Sermon Transcript
Well, we’re going to get back into Galatians again this morning. We’re halfway through our study in Galatians. Isn’t that amazing? I mean, some of you feel like we’ve been there forever. So, we’re only halfway?
Well, actually, yeah, today is the halfway point. I hope it’s been an encouragement to you. I know it’s an encouragement to us as pastors. I mean, we’re getting a ton out of this. If you’re not getting a ton out of this, one of the things you could do is you could actually get that workbook that we’ve made available.
It’s free. It’s in the lobby. It’s on the little table there. Workbook on it, okay? And in the back of it, it has an example of how to do an inductive Bible study where you could just study along with us as we’re having this series on Sunday mornings.
But what we would encourage you to do is to first study the passage on your own before we look at it together, because if nothing else, then you’ll come together with us and you’ll be saying, I have no idea what they’re going to talk about this Sunday. So, whatever, you know, it does for you, but I hope that if you do that, you actually end up getting more out of what we’re studying together. And then after we have these studies together, then hopefully you look back at the passage and you kind of work with it some more. And so, really, you become like a recipient of the book of Galatians, of the letter that was written to the churches of Galatia, and it just begins to transform your life. So, we’re in Galatians chapter 4 this morning.
We’re in verses 8 to 20. If you didn’t bring a Bible along, you can use the message notes or the Bible in front of you there, or, you know, your app or whatever you’re going to use, but I hope you’ll turn there with us. We’re going to talk about an interesting subject. We’re talking about being at wit’s end with people today. Paul was at wit’s end with the believers in Galatia.
You ever been at wit’s end with somebody? You know what that means? You’re perplexed. You’re baffled. You can’t figure out why they don’t get it.
And all of those sorts of things. I mean, really, we say in this culture today, really? Are you kidding? Really? You really, you think that?
Are you kidding? It could be somebody that you care deeply about, somebody that you love, you spend a lot of time with. They could be a friend. They could be your spouse. I won’t, you know, ask you to raise your hand on that one, but it could be a schoolmate.
It could be a work associate, a student, a fellow Christian. I mean, yes, even a fellow Christian, a neighbor, a family member. It could be somebody that you’re connected to right now. It could be somebody that you used to be connected to and you got to wit’s end with them, and so you took them out of your life. I’m not suggesting that that’s the answer to what we’re going to talk about this morning.
So, in other words, it could be anybody. It could be you. If you can’t think of anybody that you’re at wit’s end with, you might just look at yourself and say, do I put people at wit’s end? This would be a great study for you this morning as you think about, you know, your relationship with other people. My mom, as I was studying this, I realized my mom used to say on more than one occasion, okay, like all the time to me, she would say, David Ray, you put me at wit’s end.
David— she always added the Ray part when, you know, it was a problem, and I was a problem a lot. And so, I mean, I admit it. I wish I could go back and apologize. When I get to heaven, we’ll have a good conversation of confession there with her. But she’s in heaven now, and so I can’t speak to her about this.
But she would often say to me, David, I’ve had it with your mouth. I’ve had it with your behavior. You make me want to pull my hair out. You know, and I didn’t want to do that. So you tried to listen, but you know how this goes.
So I’m sure, though, however, that I’m not the only person here that’s made other people miserable. Okay, you don’t have to look at the person next to you at this point, but all of us together can benefit by what the Apostle Paul focuses on here. How do you help somebody who’s putting you at wit’s end, and how do you help yourself not put others at wit’s end? I think you’re going to pick up a few items from what we’re going to look at this morning. Actually, this term is not found in the text, but there’s a word that actually gives this meaning.
Jump to the end of the passage we’re going to look at. Look at verses 19 and 20 where Paul writes this, my dear children. So, these are people that he cares about in Galatia. He cares deeply about them. For whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you.
