November 9, 2025 | The Flattery of Performance

The Flattery of Performance | Galatians Series Part 12

Galatians 4:8–20

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.

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 you 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. (ESV)

Jed Gillis preaches Galatians 4:8–20 as Paul’s plea to a church drifting from grace back into a new slavery. Once captive to idols, the Galatians are now “known by God,” yet false teachers flatter them into rule-keeping and calendar observances as a way to secure standing. Paul appeals to their shared history: how they welcomed him despite his illness, and asks why truth now makes him their enemy. He exposes the agitators’ praise as self-serving and contrasts it with his own costly, mother-like labor “until Christ is formed” in them. The sermon stresses that even good practices like prayer, Scripture reading, and gathering can turn into performance if they’re used to manage God rather than enjoy his favor. The remedy is to return to the gospel, rest in the Father’s love, and live from being known and loved by God, not from achieving.

Transcript of The Flattery of Performance | Galatians Series Part 12

Jed Gillis: One of the amazing things when we come to God's Word, strikes me from time to time, week to week, that God knew on this Sunday, November 9th, 2025, he knew that you would be sitting here and he knew that I would be standing here, and he knew that we'd be opening our Bibles to Galatians chapter four. And he knew that long before he inspired the Apostle Paul to write Galatians chapter four.

And our God and his incredible wisdom inspired Paul to write Galatians four so that it was precisely what the Galatians needed to hear. And precisely what we need. And he did that knowing each circumstance you face this week, each circumstance I face this week, each book you might have read, each conversation you might have had each struggle, each blessing. He knew all of those things. And our God loves us so much and he works through his word so powerfully that we can come and know this is God's word for us today.

Recap of Galatians Thus Far

Jed Gillis: So as we look in Galatians chapter four, I want you to start by imagining that you are one of the people in the Church of Galatia hearing this for the first time, not because that's the only meaning of the text or the only helpful thing in the text. But because that's where we start to understand what God said in the first place.

So you imagine, and we've been through this story before, you're one of the Galatian Christians who initially you felt like an outsider to the Jews who followed Yahweh, the God that they said created the whole world. Initially you felt like an outsider and and they were probably even rich Jews, and you were probably a poor Gentile, most likely. So you felt like an outsider, both from a social class standpoint and a religious standpoint.

But Paul came and he preached this incredible message of grace to you to say, you can belong in this group as God's children. And you responded by trusting it. And it started to make some incredible changes in your lives. Not just in your actions, but in your motives, in your emotions, in your interactions with people around you, in your spiritual health.

These changes started to happen, and then you remember the story. You felt like you were starting to belong, and then Peter and some other Jews come and they're fellowshipping with you, and then they withdraw. Your world's shaking. You go, wait a minute, is this real? Is this grace real at all? But you weathered that storm because the Apostle Paul stood up for you like he got in Peter's face. Literally, the text says that's what he did. He confronted him to his face. So when you felt excluded, here's Peter maybe shaking his finger right in front of Peter's face. And you say, Paul really does believe that I belong with this group of people. Paul really does believe that this grace transforms my experience.

But then what's happened since that story is some other teachers have come from Jerusalem and they've told you things like. Faith in Jesus is great, but in order to really secure your performance, your standing with God, in order to really secure that, you need to rely a little bit on your performance. You need to make sure you keep the law. Grace is not enough. It's a good start. It's a necessary start, but you've gotta perform after that. They've told you things like that.

And after all, like we saying this morning, there are times when your eyes feel a little dry. You think maybe I should feel something more. When your faith feels a little cold and you say, there's gotta be something more than this, so you can understand why the temptation would be somebody comes along and says, well, of course you started with grace. That's good. But if you want the real experience now keep these laws. You can understand why it might be appealing. Why even though they had felt the joy of this grace to start with, they might be tempted to say, let me listen to this teacher.

