Look Mum! No hands!
Notes
Transcript
Intro
Bea first saw Fred on an autumn day in Sydney. She was a waitress, he was a tall, slightly scruffy looking guy who sat at the counter, looked her straight in the eye and almost immediately charmed her. In just a few short weeks, Bea was infatuated. Soon Fred presented her with a ring and promised to marry her. At his insistence she quit her job and moved in with him. Over the course of the next few months, he showered her with gifts, constantly messaged her telling her he was thinking of her, insisted that they go out on fancy dates and did everything he could to make her feel like the most important person in the world.
At first she didn’t mind the fact that she didn’t see her friends as much as she used to. She was getting plenty of attention. In fact, she felt more complete than she had felt for a long time. She had a sense of freedom and pleasure, a whole future had suddenly appeared before her. She even felt like a better kind of person now that she had a partner.
After a while she started to miss her friends. When one suggested a girls night out, Fred was quick to come up with a reason why she couldn’t attend - they just had to go and see Hamilton on the same night. When her mother called, Fred would hover in the background, sending signals for her to hurry up and get off the phone.
Before she knew it, months had gone by and she’d not seen a single friend or family member. She spent her days at home, waiting for Fred to return, hoping he was in a good mood. Gone was the happy go lucky charmer she’d met. Now, she felt like she was walking on egg shells, constantly adjusting her behaviour to suit him, constantly feeling like she was off balance, like he was testing her loyalty.
She didn’t feel complete or free anymore. She didn’t feel like she had a future. She just felt trapped. Exhausted. Isolated.
Now, that’s a story I made up, but it’s inspired by true stories I’ve read.
These stories are sadly very common. And over the last few years we’ve bene hearing more about them, the dynamic of coercive control, the phenomenon of love bombing, the way abusers isolate their victims, manipulate their emotions, and gain power over them.
Now, I’m hoping that none of you have experienced that personally, though if you have, in our bathrooms there are numbers you can call to get help.
But I suspect many of us have experienced this kind of thing at some level. We might not have been conned into a relationship with an abusive partner, but most of us have had that experience of being sweet talked. Someone showering us with attention, flattering us, alternative between pressuring us and then buttering us up, all with the hope of getting us to do what they want. Maybe you’ve had that experience at the car yard. Or at one of those stalls in the middle of the walkways at Westfield.
It can be so hypnotising, but once the deal is done, then there’s no more need for the charade. Gone is the ‘mate’, your new best friend. Once the sale’s gone through, you’re treated with contempt, feeling like you have to fight for attention, totally at their mercy.
Sadly, this kind of thing happens churches. What ought to be a place where the free gift of the gospel is preached, where the sacrificial other-person centred love of Jesus is everywhere, can so easily become a place where religious deals are done. Where, despite the language of the bible, and the talk of love, there’s hypocrisy, self-righteousness and attempts to control.
As we’ve been looking at the book of Galatians, this is what we’ve seen. What had started out as a community built around the grace of the gospel was quickly being smooth talked into a spiritual con - become Jews, and you’ll become better people - you don’t belong down in economy with the rabble, you’re a business class kind of person. That was them.
As I’ve been saying throughout the series, I know most if not all of us aren’t tempted to become Jews. But all of us will have people offering us the secret to a ‘better’, ‘superior’ spiritual life. And Galatians is like that sane, wise friend telling you ‘red flags’ everywhere’, ‘get out while you can’!
And it really boils down to that image Paul uses in verse 19...
If Christ is formed in you, you can’t be taken in because...
Pray that that would start right now.
You’ll be satisfied
You’ll be satisfied
It’s very hard to sell someone something if they’re already satisfied isn’t it?
Right now, I am satisfied with the number of bedpans I have. There’s just no way you’re going to get me to buy one.
And when you’re satisfied with the life you have in Christ, you’re not going to be conned into looking elsewhere.
Look at verse 15
Show
What has happened to the satisfaction you felt at that time? There were some of you then who, if possible, would have given your very eyes to me—that is how deeply you cared!
Explain
I think Eugene Petersen is right to translate it as satisfaciton.
They’d tasted the good life. Remember how you felt, the deep joy you felt when you were free.
The joy you get as a Christian is that sense that you are where you are supposed to be, who you are supposed to be, that no matter what happens, things are ok because you belong to Christ.
They’d tasted that feeling and it had completely changed them.