How I wish I could be with you now and change my tone. So, he’s a little bit, you know, maybe harsh or, you know, pointed. He’s going to show a little bit of regret, we’re going to see in this passage, disbelief. So, I wish I could be with you now and change my tone because I am perplexed. And that’s the word that we get wits’ end out of.
Actually, the word perplexed here means literally to be at wits’ end. So, he’s saying, I am perplexed, or I am at wits’ end with your behavior, with your beliefs, with what’s going on. I can’t believe it. And like in our culture, we would say, really? Really?
Come on. Really? That’s what you— really? You prefer slavery over sonship? Really?
You prefer rules over relationship? Really? You prefer works over grace? Really? Come on.
I don’t get this. It’s like raising a son or daughter. It could be you. You’re being raised in the church, many of you. You know, you’re part of a Christian family.
And you’re raised in this church and you come to have these certain beliefs and you go to camp and student ministries and all the rest of it and you buy it. This is for me. I absolutely believe God wants relationship with me. I want a relationship with God. And so you embrace the relationship and then you go away to school and you give up the relationship.
It could put your parents and others at wit’s end where they’re saying to themselves, I don’t get it. You used to have all these former beliefs and commitments, but now you’ve traded your former beliefs and commitments for lesser beliefs and lesser practices and lesser lesser commitments. How does that happen? I don’t get it. Could you please explain that to me?
What do you do with somebody who puts you at wit’s end, who’s walked away? And this is what happened in the churches at Galatia. They had embraced the true gospel. They had embraced the message of salvation that’s found in Jesus Christ, that a person is saved by faith and not by works. So they had embraced all of that, but they’re walking away from it.
They’re trading the gospel for what Paul refers to as an un-gospel, a non-gospel, a no-gospel, a no-God gospel, that big G, little g thing there. What do you say to them? How do you help them? Well, at the outset, notice this in verse 19, just read 19 and 20. At the outset, you got to know it’s not going to be easy.
If we’re trying to help somebody who’s got us at wit’s end, it’s just not going to be easy. In fact, he likens what this is going to entail to the pain of childbirth. He’s saying, I gotta again go through the pains of childbirth with you. Now, I haven’t birthed a child, but Bernice has birthed 3 children, and so I’ve seen, you know, firsthand the pain of childbirth. And so I know I cannot completely, or in any way, I’ll just say it that way, I can’t relate.
To the pains of childbirth. I mean, all I know is that as I was watching Bernice go through the delivery process, the childbirth process, it made me say to the doctor, could you please take her pain away? That was my part in the whole childbirth process, all right? Could you please take her pain away? So many of you though, you know the pain, and what he’s saying here is that in spite of the pain, I’m gonna go back through this painful process again with you because I care deeply about what’s happening in your life right now.
Because you are a dear child of God, as we’ve just heard sung, because you are a person who Christ wants to be formed in. Do you see that in verse 19? The goal is, is that Jesus would be formed in us so that when people see us, they actually see Jesus Christ. They see qualities like found in Jesus Christ. And so, Paul is willing to endure the pain with somebody he is at wit’s end with, where he could have just said, you know what?
It was a fun time. You know, we had a good time together in Galatia. Remember, that was a really good time, but I am done, okay? I am done. He doesn’t say that.
He jumps back into this relationship. He doesn’t give up, and he wants to help them so that Christ is ultimately formed in them. So, what does he do? And what he did something that we can all do in relationships that put us at wit’s end, that perplex us. Go back to verse 8, and I want you just to see 3 matters that are important in helping a person.
He says this, verse 8, formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. By the way, that could be happening in our life right now. We could be slaves to those who are not gods. But we’re slaves to them because of their pressure, because of their zeal, their enthusiasm, you know, their appeal to us. Or it could just be a crowd of people.
So it could be a person, it could be a crowd, it could be your peers. We could all get hung up by our peers so that we are slaves to them. We’re enslaved by them. So we say or do things based upon what they will say and do based upon what we say and do. So, he’s saying, formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods.
