Spending time in Galatians... Who are we really living for?

In Galatians Paul is combating a new "gospel" that had crept in to the church, in Galatia the problem was people were adding back in to the gospel the need for circumcision, but by adding back in the law, they took away the freedom from the law that Christ brought. I am sure it seemed like a harmless addition to the church in Galatia at the time, akin to adding an additional safety rope, a spare tether, what harm could it bring...

"Listen! I, Paul, tell you this: If you are counting on circumcision to make you right with God, then Christ will be of no benefit to you. I'll say it again... For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God's grace." - Galatians 5: 2-4

Paul could see the harm these new "gospels" brought, he could see their destructive and seductive power on the church, "They sneaked in to spy on us and take away the freedom we have in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 2:4), and he was determined to call the church back to the only true gospel.

In recent years I have become aware of a different "gospel" that has sneaked in to the church in the west, like in Galatia it is a gospel that has been shaped by the culture surrounding it. But instead off adding back in the law, to the gospel the church in Galatia first accepted, we have put the gospel we first accepted behind glass, to be read sparingly, from a distance and only through the lenses of modern society. The problem with a lens is it's designed to distort, and in some cases this is useful, for instance, when our vision is not perfect and we see things blurry or distorted our glasses can counter-distort the light coming to our eyes in a way that makes the new final image correct. But when our vision is perfect like God's word is perfect, all they will do is obscure what is there, masking truth. And the biggest problem, I can testify to this, is the lenses have become so comfortable, that I didn't notice I was wearing them.
Over the last few years, I have been greatly blessed by some well-known church leaders, who have been faithful to the word of God, who have refused to accept a distorted version of the gospel, they have smashed the lenses, removed the gospel from behind the glass, and as Paul said to the church in Galatia, they "refused to give in to them for a single moment... to preserve the truth of the gospel message for you". And I am glad they have, through their faithful teaching of the bible I started to see I was also reading God's word through the lenses of modern society, and these lenses are many and easily combined to distort the bible even more. For me the toughest lenses to remove, and ones my eyes still fight to restore at times, were the lenses of comfort, safety and self-preservation.
But to some of you this may sound like quite a sensationalist claim or an overreaction, and this is not my intention or desire, I never want to stray from God's word, or add anything to it. So, before we look at Paul's teaching in Galatia that challenges some of the lenses of modern society, I will give you a few examples of ways the church has commonly read verses through a lens that distorts the gospel, and the damage I believe it has done the church.

"You were running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth?"

The first collection of passages I want to look at that we have distorted into a hugely dangerous lie was first pointed out to me through Francis Chan and his book "Crazy Love". Let's start with the letter to the church in Laodicea in Revelation 3...

“‘I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth. For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.’” - Revelation 3:15-17

It is from this passage that we coined the phrase "lukewarm Christian",  but its a mystery as to why. I remember hearing the phrase at a fairly young age and assuming that it must be a valid type of Christian, obviously not a favourite child of God(clearly I hadn't read Gal 2:6), but a classic under-achiever, yet still part of the family of God... right? I remember reading it in my teens, while finding being a Christian a bit tough, especially Paul's teaching(who at the time I considered a bit of a kill-joy), and I remember thinking the verse sounded a little harsh, probably because I quite liked the idea of being a bit "lukewarm", it suited me well. I wasn't overly looking forward to being drenched in God's spit but as long as I was still drenched in his grace, after all I "believed", it didn't sound like to big a deal to me, I was "lukewarm and loving it"...
And I am sure I am not alone here but how did we ever remotely begin to think the "lukewarm Christian" the letter warns us about was ever under salvation. I mean the letter makes it pretty clear... "wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked." Does that sound like a Christian to you? The lukewarm will be spat out the mouth of God, and yet we invent the concept of a lukewarm Christian and somehow it seems appealing to us...
But how? Well, it's easy when we read the rest of scripture through a similarly distorting lens, capable of magnifying some verses to incredible proportions and shrinking others down till they are barely read at all. Our salvation is by faith and not works, this is spelled out so clearly in the gospel, even in Galatians Paul says...

"Yet we know that a person is made right with God by faith in Jesus Christ"(Gal 2:16)

and

"so that we who are believers might receive the promised Holy Spirit through faith.(Gal 3:14)

Our salvation through faith is clear, but what does it mean to have faith in Christ? Does it mean a quick prayer and that's it? Does it mean mere human thought or agreement? Is it like modern culture where it is simply a case of picking an alternative fact in your head? It's very tempting to reduce faith down to something easy, something more akin to a vague belief or acknowledgement, but is this what biblical faith is...

