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Galatians 3:23-29

Welcome back to Galatia! I continue to be your host with the most delving into the life and ministry of one of the early church communities and the life of the apostle who planted to seeds of the Gospel in those ancient places. They are seeds that continue to inspire, motivate, stimulate and rouse each one of us two thousand years later.

Recall with me the road we’ve travelled bringing us to this point in time: the Apostle Paul is responding in defense of the message he had proclaimed to the churches of Galatia. The Gospel was under attack by groups of people who believed in the law of God rather than the grace of God; that preaching to the Gentiles was a waste of time. Paul’s response is that we are saved by the grace of God alone. We can’t earn it or buy it. We only have to trust in Him and accept it. Paul builds upon this in chapter two. There is no amount of observance of the Law of God that can make a person right with God. We are not justified before God by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. Paul argues eloquently that he had been crucified with Christ, so that the man he used to be was dead and the living power now within him was Christ Jesus himself. Jesus Christ had done for him what Paul could never have done for himself. Jesus promises the same for each one of us.

Today we’re moving ahead into the latter part of chapter three. Paul continues to put forth his argument seeking to demonstrate the superiority of the way of grace and faith over the way of law. The consequence of the law of God is to drive everyone to seek grace, because the law has proven our inability to help, that is, to save ourselves. Listen to Paul’s words as he continues to make his plea to the churches of Galatia. I will read verses 23-29. Listen for and hear the word of God. (Read Galatians 3:23-29) This is the Word of the Lord. (Thanks be to God.)

It is only when we acknowledge and serve God that we discover our rightful place in the order of creation. Immediately my thoughts take me to the Disney movie, the Lion King, and the underlying theme of the movie: we must all take our place in the circle of life. In the movie, the circle of life is mainly about biology: every living creature depends on another for their survival; our bodies will return to the earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. To find our rightful place in the order of creation threatens the way in which the rest of the world generally conducts its business. It’s to live in the world and not be of the world, as we read in John’s gospel. We are liberated from the boundaries, the limits, the unwritten and unspoken expectations the world imposes upon its citizens. In God’s creation order, there is no race to divide us, no socio-economic classes to separate us, no gender differences to pin one sex against the other. The glory and power of the gospel of Jesus Christ brings us freedom, a freedom that is threatening and costly to a law-abiding world.

Before Paul put pen to papyrus, people were "imprisoned and guarded under the law" (v. 23). The religious laws of the Bible restrained and protected people, preventing them from hurting themselves and others. "The law was our disciplinarian," says Paul (v. 24), using a word that had a very specific meaning in the first-century Greco-Roman world, one that the Galatians would certainly have known. The disciplinarian (paidagogos) was a slave who supervised and guarded children, taking them to school and back while keeping them safe, and overseeing their behavior. A nanny, as it were.

The protective custody of the slave was important but temporary since the slave's services would no longer be needed once the children grew up. In terms of the history of faith, Paul says that we were guarded under the law "until faith would be revealed" (v. 23) -- in particular, until the faith of Jesus Christ would be revealed. People certainly had faith in Almighty God for many hundreds of years, but history really changed when Christ faithfully suffered death and then rose to new life.

That's why Paul wrote his letter when he did. He insists that "the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith" (v. 24). Once Christ came, no more nanny. Once Christ died and rose from the tomb, no human action was required except that we put our complete trust in him.

We are "justified by faith," says Paul, made right with God by faith. The faith of Christ is critically important here because it is Christ's faithful death and resurrection that bring God's love into the very center of human life. But our own faith has a role to play as well, as we say yes to what God has done by putting our trust in Jesus. Earlier in Galatians, Paul says, "I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me" (2:20). Paul has put his trust in Jesus, as he certainly should. But this line can also be translated, "I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Personal faith. Christ's faith. Together, they form the Christian faith. And now that we're in a state of faith, we no longer live in a nanny state. "Faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian" (3:25). Christ’s arrival has rendered all previous allegiances and commitments pointless, useless and fruitless.

Believers are profoundly connected now with the Living God through Christ. With the law no longer in charge, we have moved into a new sphere where faith is now the boss. All the divisions, things that separated us from one another are no longer valid under Jesus Christ. The ethnic-religious lines of Jew and Greek are now passé; the socio-economic lines of slave and free are now defunct; the gender lines of our birth of male and female are now insignificant. Identity in Christ Jesus is the only identity that matters. It’s the only identity that matters now that the old distinctions have ceased to exist.