They’re just ordinary people. But now that you know God, or rather are known by God, and the word known here is a word of intimacy, you have an intimate relationship with God. Now that you know God, how is it, he says, how is it that you’re turning back to those weak and miserable principles, to those rules and regulations that used to run your life? Do you wish to be enslaved? Notice the word slave there.
Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You’re going to go back and get under that system again. You are observing, and here he’s very specific, you are observing, this is one of the problems, you’re observing special days and months and seasons and years. I fear for you that somehow I’ve wasted my efforts on you. Can you imagine a person getting to that point in their relationship with you?
Can you— I’m just— I’m not sure that it was worth it. All the labor, all the pain, all the stuff that we did together, I’m kind of feeling like it was just a wasted effort. Well, that’s somebody who’s at wit’s end. I plead with you, brothers, become like me, for I became like you. And what was Paul?
He’s saying, become like me. What was he? What is he trying to get across here? He’s free. He’s free.
And they’re enslaved. And he said, don’t go back there. You remember how I became like you? You remember how— and you often, you see this working out in Paul’s life and ministry. To the Jew, he became a what?
He became a Jew. And to the Greek, he became a what? He became a Greek. So I became like you because I wanted to help you see Jesus Christ and connect with Christ. I became like you so that you could become like me.
I was somebody who used to be under the law, but now I’m no longer under this Jewish law. This code of systems. I’m no longer under that, but I’m free. And so I hope that you would become free like I am now free. Now, what’s Paul beginning with here?
What he wants them first of all to see is what they will lose. What they will lose. And one of the things that we can do in a conversation with a person who’s got us at wit’s end is we could talk about what they will lose if they push away from God and toward rules. What they will lose is what? It’s freedom.
It’s freedom. They’re just enslaving themselves again. Is that a big deal? It was big enough of a deal for Paul to sit down and write an entire letter to them. And as we heard last week when we were talking about, as Dan helped us understand, the inheritance that we have in Jesus Christ, I mean, one of the factors that’s in our inheritance is freedom.
I mean, why in the world would you ever go back into enslavement again? That just That baffles me. It puzzles me. I don’t get it. So he says, so I fear for you that somehow I’ve wasted my efforts.
I plead with you, brothers, become like me as I became like you. You know, it’s fascinating, but this happens, that people can fall under the spell of others, people who are not gods by nature. Verse 8, ordinary people, they can fall under their spell and these ordinary people can get a grip on our lives to the degree that we would give up our freedoms, we would give up our freedoms and find ourselves in enslavement to weak and miserable principles, in this case, weak and miserable principles connected to observing days, verse 9, and months and seasons and years. So, we’re talking here about the Sabbaths, the weekly Sabbath, that they were bound by the weekly Sabbath and all that they could or could not do by that. I mean, they had 39 laws of things they could not do on the Sabbath.
That’s just enough right there to say, I’m done with the rules and the regulations. And months, like holidays such as the new moon, the new moon was on the first day of every month, and it included a ritual system of animal sacrifices, of offerings, of trumpet blasts. It also included time off from work, but maybe you want to have, you know, time off from work. You say, I’m buying into the new moon thing, or whatever it is. But there was so much other baggage that was connected to this and other seasons such as Passover and Pentecost and Tabernacles.
Those were seasonal festivals, and there were years such as Sabbatical and Jubilee years where they were prescribed to do certain things and not to do other things. In other words, what Paul is saying, Listen, now that you’re a Christ follower, you don’t got to go back to Egypt. Why in the world would you ever go back to Egypt? Why? I mean, why would you put yourself under that ritual system, that rule system?
That’s not something that you any longer need to be bound by. You’re free in Jesus Christ. You know, it kind of reminds you of the Israelites that when Moses came in, and of course Moses was the deliverer that God sent after the 400 years where the Israelites were in bondage in Egypt. Do you remember this? And after God delivered them, he was taking them to the land of promise, to the land of milk and honey.