And so we get to this point. Galatians where Paul has already reminded them of how he came. Paul has already reminded them of their first experience of grace of Peter, of the confrontation with Peter. He's already talked through all of these things and he's laid this theological foundation for why they should have rest in Jesus Christ alone and not in their works in any way.

And of course, chapter three gets a little thick. A little theological maybe. Maybe their eyes glazed over, like ours can sometimes when we read through this. But they really love Paul. Because he brought the gospel to 'em in the first place, but also because he stood up to Peter for them. So they're trying, they're like, I really, I love you, Paul. I'm trying to say like, what? What are you actually communicating?

Reading Galatians 4:8-20

Jed Gillis: So they're still with him as they get to this place in chapter four and verse eight. And I'm gonna read what Paul continues. He says, 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'm afraid I may have labored over you in vain. 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 you received me as an angel of God as Christ Jesus.

What then has become of your blessedness? I, I testified to you that if possible you would've 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 you may make much of them. It is always good to be made much of for a good purpose, and not only when I'm 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'm perplexed about you.

Paul Reminds the Galatians of Their Love

Jed Gillis: So as Paul has given this theological discussion, he comes to this point and he brings back to a personal connection with them and says, don't you remember how much you loved me when I brought the gospel to you? Don't you remember the joy you felt when you first heard the truth of the gospel from me? That's what Paul is saying to them, and you hear all this language of, of personal connection with them, right? Brothers, I entreat you, I beg you, please. My little children with whom I'm in anguish, like childbirth.

He's coming to them and he's, he's begging them to take the truth he's talked about from the previous chapters and to connect it to their current experience to say, this matters for the things that you are wrestling through.

The Galatians Were Enslaved

Jed Gillis: And he starts by reminding them, verse eight, that they were enslaved. Remember we just had this section where he talks about freedom, where he says, you're no longer a slave, verse seven, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God. So he says, you Galatians, you were enslaved to those things that weren't gods.

Most likely, many of the Galatians did. They participated in pagan, idolatrous worship. It says you were enslaved to those idols. You were enslaved to the demonic forces that you were worshiping. It says, but God saved you by his grace.

Both Gentiles and Jews Were Enslaved

Jed Gillis: And he's connected them too to say that was true of the Gentiles, but that's also true of the Jews. If you go back to, to verse three. He said in the same way, we also, speaking of Jews when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. He's been laying the foundation to say both Jew and Gentile were enslaved to something.

Now, since that slavery is true of both pagan, gentiles and monotheistic like single God Jews, since they were both enslaved, it can't be that the only similarity is what they were is that they were serving something. It has to be the way they were serving. Paul is pointing out, he says, look, the Jews were approaching the law in such a way that it wasn't really any better. That's not every Jew, of course, but the Jews, as he's describing them, they were face approaching the law in a way that was no better than approaching pagan idols on a shelf.

Essentially, pagan idol worship is you go before this God and you say, I'm going to perform in such a way. I'm gonna do these sacrifices. I'm gonna do something to manipulate the supernatural realm, right? I want blessing. That's the way that Pagan idolatrous people would think about it. I want blessing from the God of harvest, so I offer this sacrifice so that either they'll bless me, or at least they won't hurt me.

Gentile Pagans worshiped idols to say, I perform this way. I manipulate the supernatural to either have favor to me or at least not harm me. What Paul is doing is driving back to say that's exactly the way some people approach the law of God. To say, God doesn't have favor towards me. If I keep these laws. I can manipulate God to have favor.

If you wonder, did the Jews really do that ever? Well, just read your Old Testament for a little bit. Think about what they thought when they said, we have the arc of the covenant, and they said, oh, we can't be defeated in battle. Why not? We have this box. Now, did that box represent God's presence? Sure, of course. But God looks at, God said, I'm not going to be manipulated by you handling this box. So God allowed them to be defeated and then the idols bowed before the Ark of the Covenant and all the rest of the story.