So what does all of this mean for you and me? When we confess Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior we are incorporated into the body of Christ. As such we qualify to be descendants of Abraham. Since Christ is of the ancestral heritage of Abraham, it is identification with him rather than with the law that assures our inclusion in God’s promise. It reminds the church we are rooted in an event in history which changed the course of that history. We are united with Christ through our baptism. This is the source of our salvation.

One of my favorite authors since seminary is Dr. Stanley Hauerwas, professor of theological ethics at Duke Divinity School with a joint appointment at Duke Law School and a native-born Texan, says, “Salvation isn’t what liberals or conservatives in this country think it is. It’s about getting my life straight. It’s not about ultimate significance. Salvation is about an adventure that was made possible through the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, through which I am made part of a community who will tell me who I am. You are not free to make up your life as a Christian. Your life is not like a gift; your life IS a gift.” Hauerwas goes on to say, “Until you learn to receive your life gift, you are lost. And people are lost.” We have something to share with them.

And that is we are all followers of Christ are now "children of God" (v. 26). Until he wrote to the Galatians, the term "children of God" had been reserved for God's chosen people, the Jews, and it naturally applied also to the first Jewish followers of Jesus.

But now, says Paul, "in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith" (v. 26). The circumcised as well as the uncircumcised. The keepers of the law as well as those who know nothing of the law. The Jews as well as the Greeks -- all children of God through faith.

For Christians today, this letter speaks of the power of faith to create a new family called "children of God." It doesn't matter if you have both a mother and a father. It doesn't matter if you are from a good neighborhood. It doesn't matter if you are a U.S. citizen. It doesn't matter if English is your first language. It doesn't matter if you have a police record. It doesn't matter if you have a high school diploma or a college education. It doesn't matter if you have a job or a spouse or a car or a house or a 401(k). None of this matters.

What matters is faith. The faith of Christ, and our faith as well. That's what makes us children of God.

Paul's letter changes the world by giving us a whole new identity. He writes, "As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ" (v. 27). When we clothe ourselves with Christ, we take on his characteristics and do our best to present him to the world. This means showing his grace and his love, speaking his truth, and serving others with his generosity and compassion. Although we may look odd when we go out into the world wearing the clothes of Christ, we cannot help but have an impact.

In the late 1860s, a young poet wrote a letter to an editor named Thomas Higginson and asked if she could meet with him. She wanted to thank him personally for some encouragement he had offered her. When Higginson went to her house, he saw a plain woman with reddish hair, and she greeted him by putting two day lilies into his hand "in a sort of childlike way."

When he got home, Higginson's wife said, "Oh, why do the insane so cling to you?" This plain young woman was none other than Emily Dickinson, one of the greatest poets in American history. She refused to be published during her lifetime, but after her death, Thomas Higginson was able to guide her insightful poems into print. Dickinson knew the power of faith, as she demonstrated when she wrote:

I never saw a moor,

I never saw the sea;

Yet know I how the heather looks,

And what a wave must be.

I never spoke with God,

Nor visited in heaven;

Yet certain am I of the spot

As if the chart were given.

When we clothe ourselves with Christ, we might look insane to some. But we understand, along with the apostle Paul, that through our faith all of us "are one in Christ Jesus" (v. 28). Says Frank Matera, professor of New Testament at Catholic University, "God has destroyed the barriers that divide Gentile and Jew, slave and free, male and female, from each other" (3:28).

Our greatest contribution to history might be the creation of a community in which barriers fall and people are no longer separated by religion, culture, nationality, economics, or gender. If we are truly "one in Christ Jesus," we should be able to overcome the divisions that have fractured our community and driven us apart. There is more to unite us than divide us if we "belong to Christ" and "are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to the promise" (v. 29).

Paul's letter changes our history by giving us a new identity as children of God, one that is based on being one in Jesus and one in faith. In God's eyes, unity does not mean uniformity. As Christians, we can show the world a new kind of unity, one that includes people of diverse backgrounds, conditions and genders. [i]

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Texts for Preaching – CD Rom edition: A Lectionary Commentary based on the New Revised Standard Version, Year A, B, and C. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007).

