For your life today in Galatians, we're going to be
looking at who gets the glory for your life.
If it hasn't happened already, I imagine it has.
A Christian brother or sister is going to break your heart there,
or if you're not a heartbreaking kind of person, they're going to
irritate you, disappoint you, infuriate you.
There's going to be a break in a relationship.
And we know that we're supposed to sustain Christian unity.
But I would say that it is only with the grace of Jesus that
that can begin to happen. And so as we think today about a
conflict in the churches in Galatia with Paul and how he
responded, I just want to say I'm aware that we often have in
our own hearts and our own relationships brokenness,
disappointment, anger, or heartbreak.
So we're going to go to Galatians Chapter 1, and I want
to recontextualize you to the social pressures that Craig
mentioned last week were happening for these people.
All right? The first thing is that in their
communities, it was the norm to worship idols.
It was the good luck charm. Everybody knew who was doing it.
And if you weren't doing it, guess what happens when there's
a flood, When there's a drought, it's your fault.
And you brought this curse on the whole community.
So there was some stress on Christians that they needed to
be doing what would appease their community.
There was also what was becoming the most popular worship was
worshiping Caesar. So now this has got political
issues. And who's going to approve you
for work permits and the equivalent of that of the day
this started to have who was going to get to rise to power?
They needed to have the approval of the community so that they
could flourish economically and politically.
Now there was what was called the Jewish pass on idol worship.
And the agreement went something like this.
All right, we get you are weird and you can't worship idols.
So instead of praying to Caesar, we're going to let you pray for
Caesar. And they had a agreement that
let everything let them not have to worship.
And so the early church was a Jewish sect from all external
observations, and they were benefiting from the Jewish past.
And there was fear. But you don't look Jewish and
you don't act Jewish. And when you go to the local
gymnasium, in the local baths and you take off your clothes,
you really men don't look Jewish.
And so you are going to get us in trouble with the government
and with our communities. And so the social pressure was
profound for our Christian brothers and sisters to conform
to get the Jewish pass. Do you get it?
There was economic pressure, there was social pressure and
there was religious pressure. So now we're going to read in
Galatians one starting with verse 10.
AM I now trying to win the approval of human beings or of
God? And, and just so you know, you
hear attitude of my voice because Paul's writing right
here is hot and heated and hurried.
It's not his pretty prose. He is giving them a bit of a
what for here. Am I now trying to win the
approval of human beings or of God?
Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please
people, I would not be a servant of Christ.
I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I
preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any
man, nor was I taught it. Rather, I received it by
revelation from Jesus Christ. Paul starts off with Whose good
job was he looking for? And he said, I am looking for
the good job from my Heavenly Father.
Jesus talked about the well done, good and faithful servant.
We want that. I believe that you probably
wouldn't be here this morning if you didn't want the well done,
good and faithful servant, the good job from the Lord.
But the problem is, is that we also have the social pressures.
We have familial pressures. And so I think that words from
Matthew chapter 6 matter. Let me just turn there in
Matthew 6, starting with verse 19.
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth where moths
and vermin destroy and where thieves break in and steal.
But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moths
and vermin do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in
and steal. For where your treasure is,
there your heart will be also. The eye is the lamp of the body.
If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of
light. But if your eyes are unhealthy,
your whole body will be full of darkness.
If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that
darkness? No one can serve 2 masters.
Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be
devoted to the one and despise the other.
You cannot serve both God and money.
We know this, but often our lives look like people who are
serving multiple masters because we actually want our parents,
our peers, and for those of you still in school, we want our
profs. Good job.
And so we become divided in our actual hearts because we're
looking for more than one approval.
When we were singing this morning, we were singing about.
I'm not called to tend to grief. And you may or may not know, but
Craig's mom passed away and her funeral was this week.
And in the mountains where she's from, we're supposed to plant
flowers next spring on the grave.
And all of a sudden, I had a panic and I looked at Craig as
we were leaving. I'm like, flowers.
How are we? Who do we get?
What? How do we come back now?
Of all the heartbreak that the last six months has had in his
mom's health, you may realize he's been traveling to take care
of her. But even when he was here, he
was being called or texted almost daily for medical
decisions. All of the things that have gone
on in the last six months. Worrying about flowers for next
spring is really a bit ridiculous.
But as we sang today about tending the grave, I realized I
was feeling guilty because I'm not going to get to do my job,
probably to put the violets that she always put for her mom's
grave. And I remembered something that
Craig said years ago. He says my call to Vancouver and
to follow Jesus may end up costing my parents more than it
has cost me. And sometimes the following
after Jesus means that there are some people that get
disappointed. Paul is writing a letter in
Galatians one to people that aren't just disappointed but
they're now maligning him. Sometimes we have that division
between are we serving 2 masters because we have more than one
division of life. When I was a first time mom, you
may or may not know, but I was like four times around.
