Perfection

Fairy Tales

When you think of a fairy tale what do you think of?

Most of us envision the Disney versions that we grew up with.

Something has happened, and

Cute

Flowery cartoons.

Very innocent.

There’s a curse, but it’s nothing serious.

It’s mostly a plot device to move the story.

Yet, are you aware of how much Disney cleaned up these old stories.

Had Disney told these stories the way they were originally told … they certainly wouldn’t be kids stories.

They would have been horror movies.

For example, think of Cinderella.

Cinderella loses her glass slipper.

After the ball, the prince and his steward travel the country, trying to fit the glass slipper on maiden’s foot who it belonged, trying to find the one that stole his heart.

When he came to Cinderella’s house, he first went to her step sisters.

One step sister cut off her toes to fit into the slipper.

The other sister cut off her heel to fit into the slipper.

Oh and the happily ever after?

At the wedding the stepsisters were there, but birds pecked out their eyes.

Sounds more like an Alfred Hitchcock movie then the fairy tale we watched.

Or there is The Little Mermaid.

You know the story, a mermaid falls in love with a human prince.

She gives up her voice in order to get legs and try to win his love.

What we never learned is that with those legs came extreme pain.

A draw back was every step she made felt like she was walking on shards of glass.

As far as the Little Mermaid’s happily ever after … it’s not there.

In Hans Christian Andersen’s version, the prince doesn’t marry Ariel, he marries someone else.

She ends up throwing herself into the sea and turning into sea foam.

Sounds like one of those depressing psychological thrillers.

How about Snow White?

You have Snow White, and an evil queen.

The evil queen asks a hunter to take Snow White into the forest and kill her.

This happened in the cartoon.

What didn’t happen is that the witch asked for the hunter to bring back Snow Whites lung’s and liver.

He ends up not killing her.

But to fool the witch into thinking he did, he brings back a boar’s lungs and liver.

The witch eats the lungs and liver thinking they are Snow White’s.

That’s certainly disturbing.

The queen tries to kill Snow White a couple times.

In the end Snow White is given a poisoned apple, but she chokes on it and it gets lodged in her throat and she passes out.

She is put into glass coffin.

The handsome prince comes by, sees her in the coffin and wants to take her away … in the coffin.

Like she’s some kind of trophy to put on display.

Or if you know Star Wars, like Lando in Jabba’s Palace.

While she is being moved, the carriers trip, causing the poisoned apple to become dislodged from her throat.

Snow White wakes up, and marries the prince.

But wait, there’s more.

At the wedding the evil queen is invited.

But she is punished by being forced to wear burning-hot iron shoes and dance still she dies.

We have grown up with the cute Disney version of fairy tales, and are completely unfamiliar with the dark and deadly side to them.

We think of fairy tales as innocent.

We have been looking at Galatians.

Paul who appear to have been put under a curse.

And not a Disney version of a curse.

But an ugly Hans Christian Anderson version of a curse.

Paul is responding to the curse that has struck the Galatians.

Let’s read about the curse and the cure of the Galatians.

We are in .

Read Galatians 3:1-5.

I hope you hear the outrage in Paul’s words here in .

When I read about Cinderella’s step sisters cutting off their toes and heels, I thought:

What’s wrong with you guys.

How could you do that.

It’s ugly.

It’s disturbing.

It’s angering.

Paul is asking, “What’s happened to you?”

He says, “Who has bewitched you?”

I think of the old show, Bewitched.

Samantha was a witch, and she’d wiggle her knows, and things would happen.

Strange things would happen.

Paul’s wondering, “Did Samantha wiggle her nose at you?”

How did you fall under this curse?

The Galatians are Christians.

In he says, “You were running well. Who hindered you from obeying the truth?”

You started so good … and something happened.

Somewhere along the way they stopped living by the Gospel.

Somewhere alone the way, they stopped living in faith.

They stopped living under the refreshing power of the Gospel and living under the works of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.

And instead, they’ve started living by works, by the law.

In an effort to be religious, they’ve

And I think of us.

I think of you.

I’ve heard Christians sometimes say they don’t feel the passion like they used to feel.

Think back on your conversion.

Think about what it was like when you first became a Christian.

It was exciting.

It was scary.

It was exhilarating.

And it’s been a long time since you had a thrill in your Christian life.

And like the Righteous Brothers song, “You’ve lost that loving feeling … whoah that loving feeling.”

And this is where people get into trouble.

They’ve lost that loving feeling, and they are trying to get it back.

In an effort to spice up their spiritual life, they try something new.