That was the promise. And so he was leading them out of Egypt to this land, but things got a little bit rough on the way. And so many of them said, you know what, we just want to go back to Egypt. Like, what? Are you really?
Can you— let’s talk about that. You want to go back to bondage again? I mean, we’re on our way to the land of milk and honey, to the Promised Land. Are you kidding me? Why would you ever want to go back?
And that’s in essence what Paul is saying here. Why do you want to go back? You heard of the name John Newton? John Newton never wanted to forget of the enslaved life that he was rescued from. And so he had this scripture placed on a sign over his mantle, over his fireplace mantle.
It was the words, you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt and the Lord your God redeemed you. He put it up there because he never wanted to forget that. You know who John Newton is? John Newton was the guy that wrote the hymn Amazing Grace. And he was saved out of a life of evil, really, just evil.
His mother died at 7. That’s not, you know, what made him evil, but he lost his mother at age 7. At age 11, he went to sea as a sailor, and he became involved in inhumane slave trafficking. Inhumane slave trafficking. Soon he was hardened by the evil that he was involved in.
In fact, It was said that he outdid his companions in immorality, in vulgarity, and also in blasphemy of God. I mean, he just was living an evil life. But at the age of 23, he was on a ship and they got caught in a severe storm. He thought for sure that he was going to lose his life, and so he cried out to God for mercy, and God miraculously saved him. Not only did he save the You know, the people on the ship, kinda like the Paul, you know, deal.
But he saved him, he converted him, he saved him. God saved him. And never wanting to forget that, Newton put this over his mantle, his fireplace mantle, from Deuteronomy 15:15: You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you. You know who that is spoken to? It’s actually spoken to the children of those who were enslaved.
It’s spoken to their children because this is the book of Deuteronomy, and Deuteronomy comes after those people that were enslaved in Egypt have died in the wilderness. Do you remember the story? How they just kept saying to God, no, no, no, no. And finally, when God brought them to the Promised Land, they refused to go back in. And so they died in the wilderness over a period of 40 years.
40 years, one death after another. Until then, the children are standing before the Promised Land. It’s a second opportunity to go into this wonderful land of opportunity. And Moses says to the children, you shall remember that you were a slave. In the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you.
Don’t ever forget what God liberated you from. And Newton never wanted to forget that. You know, my mother, when she wanted me to get it ultimately, you know what she’d say to me? She would say something along the lines, the freedom lines. It was connected to freedom.
She’d basically say, Dave, You know, I could take away your freedoms and put you in slavery. I could ground you for the rest of your life. In fact, I’m thinking about grounding you for the rest of your life. We never went down that road that far, but, you know, she could have. The other thing that she did was she would take away the keys to her car.
I just didn’t understand it. She took away the keys to her car. I mean, what’s that? There was the one thing that, you know, I absolutely loved was the privilege of driving the car. And if I wasn’t going to be the kind of kid that, you know, she could trust and that she would receive respect from, she could take away my freedoms.
She could take away the car. And in essence, what Paul is trying to do here is remind them of the freedom that is theirs in Christ. Do you really want to lose that? I mean, do you really want to cash that in? Come on, really?
Is that really the road that you want to go down? When my mom talked about me losing my freedoms, it got through. We can share with the person who has us at wit’s end what they could end up losing, and we know for sure they will lose freedom. They will lose freedom. But there’s more.
He goes on and then he says, you have done me no wrong, verse 12, the last part, which is to say this isn’t a personal issue with me and you. Okay? It’s bigger than that. As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you. Even though my illness was a trial to you, you did not treat me with contempt or scorn.
Instead, you welcomed me as if I were an angel of God, as if I were Christ Jesus himself. What has happened to all your joy? I can testify that if you could have done so, you would have torn out your eyes given them to me. Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth? These people are zealous to win you over, but for no good.
