Transformation

Transformation

Sermon 2 in Portraits of Grace Sermon Series

Preached Sunday, January 20, 2013 at FBC, Cornelia

Movement 1:  Portrait of Grace - Paul’s Transformation

            The Grace of God transforms lives.  It frees us from the tyranny of trying to be good enough, perfect enough, sinless enough to work our way into the presence of God. 

            This is the great point Paul wants his friends in the churches in Galatia to understand.  So he reminds them of his own story. 

“You have heard, no doubt, of my earlier life in Judaism,” Paul writes in our scripture passage from the first chapter of Galatians.  Paul dictates these words in Antioch after arriving back from his first missionary journey with Barnabas.  News travels faster than missionaries in the first century.  It has only taken weeks for Paul and Barnabas to leave the new Christians in Southern Galatia, today’s Turkey – and already a new group of preachers are challenging the Gospel of Grace Paul initiated.   

Look at what God did in my life, Paul teaches.  ”I was violently persecuting the church of God and was trying to destroy it. ¹⁴ I advanced in Judaism beyond many among my people of the same age, for I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors.”

            The words of Paul bring to mind the fuller story most in Galatia already knew.  Saul of Tarsus, while born a Roman citizen, had developed into a loyal and zealous Pharisee.  Pharisees knew were the most law abiding, strict, and observant of all of the Jewish sects.  If anyone ever lived as close to the perfect, law abiding life – it was the Pharisees.              Paul came to Jerusalem to study under one of the great Rabbis of the time – Rabbi Gamaliel the Elder – a respected teacher and leader in the Jewish Ruling body known as the Sanhedrin.  Paul excelled in his training as a Pharisee.  He advanced quickly to be a loyal lieutenant of the Sanhedrin.  If anyone ever in all of history ever came close to living a good and law abiding life – it was Saul of Tarsus.             

            In his life as a Pharisee Saul could best be described zealous, passionate, and fanatical.  Saul sought to protect with his whole being the traditions and laws of his ancestors.  This new sect of followers of Jesus – the one executed on the cross – was an apostate Jewish group that must be destroyed.  Every last one of them must be rounded up and taught a lesson before they lead others to walk away from the laws of their ancestors. 

            The words Paul uses in this passage in Galatians reveal how far he went to go into order to destroy this movement.  “I was violently persecuting the church of God,” he says.  This adverbial phrases lets his listeners know that Saul went to extremes in his persecution.  This was no mere heated dialogue or debate.  Saul’s persecution of the Christian community was both intensive and extensive.  Saul used violent and brutal force against the Christians to the point of death.  Once his persecution began to scatter the church from Jerusalem, Saul tracked these Christians down wherever he could find them.  This zealotry to root out Christians from the synagogues is what placed Saul on the road to Damascus on that eventful day.      

            Paul’s Gospel of Grace begins with his experience of grace on the road to Damascus.  It was there on that Road, in the middle of just an ordinary day when grace struck the zealot in the form of a bright and piercing light.  This is how Paul describes it to the Galatians: 

God, who had set me apart before I was born and called me through his grace, was pleased ¹⁶ to reveal his Son to me,^[e] so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles.

            Paul’s entire life and work were transformed through his experience of grace on the road to Damascus.  Nothing stayed the same because grace broke him.  Once he had a full vision of Jesus – Paul realized he could never be good enough, perfect enough or sinless enough to earn his way into God’s presence. 

            Conversions like Paul’s which feel so normal today, were mostly unheard of and looked down upon for most people in the Roman and Jewish worlds that surrounded him.  That world valued stability and consistency of character.  Conversions to Judaism were a gradual process and few who ever made the final commitments. 

When grace transformed Paul, however, everything changed all at once.  One of the first things transformed by Paul’s conversion was his community.  Paul went from being a trusted lieutenant of the Sanhedrin to being an outcast.  And he went from being a feared pariah of the Christian community to Ananias greeting him with the words, “Brother Saul.” 

This was not an easy transition for anyone.  The Christian community questioned the motives of this overnight transformation and his Pharisee friends could barely believe what they heard about him.  In his Galatians testimony – Paul wants the churches in Galatians to see this difficult time of his life as a gift from God.  He tells them, “I did not confer with any human being, ¹⁷ nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were already apostles before me, but I went away at once into Arabia, and afterwards I returned to Damascus.” 

            Paul holds up his transformation as an experience of the grace that comes only from Jesus.  The Gospel he preaches extends out of this experience and comes through an extensive time of personal reflection and conversation with Jesus. 

            This represents another aspect of Pauls’ transformation – his commitments.  When Jesus meets Saul on the road, Saul is committed to the Law and zealous about destroying anyone or anything that threatens the law.  When Jesus is done with Saul he has been humbled by the grace of Jesus.  He had done everything humanly possible to be perfect under the Law of Moses.  Then, in one split second he realized nothing he would ever do would meet the high demands and expectation of God the Creator.  It was only through the gift of Jesus that Grace was offered.  Grace.  Grace is what transformed the life of Saul. 