Barclay, William. The Daily Study Bible Series: The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians. (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1976).

Kaylor Bob, Senior Writer homileticsonline.com, and Senior Minister of the Park City United Methodist Church in Park City, Utah.

Cousar, Charles B. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, Galatians.  (Louisville, John Knox Press, 1982).

The Gospel Truth

I. Galatians 1:1-12

For the next several Sundays, I will be leading us through a study of Galatians. This letter from the Apostle Paul to the Galatians has had and continues to have a major impact on the life and thought of the Christian church. The theological foundation for Martin Luther and the Reformation come from this letter by the Apostle Paul.

As with any letter you only hear one side of the story. As you read it you can determine from the text what the context of the letter is. His immediate defense of his apostleship as a divine calling rather than a human one in these opening verses has led numerous commentators to speculate that the Galatian Christians were questioning Paul's authority. Paul is at odds with his audience in the churches of Galatia.

Paul is under attack from other missionaries known as “Judaizers”: Jewish Christians who were trying to maintain their Jewish traditions. This group claimed that Paul was a not a true apostle. After all, Paul was not one of the original twelve disciples and he at one time been a major persecutor of the early church. In addition, Paul was not appointed by the leaders of the Church to be an apostle.

The “Judaizers” were also critical of the gospel message Paul was spreading. The Jews who converted to Christianity believed all God’s promises and gifts were for Jews alone. They were appalled that Paul’s message of grace and freedom would include Gentiles. In fact, this group argued that Gentiles had to become a Jew first in order to become a follower of Jesus Christ. Converting to Judaism was a pre-requisite for moving on to the next level as Christ’s disciple.

This letter to the churches of Galatia is Paul’s response to his critics. And Paul does not mince words whatsoever. It is written with emotion and intensity. The other letters found in the New Testament for the most part are joyful, upbeat, and positive. After a brief opening greeting, Paul throws off the gloves and let’s them have it!

Claiming one has the Gospel Truth is nothing new. Throughout history, claims have been made to refute the Christian Gospel message or offer alternative versions, such as the Gnostic Gospels. Seems like it's becoming a regular occurrence in the information age -- someone is always discovering a new "gospel" that purports to shed some new light on Jesus that the church has either ignored or suppressed for two millennia. Most recently, a fragment from a fourth-century Coptic Codex was found in Egypt. Harvard Divinity School professor Karen King says it may (read: "possible-but-I'm-not-going-to-stake-my-reputation-on-it") reveal that Jesus actually did have a wife, à la the claims of The Da Vinci Code. The revelation of this "Gospel of Jesus' Wife," as it has become known, follows in the footsteps of a host of other Gnostic "gospels" that have been unearthed in recent years, like the gospels of Judas, Thomas, and Mary Magdalene, just to name a few.

Historians and archaeologists don't have a corner on the new gospel market. However, just do a search of "The gospel according to ..." on Google and you'll come up with a host of other takes on the Christian gospel -- the gospel according to the Simpsons, Dr. Seuss, Bruce Springsteen, the Sopranos, the Beatles, Elvis and even Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Jesus' Childhood Pal. Granted, some of these are merely trying to find themes of the Christian gospel within popular culture, but others are certainly trying to craft a gospel that fits their own conceptions of God.

Churches, of course, aren't immune to this gospel-izing. There are plenty of gospels out there that more reflect the culture than they reflect anything having to do with Jesus. Think about the Gospel of Hate spewed by "Christians" from the Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, who picket soldiers' funerals and believe that people who don't follow their agenda deserve whatever tragedy befalls them. Have they ever heard of the word grace?

Think about the Gospel of Prosperity touted by famous TV preachers such as Crefalo Dollar, who tell their people that God wants them to be rich, and that all they need to do is "name and claim" what they want and God will give it to them (if they will only believe and send a check to their ministry). So much for "Blessed are the poor" (Luke 6:20), and "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God" (Matthew 19:24).

"The Gospel of Sin Management"-- a phrase coined by Dallas Willard to describe a gospel that "produces vampire Christians who want Jesus for his blood and little else." This gospel is only concerned about getting people into heaven and "reduces salvation to a spiritual exchange divorced from life in this world. It makes salvation and God irrelevant to daily life."