You could point to example after example like that where people even approaching God through the Old Testament, people often tend to say, how can I manipulate the favor of God by my performance? That's exactly what Pagan idol idolatrous worship was. And that's exactly what the wrong way of approaching God's truth, God's law was.

It was a form of slavery because if you say The God of harvest needs to bless me, I'm gonna offer this sacrifice, guess what you do again next year? You offer the same sacrifice, and when you offer the sacrifice, do you go, oh, now I know for sure this is gonna be a great harvest? Or do you go, I hope it was enough?

See, when, when we try to manipulate the supernatural to get blessing, whether it's through idols or the Old Testament law, either way it's ex, we have slavery because it's never enough and we have to keep doing it. That's what Paul is driving them to think about. He says, this is the kind of slavery that you came from. So if you came from that, don't go back to it.

I want you to take a moment and think about something in your spiritual life that you feel like can't change. You say, I've tried something bad. You want to be better. I feel stuck.

That's slavery.

Think about something in your life where you think in your spiritual life, where you think, I try, but it's never good enough.

That's what this slavery feels like.

That's what Paul is driving them to think about. He says, you came from that kind of slavery. You felt the goodness of the grace of God, and now you're tempted to go back.

Don't do it.

Don't Pervert God's Grace as Another Form of Slavery

Jed Gillis: Now, if we don't hear this carefully, we might think what Paul is saying is you came from worshiping idols, then you started worshiping Jesus. Don't go back to worshiping idols, but that's not the story throughout Galatians. Even when he says here, you observe days and months and seasons and years. He doesn't give us a whole lot of detail there that could be used to describe idol worship, but in the context of the whole book, people are saying, you need circumcision. You need the Jewish dietary loss.

In other words, if they went back to slavery like Paul is talking about here, their lives still wouldn't look the same. They wouldn't go back to bowing to idols on the shelf. They would have turned from that, gone to the gospel, and then they would treat God's law exactly like they treated the idols.

That's what he's telling them not to go back to. He says, you lived your whole life feeling like you could never do enough to measure up, to manipulate these gods, which aren't really gods to give you blessing. And you came to realize God has this favor to me that he's poured out in Jesus Christ, and now you're tempted to say, now how can I keep God's law in such a way that it manipulates him to pour out blessing on me?

He says, this's the same slavery you left.

In other words. I don't, I don't know that I can overstate the strength of what Paul is doing here. Paul is saying you used to worship demons through pagan idolatry, and these teachers are telling you to use Christian slash Jewish rituals to do exactly the same thing that you used to do.

Paul Worried he Labored in Vain

Jed Gillis: And so Paul says, I'm afraid I may have labored over you in vain. What does he mean by that? He, he means what if those good things I saw in you when you accepted the grace of God and seemed like you were really coming to Jesus. What if you weren't really coming to the grace of God at all? What if all you did was exchange the statue for a different statue, but still tried to manipulate the supernatural in exactly the same way?

It's like, what if all of that as I labored and he says later what he labors for that Christ would be formed in them. He says, I labored to help you to know Jesus Christ and his grace and his love. What if all of that you were just chasing the same idols using different rituals? I may have labored over you in vain.

We Are Known by God

Jed Gillis: So he says, don't turn back. Don't go back from grace to slavery. Well, what had changed? He tells us in verse nine they were enslaved, but now they have come to know God or rather to be known by God.

Think about everything Paul has said about salvation in this book, and we could go through the list. It's a lot of, a whole lot of things. Freedom, adoption, justification, grace, all of these things he said. He says, you can sum them up in one phrase, you know God. You were enslaved and you had come to know God. There's something profound about the way he says that. You know, if you were going to describe like what's one thing you want to be true of your life, I hope you could say, I want to know God.

It summarizes all of the benefits, all of the blessings. But Paul doesn't stop with, you know, God. He thought it was so important that in a world where, you know, paper's really expensive, you don't have a backspace key in a world where here Paul's riding along, he thought, I need to stop and clarify. When I say, you have come to know God, he pauses, he goes, or rather to be known by God.

