Last week, Christy and I we were headed to bed.
Usually she goes to bed about an hour before I do, and I veg for a little bit, and so I get to sneak into the bedroom after it's you know the lights are out, and I just sneak right into bed and fall right asleep and she's already asleep.
But for whatever reason, we were both headed to bed at the same time, and she was talkative, and I was not talkative, and I don't want to be talkative when I go to bed, and because I so that makes me nervous because I I want to listen.
I don't want to cause an issue here at bedtime, and so I want to listen, but at the same time, if there's a lot of talking on my mind gets going, and as soon as my mind gets going, I can't go to sleep, and so then she's asleep, and then I'm awake, and then I'm back on the couch watching Seinfeld episodes until I'm sort of like numb enough to go to sleep again.
So we're headed to bed.
I'm in bed, Christy remembers it, I'm in bed.
Uh she doesn't know I'm telling the story.
Uh I'm in bed, my lights out, earplugs are in my hand, like the signals are going out, and she's talking, she's in the closet, and she's talking about someone and something and the thing that happened.
And I'm I'm listening, and in the middle of her talking, there was no comma, no pause, no semicolon, there's no break in breath.
I just said, Did I lock the front door?
And that wasn't good timing.
Uh you know, you you weren't listening to me.
Which then I repeated back to her her last two sentences, which was impressive.
But it was not helpful.
That was not a that was not a helpful thing to do in that moment.
It was impressive I was able to do it.
I was impressed with myself.
She was not impressed, but I was like, ah, look at that.
Look what I was able to do.
And that was not helpful.
And then we went to sleep.
We know enough after you know 15 years, we know enough that sometimes you just let things ride to the next morning, and then you you know you say you're sorries and you're better.
Um, but we knew we were gonna survive this.
So we fall asleep.
Here's my point.
Uh we fell asleep the same as always.
We're 10 inches apart in this little queen bed.
So physically, physically, you can be extremely near someone physically, and at the same time, relationally be worlds away.
Right?
We fell asleep right next to each other, 10 inches apart, like every other night.
But it was very clear relationally worlds away.
So hold on to that idea.
You know that idea, but hold on to that.
And then there's that pivotal verse we've talked about in Galatians 4.9.
I just want to repeat it as we kind of work our way into this passage that is challenging for us.
4-9 says this, but now that you have come to know God, and that's good news, I mean this was a religious performance uh culture and town, and finally Paul's saying, hey, you know God.
Like you don't just have to know rules and performance, like you know God.
And that's good news, not just religion or formula.
And then Paul goes, or rather, to be known by God.
And that's like the really, really good news is that it's not just like, oh, it's all on me to know God, but God actually knows me, and our knowing of Him is in response to His knowing of you.
And so this is point number one.
You are known by God, and this is tying into this passage today, you get to walk with God.
You ever been in a dating relationship?
Maybe it was way back, maybe it's right now, you're in a dating relationship, and you maybe you're in that kind of phase where you're in the standard Friday night, it's understood date, and it's gonna be it's gonna be dinner, you're gonna go to chilies, and you're gonna movie, and then you're gonna take her home and handshake, kiss on the cheek, whatever.
But it's just like the standard, polite, respectable date relationship.
But you don't really know about their mess or what they're like when it's messy, or what they're like when things aren't easy and comfortable like things are at Chili's in the movies, right?
Like you don't know, you don't you don't get phone calls throughout the day, like, oh my mom just called me, my dad, my brother, this thing, this thing at work.
Like, you don't get the 10 texts a day.
You're not in that kind of relationship.
But you want that, like you're ready to go to the next level.
You want to take that deeper, and so you're ready for that next level, and so you've worked on your uh DTR to find the relationship talk, and you've got that thing honed in, you've got your intro and three points and conclusion, and you've gone through it, and how you're gonna work your way into that talk, you've got it all figured out because you want that deeper relationship.
You want more than the sort of just like polite, respectable relationship, but there's distance to all that, there's no relational nearness, so you want to you want it deeper.
So you what you wait for the right moment, end of the date, and you enter in and you worked your way through that intro, and you're in point number one of this reasoning of why we should go deeper, and his eyes or her eyes just blaze over, and you're like, oh no.
But there's no turning around, and so you could you hit your point two and your point three and you do your conclusion, but you know, and you finish your spiel, and he he's nice or she's nice, but it's like no thank you.