Galatians 4:13–14a (MSG)
You were well aware that the reason I ended up preaching to you was that I was physically broken, and so, prevented from continuing my journey, I was forced to stop with you. That is how I came to preach to you. And don’t you remember that even though taking in a sick guest was most troublesome for you, you chose to treat me as well as you would have treated an angel of God—as well as you would have treated Jesus himself if he had visited you?
Of course, when people think of the good life, they normally think of nursing someone with a disgusting eye disease - someone who never intended to bother with you, someone who would’ve ignored you altogether were it not for the fact that their health gave out. That’s the kind of life that brings joy isn’t it?!
But it did.
They saw, in Paul’s brokenness, they heard in his gospel of Jesus being broken and suffering for them, they heard God’s deep love for them. His desire for them. As we thought about last week, his plan from before time to adopt them.
There was nothing outwardly impressive, flattering or even pleasant about Paul’s situation.
It’s about as far from the con artist treatment as you can get. Nothing flashy, nothing that makes you feel like a superior person, nothing that elevates you above the ordinary, that gives you some special, rarefied status.
But says Paul, ‘You welcomed me as an angel, as if I were the Messiah, Jesus!’.
As they nursed Paul, and as he shared the news of the gospel with them they recognised Jesus at work.
Jesus who said it is more blessed to give than to receive. Jesus who said blessed are the poor in spirit, for they will be filled.
And they were.
But then some slick, smooth talking characters came in and upset them. As we’ve been hearing.
The Galatians had really become Christians, but they were immature, or rather, premmature.
Because Paul says in verse 19
My little children, for whom I am again in the pain of childbirth until Christ is formed in you,
Don’t make me go through labour all over again!
illustrate
I’ve witnessed enough childbirth to have learned a few things about it. I know that it’s possible for labour to slow right down and almost stop if something stressful happens. I guess it’s a bit of a survival mechanism, it might just give the mother a chance to escape a dangerous situation and then labour can continue when things are safe.
What I’ve also learned is NO WOMAN WANTS THIS TO HAPPEN!!!
Once labour starts, you want the baby out. You don’t want it slowing down. You definitely don’t want it to stop and have to start all over again!
But if our grasp of the gospel is weak, if it’s premature, if it hasn’t really sunk down into your heart and begun to change it from the inside out, then you are in danger, says Paul.
Apply
And part of the way we allow the gospel to work, part of the way Christ is formed in us, is by seeking our satisfaction in God. Remember last week we reflected on the fact that in Christ we are adopted into God’s family. The Spirit he gave us calls out Abba! Father! God did that because it’s what we were made for. God’s plan was always to adopt us so that we could experience the satisfaction of his all satisfying presence.
We need to become familiar with it. We need to practice it. To embrace this new identity that we’ve been given - Christ’s identity.
Because if you’re finding your satisfaction in him, when some smooth talker comes along promising you joy if you just hitch your wagon to theirs, you won’t fall for it, because you’ll already be satisfied.
Transition
You’ll be wise
You’ll be wise
State
That is, you’ll be wise to the way the cons work.
Because every spiritual con tries to decentre Jesus, to disconnect you from Jesus and his body - the church.
Show
Galatians 4:17–18 (MSG)
Those heretical teachers go to great lengths to flatter you, but their motives are rotten. They want to shut you out of the free world of God’s grace so that you will always depend on them for approval and direction, making them feel important. It is a good thing to be ardent in doing good, but not just when I am in your presence. Can’t you continue the same concern for both my person and my message when I am away from you that you had when I was with you?
Explain
Following Jesus can be an unsettling experience. Yes, it’s satisfying, but it’s unsettling, in the way that all truly new experiences are.
All of the usual things we reach for to tell us who we are and where we fit in the world don’t count - as we said last week.
You can’t leaning on your gender to tell you what to do. You can’t lean on your ethnicity to figure out where you fit in the pecking order. You can’t say, well I’ve kept the bible’s rules so I’m in. There’s nothing that you can point to and say ‘I’ve done this, or I am this, so I matter’
Instead, you’re left having to trust the gospel.
And because trust is unsettling, when someone comes along offering you the chance to avoid that feeling of vertigo, it can be tempting to take the offer.
The Galatians were being offered Jewishness. Something concrete. Something perhaps even a little exotic.
Cut off a part of your anatomy, and you can cut yourself off from all those people who don’t bother to put in the effort. Start eating Kosher and you’ll show that you’re a serious person. Come on, you’re not like those baby Christians who don’t really care about the bible.
The trouble is says Paul, it’s a con. It doesn’t increase your freedom, in fact it makes you a slave.