Why does he make that change? I think there's a couple reasons. One, Paul knows our hearts and he knows we will turn anything we can into human reliance. So if you tell me you relate to God by his grace, you show love to him, and then you say, okay, great. Well, how do you describe that? You know God.

My heart will say, okay, there's this new category of performance called knowing God. Now if I can just know God enough, if I can perform in this way, that's how I'll have favor, right? Our hearts can twist and turn these things very quickly, very easily.

So I think in saying or rather be known by God, he's like, this is outside of your control. This is not something that you work up in your efforts, in your self-reliance. This is not something that becomes a new form of performance. If it's something that says, I know God, that's how God has favor to me. Then when I don't feel God's favor, I go, well, I gotta work harder to know him. But if it's rather be known by God, it turns this all around.

The Idols We Worship Cannot Know Us

Jed Gillis: And I think that contrast goes deeper because notice when you look at verse eight, he talks about idols and he says, when you did not know God. So before you knew God, you were enslaved to these who by nature are not gods to idols, to the demons that stand behind them.

Well, scripture over and over says these idols like they have ears, but they can't hear, right? They have eyes, but they can't see. If you carve a statue, it has ears and eyes, but it can't do anything. The idols sitting on your shelf cannot know you.

Now you can know a lot about that idol. If you were the craftsman who made it, you know what kinda wood went into it, you know all the effort, you know a lot of things about the idol. You could maybe even say, you know it in one sense, but you can't say that Idol knows you.

So he's drawing the contrast deeper between the living God and the idols that they had followed to say these idols cannot know you. In fact, what they hoped for wasn't for the gods to know them usually. Usually if you read the way they talk about pagan idolatry, it was that the gods would basically either maybe bless them or maybe just leave them alone.

Kind of like most of us don't sit here and go, I really hope to be known by the US government. You are like, no. What I'd really like is, I mean, it's okay if I'm known by them. If you happen to be related to them or something, that's fine. But you don't sit here and say, my desperate hope for life is that I would be known by the senator, the congressman, the president.

We sit here and go, I hope they make good decisions that bless my life. Sure. We don't really care if we're known by them.

In some ways, when they went to idols, it was like that. They go, I hope this idol blesses me. But I don't really expect to be known by it. That was pagan idolatry.

We Are Known AND Loved by God

Jed Gillis: But the way he describes legalistic approach to the law was something different. The Jews did come and they thought God can know them. In fact, they were kind of terrified by it sometimes, which is exactly right. If you think you're gonna come to God and be known and evaluated. Right. If you approach God through performance and you think God's going to know me and he's going to evaluate me and see if I measured up, that's not comforting.

Sometimes the psalmist will talk like this, like, you know everything about me. Where could I hide? If you come thinking, God's gonna know and evaluate me, that's not comforting. But what Paul brings here is not, you're gonna be known and evaluated on your performance, but because of the grace of God, you come and you are known and you are loved.

Think about your closest relationships, your friends, your your spouse. When you interact with that person, you want them to know you. You want them to know everything about you. Actually. You want them to know your weaknesses, but you want them to still love you. There's a specialness to a relationship when that person knows your weakness and loves you.

God Intimately Loves You

Jed Gillis: That's what Paul is saying God is like. It's like when in, in Amos three, when Amos quotes God and says, Israel, you only have I known. That doesn't mean he doesn't like intellectually know the other nations. He's using the word know to express love.

In fact, in the Old Testament, it, it relates to it. It's used as a euphemism for sexual relations, for intimate knowledge. You've been known by God means not just that he intellectually knows you, not that he knows you and evaluates you based on your performance, but you're known and loved by God.

That's what Paul is trying to drive them to, to say when you come to God. It's not in self-reliance. It is total dependence on Grace Brothers and sisters. I want you to hear you as you come to God through Jesus Christ, you are deeply, intimately loved by God.