            Pau’s conversion provides the paradigm to understand the letter to the Galatians.    Paul sets this experience of grace out for everyone to see how we come to God.  Not as individuals working our way to perfection, but as sinners humbled and transformed by the grace and love of Jesus. 

Movement 2:  Portrait of Grace - Jean Valjean’s Transformation

What happens when we are confronted with grace instead of judgment?  Last week, Jean Valjean, a recently paroled convict, received hospitality in the home of the Bishop of Digne, Father Myriel.  In the middle of the night, bitter and harden by a world cast against him, he flew into the night, stealing the silver cutlery as he left. 

The next morning, the police dragged him back to the home of the bishop.  He stood ready to be judged once again, brought back to the hard labor of the prison camps.  Instead, the Bishop, sent the police away, and handed Jean Valjean two silver candlesticks saying:  “You forgot I gave these also, would you leave the best behind? “ 

With grace and love in his eyes, the Bishops then offers grace to this beaten man: 

“By the witness of the martyrs

By the Passion and the Blood

God has raised you out of darkness

I have bought your soul for God!”           

            Jean Valjean now faces a decision.  What will he do with grace when it is given so freely? 

[To hear this song, forward the video to Minute 9:15]

 Movement 3:  Portrait of Grace - Our Transformation

            I said it earlier – I’ll say it again.  The Grace of God transforms lives.  It frees us from the tyranny of all that holds us back from God. 

            Paul lived his life as a Pharisee seeking to be perfect;   striving day after day to accomplish all he could for God – seeking to earn his way into the presence of God.  This life of law which was designed to prove to God one’s worth, instead kept God at bay. 

            Jean Valjean lived his life knowing he was as far from God as ever one could be.  He had been crushed by the cruelty of the world.  The dreams and hopes of his humanity which he carried into the galleys of the French navy disappeared over the 19 years of hard and tortured labor.  While he came to understand the wrongs of his actions, he grew to hate the indignity of a system that punished more cruelly than his actions ever dictated. 

            When Valjean found himself before Father Myriel every ounce of humanity had been squeezed from his life.  He had become a man who hated the world because the world had always hated him. 

            Both Paul and Jean Valjean needed grace – just both from opposite sides.  Both struggled when grace appeared to offer them transformation.

            Paul left Damascus and traveled to Arabia for three years to understand exactly what Jesus had done for him on that Road.  Grace had transformed his life.  That experience of Grace changed the entire course of his life.  When he returned to Damascus and then to Jerusalem to meet the Apostles, Paul brought with him, a new life shaped by grace not the law.  Grace had created a new story to be lived.  This was the message of grace he wanted the Galatians to see so much.  Grace is the key to the entire Gospel of Jesus.  We can’t experience Jesus without it. 

            Jean Valjean struggles with grace in his own way.  He cannot understand how far he has fallen.  And at the same time – he can’t understand how he has allowed the grace of this Bishop to touch him so deeply.  “Why did I allow that man, to touch my soul and teach me love?” he sings. 

            In his struggle, Valjean allows grace to transform him and begin to redefine him; to free him from the bondage to sin and bitterness and hatred and despair.  He sings: 

“I'll escape now from the world, from the world of Jean Valjean.  Jean Valjean is nothing now! Another story must begin!”

I said it earlier – I’ll say it again.  The Grace of God transforms lives.  It frees us from the tyranny of all that holds us back from God.  Grace sets our lives on a new and different trajectory. 

This week, I have been praying for each of us who would hear the Gospel of grace today.  Like Paul’s plea to the Galatians, I want us to experience the grace of Jesus Christ. 

Some of us here find ourselves in the place of Jean Valjean.  We feel crushed by the world.  Sin and despair have woven a painful quilt over our lives and we fail to see how grace could ever matter.  We have given up.

Others of us, find ourselves in the place of Saul of Tarsus.  We have worked all of our lives to be good Christians.  We have done all that we were supposed to do.  We raised our kids in the church.  We came regularly.  We gave money to the church and needy causes.  We have worked hard to set an example in the community.  We have been good people.  We should be fine with Jesus – we know all of the answers.  Yet – something is missing.  We have failed to allow God’s grace transform us. 

No matter whether you are Jean ValJean or Saul – the grace of God is all we need. 

            Let me ask you some questions:

·         When did grace transform your life?

·         When did you fall in love with Jesus?

·         When did your life move in a new trajectory because of your experience with Jesus?

·         Can you look back on your and say today you live your life differently than when you first started coming to church? 

When grace transforms our lives, we gain a new sense of vocation in the world.  Our lives are lived differently. 

·         Paul went on to preach this gospel of grace to gentiles throughout the roman Empire.

·         Jean Valjean lived his life seeking to make a difference in every person that crossed his path.

·         What about us?  Where has grace changed and transformed us?  Where has God called us?

This morning – Let me invite you to reflect on God’s grace in your life today.  How will you respond?  How will you allow grace to transform your life today – freeing you from all that holds you back from God. 

My prayer today – is that each of seize on that moment of grace in our life.  And – if you cannot find it – that you see today as God’s intervention of Grace into your life.  Respond as the presence of God leads.