What they want is to alienate you from us so that you may be zealous for them. It is fine to be zealous, providing the purpose is good, and to be so always and not just when I am with you. Now, one of the things we could do is what he does here. With somebody who has us at wit’s end, we’re perplexed, baffled, one of the things we could do is we could talk about what they could lose. What they will lose is freedom, but we can also talk about what they could lose, and what they could lose is friendship.
They could lose the friendship that we share. Because of what they end up in, it could alienate this relationship. It could result in us being enemies. In this relationship. See, what Paul does here, and I think this is fascinating, is he actually gets very, very personal with them.
And he goes back and he recounts the life that they used to share together and all the things that they did. And he even gets so transparent that he says, do you remember my sickness? You loved me even in my sickness. Evidently, it was because of his sickness that he ended up in Galatia. That’s what he’s saying here.
You know, he wasn’t— it sounds like he wasn’t planning on having a ministry in Galatia, but because of sickness, he was put into a situation where he landed in Galatia. And because he landed in Galatia, he preached the gospel. And evidently, these people befriended Paul. They befriended him. The people of Galatia helped Paul.
They responded to his weakened condition and gave him the help that he needed. In fact, it says in verse 14 that they even treated Paul, listen to this, as if he was an angel of God. That’s wonderful. And they even treated him like he was Jesus Christ, like he was Jesus Christ. They could have treated him with, notice the word in verse 14, contempt.
They could have counted him, it means to be counted as nothing or to be worthless in others’ eyes. They could have treated him with contempt. They could also have treated him with scorn, and that word means spit, spit. In the ancient world, physical affliction was viewed as a form of divine judgment. So because of the illness that Paul had, they could have said, this guy doesn’t have God.
I mean, otherwise he would not be sick. And so, in essence, they could have scorned him or spit, so to speak, on who he was as a person. They could have just said, you know what? We want nothing to do with you. Get out of here.
But instead, they formed a special relationship with Paul, even to the point that they would have given him their eyes if they could, which is one of the reasons why some people, when they look at this unnamed illness, think that maybe it had something to do with his eyes. You know, some kind of eye disease or something like that. And that’s why the people are saying, if we could have given you our eyes, we would have. But, you know, eye surgery like that wasn’t available back then, or other reasons. We don’t actually know.
All he’s doing is recounting for them this relationship that they shared. But he’s also saying to them, because of where you’re going right now in the pull toward these other people, it could end up such that we are enemies. I mean, we were friends, we shared together in an intimate relationship, and not just enemies, but then verse 17, we would be alienated from each other. We would— the relationship would be polarized. And instead of us putting our zeal into the right things, and in this case, they were zealous, they were zealous for what these other people were telling them that they needed to be zealous for, which were the rules and the rituals regulations and the rituals and all of that stuff.
He’s saying, you know, it’s fine to be zealous, but you’ve got to be zealous for the right things. You’ve got to be zealous not for what’s wrong, but you need to be zealous for, for what’s right. So what’s Paul doing here? He’s just getting very, very personal with them. He’s expressing how he feels.
He’s expressing how valuable this relationship was to them, to him, and it was to them even at that time. He’s expressing to them the love that they shared. He’s expressing to them the care that they shared, even the degree of care that they shared for the Apostle Paul. In other words, he’s saying, you know, after all that we’ve been through, after all that we’ve been through, you’re giving your heart to somebody else. You’re giving your heart to somebody you hardly even know.
You’re giving your heart to somebody who doesn’t love you as much as I love you. You’re giving your heart to somebody who has ulterior motives and deceitful promises, somebody whose life and beliefs are ultimately going to bite them in the end.
Is that really the road that you want to go down? And many of you, as you now begin to hear this story, you’re thinking about that relationship that you once had, a relationship with a spouse, a relationship with a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a son or a daughter or a friend, and that relationship has been ripped from you. It’s been ripped from you. So what do you do? Well, one of the things you can do in this relationship that has you at wit’s end is that you could just be very honest.
You could be very candid. You could be very transparent with them. And you can take them back. And don’t assume— don’t assume they’re going to remember what you used to have. Take them back and talk about it.
