Galatians 4:15 - The Antidote for Relationship Creep

"Therefore, where [is] the blessing of you?  For I witness to you that if possible the eyes of you having dug out you gave to me."

-Isn’t that how it often goes in life, in relationships?  When you first begin, there is this sense of newness, of freshness, of wonder.  Starry-eyed.  Life is all good, this person is all good.  They hung the moon!  You would do anything for them, give up anything to help them or to be with them.  You would go out of your way and then some, do anything they ask - they can do no wrong.  Nary a wart to be seen.  And then it happens.  Gradually.  And maybe not even due to any fault of either party, but time and life, and familiarity, and busyness and other things creep in and begin to slowly erode the respect, the wonder.  Relationship creep.  It's like gravity, a constant force, only it pulls people apart.  Attraction dispelled by repulsion.  And if left unchecked, that other person can actually become repulsive.  Relationship creep can make you a creep.  It is the old adage, familiarity breeds what?  Contempt.  Even the best of situations can grow stale.  The luster wears off and they appear rather tarnished.  And this significant other comes to be taken for granted.  Disapproval and disrespect begin to take the place of affirmation and appreciation.  Sadly, this was happening to the Galatians in their relationship with Paul.  Disenchanted, they were - especially cuz he was getting all up in their spiritual kitchen.

-But first of all, why would anyone even do that?  Pluck out your eyes?  To give them to another person?  And really, to what end, cuz plucked out eyes aren't good to anyone.  Well, absent some kind of amazing medical breakthrough.  But again, if you pluck out your eyes, you have just made yourself blind.  For life.  Who would do such a thing?  And why?  It would be a complete waste.

-Since the motive cannot be to benefit another, that pretty much leaves us with some kind of extreme gratitude.  But that most likely is exactly what Paul is describing here. The Galatian believers were (at one point at least) soooo grateful to Paul for coming and sharing with them the Good News about Jesus - they had never heard it before.  And they very likely would have never heard had Paul not gone on his "mission".  Or gotten sick.  But he was truly their angel, their messenger from God.  The Message he shared gave them hope and joy and peace and forgiveness.  It was a game changer.  It was THEIR game changer, their LIFE changer in fact.  And, as is the case, words could not express the gratefulness they had towards Paul.  But he was so aware, he understood so well how thankful they were, that he knew if it had been practical that the Galatians would have ventured to give him their eyes as a token of their appreciation.  Surely gratitude cannot be overvalued in any relationship - it both acknowledges and blesses the one having blessed AND it is a powerful check on relationship creep.  It's the antidote!  Gratitude says, I do appreciate you.  I STILL appreciate you.  It doesn't take a rocket scientist (or any other scientist, for that matter) that discern that relationships generally do better when positive expressions (appreciation, encouragement, and support) outweigh the negative ones (disapproval, criticism, and sarcasm).  Gratitude helps me assume a position of humility and acknowledges the role of this other - even and including when they offer constructive criticism - in whatever success or goodness I have experienced.  And most assuredly it is the whipped cream and cherry on top of any good deed or effort.  Let us not stop short in this most excellent way of consummating a transaction of goodness, and let us be on the lookout for and put a stop to relationship creep in all its ugly forms.

Galatians 4:14 - "Sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me, sock it to me..."

"... and the temptation of you in the flesh of me you did not despise nor reject, but rather as an angel of God you received me, as Christ Jesus."

-When he first came to Galatia, the people there received him as an angel, Paul says.  Like a literal messenger of God, one who was speaking for Him.  We know for a fact that at one point, the citizens of Lystra actually were calling Paul "Hermes", who was the messenger of the Greek gods (Acts 14.8-18).  But so distinguished was his reception among the Galatians (among those who believed at least), that there was not the least hint of disrespect.  Just the oppposite.  They didn't know him, at least not by face.  And he was even sick when he showed up.  They could have blown him off or turned him away, but no.  They did not look down on him or reject him in the least.  They welcomed him and took him in, and they listened to his message.  They not only listened to it - they believed it.  They believed him.  Paul even goes so far as to say that they received him as if he was an angel.  As if he was Jesus.  Now that's respect.  And that's what they showed him.

