Galatians 4:8-20 Unprofessional Ministry

Welcome to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan, where you can grow in faith, community, and service.

We're currently studying Galatians in a series called Off the Chain, Finding Freedom in Galatians.

Here's Pastor Don Filsack. We're going to go ahead and continue through our journey through the book of Galatians this morning.

And I want everybody to turn over. You can go ahead and turn there now, Galatians 4, 8 through 20, which is found on page 834 in the

Bible. That's the seat back in front of you. I'm going to read that here in a second, but I'm going to give some introductory comments. I want everybody to consider, when is the last time that you showed strong emotion?

Like, when is the last time you were moved to tears? When is the last time you shouted? Preferably not in the car on the way here, although it probably happened to some of you.

But when is the last time you showed some kind of a sense of deep emotion? Now, I study a lot in order to get down to the understanding of these texts.

I read scholars, I read all different kinds of things throughout the week, and I spend quite a bit of time preparing for my messages and honesty.

But most scholars, I think, struggle with the emotion of the text. And so you can read whole commentaries about books of the

Bible that are completely emotionless. Do you know what I'm saying? They're scholarly, they deal with the

Greek or the Hebrew text, they deal with grammar, and the way that the words fit together. But think of it this way, most scholars don't tend to be emotional kind of people.

Now, I'm stereotyping to some degree, but if you've basically got your degree in ancient languages, you love to parse

Greek verbs, and the primary thing is studying the thing in its particular focus, and you really narrow that down, it's sometimes not necessarily an emotional kind of thing.

Are you getting what I'm saying? Not to stereotype, because there are certainly scholars that are emotional, but I think that they struggle with that to the degree that sometimes it's hard to actually get that from a commentary.

And so, many commentaries on this text would accuse Paul of losing his train of thought.

Like, Paul, in the first three chapters of the book of Galatians, has given very logical, rational explanation of the gospel, and a very clear defense of grace, and then here, all of a sudden, he gets kind of sappy.

And when I'm talking about strong emotion, I know I just mentioned anger, yelling, or whatever, I think he's going to show a different kind of emotion.

Now, those of you who have been here throughout the study in the book of Galatians, has Paul shown some emotion already?

He's shown some pretty direct emotion, right? Like, he's been, he's called them foolish Galatians, who's bewitched you, he's said some pretty strong things to them.

But what I'm saying is that there's a turn, in a softening of his emotion, where he's still passionate, he's still emotionally engaged, but he is actually now starting to get almost kind of in anguish over the things that they are struggling with.

He's going to talk about feelings and things like that here in the text. Yeah, he speaks of his own fear in this text for them.

He literally says, I'm afraid for you. He talks about his feelings, he talks about their feelings, what it felt like to be together with them.

He speaks of the anguish that they are bringing him, and he even admits at the end, kind of an emotional term, he says,

I'm perplexed, I'm confused about you. You're confusing me with the way that you're acting. Now, Paul was a very passionate individual.

He didn't minister to people as one who stood aloof and distant. He wasn't like, okay,

I'm the minister, and you guys are all the people, and I'm just going to stay up here and not let you into my life, and I'm not going to engage in your life, and I'm just going to be distant from you.

He was down with the people, engaged with the people, and he didn't protect his heart in the process.

And we're going to talk about what that means for all of us here this morning. If we're honest, think about yourself.

I think if we're honest, we tend to build up walls around our lives, to shelter us and to protect us from harm and hurt and anguish, because how many of you have ever trusted somebody, and then that person abused that trust?

Have you been there? I think all of us have. So it's kind of like the once -bitten -twice -shy kind of thing, right?

And what do we naturally do? We start to wall people out. We start to hedge ourselves around.

And so we get together on Sunday morning, and we talk about the weather. We talk about the Lions. We talk about Michigan football or the

Cornhuskers or whatever. We talk about these things. We talk about how the Tigers are doing, right? Hopefully going to continue this streak.

That would be awesome, right? But when somebody asks us a question that goes deeper, okay, enough about the

Wolverines, enough about the Tigers, enough about the Lions. How are you really doing? I think a lot of us, the next thing that comes out of our mouth is a cop -out.

And it's just one simple word, fine, right?

We throw the word fine at it and then dismiss it or go back to a different conversation or try to deflect it.

Is anybody relating to that? Anybody see that in your own tendency, the way that we put these walls up?

So let's jump in to this text here and see how Paul is opening his hearts to his friends and the family of God.

So again, Galatians 4, 8 through 20, page 834 in that Bible.

And if you don't own a Bible or you don't own an English Standard Version of the Bible, you can take that one with you. It's our desire to have everybody have a copy of the

Word of God. But follow along as I read the words of the Apostle Paul, but equally the words of God himself to us here at Recast this morning.

Formerly when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods.

But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world whose slaves you want to be once more?

You observe days and months and seasons and years. I'm afraid I may have labored over you in vain.

Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are.

You did me no wrong. You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first.

And though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.

What then has become of the blessing you felt? For I testify to you that if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me.

Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? They make much of you, but for no good reason.

They want to shut you out that you may make much of them. It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose.

And not only when I am present with you, my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.

I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.

Let's pray. Father, as we come to this text, we get an emotional appeal from your apostle, from Paul, and we get to see how he engaged people in real life and how his emotions were engaged with his people.

Father, we get to hear him talk about themes of idolatry in this, of worshiping that which is not

God. And Father, that is so pertinent to this issue of what we are about to undertake, and that is your worship, that we worship you.

Not other things, not material stuff, not other gods, but we worship you. And Father, I ask that our hearts would flow out of the knowledge of both knowing you and being known by you.

And that, Father, you would inhabit our worship, that it would flow out of hearts free in your spirit.

And Father, that we would rejoice in these awesome truths that we are going to dive into in this text. I ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen. Last week we talked, we are going just chapter by chapter through the book of Galatians, and last week we talked about the first part of Galatians chapter 4, where Paul was explaining a significant transition that has happened both on the global scale of history, but then equally that same transition applied to individuals' lives.

