Author: missionspaul

A question we have often asked.

“As you know, it was because of an illness that I first preached the gospel to you” (Galatians 4 v 13)

Was it depression? Epilepsy? Headaches? Eye-sight problem? The thorn in the flesh? Marks from the persecution he had received? The fact is the great Apostle Paul was ill. 

Is this disconcerting or comforting? I am sure the latter. Why does God permit this? 

What is interesting is that the reason why Paul began ministry there was because his illness had kept him there to do so. His plans were changed. 

And if his illness was unsightly (which the next few verses would suggest in that they lovingly responded to him with kindness) then perhaps he used what had happened to him as a personal testimony leading into his preaching?

Are we open to our plans changing and for God to use the bad things that happen to us for His good? Paul believed in this didn’t he? 

(Romans 8 v 28) Everything of our life, what happens to us, what we have done, the hurts and difficulties are not outside of the gaze of God. Neither is it outside of the control of Him. We may not realise this side of heaven exactly how this works for the good. But the promise is that God is filtering everything and using it for His purposes.

…. In fact it is essential.

Yesterday I wrote of how I thought Paul was saying he had become like them in their legalist approach to their relationship with God. He called them to be free from that way of life like he was. 

This morning I haven’t moved from this verse:

“I plead with you, brothers and sisters, become like me, for I became like you. You did me no wrong.” (Galatians 4 v 12)

Just as the Son of God came and dwelt amongst the Jewish nation incarnating Himself into their culture. So Paul on looking back to his ministry amongst the Galatian churches remembers how he copied Christ. The incarnation was key for him. He was amongst the people. He ate with them, lived with them, walked amongst them. Without compromising the gospel and the life of the Spirit ‘he became like you’. 

The world around you is longing for someone to step into their world, to walk their path, to understand and care for them. 

How will we ever reach people if we don’t become like them?

• It is not only about you. You need to step way from your world to enter someone else’s.
• Never think someone else’s difficulty is beyond ever reaching you.
• It is not sympathy that is needed but it is empathy, there is a difference. Pity is being thankful we are not in the same position. But those suffering need to know someone understands. 
• When we step into the shoes of the sufferer then we begin to truly understand incarnation and as such we come closer to Jesus.
• To remember someone suffering is to act on that memory; you should visit and if you can then provide and above it all pray for them.
• Do unto others what you would want them to do to you. Someone very important said similar words to that!

If you have been journeying with me through these last few chapters then you will know that Paul has been labouring extensively to prevent the false teachers from deceiving the Galatian gentiles that they need to be Jewish in order to be truly saved.

He has used strong words at times but he will reveal in this next verse that this was not because they had hurt him in some way and so he was paying them back. Far from it. This has to be the most beautiful part of the letter as we see the love of this Pastor for these people. 

“I plead with you, brothers and sisters, become like me, for I became like you. You did me no wrong.” (Galatians 4 v 12)

Paul’s testimony is that he was like them. Or shall I say he had been like them. He was now completely free from the man he used to be from the person they are behaving like or at least threatening to become. But he used to be a legalist. He had spent his whole life trying to please God. He was a rule-keeper, a joyless one. “I know what I’m talking about, I was like you.” 

But he is now pleading with them. He urges them to change their way of life. Isn’t that what our own desire is also? We want our non-Christian friends to know the freedom of Christ that we have experienced. We don’t want the followers of Jesus to be burdened by rules that have been imposed by man. 

This is not arrogance. This is an urging, a longing for the people to have what Paul has. 

Who do you know that with all of your heart you long for them to know, to have, to experience what you have?

Will you tell them? 

If you have been journeying with me through these last few chapters then you will know that Paul has been labouring extensively to prevent the false teachers from deceiving the Galatian gentiles that they need to be Jewish in order to be truly saved.

He has used strong words at times but he will reveal in this next verse that this was not because they had hurt him in some way and so he was paying them back. Far from it. This has to be the most beautiful part of the letter as we see the love of this Pastor for these people. 

