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January 25, 2009
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Freedom!
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"Whom are You Trying to Please?"
Galatians 1: 1-10
- Every year in December World Magazine a DC based organization picks out a person whom they honor with the title: "Daniel of the year". The title comes from the Scriptural character of Daniel who served God while in the midst of very difficult times and made a difference for many in the face of great adversity.
For 2008 the "Daniel of the Year"is a 75 year old Egyptian Coptic Priest named Father Zakaria Botros.
Even as a student 50 years ago, this man would speak to his Muslim friends about Jesus. He was unafraid in the face of threats against him to share Truth with people who are deceived by a great lie. Years ago Father Botros began a chat room called Truth Talk and will spend 6 hours several days a week doing one-on-one discipleship, answering questions from up to 3,000 guests a session. And when the airwaves opened for public broadcasting in 2003, Botros began his 90 minute Truth Talk Television show which is viewed by some 60,000,000 people across the Arab World weekly.
The purpose of all this is to help Muslims be saved.
He says, "I am not against Muslims although I am against Islam as a false religion. I don't want to disgrace Muslims but to expose Islam. My ultimate intention is to glorify God and to save people, especially Muslims. Muslims are victims. Muhammad deceived them as he himself was deceived by Satan. Muslims believe that Muhammad is the best prophet, that the Quran is the only proper book from God, and Islam is the only religion from God. Muslims are in bad need to be saved from these false beliefs" (World Magazine, by Mindy Belz, ed. Marvin Olasky, Dec 13/20, 2008, p. 40, ubp).
So what impact has this man had on the 60 million viewers? He is greatly esteemed. The author Mindy Belz went on the streets of Damascas and asked a random passerby if he had heard of Father Zakaria, to which he responded: "I pray for that man every day." This man had recently converted to Christianity. This is a common reaction in the Arab world "Botros wins the kind of recognition Ed Sullivan had with Americans a generation ago."
With multiple death threats, one by Jihadist groups worth $60 million, against him, Father Zakaria continues to reach out to the Muslim world.
- When I read of this man whose ultimate intention is to glorify God and to save people, especially Muslims, I was so blessed. I felt like I was reading about a Modern Day apostle Paul. Here is a man living the free life and helping others access that same free life with great joy and delight and moving forward for he is determined to see people set free from lies.
As Paul in this letter to the Galatian Christians turns from his opening words to where usually there would be some kind of prayer of thanks for those receiving the letter, Paul rather shouts out that he is astonished at them! This opening is meant to shock them into listening! It certainly does that for me.
It had been a short period of time since Paul had been with them, preaching the Gospel to them. They had received this good news and turned from the lies that had been a part of their lives as worshipers of Hermes and Zeus. But now some interlopers had come. These teachers had told them that Paul had not given them the whole story, and that God was certainly not pleased with them for they were yet uncircumcised - that in order to truly follow Christ, they had to keep the Jewish laws. These men must have been persuasive for the Galatians were starting to turn toward this teaching, abandoning the free life Paul had preached to them. And to this possibility Paul responded with anger.
With that we are off and running as Paul unloads a double curse upon those who have preached this lie about God!
Whereas we might want Paul to temper his anger, being tolerant folk some 2000 years later, wondering what the big deal is, Paul has a reason to be mad.
- One thing we are clear with in this beginning section is this: there is such a thing as truth, truth with a capital T. Although not popular in this culture, and certainly not popular in Paul's where everyone worshiped any one of a multitude of deities, what Paul offered is Truth, Good News, a Gospel that actually could free them.
Now today Truth is not a popular topic. It is politically incorrect to speak of Truth with a capital T. Truth has become something which is relative to the person believing, it is a matter of personal preference or opinion, a matter of a person's situation. But that is not how God approaches Truth.
Indeed in scripture we are shown that Truth with a capital T is something that Jesus embodied - Jesus said "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." Truth is personally connected to the Living God! When on trial before Pilate Jesus gave what Paul wrote of to Timothy as the "good confession" when he gave the reason that he had been born. Jesus said: "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of Truth listens to Me." (John 18:37). To which Pilate scoffs: "What is truth?"
With that Pilate walked away from the greatest authority on truth standing before him. And Paul was seeing the Galatians similarly walking away from truth, the truth of the gospel in Jesus and turning to something that was no gospel at all. This relates to something that several of us are studying in the Monday Night Bible Study called the Truth Project, that what counters truth in Scripture and in life are lies, and that there is a battle between truth and lies, a battle that became vividly experienced by the people in the region of Galatia prompting Paul to write his letter.
