Abide – Galatians 3
Well, welcome everyone. Welcome to Abide. And this time is for all of us to practice pulling away for a bit to close the door and to just heighten our awareness of God's loving presence that's always with us and always around us, and yet we often are blind. We’re often unaware of it. We have times where we might feel one with God in a day. But often, most of the time, we can feel exiled from God and from ourselves.
And so this is a time that we set apart to give God our, our intention to give God our attention. So that we will be reminded that we are not exiled from God's love, that it is always here. And that hidden in this room, or even out there in the open of the ways of life that God's love is there. And so, everybody, whether you are on a commute or sitting in your room with a candle lit. Whether you're taking a gentle walk, let us commit this time to Jesus.
Let us be still now and quiet, all the activities and the motions of the day, and recognize that Jesus is here and wants to spend time with us. That Jesus is gazing at you, gazing at your hair and your eyes, your movements, your posture, your presence, he's just soaking it in. I often think about when my child enters the room, how just seeing their body, seeing their selves just gives my soul such delight, just seeing them, just listening to them, just watching. And so be reminded today that you closing this door, you offering this time to Jesus, he is delighted with you, delighted that you've come.
And so let's take time to still our bodies and notice our breath. We're going to take 3 gentle inhales and exhales and, you know, as you take each of these breaths, these three breaths, let us slow down. From one breath to the next, each breath will be a little longer, just alerting the body to be more and more still and more and more aware of our present moment.
So we're going to take our first deep breath in going to breathe in gratitude into the body. And breathe out gratitude. And we're going to breathe into the body ease. And breathe out of the body ease. And the last one, we're going to breathe into the body peace. And breathe out of the body peace. And through these breaths of gratitude and ease and peace, may these words rest on your head, your heart, your legs and your feet, as you begin to notice your body is sitting. Notice your body as it is in this present moment that Jesus is here gazing at you and you are gazing at him, to the best of our ability of all that he encompasses.
Our gratitude practice today will be about God's constancy, about God’s solidness. I don't know about you, but often in my own life and even in the greater community and the world, things are chaotic and there's uncertainties and change and devastation, and we can often despair. Lose hope and feel lost. And so today, we're going to turn our eyes toward the things of God that have always been and are constant. You know, if you look at the created world, when God created it, he placed order and rhythm into the world to bring us a sense of grounding in peace as life around us continues to shift and change.
And so let's ponder together what some of these created orders God has given us. Think of the sun rising and setting and how every day you can count on it. It's going to rise; it's going to set. Think about the moon. When you look up in the sky at night and how it waxes and wanes, and it has for generations and generations. Notice the tide of the ocean continues to come in and go out, to come in and to go out since the beginning of time. What about the seasons? How they cycle, round and round? They move from one season to another and to another. What about something very close to home is your breath, breathing in and breathing out. These things are constant. They are solid. What about the rain falling from the clouds? The water evaporating and returning to the sky. Or plants letting go and dying? Returning to the earth to birth new plants.
So in this gratitude practice, you might look at Jesus and say all the things that feel overwhelming and chaotic. And then you might also say what we know is true and constant and never changing. And to be thankful for those created orders that are given to us in our lives. Ponder these things now with Jesus.
As we sit together with Jesus and we can be grounded in these constancies of life, these cycles of life. We can gaze and connect with Jesus, knowing he knows our story. He knows our day. He knows our circumstances. We can take great courage from that and great comfort from that. And as we as we sit with a God who knows us and who is in charge of all created order, he hands us a letter. He hands us a letter to read and to ponder and to ask for the Spirit’s guidance in how we might read this together.
And so here we are in a letter written by Paul, inspired by the Spirit of God in Galatians 3. So you can either turn there or just listen to the reading. Things that we already know in the letter thus far from chapter 1 and 2 is that Paul is writing to Gentile believers in Galatia and some Jewish Christians have come to them and are making a lot of comments and bringing disorder into the community. To say that you must be circumcised to be included in the people of God. And so Paul is writing to remind the Gentiles in Galatia that to be God's people comes through faith and not the law or religious obligations. Okay, so that's where we are as we continue to read.
And so today I'm going to read Chapter 3, verses 1 to 14, and also verses 23 to 29.
You foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes, Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you. Did you receive the spirit by observing the law or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the Spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? Have you suffered so much for nothing? If it really was for nothing, does God give you his spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law? Or because you believe what you heard?
Consider Abraham, he believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announced the Gospel in advance to Abraham. All nations will be blessed through you. So those who have faith are blessed, along with Abraham, the man of faith.
