02-12-12 Taking It Personally

Our study of Paul’s letter to the Galatians

brings us this morning to the 8^th of nine arguments

used by Paul in this letter

to try to bring his readers back to the purity in their walk with the King

that they had deserted.

Their Christian lives had become corrupted,

and corrupted in a way that Paul knew had to be corrected

if there was to be any hope of them continuing to grow in their Christian lives.

And if you are new to this study

and you hear me say what I just said

it is very likely that you will assume these young believers

had been pulled back into some form of immorality

that was once again driving their lives

and bringing them into bondage.

But the lies that had taken root within the young Galatian church

were far more deadly,

far more potentially destructive

than any sins of the flesh.

What these believers were embracing

was a spirit of religion

that would quickly carve the very heart out of the Good News of God they had received

and strip them of both their freedom in Christ

and their ability to hear and respond to His voice of love.

I know I have mentioned Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3:14-20

a number of times in past years,

but the significance of what Paul says in that prayer

never ceases to amaze and thrill me.

Part of the power of this prayer

is rooted in the place in which it appears in Paul’s letter.

Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians

to reveal to them what the Church is,

what role it fulfills in our lives,

what role it fulfills in our world,

and what role it fulfills for God Himself.

In the most glorious way in the first three chapters of this letter

Paul described how, prior to Christ’s entrance into our lives

all of us were dead in our transgression...separated from God...with no hope in the world.

We had nothing to offer our Creator

that would even remotely justify

His love for us

or His acceptance of us on the basis of our performance.

But then he went on to tell us

about how, because of His great love with which He loved us,

even when we were dead in our transgressions,

God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in heavenly places.

He crowned us with a majesty, clothed us in dignity,

and rejoiced in calling us His own.

And then Paul went on to explain how,

after calling each of us to Himself individually,

He united us all together into His Church

and placed us into this world

as the great and glorious proclamation of His triumph over evil.

This amazing account of the great victory of God

continues until, just before we get to this prayer at the end of chapter three,

Paul concludes this majestic presentation of God’s purpose for His Church

by telling us that He brought it into being

in order that the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known through the Church to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

In other words,

God has now carefully positioned the Church into human society

in a way that now enables the Church

to be THE way in which He displays His greatness, His majesty to all of Creation.

There simply is no higher calling

no more significant role ever given to any group of people throughout history.

But that isn’t where Paul stops.

After presenting this majestic and amazing portrait of the Church

he then concludes by dropping to his knees

and praying that God will accomplish the one thing

within the lives of God’s people

that must be accomplished

if we are ever to be equipped to fulfill the role assigned to us.

And listen to what he prays...

He prays that we may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. (Eph. 3:18-19)

That’s it.

That’s the one thing that has the power,

has the ability to equip us to fulfill our role in the world -

that we understand at the deepest level

the true nature of the love of God for us.

And I take us back to this again this morning

in the context of our study of Paul’s letter to the Galatians

because it was this crucial truth -

this growing discovery of the love of our God for us

that the Galatian Christians were in danger of losing forever.

Paul knew that if their return to a performance-based walk with God

was ever to permanently take hold

it would forever shut them off

from the growing discovery of the love of God.

Funny how it is...

the human spirit can choose to submit to an authority who demands performance from us in exchange for their acceptance.

We can acknowledge they are right in what they demand.

We can even acknowledge the wisdom of their demands.

But we will not love them.

And we won’t, I think,

because the human spirit will only respond in love

to someone who knows both our good and our bad,

someone who sees our flaws as well as our strengths,

someone who is drawn to us

not because of what we’ve done

or what we’ve produced

but because of who we are as unique creations.

We respond in love

to those who love us with all our broken areas

and all our wounds and failures.

I find it so fascinating

that Adam and Eve were not able to love God before the fall.

They could not love Him

because they could not see His love for them.

To them it was just sort of a business arrangement -

God created this great world

and needed someone to manage the place

and He created Adam and Eve for that role.

But they had no idea how He felt about them,

or even that He felt about them...that He loved them

not for what they did

but rather for who they were.

And it wasn’t until after they rebelled against Him

and then saw His response to them,

until they saw Him continuing to reach out to them,

seeking them,

that they gained their first glimpse into the heart of God.