And your heart's broken, right?
Because you you want a deeper relationship.
You don't just want this physical nearness that you get, but you actually want you want to do life, you want to walk.
You don't just want physical nearness, you want relational nearness.
You want to walk together.
This is where Paul is taking us in the book of Galatians, that your heavenly father desires not just to know you, great news, but to walk with you.
So it's not just like polite Sunday morning date, respectable, it's polite, physical nearness.
But it's actually a turning of your mind's attention, your heart's affection toward him day in and day out, step by step.
That's the idea of this walking step by step, and it's including him and his love for you, your identity as his, as his beloved, by his grace through Jesus, the first four chapters of Galatians, into your life.
And so you're doing that when you're in church, yes, we're doing it.
But we're doing it Monday in traffic on the way to your job.
You're doing it with horrible, you know, Bob from accounting, and you're in a meeting and he's going on about your TPS reports, and you're just dying inside about him and his job and all of it.
But you're including God into all of it, into your parenting, relationships, conflict, family, all of it.
Because you're walking with him.
You're including him in.
What here, Lord?
What do you want here?
What is this about?
Have your way with this, have your way with that.
What's going on here?
Why am I upset here?
What's going on here, Lord?
Verses 16 and 17 of Galatians 5 says, But I say, walk by the Spirit.
And you will not gratify the desires of the flesh, for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of spirits are against the flesh.
So these two different options here.
For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do.
Point number two is this.
Little rephrasing here from point number one.
I'll admit it.
It's a little bit of rephrasing, but I think it's important.
Being known by God affects our nearness to God.
We could also say being known by God empowers our nearness to God.
We start with the first four chapters of Galatians in order to get to this point in Galatians 5 where Paul says, like, by the way, here's how now you should live because of all of that good news.
Imagine you have a little five-year-old boy, let's just call him Johnny, and you go to Kroger and you park, and you get out of your car, and you say, Johnny, stay close.
We're in the parking lot, we've got some cars moving around, stay close.
You start walking into the store, Johnny stops and picks up a coin, a little penny, puts it in his pocket.
You're about 10 steps ahead at this point.
Johnny, come on, hurry up, come on, Johnny, hurry up, hurry up, and stops, picks up a waffle fry, he's eating on the waffle fry.
Now you're 20, you're 20 steps ahead.
Johnny, hurry, stay with me, Johnny.
Walk with me.
Come on, we're in a parking lot.
Walk with me, stay with me.
Right now, at no point, at no point was the relationship gone.
He was never without you.
He was never without your love.
None of that was at risk.
None of it.
Ever, ever.
But the boy lost the experience of the nearness.
So he didn't, physical nearness was set, like, especially if we can convert this over to like God and us.
I mean, God's being omnipresent, our relationship with him is secure in Jesus, not by our merit.
It's set.
Like we have it, but our experience of that nearness, that can change.
And Paul's presenting this to us, like, hey, you can walk by the flesh and not know relational nearness to God, or you can walk by the Spirit and no relational nearness to God.
We can walk by the flesh.
So that would be just do whatever you want to do, basically.
Itch whatever itches, and you know what?
It'll keep itching, by the way, it won't stop.
And the flesh keeps you busy.
It keeps you bent in upon yourself.
I want that, and I'll do that, and I'll say that, and I'll do that other thing, and I'll do it all, and I'll find love, and I'll earn love, and I'll be my own savior ultimately.
And maybe you do this by the world.
All these different pleasures and sins that Paul just lists out.
He nails all of us, doesn't he?
God, he nails all of us in this passage.
Well, maybe you're not the orgy and the drunk person, but maybe like the dissensions and division stuff.
Oh yeah, the anger stuff.
You go, okay, he got me there, right?
He gets all of us at some point.
And that's the flesh.
Just doing whatever you want to do, saying whatever you want to say, without any, any going like, God, I repent of that.
That is not healthy.
That is not good.
Or we could walk by the Spirit.
Still imperfect, still gonna have a mess at times.
But we're driven and governed and empowered by the gospel.
So we're already secure in Jesus, first four chapters of Galatians, very clear.
And so we come before God to say, hey, here's who I am.
I'm including you into everything in my life, at every step, step by step, walking with you and the fact that I'm already loved, already redeemed, already accepted.
All of that, nothing for me to earn.
Right?
We've been saying, like, there's no earning left, but inside the grace of God.
There's some effort.