“I plead with you, brothers and sisters, become like me, for I became like you. You did me no wrong.” (Galatians 4 v 12)

Paul’s testimony is that he was like them. Or shall I say he had been like them. He was now completely free from the man he used to be from the person they are behaving like or at least threatening to become. But he used to be a legalist. He had spent his whole life trying to please God. He was a rule-keeper, a joyless one. “I know what I’m talking about, I was like you.” 

But he is now pleading with them. He urges them to change their way of life. Isn’t that what our own desire is also? We want our non-Christian friends to know the freedom of Christ that we have experienced. We don’t want the followers of Jesus to be burdened by rules that have been imposed by man. 

This is not arrogance. This is an urging, a longing for the people to have what Paul has. 

Who do you know that with all of your heart you long for them to know, to have, to experience what you have?

Will you tell them? 

Remember how the Israelites were always tempted to go back to Egypt? That temptation still exists.

“Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again? You are observing special days and months and seasons and years! I fear for you, that somehow I have wasted my efforts on you.” (Galatians 4 v 8-11)

Let those words sink in which Paul corrects himself. You are known by God. This is more than intellectually known. This is intimately known. To know God is to know that God knows you. This God who has sent His Son, this God who also sent His Spirit, knows you. That has happened not because you turned to any other or anything. The Galatian gentile followers of Jesus accepted Him as the Son and received the gospel message of the cross and they also received the power of the Spirit and it was these 2 key points that was the evidence that God came to ‘know’ them. 

That’s all we need.

Turning to anything to prove we belong; being circumcised because we need to be accepted by God and others or whatever the current pressure in 2024 is; anything other than a life with the Son’s message and the Spirit’s presence is akin to returning to slavery in Egypt or the proof that you never left. 

Are you guilty of jumping through hoops for others because you dare not let anyone down for fear of what they might think?

Do you ever wonder if people are noticing you? 

Have you committed yourself to boost your self-image and this is seen by the way you live and the finances you spend?

If the answer is YES then it could be that idols are gripping your life.

You need none of these. You don’t need to be noticed. 

You are known by God. 

There are just some days when you just may not feel worthy to be called God’s child. You can’t identify anything that warrants or qualifies you for this amazing position. The temptation is to return to the Law, to do all you can to prove to yourself that you are back on track and that you are not as bad as you feel. Resist!

Welcome Holy Spirit! Where would we be without Him?!

“But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. 6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.” (Galatians 4 v 4-7)

It has happened. Whether we feel it or not. The adoption scheme that through His mercy and grace brought you into His family and to be that child of God. Who did that? The Holy Spirit did and continues to remind you of this. 

Today the Holy Spirit is speaking to you, prompting you, “Go on, call Him Father, call Him Abba.” This personal, intimate, familiar title is given only because of relationship with the Holy Spirit. Call Him Abba prayerfully, worshipfully and in surrender, no matter what is happening in your life. And see what happens!

The incredible blessing for every Christian today is that they can address God as Father. This personal, intimate, familiar title is given only because of relationship. 

No one before Jesus called God this name.

No one after Jesus calls God, Father, except the followers of Jesus.

You have an enemy who is trying to get you to believe what he is saying to you. For what you believe you are is what you are and who you think you are is what you do. Why did sin happen? Adam didn’t know who he was and tried to become someone he wasn’t. The accuser said “If you do this then you will be like God.”

He should have said “stupid snake I am already like God. Why try and become what I already am?” But he didn’t and he became what God had not intended.

You are a child of God, belonging to Him, adopted to Him.

Whatever you are going through today one of the roles of the Holy Spirit and the reason God sent Him is to remind you of who you are. It is to say to you that ‘you are no longer a slave’ but you are an adopted child of the Father. 

God wants you plunged into Him, thrown into a relationship that you can know but whose name is far too mysterious for you.

Your identity soaked into His identity. A baptism of mystery and meaning. Of closeness and transcendence.

To your Father!

