Example Disciple – Saul becomes Paul Galatians 1:11-24

I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the Good News I have spread is not a human message. I didn't receive it from any person. I wasn't taught it, but Jesus Christ revealed it to me. You heard about the way I once lived when I followed the Jewish religion. You heard how I violently persecuted God's church and tried to destroy it. You also heard how I was far ahead of other Jews in my age group in following the Jewish religion.

I had become that fanatical for the traditions of my ancestors. But God, who appointed me before I was born and who called me by his kindness, was pleased to show me his Son. He did this so that I would tell people who are not Jewish that his Son is the Good News. When this happened, I didn't talk it over with any other person. I didn't even go to Jerusalem to see those who were apostles before I was. Instead, I went to Arabia and then came back to Damascus.

Then, three years later I went to Jerusalem to become personally acquainted with Cephas. I stayed with him for fifteen days. I didn't see any other apostle. I only saw James, the Lord's brother. (God is my witness that what I'm writing is not a lie.) Then I went to the regions of Syria and Cilicia. The churches of Christ in Judea didn't know me personally. The only thing they had heard was this: "The man who persecuted us is now spreading the faith that he once tried to destroy." So they praised God for what had happened to me. Galatians 1:11-24

a. God APPOINTED me before I was BORN (verse 15) "Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart for my holy purpose. I appointed you to be a prophet to the nations." Jeremiah 1:5

“You alone created my inner being. You knitted me together inside my mother. I will give thanks to you because I have been so amazingly and miraculously made. Your works are miraculous, and my soul is fully aware of this. My bones were not hidden from you when I was being made in secret, when I was being skilfully woven in an underground workshop. Your eyes saw me when I was only a foetus. Every day of my life was recorded in your book before one of them had taken place. How precious are your thoughts concerning me, O God! How vast in number they are! If I try to count them, there would be more of them than there are grains of sand. When I wake up, I am still with you.” Psalms 139:13-18 GW

b. God CALLED me while I was PERSECUTING him “kept threatening to murder the Lord's disciples” Acts 9:1 "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" Acts 9:4 "Rise and stand upon your feet; for I have appeared to you for this purpose, to appoint you to serve and to bear witness to the things in which you have seen me and to those in which I will appear to you, delivering you from the people and from the Gentiles—to whom I send you to open their eyes that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God" Acts 26:16–18 “Christ died for us while we were still sinners. This demonstrates God's love for us” Romans 5:8

c. God CONVINCED me while I was ALONE in the desert (verse 17) d. God COMMISSIONED me to PREACH to all nations (verse 16) A Modern day example Close