because
of me. No, they praise God because of me because God has done great things in my
life.

His great grace has come into my life. His great love has come into my life. And
so when somebody looks at your life and says, "I can't believe it, the changes
that have happened in your life.

How did this happen? " That's praising God because of you. Or how in the world
could you be a person who's, I remember before you were a Christian, how did
this happen?

That's praising God because of you. And Paul in these verses has talked about
the fact that it's by grace and not by works and warns us about handling the
good news well. He wants to make sure that we do not fall to a false teacher.

Because false teachers appeal to our selfishness. They appeal to our pride, to
our desire to feel like I've done something to earn this. And so to feel better
about myself somehow.

build myself up, build my ego up. How do I make sure that I don't fall to a
false teacher? Two words, grace and truth.

In John chapter one, the Bible tells us that Jesus came with grace and truth.
And I need both of those in my life. When I hang on to grace, when I hang on to
truth, I'm not going to fall to a false teacher.

What is grace? Grace is that God came in human flesh in Jesus Christ. He gave
his life on a cross.

And that is the gift, the soul gift through which salvation and forgiveness and
life come into my life and your life. When I hang on to that gift, I'm not going
to fall to a false teacher. A false teacher is always going to appeal to you can
earn it somehow yourself.

There's something that you can do. For the Judaizers, it was following the old
Jewish rules and traditions. Today it might be, well, you can be smarter than
everybody else.

You can know something that no one else knows. And by following this path, doing
these things, you'll have a faith that's deeper than everybody else. You'll be a
rung above on the spiritual ladder.

That's how they appeal to your pride. It's grace. You hang on to the fact that
it's just a gift.

It's an incredible gift that is given to every one of us. And we're all we all
stand even at the foot of the cross, not one above the other in any way. It's
grace.

And it will protect you from false teachings. But you also hang on to truth. You
hang on to the truth of God's word.

Whenever there's a false teacher, they're always going to diminish the power of
Jesus Christ, say that he's not really God, say that he didn't do all that was
needed for your forgiveness, for your salvation. So you hang on to the truth of
God's word. I was just this last week in Germany for a week.

It was a good beginning for me thinking in Germany, as we've got ready to do
this letter of Galatians together, thinking about how that book changed the
world, the teaching of the freedom that we have in Christ, Luther's teaching
about the book of Galatians went out and changed the world. But it was more than
that. It was the truth of God's word that changed the world.

It wasn't just Luther's teaching and leadership and influence. What really
gripped the world was the Bible in everybody's hands. I was in Mainz, Germany
this last week and went to the Gutenberg Museum where I got to see three
Gutenberg Bibles, those Bibles that were printed so that more people could have
a Bible in their hands, more people could read the Bible.

That's where the power is. That's where the truth is. And you and I have the
privilege today of holding a Bible in our hands.

You may have just some Bible that your grandmother gave you on some shelf
somewhere. You don't read it very often. I want to encourage you, get a Bible
that's your Bible, get it in a language that you can understand.

I don't mean just English, if you listen to this in English, that's your main
language. I mean in a modern day translation. King James is a translation that
was done 400 years ago and that's why you can't understand some of the archaic
phrases that are in it.

So get a more modern translation and let God's word speak to your life. It was
because the Bible began to be printed and put into more people's hands that
Reformation swept the world in Luther's day. And you want Reformation to sweep
your life.

You want freedom in Christ to sweep your life. And let God's word come into your
life. And you're allowing that to happen as you listen to this, as you listen to
sermons on the weekend.

But remember, Satan wants to steal the truth from you. It's grace and truth. And
there are some times you've got to dig in for yourself and find the truth that
you need that confronts this invitation to selfish faith and puts in its place
the invitation that Jesus gives to a faith, a gracious faith that only he can
give.

It is good news. And this good news needs to be handled with conviction, with
reverence, with clarity. It needs to be handled with grace and it needs to be
handled with praise.

It is good news. Now, my first question as we end this week is, has this good
news happened to you? If it hasn't, it can right now.

And then my second question is, are you telling anybody else the good news?
Let's talk to Jesus about that for just a minute. And if you're not sure that
this good news has happened to you, just say to him, Jesus Christ, right now, I
want to say to you, I want this good news in my life.

I thank you for the good news that you gave your life for me and the good news
that you have new life to give me. And I ask you to forgive me. Give me new
life.

And I ask you to show me how to live the life you've given me. I want you to be
the director of my life and the savior of my life. Jesus, thank you so much for
choosing me.

And Jesus, then I want to tell somebody else. Show me who to tell today, how to
tell today, so that the good news is not only something that happened to me, but
something that's shared by me towards other people. Thank you, Jesus, for your
love for me.

Thank you for the good news. In your name, amen. Well, I'm looking forward to
next week.

Join us. It's Galatians chapter two, and it's more about how you and I can
experience and help others to experience the good that's in the good news.