I must say that I have a great sense of privilege to look with you at the passage that we're looking at. If you would look back at First Corinthians 15 right now in your paper or electronic Bible, something interesting happens with this passage. It ought to make you think, "Why does Paul do this?" Paul has just launched into this glorious description of the central importance of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, of the resurrection gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. He's just said: I want to remind you, lest you forget what you have been given in Christ.
Nothing Is More Important
I want you to know that nothing is more important in all of life than the gospel of Jesus Christ. It's more important than your marriage. It's more important than your children. It's more important than your reputation. It's more important than your career. It's more important than your possessions. It's more important; it's more important; it's more important; it's more important! He's just let you know that the central message of the gospel is not what you have done for God, but what God in glorious grace has done for you.
Because your biggest problem in life is you. Your greatest danger lives inside of you. No, it's not your neighbor. No, it's not your husband. No, it's not your wife. No, it's not your boss. No, it's not your children - it's you! And so we can't move toward God until God first in grace moves toward us. We can't rescue ourselves. We can run from a situation, we can run from a location, we can run from a circumstance - but we can't run from ourselves. I've found that whenever I try to run from me, I show up with me at the end of the run.
It doesn't work! And so he's launched into this high, holy description of the gospel, and then all of a sudden he starts talking about himself. It just doesn't seem right. Why all of a sudden, in this moment of deep practical theological clarity, when he's now helping you to understand the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ - that Christianity makes no sense at all without the resurrection; that without the resurrection, Christianity is reduced just to another philosophy on the shelf of philosophies; pick your best philosophy, it doesn't make any difference anymore; without the resurrection your belief is in vain, your obedience is in vain, your worship is in vain; without the resurrection everything we just got done doing is just in vain, it's vain, it's worthless - yet why in the middle of that would Paul turn and talk about himself?
Why? Did you ever have a conversation where somebody just interrupts the conversation, not caring about what you're talking about to talk about what they want to talk about, because they just want to be the center of attention? (You're looking at me like you don't know what I'm talking about; you know what I'm talking about. Sometimes that you. And when it happens it irritates you.) What is the point of this moment? How does this moment, where Paul unfolds his own story, fit with this conversation about the centrality of the theology of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the historical, physical resurrection of Jesus?
Well I thought the best way to first answer that question is a little bit of my own story. I've told the story many times; I told this to the pastors this week. but I want to tell it to all of you. I was a very angry man. I didn't know that I was an angry man. I look back with grief on those days. Luella knew that I was angry and my children knew that I was angry, but I didn't know I was angry. If you had characterized me as angry, I would have been offended because I did see myself that way at all.
I was a pastor. I was in the midst of destroying my life and my ministry and I didn't know it. Luella was very faithful in holding that anger in front of me. I look back, and she did it in patient and godly ways. And I would not listen and I would not hear. I would wrap my robes of righteousness around me and tell her what a wonderful husband she had. I, at moments, would tell her that I thought her problem was discontent and I would pray for her ... that helped her .. no it didn't! At one moment, as I was arguing for my righteousness, which I'm sure you never have done, I said these deeply humble words to my wife.
This is embarrassing but I will share it. I said, "95 percent of the women in our church would love to be married to a man like me." How's that for humility? Now you have to hear this: Luella very quickly informed me that she was in the 5 percent. It was a disaster; a disaster. I didn't see it. I didn't see my need. I wasn't seeking for help; in fact, I was resisting help. I was a rebel against help. My message to Paul was, "I am okay, I don't need help." But my Lord is a God of amazing grace. I was on a conference weekend, not unlike what we're enjoying together (I hope you're enjoying it; if you're not please don't tell me).
And I'm driving home with my brother Tedd; we had a few hours on the road together. We're going down a major highway, and he said, "You know, Paul, we probably ought to make this conference practical to our own lives." He said to me, "Why don't you start?" Well we were going fast; I couldn't jump out of the car. And Tedd didn't make statements, he didn't say things about me. He just began to ask me questions - questions I could have never asked of myself because I was so blind. And as he was asking questions, it was like God was ripping down curtains and I was beginning to see myself with clarity and hear myself with clarity like never before.
Praise God, praise God for the convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit. Don't ever resist the convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit. That is God rescuing you from you. As I was looking in, seeing that man, I couldn't believe what I was seeing; I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was so distant from what I thought about myself. It was hard for me to imagine it was me, but it was. I couldn't wait to get home to talk to Luella. When I got home, I asked if we could sit down and talk. And I said, "I know for many many many years, you've been trying to talk to me about my anger.
