CALLED BY GRACE

 CALLED BY GRACE

For you have heard of my former conduct in Judaism, how I persecuted the church of God beyond measure and tried to destroy it. And I advanced in Judaism beyond many of my contemporaries in my own nation, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.

But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to reveal His Son in me, that I might preach Him among the Gentiles, I did not immediately confer with flesh and blood, nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me; but I went to Arabia, and returned again to Damascus. Galatians 1:13-17. 

Introduction

I remember watching a program on TV years ago. An air-traffic controller was asked what was his most stressful moment. He recounted the time when the big screen with all the blips on it went blank! All these planes full of all these people were up in the sky with no one to direct the traffic! With no one calling the shots a major disaster was inevitable. He said his heart started pumping again when the power came back on to the screen. No one aboard the planes was any the wiser. No one was aware of the terrible danger of a collision they had been in.

Have you ever thought about who’s calling the shots in the world? People are like little ants on the face of the earth. People rushing around everywhere, Bicycles, horses, cars, boats, trains, planes. Like those on the plane, most people are oblivious to the great danger they’re in. They’re oblivious to the fact that God is in control of everything. They’re oblivious to the hand of God directing the traffic of humanity from the beginning of time. However, we are not ignorant of the Sovereign God who is in control of every hair that falls from your head. We are not ignorant of the God who knows about every sparrow that falls from every tree, are we? We are not oblivious of the God who brings out the stars and keeps them up there, the God who calls them all by name, the God who set the planets in motion, the God who is in control of all things.

The general context of the following may be summed up as The Gospel is not from man but God. The general theme is as follows, God set you apart and prepared you, then called you by His grace.

The Separation

Paul says in v. 15 that, “[God] had separated him from him from his mother’s womb.” What does he mean by this? Does he mean as soon as he was born God snatched him away from his mum as if she was just some surrogate mother? No! It means that God was going to use this man Paul for a mighty work. It means that God had his hand on Paul from the moment of his birth. It means that right from day one God had intended to use the Apostle Paul to preach the Son of God among the other nations. God separated, set him apart, from birth for that purpose.

You or I might set aside a chicken or a turkey and fatten it up for a special occasion, maybe Christmas dinner. Or you might have a horse you’re going to use for a special task, show-jumping, mustering, for the kids to learn to ride on, pulling a buggy, whatever. God had a special purpose in mind when He separated Paul right from his birth. Paul was going to grow up and be used by God to write thirteen New Testament epistles, fourteen if you include the Epistle to the Hebrews.

People talk about being an “accident!” They say they were the result of an unplanned pregnancy. Well I want you to see that there is no such thing as an “unplanned” human being. Every human being has been planned by God. God is the One who decides when and where people will live, “He has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth, and has determined their preappointed times and the boundaries of their habitation” Acts 17:26. Therefore you might want to glorify God by thanking Him that you were born in a country where there is law and order. You live in a country where you can worship God with great freedom. You can thank God you live in an age when you’re not burned a the stake for what you believe.

Think about it. Did you choose when you wanted to be born? Did you choose where you wanted to be born? The Apostle Paul was born exactly where and exactly when God planned for him to be born. Paul was no accident and neither is any human being for that matter.

Why are we here? What is our reason for being? What is the meaning of our existence? “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever” (Westminster Shorter Catechism Q. 1.) Paul was born and separated by God to bring God glory in due time. Every human being who has ever existed will bring glory to God in due time. Scripture says, “All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose” Romans 8:28.

Christians bring glory to God willingly. Non-Christians will bring Him glory unwillingly. For there will come a day when every creature in creation will bow the knee to God’s only begotten Son Jesus Christ. So then, every child who has been aborted, every miscarried baby, every human being in existence will somehow on the last day bring glory to God by submitting to Jesus Christ willingly or otherwise. How can this be? It’s because Almighty God who is Sovereign of the universe planned it that way.

God had it all planned before the foundation of the world who would be born when, where, who would do what, and when. He has a job for everyone. That job is to glorify Him. If you were going to build a huge skyscraper you’d hire a bunch of people, wouldn’t you? You’d equip them with everything they needed, all the materials, tools, etc. You’d be looking for people with certain skills, plumbers, electricians, that sort of thing. Well, God is doing something of the same thing as He builds His Kingdom. The main difference is that He is the One who equips His workers. He gives His employees skills. He trains them throughout their whole life. He bestows certain gifts upon certain people at certain times. He is the Foreman in charge and He makes sure the job gets done.