There's this walking.
Paul turns it around, turns it around, pivots it for us, says, hey, here's some effort in the grace of God for us, but it's in the grace, it's in the freedom.
And this freedom and this gospel, this informs everything else in your life.
Not to earn anything.
It just is an empowerment because you're known by God.
Galatians 5, 18 through 21.
But if you are led by the Spirit, you're not under the law.
Here's where Paul nails us, starting in verse 19.
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these, I warn you.
He gets very stern here, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
Now that's quite a stern warning here, but it is reserved.
It's reserved for someone who habitually is giving their life to these things without any concern for God or relationship with God.
And Paul's saying, if you do that, you will never know peace.
You'll never know joy.
But verse 18 guides the positive, right?
It's the positive thought.
You can be led by the Spirit.
You could walk with the Spirit.
So, not world, do whatever I want to do.
Not religion, I'm going to perform and be good enough with enough good evidence, but gospel.
By Jesus' work alone I am redeemed and right, saved and whole.
Therefore.
I love this image of walking.
When Christy and I lived in Atlanta and our girls were little, I was working at a big church in Atlanta.
I'd get off work about 4:45.
I'd drive the connector through downtown from Buckhead down to Grant Park.
And always take about 30 minutes.
I'd get home, be a little frazzled, right?
From weaving through all that traffic, be a little frazzled, change clothes, and she'd put the little one in the stroller, strap in enough snacks and toys to last like a couple hours.
Just want to make sure you'd got enough crackers forever.
And we would go out and walk.
We'd walk every day.
Didn't matter the temperature, didn't matter if it was freezing, didn't matter if it was burning hot.
We were going to go walk.
And at first it was always casual and polite, right?
Hadn't seen each other all day.
How was your day?
Good.
What's going on?
Good.
How are you?
Good, good, doing good, doing good, right?
And then slowly what happens when you walk together is your hearts begin to sink up, and you go from like, good, I'm doing good, to like, yeah, I'm really angry about that.
I'm really I'm really disappointed in her.
I really upset somebody today.
I don't know what to do with that that thing or that person.
Or you or you know what?
I I'm really upset with you.
Last night when we went to bed, you weren't listening to me at all, right?
There's this guy, Bob, he talks about these TPS reports all the time.
He's driving me nuts.
I don't know about my job, I don't know about my purpose, right?
I mean, all of a sudden by walking, all of a sudden you kind of get past this like, how are you good?
I'm doing good, life's good.
I'm blessed, blessed.
Right?
And it's more like, and it's more like, you know what?
I'm doing really good with this.
And then there's this over here, and I'm having a hard time over here, and this is tough.
And I don't go around talking about this with everybody, but when you start to walk with people, you you tell them about all of it.
You just get all of it.
Right?
And that's relationship.
That's healthy relationship inside the security of love that is permanent.
And that's point number three, because you are loved by God, Galatians 1 through 4, very clear, because you are loved by God, walk with God.
And that's the shift.
The shift is from like good enough with enough good evidence to walking in the Spirit of God in relationship.
And maybe you grew up with a merit formula type of religion.
For me, I think it was a lot like attend church plus Sunday night service, right?
That was the big one.
Like, you had that one on.
Plus a morning devotion of a particular length.
I remember when it got under 10 minutes, all of a sudden I felt, I don't know what the why ten minutes was magic, but it was like, man, if you got to 10 minutes, like you were like, I am a good Christian, but if it was seven, it was like, I don't think I spent enough time.
And like if you get the formula right, plus your Bible on your desk, and you get all that, like now you're a good Christian.
All those are good things.
None of those things are bad.
The formula is bad.
If you live by a formula, it's still about you.
It's about trying to keep God on your side, but really there's distance.
Because your formula is your savior.
Your religion is your savior, and that will eventually lead to exhaustion.
You'll get there eventually.
And it will end in judgment toward others because they don't live by your formula.
And so your formula is the right formula, and they don't live by it.
So they must not be a good Christian.
You'll become self-righteous, perhaps disillusioned.
And I just say, trust me on this, because I was there.
I'm stared still there sometimes, I admit that.
But it's always exhaustion, it's always judgment, it's always self-righteousness.
Your heart will never be free when you live by religious performance.
And Paul says, no, no, no, no, no.
You are not in that anymore.
You're not under the law.
You are in a relationship of grace with God.