 

God does things at the right time. You may need to hear that today. In your waiting know that God knows when He will come. But He will come. He will move. 

“But when the set time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. 6 Because you are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.” (Galatians 4 v 4-7)

God sent His Son.

This is God’s grace at its best because the timing is perfect.

God’s acts of grace are always in time.

He is never late.

He is not playing catch-up.

He is never too far ahead.

He is always on time.

When the time had fully come God sent His Son.

God is not a God of disorder. No matter how you are feeling right now. It is only for a time.

The KJV throughout the Bible has 4 important words … it came to pass.

You may be waiting for your miracle – it came to pass.

You may be waiting for your storm to end – it came to pass.

The timing of God’s grace is perfect.

In 7:40 Jesus is teaching in the Temple courts and the religious authorities tried to seize him “but no one laid a hand on him, because his hour had not yet come.” Later again Jesus teaching near the Temple declares, ’I am the light’ and they were furious, “Yet no one seized him, because his hour had not yet come” 8:20. In 12:23 just after the Triumphal Entry Jesus declares, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.” Prior to him washing the disciples’ feet in 13:1 “Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father.” And finally in what is the most beautiful of prayer moments in 17:1 “he looked toward heaven and prayed: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you.” As Jesus was facing the crucifixion he would say, “Father the time has come” (John 17:1)

Partnership with the hour and the moment of God’s move is crucial for us. 

God is still looking for your obedience to what He is doing, to the hour, the moment.

“Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.”

But when the set time had fully come. In history and in your own life. Look back on your story and you will find the timing of God. And He is not finished yet. You may be waiting but God is moving and it will be the set time.

In the main we are all trying to live up to some kind of standard. Sometimes the most miserable are those who are trying to keep to all the rules. The reason being so is because if only it was only themselves they were focusing on but no, they want everyone else to show due diligence in keeping the same rules as them.

In Christ we are Abraham’s seed and heirs to the promise of God. That is what Paul has just said and now …

“What I am saying is that as long as an heir is underage, he is no different from a slave, although he owns the whole estate. 2 The heir is subject to guardians and trustees until the time set by his father. 3 So also, when we were underage, we were in slavery under the elemental spiritual forces of the world.” (Galatians 4 v 1-3)

Paul has told us the Law was our tutor (3:24-25) and here he speaks of the ‘basic principles’ (see the footnote NIV) that held us as slaves waiting for a time when we would be set free. 

What were those basic principles? Paul is going to speak more about them in a few verses time. But in the context of what we have been reading and the problem Paul is addressing it is connected to the need to work for the approval of God. The Gentiles were being taught that if you come to Christ you must also take on circumcision and other rules to be accepted by God. 

2024: the one major basic principle of life is still “Unless you work hard you will not succeed.”

In itself it is not a bad principle but we must not let it impact our relationship with God. 

Remember this story?

• “There was a man who had two sons…Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing.” He was the greatest slave on the farm. Why was this wrong? He was a son. “All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders.” He makes it sound like hard work. A great slave makes for a lousy son.

➢ We need to learn how to embrace the Father’s love without working for it.

 

• “But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.”  You may long for a blessing from your Father but deep and unresolved hurts can prevent that.

➢ We need to take our eyes off others and place them on Him who loves us

 

• “But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’  “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” The Father is saying you never asked, you never put yourself in the position to receive. 

➢ We need not to waste life on trying to keep the rules and yet never knowing the Father and His love and His house of joy!

Let’s recap.

• Paul has been making clear the covenant, the promise of blessing to all nations is the most important truth to hold on to, v 15-18.
• The Law/the standard of God still convicts us of our sin and that we are not kind enough, not loving enough etc. It continues to point to the need for salvation. It points us to reach out and believe in Jesus for it is only when we tap into the same faith that Abraham had will we be free, v19-22.
• We try to be good because we are now free not to try for the wrong attitude. We have been freed from the place of gaining approval. We have His approval and so we now have this automatic desire to please the One who has saved us. If we fail that’s okay. The Law still exists and it goes hand in hand with grace otherwise if we think we are not all that guilty then the power of grace is diminished. The Law continually points to the Saviour who obeyed the Law, met the demands of the Law so that the promise of Abraham becomes ours, 23-25.