They make much of you, but for no good purpose; they want to exclude you, so that you may make much of them.
Illustrate:
Every now and then someone writes a book or get’s on a platform at a conference, or starts a ‘ministry’ and claims to have figured out the secret the good life. If you want to experience God’s best, if you want to live with the grain of the universe, if you want to have a great career, a great marriage, a great family, just do this.
Often it’s couched in Christian sounding language, like ‘How to be a Biblical Man or a Biblical woman’, or ‘how to have a biblical marriage’. But sometimes the titles are bit more cheesy, like ‘how to pray so that God will listen’, or have a brand new husband by Friday (seriously, that was an actual book!)’
It doesn’t really matter what the title or the topic is, they’re always the same. Do this, follow this formula, buy my book, join my group, subscribe to my channel and there’ll be no more uncertainty, no more mystery, no more need to trust God, you just follow the steps.
And if you’re not seeing results? If God isn’t answering your prayers? Well you mustn’t be doing it right. You must have some unconfessed sin. You need to work harder.
The thing about all of these schemes is - where is Jesus? Where’s the gospel? What role does faith play? The answer is nowhere, gone, and none.
There’s no space for God to teach you to wait for him, to show you that he can be trusted with prayers you’ve prayed months, even years ago. There’s no trusting that Jesus can bring deep satisfaction in whatever situation you find yourself in if you just let him. There’s just ‘I paid my money, where’s the result’
But here’s the thing: if Christ is formed in you, if you’ve tasted what it’s like to live in ‘the faithfulness of the Messiah’, if you’ve spent enough time getting to know the gospel inside and out, you won’t be conned. You’ll be wise.
Transition
You’ll be free
You’ll be free
State
Freedom, true freedom is dizzying, adreniline pumping.
Living a life where you are forced to trust God for your sense of self, your worth, your future - that can be a headspin.
It’s like that first time riding a bike without training wheels. Instead of trusting what you can see - metal and rubber - to hold you up, you have to trust momentum - something you can’t see.
But once you’ve tasted the freedom of riding without training wheels, you never want to go back right?
Show
So then, friends, we are children, not of the slave but of the free woman. For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.
Explain
Abraham had heard God’s promise that he would be Father of many nations. But he had no child. The free thing to do would’ve been to trust that God would be good for his word. But instead, he came up with a scheme that didn’t require him to trust God. Ishmael was the result of Abraham and Sarah’s impatience. But Isaac was the result of God’s promise. And it was through Isaac that God kept all of his promises, brought life to Abraham’s family, and blessing to the whole world in Abraham’s descendant - Jesus.
That’s the model of freedom. The giddy feeling of the wind in your hair and nothing between you and the ashphalt but the momentum of God’s grace.
That’s the freedom we get in the gospel. Freedom in trust. But it won’t happen if we refuse to let go.
Think about it, the moment that Paul points to, to remind the Galatians of when they experienced the greatest freedom, and the deepest satisfaction was when it looked like they were most constrained.
As Euguene Petersen puts it ‘The moment of Paul’s disabling illness and the Galatians’ compassionate care was one of the glorious times in their lives: they knew freedom those days. They were hemmed in by necessities—Paul couldn’t go where he had intended; the Galatians were pressed to tend to Paul’s needs—and there resulted profound satisfaction. Freedom comes from trusting, not from manipulating, from leaving matters to God rather than trying to be in control.
And the more we allow God to direct us into those situations, the more familiar we will be with that feeling of freedom. Really, that’s the only way.
illustration:
Chris Morphew - fake bank notes - the only way to be able to spot a counterfeit is to be really familiar with the genuine article
Conclusion
Conclusion
Some of us have experienced so many toxic relationships, that we’re not really sure what a healthy one looks like. Some of us have only ever experienced love on a quid pro quo basis, that we don’t know what grace feels like. Some of us have never really felt what it’s like to be accepted and loved and welcomed and simply enjoyed for who we are - without a catch.
And so when we hear the gospel, that God offers us all of those things, something that will truly satisfy us, we wonder what’s the catch. We find the freedom of it all too much. We find ourselves wanting the training wheels again, looking for something we can point to, something we can control.
But that’s not freedom. It’s not what you and I were made for. It’s not who we were destined to be.
We need to become familiar with gospel freedom. We need to live it. To allow Jesus to be formed in us. To trust that when he says, whoever wants to hold onto their life will lose it, that he’s telling us that so that we would let go of our lives and find them.
Because we’re only free when we trust.