Why do people who believe in Jesus keep acting like they still have to earn it?
WATCH
Adopted, 3 of 3 from May 24, 2026
“Trusting Jesus makes us truly God’s kids but earning approval is slavery.”
Galatians 4:1-14 by Michael Lockstampfor (@miklocks)
SUMMARY
This sermon teaches that believers are fully adopted into God’s family solely through trusting Jesus. Pastor Michael emphasizes that the indwelling Holy Spirit is our “certificate of adoption,” growing supernatural love in us, freeing us from slavery to performance and people-pleasing, and inviting us not only to serve others but also to humbly receive love and care from them.
REFLECTION & DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
💬 What supernatural affection is the Holy Spirit growing in us?
💬 What basic approval are we slaves to?
💬 Who are we resistant to receiving love from?
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Well, good morning again, church, and welcome to our neighbors. There are a couple of things in life that tend to get just incredibly tedious. And one of the things that, like, comes to mind is I'm thinking about having to repeat myself. And as I restrain myself from making an illustration about my children, what is the thing that I, like, get most frustrated about is like repeating myself, is like, when you go to the doctor and you go to the doctor, you're trying to get checked in, they give you some kind of a form, right? And then you fill out the information on the form, right?
And then you flip it over and it's like, didn't I already fill out this information? Okay. And you give that clipboard back to them and they're like, oh, great, thanks. I'll put all this in. And then they hand you another clipboard of information that you literally just handed to them, but they're asking for you to write it down again.
Does anybody else had that experience where you're just like, yeah, it's almost like working for the government when you go in to try to like, to get. I just want. I just feel sick. Can you help my owies? And they're like, actually, we need you to repeat stuff.
Which is usually not. Which is usually not an issue. Except that one time in particular, I was taking my wife to the hospital because she had been in labor for, I don't know, three or four days. It was not like hard labor, but, like, had just, like, stuff was. And so she finally was like, let's just go to the hospital.
And we're like, driving, and we're driving. And this was in Indiana. So we've got a 45 minute drive, which is literally just in a straight line. There are no turns whatsoever from where we were to where we were going. However, it snows there.
And snow is this thing that happens in Indiana where it gets cold enough that the water and the rain tries to kill you.
And what it actually does, if it can't kill you, what it does is it attacks the road. And when they scrape the ice off the road, it takes big chunks of the road out. And so there's this thing called potholes. We just get them because we don't like to pave roads, but they get them because the ice is trying to murder their road. So I'm driving her and she is in active laborer, and we're driving and it's just a straight line, but I'm trying to pass all of the potholes.
And we get to the hospital and we're like, hey, we're here to have a baby. Like, great, here's some paperwork. And they're like. I'm like, I don't. I think you should probably take a look at what's going on before we, like, do the.
And they're like, no, no, no. We got to check you in. And I was like, can you just check? And they're like, okay, oh, we're going right back. We'll do the paperwork later.
And then. And then that's how. That's how we brought Grant into the world in about 15, 20 minutes after we got to the hospital, because we just skipped all the paperwork. If it had been the paperwork, who knows how would it gone? But there's times where, like, you go and you give information, and then you have to repeat yourself over and over again.
And that feeling is just like, there's something in my brain that starts to get fuzzy. It's like, I shouldn't have to do this. This was one of the reasons why I was so bad at homework as a student in school is because I'm just like, I already know this stuff. Why do I have to tell you that? I know it, right?
That feeling of frustration is, I think, some of the feeling of frustration that Paul is feeling. So if you haven't. If you just join in with us. Like, we've been looking at this letter in the Bible. It's called Galatians, and it's a letter who's written by a guy named Paul to a bunch of different churches.
So Paul was a guy who had gone and he had preached the gospel. He had preached the good news that life is found in Jesus. And as he went and traveled and preached that message, there were people who believed that and accepted that and trusted that. And those people who believed it and accepted and trusted it, they got together and started hanging out together. And we call those churches, like the churches was the people that we're now trusting.
And so Paul goes on and he's planting all of these churches, and then he gets word that, like, after all of the work that he had done, kind of getting them shored up and. And. And started out that they had started, like, taking what he had taught them and then just kind of putting a little twist on it and adding just a little bit more. It's like, okay, like, I can trust Jesus. Jesus is going to give me life, but he's only going to give me life if I follow these certain kinds of rules.