Paul was a chosen vessel. God separated him for a special job from birth. This is the common practice of the Lord. The Lord said to His Prophet Jeremiah, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I set you apart; and I ordained you a prophet to the nations” Jeremiah 1:5.

We tend to make big complaints out of small things. My nose is too big. My eyes are the wrong color. I wish I was a boy instead of a girl. I wish I was Scottish instead of Australian! But the Psalmist in Psalm 139 got it right when he said, “You have formed my inward parts; You have covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, the days fashioned for me, when as yet there were none of them” Psalm 139:13-16.

Scripture is very clear when it says we are all formed from the same lump of clay. Didn’t God form Adam from the dust of the ground and breath into his nostrils? Scripture says, “But indeed, O man, who are you to reply against God? Will the thing formed say to Him who formed it, “Why have you made me like this?” Does not the potter have the power over the clay, from the same lump to make one vessel for honor and another for dishonor? Romans 9:20, 21. The Apostle Paul was to be a vessel for honor. God, the Potter, formed Him just as He wanted. He set Paul aside to dry and harden, as it were. God was going to use him in His own good time when it pleased God.

You are a chosen vessel. Does that make you feel important? It should! You were chosen before the foundation of the world to be in Christ. Didn’t Jesus say, “You did not choose Me but I chose you”? John 15:16. He chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit. In other words, you are a vessel for honor. You are chosen for the purpose of bringing God honor and glory.

Listen to the Word of God, “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace” Ephesians 1:4-6.

You are a chosen vessel into which God has poured His glory, just as He poured out His Spirit upon us and into our hearts. You are precious in the sight of the Lord. You are so precious that He came and bought each one of you. Christ purchased you with His own blood (Acts 20:28). Even though it might be years before God converts you, He separates you from birth, as He did Paul. When Paul was converted on the road to Damascus did the Lord not say to Ananias “[Paul] is a chosen vessel of mine”? Acts 9:15.

The Apostle Paul, then, was separated from birth. But did God just leave him sitting on the shelf collecting dust until it pleased Him to convert him? No! Remember the verse that says, “All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

The Preparation

[Paul was] exceedingly zealous for the traditions of [his] fathers. So we see straight away that Paul had been busy before his conversion. He was into a religious thing called Judaism. He advanced in this religion beyond many of his contemporaries, he says v. 14. He was exceedingly zealous for the traditions of his fathers.

What is Judaism? Judaism was the religion of the Hebrew people. The Jewish nation had its origin in the calling of Abraham. God brought the Hebrews or Jews out of captivity in Egypt. They were His chosen people. Like Abraham, they weren’t chosen because they were nice blokes. They were chosen because God is gracious to sinners.

Without going into the whole history of Israel I’ll just mention one or two pertinent things. God covenanted with Israel. In simplified terms, He married Himself to them. We might put a ring on our finger to symbolize marriage. The sign and seal of God’s covenant marriage to Israel was of course male circumcision. Circumcision symbolized the removal of Israel’s sin. It was also a reminder that one of their offspring would save them from their sin as promised. It was also a reminder that this would be done by the shedding of blood.

The Law of the Covenant was given, the Ten Commandments at Sinai. This took place some 400 years after circumcision, the sign of the covenant was introduced. Along with the Commandments, God gave certain stipulations to the Jews. They were permitted to eat only certain foods. They weren’t allowed to sew together two different materials. We look at all of this and we wonder what it all means. Well, what it all means is this. God was separating a people unto Himself. All the dietary regulations, all the ceremonies, all that God commanded the Jews to do and not to do, was to separate them from the other nations. God was making them different from the world.

But you know the story. The Jews were a rebellious people, They wanted to be like the rest of the world. Sound familiar? Between the end of the Book of Malachi and John the Baptist, God was silent for 400 yrs. During this time Judaism developed. Some Jews were pacifists, and so let other nations conquer them unchallenged. Others wanted to fight. A bridge that collapsed at a sports event in Israel was named after a Jewish freedom fighter. Judas Macabeas wasn’t one to lie down and be a doormat. So he fought. All this was going on during the time we call “Between the Testaments”.