All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law.” Clearly no one is justified before God by the law because the righteous will live by faith. The law is not based on faith, on the contrary, the man who does these things will live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written: “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus. So that by faith, we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourself with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs, according to the promise.
This is the word of the Lord. May we open our ears to this word.
Allow me to read verses 1 to 5 once again.
You are foolish, Galatians. Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes, Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you. Did you receive the spirit by observing the law? Or by believing what you heard? Are you so foolish? After beginning with the spirit, are you now trying to attain your goal by human effort? Have you suffered so much for nothing? If it really was for nothing? Does God give you his spirit and work miracles among you because you observe the law? Or because you believe what you heard?
We read in this passage that Paul is calling the Galatians foolish and that they've been bewitched. And it's important for us as humans to notice that we often are fooled. We often are bewitched. We drift. We fall away. We are like sheep. We get, we get lost and follow that trail and move over there and we need to recognize that we are so easily influenced by our environments and by our emotions, by the moods of the day. And so I want to take this time for all of us just to observe our our daily life and notice where we get bewitched and or where we seem to get lost or lose our sense of God or the way. This can come through different conversations with friends or peers. We can get bewitched by the media and all that we are consuming with our eyes through readings. We can get lost in our own goals in the day or things we want to accomplish.
And so take this time with Jesus to just be reminded how easy it is to get side-tracked and to ask for God's mercy and grace upon us. As we are weak, and we are fools, and we are in need of a shepherd to continue to correct and to guide and to gently come alongside to lead us in the right way. So spend time now, just reviewing those spaces where you might feel you get lost or bewitched.
I'll continue reading verses 6 to 14.
Consider Abraham. He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. Understand, then, that those who believe are children of Abraham. The Scriptures foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith and announce the gospel in advance to Abraham. All nations will be blessed through you. So those who have faith are blessed, along with Abraham, the man of faith. All who rely on observing the law are under a curse. For it is written, “Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the book of the law.” Clearly no one is justified before God by the law because the righteous will live by faith. The law is not based on faith. On the contrary, the man who does these things will live by them. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. For it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.” He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith, we might receive the promise of the spirit.
I appreciate how Paul writes “Consider Abraham.” Consider means it'll take time to mingle with the story of Abraham, the father of the nations. And in Abraham's time, the mark of their identity of the Jewish people was circumcision, was food laws, and the sacred calendar, and Sabbath-keeping and such, which came later when the when the law was given to Moses. So as we consider Abraham, and we consider his faith, this is what made him righteous. God called Abraham to move out of his comfort zone, to go and live in a new land, to take on a new way of thinking and being. And he said yes. And he walked in faith and trust to unknown places, and this pleased God.
And so as we consider Abraham, how does it feel when we're asked to go and be in new places? Have to leave comforts to go spend time with new people groups or new ways of thinking? So I'm wondering if you can ponder with Jesus, places in your life where you need to exercise faith, exercise trust in next steps like Abraham. And because Abraham believed and had faith, his bravery led us to be included into this great promise. So our faith matters in our friendship webs and in our communities and beyond. So, how do you feel when you're asked to go and live in new ways and in new spaces?
Verses 23 to 29 read “Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith. And now that faith has come, we're no longer under the supervision of the law. You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ, have clothed yourself with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise.”
Paul compares the law to be like a chaperone, as it were, you know, you need chaperones when you're young and when you're not sure how to go about things. But you grow up, and the chaperone is no longer there, and the spirit of God is there now to guide and direct you, and faith enters in, and freedom. Where might this freedom and this faith need to dwell in your life? Maybe you need greater freedom and welcoming and acceptance for yourself, for your own complexities within yourself. Or maybe there needs to be a more open way with your friendships, making room around the table as it were, making space for others that might be different. We are all welcome. We're all invited to live in this faith experience with God, and to live this out more freely and fully.
And so for this last reflection, Paul reminds us that we're all children of God through this gift. So where in your life can this gift of being God's child dwell more fully? To receive yourself. To more fully receive others. To make space, more room, in your life and in your story.
May we take a gentle inhale together of gratitude for this time to be in the word to be in this letter. And so, we close this letter and put it back in the envelope with Jesus here and we gaze at Jesus longing for him to sustain us, to protect us, to guide us with his spirit throughout the rest of our days. We pray that these moments together with you, Jesus, and with one another, would inspire us to live more freely in your grace.
So in closing, I'll read you the wonderful words of Paul in Galatians 1:3-5, “Grace and peace to you from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins, to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father. To him be glory forever and ever. Amen.”
Go in peace, my friends.