There is more.

“So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith”, v26. You are. This is a fixed position. There is nothing you can do to make that happen or to jeopardise it.

“for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ”, v27. The first Adam came into the world naked. But he turned his back on God and his sin brought humiliation and he sowed fig leaves together and made coverings. The second and last Adam, Jesus, went to the cross, sinless and clothed. They stripped him of his dignity and he died naked.

As a shepherd was tending his sheep, two wolves attacked. One of the wolves killed the mother of one of the youngest lambs; the other wolf killed a small lamb as its mother looked on helplessly. The shepherd finally succeeded in driving the wolves away, but he was left with a dilemma. He had lost one mother and one small lamb. Now he was in danger of losing a second lamb because its mother had been killed and none of the other sheep would nurse the lamb since it was not their own. Then the shepherd came up with a plan. He took the sin of the dead lamb and put it over the live lamb. In doing this, he caused the grieving mother to recognise the orphaned lamb as her own. So the mother accepted the little lamb, nursed it and it became her own.

When Jesus went to the cross He laid His coat of righteousness over our unrighteousness so that we are now clothed in Christ. We are accepted by God because His clothes of righteousness are on us.

“There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus”, v28. There is level ground around the cross. No one is more special or deserving than anyone else. Everyone can love their own kind. But the reason why we try to be good even though we already are is because loving those who have different views to ourselves, being kind to those who are not like us is the real gospel message that we are all one in Christ. The world sits up to that kind of love. It is the greatest evangelistic tool.

“If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise,” v29. Paul closes with the promise to a people who have inherited it and that is you and me. We are Abraham’s seed because we belong to Christ. In Christ you are a child of God. In Christ you are connected to all God’s people thousands of years before now, today across the whole world no matter what tribe or language and to everyone in the future. In Christ you discover the love and kindness, the grace and mercy that comes from Him, these and more are your identity. You are good because He made you good but every day you rise in Christ; you stand strong in Christ; and you attempt great things for Christ, not because you are trying to earn anything but because this is who you are! An heir to the promise!

My children are adults now but when they were children they lived by my rules and values. Those rules and values were preparing them for when they left my home and had the freedom to do whatever they chose to do. Now that they’re adults do they abandon those rules and values? They have freedom to do so but they don’t. They continue with them because they want to. They see it is a better way of life. But as a child it felt restricting. However, they came to love me and now out of that love they desire to do those things not to obey me but the joy it brings me when I see them do so.

“Before the coming of this faith,we were held in custody under the law, locked up until the faith that was to come would be revealed. ²⁴ So the law was our guardian until Christ came that we might be justified by faith. ²⁵ Now that this faith has come, we are no longer under a guardian.” (Galatians 3 v 23-25)

The Law of Moses locked us up but it also became our tutor.

So in one sense the Law leaves us not knowing if God is pleased with us. We are in custody. We are trying to please Him and it is wearying and it breeds anxiety because we know we are just not that good enough, we keep falling short of those expectations. But in another sense the Law points to the freedom of having a personal relationship with God through Jesus. This is the gospel we have encountered.

We try to be good because we are now free not to try for the wrong attitude. We have been freed from the place of gaining approval. We have His approval and so we now have this automatic desire to please the One who has saved us. If we fail that’s okay. The Law still exists and it goes hand in hand with grace otherwise if we think we are not all that guilty then the power of grace is diminished. The Law continually points to the Saviour who obeyed the Law, met the demands of the Law so that the promise of Abraham becomes ours.

Those who have understood the gospel don’t ask that question. They know. Those who were burdened by religious heavy burdens but who have had them lifted by grace don’t ask that question. They know. Those who still experience the conviction of sin which the Law brings don’t ask that question. They know.