"What good is it, dear brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but don't show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone?.. So you see, faith by itself isn't enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless. Now someone may argue, 'Some people have faith; others have good deeds.' But I say 'How can you show me your faith if you don't have good deeds? I will show you my faith by my good deeds.' You say you have faith, for you believe that there is one God. Good for you! Even the demons believe this, and they tremble in terror. How foolish! Don't you remember that our ancestor Abraham was shown to be right with God by his actions when he offered his son Isaac on the alter? You see, his faith and his actions worked together. His actions made his faith complete." - James 2:17-22

 

This verse has been debated a lot and it is understandable why, James opens claiming faith itself isn't enough and appears to contradict Paul's teaching, particularly from Romans where he stresses "For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from works of the Law". When we come across apparent issues with passages like this our temptation is to quickly favour one over the other, minimizing the challenge and expanding the blessing, but we really need to take a good look and see what they are really saying...
Did Paul believe in a vague faith that saves us and is James advocating works are required for salvation... This topic is covered at great length by other writers, but let's take a quick look. Firstly does Paul advocate salvation through a vague faith? I would say No. We see elsewhere that Paul is against people taking the teaching of salvation by faith too far. He condemns the idea it means we should keep on sinning to show God's grace and because after all our faith is what secures us, this is a fragrant abuse of what Paul taught and he was aware this was happening. In Galatians, Paul writes slightly differently to them making it slightly clearer for them when he writes "What is important is faith expressing itself in love."(Gal 5:6). Paul here acknowledges that faith must express itself through love, just as James teaches a type of faith that lacks any works is useless and a faith akin to that of the demons is also worthless. Faith must express itself in love, it must produce good deeds if it is to save us. Saved by faith alone, of course, but what kind of faith can save?
Finally when faced with difficult passages like this, I take huge comfort when Jesus himself is able to clear it all up for us and this brings us to another few verses I feel the lenses of comfort and ease try to obscure out of existence.

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord', will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven." - Matthew 7:21

I must have missed this verse growing up because it's a seriously important verse. It's a scary verse, it both scares me for myself and for God's wider church. The thought that at the end, there will be people who genuinely thought they had it all there, under the impression they will cruise through because they acknowledged Jesus, claimed to have faith and called on his name, and Christ will say "Away, I never knew you".

One last example of a passage that has become distorted by the lenses of modern culture is the story of the rich young ruler. You may recall it, he comes running up to Jesus to ask what he must do to get in to heaven. In fact, closer inspection of the story shows this man was quite remarkable, he seems to mostly understand who Jesus was, which few did, and when told to keep the ten commandments he claims to have kept them since he was a boy. You might expect Jesus to scoff here or point out where he has failed but instead we are told...

"Looking at the man, Jesus felt genuine love for him. 'There is still one thing you haven't done,' he told him. 'Go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.'" - Mark 10:21

This was clearly a remarkable man but when faced with this calling we are told the man walked away sad because he had much wealth and seemed unwilling to part with it. This passage is not taught enough but even when it is we now arrive at a very common distortion of the passage.

"Jesus said again, 'Dear children, it is very hard to enter the kingdom of heaven. In fact, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!'" - Mark 10:25

If you have heard this preached before it is highly likely you have heard that "the eye of the needle" was a narrow gate in to Jerusalem. Perhaps you were told this shows that humility is required to get in to heaven, as the camel would have to duck its head, maybe even bow to get through. This is so widely taught it has become difficult to tell where it came from. There is little or no evidence this gate ever existed, in fact there is more evidence the expression would have been a culturally augmented reference to a Chaldean proverb about an elephant passing though the eye of a needle, which was used to show somethings were impossible. And later on in this passage Jesus replies to the disciples saying "Humanly speaking, it is impossible. But not with God. Everything is possible with God."(Mark 10:27). If you wanted to convey something was impossible, what illustration would you use? But then again is it any wonder that a society obsessed with the American Dream and "Get Rich Quick" schemes would feel the need to distort this verse down to something we are more comfortable with?

So let's return to Galatians, given our problem is not falling back to relying on circumcision or even a reliance on the law like the church in Galatia, how useful is Paul's letter to them when it comes to addressing our post-modern "gospel"? It turns out, very. While Paul is not addressing the same false "gospel" that the western church has embraced, he still responds to the church in Galatia by strongly calling them back to the gospel of Christ, and in particular one plea he makes to the Galatians I found to be very relevant to the church today...