-Respect would appear to be in rather short supply in our day.  Messengers and leaders alike are criticized, summarily tuned out.  Strangers are ignored altogether - or we lash out at them at the slightest provocation.  It is selfishness and pride infused with a layer of low-grade anger and fueled by a rather pervasive sense of disillusionment and mistrust (some of which has certainly been earned).  This spirit of disrespect (2Peter 2:10, Jude 8) is certainly symptomatic of a culture which increasingly turns its back on the One Who is the Supreme Authority in the universe and is deserving of all glory and honor and respect (Jude 25).  Respect is defined as a feeling of deep admiration, and understandably it can be rather rare for a leader or a messenger (or anyone for that matter) to instill such feelings in others, particularly in those who don't know him or her.

-But the truth is, that God in His sovereignty positions people over us (Colossians 1:16, Romans 13.1), and simply by virtue of the fact that God has put them there, they are deserving of a different kind of respect (1Peter 2.13, Titus 3:1, 1Timothy 2:1-2).  Respect is so much more than a feeling.  It is attaching and extending value and honor to another individual.  This value could be based on their position or title (particularly in relation to me), it could be based on their age (particularly in relation to me), it could be based simply on the fact that they are one of God's wonderful impossibles, based on the value which they possess because they are Made in Heaven.  They are not "Made in China".  No, God Himself fashioned them and bestowed on them the gift of life (certainly this would extend to all of life on God's green earth, God's creation - over which He has made us stewards, caretakers).  This value would extend particularly to the man or woman or child who actually bear God's image.  That simple fact makes them - all my fellow humans - deserving of being treated as valuable.  R-E-S-P-E-C-T.  Aretha knew how to spell it.  Sock it to me, sock it to me - she wanted to get some.  May we know how to sock it to THEM, just like these Galatians.

Galatians 4:13 - No glitch in the Matrix...

"But you are having come to know that because of strengthlessness of the flesh I evangelized to you the first...’

-So many well-laid plans.  Truly - the mind of man plans his way, but always and forever the Lord directs his steps (Proverbs 16.9).  We have plans for our events and for our days and for our lives.  For our vocations and our vacations.  For our retirement.  And we plan how we are going to serve the Lord.  Every last duck in a row.  We are going to do this and that and the other, we expect God to bless our plans for how we are going to help Him out, we throw up a little dash of prayer for favor, and off we go.  James calls it arrogant boasting (James 4.13-16).  Truth is, we don’t know what our life will be like tomorrow.  We are a passing shadow (Psalm 144.4), a vapor, a breath (Psalm 39.5), a pile of so much dust into which the Creator God breathed the breath of life (Genesis 2.7), here today and gone tomorrow.  And yet it is with that very breath of God that we can praise Him, the One Who gave it to us in the first place.  We can celebrate and spread the knowledge of His breathtaking goodness to our neighbors and to the nations, and we can help to bring the families and peoples of the world into the white-hot enjoyment of His manifold perfections.  We were made for this.  So it is totally good and right that we should aspire and even strategize and plan on how to do this.  Just know that even the best laid plans can be frustrated, may need to be modified, should be held with an open hand...

-No doubt it was with this very missional intent, the highest of motives, that Paul set out on his mission trip to Galatia.  Oh, he had a plan - a good plan.  He may have even held it loosely, adapting as he did to the response of the crowds, to persecution, etc.  But he didn’t plan to get sick, and apparently he didn’t plan on stopping when and where he stopped on that first journey, because he suggests that it was this unnamed weakness of flesh - about which there is not even a single mention in Acts 13-14 where Paul (and Barnabas) first visited the region of Galatia - this infirmity was the reason he even wound up planting the church in Galatia.  Which is the precisely the point.  Paul did not plan to get sick.  Nor to stop and plant the church where he did.  But the Lord had other plans.  And tho it may have appeared that the delay and the detour were a deviation from his original flight plan, Paul was never ever even the slightest bit off course.  Not in the itinerary of heaven.  He was right where God wanted him.  As are we all.  If only the eyes of our heart could see this.  Is there even the tiniest detail which escapes His notice?  Is there the smallest glitch in our matrix for which He has not already accounted, which He is not working together for good?  The Lord directs our steps.  He was directing Paul’s steps - directly to the precise place where He planned for Paul to plant a church.  Somehow Paul getting sick was always part of the plan.  And so it is with us, in sickness and in health, for better or worse - ours is to do our best to keep in step with Him, knowing that ultimately He knows where He is going, where He is taking us.  There is nothing wrong with a strategy or a plan.  But ‘tis true - even the best laid plans can and will go awry.  For us the question ultimately is not about where we are or what is happening to us - it is always about Whose we are, and about what He wants from us right where we are today... Wherever and however we are, we are to walk by faith and spread the awareness of His breathtaking goodness to all...