He longs for you, not He longs for you to be better. Not he loves for you to work harder. He loves you.

The reality of your salvation can be described as you have come to know God, or rather to be known by him, to be known and loved by him. That's the message of the prodigal son. Undeserved favor the father celebrating his son clothing, his son feeding him, embracing him. He knows what the son did and he loves him.

The Galatians Embraced Paul in Spite of Physical Ailments

Jed Gillis: So Paul talking to these Galatians says, remember how you heard the word, we don't know all the details of what's going on here. He has this description. He says, you know, when I came to you, it was because of, because of a bodily ailment. We don't know exactly what this story is. We're never given the details of that in scripture. We know somehow there was a physical need, a physical ailment or sickness, something like that with Paul that somehow led him to come preach the gospel to the Galatians.

People theorize, they come up with all kinds of options. Maybe he had to stop in town for medical treatment. Maybe he got sick and had to stop just hoping he'd recover. We really don't know. Some have suggested it might have something to do with Paul's eyes because it says they would've gouged their eyes out for him. Could be. Could be that it just made him look really bad. Could be some kind of gross infection. They see it and it's ugly and they say, well, I'll pluck my eyes out, but I'm gonna love you.

I, we don't really know right. It, it doesn't tell us. What it does tell us is there was enough here that could have put the Galatians off. He says in verse 14, my condition was a trial to you. There was something here that was hard, and yet they didn't scorn or despise. They weren't like, Ugh, we have to take care of that guy? We have to care for him?

I don't wanna be overly gross. And this hypo, this is hypothetical, but it would be almost like Paul comes into town and let's say he had this nasty eye infection, the kind that you look at and you know, if you see pictures of some infection, you're just like, I don't ever want to see that again. That's gross. And maybe you start thinking, uh, is that contagious? So it could be a trial on you. We don't know exactly what it was, but something like that.

And yet the Galatians didn't scorn and despise him, even though maybe they had to spend time and resources, even though maybe there was some danger for them when they heard the gospel from Paul, it says, they received him as an angel of God or as Christ Jesus.

What Paul's saying. He's like, if Jesus himself had walked into your congregation, I don't think you'd have received him any better. That's how strong He's praising their love for him, their care for him when he first brought the gospel, they were so delighted.

Where Did the Love of the Galatians Go?

Jed Gillis: So he says, what has become of your blessedness? Where did all that joy go? Paul's like, you're not, listen, you're not hearing what I'm telling you about grace. You're listening to these other teachers. Why? Why are you going back to this slavery when this is how it started? Paul says, I'm giving you the same message I gave you before. Why won't you hear it now?

Brothers and sisters, maybe you look back and say the truth of the gospel at different stages of your life. You can remember maybe when you first heard, maybe other times when it sunk deep into your soul and there was this joy that just filled and overflowed. Paul says, you had that joy from the gospel then. Why are you looking for it in performance now?

He understands that your joy can come up and down. That's not the problem. He gets that. We live in a fallen world. We have finite struggles. He understands that. What he says is, you want this joy. You got it from the gospel. Why are you now looking forward in performance?

The Flattery of False Teachers

Jed Gillis: Why would you even consider going back to slavery, in other words. And he tells us some of that in verse 17, it can be a little hard to track who's, who's they, who's he talking about in these different things. So I wanna go through and point those at, in verse 17. They, he's talking about the agitators, the false teachers who are telling them, you need to follow the law. You need to keep the law in order to have this blessedness. They, these false teachers, they make much of you. They flatter you. Look, here's how you can really take control of your spiritual life, and here's how you can have this next level of spiritual experience. And it's all in your control.

They make much of you. They flatter you, but for no good purpose, you see, they flatter. He says, not out of love for God. They flatter because the end of verse 17, they want to shut you out, that you may make much of them.