And that is the transition from a place of slaves to God, to a place, a position, of sons or heirs to God through Jesus Christ.

So slaves under the law, under rules, under regulations, and that shifted with the coming of Jesus Christ, so that now we can be made heirs of the promise given to Abraham through Jesus Christ to us by faith in his son.

So that is what we talked about last week, that transition, that change that has happened through the promise that was given through Abraham to Jesus, who is now the

Messiah, is the chosen one. And what he spoke about more generally there, he starts out by applying specifically to the people of Galatia, the people that he is writing this letter to.

And Paul says, formerly when you did not know God, he says, there was a time in your history, Galatians, there was a time in your history when you did not know and did not understand

God, and I would say the same is true for all of us here in this room. There was a time when we did not know

God, and that was specifically true of the Galatians in this, that the majority of the people in that Roman province, now we're talking about an ancient

Roman province, south -central Turkey, the country of Turkey today, and it was like a district of Rome, if you will, a province, and the majority of the people in Galatia were from a

Greek -speaking background. Before Paul came into town, they had little understanding, probably no understanding who

Jesus Christ was, little understanding of Moses or the God of the Bible or anything to do with the

Old Testament. They were pagan idol worshippers who followed the pantheon of the Greek and Roman gods and goddesses.

And so, I mean, when you think in your mind, what was Galatia like before Paul showed up, think literal statues all throughout the town that people would literally bring offerings to, offerings of food, offerings of sacrifices, literally sacrificing goats and sheep and all different kinds of things to these gods and goddesses.

Think like, you know, how many of you, like when you were in elementary school or when you were in school, you learned about the Greek and Roman gods to some degree,

Mercury, Mars, you know, Zeus, all of those, okay, Jupiter, a lot of the planets are named after them.

So we learned about that. That's what it was like in Galatia before Paul showed up.

So Paul words it this way. He says, before you came to know God, you were enslaved to those that were not gods, little g.

You were enslaved to something that was not really God. You see, Paul spoke last week about humanity being enslaved to law.

This week, he's going to speak about humanity enslaved to idolatry. He's basically going to say, in essence, the human problem is the same whichever side of the spectrum you fall on.

The human problem is that you are enslaved to something that is not God. That is the human predicament.

Would all of you agree with that to some degree or other, that you've experienced that and come to the place in your life where you've recognized slavery to something that is not

God? And often for most of us, if we were to really boil it down to its core, there is one thing that seems to grab my attention the most, that seems to enslave me the most often.

Does anybody want to guess what that is? TV. Myself.

Me. What's that? The Tigers. Not the

Tigers. Are you getting what I'm saying? I am my own worst enemy. I am my addiction.

I am my hang up. Does anybody agree with that? When it really comes down to it, it's about serving me and it's about putting me on the pedestal.

About worshipping me, whether that's through pleasure or through stuff or through whatever. There is an enslavement to self that is the common problem of humanity.

Well, in essence, Paul in verses 8 and 9 is equating that problem. He's saying that there's this human problem and it's enslavement to that which is not

God. And it's either in our lives, he's talked about enslavement to the law last week.

Do you remember that? He said it's possible for a human to be enslaved to the law and it's equally possible here, he says, to be enslaved to idols.

He's contrasting two types and forms of slavery. Is one better than the other? Is one of those better than the other?

I mean, enslavement to self -righteousness, enslavement to law on one side or enslavement to sin and self -service on the other.

One of those better than the other? It would be kind of like a cocaine addict looking at a heroin addict and saying, at least

I'm not addicted to heroin. It's like pick your poison, right? It's like both are an addiction, both are problems, both are hurting you in their essence.

So really the solution is simply this, coming to God on His terms through the promised

Messiah. That is the solution to the problem of human enslavement.

That is the solution to the problem of each of our hearts. Anything other than that solution leads to some form of enslavement.

Trying to live by laws ends in enslavement. I've mentioned a couple times in this series about the hamster wheel, right?

When have you done enough law to please God? How do you know you have enough laws? How many of you, have you lived that way?

That constant churning the wheel but going nowhere and it's constantly, there's always another rung to grab onto.

There's always more laws, always more rules, always more regulations. It's a never -ending cycle. Is that enslavement?

But what about worshiping things that are not God? How does that lead to enslavement? I actually, I send out my sermon every week to a couple of people.

They give me some feedback and let me know how it hits them. And one person said, can you tease that out a little bit? Can you illustrate for me?

How does worshiping something else lead to enslavement? How does that enslave us? So I thought

I'd just use an illustration, one simple one that I think all of us can relate to. Like, how many of you know there's like this new iPhone 5 coming out?

Okay, any of you hear about that? I'm pretty excited. All right, sweet. I actually blogged about that this past week and if you want to take advantage of that, some of what

I'm talking about here, I have mine a little bit deeper in my blog. But it's primarily about materialism.

Can anybody relate to materialism? Like the worship of stuff, the worship of things, upgrades, updates, faster, brighter, more awesome, more prestige, right?

Like you get more prestige for carrying the right phone or whatever. And it's like all of that tied up in, rolled up into the stuff that we own.

Better cars, faster cars, nicer cars, better looking, newer. How many adjectives can you throw at this, right?

And that's enslavement. Because how many of you know that your iPhone 4S is now out of date and you need an iPhone 5, right?

Because there's constantly something more. There's, is this sounding familiar? Is there another rung on the, is there another rung to climb?

Is there one more? Is there always going to be another rung out there when materialism is your God, when you are serving stuff?

There's always something more to get, right? When do I know I've got enough? When do I know that I've kept the law enough, enslavement?

When do I know that I've got enough stuff? Oh, it's always just one more, right? Some famous wealthy person said,

I'll know that I have enough when I just have one more million dollars. Just, just one more million. Just another million, okay?