· The Social Gospel, which grew out of the Enlightenment idea of progress and reason, believes that humanity can rid itself of social evils, and that human progress will continue to make things better and better. In this gospel, Jesus provides a good example of how to make the world a better place, and his death and resurrection are mere metaphors for living sacrificially --more good advice than good news.

· The Apocalyptic Gospel is all about watching the sky for Christ's return and waiting for the Rapture that will suck all the right-believing Christians into the great beyond like some kind of wet/dry vac, leaving the rest of humanity behind to stew in hell.

Of course, there may be elements of truth in some of these "gospels." God does hate sin, but continues to love sinners. God does want us to be prosperous, but in the richness of his grace, not necessarily the wealth of our bank accounts. Jesus' blood does save us, but it doesn't just save us from something, it saves us for something: the work of God's kingdom. Yes, God desires our participation in making the world look more like what we pray for in the Lord's Prayer ("on earth as it is in heaven"), but we can't make that a reality without Christ's redemptive death and resurrection promise of the ultimate defeat of death. We do, indeed, await Christ's return, but he's not coming to take us away -- he is coming to take over!

What's interesting about these “wrong” gospels, however, is that they tend to reflect or represent the people who promote them rather than reflect or represent the good news of Jesus Christ and his kingdom. People tend to understand the gospel through the lens of their own times. That can often lead to incomplete or distorted versions of the message, and the church in every age has had to recalibrate its understanding of the gospel. Martin Luther, John Wesley, Desmond Tutu and Mother Teresa are just a few of those who called people back to the full and powerful gospel of Christ. Paul had to do the same thing in the early church. Paul gets fired up at the Galatians because they have bought into the wrong gospel -- a gospel that actually reflects "the present evil age" (1:4).

The "different gospel" that the Galatians had bought into was one preached to them by some Jewish Christian missionaries who required Gentiles to be circumcised as Jews before they could become Christians (v. 6). Paul regarded this message as a non-gospel because it reflected the status quo of the age before the coming of Christ -- an age governed by the law of Moses. Paul believed that Jesus' death and resurrection had transformed the status quo, and that faith leading to a spiritual circumcision of the heart was the mark of a true Christian (Romans 2:29; Colossians 2:11). The requirement for physical circumcision was thus abolished because God had reconciled Jews and Gentile through the grace of Jesus Christ -- a theme that runs through most of his letters.

A close look at this passage, then, reveals the gospel that Paul preached, and the one that the Galatians (and we) should be centering our faith around:

1. The gospel is not a human construction. It’s not capitalism’s gospel, or the third world’s gospel or Reverend Nowack’s gospel. The gospel comes from God, who has taken the initiative to rescue us from sin and death through his grace (1:1, 3-4, 6).

2. The grace of God is embodied and enacted in Jesus' death. Jesus' death liberates us from sin and the power of the present age. We cannot defeat sin and evil and change the world on our own. We need a Savior who defeats sin and its ultimate power, death. Jesus does this through the cross and his resurrection (1:3-4)

3. The grace of God enacted through Christ enables us to become children of God, bringing people from different backgrounds, cultures and customs together into a new community not marked by ethnicity and circumcision, but by faith and baptism (1:3).

4. As God's children, we participate with God in his mission of transforming the world into God's new creation. As Paul puts it, "Neither circumcision nor un-circumcision is anything; but a new creation is everything!" (6:15). The goal of the gospel is not simply the transformation of our spirits or our bank accounts, nor is it merely about making the world a little better. The good news is God's kingdom is near and that will be the means of changing the world, not taking us away from it. As Revelation puts it, God isn't about to destroy the world and make all new things; instead, God comes to redeem the world and "make all things new" (Revelation 21:5).

If a gospel only benefits the individual, you can bet it's the wrong gospel. A false gospel always seeks human approval and mostly benefits the human who preaches or believes it. Paul reminds the Galatians that the real gospel -- the gospel of what God has done and is doing through Christ -- does indeed benefit us by saving us from sin and death, but it doesn't stop there. The real gospel is the good news that God is transforming us so that we can be part of God's transformation of the whole world. The gospel isn't about our leaving, but about God's coming! We have been saved by faith, but for God's purpose. The gospel isn't about pleasing others or even ourselves; it's all about pleasing God and, like Paul, becoming servants of Christ (1:10).