But on the first one, I had this real, Oh my gosh, what am I
doing? Well in many areas.
But one of the tears was I really wanted to be with this
child, but then I wasn't developing a career or I'd let
it stall and go back. And I was realizing that I'm
getting my first choice of life, taking care of this baby, but
I'm grieving and mad about not getting to do my second choice.
And I was a divided person for a little bit because I had more
than one vision of how to live my life.
And so when you think about no one can serve 2 masters, think
also, whose approval do we want? What pressures come in on you?
Our lives are not at risk in the same way that the church in
Galatia may have been, but there are still social pressures that
are economic, that are around politics, that are around family
issues that come in and make us want to try and please our
peers, our professors, our parents, and their visions of
our life, while we also want God's good job.
And so Paul is making clear and very blunt in these verses who
he is serving. Y'all took my marker out.
Just give me a second. So I'm going to start to say,
when we have conflict, I think it's often around different
visions of reality, different visions of life.
And we think our brothers and sisters should have the same
understanding and should have the same ways of thinking.
And so Paul is here and he's basically correcting them and
he's saying in no uncertain terms, y'all are going the wrong
way with the gospel you were making.
Now this is a paraphrase, but they were making more rules than
God had. They were going to make people
get circumcised, follow Jewish dietary laws so that they could
be politically safe. And they were saying when Paul
said it was not necessary, that Paul didn't have the authority
to say that, that they needed to be listening to the apostles.
And so now Paul comes to tell his story.
And in his story he talks about how Jesus revealed himself to
him and then through him. So let's read in verse 11.
I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that the gospel I
preached is not of human origin. I did not receive it from any
man, nor was I taught it. Rather, I received it by
revelation from Jesus Christ. For you have heard of my
previous way of life in Judaism, how intensely I persecuted the
Church of God and tried to destroy it.
I was advancing in Judaism beyond many of my own age, among
my people, and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my
Father's. But when God, who set me apart
from my mother's womb and called me by His grace, was pleased to
reveal his Son and me so that I might preach him among the
Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human
being. I did not go up to Jerusalem to
see those who are apostles before I was, but I went into
the into Arabia later. I returned to Damascus.
Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to get acquainted
with Cephas and stayed with him 15 days.
I saw none of the other apostles, only James, the Lord's
brother. I assure you before God that
what I am writing to you is no lie.
Now, yes, Paul is giving a testimony here.
You can read in Acts, if you want, the other three tellings
of the miraculous way Jesus did reveal himself.
But let me tell you why there's a kind of speech we often get
into to justify ourselves. Paul is not so much justifying
himself we're going to see, but he is justifying the work, the
call, and the revelation of Jesus.
So I want us to look at a diagram.
There's a lot to unpack, and I'm not going to unpack it all.
But what I want you to see is that when something happens
between us, there's an event. I see or hear something.
And then before we feel and act, we tell ourselves a story.
Now, let me tell you why this matters, because we believe
we're not always conscious of this.
We believe our story's the truth.
And so when our story is coming out, we can't believe the other
person is doing this. And do you see this little tell
a lie? That's not from the diagram,
That's from my culture of origin.
When somebody was telling a story and you didn't believe it,
or maybe you believed it. But now today we might go
really, well, we'd say tell a lie like you got to prove this
is true, OK. And so they had a whole story
created that Paul was LAX on what God wanted.
And so he is being labeled and attacked.
The churches are withdrawing from his teaching.
And the reason Paul is coming in to tell a story is he's calling
out their tell a lie. Now what he is doing is that
they had a story that they really should only now listen to
the Jerusalem apostles and that he, Paul was telling something
different. So when you were in conflict,
when you were hurt, when you're angry, disappointed, whatever
your emotional volume is. So if I live through something,
my emotional volume gets loud quickly, both joyfully and
negatively. Some people, Craig will be like,
yeah, I don't think I've ever experienced quite that much
fury, or it's just his volume of options is not quite as loud as
my emotions. So when I'm saying conflict,
think however you experience that, realize that we can act
like the story we're telling ourselves is the truth.
And the way the Lord broke me of this, in some ways it doesn't.
I'm not fully saved at it is Craig and I had a really good
friend, really honourable character and all of a sudden he
became the most unreliable friend we had.
And you know, you think, OK, he's got something going on, but
we're close enough that we would know.
We knew his extended family, we knew his roommates, we knew so
much about and he was just unreliable and and we couldn't
figure out what was happening. And about a year later, it came
out that he had a life threatening chronic illness, was
worried about judgement that would go with the illness and
didn't tell anybody like he told no one.