And then it's another million once he gets that other million. You see, I'm convinced that worship in the human heart is about landing in a place of restoration, landing in a place of contentment and peace.

And our hearts are searching. Every heart in this room is on a quest. Every heart in this room is on a journey looking for satisfaction, looking for fulfillment, looking for correction and a place of wholeness and completeness.

Would you agree with that? Every one of our hearts, at least at some point, has been there. Now, some of you have found it, right?

Glory to God, you found it. You found that place. But we're going to talk here in just a about how we can find that place and still go back to enslavement.

It's Paul's concern for the Galatians. He's saying, you found that place, you found that wholeness, you found that completeness, and now you're going back to slavery.

But ultimately here he says, idolatry is an attempt to find a remedy to our problem of enslavement that will never really satisfy us.

That's what, that's, that's what idolatry looks like. It's, it's putting something else in the place that only

God can fulfill in our hearts. How many of you have heard, you know, the illustration, there's a God -shaped hole inside your heart, only

God can fill it. We try to plug other things into it to fulfill us and they will never satisfy.

All they do is they enslave us. So I'd encourage you all to know yourself this morning.

Which way do you lean in these enslavements? Everyone in this room has an inherent, an inherent bent, possibly by the way that you were raised or just by the experiences that you've had in life.

Do you lean towards idolatry or do you lean towards self -righteousness? Do you lean towards the law or do you lean towards living it up?

Everyone here has that and we just got done saying, both are enslavement, right? Both are equally an issue that need a remedy and the remedy for both is the same medicine.

The remedy for both problems is the cross of Jesus Christ. That is the place of solution.

That is the place of healing. That is the place where idolaters, think about that side of the equation for a minute, the person who is worshipping idols and worshipping self, that is the place where an idolater can bow their knee and acknowledge that God is the only one who truly loves them and can set them free.

The only one who can truly free them from that enslavement to self, enslavement to pleasure, enslavement to whatever it might be.

And for the legalist, the cross is the place where we kneel and we give up our striving, where we acknowledge our need for someone other than ourselves to fix the problem, right?

That enslavement to laws and rules and regulations and it's a bowing the knee at the cross and saying, I can't do this.

I can't do this on my own. I need Jesus Christ. In essence, for the legalist, the cross slaps us across the face and says, wake up fool.

Do you think Jesus would have hung here if you could do it on your own? Do you think he would have suffered like that?

Do you think he would have taken the lashes? Do you think he would have taken the nails and hung there with the crown of thorns and the pain and the agony that he went through?

Would he have done that if you could, you could save yourself? He went through that because he is the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the father except through him.

He is the avenue. The cross is the place where we come for healing, for wholeness, for completeness.

Verse 9 points out that Paul is confident that this change has actually happened for the Corinthians. They have, he says, come to know

God. And then he corrects himself in the text. Look at this. He says, in verse 9, he says, but now that you have come to know

God or rather to be known by God. Paul didn't make a mistake, correct himself, and then forget to erase the first part.

He is intentionally leaving both sides of that equation. You have come to know God. I mean, actually what

I meant to say is come to be known by God. He is making a point. He wants to point out two sides of a coin that I think are going to remain a mystery for all of us, for our entire lives.

I want you to know that if you are studying God, you better not understand it all. Like if you get it all, then you are

God. Right? If you can understand him, if you can wrap your mind around this thing called

God, then you must be God. So there are some mysteries and I leave some room for that.

I am not trying to cop out. I have studied this and I am going to continue studying it my whole life. I encourage you to continue studying it. I am not convinced that on this side of eternity we are going to get the answer.

But the text highlights this issue that we have to keep in tension in our lives very clearly.

He says, salvation is both us finding God or coming to know God, but more accurately, he corrects himself.

He says it is better to state it this way. It is a becoming known by God. That God comes to know us.

So think of it this way. This is what Paul is, I think, getting at. Who was lost in the equation of your salvation?

Was God lost and you found him? Was he playing some big game of cosmic hide and seek and you had to go out on a quest to go find

God? Or were you lost, wandering outside of the flock, wandering where the wolves and the bears and all of the lions and everything lives that likes to eat sheep?

Were you lost out there in the wilds and God as the good shepherd came to find you?

Which way did that equation work? Because of your prowess and your ability as a sheep, did you just fight off all the wolves, destroy all of the bears, destroy all the lions, and then come into the flock and find your way back through all the craggy mountainous regions?

And all of a sudden you're like, I'm back in the flock because I got here. Is that how that worked for you? Or did

God in his great and awesome mercy come and leave the 99, as Jesus talks about in the parable, did he leave the 99 and come and find you because he loves you and he cares for you?

He said, I'm going to go find them and bring them back in. He is the good shepherd and he came for you and me.

Paul believed that God was the primary one responsible for salvation. It is his initiative to come to know you that has saved you.

He's the primary one responsible for it and I believe it. My salvation, that Don Felsick's name is written in the book of life, that I will one day stand with him on the new earth and live for eternity, is not because of my goodness or righteousness.

It is strictly all about the goodness and mercy and grace of our great God. And that's the only reason, that's it.

The only reason any of us are going to stand with him on that day is because of his mercy towards us, him coming to know us.

So Paul asked a rhetorical question and even this question is going to drip with the emotion that I was talking about earlier in my introduction.

Paul is emotional as he walks through this. He says, how can you have come to be known by God?

How can you get to that place and then return back to the basic principles, the elementary things that enslaved you?

How can you go back there to laws and rules and regulations or to all of those things that enslave you?

He calls them weak and worthless things. The things that enslave us in life, the materialism, all of those different concepts are like worthless weak things.

And the word picture that he uses here in the text, we'll look at it, how can you turn back to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world whose slaves you want to be once more?

The word picture is like this, can you picture in your mind a dungeon? I'm not talking about a jail cell, I'm talking about a dungeon.