Maybe we keep coming up with new gospels because the one Jesus gave us actually requires something of us. We serve Christ and we serve others, which is more important than any physical mark or promise of personal salvation. The fundamental nature of the gospel is grace, proclaimed not only with our faith, but with our faithfulness to the gospel's call to be and work for God's new creation.

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Barclay, William. The Daily Study Bible Series: The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians. (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1976).

Texts for Preaching – CD Rom edition: A Lectionary Commentary based on the New Revised Standard Version, Year A, B, and C. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007).

Bob Kaylor, our Senior Writer, and Senior Minister of the Park City United Methodist Church in Park City, Utah through homileticsonline.com

Rule-Filled or Rule-less?

III. Galatians 2:15-21

We continue today our study of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. To review, the gospel message Paul had proclaimed to the churches of Galatia was under attack by groups of people who believed in the law of God rather than the grace of God; that preaching to the Gentiles was a waste of time. Paul’s response is that we are saved by the grace of God alone. We can’t earn it or buy it. We only have to trust in Him and accept it.

Here at last in these verses from chapter two we come to the heart of the matter. A decision was reached by the leaders of the church in Jerusalem, a compromise between Jewish born Christians and Gentile born Christians. But this compromise holds within it seeds of trouble. In effect the decision was that the Jews would go on living like Jews, observing circumcision and the law, but that the Gentiles were free from these observances. Things could not go on like this because the inevitable result was to produce two grades of Christians, the rule-filled and the rule-less, and two quite distinct classes within the church.

Paul argues with Peter, “You shared table with the Gentiles; you ate as they ate; therefore you approved in principle that there is one way for Jew and Gentile alike. How can you reverse things and want Gentiles to be circumcised and learn the law? It doesn’t make sense.

You may have noticed in verse 15 that Paul refers to Gentiles as sinners. When a Jew used the word sinners of the Gentiles he was not thinking of moral qualities; he thinking of the observance of the law. Look at Leviticus chapter eleven. God describes what animals you may or may not use for food. If you ate pork, for example, you were a sinner in this sense of the world. Peter would always answer Paul that if he ate with Gentiles and eat the things they eat, then I become a sinner, plain and simple. That’s his excuse and he’s sticking to it for now.

Paul’s response to Peter: ‘Look, we agreed long ago that no amount of observance of the law can make a man right with God. A man cannot earn the generous offer of the love of God in Jesus. He can only accept it. Therefore, the busyness of the law is no longer needed. You believe that to forget all this business about rules and regulations will make you a sinner. But that is precisely, Peter, what Jesus Christ instructs us to do. He did not tell you to try to earn salvation by eating this animal and not eating that one. He told you to fling yourself without reservation on the grace of God. Are you going to argue, then, that Jesus taught you to become a sinner?’ The old laws were wiped out.

We are not justified by the Works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ. Paul says that I have died to the law, so I might live to God. In Paul’s eyes it is as if I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live but it is Christ who lives in me, as the Bible says.

It could not be right for Gentiles to come to God by grace and Jews by the law. There is only one reality, grace, and it was by way of surrender to that grace that all of us must come.

If justification comes through the law, then Christ died for nothing. There is no amount of observance of the law that can make a person right with God. It’s a matter of grace. It cannot be earned, only accepted.

For Paul, the law never put him right with God. It only showed him his own helplessness.

He had been crucified with Christ so that the man he used to be was dead and the living power within him now was Christ himself. The question is not whether one achieves justification by following

the law or by believing. Instead, the question is “works of the law” versus “faith in Jesus Christ”. Does justification come by means of the law of Moses or by means of Jesus Christ? Justification comes by

means of Jesus Christ, the one who “gave himself for our sins” (1:4) and who “loved me and gave himself for me” (2:20). In this fundamental sense, then, it matters little whether the Greek expression pistis christou (literally, faith of Christ) refers to faith “in” Christ (that is, human belief) or faith “of” Christ (that is, Christ’s own faithful obedience), since even faith “in” Christ comes about solely on the basis of God’s intervention.

What Paul “tore down” was not a bad or wicked life, but one that the gospel has rendered passé. What Paul again labors to express is the sense that the gospel overwhelms, eclipses, renders nil all previous values and commitments.