This happens all the time online. If you go find, take your pick. It doesn't matter what it is. It can be an investing club, it can be exercise, fitness. They'll say, Hey, you can be fit like our group of people. You can have money like this group of people. Now it sounds very flattering. All you gotta do is take these steps. You do this, right? But why do they want that?

Well, one reason, as soon as you say, I really want to be in that group, they go see our group's a good group, right? They make much of you. You can do all of this. Why? So that you'll come and say, look at this group. They're great people to be around.

They're coming to the Galatians. These teachers, they're saying, keep the law, hoping that the Galatians will keep the law, and in doing so, they feel better about themselves. See, we already keep the law. Because when you are told you can perform to earn God's favor, it feels like flattery. It appeals to your pride at least in two ways.

One, it says, my performance is powerful enough to adjust the favor of the God of the universe. That feels pretty good for my pride.

But not only does it manipulate that, but it says that my safety can be controlled by my performance. If I perform well enough, nothing bad's really gonna happen because I have the favor of God.

See both of those appeal to my pride. I can do something powerful enough to change God, to manipulate his favor to me, and my safety in this life is in my control because it rests on my performance.

Paul says, they make much of you. They make it seem like you can do all of this. On the surface, this sounds crazy, but they're being flattered into becoming slaves again.

Like that shouldn't work, right? You should be able to be flattered into being something good. That's not how it's working for them. They're being flattered into becoming slaves again.

Paul's Motherly Love

Jed Gillis: And so Paul contrasts himself. These people, here's what they're doing. They're trying to flatter you to get you to join their group. Paul says, well, I am like a mother for you. Did you go like, wait a minute, Paul, did you get that wrong? Did you mean father?

No, he meant mother. Notice verse 19, my little children for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you. Paul uses his picture as the contrast to these false teachers, right?

When a mom goes through childbirth. Obviously I haven't experienced that myself. When a mom goes through childbirth, you'd better not suggest that she's just doing that for herself. You will get slapped quickly.

Now, Paul just said that about the false teachers, they're doing this to feel good about themselves. Paul says, no, but I'm trying to do what a mom does when she is birthing a child. It's hard. It hurts, but it's worth it because that person is worth it.

Paul says, I do love you. You are important. You are valuable, but it's like a mother to her child, not like a salesman trying to get the next person into their group so they have a better commission.

The Gospel Transforms Us to Be Like Christ

Jed Gillis: Paul says, I want Christ to be formed in you Galatians and by extension this is God's message for us as Berean Bible Church attenders. Paul says, I want Christ to be formed in you. That doesn't just mean Christ is loving in your loving, although it includes that. He says, I want the grace of God to be so poured into your life that it changes and shapes you. I want you to see the grace you have in Jesus so that he is so formed in you that the peace that Jesus has is reflected in your life.

When you have opportunity to speak with people, to encourage them, and we could spend a whole nother sermon on this, which we won't, but that should be all of our hearts. How can I labor? Yes, it'll be hard. Yes, it's inconvenient. Yes, it may hurt. How can I labor to see Christ formed in somebody else around me? How can I labor to help them see the joy of the grace of Jesus Christ? How can I labor to help them see the deception of sin and the slavery?

Like that's what Paul is doing. He's saying this is what ministry looks like, and it's the kind of ministry he says every member of the body is supposed to be doing, building one another up until we are formed into Jesus Christ as a body.

If you ever think I've tried to help people grow in Jesus, I've tried to disciple them, and it hurt. It hurt me a lot. You're in good company because Paul says it hurts like a woman having a child, but it's worth it. Yes, because that person is worth it. But even more because Jesus is worth it and we're not just laboring for them to be formed into a good person. We're labeling laboring for Christ to be formed in them.

How Can We Keep from Turning to Slavery?

Jed Gillis: So I want to take just a moment as we think that was Paul's message to the Galatians, what's it look like for us? What does it look like when we subtly are tempted to return to slavery?