And they had different teachers that had come in and try to teach Them this. And he just is kind of like, just frustrated. That fuzzy feeling that you get when you flip the form over and they're asking for the same information again. He's like, ah, he opens the letter. Most of the times when Paul writes a letter, he's like, God's so good.
I pray for you. Everything's great. When he opens Galatians, he says, I cannot believe that you guys have so quickly forgotten what I told you. I can't believe that you have already left what I taught you and now I have to repeat it again. That's why I'm writing.
Okay? And what it is, is, especially in this section that we've been looking at, he's articulated that when we trust Jesus, like when we put our faith in Jesus, when we trust him, Jesus brings us into God's family. We as children that are separated from God, like, we get brought into God's family. And he's like, jesus has already brought you in. He's already adopted you.
Why are you filling out the paperwork again? Why are you. Why are you trying to get apply again? In order to prove that you ought to be accepted into God's family, You're already in the family. Why are we.
Why are we bringing that up again? And he's just frustrated and exhausted. And some of that tone comes through. And so that's kind of what we've been talking about so far. We're going to continue this morning, but before we do, I'm going to invite you to pray with me.
It's our habit, just in general, to pray the disciples prayer. You might have grown up knowing it as the Lord's Prayer, which is fine, I'm weird, but this is not like a magic spell or anything. It's just like Jesus said, this is how you ought to pray. And I'm simple enough to just try to do what Jesus said we ought to do. So let's take a breath together.
And let's pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen. Amen. If you'd navigate with me to the book of Galatians in the Bible in chapter four, we're going to start in chapter four, verse one. And if you want to follow along, there's blue Bibles kind of tucked under the chairs around the room.
And that's the one that I'm using. It's on page 1123 in the blue Bibles. 1123 in the blue Bibles here. Otherwise, we're navigating to Galatians chapter four. And I encourage you to just read along with me because you never know what kind of kooky stuff I might slip up.
And so you should read it for yourself. Galatians, chapter four, as we pick up in this chapter, he's made this kind of blanket statement that religions typically believe that the way you get right with God is you keep rules. And he's just kind of said there is nobody ever who has ever existed who could make themselves right with God by following the rules. No one is justified by the law, he says. And so how then do we get right with God?
He says, well, Jesus was cursed. Jesus was under the law. Jesus was cursed so that we can be blessed by adoption into his family. And what was the law then? What's the point of the law?
Like, it was a temporary kind of a safeguard until God could implement a permanent solution. But, like, Jesus is the thing. Like, Jesus is the one that he's pointing at. So he's going to open up in chapter four, talking about another example. So I'll read a couple of verses and then we'll explain what's going on here.
Galatians, chapter four. Let me read verses one through six.
I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything. But he is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way, we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts.
Crying abba, Father. So he opens up with this illustration. He's thinking of an ancient Roman household. And he says that functionally, if there's parents and they have entrusted, if the parents die, they're going to, like, leave their inheritance to their kids. But what if the kid is a min.
As long as the kid is a minor, as long as the kid is a child in the household, they kind of have the same rights and privileges as a household servant or as a slave. So he says, even though the child, as the heir, is entitled to the inheritance, until they become old enough to accept the inheritance, they functionally are just kind of a slave. In fact, there may be household servants that are in charge over them that are going to tell them what to do. Now, how many of us remember, like, the joy of getting our driver's license, and suddenly we were able to just go places and be places that we never had to be before, and our parents, like, aren't literally there. Do you guys remember that?
Now, here's the thing. This is going to break your heart. Our kids don't have that anymore. Do you realize that our kids today, like, even when they get their driver's license, live in a supervision state? Like, it's worse than being in Soviet Russia.
The amount of supervision that we have, like, mom's not there, but she knows exactly where you are. She's got GPS tracking. She can turn your camera on, right? They don't have that same kind of freedom. So pray for our kids.
Pray for our students. They're living in a different world than we grew up in, but the child, like, has guidance. They have supervisors. They have people that are going to tell them what to do if mom and dad aren't there. They're functionally servants.
Even though they have rights ultimately to inherit the whole household. Technically, at some point they're going to own the home that the household servants are going to work in. But until they come of age, they're still functionally kind of impotent. Functionally, they don't have the power. They're not able to actually act and own stuff as a minor.
