Sliding Back—Don’t Do It

This has been the longest running, non series ever. How many weeks did we skip? I forget. But because I forgot where we left off, I’m going to recap where we left off. I know it makes a lot of sense. Here’s where we stopped a few weeks ago when we last met as a group: When we cry that in our times of despair, when we are lonely, when we are empty, when we are done, God comes to our rescue. With that, I know some of you have some things on your minds that you need to cry out to God about—to cry to Him saying, “Abba!” Which brings us naturally to today’s message. However, before I start diving into what the Word of God is saying to us today, I want to point out here, now and forever that we have been adopted into the business of God, we go and get involved in the same type of redeeming work. If he is the king of the world, then we are his children and cannot be denied. There’s a mentality change that we must understand. If his business is to redeem the lost, sick and empty, then it is our business to do so. If it is his business to empty his life into the lives of other people, we must empty our lives into people who don’t deserve such grace, as well. Let’s go to Galatians 4, verse 8. 8 Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. 9 But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? 10 You observe days and months and seasons and years! 11 I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain. Today’s sermon is entitled: “Sliding Back—Don’t Do It.” Allow me to break this passage down to you. The Apostle Paul is saying that if you were not a believer in Christ or are not a believer in Christ, then it is okay to be enslaved to some stupid traditions and superstitions. The reason it is okay is because you don’t know any better. Therefore, by ignorance, you are allowed to have your ignorance. Let me give you an example of this: it’s like why do some dudes, if their football team is on a winning streak, stop washing the underwear they were wearing that day when the streak started and wear those dirty pair of underwear every single game for an entire season? Don’t they know that the underwear that they wear has no effect on the outcome of the game? For you ladies, you say, “They’re boys, they just smell on Saturdays or Sundays” and let it go. This may have only been something you’ve seen on TV. How’s this—in Korean culture or Asian culture, there is this idea of ancestor worship, it’s cultural rather than religious—at least that’s how the conservative Korean Christians put it. Let me explain this to you—every single year on the day of the person’s death or birth, the people in his or her family go to the cemetery and hold what’s called a “Jeh-Sah.” In these “jeh-sah”s a family pays their respect in the form of bowing or whatever, pours a swig of soju on their dead homies because the gangsters saw the Koreans do it first, and then they go home. See its one thing to pay your respect to a dead person, and memorializing his or her life, it’s a totally different thing for people to act like the dead person is there drinking the liquor you poured over his or her dead body. It’s a totally different thing to do this with the mentality and logic that by doing this, you and your family that’s alive will some how reap the benefits of presenting this honor to a dead person in your current life. If you believe that Christ was resurrected and that salvation is here and comes to all those that believe, you don’t go to the cemetery ritualistically. If Christ did rise from the dead and is taking believing souls with Him to paradise, ain’t nothing at the cemetery except a rock and fertilizer. Paul is saying that if you do not believe in God, in the salvific work of Christ in your life, then he’s not going to give you a hard time with what you believe—even if it’s to go and pray some karma over your current life over the plot of ground where you buried somebody you loved; however, if you believe in Jesus Christ as your savior, then he’s going to kick you in the face for going backward. That’s not the type of trouble, our culture-less Korean-Americans selves have though, is it. Nah, not at all. In fact, the back-sliding we do is in the business and professional realms of life, our family lives, our lives from Monday through Saturday. You see on Sunday we’re a believer in Christ. We love God with all our heart, minds and souls. Then comes Monday morning and guess what baby, we’re putting our faith aside and doing things the sigma6 way. (If you don’t know what that is, it’s how GE became a giant under Jack Welsh, its how Motorola developed the cell phone, and it’s pretty much how pretty much every fortune 500 company found success.) You see, it’s so easy for us to believe on Sunday when we’re at church that God has our best interests at heart. We believe at church that we could be successful in God, doing things God’s way; we just have a hard time believing that on Mondays, and Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, etc, etc… so we backslide into doing things the way the world teaches us to do it. This is where all of us start to get into trouble isn’t it? We go back to things that are futile and we don’t know why. Well, we do know why—because we’re dumb, first of all; but more importantly, when we go back to our old way of life where we’re not dependent on God’s salvation and our destinies, no matter the fact that we know how tragically they will end, is in our perceived control, so we want to move back. Yup, it’s asinine. I know what you’re thinking. If that is backsliding, by compartmentalizing our spirituality from our business side, then we’re all out of luck. But that’s not the case at all. In Jeremiah 9:24, we see that God says to the prophet: “but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.” The key to not backsliding is simple: keep loving, do what’s right, and think of the welfare of the people around you. If you didn’t get that subtle drop, let me put it down to you again: if we would just stop thinking about ourselves for one second. If we would just stop thinking about how WE were wrong. If we would just stop thinking about how WE can get ahead, we can start living into the role of heir of God, fully in our lives. Let’s continue to Galatians 4 verse 12. 