They change churches.

They change friends.

Sometimes, they even start drinking, or using something to alter their psyche.

They think that these actions are the cure to their curse.

And this ends up being a poisoned apple, a deal with the devil, or more harm then good, like you cut off your own toes to fit into the slipper.

Paul is writing to a church that has been cursed.

They’ve adopted some things that are on the ugly end of a fairy tale.

And as frustrated as he is, he brings a cure to their self-inflicted curse.

Begins by saying, “O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you?”

He calls them fools.

Twice, he calls them fools.

He’s not insulting their intelligence.

He’s not calling them dumb or stupid.

This is more like the fool in Proverbs.

The fool in Proverbs is someone who isn’t thinking straight.

He’s lazy.

He’s careless.

Paul calls the Galatians foolish.

They are being lazy.

They are being careless.

They aren’t using their heads.

They are being foolish.

Paul calls them back to truth.

In the fairy tales, at least the Disney versions, there’s a cure to the curse.

The prince kisses the princess.

The princess kisses the frog.

And we want that same cure.

So we do something.

Paul brings with him a cure.

But the cure isn’t something that’s new and improved.

It’s what they started with.

It’s not some new spiritual exercise.

The cure is to look back.

Over and over again in this passage, Paul says, it’s not by works.

It’s by faith.

He calls for them to remember where they’ve been.

Remember:

Your experience with the Son.

Your experience with the Spirit.

And Your experience with the Father.

This is the cure for restoring the passion of your faith, when you first began.

He begins with Your experience with the Son

What is it people need most in life?

Suppose an alcoholic comes to you, and asks you for help.

What does the alcoholic need?

What does a drug addict need?

What does someone who looks at porn need?

What does a coveter need?

What does a married couple struggling in their marriage need?

The world around us addresses what people think the need is.

They address the immediate problem at hand.

So they offer the alcoholic or drug addict sobriety.

The porn addict a filter.

A married couple the 5 Love Languages.

None of those things actually address what people need.

They give band aids, but don’t offer a cure.

They give temporary fixes, without something to change the human condition.

One of the things that we have been challenged to do is to outline counseling situations.

How would you respond to different situations and plan out how to offer counseling.

What would you tell an alcoholic, an adulterer?

What would you give them?

I’m finding that I can’t think through one of these sessions, without starting with the Gospel.

The Galatians are in trouble.

They have been bewitched.

They’ve been mislead.

They’ve been under a curse.

And what is Paul’s cure?

He goes back to where they started.

Verse 1, “It was before your eyes that Jesus was publicly portrayed as crucified.”

He takes them back to the Gospel.

This is a strategy that Paul frequently employed when giving counsel to Christians who’ve gotten knocked off the path.

When Paul was talking to the Corinthians, in he says, “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand,”

He reminds them of the Gospel.

Paul takes the Galatians back to when they first became Christians.

He says Jesus was publicly portrayed as crucified.

The Gospel was so clearly preached to them, that its as if they could actually see Jesus on the Cross.

It was crystal clear to them.

And that’s where his cure for them begins.

I know there are times of frustration in the Christian walk.

And you are wondering what you should do.

There are plateaus.

What do we do?

We go back to where it all started.

Back to the Cross.

You want to feel something?

You want to feel passion?

You want to feel emotions that you experienced when you first became a Christian?

Go to the Cross.

It was there that Jesus died for your sins.

He suffered physically.

He suffered the wrath of God.

And not for anything He had done.

But for what you had done.

You want to feel something?

Begin there.

Understand your sin.

Confess your sin.

Grieve over your sin.

Then rejoice that Jesus paid for your sin.

You know why there are so many joyless Christians?

Because, like the Galatians they have forgotten Christ who was so clearly preached to them at their conversion.

They walk around joyless.

Proud.

And frustrated.

Lifeless like Snow White in her glass coffin.

Forgetting the grace and the mercy they received through Christ.

The cure to the curse begins at the Cross.

Then Paul calls you to remember your experience with the Spirit

Look at verses 2-4, “Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?”

So you are trying to recapture that passion and excitement that you felt for God.

How do you do that?

Some people try to pump themselves up like a football team before the big game on a Friday night.

They blast their favorite Christian song.

They jump up and down.

There are some churches that do just that.

You go in there, and it’s like a pep rally.

People are shouting.

They’ve got glow sticks and fog machines.

It’s more like a rave then a worship service.

They are getting themselves worked up into a frenzy.

But again Paul’s cure to the curse is much simpler.

It begins with the Holy Spirit.