The last will sets the date that the child is no longer a minor, and they can begin to exercise ownership over the property authority over members of the household. So that's like, the picture that he's talking about. And what he's doing there is he's tying that back to the principles of the law. Because, remember, we said that Jesus was cursed so that we can be blessed by adoption into God's family. But then God spent a whole bunch of time explaining all of these rules and stuff in the Old Testament.
Why did he do that if ultimately we were going to get to Jesus? Well, there was a temporary safeguard that was trying to help us figure out how to. How to. Or help the nation of Israel know how to be in relationship with God until the time when Jesus could come. And so there was kind of a coming of age.
And the coming of age happened when Jesus showed up as Messiah, died on a cross, and came back to life three days later. Now we've come of age. We not only have, we not only have a future inheritance, we have access to the inherited promises now. And the thing that he has pointed to in chapters before and the thing he points to as the big deal for the inheritance in these verses is the presence of God within us. Now if you kind of grew up in church, you're like, yeah, yeah, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, I get it.
The Spirit lives in us. That's how we know we're saved. Yeah, that was that. That was a brand new thing for this generation. When Paul's writing this down, that was not the common experience which if you're like me, I'm like, well then what was it like before?
How did you walk with God before when God was not living inside you? And I don't have a question to that. Like, I can't imagine. Because there's a time when Jesus is like sitting with his disciples, like the night before he's arrested. He says, listen guys, what's going to happen is I'm going to go, but it's going to be better for you that I go.
Because the Spirit will come. You know the Spirit, you've met him before, he's been with you, but after tomorrow he will be in you.
The experience, the personal experience of the Holy Spirit residing in somebody who's trusted Jesus was, was revolutionary, unprecedented. The presence of God was kept safe behind a thick curtain. Like, we didn't go and talk to him, we talked in his general direction and we were glad he had good hearing.
I mean, as an error, I mean that the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave. Though he's the owner of everything, he's under guardians and management until the date set by his father. In the same way, we also, when we were children, we were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. So before that was happening, we followed the rules, we looked at the guardians, we submitted to their authority. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law to redeem those who were under the law so that we might receive adoption as sons.
He says, you used to be under that, but now you're not. Like, you've come of age and now you're walking in trust of Jesus now. Very, very interesting. Like, did you notice it says God sent forth? It's almost like Jesus existed before he was born.
In fact, I would say that the Bible argues that across the board that Jesus wasn't like some invention. He wasn't just some guy that was born later on. Like, he existed before the Christmas story, and then God sent him and he was born of woman.
I don't know if you guys need a biology lesson, but that's about 50% of what you need in order to have a baby, right? But Jesus was born of woman. End of the phrase, sent by God. And he was sent to those who were under the law. So sometimes I think it's funny when we're kind of.
I'm trying to teach people Old Testament stuff, and they're like, yeah, but Old Testament stuff is just for, like, old dead Jews. Like, we're not Jews. I'm like, yeah, yeah, but you trust Jesus. And they're like, yeah, Jesus has nothing to do with the law. I'm like, listen, listen, listen.
Jesus was Jewish. Homie was a rabbi.
When Jesus read the Bible, he read it in Hebrew. The Old Testament was what he had. That's why he quoted it. And so I think we do ourselves a disservice if we say, I'm with Jesus. I don't need the Old Testament.
We're like, no, no, no. Jesus used the Old Testament. We should probably do what was good enough for our teacher. So y' all are on that. I like that.
Okay.
We trust the Bible around here. We're not unapologetic about it. We do the whole thing.
And Jesus was born to those who were under the law. The law wasn't to everybody. The Bible's written for your benefit, but much of it was not written to you. And so Jesus was born to those that the law was written to. There were these extra safeguards that were just for the Jewish people.
And Jesus was born into that family. In fact, if you open up in the New Testament, if you want to just do the New Testament, you're going to have a really hard time because you open up to page one in the New Testament. It's a genealogy of a bunch of old dead Jews that lead up to Jesus. You don't get to Jesus without all the other story. And so he was born to that family that had all of these extra restrictions that were meant to separate them from everybody else in the world.
They had dietary restrictions. They had different, like, ceremonial restrictions. They have tons of purity laws. And he was born into the family with the strictest rules.
Do you guys remember kind of being a kid and, like, there was that one family that, like, everybody went to go hang out at that house? There was like, that house is like the neighborhood house. The neighborhood house in my neighborhood was not the house with the strictest rules.
Because like, when teenagers kind of want to. They want to hang out and kind of be themselves, and they don't want a bunch of extra rules. So you go to the place where there's like, maybe less rules than the house at your house, right? Jesus chose the family he was born into, and he chose to be born into the family with the strictest rules. Why?
