Johnny and Hannah

The ongoing challenge in my life and in serving others is to ‘get me out of the way!’

It is vital that we exist in such a way that the trust, faith and certainty we speak of is reflected in the lives we live. We can so easily use the rhetoric of our faith and yet reside some distance away in the reality of a very humanistic-muddle! Is not God’s truth given for our truthful-living? Is not His Spirit our companion-presence for the goal of making us livers of His truth?

Part of this is bubbling around in me as we embark on a study of Galatians: Faith, Freedom and Fullness; as these are the core themes.

When men and women get their hands on ‘religion’, one of the first thing that often results is that it becomes an instrument of control or a means of ‘keeping people in their place’. Paul formerly of Tarsus was offering his very best to add to another different history as he blazes the teaching trail, calling people to the knowledge of God not as an impersonal force but to be used to make people behave in certain prescribed ways, but a personal saviour who set us from to live a free life. God is never about coercion from the outside but rather about freedom from within. Paul comes to the Galatian believers and is kinda furious because thay have been intimidated by other forces and given up or at least substantially retreated on their free life in Jesus! His letter aids them and us to recover the precious freedom, secure for us in the unique activity of Jesus Christ. It gives us great help in the direction of this freedom for ‘this is a delicate and subtle gift’ as Eugene Peterson call it: our freedom in Christ is a gift easily spoiled and often squandered.

For me the book of Galatians also minsiters to another significant issue facing the church glocally (that’s a fusion of globally and locally, not just a typo!) It’s the complexity of leading a church community today. It’s not difficult to grow a church, to manage day-to-day affairs or getting clusters of people to do projects together. True leadership is another matter. It’s tough for people rarely want to be led! We can’t make good followers overnight - for the real goal is to change ungodly and flawed behaviour patterns that are so deeply entrenched…. and really more skills or training programs rarely add much value. We can be over-booked, seminared-out and tipping towards the point of frustration,…. so enters Paul and Galatians.

Paul faces much in Galatia: He had major issues in dealing with the churches of Galatia. There were many questions raised including that of authority of God, His message and His messangers! Paul struggled with a group of people who did not want to be led. Paul did what most of us would do, by defense of himself in chapters 1 and 2, for he was human after all; but whats particularly instructive I believe is the way in which he defended himself.

Some might have lashed out in anger, or in boasting or in some other way,… but Paul lists his authority and accomplishments in a peculiar way:- the things that you’d be more ashamed of, all constructed in such a way that it would show the marvelous reversal that has come about when God touches our lives. Paul uses his own weakness and vulnerability to show God’s strength. So when Paul defends his own authority, He doesn’t cite intellectual rigour, theological coherence but simply proclaims:- ” My gospel is correct because of where it comes from - Jesus Christ”
Surely this confidence is what our lives needs, like never before! This saving-change is Paul’s greatest boast, and it should be ours!
Pauls call to Galatia and ours in 2007, is obedience to God. Paul keeps on sign-posting the people away from self towards Jesus Christ;

How our fears would be changed if we acted on the basis of faith in God’s good sovereignty? Today’s circumstances allow us to see our lives from His point of view. Whatever the shape of our life circumstances they are God’s grace to us for our good!

Harry Ironside sums it up brillantly here:- “God is not looking for brilliant men, is not depending upon eloquent men, is not shut up to the use of talented men in sending His Gospel out in the world. God is looking for broken men, for those who have judged themselves in the light of the Cross of Christ. When He wants anything done, He takes up men who have come to an end of themselves, and whose trust and confidence is not in themselves but in God.”