Under this point of Remember Your Experience with the Holy Spirit, there are 3 things I’d like to point out.

There are 3 ways to remember your experience with the Holy Spirit in this text.

Remember the Holy Spirit in your understanding.

Remember the Holy Spirit in your conversion.

And Remember the Holy Spirit in your sanctification.

For for the first point, remember the Holy Spirit in your understanding.

God is not giving you the Spirit in reaction to your great learning.

Sometimes that’s what we think.

That if people were just smarter they could be logiced into the kingdom of God.

You could never have become a Christian if it weren’t for the Holy Spirit.

He isn’t looking down from heaven and saying, “That person is really smart, I’ll give him the holy Spirit.”

Look at the end of verse 3, “Having begin by the Spirit ..."

The problem isn’t people’s intellect.

The problem is that people do want to believe.

They make a conscious effort to reject the truth.

says people suppress the truth.

Your spiritual understanding, begins when God gave you the Spirit.

And now the Christian experiences the presence of the Holy Spirit in his life.

Notice that the presence of the Holy Spirit is directly tied to truth.

“Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law or by hearing with faith?”

And one of the first things that the Holy Spirit does in a person’s life is He provides illumination.

The Christian hears.

Then because of the Holy Spirit the Christian understands.

The Holy Spirit allows the person to understand and accept the Gospel.

says, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”

That means you might be able to hear truth, but you’re not going to understand truth, you’re not going to believe the truth, or love the truth, unless the Holy Spirit grants it.

The truth of the Gospel is not understood in a person’s ears, without the work of the Holy Spirit.

So if you know the Gospel … you can thank the Holy Spirit for that understanding.

You are looking for evidence of the Holy Spirit in your life.

You are looking to rekindle that passion.

You ask yourself, “What has God ever done for you?”

Look to your understanding of the cross.

That understanding is tied to the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.

But let’s also think of the Holy Spirit in your conversion.

Because we can go a step further and say you would never have become a Christian had you not received the Spirit.

The end of verse 3 says, “Having begun by the Spirit ...”

So many people forget that today.

They think they begin by:

Walking an aisle.

Saying a prayer.

Making a decision.

Then they ask themselves, “Where is God in my life?”

The reason they don’t see God is because they think they’ve done all the work.

But really, where does conversion start?

With the Spirit.

As you look back on your spiritual transformation, think about the involvement of the Holy Spirit in it.

You were unable to understand the Gospel.

Jesus said that on our own, it’s impossible for us to even come to God.

“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.”

You want to rekindle your love for God? Think about your conversion.

That was a work of the Spirit in your dead heart.

says, “he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior,”

Look at the common denominator in all of this.

It’s all tied to hearing.

Hearing the Gospel.

Hearing the Word.

Hearing truth.

When you are around the Word of God, the Spirit is present.

This ought to motivate us to be around the Word of God.

Because when we are reading the Bible, when we are hearing truth, the Holy Spirit illuminates, gives us understanding.

And then the presence of the Holy Spirit is in our lives.

Let me put it another way, the Holy Spirit works in your life when you hear truth.

So if you desire to experience the power of the Spirit in your life, be in the Word.

Be around people who are in the Word.

Be in frequent fellowship with other Christians.

When you are around other believers and having fellowship with them, you can’t help but talk about the Word and the works of God.

describes what this looks like, “And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart,

And don’t just hear the Word, but obey the Word.

Yea, there is a relationship to experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit and obedience to the Word.

says, “But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.”

When the Word of God is heard and understood, then it causes a reaction within your soul.

That Isaiah passage says you tremble at his word.

I think this is why says, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

Because when you are in the Bible, something supernatural happens.

The Holy Spirit is working in your life.

He convicts.

He brings repentance.

He brings understanding.

And you experience that love and excitement that you are looking for.

It’s sad how many times, I’ve talked to Christians who say they don’t feel the presence of God in their life, and yet … they don’t read His Word.

I ask, “Are you reading your Bible?”

They say no.

Well, what do you expect?

Paul says we recieved the Spirit by “hearing with faith” and now you think you don’t need to hear?

There’s a correlation between the Spirit and hearing truth and being in truth.

Then remember Holy Spirit in your sanctification.

Do you ever look at old photo albums, look at old pictures?

As you look at those pictures you remember what those times were like.

Married couples, think of those pictures of when you were first married.

You had no money.

You were kids just beginning to act like grown ups.

Amanda and I have been married since she was 19.

We’ve got some awesome photos of our early years and us growing up.

But nothing shows that story better than our shopping patterns.