Because he wanted to save them too.
Perhaps. And this is hypothetical, this is Michael reading in between the lines. But perhaps if Jesus had been born as a Gentile, then there would have been no hope for reconciliation for the Jewish people, given the nature of the subsequent laws. Like God said, you're supposed to walk with me in this way. And they said, yeah, we can do that.
And then they didn't. And then if Jesus had been born as a Gentile apart from the law, they might not have a way to get right with God. But by fulfilling the stricter requirements, Jesus makes it possible for all people to be adopted into God's family. Jesus was cursed by the Jewish law so that we all can be blessed by adoption into God's family.
He did the extra credit in order to make sure that the extra credit kids could get in too. Which that's kind of an odd thing to think about. But I think there's times where we can read the Scriptures and we can feel bad for the Pharisees and we can get really, really critical of these people that had these religious ideas and they thought that they were earning their way to God. And we're like, yeah, you guys are so silly. Don't you know that Jesus is going to.
But don't you see that Jesus heart was for them, too?
I often try to make distance between myself and kind of religious hypocrites and things like that. But I also serve in a church because I know that Jesus loves religious hypocrites too. And I know that Jesus did the extra credit to walk the perfect life so that both the righteous and the unrighteous alike, who are all unrighteous before God, can be brought into God's family. But the mechanism that we get there is not because you did better or worse. The mechanism is, did we trust Jesus?
Here's the deal. Jesus is uniquely qualified to save anyone.
Name somebody.
Name somebody. Jesus is uniquely qualified to save anyone. Tell me he can't.
Here's part of the big idea for this morning. Trusting Jesus makes us truly God's kids. Like, we get adopted into his family when we trust him. He's the one who did the extra credit. He's the one who says, not only did I do the extra credit, I'm gonna write your name at the top of my homework and I'm gonna give you my scores and I'll take your scores on my.
I'm gonna trade papers with you. I know you're failing this class. I know there's no chance in hell that you're gonna make it. In fact, there's every chance that you're gonna make it in hell. And yet I will take hell to myself and give you eternal life with God if you will let me make that exchange.
Trusting Jesus makes us truly God's kids. Like, we get to be a part of God's family. We had no shot. The application process, the expectation was perfection. If there is anything in your criminal history, period, it's done.
Not just your criminal history that gets recorded in the public record, but the criminal history that gets recorded, like, in your parent. Like that your parents know the criminal history that your siblings will bring up at the right time.
Oh, you can't say that. Don't you know what you did?
Jesus is uniquely qualified to save anyone. And trusting Jesus makes us truly God's kids. He brings us into his family. And again, how do we know? How do we know?
How do we know? He says, the Holy Spirit serves as the certificate of adoption in verse six. And because you are sons, because you are sons, because you belong to the family of God, God has sent the spirit of his son into our hearts. Crying abba, Father. That Hebrew phrase, abba, father, it's a term of, like, intimate relationship.
It's not just like, our Father who art in heaven.
Dad, I really. I really just. I need you.
There are things that come naturally to us. I'm not somebody who thinks that, like, you can't love if you. There's no. There's no goodness in the world. I don't know how to say this right.
If there's any goodness in the world, it comes from God. But I'm not somebody who would say that people who are completely apart from God don't have any good in them. I would say that the good came from God, whether they acknowledge it or not. But there are things that kind of come naturally to us, and there are things that do not come naturally to us. And so my question, like, as we're thinking about being part of God's family, as we're thinking about, like, actually being adopted, actually trusting Jesus, what supernatural affection is the Holy Spirit growing in us?
I expect you to probably love your mom like we did Mother's Day. No one objected to that, right? I assume that most days you love your kids.
I assume that you're friends with people because you like, you've got shared interests, right? There's some things that come naturally to us. The question here in the text is what supernatural affection is the Holy Spirit growing in us? What affection is growing in you that you know is not coming from you?
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoptions as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts. Crying Abba Father, Verse 7. So you were no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God.
Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. 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? You observe days and months and seasons and years. I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain. Pause there.
Trust in Jesus makes us truly God's kids. But there's this temptation to go back to what is familiar to us. If we grew up with the strict family rules, then the strict family rules just make sense. That's how the world operates, right? And his invitation is, you've been adopted as children, so you're no longer a child.