Remember, the Galatians weren't turning back to idols on a shelf. They were turning to a certain way of keeping the law. So that means there's at least a danger that you and I can turn to things like prayer, scripture, reading, church attendance, or involvement, giving, fasting, good works of any kind, we can turn to those things in a way that is a return to slavery.

So how do we make sure that's not what we do? Remember, idolatry is about trying to use my actions to manipulate the supernatural so I will either be blessed or at least I won't be cursed.

So when you come to God in prayer, who do you think you're coming to? Do you think you're coming to a God who is uninterested and you say, maybe if I just pray enough, he'll pay attention. I mean, that sounds like the prophets of Baal on the mountain with Elijah. He says, shout louder. Your God can't hear you. He is sleeping. But sometimes I think we, we almost view God that way. It's a return to pagan slavery, to depending on myself.

Do you come saying, I'm coming in prayer because my father loves me. I am coming in prayer not to manipulate him to do a certain thing because that's the only way it can work. I'm coming in prayer because I say, my God loves me and he wants me to come talk to him.

Now, that's hard 'cause we do ask things of God in prayer. We do bring requests, but are our requests trying to manipulate God by our performance or dependence on the sheer goodness and grace of God?

It's hard. It's subtle because you might pray the same words, but the heart attitude might be returning to slavery.

When you come to scripture, do you read your Bible, hoping to find something to do in order to control your life? Here are these bad circumstances. If I just read my Bible, I can make sure bad circumstances don't happen.

I say it that way because sometimes that's what I think, but it's turning right back to slavery. It's the exact same move as pagan idolatry.

When you attend church, do you come as if that's gonna make God have favor towards you or your kids, or do you come saying God already has favor for me and I celebrate that favor and I enjoy worshiping him with his other children and laboring that Christ be formed in myself and them?

We can do the same thing with any good works. Anything, which there are good things, these are all good things. I don't say don't pray, don't read the Bible, don't attend church. No, of course not.

All of those things, all the good works God calls you to, if you pursue them as a means of earning God's favor or of justification before him, if you pursue them as a means of performing to manipulate God to bless you, or at least not curse you, you'll find slavery. You won't find any peace.

But instead, if we come knowing God has shown his favor in Jesus Christ. I don't earn it. I don't manipulate it. My rest is in the favor that God showed me through Jesus. So out of a place of rest, my soul is fine because of Christ. So I want to go talk to my father. I want to read and hear what he has to say. I want to worship with his people.

If you say, how do you sort all that out? My best piece of advice for you is to go sit with your father and ask him. Don't try to figure it out yourself first. Go sit with your father and say, I don't want to manipulate you. I don't want to go back to slavery. I want to enjoy your grace. Would you show me how? I promise your father wants to answer that.

You can talk with each other too. And as your brother learns to rest in the grace of God in one area, and you speak with him, you say, that's what I need. I need that grace. And as your brother says, I'm struggling because I've tended to approach whatever work as if I'm earning favor. You say, Hmm, I do that too.

So when you sit with God and you sit with your brothers. What's your cry when you're distressed? We always ask this question if you say, God, I don't know why you brought this bad thing into my life. I've been trying to do the right thing. Why would you bring this into my life? I, that phrase I've been trying to do the right thing hides a whole lot of issues. 'Cause it implies that my doing the right thing was going to earn me blessing.

If our cry in distress is God, I've been reading my Bible, I've been praying, I've been doing all this. Why would you bring this difficulty in my life that is not the same? Cry as Abba Father. Father, would you help me? Father, I know you love me. That's what we can cry and have confidence.

So Paul's message is, don't go back to slavery. Don't go back to the slavery of trying to manipulate God by your actions. Instead, know the grace of God and rest in that grace and cry Abba Father and know your father celebrates you. He loves you.

You've come to know God, but rather to be known by him and to be loved by him. I invite you to take a moment and pray to your father. Ask him to fill your soul with love for his grace. Ask him to show you where your heart looks to something else. Take a moment and pray, and then we'll sing together.