Take them back and talk to them about, you remember when? And you remember when I was ill? You remember how you nursed me back to health?
And do you remember what we did together? And do you remember your love for the Lord? Appeal to them through the relationship. Friend, we’ve traveled too far. We’ve shared too much.
We’ve sacrificed too much. Don’t throw it away.
Don’t throw it away. Please don’t do that. Words like that can have an amazing impact on a relationship, especially one that’s at wit’s end. And again, I just go right back to my mother and, and how she was willing to do that kind of thing with me because of the relationship. She did not want to lose the relationship.
A couple years ago, Bernice and I had coffee over at Pete’s with a couple, and this couple was upset at us as a church, especially us as staff, some of the beliefs that we have. And they were upset primarily though for a lack of a particular rule. They said, we’re not sure we could continue to go to this church without this rule.
So we had a long face-to-face, heart-to-heart conversation about that, and it was sad. It was sad because ultimately they left the church because of a rule. It’s not a rule you’re going to find in the Bible anywhere. It was their rule. It was a rule that is their rule because they heard somebody else has that rule, and they’re imposing on us somebody else’s rule that seemed to makes sense for them and it landed with them.
You know, oftentimes it’s rules that destroy relationships. It’s true. Rules get in the way of a relationship. Man-made rules get in the way of a relationship. Boy, I tell you, if your relationship is all about rules, your relationship is in trouble.
It’s in trouble.
You know, when Mom stepped into my life my first year in college, she still had a lot to work with. I still didn’t have it together. I still don’t have it together, but that’s another story. But she stepped into my life and she said some things that actually landed. They landed.
Hit me like a ton of bricks. It was exactly what I needed to hear. And it concerned the relationship. Concerned my relationship with the family. Concerned my relationship with school, which wasn’t a great relationship.
Concerned my relationship with God. Concerned my future. Whatever relationship I would have with my future. You know, when I thought she stepped into my life, I thought she was really old. I think that’s what you guys all think about us.
You think we’re old. I was wrong. She was not old. You know how old she was when she had this heart-to-heart with me? The biggest heart-to-heart she ever had with me.
She was 34.
She was 34. And I thought she was an old person. I was so wrong.
She’s just like a spring chicken, you know, 34. 34. But she had the courage to sit down with her son David, who was going the wrong direction. Now some of you are figuring this out. You say, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.
Didn’t you just say you were like in first year of college when she had the conversation? 34?
She must have had you when she was really young. Yes, she did. She got married at 16. She had me at 17, 10 months after she got married. She told me that.
You be thinking anything, David?
34. Why did she sit down? Because she cared about me and she cared about the relationship and she shared her heart. And that’s what the Apostle Paul is doing here. There might be somebody in your life right now who’s put you at wit’s end, and one of the things they need to hear is what they could lose.
And what they could lose is a relationship. It can alienate the relationship, what they’re doing. You could even end up as an enemy because of what they’re doing.
What do you do? Talk about what they lose, could lose, will lose— freedom. You can talk about what they could lose is friendship. But you could also talk about what they’ve already lost. And what have they already lost?
Well, this is verse 15. What’s happened to all your joy?
What’s happened to all their joy? What have they already lost is joy. I mean, do you remember how wonderful it was when you were walking with the Lord? Do you remember the excitement that was in your life and you were filled with joy and you were just eager to love God more and more and joy was just so much a part of your life? But now legalism has robbed you of joy.
Instead of joy, you know, continuing to increase, now you become a bitter person. That’s what people with rules are all about. Oftentimes, you know, they frown on everything and, and it’s— and then they look like they’ve been sucking on lemons. You seen this?