Who are we really living for? 

This question cuts right to the heart of the issue because it looks not at our beliefs but at our lives. Do we look like Christ, or do we look like everyone else?
Before we came to know and believe in Christ we are said to have been dead, and now we are said to be alive. There should be a huge difference between a follower of Christ and a non-believer.. is there? Who are we really living for?
Jesus describes us a light in the darkness. You don't confuse light with darkness and no increase in darkness will prevent a light from shinning in it. Does this sound like you? Who are we really living for?
"Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did."(1 John 2:6). Does your life look like Christ's? Are people amazed by your love, your servant-heartedness? Do you clothe yourself with humility yet walk in power in your workplace? Do people even know you're a Christian? Who are we really living for?

There are two answers to this question; we are either living for man or for God. We are either living to please the God of the universe, the one who created us, the one who knows us intimately, the one who sent his Son to take our punishment and die in our place on the cross, or we are living for man, living for ourselves, living to please our every desire, living to please society and those around us. The bible makes it very clear, we cannot have two masters so... Who are we really living for?

"Obviously, I'm not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ's servant." - Galatians 1:10

Passages like this challenge me deeply, and they should. We live in a society where pleasing number one is king, and we have lived like this for so long it has become ingrained in us. John Piper describes us as being so awash in sin, to the point we eventually become like fish, our heart was created to enjoy God, but now swimming in this(sin), eventually we lose the capacity to know we miss the very thing we were created to enjoy. It has become ingrained is us to serve man, to serve ourselves, and when we decide to live for God, in today's society, it will be a constant battle.
In Galatians 2 Paul tells the story of the time he had to rebuke Peter because Peter let his theology slide to match the culture around him, and started shunning those who were not circumcised. We are told "He was afraid of criticism from these people..", does this sound like you, it certainly sounds like me at times. Afraid of being criticized by society and those around us we lower the standard for truth and go along with the crowd... Who are we really living for?

"Those who are trying to force you to be circumcised want to look good to others. They don't want to be persecuted for teaching that the cross of Christ alone can save... As for me, may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross, my interest in this world has been crucified, and the world's interest in me has also died... What counts is whether we have been transformed into a new creation." - Galatians 6:12-15

The symptoms may be different as to the false "gospel" we follow, but the underlying problem is the same now as it was back then.
Fear of persecution for teaching that the cross alone can save, we all know this fear and unfortunately we have spent far too long being controlled by it. Wanting to look good to others, how often do we see the church change its stance away from the biblical to what society is clamoring for. It wants to look good, it wants to avoid persecution, and what do we end up with... A church that won't stand by God's design for marriage, a church that won't stand up for the millions of souls, wonderfully and fearfully made in God's own image, that are killed every year. A church that doesn't even hold to God's most basic design choice, male and female he created them, a church that cowers into submission when God's word comes into conflict with the society that surrounds it. We end up with secret "Christians", who won't acknowledge Christ outside their own homes, have we forgotten if we acknowledge him before men, he will acknowledge us before the Father, but if we deny him before men, he will also deny us. We end up with followers of society, where once we had followers of God.
But God's word calls us back to be followers of him, if we can see through the societal haze and the distortion of the gospel we are called to take a stand, to boast only in the cross of Christ, to crucify our worldly interests and be transformed into a new creation. Then we would be a church that stands for truth, we would be a church that displays God's design, for life and for marriage, we would be a church that displays to the world what love really is. We would be a church that shines in the darkness, we would be a church that delights in sharing in Christ's suffering to make his name known. We would be a church that represents Christ to the world, a church of people who wholeheartedly follow Christ and live by faith and not by sight.

And if that both thrills you and scares you, join the club, it's a family, it's called church and it needs to stand together. As one like the father and son are one. But also take heart, we are not alone.

"If the world hates you, remember that it hated me first. The world would love you as one of its own if you belonged to it, but you are no longer part of the world. I chose you... Since they persecuted me, naturally they will persecute you... They will do all this to you because of me, for they have rejected the one who sent me... But I will send you the Advocate - the Spirit of truth." - John 15:18-26

But when the right time came, God sent his Son, born of a woman, subject to the law. God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law, so that he could adopt us as his very own children. And because we are his children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son, into our hearts prompting us to call out, 'Abba Father'." - Galatians 4:4-6