And I would not listen and I would not hear. But I can honestly say I want to hear what you have to say to me." I remember this so clearly - Luella had tears in her eyes. She told me that she loved me (which I think was in itself an act of incredible grace after all she had been through), and then she talked for two hours. And in those two hours, God began this process of the radical undoing and rebuilding of the heart of this man. The operative word is process; it didn't happen overnight. But I was now a man with an open heart and open eyes and open ears.
And the first several months, I saw that anger everywhere. It was so painful. There were moments I felt like I couldn't breathe. But that pain was the pain of grace, because God was making that anger an ugly thing to me so I would never want to go back there again. I'll never forget: months months months down the road, when I came down from the upstairs of our house, and Luella was sitting with her back to me, when I looked at her profile, I couldn't remember the last time that I experienced that old ugly anger.
Life-Dominating Anger Broken
No, I'm not saying that I had risen to a level of sanctification where a moment of irritation was impossible for me. I'll always struggle with that, as will you. But the life-dominating anger was broken - gone - and I walked up behind her and put my hands on her shoulder. She looked up like this and I said, "You know I'm not angry at you anymore." And we sort of laughed and cried at the same time at what God had done. Now you have to ask the question: what has the power to do that in the life of a man?
What has the power to totally turn a man around? What has the power to take a man who's eaten by lust and turn him into a man defined by purity? What has the power to make angry people committed to peace? What has the power to make thieves become people who love to work so they can give? What has the power to make proud people known for their humility? What has the power to make self-righteous people now willing to confess their sin? What makes demanding people now become people who serve? What has this power?
Because if there is no power that can do that, we are in desperate danger! All of a sudden, if there isn't power to turn around the life of a person, all of a sudden, life is dark and discouraging and depressing - run for cover. What has the power to fix human brokenness? What has the power to do for you what you couldn't do for yourself? You can sense my passion, because I know in this room, there are marriages that need that power. I know in this room, there are parents who need that power. I know in this room, there are single people who need that power.
There's pride in this room and there's anger in this room and there's lust in this room. There's demandingness in this room. Where is hope to be found for us? Where is help to be found for us? The answer is in the transforming power of resurrection grace. You see, Paul's telling of his story is germane to the topic. Because we tend to think that what the resurrection gives us is eternal life - case closed; that's it. That all that the resurrection guarantees for you is a future resurrection. Now that's wonderful.
You should celebrate that. There's a day when we will be delivered out of this mess. Praise God, [raise God. Paradise is coming. Praise him. But that's not all the resurrection gives you. By the power of resurrection grace, you are resurrected out of your sin into the newness of life. Isn't that beautiful? I want to turn in your Bibles to Romans 8. I can't resist taking you to this passage. I want you to hear the words of this passage; I just want to read for you verses 9 through 11 of Romans 8. "You, however, (talking to believers) are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.
Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. (Now listen to this) If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you." What is he saying? The same power that raised Jesus from the dead is now resident in us as the children of God.
You are way too passive at this moment; this is celebration stuff. You ought to be saying, "Oh my!" You should not be able to hear what I just said and sit there like, "OK ... the same power the raised Jesus from the dead is now living inside of me." There's something wrong with that. Listen, the hope of every human being who ever lived is in the words I just read. Because we need that kind of transforming power. We need that kind of transforming power. Everybody in this room needs that kind of transforming power.
And you can get no more stunning definition of transforming power than a dead man in a tomb rises to live again. That's transformation. If you want a definition of radical, physical personal, historical transformation, there is no greater picture of transformation than the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Because you know this is true - when you hear someone's dead, what do you think? It's over; it's over. There's no there's nothing else that can happen. It's over; it's done. And to be confronted with the fact that, by the power of God, Jesus actually walked out of the tomb and - as it says in this passage - was viewed by many, living, having conquered the ultimate death.
And so Paul wants you to understand that that same transforming power is what defines and explains his story. Let me take you to First Corinthians again. "For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God..." What is that, six words? "But by the grace of God." Six words, maybe the six most important words that could be spoken or written; maybe the only place for true human hope to be found. "But by the grace of God."
But is a subject change word, isn't it? But it is a transition word. I was hungry but I was fed. I was foolish but I became wise. That word means something has changed; something has become different. "But by the grace of God." Look what he says about himself: "For I am the least of the apostles, unworthy to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God." I would argue that one of the significances of Paul's personal story is that his story defines what it means to be lost, what it means to be spiritually lost.