You're not even a slave. Like you're not even functionally a slave formerly. If so, then you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God. You are entitled to the privilege of God's spirit in you, renewing you, restoring you, empowering you not to live the life that comes naturally to you, but the life that is supernatural, fixated on following Jesus.
Adoption as children of God empowers us to be the recipients of the household inheritance and both Jews and Gentiles. This is interesting to me. Both Jews and Gentiles are considered slaves of the household before trusting Jesus. Do you see that? Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved.
He's talking both to the Jewish people, the people who followed the extra rules, and to the Gentile people. He says to both of y', all, before you trusted Jesus, you were locked up. You were enslaved to those things. Now Jews will reject that. In fact, in Jesus time, he called, he said to a group of Jews that they were enslaved.
And they said, we've never been slaves, which isn't true at all. But that's how they're like. You can't say that we're enslaved to anything. And he says, you're a slave to sin.
There's some discussion in this text, like if you read commentaries and stuff like that, that he's making a distinction between the Jews and the Gentiles, that the Jews were children and that the Gentiles were the household servants. And there's this, like, two tiered. And it's not that formerly when you did not know God, y' all were enslaved. All of y' all were enslaved. You both.
Nobody had the good standing, and you didn't have entitlement to the inheritance as a child until God adopted you. And God didn't adopt you until you put your trust in Jesus.
Here's the thing, we're all slaves to something if we aren't trusting Jesus.
This is, I think, the elementary principles in the verse he said a couple of times, don't be enslaved to these elementary principles. Don't go back to what is familiar to you. You need to press on into what God is inviting you into. He says, I think in speaking to the Gentiles, he says, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. You were worshipping idols that were not actually gods.
You treated something that was not God as if it were God. And there are a lot of good things, a lot of great things, a lot of good gifts that God has given to us that will absolutely destroy us when we begin to treat them as though they are God.
To the Gentiles. He's like, you guys were locked up in idolatry. You guys were locked up in this manipulative, magic relationship with God where you would come and you would give the idol a thing, and then you would insert your prayer. And then hopefully you'd get, you know, you'd get your prayer back. Like, the goal was, I'm gonna give God something so that he gives me what I'm asking for.
I just like the cosmic vending machine. They call it, like manipulative magic. You can put all kinds of labels on that transactional relationship with God, but that in and of itself, buying favors from God is slavery.
And in verse 10, he leans in for those who are coming. From a Jewish perspective. He says, you observe days and months and seasons and years. You've got a calendar that lays out every time that you're supposed to be in the presence of God. You're supposed to come three times a year and offer your temple sacrifices.
And you got to make sure that you do the things right. And your whole calendar is regimented, which is. Which is great. But that's not what gives. Makes you part of the family.
And if you hold up your schedule and your perfect church attendance as the way that God accepts you, then you're mistaken and you're enslaved to something that ultimately is going to lead you to your destruction. We are all slaves to something if we aren't trusting Jesus.
I think of it as like trying to earn approval. It's filling out the application when you've already been adopted, doing the paperwork again. God, this is. I know you've already accepted me, but these are all the reasons why you should consider accepting me. I already did, kid.
Don't you hear the echo of the Holy Spirit supernaturally, like, radiating, like, I love these people that are, like, mean to me.
I'm praying for my enemies.
When somebody, like, is snarky back to me, I'm taking a step back and man, they must really be hurting.
That's for the record. If you're like, oh, I thought that was just me. It won't you. This supernatural affection that the Holy Spirit grows in us, like, what are the things that we lean on to kind of earn approval, to either earn approval from God or to earn approval from other people? And he says, I think pretty clearly that whatever it is that you put on that list for how you think that you ought to earn approval, you are a slave to that.
If you're operating in that. Apart from trusting in Jesus. If trust in Jesus isn't your primary operating system, you're enslaved.
I don't feel enslaved, okay? That just means it's that much more deadly.
If you're like, in a burning building and the room that you're in isn't on fire yet, and somebody comes in and says, hey, building's on fire. You need to get out. And you look around your room and you go, yeah. Doesn't really feel like it's on fire. Actually, I think I'm just gonna.
Feeling pretty good. Pretty comfortable here. I'm actually feeling pretty productive today. I'm getting a lot done and if I leave now, it's gonna mess up my flow. I gotta keep my flow.
Like, Don't always trust your feelings, Because trusting Jesus makes us truly God's kids. But earning approval is slavery.