Rough stone walls, dank, dark, bugs, wetness, crud, filth, stink, chains up on the wall to shackle you in an uncomfortable position, guards who don't bring any food hardly at all, maybe once in a couple of days there's a tray slung at you.

Can you picture that in your mind? Now imagine that there's a place like that and you were chained there and your shackles have been released and the doors have been thrown open and you're free to go.

That's what Christ has done for us, he set us free. And now imagine that by some chance as kind of like a little prison dungeon reunion you decide what

I want to do is I guess I'm just going to go back there for a time, walk into your cell, lock the door behind you and reshackle yourself to the old times sake.

How can you do that? You've been set free. Do you see the word picture that he's giving here? How can you go and reshackle yourself to those weak and worthless things that held you captive, that enslaved you?

How can we do that? He gets emotional, I picture that he's like just in a frenzy, he's like I'm perplexed,

I'm confused. How can you do this with the freedom that you received in Jesus Christ? How is it that you're going back to those things that enslaved you?

Reshackling yourself to the wall is kind of not smart and Paul is reasonably perplexed, confused.

So in what way are they, what are they doing that that's doing this? Like I mean so wouldn't that be a logical question? Like in what way were the

Galatians shackling themselves to the wall again? What were they doing? And it's kind of silly, it's kind of funny, it's kind of weird.

Look at verse 10, you observe days and months and seasons and years exclamation point.

Oh how wicked of them to keep a calendar. Look at this, it kind of sounds like Paul's gone a fry short of a happy meal here.

Okay why freak out because someone's keeping a calendar? Like their day timer is up to date or something, it's like oh you know you guys are reshackling yourselves to the walls of a calendar.

Well what is this about? Apparently Paul has caught word that these new Christians in Galatia have adopted the

Jewish calendar, which I'm not convinced is the problem. It's not that they are not free to keep the

Sabbath. Are you free to keep the Sabbath? Yeah. Should you keep the Sabbath? Yeah, you should have a day set aside that you don't work to recharge your batteries.

That's the way that God made us, he designed us that way from the beginning. And so that carries forward, we're still there.

It's not a law to you but it's a good thing for you. And so are we free to keep the Jewish calendar? Well yeah, yeah we're free.

As a matter of fact, Paul himself even felt the freedom to follow some of the Jewish traditions himself.

At one point in the book of Acts he actually takes a Nazarite vow and doesn't cut his hair until a certain point and then cuts it all off and takes it into the temple as a sacrifice, like a

Jewish custom. So is he free to keep the law? Is anybody confused now?

Why is it okay for him to keep a Jewish tradition but now he's telling the Galatians don't? I think that by context it becomes pretty clear in this book that those in Galatia were beginning to do so out of a desire to get on God's good side.

It's as if they're saying because we keep a Sabbath God likes us more. And they're beginning to compare and they're beginning to contrast their lives with others.

So it's like I get up and I get up and have a prayer time at 4 30 in the morning so God really likes me more.

And the only reason that God likes you and loves you is because of the blood of Jesus Christ that covers you.

That's it. It's all been purchased. It's all been done. You are free. It is about grace.

It is about His love for you. So they adopted the

Jewish calendar for the purpose of getting on God's good side, thinking that God would like them more.

I challenge you to think about what is in your life that makes you think that God likes you more than others.

I think it's a human predicament, a human problem that for those who are enslaved by law and in reality we have a tendency to go back to this time and time again, right?

It's like we go back and we shackle ourselves to these things and we enter into a great and horrible game called the comparison game, right?

Where as long as I'm doing better than you, I'm happy. But you start getting up at 4 o 'clock to have your quiet time and then

I need to get up at 4 o 'clock and have my quiet time for an hour or two, you know, and pray through the church directory.

And then, you know, and then once I get through the church directory, I pray through the phone book or whatever and it's like, what do you, what do you, are you getting what

I'm saying? Is there always more you could be doing? And so we get in this comparison game with others and the only thing, the only thing that counts in our lives is our relationship to Jesus Christ.

To get how backwards this would have been to Paul's mind, like how, how confusing, why he's perplexed, think about it from his perspective.

Who's Paul? How do we know Paul? What is, what do we know about him in scripture? He had come out of a very Jewish, a very strict

Jewish upbringing. He was being trained by the Pharisees, the people who added rules on top of rules about how to keep the rules.

And so that was his history. And he's come out of that Jewish lifestyle to the place where he's even comfortable like eating some bacon from time to time, okay?

He was realizing his freedom in Christ. And here these

Gentiles are surrendering their bacon and becoming like Jewish, becoming like Jews, thinking that that was the pathway to a good relationship with God.

Do you see how they're missing each other? Like the two ships crossing in the night, him coming from a

Jewish background into freedom in Christ, them coming from freedom in Christ into a Jewish perspective.

Do you see why that would be a burr under Paul's saddle? Do you see why that would get him riled up? Christ has made me free and here you guys are adopting my old lifestyle, acting like Jews and thinking that you, that's good, that's the way that you're acceptable to God because of that.

And at this point, Paul is afraid for them. He admits it in verse 11 that he's afraid that his hard work has resulted, has not resulted in their genuine understanding of the gospel.

He's saying, if you're adding, you're going back and enslaving yourself to these laws again and you're thinking that you're in God's favor, did you even understand the gospel in the first place?

Did you understand that the only thing that's acceptable to God is the blood of Jesus Christ? Didn't you get that? He's afraid for them.

And he says in verse 12, he says, I entreat you,

I urge you, I plead with you, I'm begging with you. Notice he's not commanding. As an apostle, does he have the authority to command?

He could, or if he's just a jerk, he could command them. But instead he says, I urge you, I entreat you,

I'm begging with you to become as I am. How was Paul? What's he getting at?

He was free in Christ. He says, I encourage you, I'm entreating you, I'm begging with you, please come and be like me.