I’m not saying that we did this intentionally, but I am gonna say it. We’ve taken all of our grandkids out, you know, at different times for breakfast with the family and all that sort of thing. And when they’re very young and they get into that point where they’re just about ready to start eating, you know, they’re just, you know, chomping on the bit, so to speak, to try out different foods and that sort of thing, and you take them out for breakfast and you get to the restaurant, usually what happens is when you’re at the restaurant, they don’t serve the food quickly enough for, you know, the young kids, right? So, but they do serve water, so you could serve your kid, you know, your real young grandson water, but you could also serve them what usually comes with the water, which is A lemon. A lemon.
So what we have seen several times from our grandchildren is, is that they’re so hungry and they see the lemon and, oh, I want the lemon, I want the lemon, but they can’t talk. So, you know, we get— you get the idea. You just got to give them something. So they’re, they’re just so excited about the lemon. So you give them the lemon.
I mean, it’s the grandpa kind of thing to do, right? You just, you give them the lemon. You know what’s coming. You know how right now they’re really happy, happy. They have their happy, happy, happy face.
And then you give them the lemon, and as soon as they suck on the lemon, their faces turn from happy, happy to sour, sour, sour disgust. You’ve seen this before? I’ve seen this before several times, and they never want the lemon again. See, that’s the picture here. You guys used to be so filled with joy, but now you look like you’ve been sucking on lemons.
Are you kidding? It’s kind of like going and living in Phoenix, Arizona for the summer where the temperatures go up. When the temperatures go up, with Dave Gudgel there and Bernice Gudgel there, we lasted 7 summers. That’s how you count how many years you’ve been at Phoenix. But anyway, so we, we made it through 7 summers, and as the temperature went up, our joy went down.
Our joy went— it did. I mean, there were some people that loved it. We didn’t. We would try to find any shade that we could wherever we went. We would even use the palm tree shade.
That was fine. We’ll just stand in the palm tree shade just to lower the temperature right now. But we did not really get off on the temperature, right? The 100-plus degree days, 100-plus days in a row and all that stuff. Joy would drop.
Well, what he’s saying here is the same thing. You go down the rules road and joy is going to take a nosedive. Joy is going to take a nosedive. So I’ll come back again to this. If right now your relationships are surviving on rules, you’re in trouble.
Your relationship is in trouble because ultimately joy comes out of a relationship. It does not come out of the rules. And the temptation for us when relationships have trouble is to go back to more and more rules. It’s kind of like, you know, the kids are making it challenging for you right now, so you dump the rules on them when what they really need is an elevated relationship.
There’s a place for guidelines, there’s a place for rules, but if rules supersede the relationship, you’re in trouble. Joy’s gonna take a nosedive. So Paul is just trying to help these people who put him at wit’s end. And it’s amazing. I mean, you might even think, why bother?
I mean, come on, we’re just talking about like freedom. Well, yeah, that’s why. Because he deeply cares that ultimately Jesus Christ would be formed in them. And he knows that for Christ to be formed in them, it’s got to come out of a vibrant relationship. That they share with God through Jesus Christ.
Well, let’s pray. Lord, thanks for speaking to us this morning. We pray that you would help us as we’ve examined another text in this book that is given to us to help us sort out relationship and roles. How does it balance? How does it all fit together?
We know that right now there are people all around us that need this kind of help. Some of them are in our home. In some cases, it’s us. And we know that we cannot do this without you and us in a relationship with you, genuine, vibrant, growing, life-changing relationship. So help us.
Grow in intimacy with you and intimacy with others. May we find forgiveness for our sins. May we find courage to step into challenging situations and say what needs to be said, what’s appropriate, what needs to be heard, even when it involves our personal feelings, personal thoughts, even when it goes deep into the love that we share.
And Father, may we truly understand what it means to be free in Christ. May it liberate us from, as we’ve sung, it may liberate us from fear, may it liberate us from guilt, May it liberate us from shame.
And Lord, I pray if there’s anybody here that does not know you as their Savior, that even today they would embrace your love, not through a rule, but through a relationship.
And we’ll give you thanks. We pray these things in Jesus’ name. Amen.