First, Paul was a fool. What's the heart of foolishness? Well we know a fool has the world inside out and upside down. A fool looks bad and sees good. A fool looks at true and sees false. A fool looks at wisdom and sees foolishness. He's got it all turned around. But the heart of foolishness is what? Do you know? A denial of God. "The fool has said in his heart there is no God." Now I don't believe that that passage is talking about philosophical atheism. It's talking about the propensity of every sinner to dethrone God and to enthrone themselves in God's place.
We Act as if God Does Not Exist
That's what it's talking about. Every sinner does that. We put ourselves in the center of the world, and we act as if God doesn't exist and we surely act as if we have no need of him. Paul, although he was a Pharisee, in his self-righteousness, told himself every day that he did not need God, and he was a rebel against the Lord Jesus Christ who was the son of God. He's a definition of the foolishness of sin. He's a definition of how a ma, a well-meaning theological man, a religious man, could get it all wrong!
You could be the heart of religion and get it all wrong. You can be deeply persuaded that you're right and get it all wrong. You can be passionate and get it all wrong. You can be knowledgeable and get it all wrong. You can be disciplined and get it all wrong. Because in the center of your heart, you have denied the existence of God; you've denied your need of him, and you live a self-righteous, self-sufficient life. What are the two lies every sinner believes? I can give them to you. First - the lie of autonomy.
What does the lie of autonomy say? It says I'm an independent human being, I have the right to live my life the way I want to live. Isn't that the philosophy of human culture in our generation? "My life belongs to me. Don't tell me what to do." It's a lie. There's no such thing as autonomy. If you're created by God, he owns you. You see that if you're a parent. How many parents are in the room? (For some reason, parents raise their hands higher than wives do; I don't know what that means.) You know, you have a little child and that child is fighting you because they don't want to eat what you've prepared.
Parents hear this: that's not about diet. This child hasn't read a book on the paleo diet and decided that that's the way they want to eat. It doesn't have anything to do with diet. That's autonomy. This child was saying, "This is my body, this is my mouth, and you will not tell me what to put in my mouth, oh parental person." That child who is resisting going to sleep, they haven't done a sleep study at the local institute of sleep and realized they only need six hours when you're trying to make them sleep for eight.
It's autonomy! They're believing the lie that they need no more authority than themselves. Or, the second lie is a lie of self-sufficiency. Self-sufficiency says, "I have everything in myself that I need to be what I'm supposed to be and to do what I'm supposed to do." I'm going to say that again: "I have everything I need inside of myself to be what I'm supposed to be and to do what I supposed to do." And that's why a child will resist your instruction. They're thinking, "My you have a lot to say, oh parent of mine, when I don't really want to hear it."
You watch a little child who has discovered - maybe a 3 year old - that their shoes have laces, and they have watched mommy tie the bow. And so little Johnny decides he wants to tie his shoe. He has no idea how to make a bow. He's fumbling with the laces, and you reach down to help him. What does he do? He slaps your hand away. He could fumble with those laces for a century and never make a bow! But he wants to believe that he's self-sufficient. That's Paul - thinking he's right, thinking he's righteous, driven, informed, disciplined ... but a fool!
He's a rebel. That's the second thing. He is not just passively foolish. He's a rebel against the things of God. You have watched moments when you want to share the gospel with a person and they don't just disagree with you, they get mad at you; they take offense at you. Because sin is not just moral impurity; it's transgression. What is transgression? Transgression is willingly stepping over God's boundaries. I get mad to think that there is a God that I'm responsible to. I get mad to think that he set boundaries for me.
I get mad to think that he's told me what to do. It makes me angry. Paul was angry. He was a rebel against the work of God. He was after the church. There's another thing - he was blind. Maybe this is the saddest thing of all, that his man with all this foolishness, with all his rebellion, didn't see the danger he was to himself. He didn't see that he needed resurrection intervention. He didn't see it. In fact, Paul was deeply convinced - like Paul Tripp was deeply convinced - that the problem was outside of him, not inside of him.
And so he was after the church because he thought this new born Christian church was the problem, was the danger, when actually it was the help and he was the danger. And the scary thing about spiritual blindness is it's not like physical blindness. When you're physically blind, you know you're blind and you do things to cope with your blindness. But when you're spiritually blind - are you ready for this? - you're blind to your blindness. That was Paul. When you read Scripture, you shouldn't look down on him.
When you read Scripture, you shouldn't get mad at him. When you read Scripture, the early life of Paul should make you weep, because you see the foolishness, you see the rebellion, you see the blindness. Now I'm about hurt your feelings. His story is in First Corinthians 15 - are you listening to me? - because apart from transforming grace, we are more like Paul than unlike him. The Bible clearly says that these stories - oh I love this - were retained for us because these are people just like us.