So walk with God because of that, walk with God, honor, honor him with your life because of that.
Because you are free, honor him with your life.
So maybe you would say, okay, great, great, great.
I want to move from religious to relationship.
I don't even know how to do it.
Here are a few thoughts, not a formula.
Few thoughts, not a formula.
I would say from a point of like kind of describing what it might look like.
It might look like public, but also private.
Meaning this Sunday morning's great, public.
You can do, but you can be culturally this and it not be real, not be relationship.
So it's this plus it's private.
It's all your time.
Walking with God means you give him also your private, your walking with him.
It implies step by step, it implies all of life.
It's relationship that includes set prayer times, walks, journaling, your your drive time, but it also includes those meetings and uh parenting, includes all of it because God is not stuck in the temple on the temple mount.
And you are not stuck under the law, performing up to him, all of a sudden warranty his acceptance.
And you're not stuck having to go visit God at the temple.
It actually says, you're the temple.
And the Spirit of God lives in you.
So public but also private, learn and soak.
I I like those words because I I love to learn, but also like to soak.
And it's not a competition of like, oh, I read a book a week, oh, I read a book a month, or it's not even a competition like, oh, you read, oh, you read Max Lakeda, I can't believe that.
I read J.I.
Packard.
You know, like it's not even it's not even a contest of like who you're like who you're reading, oh, I read so much deeper than you.
It's just about are you learning about the gospel?
Are you learning about God and his character and his love for you and your belovedness in him?
And that's the movement.
The movement that I'm talking about is that you're moving from like learning by by obligation, like force fed, like right now, I'm kind of like forcing this on you.
Like you put yourself in this position, but like I'm kind of like on top of you, to like you start to have a little bit of like curiosity about this stuff, like who you are in Christ, and like, oh, there's a God of love, like not just judgment, but love.
Like, who is that?
And I want I think I want to read a little bit about that, and then I want to kind of like soak in that and think about that and meditate on that.
The last one I would say is openness and confession.
You know, because you're already secure in Jesus, there's no formula.
You're already secure, which means you can say, Spirit, what like what's messed up in me?
You're already secure, so you could actually say that, and then you can actually voice back like, God, I'm so greedy today.
I'm so judgmental today, I'm so self-righteous, I'm so lustful today.
You I mean you could just say all of it because you're already secure in Jesus.
I'm at my end, God.
Like I have nothing left here.
I can't handle this, I can't control this.
Like all relationship, formula religion will never allow that because you could never be that real.
Because too much is at risk.
But if it's by the grace of Jesus alone, now all of a sudden you are free to say, This is who I am.
There's this really this part over here that I'm so I'm celebrating this part of my life because God, you've done so much, but then there's this other part, and man, this is this is messed up, and this isn't good.
And God, I I I repent of that, and I need your help with this.
And Lamont says there's three great prayers help, thanks.
Wow.
Pretty good summary.
I find my prayers getting more and more simple the longer that I walk with God.
I don't think he just needs to hear me ramble that much.
I think it's just much more.
I just need to like be surrendering these things and saying, like, oh yeah, that thing, help, please, help.
That, oh that, help.
Oh that, thanks.
Thanks.
Oh that, wow, wow.
Like, what happened there?
Oh, now I'm back to help again because I messed that up.
Help.
And all of this comes off of four chapters of Paul breaking us down and how we so badly want to perform to receive the acceptance of God, and Paul's saying, it'll never work.
You'll never be free.
But it's over.
You are beloved by God because of Jesus' word for you.
And he says, Because of that.
And this is where it starts in five.
And the rest of the book, this is this is us.
How do we live because of that?
How do we live?
And the first part is we walk with God.
Not just public, not just set times, but step by step, moment by moment, because we belong to Christ Jesus.
My brothers and sisters, you don't belong to a formula.
Your heavenly Father wants a relationship with you step by step to walk with him.
In Jesus' name.
Let's pray together.
God, thank you.
That by your grace you don't wait for us to have our acts together to warrant a relationship.
And we don't have to live by a formula or live up to a formula.
But you know us.
And while we were sinners, that you died for us, and our sin and our guilt is taken on the cross, forever taken care of, and your righteousness is given to us, we are forever taken care of to be fully righteous in your sight, and so we are free.
We are truly free.
And with that empower.
Would that empower us to know you?
Would that empower relational nearness?
Would that empower us to want to walk with you and honor you with our lives?
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.