Galatians 4:12 - Paul the Beggar

"Be coming to be as I, since (I) also as you, brothers, I am begging you.  Nothing me you did harm."

-Paul now is begging these Galatians, and he calls them brothers again, which is not just a label.  He is appealing to them out of relationship.  And that right there is the key to ministry, to making a lasting difference in the lives of others - relationship.  It is rightly said that people don’t care what you know until they know that you care.  That’s relationship.  And Paul cared.  Sometimes you beg because you care.  It is earnest asking, born out of desperate need or want.  You earnestly and desperately want something from someone - or in this case FOR them, and you feel like you have no other choice.  Begging is when you’re out of options, when you have no other recourse.  It’s the last resort.  And what you want for them they are in danger of missing.  So you’re reduced to begging.  Because you care.  Paul in all probability had had many opportunities to demonstrate to the Galatians that he cared.  He had fathered them in the faith to begin with, he had no doubt cared for them like a gentle mother in helping them to follow Christ, and very likely had served alongside them like a brother as he helped to launch their assembly into self-sufficient Christian living and ministry (cf 1Thessalonians 2.11, 2.7, 2.9).  They were family.  And family is forever.  And if you care about them (which you should all the more), when the stakes are high, when the opportunity is great, when the situation is desperate, sometimes you will gladly beg.

-We surmise that Paul does not hesitate to beg in his praying to the Lord (Romans 1.10, 1Thessalonians 3.10), but he does seem somewhat loathe to do so with people.  For all his instructing and exhorting and urging only two other times in all of his letters does he employ this word towards people.  But in begging, in urging these his children in the faith to resist legalism, Paul reminds them that he had done the exact same thing which he is begging them to do.  He himself had become "like the Gentiles", in that he threw off the Jewish law as the way to earn and maintain right standing with God.  In this respect they now needed to become (and remain) like him.  They desperately needed to avoid at all costs any hint of trying to curry God’s favor through self-effort of any kind.  As do we all.  We all like Paul stand before the throne of heaven as spiritual beggars, bringing nothing at all to the table, all of us saved by grace through faith alone.  And we journey on thru the same, leaning not in the least on our own efforts or strength or understanding.  Apart from Him, we can do nothing (John 15.5).  And that’s the good news!

Galatians 4:11 - Fear, and a spiritual DNF

"I am fearing you not somehow in vain I have labored unto you."

-Paul is afraid.  Normally, you would never be able to hang that tag on Paul.  He was like one of the boldest guys ever.  And yet he says it here.  So actually there are two kinds of fear.  This one is not the kind that will keep you from doing something.  Rather, it is the concerned anticipation of an unintended and undesirable outcome.  So caught up into works were these Galatian believers that Paul says he is afraid that all of his work to help them trust in and follow Christ may have been in vain.  For naught.  And is there any more sick and depressing feeling, to labor and sweat and invest your life in the life of another, only to have them throw it off and throw it all away?  You wasted your time, and they are no better off than when you started.  You are trying to help them, and whether gradually or all of a sudden, it looks like they are going back to the way they were.  Or they are getting sidetracked, distracted, misdirected, misguided somehow (we’ll see what Paul thinks of those mis-guiders in chapter 5).

-Laboring in vain, running after emptiness - this is a recurring theme for Paul.  We know that Paul cared greatly about people following Christ, but towards that end he also cared about how he himself followed, how he stewarded the precious time on earth which God had given him.  He was seriously afraid of wasting his life.  The hours and days and years entrusted to him he did not want to waste or be found to have wasted even the least little bit (cf Philippians 2.16, 1Thessalonians 3.5, Galatians 2.2, 1Corinthians 9.23-27).  Such wasteful living unfortunately is rampant among God’s people.  Someone has described it as the straightening of pictures on the walls of burning houses.  Asleep in the light.  Slummy mud-pie-making as opposed to enjoying a holiday at the beach.  The false contentment of fire insurance.  It is failing to care enough to run hard enough to help others get into and finish the race themselves.  It is failing to follow our Good-but-not-Safe Lion-Savior closely enough and desiring Him strongly enough that we increasingly count all things as loss, as so much manure compared to the surpassing value of knowing Him and helping others to know Him.  Don't waste this!  Captain Miller said, don't waste this, Private Ryan.  Ryan was in fact afraid that he had, that he had wasted the life which the sacrifice had made possible.  In Christ, we need not be afraid of failure, per se.  There is no condemnation in Christ!  His grace is sufficient!  But of this failure, we ought be afraid.  This is failure to run, or to finish.  A spiritual DNF.  It is the timid talent-burier of Matthew 25 (esp. vv 24-25).  Let's not waste this, friends, getting sidetracked on emptiness and manure.  One thing I do, Paul said.  May God give us each the grace to run with the quickness (endurance), and finish the race!  