Nowadays there are many different Christian sects and cults. Between the period of the Old a New Testaments, different sects began to appear as Judaism began to spread here and there. We’re most familiar with the Sadducees and the Pharisees. But there were many others. At the time of Jesus, the Sadducees basically controlled the Temple at Jerusalem, while the Pharisees basically controlled just about all the synagogues. The synagogues were not unlike some modern-day churches. The word synagogue means “a bringing together”. Like the church, there was prayer, the singing of praises, the reading of the Scriptures, and a sermon would be preached from the Scriptures in the synagogue. It was easy for these synagogues to be transformed into Christian churches as the Gospel spread.

Now then, after that brief history lesson let me say this: many Christians today equate the whole of Judaism with the religion of the Pharisees. Lots of Christians are under the assumption that up until the time of Jesus people were saved by keeping God’s Law. They think that they were saved by works not grace back then. However, this isn’t the case. Since Adam fell it’s always been salvation by grace. We have always been justified by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

Let’s now focus our attention back on Paul for a moment. Before his conversion on the road to Damascus Paul was involved in Judaism. I want you to see that even though God had separated him from birth. Paul was a broken vessel. He proved he was a broken vessel by his zeal for Judaism. He was a zealot. I want to make it clear that the Judaism of the Pharisees was not the way of salvation revealed in the Old Testament.

Judaism and Christianity are complete opposites. Judaism is a religion of works and bondage. Christianity is about grace and freedom. Before his conversion, even though he could probably recite you most of the Old Testament, Paul was in bondage. He was in a strait-jacket made from the traditions of his fathers. They had so distorted the way of salvation by grace that they didn’t even recognize the Promised Messiah. Paul said to the Messiah on the road to Damascus “Who are you?”

It’s little wonder John the Baptizer called the Pharisees “a brood of vipers”. Jesus Christ called them the same thing, “You brood of vipers!” It’s just like the devil, the father of all the little vipers, to distort the way of salvation! Before his conversion, Paul was zealous for the traditions of his fathers. The tradition was to pile rules and regulations onto the backs of people. They made people obey things that God hadn’t even said. Instead of “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”, Judaism said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy”. Where do you find the commandment to hate your enemies in the Old Testament? Judaism added to the Word of God. Judaism took away from the Word of God. But the main thing was that it was distorting and confusing the way of salvation, which always has been by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone.

The context of the following verse is that some of the Jews wanted to dump a load of their religion onto Christians. Peter in Acts 15:10 says, Now therefore, why do you try to test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?” Then in v. 11, “But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they.”

That great Reformer John Calvin says,

Seeing that the covenant of life is eternal, and the same which God made with His servants from the beginning until the end of the world, it were an absurd thing, and intolerable, that any other way to obtain salvation should be taught at this day than that which the fathers had in times past. Therefore, Peter affirms that we agree very well with the fathers, because they no less than we reposed hope of salvation in the grace of Christ...

Calvin goes on to say that Peter here removes the stumbling-block the Jews had placed in front of themselves by disobedience.

So then, when Jesus Christ met Paul on the road to Damascus, He called him out of the darkness of his false religion, which was the traditions of his fathers. Paul wrongly thought a man could be saved by his own works. This proves that Paul was indeed a broken vessel, wasn’t he? He even persecuted Christians for believing in salvation by grace alone and not by works.

Do you see any similarities between yourself and Paul before his conversion? Do you see yourself as a broken vessel just like him? Before you were saved you thought you could get into heaven by being good, didn’t you? You compared yourself to murderers and rapists ad thought you were fit for heaven. You thought to yourself, “I know I’ve done a few bad things, but I’m pretty good,” didn’t you? You thought to yourself, “Why wouldn’t God let me into heaven? He’s a good God!” Well, God says there’s only one way to get into heaven, and it’s by grace through faith in Christ. You won’t get there by being a good little boy or girl. You’ll only get there by trust in Jesus Christ as presented in the gospel.

Before conversion, we are all like Paul before his conversion. We are zealous for the traditions of our fathers. Be good, and she’ll be right mate. Wrong! Trust in Christ alone and she’ll be right. Anything that happened to you before your conversion was that which lead up to your conversion. Where you were born, when you were born, how many brothers, sisters. What school you went to, your friends, your teachers, neighbors, the whole bit! God’s in control of all of this.

If you belong to God, then He separated you from birth. O you didn’t know it but God did. It was in preparation for your conversion. Many Christians look at their life before conversion as a wasted life. There is no wastage in God’s glorious kingdom. Why? Well here’s that verse again, “We know that all things work together for good to those       who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.” What is God’s purpose for you? That you should glorify Him and enjoy Him forever.