For the one who asserts that Christ “lives in me,” the previous standards of the law—of ethnic pride, of personal accomplishment, whatever those standards might be—have been swept away. If

Christ “lives in me,” then, Christ may also live in all other human beings, regardless of their origin or viewpoints or behavior. To withdraw from fellowship with any of those human beings on the basis

of my own individual judgment is fundamentally to misunderstand the gospel of Jesus Christ.

There are two great temptations in the Christian life. First is the temptation to earn God’s favor and second to use some minor, small achievement to compare oneself with someone else to our advantage and their disadvantage. This reminds me of a story about a rather pompous, arrogant, self-righteous Sunday School teacher who was trying to make the point that good Christians don’t keep their faith a secret. With her head held high and her chest thrust out, the teacher strutted impressively back and forth across the room. She asked, “Now, class, why do you think people call me a Christian?” The room was silent for a moment. Then one of the boys slowly raised his hand and said, “Probably because they don’t know you.”

The Christianity which has enough of itself left in it to think that by its own efforts it can satisfy God and by its own achievements it can demonstrate itself superior to others is not Christianity at all.

Paul sees us as humans in need of salvation, and in this text he talks about transcending our humanness through Christ Jesus. Jesus Christ had done for Paul what he, Paul, could never have done for himself. Life is not merely a journey simply traveled by obeying the obvious rules of the road. Life is meant to display and present the grace of Christ to a world filled with people who are terrified of life, people left abandoned on the side of the road, people who have been dented and crushed by repeated hits, people sputtering along with very little fuel left to keep them moving forward.

As professing Christians, maybe our business is something more than getting ahead. Maybe our business involves something higher. Maybe we are called to help others along their journey too, in the great hope that we will all end up in the presence of the living God.

Paul's point is that from the standpoint of the law, we try to see what we can get away with. But from the standpoint of grace, we try to see what we can give away. In the first case, we function out of an ethic of duty and obligation; in the second, we work out of an ethic of love. Where does the power for this rule-less living come from? It comes from our total identification with Christ in his suffering. "I have been crucified with Christ," Paul writes, "and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me."

This life is a life of faith. It’s no longer about sin but sacrifice; no longer about folly, but faith. This is the Good News. Amen.

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[i] Texts for Preaching – CD Rom edition: A Lectionary Commentary based on the New Revised Standard Version, Year A, B, and C. (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2007).

[ii] Barclay, William. The Daily Study Bible Series: The Letters to the Galatians and Ephesians. (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1976).

What the Gospel Can Do

II. Galatians 1:11-24

Last Sunday we began our study of Paul’s letter to the Galatians. The gospel message Paul had proclaimed to the churches of Galatia was under attack by groups of people who believed in the law of God rather than the grace of God; that preaching to the Gentiles was a waste of time. Paul’s response is that we are saved by the grace of God alone. We can’t earn it or buy it. We only have to trust in Him and accept it.

Today we continue with the rest of Galatians 1. Paul offers us a brief autobiography of his life and the events that led him to convert from Judaism to becoming an apostle of Christ. That’s what the gospel can do! It revives your heart, mind and spirit with the blessings of God. It picks you up, turns you around and sets you on a new course; a course that leads to true freedom and wholeness.

God intercedes in Paul’s life to overturn it; to turn it upside down; to move him from what would have been a comfortable, predictable life within the familiar traditions of his ancestors to one that will lead him down an unfamiliar road filled with hazards and hardships; a road that is anything but comfortable.

We are reminded over and over that God never promised us a perfect, easy life. When we accepted Jesus’ invitation to be his disciples, we knew that this decision would not always supply us with the pleasant fulfillments of our needs; sometimes they lead us where we would be happier not to go. That’s what the Gospel can do!

Paul refers to his own experience as an example of what the Gospel can do in our lives. It’s not a Gospel of human origin or from a human source, but through “a revelation of Jesus Christ”.

You get the sense from the text that Paul is on the defensive. Paul finds himself backed into a corner with guns blazin’: his credentials, his gifts, his experience, his calling as an apostle of Christ are under attack.

In verses 13-14, we see an abrupt shift when Paul provides details of his life before the gospel made a home in his heart. His was a life in Judaism, that is to say he was one with loyalty, zeal and fervor for the ways of Israel; for the traditions and for what he had always believed was right and true.

