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What did St. Paul discover after meeting Christ?
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There are many things he discovered.
He discovered new things about himself. He realized that he was a sinner.
He discovered that he had an inner conflict within him. Even hypocrisy.
He discovered that he had lived with a wrong conviction. Peace and conviction he had were all made up and they were not based on true understanding.
Yes, he discovered all these.
BUT I THINK,
The greatest discovery he had was the discovery that HE WAS NOT ALONE.
He didn’t have to do everything by himself.
He realized that everything in life did not depend on him. He didn’t have to figure out everything for himself.
When you realize that you are all alone – You have to do everything – And nobody can help you and nobody can do anything for you. That makes you feel pretty lonely.
Before he met Christ, he lived with a tremendous pressure to live up to the ideal he set up for himself.
He had to be a good Pharisee. A good son. A good leader. A good Jew.
He had to constantly prove to himself how good he was, how capable he was, and how faithful he was.
That’s what God wanted, he thought. Believing in God meant being good, being strong, and being capable.
Not only to himself, but also to God, he had to prove himself. That’s a tremendous pressure.
He was very self-centred in that way.
It is self-centredness in a strange way. Not in a selfish way.
He wasn’t selfish. But in the sense that everything was about him. And everything depended on him.
He had to figure out everything for his life. His future, his career, his behaviour, and his faith.
With his own strength, he had to protect himself, his family, his country, his religion. Even God he had to protect.
That’s why he wanted to go and arrest Christians because they were contaminating the pure Jewish faith, destroying the tradition and the law.
But after meeting Christ, he realized how wrong he was. How self-centred he was.
He realized how oppressed he was. He didn’t realize the pressure he put upon himself.
He was chained to his expectations for himself. He was in bondage.
Bondage not to things like drinking, smoking, gambling and doing drugs. Bondage not to being pressured by external power.
But bondage to himself.
That’s why he talked so much about freedom after meeting Christ. Because he experienced freedom.
For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1)
That yoke of slavery was himself. The real freedom was the freedom from himself.
Freedom from his expectations. Freedom from the pressure he put on himself. That’s what Galatians is all about.
He was enslaved to his own expectation for himself. To his own power. To his own righteousness.
Everything he had to do it on his own. He thought that everything depended on him.
My friends, life is too heavy to hold it with your own two hands.
But we constantly put pressure on ourselves. We still live with this illusion that everything depends on us.
But in Christ, he found freedom. What gave him this freedom?
This was what he said.
…this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. (2 Corinthians 4:7)
He discovered the extraordinary power that belongs to God, not to himself. That discovery gave him the freedom.
That discovery shattered the illusion that everything depended on him, his ability, and his righteousness.
He also discovered that he was only a clay jar.
But you know what? That was Ok. Being only a clay jar was Ok.
That used to scare him so much.
He never wanted to be only clay jars. He wanted to be an important vessel.
He had to be an important instrument. He had to be somebody important.
This was what he said.
If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: (I am) circumcised on the eighth day,
(I am) a member of the people of Israel, (I am) of the tribe of Benjamin, (I am) a Hebrew born of Hebrews;
as to the law, (I am) a Pharisee; as to zeal, (I am) a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, (I am) blameless. (Philippians 3:4-6)
It was all about “I am” and “I am.”
That enslaved him. That created fear in him.
Self-centredness does that. It enslaves you.
When you start thinking everything depends on you, the only thing that remains is worries and anxiety. That will enslave you.
You are enslaved to your expectations.
For example, you go golfing. The first 5 holes you get par, par, par. And your friend tells you that you are hitting even. After that, bogey, double bogey, and triple bogey.
You’re enslaved to your own expectations and your muscles tighten up. You can not really live up to your expectations.
To prove that I am capable, he had to reduce life to a manageable size.
He never experienced the majestic, grand, and magnificent scope of life.
He had to make life small so that he could control. His thinking was narrow.
But after meeting Christ, he went to the ends of the earth.
He experienced much bigger life. He was able to do much greater things than he ever imagined.
Saul of Tarsus became St. Paul, the Apostle.
That’s what we are studying in KSM on Wednesdays.
The biggest idolatry he had was himself. Self-Idolatry.
That is what modern people fall into now. Self-Idolatry. It enslaves you.
It imprisons you in a small world you created. It robs you of the joy of living and enjoying life. It makes you focus on all about you all the time.
THAT’S TIRING.
It takes away from you the ability to be able to see people around you, and the world.
After meeting Christ, St. Paul found freedom and he said this.
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Galatians 2:19, 20)
I is dead.
That means he is free from his ego. He is not enslaved to his weaknesses. Or the fear of his weaknesses.
The world constantly tells you that you are not good enough because of your race, because of your gender, because of your shortcomings.
Don’t succumb to these negative pressures. Don’t try to prove to the world how great you are. Don’t try to make friends with those who make you feel miserable.
It’s Ok to be a clay jar.
It’s Ok to be different from them. It’s Ok not to have so much money and so much fame.
St. Paul even said,
We have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day. (1 Corinthians 4:13)
You know what?
You may be clay jars but within you, there is treasure. You are clay jars WITH treasure.
You have the extraordinary power that belongs to God.
You can make changes not because you are great. Even though you are a clay jar, you can make changes because of the extraordinary power that you have.
So even in circumstances that you cannot handle with your own power, you can survive and even thrive.
That was what St. Paul said.
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed. (2 Corinthians 4:8, 9)
Everything depends on you?
No, everything doesn’t depend on you. No, life is not just about you.
God gives you the extraordinary power.
Be saved from self-idolatry. Be healed from self-idolatry.
The extraordinary power kicks in when you are healed from self-idolatry.
In Paul’s language, when you die to yourself, the extraordinary power starts working in your life.
Experience the extraordinary power that comes from God. It is the power that raised Jesus from the dead.
When Jesus could not do anything, this power did something wonderful.
When you cannot do anything, this power will do something wonderful.
When you encounter very difficult situations, be calm.
Don’t be shrunk. Don’t run away. Don’t give up.
Wait and see how the extraordinary power is working out for you.
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