Not that I'm awesome or super sweet, it's just that come and be like me in my freedom in Christ. Because I have become like you are.

How are they? I've become like a Gentile. I became like one of you when I was among you because that's freedom.

At this point, Paul's, I said already, Paul was afraid for them. And he's afraid that the emotional, look at the word, it's toil in verse 11.

This emotional toil that it took to bring the gospel to them. And he says,

I'm afraid that's been worthless in your life. How many of you know that it was hard work for Paul to bring the gospel to the people in Galatia?

Even just the transit there. Have any of you ever been on a ship out at sea or out on the

Great Lakes when there's a storm swelling? Anybody get seasick? Even just the trip to Galatia would have been hard on most of us in that context and in that culture.

Let alone just all of the hardships and difficulties. In one part in the book of Acts, in Galatia, people didn't like what they were hearing.

They picked up stones and they threw so many stones at him so hard that they thought he was dead. Okay, that's toil.

That's labor to bring the gospel to people. I mean, what does it take? What does it cost you to bring the gospel to your workplace?

What does it take to bring the gospel to your neighborhood, to your friends? I doubt that anybody's going to be left for dead in that process.

You're like, Donna, you don't know my friends. I don't want to know your friends if that's the way that goes. That's scary.

It's creepy. Yeah, no leaving for dead here, okay? So that makes sense.

Why he wants to clarify that ultimately a strong emotion here is not because they are wronging him.

He doesn't want them to think, I want you to change because you've done something wrong to me. So you see that in verse 12.

Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I have also become as you are. You did me no wrong.

He doesn't want them to change because they're getting some sense that now he's emotional and he's all hurt and he's been out of shape, so they're just going to change their behavior because they think that he's feeling emotionally hurt.

He doesn't want them to change out of fear that they've offended him, but there is someone that he wants them to be concerned about offending, and that's why he brings it up.

You didn't do me wrong, but are they doing wrong to someone? Yeah, by implication.

But he says, it's not that you treated me wrong. As a matter of fact, you treated me great. Let me explain. So for the next few verses, he's going to explain what it was like to come in among them and to minister with them.

These are the believers again. Remember, some people who weren't believers were the ones who picked up stones to kill him, but what was it like for him to be among the people who actually believed and listened to his message?

Now, apparently Paul had originally visited them with the gospel because of some illness or infirmity.

Look at verse 13. You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first. Something was wrong with him.

Now, how many of you know that that little phrase, bodily ailment, is going to produce a lot of speculation throughout church history?

What was wrong with Paul? He's physically ill. Something was wrong with his body. That's very clear in the

Greek text. Something was wrong with him physically. So now, what was that, right? And so people are just going to start spinning things.

Some scholars believe that Paul contracted malaria. It's possible that he contracted malaria, and in the process of contracting malaria, they would have taken him to Galatia up into higher elevation.

So Galatia is a little bit higher than the coastlands. If he contracts malaria down in the hot area around the

Mediterranean, then how many of you know, like, they didn't have refrigeration back then, so you're not going to just get some ice out of the ice maker and put a cold bath together for somebody who has a high fever.

Does it make sense why you would move somebody to higher elevation if they have malaria? Just cooler weather.

Like, how many of you like to be, like, in a cooler place when you have a raging fever, or need to be in a cooler place when you have a raging fever?

So some people think that that's the case. I say all that, and then I disagree with it. I don't think that that was the case.

I don't think that was his diagnosis at all. It's possible. I could be wrong, but I'm just going to tell you what my thoughts are, and then leave it up to you.

You guys can do your own research later and figure out all the other potential, you know, illnesses that he had.

I think he had an eye problem. I think that he struggled with his eyes. Now, whether or not that was because of his encounter with Jesus Christ or not, and I don't know, but I believe that he, remember, he went blind.

He saw the glory of Jesus Christ in his fullness, and his eyes were left, what? Blind. And then it was after Ananias came and prayed for him, that it said, like, scales fell off of his eyes.

I'm not sure that he ever fully restored his eyesight. I'm not sure that it ever fully came back. I mean, God could have, and maybe that is what happened, but there's a couple of things that have been clues to me that make me think that Paul struggled with his eyesight.

Well, one is right here in our text, in verse 15, what does he say? For I testify, talking about their goodness, their kindness to him, he says,

I testify to you that if possible you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me.

Now, he could just be using a figure of speech, just saying you were really kind to me, you were really good to me. I think not. He's talking about bodily ailment in the same context.

I think he had an eye problem. Another thing that ties into this is the end of Galatians. We're going to see that right at the end.

He says, he always wrote through a secretary. So somebody sat down with a pen in hand, a typewriter or with whatever, their iPad, and wrote down the words that he was saying to them.

And at the end of Galatians, he's going to say, now you can see that the last couple sentences were written with my hand because you can see how big the letters are.

Well, why wouldn't he write with huge letters? Like, just couldn't, didn't have the fine motor skills to be able to,

I don't know. I think that he had an eye problem. I think he struggled to see and he's writing with big letters because he's struggling with his eyes.

One final thing on this is that Asia Minor was known, this area of Galatia was known for a specific eye salve that was used for medicinal purposes to try to correct eye problems.

So there's all kinds of things that tie in. Again, I'm not going to make a major point of application about Paul's eye problem.

I don't know that that was, I don't know for sure that that's the case, but it seems to tie in. And then in verse 15, like I said,

I mean, he's like, if you could have given me an eye transplant, we would have. How many of you know we don't do eye transplants yet, unless you're watching the movie

Minority Report, which that scene just always creeps me out if you've seen that movie where they actually do the eye transplant.

But we don't do that yet. So even Paul was talking about eye transplants long before, and they're still not here.

But the people of Galatia did not scorn or despise Paul, and he makes a point of saying that. Why? Because he was, he had an illness.

He had something wrong with him. And in the ancient world, to come into a community and proclaim that you're a religious teacher and to be ill at the same time, to have blindness or malaria or something, they would have all laughed him out of town.