If you were a plumber before your conversion, then seek to convert other plumbers after your conversion. If you were the butcher or the baker or the candlestick maker before conversion, then don’t quit and become a monk. Bring the Gospel to bear on your brothers and sisters, your parents, your children, and your neighbours. God separated you from birth he prepared you to bring Him glory in due time.

I had not lived in Scotland for over twenty years at the time. When I would telephone my dad on occasion, he would say, “I was talking to so and so and they can’t believe that you’re now a preacher of the Gospel!” They couldn’t believe it because they knew me before I met the Lord Jesus Christ! Look at John Newton, the writer of Amazing Grace. From clapping people in irons and selling them into a life of slavery, to setting them free again with the Gospel.

Your life before your conversion is not wasted. It is used to bring glory to God. Look what it says about Paul, “But they were hearing only, ‘He who formerly persecuted us now preaches the faith which he once tried to destroy.’ And they glorified God in me.” Galatians 1:23-24.

The Reparation

“Reparation” happens when something is “repaired”, when something that was broken is mended. Reparation means amends are made for injury caused. To make amends. Reparation took place at Calvary. Christ on the cross was repairing the breach between God and man.

We know it’s no accident when a human being is born, don’t we? We know it was no accident that Jesus was born when He was born. Neither was it an accident He was born where He was born. Scripture says, “When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons” Galatians 4:4-5. In the Old Testament, the saints looked forward to this reparation. They knew of the One who was coming to make amends with God for their sin. They knew because God had told them.

So then, what Christ did on the cross He did in space and time. His crucifixion was an event that took place in history. It was at Calvary that Christ repaired what Adam had broken. God promised the Old Testament saints that He was going to do it, and then He did it. Now we have His Word that He has done it. It’s a fact. How do we know it’s a fact? How do we know for sure that all of this has taken place? Well, look what Paul says in verses 15 and 16, “When it pleased God … to reveal His Son in me.” God who had separated and prepared him now revealed His grace to him personally.

Like many religious people, Paul had been struggling to save himself. But all he was doing was bringing himself eternal destruction. But Paul was called by grace when he met Jesus Christ. When Christ knocked him to the ground He got Paul’s attention. It was here at his coercion that Jesus applied to Paul the benefits He had won at the cross. Christ had made reparation with God at the cross. He did it on behalf of sinners. Paul was one of those sinners for whom Christ died. Therefore, at his conversion, Paul became a repaired vessel. The image of God that had been smashed to distortion was again shining in Paul. God the Holy Spirit began gluing the shattered pieces of Paul’s life back together. And it was all because of what Christ did on the cross, and not because of anything Paul had done. It was all of grace.

If you have been called by grace you are a repaired vessel. God the Holy Spirit is busy at work repairing your life. He’ll keep on working in your life till the day you die. You have this promise that “He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” Philippians 1:6.

Conclusion

If you belong to the Lord you have seen that His hand was upon you from birth the same as Paul. You were born when and where God wanted you to be born. Your life before your conversion was preparation for your conversion. Now to be sure, not everyone experiences “a road to Damascus” conversion. Maybe you don’t even know when you were converted. The main thing is that you know you are converted.

We know we are converted when we find ourselves seeking the face of Jesus each day. We know we are converted when we find ourselves hating our sins. We know we are converted when we are repenting of our sins, and when we are confessing our sins to God and begging His forgiveness. We know we are converted when we are trusting in God’s grace alone for salvation. When we have stopped trying to earn points with God by our good deeds. We are converted when we see it is through faith alone we are saved. We are converted when Jesus Christ is revealed to us and we trust in Him alone.

Jesus Christ wants to give you rest from your labours. He wants to remove that burden from your shoulders. That great weight of rising every morning and not knowing whether you’ve done enough to please God. The burden of not knowing in what condition you’ll be in when you die.

Come to Jesus. Don’t trust your own actions. Don’t trust your own faith or resolve no matter how strong you think it is. Come to Jesus. He’ll give you rest. He promised to! For He says, “Come to Me, all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.”

You need to come to Jesus. He is calling you by His grace. Perhaps he separated you from birth. Perhaps He has prepared you for this very moment. Will you come?

It’s a wonderful thing to be called by grace!