The problem with a lie about God is this - that it effects all of life. Such a lie reduces our lives, impairs the vitality of our spirits, imprisons us in old feelings of guilt and cripples us with anxieties and fears. Whenever then we find ourselves under such symptoms perhaps the first thing we need to look for is a lie we believe about God! It is his stand against lies about God that fuels the work Father Zakaria. It is lies about God that fuels Paul's passion for the people in this region of Galatia. His passion reminds me of Jesus overturning tables in the temple as "zeal for God's house filled him". It reminds me of that verse from Psalm 119: "Hot indignation seizes me" (Ps 119:53)!
The position Paul took here was echoed by Vince Lombardi, one of the greatest coaches of the last century. Once he yelled angrily at one of his players: "Caffery, if you cheat in a practice session, you will cheat in a game." That is where most coaches would have left it. But Lombardi went on: "And if you cheat in a game, you will cheat for the rest of your life, and I will not have it." A lie about God becomes a lie about life and Paul would not have it!
"Nothing counts more in the way we live than what we believe about God. A failure to get it right in our minds becomes a failure to get it right in our lives. A wrong idea of God translates into sloppiness and cowardice, fearful minds and sickly emotions."(Traveling Light: Reflections on the Free Life, by Eugene Peterson, Downers Grove, IL: IVP, p. 35, ubp)
- Paul is so passionate about this living of a life from the Truth of God's word that he pronounces a double curse upon those who have brought this lie into Galatia - if it differs from what we preached and from what you accepted, Paul says, "Let him be eternally cursed!"
I read this and feel this sense of shock! How can Paul want them to be "cursed"? And apparently from v. 9 where he says it "as we have said before so I say again..." Paul had spoken of this idea while among them. He had presented them with revealed Truth from heaven - it was not a "thought up" Gospel, but the great gift of God. Remember Paul had already described the Gospel to them in 1:4 and will return to it again; the truth resides in this One who "gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age..."
Paul's use of language here reminded me of our brother John Towne who also will not mince words and often shocks me in his choice of calling a spade a spade. If someone is lying about God and leading others astray, "Let him be eternally condemned" Paul writes.
You hear clearly that Paul has no tolerance for anyone who would interlope on his disciples in Galatia and lead them away from truth to follow a false gospel, one based upon their works, their efforts, their rule-keeping. He is seeking to stun them into hearing.
And ends with the questions: Do you think I speak this strongly in order to manipulate crowds? That is what speakers would often do in Paul's era of rhetoric! And he asks, "Or do you think I am seeking to curry favor with God? Or get popular applause? By his questions it becomes clear none of these are his motive. His goal is not to seek to please people! Who pronounces a double curse while trying to win favors?
Now if Paul's goal had been popularity, he wouldn't bother being a slave of Jesus'.
Being a slave of Christ is his goal in his life not the praise of people. Paul is living to just please God! And we would think his double curse would not be pleasing, because we have painted such a "nice" picture of God we forget that sin angers Him!
So in your life who are you trying to please? Are you seeking to live life in the freedom God has given you in the gospel, or has life buckled under the need to accommodate people, to please those around you, to keep on a certain "front" in order to make it?
I think of this in the light of the account of Father Zakaria Botros who lives with a kind of fearlessness in the face of all the threats against him. The interviewer asked him: "What do you fear?"
To which Father Zakaria answered:
"Fear? I fear nothing," says Botros, "My dictionary does not contain the word fear. I believe in God and I believe that the epistle of Ephesians says we are created in Jesus Christ for a plan, which was engaged from the early beginning. No one can cut it, and when it is completed no one can continue it" (World, ibid. p. 41, ubp).
I found this statement so powerful. It illustrates a life that is not hindered by the fear of the opinions of others. "What would others think?" is not a question Zakaria even asks. He knows he is walking in what God has prepared for him to walk in.
I know it is easy to succumb to seeking to please people. Sometimes it feels like that is the motivation for preparing a sermon, to please you by having one. Yet, that is not the reason for me to preach nor for you to come to participate in this by listening. The purpose is to allow the Gospel to have greater root in your heart and life and mine as together we look at the scriptures.
How many have struggled with seeking to keep everyone pleased in your lives? Or struggled to believe "God is pleased" with you because you are living under a "lie" about God?
Would you like prayer?
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