Because what was their mindset in ancient culture? That if you were ill, if you had a physical infirmity, if you had some kind of a problem or a disability, then you are under the judgment of the gods.

They don't like you very much. So why would you ever listen to a spiritual teacher who has some kind of an infirmity or anything?

So that's his expectation when he goes into places. He's expecting them to respond that way. And he says, you didn't scorn me.

You didn't push me aside. You received me. You embraced me. You brought me in like a messenger, like you would an angel of God.

No, not just an angel. Like I would expect somebody to receive Jesus Christ himself. Did the Galatians treat Paul well while he was with them, the group of believers that were there?

They did. They cared for him. As a matter of fact, it's these very people who, when he was stoned and left for dead and taken outside of the city, dragged outside of the city unconscious, that stood around him and prayed for him.

And he was restored to them. And they walked back into the city together. These people cared for him and they followed him, even at the threat that they might be stoned next for caring for him.

Get what I'm saying? I mean, they were willing to risk themselves for this. And in this emotional remembrance of how kind they were to him in the beginning,

Paul wants to know what's become of that blessing that they all felt together. They felt this bond together.

He now feels like they consider him an enemy just because he's told the truth.

Now, how many of you know that by telling the truth, you can make an enemy? Anybody experience that?

You tell the truth to somebody, you make an enemy. So what do we want to do naturally in American culture and particularly in Christian subculture to remedy that?

But you speak the truth in love, right? Because as long as you speak the truth in love, you're going to be okay, right?

Everybody's going to love you as long as you speak the truth in love. You dress up that truth, hand it to them as a birthday present, and they're just going to eat it up and love it, right?

Or are there enemies of the truth? Are there those that genuinely despise and hate it, and no matter how much you dress it up, no matter how much you paint it, no matter how much you make it look like the culture or try to fit in out there, they're going to smell it, and they're going to feel it, and they're going to go, this is truth, and I can't stand it.

You're getting what I'm saying? Telling the truth in love is not the answer. Now, I'm not against telling the truth in love.

Don't hear me saying, now just go out and just tell the truth with hatred. You do, but you have to be careful.

We live in a day and an age with pluralism and all different kinds of thoughts out there where to try to dress up, we have to be very cautious, very careful.

When we try to dress up the truth to make it appeal to those out there, you know where this is going?

You dress it up, you begin to dilute what is true in order to make it acceptable to them.

If everybody in your life that ever hears you present the gospel loves it and responds with just, oh,

I love you, I'd encourage you to come and talk with me and share with me what the gospel is that you're telling them, because how many of you know like a gospel that says

God wants you to be healthy, wealthy, rich, and have everything blessed in this life right here, right now, is a pretty big appeal to our culture?

And you can fill churches with that message easily. As a matter of fact, some of the largest churches in America, some of the largest churches in the world, that is their gospel.

Their gospel is that if you are in Christ, then you are going to become wealthy. You are going to have nice cars and big houses and everything is going to go smooth in your life.

But what happens when things don't go smooth and when things go bad and you're like, well, then you're out of the church, right?

Because you didn't have enough faith or something like that. Are you getting what I'm saying? It's very easy to make the message, mix it up so that it tastes good to the culture, but we in the process are no longer preaching the good news of Jesus Christ.

That we are all, how many of you know that this is, just state this once, we are all a stench to God. We are all enemies of God without Jesus Christ.

Is that popular? That's the message that we bring to our culture.

We're all jacked up. Every single one of us, to the core, broken in every aspect of our lives.

Good news. But there is good news, isn't there? Never proclaim the problem without the solution.

That's one thing that I told to our children's early on. Never proclaim the bad news to our kids without also talking about the remedy and the solution.

We want them to hear the gospel. We want them to know that they're little sinners. How many of you know that already?

They're born that way? You don't have to teach them how to take toys from their other kids. They just do that.

They're broken and we want our kids to know that they're broken. We want them to know that, but we equally want them to know that there's a remedy and it's

Jesus Christ and it's the cross and he loves them dearly, dearly enough to sacrifice his own life on their behalf.

None of that was on my notes, I don't think, so let's let's see where, what verse was

I in here? Yeah, somewhere around there. Yeah, making, telling the truth and making enemies.

Let me just encourage all of you. Tell the truth, the truth that you see here in the Word of God for two primary reasons.

The first is because it's true, okay? The second is because heaven and hell is in the balance.

The message that we come and share with people about their brokenness, their fallenness, and that there's a remedy, there's a, there is a healing for them through Jesus Christ.

Heaven and hell is in the balance in those discussions. So we come to bear the truth not to be liked, certainly, because we love people.

Bringing the truth, keep it true, do it in love. Paul felt like he was moving towards the category of enemy to these people that he loved.

He loves these Galatians, he's labored over them, he's worked and toiled, and so now in verse 17 he addresses directly those who are poisoning the

Galatians. Look at verse 17, there's a new pronoun in our text, just appears out of nowhere and we need to define who that is.

Beginning of verse 17, they make much of you. Who is they? These false teachers that have moved into Galatia basically said, you got a decent start with Paul, it was mediocre, it was okay, he talked with you about Jesus, that's good, but now let's tell you how you really need to live your lives.

You really need to be okay with God through laws and rules and regulations, keeping the Jewish calendar, keeping the Jewish dietary laws, following the

Torah, the Old Testament, that's the way you're going to be acceptable. So that's who the they is in the text.

And he says that they have been courting you. If you look at the verse, they make much of you, the phrase make much of you is a

Greek word that has the same notion of courting someone, trying to win them over, trying to show love to somebody.

He says the false teachers are courting you for no good reason, basically with no good result.

False teachers court people, they win their hearts, they dote on people, they say things like, you're a hero.

They say, God really likes you more than others. Or things like, boy did God get a bargain when he saved you.

How many of you know that false teachers tend to say things that are false, right?

