How a Terrorist Became an Evangelist:

How a Terrorist Became an Evangelist:

Galatians 1:11-24

Christianity is supremely a religion of conversion. Everything we say and everything we believe is built upon one fundamental and revolutionary premise: You don’t have to stay the way you are. Your life can be radically changed by God. Conversion is a miracle that happens when the life of God intersects with human personality. Once God enters the picture, your life will never be the same again. Until then, you may be religious and you may be a very good person and you may obey all the rules of the church, but you have not been converted.

Religion is one thing; conversion is something else entirely. It is the conviction that long-held prejudices can be overcome, lifetime habits can be broken, and deeply ingrained patterns of sin can be erased over time. Conversion is the certainty that what you were does not determine what you are, and what you are does not determine what you will be. You can be changed, you can be different, your life can move in an entirely new direction.

If you take that truth away from Christianity, it ceases to be a supernatural religion. If the possibility of real change is gone, then we have nothing to offer but a set of rules. Can the leopard change his spots? In himself and by himself, the leopard can never change his spots, “but with God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26b

The Greatest Conversion Story in the Bible
Of all the conversion stories in the Bible, none is greater or more profound than the conversion of the man called Saul of Tarsus. Raised a Jew, trained as a rabbi, he became a violent persecutor of the early Christian church. He hated Christ and his followers so much that he did his best to eradicate the new religion as if it were some sort of dreaded virus. He was a terrorist who did his evil deeds in the name of the God of the Bible.

One day he met Jesus and his life was permanently transformed. So bad was his reputation that at first almost no one believed that the change was real. Word quickly spread that Saul the persecutor had come to Christ. Over time he proved to be genuine in his faith. What happened to him made such an impact that the New Testament contains three separate accounts of his dramatic conversion. The first is in Acts 9, the second in Acts 26, and the third is in Galatians 1:11-24.

Paul’s story begins with a statement about the source of his gospel preaching. Evidently the Judaizers (those Jewish-Christian “converts” who claimed to represent the apostles in Jerusalem) were attacking both his apostleship and his message. In essence, they claimed that his message wasn’t true and he himself could not be trusted. That raises an interesting question. How do you prove that you are trustworthy? Answer: Tell your story and let your story speak for itself.

So, Paul now proceeds to his own story.

I. Paul’ s Life Before Conversion
“You know what I was like when I followed the Jewish religion—how I violently persecuted God’s church. I did my best to destroy it. I was far ahead of my fellow Jews in my zeal for the traditions of my ancestors. ” (Galatians 1:13-14).
These verses tell a chilling story. Before Paul came to Christ, he was perfectly happy in his career as a rising Jewish leader and an avid Christian-hater. He felt no remorse over his persecution of the followers of Christ, and in fact regarded it as his service to God. He had no desire to come to Christ and felt no need in his heart. His religion satisfied him in every way and he saw no need for anything else. He was like those people who responded to the “I Found It” campaign sponsored by Campus Crusade for Christ by promoting their own version: “I Never Lost It.” Was Paul interested in becoming a Christian? How many ways can you say no? He wasn’t looking for Christ … but Christ was looking for him. Only God could save a man like Paul. And it turns out, that’s exactly what God did.

Saul/Paul was a religious fanatic. A zealot. A man wholly given over to his hatred of Christians. He would stop at nothing to prevent this new movement from spreading. Paul tells his story this way because he wants us to understand that he wasn’t what we like to call a “seeker.” He wasn’t seeking anything—except more Christians to throw in prison. He had no sense of his need of salvation and no inner voice calling him to come to Christ. It would be hard to imagine a more hopeless case. Why bother praying for a man like that? He’ll never be saved.
Or so it would seem.
He was totally convinced he was right.
He was totally convinced Christians were wrong.
He hated Christianity and he loved Judaism.
He was lost and didn’t know it.
He enjoyed his life and wasn’t looking for something better.

We can sum it up by saying he was on a collision course with eternal judgment. What he desperately needed—but would not admit—was a strong dose of divine intervention.

Paul paints the picture black so the brilliant bright light of the gospel can be clearly seen. Not everyone has a story like Paul’s—but many do.

There are all sorts of sinners who make up the body of Christ. They have in common that they have been washed in the blood, forgiven by Jesus, justified by grace, reconciled to God, redeemed, restored, converted, and their lives have been radically changed. This is as it should be. “You wouldn’t believe it if I told you, but I was as bad as you could be. When I hit bottom, I looked up and found the Lord waiting for me.”

II. Paul’s Conversion
“But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles.” (Galatians 1:15-16a NIV).
Focus for a moment on the first word. “But.” This is the great interruption. All that happened in Paul’s life came because of that one little word.

Paul was a sinner. But God.
Paul hated Jesus. But God.
Paul tried to kill Christians. But God.
Paul wanted to destroy the church. But God.
Paul enjoyed being lost. But God.
Paul wasn’t looking for a new life. But God.
Paul intended to kill more Christians. But God.

God came into Paul’s life without permission. He didn’t wait to be asked. While Saul was on the road to Damascus, the Lord Jesus just barged right in. He didn’t ask permission because if he had asked, Saul would have said no. He came in where he wasn’t wanted or expected and took over the situation.

Let us learn from this that salvation begins with God—not with us! Salvation is of the Lord.
God reached down, slapped him down on the Damascus road, and brought him into the Kingdom. His whole life had been planned by God for just this moment. Nothing had happened by accident. All was ordained as part of God’s divine plan.

But does this not destroy the concept of freewill? Not at all. God gives us choices to make and then he holds us accountable for those choices

Sometimes folks say, “I found the Lord.” True, but just remember that if the Lord didn’t find you first, you would never have found him. And in the end, God gets all the glory for our salvation. That is certainly how Paul felt as he looked back on his own amazing conversion.

Paul’s Life After Conversion
When this happened, I did not rush out to consult with any human being. Nor did I go up to Jerusalem to consult with those who were apostles before I was. Instead, I went away into Arabia, and later I returned to the city of Damascus. Then three years later I went to Jerusalem to get to know Peter,… Galatians 1:16b-18a).
Paul’s emphasis in these verses is on what he didn’t do. He didn’t immediately go to Jerusalem to be trained by the apostles. And he didn’t start an evangelistic ministry right away. What did he do? He dropped out of sight for three years by going to Arabia. We would have put him on Christian radio and TV. We would have had him write a book and hit the Christian talk-show circuit. But that wasn’t God’s plan.

Once he was a terrorist; now he came back an evangelist.

Christ has made all the difference. The passage ends on a wonderful note as Paul says that the churches in Judea (which he once terrorized in his pre-conversion days) recognized the amazing change in his life. And they glorified God because of him. His life pointed people toward God. That leads to a simple and profound question. Is anyone glorifying God because of you? Is our life pointing people toward God?

The worst sinners often make the best saints. Note the word “often.” Not every sinner comes to Christ. Regrettably, some do not come and because they do not come, they are not saved. And there are many great saints of God who were raised in godly homes and never openly rebelled against the Lord. But it is still true that God seems to delight in taking the worst sinners and deeply and profoundly converting them. Such men and women bear the scars of their past life and bring their baggage with them into God’s family. But when God’s work is done, those same saints of God are a powerful testimony to a skeptical world.

Not many mighty are called, not many noble, not many powerful, not many great as the world counts greatness. God doesn’t go for the big names to populate heaven. He takes ordinary folks and then does extraordinary things through them.

No one is beyond the reach of God’s grace.