What basic approval are we slaves to?
For me, it's people pleasing. Often. I don't care. I just want you guys to like me.
Sometimes it's just quiet.
I don't care if everybody like, hates each other deep down in their heart, as long as they keep you quiet about it. Just keep your mouth shut.
What basic approval are we slaves to?
Paul writes, I'm afraid I may have labored over you in vain. I don't want you to miss it. Don't get so close and then miss it. He continues in verse 12 Brothers, I entreat you, become as I am, for I also have become as you are. You did me no wrong, you know.
It was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first. 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. 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. Have I then become your enemy by telling you the truth?
They make much of you, but for no good purpose. They want to shut you out that they may make much of them.
It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I am present with you, my little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you. I wish I could be present with you now and change my tone, for I am perplexed about you.
He says, listen, no hard feelings. Like, I'm frustrated, I'm a little bit flustered. I gotta fill out this application. I'm giving you the information that I already gave you. I told you this was reliable.
And now I have to tell you again, a little bit frustrated. But listen, no hard feelings. Not holding this against you. Brothers, I entreat you, you did me no wrong. No hard feelings.
However, I want you to notice that I came to you and I became as you are. And I'm inviting you then, as I have come and become like you, to now become as I am.
And we get some more, like, biographical information.
He says that Paul, that he preached in this region while he was suffering from some bodily ailment, which really just kind of gives a different perspective on, like, the tone of the letter. Now, there's almost no information about what the bodily ailment is. The best that I can guess based on the context is he was having some kind of a vision problem, because he says, later on, I know you would have gouged out your eyes and given them to me if that would have been helpful. So I don't like, can you just imagine this guy's coming, he's like, hey, I got some good news for you. I just can't see and my eyes are really goopy and I just need some.
Can somebody help me out?
I'm here to proclaim the best news in the world. But also, I'm really struggling, guys, that my health is failing me. What does that do to your confidence? Clearly, the Lord has blessed you. You can't even get here without getting sick.
He says, yeah, yeah, I preached to you with a bodily ailment. There was sickness in my body. And though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but you received me as an angel of God. You received me as though I were Christ Jesus himself. Like, you heard the message and you bought in regardless of my weakness.
I'm so grateful that the Holy Spirit can proclaim his truth despite. And instead of the weakness of the person who's preaching, I mean, problems with eyesight make sense. This is a guy who like, literally had scales fall off his eyes at one point. And I wonder if there were long term effects for that. But it was a burden to deal with.
Like, the community that he showed up in had to care for him.
And the community there bore that burden as though they were loving God by loving him.
Friends sometimes, and Paul's on this mission, he's like, I got to tell people the love of God. I got to love these people. And he's doing that out of his weakness. And sometimes loving others well requires that we receive love from them.
There are some of us who just naturally are servants, like personality type. We just want to help people. We're super helpful. We want to help other people. And we're locked in.
We're ready for that. In fact, I actually know, based on the last time we did serve basics, that our church in particular is unusually gifted with people that have the gift of mercy and that, like, want the care. Like, statistically we should maybe have one or two, and we had five in the same class last time. So, like, our church is unusually gifted in people that like, are actively have the gift of service and of mercy. But some of those things are natural to us.
Like, they're just how our brain works.
And when we get into situations where we show up to try to help people, we will stiff arm their assistance and not let them care for us at all. Like, I'm here to help. Don't you dare try to help me. Because if I need help, then clearly I can't be trusted to help you. And here's the thing, friends, you can't help anybody.
You don't have it together. You can't do the things you know you ought to do. You know the right answers and that doesn't mean that you do the right thing. You're as messed up as any one of us. And the only hope that we have is that Jesus is uses us in spite of ourself, to love others.
And so don't shy away from just a gentle reminder that you also need Jesus too.
Loving others well often requires that we receive love from them. We cannot just say I'm here to help you and never like let them help us. We can't be so locked in and making sure that everybody else is taken care of that we don't let people realize our weak.
And I preach this to you as somebody who has mastered this sarcasm.
Loving others well often requires that we receive love from them. We do when we celebrate communion. This is the probably the most readily example in my mind, but I think it's so helpful. When we celebrate communion, we don't just take the bread and the cup and we don't just celebrate that Jesus like body and blood is broken for us. And then we eat that and internalize that so that that sacrifice becomes part of who we are.