I remember Amanda and I grocery shopped for the first time as a married couple.

We could buy anything we wanted.

Any brand of cereal.

Any type of soda.

In our very first time shopping we bought a can of SPAM.

We don’t like SPAM.

We don’t eat SPAM.

But we bought that SPAM because we could.

We kept that can of SPAM.

In fact we never opened that can of SPAM.

And we still have that can of SPAM.

We’ve been married for 16 years.

Moved 3 times.

And we’ve kept that can of SPAM as a reminder of the early years of our marriage.

It’s good to look back on those early years of struggle.

In verse 4, Paul tells the Galatians to look back on their early years of conversion.

“Did you suffer so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain?”

Think about when you first became a Christian.

There were great victories.

There was great joy.

But there was also frustration.

You were learning.

You were repenting.

Repenting isn’t easy.

It times it hurt.

Maybe you stopped hanging out with certain people.

Stopped the drinking.

Stopped getting drunk.

Stopped partying.

Stopped gossiping.

You changed your finances.

You began giving.

You gave out of faith.

You didn’t know how you’d give and survive, but you did.

It wasn’t easy.

But the Lord provided.

Out of much suffering, you overcame sin.

And you saw fruit in this repentance.

Some of those people you used to party with, became Christians too.

You lost some friends.

But you gained a church family.

There was fruit from those early years.

Are you looking for joy in your walk?

Look back on where the Spirit has brought you.

Not as a way to boast, and say:

You’re all that.

Or that you are the perfect example of a Christian.

But as a way to be glad that God has truly changed your life.

When you look back at that painful growth you see the presence of God in your life.

It’s hard not to rejoice.

Then the last way to rekindle that zeal for God is to remember your experience with the Father.

Look at verse 5, “Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith—”

When you thank God, what do you thank Him for?

They don’t know what to thank Him for.

We are quick to thank Him for:

Our daily bread.

A roof over our head.

Our families.

But look what Paul goes to?

Paul recognizes that God has given us His Spirit and works miracles among us.

Do you want joy in your life, spiritual joy?

Do you want to have a zeal for God that is excited?

You don’t have to work to get God’s attention.

He’s not like the old pagan gods that required a young virgin to be thrown into a volcano for him to look at you.

As we look back on where we’ve been, God was never reacting to us.

He provides.

It begins with God supplying our needs.

God’s ability to supply needs is unlike any other resource we know.

This past week, Congress began working on a new universal health coverage law.

The goal is for every citizen to pay the same amount of money and receive the same amount of coverage, and for the federal government supply the funds.

The problem that they are encountering is that there is only so much money.

Therefore, it has been said that medical personnel will probably see lower wages, and less staff to meet the needs of all the people.

The government can’t provide all it wants.

This is not how God provides.

God supplies from a super abundance.

He never lacks.

says of God, “ … He does not faint or grow weary ...”

And out of that super abundance, God has provided His very Spirit, the Holy Spirit.

Just think about the extraordinary nature of that.

I can only be in one place at one time.

You can only be in one place at one time.

We have a hard time focusing on different tasks.

And at a certain point, we get overloaded.

But not so with God.

God is able to send His Spirit to abide and reside in every single Christian, and will never leave them.

And with the Spirit in our hearts, we can now pray.

God doesn’t get overwhelmed with all the saints, nor does He get tired of all of our prayers.

He can hear all of our prayers.

He can answer all of our prayers.

Not only does God send His Spirit, it says “he works miracles among you ...”

This means He works powerfully among you.

Through the Spirit, God has gifted you.

He has gifted you to work.

He provides the gifts.

He provides the strength.

What does all this mean?

It means if you are looking to rekindle that zeal for God, live and serve on the strength of God that He provides.

Serve with the gifts He provides.

There was another fairy tale I remember from when I was a kid.

It’s actually, an American fairy tale, it’s that of Rip Van Winkle.

A man who fell asleep for 20 years.

During that time he missed great American milestones.

Too many Christians act like they’ve been bewitched.

They start off on fire for the Lord … and then fizzle.

The cure to restoring a passion in your spiritual life is simple, remember your experience with the individual members of the Trinity.

And you can only wonder what has happened?

The cure to restoring a passion in your spiritual life is simple, remember your experience with the members of the Trinity.

Remember how it was God the Son who died for you.

Remember how it was the Spirit who regenerated you, and continues to work in you.

Remember the Father who strengthens you and supplies His Spirit in you.

In the old fairy tales there was always a quest to undo the curse.

The cure for our curse is found in the works of God that He has already done.