It was a glimpse that then grew bit by tiny bit for the next 4000 years

until it finally came into full, incredible, brilliant clarity

with the Creator God standing in full view before the human race,

His arms outstretched as He proclaimed,

I love you so much that I now give my only son for your sin against me.

And when our God tells us

that He takes us,

and loves us,

and brings us into His family apart from works of the law,

apart from anything we have ever done or not done,

he does so not because our performance doesn’t matter,

but because He knew we could never know His love

until we discovered that we matter to Him far more than our performance.

The lie that had gripped the Galatians,

the lie that God’s acceptance of them

was directly linked to their performance for Him

was infinitely more destructive than any sin of the flesh could ever be.

And as we’ve moved through this letter

we’ve seen Paul call upon all of His knowledge

and all of His incredible logical reasoning powers

as He offered reason after reason why they should return to their simple walk of faith with God.

But now, as we reach this 8^th reason here in Galatians 4:12-20

we are going to see Paul present the one reason

that, for at least some of his readers,

must have had a greater impact than all the others put together.

Because in this 8^th section

Paul makes this whole thing very personal.

This section actually begins with the statement he makes in verse 11 when he says,

I fear for you, that perhaps I have labored over you in vain.

We spent quite a bit of time last week with that phrase, I fear for you...

We saw how deeply personal this whole thing was to Paul,

and even more we saw the depth of Paul’s love for the Galatians

that motivated him to make that statement.

It is our love for another person

that causes us to fear for them.

It is because they matter to us

and because we know that whatever happens to them

will touch us deeply.

And then, from there Paul breaks with the bombardment of teaching truth

and brings the Galatians back to their earliest days together,

back to his first contact with them

and what happened between them and him at that time.

He says, Gal 4:12 I beg of you, brethren, become as I am, for I also have become as you are.

If I were to paraphrase that

I would say that I hear Paul saying, “Please enter my world now, just as I once entered yours.”

The intensity of his feelings are so clear in that opening phrase, I beg of you.

These are not the words of a professor instructing his class,

or of the employer talking to his employees.

These are the words of someone who cares deeply about those he writes to,

someone who feels deeply about what is taking place in their lives.

From there he takes them right back to their shared history together.

He says, You have done me no wrong; but you know that it was because of a bodily illness that I preached the gospel to you the first time; and that which was a trial to you in my bodily condition you did not despise or loathe, but you received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus Himself. (4:12-14)

And here again I find it fascinating

to see the persuasive power of what Paul does with this.

We don’t know what bodily illness Paul struggled with

when he first arrived on the scene

but it is clear from his comments

that, whatever it was that he struggled with,

it was sufficiently offensive so that it could easily have caused them to turn away from him in disgust.

And yet they responded exactly the opposite.

Not only did they not reject this invalid newcomer,

but it even appears as though his infirmity

prompted a strong response of compassion within them.

It caused them to reach out to him

to seek to do all they could to ease his suffering,

or his hardship,

or his discomfort.

Not only did his broken body not drive them away,

but it actually drew them to him.

And even though he doesn’t state it,

I see here a powerful implied question -

do you really believe that God is less compassionate toward you

than you were toward me?

Don’t you understand

that just as my suffering and helplessness drew you to me,

so your suffering and helplessness

draws God to you.

Not only does He not turn away from you in the face of your brokenness,

but it is that very brokenness

that causes Him to reach out to you

and seek to draw you to Himself

and heal you where you are wounded.

He goes on, then, to remind them of what they felt

when they reached out to meet Paul in his need.

Gal 4:15 Where then is that sense of blessing you had? For I bear you witness that, if possible, you would have plucked out your eyes and given them to me.

There are some Bible scholars who believe

that this comment about their giving him their eyes

suggests that it may have been some eye disease that Paul struggled with,

something that rendered him blind or nearly so

for a time.

It’s only a guess,

but I think it’s a good one.

But what he wants them to remember here

is how they felt inside when they poured out kindness and compassion on him.

And here again

I see the implied message

that God’s kindness to us,

His grace poured out on us

affects Him the same way.

Nothing in all the world feels quite so good

as giving another person something that they desperately need

but can never gain on their own

and then see it change their life for good forever.

And that joy becomes all the more intense

when the one you’re giving to

is someone you love.