Sin reduces every human being to fool. Sin reduces every human being to a rebel. Sin makes every human being blind. And that leaves us with the question that I asked earlier - what has the power to deliver us? "But by the grace of God." I'd like you to turn, if you would, to Acts Chapter 9. It's the story of the conversion of this blind rebel fool. "But Saul, still breathing threats and murder." Isn't that interesting thing? He breathes threats. He breathes murder. This is not a man you want to hang around with.
Saul, Breathing Threats
But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way (that's the newfound church), men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Now as he went on his way, he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven (I love these words) shone around him. And falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?"
And he said, "Who are you, Lord?" And he said, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. But rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do." Notice this. What you have here is a picture of the power of rescuing grace. Paul wasn't feeling convicted. Paul wasn't looking to change. He wasn't interested in transformation. He was heading to do more of the disastrous foolish rebellious work that he was doing. He was heading to crush the Church of Jesus Christ, and he was rescued by divine grace.
"But by the grace of God." Here's why I think that's important: I think there is still a tendency in the Church of Jesus Christ to reduce Christianity down to a system of theology and rules. Now we believe if we have the right doctrine and the right set of rules we will be OK. There is no man in the New Testament more committed to theology and law than Paul was. And we must not ask the law to do what only grace can accomplish. The law does a brilliant job of exposing sin. The law is a wonderful guide for your life.
But the law has no power whatsoever to deliver and transform you. None. Parents, hear this: if all your children needed was a neat set of laws and enforcement, Jesus would have never had to come. If all your marriage needs was rules and threats, Jesus would have never had to come. We should love God's law, but we must realize the limits of that law, and must not ask that law to do what only grace can accomplish. What Paul needed was the intervention of the grace of the risen Christ Jesus, because apart from that grace there was no hope for him.
Listen - we don't believe in a system of redemption; we believe in a redeemer! Our hope is in the operation of his grace. You see that grace exhibited in this story. It's first rescuing grace. You see that rescue on that moment on the road to Damascus. Paul is being rescued from what? Tell me. Paul is being rescued from what? Tell me. Paul - that's the answer. Paul is being rescued from Paul. The very thing that he doesn't think that he needs to be rescued from. Some of you were mumbling deeply theological answers; they were all wrong.
Some of you gave me a paragraph; it was confusing to me. There's only one answer - he was being rescued from Paul. That's why he had to be rescued! He was the rebel that was hurting his life. He was the fool that was hurting his life. He was the blindness that was hurting his life. He needed to be rescued from himself. That's why he needed to be rescued. Listen - what does the word rescue mean? When does somebody need rescued? You know this, when the paramedics come, why do they come to rescue somebody?
Because the person can't rescue themselves. Rescue always means you're the problem. Don't defend yourself; accept it. Fire your inner lawyer. But then you see the glory of forgiving grace. I love this. God asks this follower, this disciple, named Ananias to go to Paul. I just love this part of the story. This was a murderous man, Paul, and God says, "I want you to go and I want to speak to Paul." If you had been Ananias, what would you have said? "You have got to be kidding! This may be, Lord, the first mistake you've ever made.
You cannot actually mean that you want me to go." Listen to this. He says, "Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name." But he went. I love this. Verse 17: "So Ananias departed and entered the house. And laying his hands on him he said (what's the first word he said?), "Brother..." Do you know what he is speaking into the life of the Apostle Paul? He's speaking forgiveness.
Why would you ever call this man brother? Because God, through this man, was beginning to communicate forgiving grace. "I died for every bit of your foolishness. I died for every bit of your rebellion. I died for every bit of your blindness. And I'm welcoming you into my family. You're going to be a brother." Forgiving grace. Because Jesus had paid every ounce of the penalty for his sin. "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit."
And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he rose and was baptized; and taking food, he was strengthened. For some days he was with the disciples at Damascus. And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, "He is the Son of God."" You see rescuing grace. You see forgiving grace. You see transforming grace. What has the power to take this man who hated the message of the gospel and produces this man who can't stop preaching the message of the gospel, but transforming grace?
And then finally, the whole story is a picture of delivering grace. What is the message of the story of the Apostle Paul? It's that what the resurrection of Jesus Christ guarantees you is not just something in the future. What the resurrection of Jesus Christ guarantees you is exactly what you need in the here and now. And can I say this? There's not a person in this room who is free of their need of this grace that we've been talking about - the grace of the resurrection Christ Jesus. You still need rescuing grace.
