I find in my years of serving Christ, that many do not take the time to learn of him, but get caught up in being served, and ministered to, and often allow the substitute of a Pastor to be sufficient to know truth and be a shining light. But actually, God gives men of God, Pastor’s, to preach the truth, that the conversion would be inward, then outward, that Christians would magnify Christ by the life they live, holding fast to the scripture, and being led by the Holy Spirit as the men of the New Testament did. After Paul’s conversion, he confronted the Jews in Damascus, and then after a short time had to flee, being let down over the city wall in a basket. He fled into Arabia, lest he be killed. Listen to his testimony in Galatians 1:15-17, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, (Very important portion, to reveal his Son in me) that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood: Neither went I up to Jerusalem to them which were apostles before me; but I went into Arabia, and returned again unto Damascus.” Then after 3 years I went up to Jerusalem to see Peter, and abode with him fifteen days. Paul was sent to Tarsus and he was away for 14 years and then went with Barnabas to Jerusalem with Titus along also. Galatians 2:1

            Imagine with me, 17 years of your life learning and growing in Christ based upon you initial conversion, fellowship with the disciples at Jerusalem and the saints of Damascus, and yet the preparation took time to bring Saul, now Paul to be the Apostle he was. Each individual is accountable before God for their growth, and if they are not in a church hearing the full counsel of God, their growth is stymied. In some churches it is all about the gifts, in another it is all about the law of commandments, another about the letter, which if used inappropriately can kill the spirit and lead folks astray. Listen this morning, and understand, I go to church every time there is opportunity, Sunday morning, for most my life Sunday night, even now, Wednesday night, and yet, I am not idle the other days. I am in the Word of God because we never stop learning of Him. “When Peter came to Antioch, I withstood him to the face, because he was to be blamed.” Galatians 2:11-14 For before that certain came from James, he did eat with the Gentiles: but when they were come, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing them which were of the circumcision. And the other Jews dissembled likewise with him: insomuch that Barnabas also was carried away with their dissimulation. “But when I saw that they walked not uprightly according to the truth of the gospel, I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compel thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? In verse 16 we have this powerful statement. “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.”

             We all need a Pastor in our life to challenge those things that rob us from the fullness of God. The Pastor preaches the whole counsel of God, and this past Sunday’s message was powerful. I wonder how many went home and studied what they heard. Or is it on to the next thing. Who visits the sick, calls upon the person with a broken heart? Who uplifts the one cast down? Who seeks out those rejected by others? Who stands for Christ and shares their testimony, not only in church but within the community of people one knows who do not go the church.? I ask myself these questions also. “But if, while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves also are found sinners, is therefore Christ the minister of sin? God forbid. For if I build again the things which destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.”

           Consider this verse and hear it like you may have never heard it before. “I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ lives in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me. I do not frustrate the grace of God: for if righteousness come by the law, then Christ is dead in vain.” Saul, met Christ on the Road to Damascus, and He was transformed forever. Now called Paul, there was no going back to the world, even though he was rejected by some. No quitting, giving up, but He kept his eyes on Christ, and ran the race set before Him, whether he was on the mountain top in Greece, preaching, or in a jail cell in any number of places as he was, when he was bit by a serpent, or challenged by others, He was who He was by the grace of God and it was sufficient.