And Paul wanted them to remember those feelings,

and those things they’d shared together.

And just as an observation here,

isn’t it fortunate that Paul was willing to receive from them.

How very un-male,

at least in our culture.

There are times in our lives

when God allows us to be needy

to go through hard times

because there is someone near us who needs to give.

And for us to refuse to receive

is to deprive them of the joy of giving.

And even more than that,

it deprives both people

of what results from that exchange.

There are no greater friendships in life

than those that grow out of two people going through hardship together,

meeting one another’s needs in the process,

and sharing the memory of that journey.

Well, from there Paul then goes on to ask them a question.

Gal 4:16 So have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?

He knows his letter to them may sound harsh,

even brutal at times.

But he wants to remind them

that nothing between him and them has changed.

He is still the same Paul

who was more than willing to go through his own personal suffering

so that they could discover their God.

And they are still the same people

who reached out in compassion to heal that suffering

and to openly receive what Paul had to offer.

Then, after reminding them of his own relationship with them,

he talks to them about what’s really happening

between them and the false teachers who are feeding them these lies.

Gal 4:17 They eagerly seek you, not commendably, but they wish to shut you out so that you will seek them.

He tells them that it is not love that has drawn them into their life,

it’s manipulation,

it’s their desire for power and control.

They skillfully create a religious system

that shuts them out of access to God

unless the Galatians seek them out and submit to their leadership and their power.

And that, of course, is the life-blood of all religious systems.

They are powerful tools with which those in leadership

gain power over those within the system.

And the implied message is always, “I am your doorway to God.

You cannot find Him,

you cannot reach Him,

you cannot know Him except through me.

Come, and I will show you the way.”

Then he says,

Gal 4:18 But it is good always to be eagerly sought in a commendable manner, and not only when I am present with you.

In other words,

he tells them that the problem is not that these men seek them,

but rather that they seek them from corrupted motives.

There are those who have reached out to them in a commendable manner...out of love for them,

and Paul is at the top of that list.

And then he ends by once again allowing them

to look inside his heart and see what’s there.

Gal 4:19 My children, with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you--

Gal 4:20 but I could wish to be present with you now and to change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.

Fighting for the salvation

and for the freedom of those we love

is sometimes a very difficult process.

In fact Paul compares it to the human birthing process,

a process filled with a tremendous amount of agony and anxiety and even fear...until Christ is formed in you.

And I do love that phrase...until Christ is formed in you.

I love it because I understand it.

I don’t think I can explain it,

but I understand it.

I understand what it is to fight for another person,

to fight for their discovery of their God,

for their discovery of His love,

to fight for that time when their spirit is finally at rest, secure in Christ.

And when that finally happens

it brings a peace, a fulfillment that never ends.

Throughout this section of his letter

Paul is using what I believe to be his most powerful weapon

against the lies that have invaded the lives of his Galatian brothers and sisters.

He is using the love relationship that he has forged between them and himself.

And when I see him doing this

there are two clear messages I hear him passing on to us.

The first is that it is our high calling

to be in labor until Christ is formed in those we love.

And please understand that I am not talking here

about cramming the truth down someone who really needs to hear it.

I’m talking about a whole bunch of praying, and churning, and seeking

every possible way to communicate your love in a way that the other person can hear and receive.

And the way you do that

is utterly unique with each person God brings into your life.

That process, if we choose to enter into it,

creates within us a desperate need for the life and leadership of the Spirit of God within us

as nothing else can ever do.

And there are never any guarantees

because it doesn’t work that way with real people.

But there is nothing that can give us a greater sense of fulfillment and purpose

than going through that process with another person.

And the second truth I see Paul giving us in this passage

is that, when it comes to our influence for good,

our influence for God in the lives of those around us

there simply is nothing more powerful than our love for those we seek to reach.

It vastly exceeds any intellectual truth we can ever offer them.

And for most of us

our willingness to love is the greatest persuader of them all,

the greatest source of influence we will ever have in another person’s life.

When we love

that love will gain us access and influence beyond anything else we can ever have.

It’s not nearly as convenient,

or as simple,

or as easy as just pushing our system, our ideas, our beliefs.

In fact, it can become an intensely pain-filled,

messy business at times,

not unlike giving birth to a child.

But in the end it is every bit as fulfilling.