This fervor took the form of “persecuting the church of God” and “trying to destroy it”. Paul maintained allegiances to all things Jewish. He lived in a time that treasured customs and traditions. He played by the expected rules. Truly Paul lived the good, easy life!

Suddenly in verses 14-15 the good life for Paul abruptly ends. God acts and changes Paul’s spirit. God acts. God acts when revealing himself to us in Jesus Christ and after that, things are never the same again.

In order to show his listeners he’s the real deal, Paul confirms in verse 16 that he is truly responding to God’s initial action. He describes it through the prophetic call to reinforce his claim that his calling as an apostle is God’s idea and a part of a much larger plan God has for the world. “The one who formerly was persecuting us”, the Bible says, “is now proclaiming the faith he once tried to destroy.”

Paul is a great example of what the gospel can do: a complete transformation of one’s life. It is a change that embodies the earth-shaking power of the gospel by which all other priorities that clamor for our attention, good, bad or indifferent, are simply eclipsed.

All believers, when we welcome the living Christ into our lives have our priorities, our allegiances, our whole lives turned upside down. We are given the free gift of new freedom in Christ. To be free in Christ is like a kite soaring in the sky. The string that ties it to the ground is the very thing that enables it to fly. Were it not for the string, the kite would fall. It can fly because it is bound to the earth. That’s what the gospel can do. You will soar to new heights on the wings of eagles, you will run and not be weary.

We have a freedom in Christ that empowers us to live each day for Him, living as if it were our last. This freedom releases us to go into the world to serve one another and give life away in service to others. I believe our Christian values and beliefs still hold the ability to transform the world and turn the world upside down.

We live in a world that tells us more is more. Individuals who are wealthy, who own large homes, fancy luxury cars, and have vast material possessions are seen by the world as valuable, successful and worthy of our admiration. If you are not one of these wealthy individuals, the opposite is true: you are not as important and not as valuable. It is the idea that, “When money talks, people listen.” When I watch TV or listen to the radio, there are hundreds of ads encouraging me to buy a certain product or service.

Our Christian values teach us that we have value no matter what we buy and no matter what services we use. Each of us is loved unconditionally by God just as we are. We don’t need lots of cars, computers, brand name clothes, or the latest smartphone to be important and valued by God or by anybody else. It reminds me of the story of Allen and Violet Large of Nova Scotia, Canada. In July, 2010, Allen and Violet won 11.3 million dollars in the Canadian Lottery and gave all their winnings away to local churches, charities, hospitals and even the local fire station. After taking care of family and friends, the couple set out to give away the remainder of the money. To them the money meant nothing. It was much more important that they still had their health and each other. Their generosity begs the question, “What is really important in life?”

I believe Allen and Violet Large witnessed what the gospel can do! And THIS is the gospel we need to tell the world. THIS is the gospel the world needs to know. We need to turn the world upside down.

“At the core of the Christian experience a powerful force pushes us – sometimes successfully, sometimes not – beyond the temptation to linger forever in our own problems or preoccupied with Christ’s benefits, so that we may join God’s work in convincing the world of his amazing love.”[1]

Let us consider for a moment our societies understanding of what retirement is. The world says that after a certain age an individual is no longer able to work. They are given their farewell from their company and they are left to do as they please.

The lives for many retirees change dramatically. For many there is no longer a reason to get up in the morning. Their career had given them value and purpose. Today too many retired Americans are shut off from the rest of the world in retirement communities and nursing homes and convalescent homes or just plain forgotten in the home they have lived in for so many years.

As Christians, we believe that each one of us is a child of God and we all have something to offer others. There is no retirement age for a Christian. We all have experiences, knowledge, and wisdom to be shared with all people. So regardless of our age, we need to turn the world upside down demonstrating what the gospel can do!

This is a revolutionary reality which reorients life and puts people like Paul going in the opposite direction. It has to do with how God sets persons and things right in the world, not through an observant keeping of the law, but in Christ who can be related to only on the grounds of faith. To be grasped by Christ is to discover a whole new world where standards of success once dearly held no longer matter, where criteria for decisions are radically altered, where people are viewed in a different light.

That’s what the gospel can do! Will you let it happen to you?

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[1] Galatians. By Charles B. Cousar. Interpretation: A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1982) p.35.