Isn't that kind of what they tend to specialize in? And according to the text, they're seeking to isolate the

Galatians from Paul. He says, they make much of you for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, a word of isolation, keeping them from Paul, so that you,

Galatians, might make much of them the false teachers. What is their primary motivation? What's he pointing out is the motivation of the false teachers.

Their own glory, their own high standing. The end game of a false teacher is their own gain, their own prestige, their own fame, their own finances, their wallet.

And it's ironic, nothing has changed over the centuries, really. Different names, different faces, same old, same old, right?

So Paul, centuries ago, was dealing with people who came in and were false teachers working and teaching for their own glory.

That happen today? Anywhere? It can happen here. It can happen anywhere.

But there are churches that are precipitated on this notion about financial gain and things like that.

Paul says, it's good to be made much of. That's okay, that's acceptable, to be made much of when it is for a good purpose.

I think what he's really getting at there is that it's okay to be made much of when it's true, when it's accurate.

Jesus was not opposed to commending people. If you were to read Revelation 1 through 3, you're going to see Jesus writing letters to the church, talking to different churches throughout

Asia Minor, throughout modern -day Turkey. And he's writing to these different churches, talking to them, giving them commendation.

Here's what you're doing good. And then he also gives them correction. Here's what you need to shore up and do a better job with.

But is Jesus opposed to giving commendation? No. And Paul is not opposed to giving commendation for that which is accurate.

If you are taking notes, you can write down 1 Thessalonians 1, 2 through 9. 1 Thessalonians 1, 2 through 9.

It's a beautiful passage where Paul gives authentic, real, heartfelt commendation to people that he's ministered with and to in the past.

And he's saying, you're doing awesome. And he's willing to just lay this all out on the line and say, this is beautiful.

But I think what he's getting at here in the text is better an honest commendation for truly good things than the buttery flattery of someone who seeks their own gain.

How many of you know that people will lie to you about yourself and you'll accept it?

You get what I'm saying? I mean, how many of you are open to compliments? How many of you are open to compliments that aren't accurate about you, but it's kind of like, well, you can, you know, no, no, stop saying that.

Stop saying those really good things about me. Just a little bit more, but stop. Are you getting what

I'm saying? I mean, is anybody else, are you going to leave me hanging on this? Or does anybody else kind of like, I mean, flattery like still feels kind of good, right?

Do you agree with that? And so that's what we've got going on here in the text.

He's saying they're trying to flatter you. How many of you know flattery only serves the person flattering? So if I'm saying good things about you for the purpose that you will like me better, and then in turn say good things about me, that's flattery, right?

I might even say false things about you to boost up your ego so that you like me more.

I'm convinced that that probably happens in the workplace a lot, right? I don't work out there. I work in here, like right in that office.

But does that happen where there's like rubbing shoulders with the boss and kind of making good compliments to the boss so that you might, you know, get that next promotion and be in good with him?

I don't know. I assume that that happens. I've seen a couple of sitcoms that look like that happens, but I don't know. You guys know better than I do.

But all this culminates in a highly emotional statement in verses 19 through 20. Paul contrasts the desire of the false teachers with his own desire for them.

And then in this process, if you look at verse 19, my little children, he calls them little children, not a condescending term, but a term of endearment in Greek, for whom

I am again in anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you, until you look more like Christ.

Now, he uses this as an illustration and equally shows his bravery, because let me just say this to all of you men, okay?

Never, ever use childbirth as an illustration for anything that you're going through, okay?

Men, let's just pledge to do that right now. Let's pledge to not use childbirth as an illustration for anything that we go through.

Everybody good with that? Paul has some guts to do this, okay?

You look at this and you kind of go, what in the world? Okay, don't do that in front of women that have given birth, okay?

Don't use that as an illustration. I was in the room, the birth of all three of my children.

No pain meds, my wife is my hero, okay? I was there, but Paul has a lot of guts, but he equally has obviously a lot of anguish.

To use that as an illustration, are you sensing the heart, the emotion that he's poured into these people?

Do you sense that his heart has been laid bare and bruised and beaten in this process? He's genuinely hurting inside, but the false teachers want to be made much of, so he's going to contrast his desire for them with the false teacher's desire.

What do the false teachers want? They want to be made much of, and in contrast, Paul wants his dear children to have

Christ formed in them. He says, this is my desire. I want to see Christ formed in you.

What's their desire? What's the false teacher's desire? Their own glory, their own prestige, their own fame. And as people who are called to minister to others, all of us, how many of you know that everybody in this room is called to minister to others?

You have other people that you influence, whether it's in your immediate family, whether it's extended family, whether it's co -workers, neighbors.

Many of you would admit that you've got some people in your life that you have some level of influence with, or at least should have some level of influence with, because you know them, you meet with them, you see them.

Ask yourself this, think about those levels of influence, and then ask this question, have

I set my sights on Christ being formed in those around me? Is that what I desire for them?

I want to see Christ formed in them. Think about this, what motivates your actions, your statements, your relationships, your status updates on Facebook?

If we're honest, I believe that many of our interactions are for the purpose of building up ourselves in others, not building up Christ in others.

You know, I'm just going to be honest, I want people to think I'm funny. I want people to click like on my

Facebook posts. I want people to think, gee, that Don, he is a swell guy.

Anybody relate to that? Maybe not the swell part, maybe that doesn't necessarily translate. Gee Wally, you know, but anybody relate to that?

You kind of want people to like you, and you kind of put forward a face, you kind of put forward things so that people will like you more.

Anybody there? In front of all of you, I want to repent of my self -centeredness.

I have been self -centered, and I'd invite all of you to join me in that repentance of saying that I have pointed often in my life in the wrong direction.

I've pointed here and not there. I pointed here and not where I should be.

Paul gets emotional in this passage, and that's moved me over the week. And the power of the

Spirit through this text has convicted me that there is too much of Don in my life. There's too much me here.