-I must confess, however, that like Paul, I am also afraid.  But I am afraid that I have a long way to go...

Galatians 4:10 - Lady Macbeth's Object Lesson on Forgiveness

"Days you [all] are watching, and months and seasons and years."

-Legalism.  Religion.  Systems of works designed to advance one’s standing in relation to some deity or spirit or some other spiritual goal thru self-effort and careful watching.  This is the default position of fallen man, and that’s the mindset which was slowly (re)infecting the Galatian church - faulty ineffectual works driven by a guilty conscience, persistent nagging feelings of guilt because we all are in fact guilty (or were, apart from Christ).  But no amount of self-effort can remove it.  It is Lady Macbeth - "Out, damned spot, out, I say!" And she continueth - "What, will these hands never be clean?... Here’s the smell of blood still: all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand.  Oh, oh, oh!"  To which the doctor rightly observeth, "More needs she the divine than the physician. God, God forgive us all...!"

-In traditional Judaism they observed and paid careful attention to sabbaths, new moons, days and weeks and months of fasting and feasting, festivals of Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles, years of sabbaticals and of redemption and jubilee - the Jewish calendar was crammed-full of year-round, round-the-clock rituals, each and every one a work, part of the exhaustive (exhausting) system of sacrifice and guilt-removal.  Endeavoring endlessly to appease the wrath of the God of Israel issuing forth against their innumerable transgressions.  Now there is nothing wrong with a feast or a festival per se, but these Galatians, having begun well by placing their faith in Christ for forgiveness, were now buying in to the notion that careful observance was still required of them, that strict obedience was necessary in order to maintain their forgiveness and right standing with God, a reality which in fact became and always remained theirs as a free gift of God’s grace simply through faith in Christ...!  God's forgiveness is never earned, no matter how big the transgression, no matter how huge the self-effort.

Galatians 4:9 - Slummy mudpie-making

"But now having known God, but rather being known by God, how are you [all] returning again upon the strengthless and worthless elementals, to which all over again you [all] are wanting to being enslaved?"

-Then - but now!  Then you were slaves when you didn’t know God.  But now, Paul says, now you have come to know God!  But then he corrects himself, because in fact, you and I - when we look back on it - we were not the initiators in this relationship.  God was.  He reached out to us.  He made us.  He came down to earth to redeem us.  He sent His Spirit to woo and convict us.  He inspired His people to deliver His written Word to us.  God came a-calling at the door of our hearts, and He started knocking, and yes we let Him in, but looking back, it was God Who came to know us.  He knew us - He made us, He foreknew us, ever mindful of us, and He so wanted us to know Him.  So we said yes, opened the door of our hearts, and He came rushing in, the rushing Wind of His Spirit, bringing not only forgiveness and eternal life but also surpassing peace and inexpressible joy and living hope.  And He filled (perfectly) the Abyss, our gaping soul-hole, that which was in fact made to be filled by none other.  In Him we were (and are having been) made complete.  His words are life.  His presence is fulness of joy.  From Him (alone) are all good things to enjoy.

-So why, in the name of all that is true and holy, why in thee world would anyone thus known and set free by God ever turn back to their vomit?  Why in God’s good name would we return to wallowing in the mire (2Peter 2.22), leaving our holiday at the beach in favor of slummy mudpie-making?  These Galatians who had believed in Jesus and had been set free to know their Maker were somehow returning to their old ways of living, of trying to assuage the infinite abyss with worthless, impotent things.  With filthy ‘good deeds’ which amount to nothing, so much striving after the wind, trying to catch it in your hand.  So again, why would anyone who had ever been in bondage to that kind of vanity and who had been set free to rest and enjoy being fully accepted by God thru faith alone, why would they waste even a millisecond on trying to progress towards heaven thru even one empty ‘good’ deed?  Good deeds don’t get you known in heaven.  FAITH gets you known in heaven.