His medical team knew. And for actually, I said it was
a year later, but it wasn't. It was a couple of years later,
no one knew. And I realized that in trying to
understand the behavior that hurt me and I didn't understand,
I had told myself a bunch of stories trying to make it make
sense. And so Paul gives them some
clarity and the thing that Paul does is he starts to tell them
all about their life. I think if we can go back to
verses 11 and 12 for just a second, all right?
He, Paul tells them that he received what he had preached by
a revelation from Jesus Christ. Do you see the veil there?
So the word here for revelation is related to apocalypse, but
we're not talking about some random zombie apocalypse.
We're talking about the revelation of God.
And in this, do you remember when Jesus died, what happened
to the veil? It was torn, and it was torn
from top to bottom. Not the easy way of bottom to
top. When Jesus died and was
resurrected, the Holy of Holies was opened up for us to have
access to God. And God chose to step in and
reveal himself in a very unique way to Paul on the road to
Damascus with the light, with the scales.
And he is saying, I received an unveiling of who Jesus was.
And when we say that we are following Jesus, very few of us
have a shining light kind of moment.
But what we all have is a way where Jesus has revealed himself
to us through Scripture, through experience, through the still
small voice. And so we want to become people
who can say that I receive the revelation of Jesus.
He is giving it to you. I hope you're receiving it.
And so why is he saying this is because in the story they're
saying he's nothing. And he's saying I am not on my
own something. But because of the revelation of
Jesus, I have something to say that you need to hear.
Now, in Galatians 113 through 17, Paul is pulling out.
We might call it a race card, but here he's pulling out his
religious card. And because we don't have the
same background, we might miss it.
But he's like I persecuted for Judaism, the Church of God, I
was advancing. He was highly educated, He was
zealous. And then when even when he says,
but when God who set me apart from my mother's womb.
Did you notice when we read this morning in Isaiah 49, he is
nodding to this passage and then he's also nodding to Jeremiah's
call. So we can't catch all the echoes
and the illusions that Paul is making or I can't.
Y'all might be able to without some of the but he is letting
them know I'm as Jewish as they come.
Don't you be calling me out for that.
I know the truth and that is what he's actually saying when
we read it. Then he goes on and says I was
pleased to and called me by his Grace was pleased to reveal his
son in me. Guess what that word reveal is?
If it's your own Bible, you're looking at circle revelation and
circle reveal, and those are both unveiled.
And I want to say that Jesus is being unveiled in you and you
may be not as clear because Paul knew I might preach him among
the Gentiles. He knew specifically because
Jesus said specifically. But you have Jesus being
unveiled in you and you're like, well, I don't know.
Well, you know enough from Scripture about telling the
truth, about loving your neighbor, forgiving your those
that wronged you, loving your enemies.
There's enough of that that you know that Jesus is being
revealed in you. And if you're having trouble
finding the revelation of Jesus in your own life, then sit down.
Sit down with Josh or Susan or Peter or Michaela with your life
group leader with me. And when Craig comes back with
him, sit down with Prince and brothers and sisters in Christ
that know you and say, where do you see Jesus revealed in me?
Because Paul could come back to the stories they were telling
themselves and he could call out, tell a lie because he knew
what was Jesus was revealing in him.
He knew his call and then he goes on.
My immediate response was not to consult any human being.
The gospel that Paul was preaching came from Jesus, not
from people. When you share what God has
done, are you a parrot? Are you a parody, or are you
sharing the word that Jesus has given you?
Because people have no not much patience for a parrot.
They scoff at the parody of sharing the faith, but they want
to know somebody has met and that Jesus is being revealed in
them. Now he goes on to tell them he
didn't go to Jerusalem, but he went to Arabia.
Guess what? That's another place where he's
going. Let me show you how Jewish I
was. I went where Elijah went.
I went where Moses went. I am not nothing.
I went for three years to meet with the Lord in the places the
prophets went. And sometimes Joshua was talking
about the retreat. We do go away because we need to
meet with the Lord. There is business that only God
can do in our hearts. And then he later returned to
Damascus, his hometown. Three years later, he went up to
Jerusalem. Now here's what's funny about
that. I would miss this.
But when he was going to Jerusalem three years later, one
of the observers said, you know, it would have been easier if he
didn't share that detail. And here's why, because they're
going, see, I knew it. I knew it.
You went. And if he just kind of glossed
over that. But when you're in conflict,
just tell the truth. I also want to point out Paul is
not in conflict with the people. He is in conflict with the
distortion of the gospel of Jesus.