Like that's what that is supposed to do. But when we celebrate communion here together, we also take time to wash one another's feet. And there are many of us just imitating what Jesus did in John 13. We wash one another's feet. It's a little bit weird, but he says, you should do this.
And there's some of us that are like, yes, I'm here for that. I'm here to serve other people. I will wash. Give me a whole line of people to wash their feet. I'll wash other people's feet all day long. But you keep your shoes on.
You didn't touch my feet. I'm good.
And the beauty of communion when we celebrate it that way isn't just, and it's incredible earth changing that the God of the universe would have communion with me and sacrifice for me, but then he would grow a relationship, a mutual relationship between me and my brothers and sisters where I can not only care for their needs, but I can let them care for my needs, knowing that they are ministers and stewards of the spirit of God to me.
Loving others well often requires that we receive love from them. So who are we resistant to receive love from?
When somebody starts like moving towards us and Saying, hey, it looks like you're kind of struggling. Who are we? Like, I got it together, don't you worry about me. Everything is okay here.
I can only do that because we play a game of tag with our kids in the pool called foot tag. And you have to tag their feet with your feet, no hands. And so you got to keep your feet away from other people.
Who are we resistant to receiving love from?
When people ask those questions, who are we quick to just say, ah, fine, I'm fine.
I'm not saying that we have to share our deepest, darkest secrets with everybody, but I am saying there's not a single one of us that was designed to go through life alone. And there's nobody in the sound of my voice who does not also need help from Jesus through the hands of. Of some normal, jacked up people. I said at the beginning, the church is a hospital.
And if you come into church and you're surprised that there's sick people there, I'm just going to hold up a mirror.
There's not a single one of us on this stage. There's nobody that's got it together. And yet we're clinging to Jesus because the only hope we have is that trusting him makes us truly God's kids.
And that earning approval is slavery.
And I wish I could, like, stamp that out into a program that makes sense to everybody, but it's messy.
And Jesus has perfectly designed this organism so that he has to be involved in every single relationship. If we could do it by ourselves, we would. And so he's made it so that when we do it in our own strength, the whole thing falls apart. It's rather convenient and sometimes it falls apart just so that we learn to trust him more. Because trusting Jesus makes us truly God's kids.
But earning approval of slavery? Let's pray.
Lord, I just thank you for your word. I pray that if there's anything I've said that's been untrue or distracting, that those things would be forgotten. But Lord, where your word has been proclaimed, God, I just ask that you would make it more clear than it was. Lord, I pray that you would speak to each heart in a personal way. Father, I pray that you would highlight those areas where you are supernaturally growing an affection in us.
I know we are quick to dismiss it, and I know that we are quick to take it for granted. And so I just pray that you would remind us of the work that you're doing in us.
And Lord, I pray that for those of us who are part of your family, that God, we would love others well by allowing others to love us well, that we would share our weakness with one another and that we would allow your spirit to serve through the hands of normal people. Jesus, I thank you. I'm thinking of stories. I just thank you for the ways that you're already doing that.
And Lord, for those of us who don't trust you quite yet, for those of us who are like that family that you're describing, Michael sounds kind of weird and I don't know if it's for me. Jesus, I pray that you would just be working in their heart too, Lord. I pray that you would give them a measure of faith, a measure of trust that the kooky thing you're doing is life.
I pray that you would shake our trust in things that are not God and that we would land trusting you to a greater and greater measure.
And Lord, we don't have to do it all at once. I thank you that you're patient. So I pray that you'd help us to take one step today. It's in Jesus name I pray. Amen.
I'm just going to give you a couple more minutes, just in quiet, to reflect on how God's speaking this morning. These are some questions on the. On the screen that we kind of visited, but just want to like, Jesus is the one who does the work. And so I pray or I want to give us time to pray and connect with him and hear from. From him and how he wants to lead us this morning.
So let's just take a couple of minutes and quiet and talk with him.
Eternal Father, I ask that your voice would be a clear signal through the static of our noise, of our noisy world and my noisy head, my cluttered heart.
In a moment of clarity. I want to walk with you. I want to follow you.
And even as I think that I remember all the ways, I've failed already.
And so, Lord, I pray that you would renew us with a sense of that identity, that we belong to you, that we are children, your kids.
And I pray that you would reshape our affection supernaturally to love the way that you love.
And in all of our loving Lord Jesus, I ask that you would help us to love you first.
It's in your name we ask. Amen.
LINKS
Music by Blue Dot Sessions