Rescued From Yourself
You still need to be rescued from you. That's my story. I was a pastor. I was theologically knowledgeable. I was disciplined and determined. But it was not enough. I needed to be rescued from myself. I needed forgiving grace, that I would not be judged for the evil that was my life. I needed transforming grace. I needed to be different. My life needed to take a course change or I would have continued to destroy my marriage and my ministry. None of the books would have been written. None of the conferences would have happened.
None of the travels around the world. None of this stuff would have happened. It makes me weak when I think about where my story would have gone but for rescuing, forgiving, transforming grace. And I need to be delivered. I need for that grace to continue to work in my life until that grace isn't needed anymore because I'm finally free and finally delivered from evil within and evil without. I love how Paul ends by saying, "Oh by the way - that grace was not in vain. God's grace never wastes its power.
God's grace never wastes its power. God's grace never works in vain. And you know that, if you have a Bible in your hands. The New Testament is filled with the brilliant gospel writing of this very same man. We are witnesses to the fact that the grace operating in Paul was not in vain. In fact, we're now reading through and studying what chapter? First Corinthians 15. written by this very same man, here in Singapore 2017. We're still experiencing the fact that the grace of God for the Apostle Paul was not in vain.
That grace still lives today, tonight, in this moment. Praise God. Praise God. Praise God. You will never know - it will be hard to ever estimate - the legacy that the grace of God produces in you and through you. A life that you may have touched, that you just said a few words of the gospel but haunted that person, and they carried it with them. And you never know that somehow because of your ministry they came to Christ. Or a neighbor that you were kind to because now there is love in your heart rather than demandingness in your heart, and that person was touched by your love and that led them to seek God and find him and know him.
You'll never know. But you can be sure of this: the grace of the risen Christ that has the power to rescue and forgive and transform and deliver never operates in vain. It always does its work. See, Paul's story is not a change in subject. Paul's story is an application of the subject, lest we forget that we don't just need the resurrection in the future - you know what I'm going to say - we need the resurrection right here, right now. We need the rescue of the grace of the resurrection. We need the forgiveness of the grace of the resurrection.
We need the transformation of the grace of the resurrection. We need the deliverance of the grace of the resurrection. We need the power of the resurrection right now. I would ask you this evening, not knowing any of you, not knowing anything about your life, to open your heart right now. I would ask you: where is there still foolishness inside of you? Where are those places in life where you act like God doesn't exist, or at least act like you don't need him? And you take your life into your own hands and you do what you want and do.
At a functional level, you deny his existence you deny his glory, you deny him, even though he may be an item in your theology. Where in your life is there rebellion, places where you know what you are doing is wrong and you do it anyway? Maybe you're a husband and you yell at your wife, and you don't yell at your wife because you're ignorant of the fact that that's wrong. But you yell at her because you want something and you don't care what's wrong at that point. Maybe it's going to a website you have no business going to, that will pollute your heart, but you go anyway; you don't care, because there's something that you want to experience.
Maybe it's a moment of gossip, and you're destroying the reputation of another person. You have no business carrying that story, but you do it because you love the power of carrying a tale. Maybe you have to be the center of attention and you have to have your own way and conflict goes where you go. Where is there still a rebel spirit in your heart? Where is their blindness? Could it be that you think you're OK and you're not OK? I want to say this to you tonight: won't you, tonight, run once again to the grace of Jesus?
Won't you confess with me tonight, that like me, like the other Paul (the one without the mustache) you need that grace. Won't you not listen right now for the person next to you and say, "I'm so thankful so-and-so is here because the Lord knows he needs this." How about thinking about you? Wives, husbands, parents, singles, career people, those of you still in school - whatever your state in life is: how about saying, "Humbly tonight, I am more like Paul than unlike him. And Lord I run to your grace.
I confess my need and I grab hold of with both hands the transforming power of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ." Because that power is yours by grace. Did you hear what I said? That power is yours by grace. Let's pray: Lord we are blessed that this little story - that is actually a huge story - of the life of this foolish, rebellious blind man is in this passage. Because it explodes in detail for us what the power of the resurrected Christ Jesus can do by grace in our lives. We would confess that apart from that grace, we are more like Paul than unlike, that there are ways in which there's still foolishness in us and rebellion in us and blindness in us.
And we too need rescuing, forgiving, transforming and delivering grace May no one in this room think that they have risen above the need for that grace. May our celebration of your resurrection begin with confession of our need for it. In Jesus' name, amen.