I want more of Jesus in my interactions with others. I want more pointing to Christ, less pointing to me, like John the

Baptist said, I must, he must increase, and I must decrease.

Are you guys there with me? Is that where you're at? The final emotional appeal in this text is funny to me because it echoes my own philosophy of communication.

Some of you have communicated with me before, and Paul says this, I wish I could be face -to -face with you so that you don't misunderstand my tone when

I'm talking about these things. Do you see that in verse 20? I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone for I am perplexed about you.

I feel like at least half of my emails sound angry when I write them just because I'm a very direct individual.

Do any of you relate to that or have a hard time conveying tone or feeling? I mean, we try to put those little emoticons in there, a little smiley face to let you know

I'm okay, I'm happy, but I don't feel like I sound that way. Does anybody relate to that?

Some of you have read my email then, you know what I'm talking about. She's like, yep, I've got an email from you, it was really rough.

We can talk about that later. Even the phone, I think the phone is worse for me.

I think I always probably sound short and brief and busy when I'm talking with somebody on the phone.

I'm not a big phone talker. I know some of you love to talk on the phone. I'm not that person. Paul just declares what we all know to be true regarding communication, that it's better face -to -face than by letter, by phone, by email, by text, by Facebook, by chat, by smoke signals, whatever you're using to communicate these days, it's better face -to -face.

Would you guys agree with that? And he says, I wish I could come join you. I wish I could be present with you in Galatia so you could see the tone, the compassion.

I wish you could see the tears. I wish you could hear the emotion in my voice so that you understood how much I love you and want to see you come back into the truth.

And really what we get in this text is a glimpse into one of our core values here at Recast, and that is authenticity.

It's something that we value at Recast, but in reality, authenticity as a core value is very hard for a leadership to have any influence over.

We try as a leadership to be authentic and hope that that rubs off on all of you, but it comes down to your conversations in your small group.

It comes down to your interactions on Sunday morning with others. It comes down to you breaking down walls and trusting each other, and that's hard work.

But it comes down to sharing your heart and doing life together. That's what authenticity is about. Paul knew nothing of disengaged professional ministers.

I don't believe that that was his intention. He was all in in his relationship with others. He did not guard his heart.

He didn't build walls. He opened himself up to hurt and pain. How many of you know that when you share your life with others, you are fully laid bare to them abusing that knowledge of you?

Is that true? And it takes significant trust. I had an older, more seasoned pastor.

Actually, I've had this happen to me twice, two different conversations, two different pastors and two different times. Well -meaning advice from an older pastor to a younger pastor.

Come to me and say, be careful. Don't get too involved in relationships with people at your church.

Good advice or bad advice? Advice that you guys want me to take? No, right?

It's the same with your relationships, co -workers, with people in your neighborhood, with people around you.

It's not just about ministry. It's not, I mean, it's not just about professional ministry or my job or something like that.

I don't think Paul would have taken that advice. I'm seeking to not take that either. Paul was not opposed to emotionally engaging with others for the defense of the gospel, and this section of the letter was very unprofessional.

I imagine it to be stained with his own tears, his own investment. So as we come to communion this morning, consider whether or not you know

God or maybe you stated better whether or not you have come to be known by God. Are you still enslaved to law?

Are you enslaved to idolatry? Is there something in your life that is in consistent competition with God?

There's something that takes his place in your heart. This morning, during this song, as Dave comes to play,

I'd encourage you to deal with it. Give it over to God and ask him for more of Jesus Christ in you, less of that other stuff.

And regarding relationships, Paul is trying to reconcile with the people of Galatia. He has felt a growing distance.

He's felt like they are becoming his enemies and he's reaching out to them to bring them back and turn them to the truth and bring them back into a relationship with him.

And my question for you, is there anybody that you need to be reaching out to? As we come to communion, it's an important time for us to consider that and to think that through.

Of course a relationship is a two -way street, right? There's your side of the equation and there's their side of the equation, but I'm convinced that as we come to communion, it's a reset time.

It's a time for us to think through, as far as it is up to me, as much as it is in my control, have

I extended out to try to emotionally engage with those who have wronged me or those

I have wronged? Have I tried to make that right? And I think people have misunderstood me to say that if all of your relationships, somebody came to me after communion one time and was really distraught and troubled and they didn't take communion because they felt like what

I was saying is, you have to have all your relationships sewed up and correct before you can take communion. Nobody ought to take communion if that's the standard.

If that's the standard, that you have to have all relationships perfect in your life before you take communion, let's just skip it, right?

But have you entered in that process with others? Are you willing to reconcile? Are you willing to correct those things and move to a place of forgiveness?

Now some of you here are bearing significant wrongs and significant hurts, and I'm not suggesting for even a second that that's an easy process for you.

I'm not suggesting that that's all, it just should be simple one phone call and you're going to be okay. There's going to be a process in your life of reconciling, right?

But I'd encourage you to be able to take part in that. Lift these things up before God, your idols, give them over to Him, your relationships with others, and then come and remember the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that gives us reconciliation with God, makes us in a right relationship with Him, and is in the process of correcting our relationship with others.

Let's pray. Father, I thank you for this text.

Thank you for the challenge that has given to me this week. Just to consider the idols that I see in my life, the propensity and tendency towards laws and rules, but Father, most importantly, my emotional engagement of those around me.

Father, for the way that Paul exhibits and exemplifies relationship, and Father, I thank you that you have come to restore relationships, to bring us to a place of authentic relationships with one another.

You've given us the body of Christ for edification, for building each other up. And Father, as we come to communion, we get an opportunity to drink the juice that reminds us of the blood that was shed for us.

We take this cracker to remember the the body that was broken for us. Father, I pray that you would help us in our hearts to reflect in gratitude and remembrance of the sacrifice that it cost to bring us in a reconciled relationship with you, that we might be known by you, that you pursued us and came to know us through Jesus Christ.