12 Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong. Verse 12 sets up the next three verses. Paul basically says that we should free ourselves from anything and everything that inhibits us from living in the freedom of Christ. The freedom is, once again: keep loving, doing what’s right, and thinking about the welfare of people around you ahead of your own. This is a plea to all Christians, stop for a moment and think about how they even became Christians in the first place. Verse 13, let’s read. 13 You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, 14 and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. 15 What then has become of your blessedness? For I testify to you that, if possible, you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me. According to this text, the only reason Paul stopped into the city-states of Galatia was because he was sick. Let me give you a little context here. Normally, because Paul is super Jewish, he wouldn’t have been able to stop in the city-states of Galatia because it is ritualistically unclean. You remember the story about jesus and the Samaritan woman, the significance was that Jesus, a Jew, was talking to a Samaritan! Samaritans were “unclean” and the people of Galatia are therefore, also unclean in a Jewish person’s eyes. But the sickness or ailment that Paul was suffering had been so bad that he had to stop, as if he had no choice and the context is set for the gospel to be preached. Remember how you accepted Jesus as your savior? Remember the last time you said, I’m going to live the way Jesus lived, in full harmony with God, remember what happened to you that compelled you to say that? Yeah, it was because whatever you were doing wasn’t working. It was as if God had put you right smack in the middle of your circumstances to give you an opportunity to follow him. Likewise, Paul is saying to the churches here in Galatia that they ought to be like him. Yes, it may have been a circumstance well beyond their control that initially led them there, but they should not backslide and go backward, especially now that they’ve experienced and tasted the glory of Jesus in their lives. Paul is making an appeal to them to start living like they did when the world failed and they gave Jesus a shot. They took a chance, but it was something they wanted to do and enjoyed doing, so why are they going back. This question brings us full circle—why do we keep going back to the things of the world that never really worked for us? It’s not just you, it’s me too. You can ask the people closest to me—I do the same things over and over, and it’s a mistake and it’s stupid each and every time. I try for a long time not to do those things, making the same mistakes, but it seems to be ingrained in me. GAH! It drives all of us crazy because we all have something. Some of us may not admit it here because it’s a mistake you keep doing in private, but we all have parts of us that backslide. It’s tyrannical! The point isn’t to highlight our failures though. The point Paul is making to all of us is that despite our mistakes and backsliding, we continue forward, leaving that part of life behind us—to do what is necessary to put it behind us and to move forward as an heir to God. Let’s continue verse 16. 16 Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth? 17 They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out, that you may make much of them.18 It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you, 19 my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you! 20 I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you. – Galatians 4:8-20 This is where I want to conclude this week. There are three things. First, we need to invite people into our lives that will speak truth into it. People who will hold us accountable for going back to doing the same things we do over and over and love us despite it, but help us correct it. Some of us have that, some of us have too many of those people in our lives so it becomes like we’re being slapped around, but that’s a good thing because they love you and want to make you better. So love them and keep working to be in the fullness of Christ, we’ll never get there, and yeah we’ll continue to do the same dumb things over and over, but keep it moving. Secondly, we need to be who we are all the time. We need to be loving, full of justice and living righteously every single day, not just Sundays or not just when we’re at Christian events or with believers that we know. Let’s not play this game of compartmentalizing our faith from our work lives or family lives. Be who we are and best of all, be the loser for once and start thinking about the other person. You’re not that important and neither is anybody else, but see what happens when you put other people first and start living in a way that you make much of people all the time. Lastly, don’t lose hope when we fail. This is why we have church. This is why we have each other. So we don’t lose hope. We will never get there. I said that, that’s the reason I said the first thing. We will continually hope that we do get there though. Eventually, through the pain, suffering and hardship because the Christian walk isn’t as pleasant as being on a beach on a sunny day, but like being on the beach in the midst of a hurricane, we’ll get to a point where what we do in life is what Christ does in eternity. Let’s pray.