So his hot and heated is because he loves the grace of Jesus and
what he wants to do in people's lives and they're trying to add
on more rules. So I ask you in the next slide,
I couldn't find a rational all the torn veil looked like horror
films with some Halloween tour. So I couldn't find an image that
worked. So I want you to imagine the
torn veil in the Holy of Holies. Jesus did that not just for
Paul, not just for the churches in Galatia, but for us.
So how is Jesus revealed in you in this week?
What is the unveiling of the power of the grace of the truth
of the gospel in your life this week?
When we're in conflict, we need to go back and re inhabit and
revisit what is the good news that Jesus has for us, for our
relationships, for our communities, for our future,
because this conflict was ultimately connected to fears
about their future and their safety because of the social
pressures. And so where is Jesus being
revealed in you? Now?
Let's look at what happened. There was some praising of God
because of me. So in verse 21, then I went to
Syria and Cilicia, I was personally unknown to the
churches of Judea that are in Christ.
They only heard the report that the man who formerly persecuted
us is now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy and they
praised God because of me. So really what happened is that
the gatherings, the called out ones of Judea were in Christ and
they praised God because of me. Who's praised God because of you
this week? And maybe they don't know it's
Jesus in you, but we in the original moment are not just
doing that for you to meet each other.
We're actually having the original moment.
So you, like Paul can say here is how Jesus was revealed in my
week and because of this I'm praising God or someone else was
enriched in praising God. And so I have to be honest, I
remember reading Paul's letters as a teenager and I didn't like
them. I was like, this is not somebody
I'd want to be friends with. He's right arrogant isn't he?
Who goes around saying well they're praising God because of
me. Like it's not it's not OK.
But what he is doing and the reason for the seemingly self
justification that I didn't know the I this time I'm remembering
him being appalled. The reason was not to protect
himself and it was not to self promote.
But the reason he is saying that God got the glory is because
that is what he's calling out for in the church in Galatia or
churches, and that the churches were willing to break unity for
their social, political, economic safety.
What are you willing to break Unity for?
And how do you use the stories of the work of God in your life?
Are they to make yourself look good?
Are they to make somebody else feel guilty?
That's awkward, but I think we can.
Or are the stories of your life the natural overflow in your
speech, bringing glory to Jesus because that is what a life is
in Christ is to do. So we have a bunch of crazy
pictures. Thank you, Canva, good job.
I've been watching a show, Mika a little bit with me, and my
favorite character does a good job all the time.
I like the character, I like the show, but it makes it cutesy.
But it is not wrong to long for approval.
It is natural, it is human. We are actually wired to one
approval. But where I think we struggle is
when we have more than one master whose approval we want.
And so I ask you, whose approval are you seeking?
Recognizing that when I choose God's approval, there's a cost
to other people, not just myself.
And then I say, what is the revelation of Jesus that you
have had in your life? And in that revelation, think
about it, Jesus had come to do business with Paul on the road
to Damascus, and then Jesus had business for Paul to do and
sharing the good news. And that is what Paul is about
here. I am going to protect the truth
in the gospel. And then I come back to where
are you? Angry, hurt, disappointed, some
type of conflict instead of cheap, Let's hold hands and sing
kumbaya. And I'm not above that.
As a Mama, my children started acting the fool and couldn't
work it out. They'd have to sit on the sofa
as kids and hold hands and sing kumbaya just because I had no
other strategy by then when we got there.
But they would start laughing and it actually helped a little.
So I'm not saying I'm not above hold hands sing kumbaya, because
sometimes to make a wake forward in heartbreak means I have to
sit where I don't want to sit. And this is not what you're
going to get on an Instagram app or a podcast because our society
has decided it is perfectly fine to cut off people that make me
uncomfortable. But the Gospel of Jesus has said
that if I can bring dead bodies back to life and resurrect
Jesus, I can resurrect relationships.
So when you are in conflict, hurt, disappointment, anger,
whatever your tone for the the break in the relationship is,
where is Jesus? How is he getting lifted up in
the midst of the heartbreak? And so follow the glory.
And when the glory goes to him, you can be pretty sure that is
messy and hard and uncomfortable as the working it out is.
If Jesus is getting some glory, you're right where you need to
be. Let's pray Jesus.
I thank you for Paul who knew how to be human.
He knew how to correct and confront and tell a church when
they were going the wrong way. He knew when to not share all of
his business and when to tell a bit of a testimony of what you
had done. Lord, I pray for all of us
today. We would seek first Your
Kingdom. We would live for your approval,
that we would remember all the ways you have revealed yourself
to us. And then we would allow you to
reveal yourself in our lives, in our words, in our relationships,
in our actions. And I pray that you we get the
glory for how we handle hard things.
We love you and we just ask for more grace knowing this and
doing this. That's the chasm.
Give us courage to act in Jesus name, Amen.